Unofficial Portkey Archive

I am not J.K. Rowling, nor am I associated with Scholastic, Warner Brothers or anybody who had anything to do with "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows". In point of fact, I would like to disassociate myself completely from that book.

Also, I just want to say that Portkey and all of its readers have been great to me and that I'm not leaving. Also, the next thing I will be working on will be the next chapter of "Going On". Please enjoy!

Chapter 21: The Devil You Know

Commodus Brinecove appeared to do a double take as his eyes darted from the dead body of Professor Vector to the surprised and angry faces of Harry Potter and Hermione Granger, both of whom had their wands trained on their Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher. "This isn't what it looks like," Brinecove said, his eyes betraying just a hint of desperation.

"Really?" Hermione countered skeptically. "Because it looks like you killed Professor Vector."

Before Brinecove could say anything in reply, Harry added, "I'd wager he's the one who opened that portal as well." Here his head nodded to indicate the large swirling magical portal that had formed where one of the Astronomy Tower's walls had once stood. "You were the one Professor Slughorn was talking about when he said that Hogwarts was going to be betrayed from within. That's why you killed him."

"You've got it all wrong, Mr. Potter. Septima Vector murdered Horace Slughorn," Professor Brinecove informed the two of them wearily. "She was a Death Eater. That's why I had to kill her."

"D'you really expect us to believe that?" Harry scoffed, inching closer to Brinecove threateningly as he spoke.

"It's true," Brinecove almost shouted, his voice having trouble carrying over the roar of the portal. "When Dumbledore was murdered here, it created a tear in the magic protecting the castle, much as a murder allows one to tear their own soul and create a horcrux. Not a large one, mind you, but large enough for someone who knew what they were doing, someone like Professor Vector, to create a portal to the outside world. One which would allow the Dark Lord entrance to the castle."

Harry quickly withdrew the Marauder's Map from his robes, solemnly swore that he was up to no good and searched for Voldemort on the map. Sure enough, Tom Marvolo Riddle's name appeared a hundred meters or so from the bottom of the Astronomy Tower. Harry nearly cursed aloud at his own stupidity. The army that he had so carefully built was elsewhere, preparing to face a vast array of inferi, dementors, giants, goblins and Death Eaters that had appeared just outside the castle. Only a small contingent of house elves stood between Voldemort and the Chamber of Secrets.

"You haven't much time, I'm afraid," Commodus Brinecove said in an urgent tone of voice. "You need to go after him." Behind them, the portal finally collapsed, creating an eerie stillness in the Astronomy Tower.

"I'm not going anywhere without destroying Ravenclaw's quill first," Harry told him. He spotted the Box of Set resting near Professor Vector's fallen body. "Snape told me that if the person who put something inside the Box of Set dies, that something can be taken out by another person."

Brinecove quirked an eyebrow. "This would be the same Severus Snape who just used the portal to leave Hogwarts and abandon you in your hour of greatest need?" Harry was not overly surprised by this, as he had seen Snape's name on the Marauder's Map alongside Vector's only moments earlier and it was clear that his former Potions master was no longer here. "Would you really kill me for the sake of this quill, Harry Potter?" he asked, holding up the Box of Set as he spoke.

"I…I should," Harry sputtered furiously. "You killed Professor Vector, you…you tried to kill Lupin…"

"Harry," Hermione said in a very quiet voice. "I think Professor Vector really was a Death Eater."

"What?!" Harry exclaimed as he turned and gave his girlfriend a look of disbelief.

"Remember the message the Longbottoms kept sending to Neville?" Hermione reminded Harry. "'Beware the carrier'? In Latin, 'Vector' means 'carrier'. Professor Vector must have been the Hogwarts teacher they were investigating."

"Very astute, Miss Granger," Brinecove assessed with a thin smile. "A hundred points to Gryffindor."

Harry took another step closer to Brinecove, his wand still pointed at the Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher. "You used the same spell on Remus that Bellatrix Lestrange did! You were trying to kill him…"

"'Corpus vile' is only lethal to magical creatures if it is used incorrectly," Brinecove pointed out. "At worst, the only thing the spell would have done once it was deflected by your protean charm was stun him. The only reason I used it was to keep Lupin on his toes. I…suspected that someone might try and use it against him."

"You knew!" Harry countered angrily. "You knew and you didn't tell him!" Brinecove recoiled slightly, as if tacitly admitting that Harry's accusation was true. "Snape said that you should have been able to tell that Tonks was really Bellatrix Lestrange just by looking her in the eye."

Brinecove's eyes flashed with anger. "Severus always did have a fondness for revealing others' secrets without actually telling what they are. Very well. If I had looked into Lestrange's eyes I would have known it was her, but unfortunately I never got the chance."

A frown creased Hermione's brow as her curiosity drove her to ask, "How exactly would you have known?"

"Ever since I was a boy," Brinecove began, "almost as soon as I arrived at Hogwarts in fact, I came to realize that I had a magical ability that others around me did not. A form of the Sight, if you will." Harry gave Hermione a dubious look but said nothing. "Whenever I look someone in the eye, I see a moment in their life. It can be from their past or their future, but it is always a defining event. A moment of great joy or accomplishment. A glimpse of a past triumph or a peek at their future happiness.

"I saw Remus Lupin's death in his eyes the moment I met him. I knew it would be the 'corpus vile' spell that killed him, just as I knew that it would be someone who looked like Nymphadora Tonks who did the job, years before she was even born. Just as I knew that it would be Septima Vector's betrayal of Hogwarts that would allow Voldemort to enter the castle. I knew it the moment I made eye contact with her."

Hermione shook her head. "Why would Professor Lupin's 'greatest moment' be his death?"

"I've often wondered about that," Brinecove answered thoughtfully. "I didn't know the man that well, but I would imagine it was the fact that he finally escaped from the werewolf's curse, if only in his last dying seconds."

"You could have warned him," Harry growled angrily. "You could have stopped it from happening."

"What would I have told him, Mr. Potter?" the older wizard scoffed. "That his girlfriend was going to kill him? Do you really think he would have believed me?" Harry fell silent at that. Lupin likely wouldn't have believed him and, in all likelihood, Harry wouldn't have, either. "I have only told two others what I've seen in their future and I've since sworn never to do so again. One of them was your mother, Harry."

Hermione's eyes brightened. "You saw her giving her life to save Harry, didn't you?"

Brinecove nodded. "It was the bravest act I have ever witnessed. Your mother was quite a remarkable woman. She was the kindest person I've ever met, with the possible exception of Dumbledore."

"You…" Harry began tentatively, "you really did admire Dumbledore, then?"

"More than anyone else in the world," the other man answered earnestly. "Every time I looked at him, I saw something different. An old memory of what he'd received for Christmas one year or a young couple he'd once set up on a date getting married. He was truly one of a kind."

It was somewhat astonishing, but Harry was actually on the verge of believing this berk. "In his memory, what did Dumbledore get for Christmas?"

"Believe it or not, it was socks," Brinecove told him, his lips quirking into a half-smile.

Harry did believe it, but there were still some things nagging in the back of his mind; things that didn't quite add up about Commodus Brinecove. "If you liked him so much, why didn't Dumbledore trust you? Was it because of Regulus Black?"

Brinecove's mood appeared to darken. "I suppose Severus told you about that as well. There isn't a day that goes by that I don't think about what happened to him."

A light seemed to go on inside Hermione's head. Harry positively adored that light. "You were the one Regulus trusted who Sirius didn't, weren't you? The one Regulus wrote to him about." Harry already knew this was true from what Snape had told him, but wanted to see what Brinecove would say.

"I never meant for anything to happen to him," Brinecove declared solemnly. "It was my fault. If only I hadn't been so arrogant, if only I had actually learned occlumency…"

"What did happen?" Harry asked, thinking back to what the Headmistress had told him about Brinecove at Bill and Fleur's wedding. "I thought McGonagall said you were a natural at occlumency."

Commodus Brinecove shook his graying head. "I never needed to be. Whenever anyone made eye contact with me, that person's 'greatest moment' appeared in my mind, blocking anyone's attempt at accessing my own thoughts. That was, at least, until the Dark Lord tried it."

"Voldemort." Harry's pulse quickened. He had not thought to ask Brinecove until now what he had seen when he had looked into Lord Voldemort's eyes. 'Maybe he knows how the final battle will turn out…' "What did you see?" Harry asked simply.

"Nothing," Brinecove replied sadly. "Nothing at all. There was no great moment of happiness in the Dark Lord's life. Not in his past or his future. I suppose I should have expected that I would run into someone like that sooner or later, but…he was able to read my mind like an open book. He discovered that I was a spy and that Regulus had betrayed him. If only I…"

"What about me?" Harry interrupted anxiously. "You've looked into my eyes before. Do you see me defeating him?" There was no need to specify who Harry was talking about.

"When I said that I've sworn never to tell anyone again what I see in their eyes, I meant it," Brinecove said sternly. "But rest assured, Mr. Potter, if you saw what I saw you would not be any better informed on how to defeat your evil foe."

Chiding himself mentally, Harry realized that he had almost forgotten about Voldemort's presence inside the castle. After quickly checking the Marauder's Map, he noted with some satisfaction that the house elves had slowed him down, but he was still drawing closer to the Chamber of Secrets. "The other person you told about what you saw when you looked at them…it was Snape, wasn't it?" Hermione guessed.

"I'm afraid so," Brinecove acknowledged with a grimace. "That one was almost accidental. When I saw what his defining moment was, I felt compelled to confront him over it." The DADA teacher let out a slow sigh. "The only good thing that came of that was that he felt as though he owed me a life debt for telling him. He said that I had helped to put him on his 'life's path'."

Harry and Hermione shared a knowing look. "You saw him killing Dumbledore."

Commodus Brinecove shut his eyes tightly as he spoke. "You don't know how much it hurt, watching Severus take on the role of Dumbledore's spy, the job I very nearly had, when I knew he would eventually murder Albus. I felt as though I had let the old man down." Brinecove's eyes opened and he regarded Harry and Hermione once again, his lips forming a guarded smile. "I should have told him about the nature of my 'gift'. He always seemed to know that there was something I was keeping from him. That's why he never trusted me. Perhaps, by telling you all of this, I can make it up to him."

"There's something I still don't understand," Harry said bemusedly. "If you're on our side, if you want to defeat Voldemort, then why did you keep Ravenclaw's quill from me? If Regulus told you about the horcruxes, then surely you've figured out by now that…"

"That Ravenclaw's quill is one?" Brinecove offered helpfully. "Indeed, and the last one at that, aside from you yourself, Mr. Potter." Harry tried not to look too startled that Brinecove knew he was a horcrux. "As I'm sure you two are well aware, my last job was as Deputy Minister for Internal Security. As the Daily Prophet stupidly reported several weeks ago, I was given the task of investigating the Order of the Phoenix by Minister Scrimgeour, a fact which had been, up until its publication, classified information. I had no desire to give the Minister of Magic anything he might use against Dumbledore, so my reports were deliberately sketchy and vague. Still, I did discover something rather…unexpected. A plot to kill you, Mr. Potter."

Harry's blood ran cold. Up until this moment, he had assumed that Brinecove, Chambers and Percy Weasley were behind this plot. "Are you telling me that there were members of the Order of the Phoenix who were trying to kill me?"

"They are still trying to kill you," Brinecove informed him, his expression suddenly very grave. " I do not pretend to understand the inner workings of the mind of Severus Snape, but he took it upon himself to inform certain other members of the Order, those more inclined to use draconian methodology than Albus would have been, of the presence of Voldemort's horcruxes. By the use of Animus Signatus potion, he proved to them that you were one as well."

"But how would he have been able to use the potion?" Hermione wondered aloud. "He would have needed to have a horcrux or something that used to be one to make it work."

"Marvolo Gaunt's ring," Harry said suddenly. "It went missing from Dumbledore's desk last year. Snape must have stolen it so he could use it in the potion." Harry's attention returned to Brinecove. "Who's involved in the plot?"

"Tegau Dearborn, Tabitha Meadowes, Alastor Moody and Kingsley Shacklebolt." Both Harry and Hermione's eyes widened at the last two names. "I ask that you not judge them too harshly, Mr. Potter. They are brave witches and wizards who want the Dark Lord dead every bit as much as you do. Put yourself into their shoes. Would you be willing to sacrifice someone else, even someone you cared about, if it meant saving hundreds of other lives?"

"But…I don't have to die in order for Voldemort to be mortal," Harry interjected with a quizzical expression on his face. "Living horcruxes don't work that way."

"I know that," Brinecove said, "and you know that. But Snape has made sure that these four do not. They were the ones responsible for the explosion at the wedding and for the attempt on your life in the Head Boy's room a few weeks back. Their moves have been fairly subtle thus far, but once you are the last horcrux they will stop at nothing to ensure your death."

That information seeped into Harry's brain slowly. "So…all this time that you've been keeping the quill from me…you've been trying to save my life?"

Rather than answering him, Commodus Brinecove opened the Box of Set and handed Harry Ravenclaw's quill. "I was hoping to postpone the quill's destruction until now, when you were on the cusp of facing He-Who-Must-Not-Be…oh, sod it. Voldemort. I'm afraid my ability to prolong the inevitable attempt on your life is at an end." Harry stared down at the quill, as if he were unsure about what to do next. "Well go on, Mr. Potter. Speak to it in parseltongue. I can take care of the rest."

"Come forth," Harry said to the quill in a soft hiss, speaking parseltongue by picturing a plumed serpent sitting in his hand, rather than a bright blue feather. "Come out and face your master."

Almost instantaneously, the image of a younger Lord Voldemort appeared, looking quite perturbed. "You insolent whelp! How dare you…"

But before he could say anymore, Harry dropped the quill and Commodus Brinecove aimed his wand at it. "Atash inflammare!" A stream of flame erupted from his wand and engulfed the feather, burning it to ash within seconds. Voldemort's visage promptly vanished.

Harry gave Professor Brinecove an impressed look as the fire returned to his wand. "You're going to have to teach me how to do that sometime."

Brinecove nodded. "Agreed. Now hurry along. Your journey through the castle will likely not be an easy one." As Harry and Hermione turned to leave the Astronomy Tower, Brinecove called after them. "Oh, and Harry? I almost forgot." Brinecove tossed Harry the Ancient Egyptian box that had been in his hands. "Take the Box of Set with you. It might come in handy."

"Thanks, Professor," Harry told him earnestly. "For everything."

Following the path Voldemort had taken as best he could, Harry led Hermione into the interior of the castle and quickly found a battered contingent of house elves led by Dobby. "We fought He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named, Harry Potter sir, but we could not stop him. So many of us is hurt…"

"You did great, Dobby. Really." As the house elf beamed at him, Harry turned to face Hermione, placing his hands on her shoulders. "We're going to have to regroup our forces. I need you to find Ron and tell him that Voldemort's already inside the castle."

"What? While you go off and face Voldemort alone? Harry, I'm not going to…" Hermione began to protest.

Harry shook his head emphatically. "I have to do this alone, Hermione. You know that. Besides, it's your plan I'll be using, so it'll be just like you were there with me." Suddenly, the two of them became aware that they would be leaving each other, perhaps for the last time. "I…I wish things had been different between us. I wish I had realized how I felt about you earlier…"

Hermione put her hands on her hips and shot him a glare. "If you're planning on giving me some speech about how much time we could have had together, you can save it for some other girl. We've had six wonderful years together as best friends and I wouldn't trade that for anything." She inched closer to him and planted a soft kiss on his lips. "And we'll have much more than that after you come back to me safely. Now go. You have an evil wizard to defeat."

Harry shrugged. Who was he to argue with Hermione at a time like this? "Alright. But be careful."

"You too," Hermione advised him, her voice finally betraying a hint of the strong emotions that filled her. "I love you, Harry. You know that, don't you?"

"I do," Harry told her with a genuinely happy smile. "Maybe one day I'll be able to show you just how much I love you back."

"You already have," Hermione assured him with a teary smile of her own. "Now go on. Voldemort isn't going to wait around all day for you, you know."

***
Harry carefully made his way up the staircase to the second floor, trying to avoid being spotted by anyone as he made his way to the Chamber of Secrets. He had just passed the Defense Against the Dark Arts classroom when a stunner flew past his head, shattering an expensive-looking vase that Professor Brinecove had placed there to 'brighten up the place'. Out of the corner of his eye, he could just make out a slight figure in a blue robe hiding behind a stone gargoyle. Well remembering that the person disguised as Snape who had tried to kill him in the Head Boy's room had been wearing such a robe, it was not hard to guess the identity of his attacker. 'Brinecove was right, then,' Harry bemoaned to himself. 'There are Order members who want to kill me.'

"You're making a mistake," Harry called out as he clung to the wall just outside the classroom, his wand pointed in the direction where the spell had come from. "You don't have to kill me to kill Voldemort. Snape lied to you. If we could just, I dunno, talk this over, maybe when I'm not so pressed for time…"

As though he had appeared from nowhere, a dark figure in a blue hood emerged just in front of the classroom door, his wand pointed straight at Harry. "Stupefy!"

"Protego!" another male voice called out. A shielding charm formed in front of Harry, deflecting the spell. "Petrificus totalus!"

The hooded figure fell forward suddenly, his body frozen. Harry leaned over his attacker's fallen form, hoping to learn his identity. Once his hood was removed, the face it concealed was unmistakable. "Kingsley Shacklebolt."

"You're not going to be able to reason with them, boy," a familiarly unpleasant voice called out from behind him. "They don't trust you, any more than they would trust me." The shorter man moved from the shadows now, revealing one of the many people Harry had hoped never to see again: Peter Pettigrew. "We've both been tainted by the Dark Lord."

"I'm not anything like you," Harry snapped as he turned his wand away from Kingsley's petrified form to point it at Pettigrew. "You're a traitor and a murderer! I may have let you go twice before…"

Before Harry could finish that thought, another hex flew down the hallway, striking a gargoyle very near where Harry was standing, making the statue squawk in protest. Both he and Peter Pettigrew went into a defensive crouch. "So what's one more time, eh?" Harry glared at him spitefully. "Be reasonable, Harry. We both know what you have to do. I can stay here and draw their fire."

Harry thought it over for a moment. "You have to swear that you won't kill them," he told the old Marauder firmly. "Swear an Unbreakable Vow."

Pettigrew laughed then, once again sounding like the madman who he had faced at Godric's Hollow. "This isn't the time to show me your weaknesses, boy. The Dark Lord beckons you. You cannot refuse him, any more than I could."

Harry scowled deeply at Pettigrew, but then had to duck as a hex struck a doorpost just behind him. "Fine. But this doesn't make us even." Peter Pettigrew smiled evilly but then shot off a few jinxes in the direction of the blue hooded figure as Harry crept through the hallway, eventually reaching the second floor girls' lavatory.

Moaning Myrtle was noticeably absent, perhaps recognizing the boy who had killed her all those years ago and choosing to haunt some other room for a change. Deciding not to waste any more time, Harry's eyes quickly found the image of a serpent on the faucet. "Open."

As he spoke, the entrance to the Chamber of Secrets was revealed. Within the space of a moment, Harry was at the bottom of a hole, trudging through rat skeletons and muck. Once he reached the now familiar door to the Chamber itself, speaking parseltongue once more allowed him to enter. Now that he was inside, Harry examined the snake statues which surrounded him carefully. Finding the feathers that Luna Lovegood had left in the mouth of one of the snakes, he pushed the serpent's head back, revealing a hole in the floor that was just large enough for him to fit through. Had Dudley Dursley or, say, Crabbe been here in his place, however, they would have been out of luck. 'I suppose it's a lucky thing that neither of them was the Chosen One,' Harry thought to himself.

Harry wriggled inside the hole and then slid down a long tube, landing in the midst of a rather large den of snakes, most of which appeared to be poisonous. Suddenly, Harry wished that it was Dudley or Crabbe standing here in his place. 'Alright, Harry. Stay calm. Just remember that you speak their language.' As he caught sight of a faint light illuminating the distinct shape of a doorway across the room, Harry began to formulate a plan. "Move to one side," he hissed. "Make a path. Let me pass."

The snakes reluctantly obeyed him and Harry soon crossed the threshold of the doorway to discover a place that he had only dreamed about before. Massive alabaster cylinders ran down the middle of the narrow room, pounding the floor at irregular intervals. The thumping of the cylindrical stone blocks reverberated in Harry's ears and centuries-old dust stirred restlessly as the massive stones slammed into the ground. 'How did I know that I would have to make it past these things?'

Harry looked up at the stone columns with a defiant glint in his eye. "Wingardium leviosa!" he said, waving his wand at one of the pillars. To Harry's disappointment, the spell had no effect whatsoever. 'Well, it was worth a try.' Sticking his wand in one of the pockets of his robes and tucking the Box of Set underneath his arm, he began to weave, roll and dodge his way around the gigantic crashing columns. In a close call, however, one of the alabaster cylinders had pinned his robes underneath it, tearing one whole side of them to shreds.

Finally, Harry stood before a large stone door, flummoxed as to what to do next. As there was neither handle nor lock visible and the massive slab of stone itself wouldn't budge, there did not seem to be a way to open the door. But of course there had to be, since Voldemort had already come through here. 'Think, Harry. What did Dumbledore say about this door in your dream? Something about my wand being the key.' Harry took the time to try every spell to open the door he could think of, including a very powerful 'reducto' that rather impressively disheveled his hair but did nothing to move the door in front of him. Once he had nearly exhausted himself, he caught sight of a thin piece of wood that looked suspiciously like his own wand, partially sticking out of a brick which seemed to be glowing red hot only a meter or so above his head. 'That's Voldemort's wand.' Eventually, the light dawned on him. 'Of course. My wand is the key to the door.'

Harry plunged his wand into the intense heat of the stone and watched with wonder as it buried itself there, right next to its twin. Neither wand had caught fire, perhaps because their cores were phoenix feathers. With a loud rumble, the door began to slowly open. Keeping his body low to the ground, Harry crept underneath the stone barrier, relieved that he had finally gained access to the Temple of Osiris. It had come at a price, however: he would now have to face Voldemort without his wand. Harry would simply have to rely on whatever wandless magic he could manage, plus the items he had taken the time to stash away in the Box of Set.

Dashing inside with reckless abandon, Harry found himself in the middle of a large room, maybe fifty meters high and at least thirty meters long. A towering statue of Salazar Slytherin appeared to dominate the room; a more dignified likeness, somehow, than the one he had seen in the Chamber of Secrets. The temple was lined from wall to wall with serpents sculpted in black onyx, which seemed to be protecting the Slytherin statue from its imaginary enemies. Torches burned in their eyes, making the snakes' fangs glow in their reflective light. In the middle of the room there stood a bejeweled fountain, sparkling with rows of rubies and emeralds but otherwise made up entirely of gold. An ornately designed goblet that Harry reckoned must be the Chalice of Horus sat on its edge. About halfway between the fountain and the statue of Slytherin was a lengthy sarcophagus covered in hieroglyphics, which bore the body of one of Hogwarts' founders. Lord Voldemort kneeled beside the tomb, his eyes fixed on the cold, still body of Salazar Slytherin.

"Harry." Voldemort's evil voice echoed throughout the room, making goose pimples form on Harry's arms and neck. "So good of you to come. You've arrived just in time. The fun is about to start."

"It's over, Voldemort," Harry declared with a confidence that was almost entirely feigned. "I've destroyed the last horcrux. You're now as mortal as I am."

Voldemort threw back his head in a sharp bark of laughter. "Foolish boy. Surely you know by now that I wanted you to destroy my horcruxes." Harry said nothing as Voldemort's cackling laughter continued to echo through the temple. "As for my mortality, I can assure you that I'm working on correcting that little problem as we speak." Here he motioned towards Slytherin's sarcophagus, which was now practically glowing with dark magic.

Harry weighed his options carefully. Voldemort wasn't really paying him much attention. In fact, he seemed to be concentrating solely on the sarcophagus, which no doubt held the soon-to-be-reanimated body of Salazar Slytherin. 'This could be my only real shot at taking him by surprise.' Opening the Box of Set, Harry removed the Sorting Hat and placed it on the stone floor of the temple, just as Voldemort began an incantation in a language that was decidedly not English.

Harry shook the Sorting Hat gently, as it was still slumbering peacefully, despite all that had gone on. "Eh? What? Time for another sorting already? I swear it seems each year goes by faster than the last." Once he realized where he was, the hat glowered at Harry. "Oh, it's you again, Potter. Where have you taken me this time?"

"That doesn't really matter right now," Harry whispered urgently. "What I need from you is…"

But the Sorting Hat was not paying attention to him either. It hopped forward slightly to get a better look at what Voldemort was doing. "I can scarcely believe my eyes. Is that Salazar Slytherin getting out of that sarcophagus?"

Harry nodded. "I think so." An old wizard with simian features who wore a green robe rose slowly from the tomb, a permanent scowl set on his face.

"If only he had let me know he was returning to life beforehand," the Sorting Hat complained. "I could have compiled a list of all the students I've sorted into his house. I'm sure he would find it quite useful." The hat's eyes rolled slightly to examine Harry fully. "Now don't you wish I'd have put you in Slytherin?"

"What?" Harry replied in irritation. "No! Of course not!"

The Sorting Hat turned around with a bounce. "Huh. Well, don't hold your breath waiting for Godric Gryffindor to be resurrected from the dead."

Seizing what so far had been his only chance to get a word in edgewise, Harry said, "I need something of Gryffindor's. The sword I used in the Chamber of Secrets."

The Sorting Hat turned up what might pass for its nose haughtily. "What do you think I am, Potter? A fussy mother hen, sitting on the Founders' eggs? You think I can just produce one of their relics whenever I want?"

"No," Harry said in a whisper as Salazar Slytherin shakily stood on his own two feet for the first time in a millennium. "I just…I thought that…"

"Oh very well," the Sorting Hat replied obligingly. Gryffindor's sword dropped out from inside the hat. "I wouldn't want to be caught with it on the day of Slytherin's return anyhow. It would be considered rude."

Harry watched with wary eyes as Voldemort helped Slytherin to walk a few steps towards the fountain. Harry slowly crept along beside them, remaining in a crouch, hoping not to attract the attention of Voldemort or Slytherin. "You are my heir?" he heard Slytherin inquire confusedly. "But you look so strange…how can it be so? Are you wizard or beast?"

While the 'Heir of Slytherin' was distracted, Harry thought it wise to lunge at Voldemort with the sword, hoping to throw him off balance with a quick slash and then thrust the blade deep within his chest cavity. Alas, it was not to be. As Harry leapt forward, Gryffindor's sword in hand, the Dark Lord simply held up his hand and blocked the blow. "Your infantile attempts at heroics are beginning to bore me, Potter. Levicorpus!" With a gesture of the evil wizard's hand, Harry was hanging upside down in midair. "I appreciate you granting me the opportunity to use something of Gryffindor's for the task at hand…" Voldemort withdrew a knife from his robes as he spoke, allowing the blade to glisten for a moment in the dim torchlight. "But I've always found Gryffindor's dagger to be a much more efficient instrument of death."

Without warning, Lord Voldemort plunged the knife into Slytherin's heart, watching with no remorse as his ancient ancestor stared up at him in disbelief. "A dagger is so much more subtle, so…unexpected. So personal. It pierces the heart before you even know it's there." As Salazar Slytherin slumped to the ground lifelessly, Voldemort's face broke out in a wide grin. "It's a bit like love, wouldn't you say?"

"You don't know what love is," Harry spat. He was getting a bit dizzy from hanging in midair, but still wore a look of grim determination on his face.

"Perhaps I don't, at that," the Dark Lord conceded. "But somehow I doubt that it will be the power which allows you to defeat me, as Dumbledore so foolishly believed." Harry stared at him incredulously. "Your occlumency skills decline precipitously when you are separated from your wand. Let us see how you fare against me when you are separated from your sword as well." With a gesture of his hand and a muttered levitation spell, Voldemort lifted Gryffindor's sword until it hit the ceiling and let Harry's floating body fall to the ground. Harry began to stand shakily, but before he could truly get his bearings, Voldemort used wandless magic to pry two of the larger bricks from the wall. With another wandless spell, he sent them hurtling towards Harry. Harry avoided them with some effort, although a third one he had failed to see coming from behind him clipped him in the jaw, forcing him back to the ground painfully.

"Really, now," Voldemort taunted him, "if you're going to have any hope at all of stopping me, you'll have to do much better than that." He then laughed condescendingly. "Of course, you don't really have any hope of stopping me…"

Mustering all of the strength he could, Harry sprang forward and tackled Voldemort, pinning him to the ground and pummeling him with his fists. The Dark Lord made a show of stifling a yawn. "So it's a physical fight that you want, then? How very muggle of you." Suddenly Harry was lifted off of Voldemort and flung across the room, as though an invisible hand had thrown him there. "Fortunately for me, I am not a muggle, nor do I have any use for their methods."

"True," Harry replied with a defiant smile. His bottom lip was split open and beginning to bleed and his ribs ached fiercely, but he would not let this pillock see him beaten. "But your mother sure seemed to love them."

Voldemort roared in fury. "My mother was nothing but a cheap whore! Letting herself become smitten by that…that worthless muggle." His eyes narrowed to slits. "You'll pay for bringing her into this."

"I'll pay?" Harry asked impishly. "You're the one who called her a cheap whore. I only said she liked muggles." Harry then fell silent as bursts of flame shot out from the eyes of the onyx serpents hovering over him. Voldemort spread his arms and then brought his hands slowly together, making the fire coalesce into one large ball. "This can't be good."

With an emphatic hand gesture, Voldemort directed the huge ball of flame toward Harry. Feeling suddenly motivated to move from his present location, Harry sprang to his feet and began sprinting across the temple. "You can't run from it, Potter. It will follow you wherever you go."

'I'm not looking to run from it,' Harry thought to himself, although it was entirely possible that Voldemort was now reading his thoughts. 'In fact, I want it to follow me.' As the flames began to lick at his tattered robes, Harry finally reached his destination: the large gold fountain in the middle of the temple. Immersing himself fully, Harry could only watch as the ball of flame made contact with the surface of the water. Steam and boiling water surrounded him as the two elemental opponents dueled each other. In the meanwhile, however, Harry's oxygen supply was running low. 'Maybe this wasn't such a good idea after all,' he thought.

Within seconds, the ball of flame dissipated, allowing Harry to break the surface of the water, his lungs now filling with much-needed oxygen. His bobbing head was temporarily concealed by steam and Voldemort once again did not seem to notice him. Spying Gryffindor's dagger sitting on the edge of the fountain, Harry attempted to use wandless magic to bring it to him. "Accio dagger," he called out softly. The knife began to slowly inch its way towards him.

"I think that will be quite enough of that," Voldemort declared disdainfully. Raising his hands in the air, the dark wizard pulled Harry out of the water using more wandless magic, holding him suspended in air, incapable of movement. Voldemort then looked Harry over appraisingly. "Yes, that will do quite nicely."

"Nice to know that I meet with your approval," Harry shot back halfheartedly. "You can't hold me up here forever, you know."

"Nor do I have any intention of doing so," Voldemort retorted, his manner haughty and self-congratulatory. "I simply thought that you might like to have a better view of what's about to happen." The Dark Lord reached for the cup sitting close to Gryffindor's dagger on the fountain's edge. "This is the Chalice of Horus, Potter. Once I drink from it, I shall become immortal. The accumulated dark magic of a thousand years will be coursing through my veins." Hanging helpless in the air, Harry could only watch as Voldemort put the cup to his lips and drained it dry. Less than a minute later, however, he began coughing fitfully, his body doubling over in pain. Harry couldn't help but smirk. Hermione's plan had worked perfectly.

"You were right about the view," Harry said with a devilish grin. "It was worth it." Voldemort's eyes seemed to burn with hatred. "I put acromantula venom in the cup." A blank expression came over the Dark Lord's face. "Professor Slughorn gave it to me. Within a few moments, it will begin to dissolve your internal organs. Once it does that…well, death's inevitable really. It may come slowly, but…" Harry was unexpectedly interrupted by a gale of maniacal laughter. He frowned deeply. What did Voldemort think was so funny?

"You poor little fool," Voldemort said, his voice now little more than a strangled whisper. "Can you not see that everything you do plays right into my hands?" Harry shot him a perplexed look. "A torn soul cannot achieve immortality here in the Temple of Osiris. This body was never meant to last for eternity. It was only ever intended to be a temporary house for my soul."

Harry was too stunned to say anything as a strange gleam appeared in Voldemort's eye. "My body and soul simply won't do, I'm afraid. I've made too many horcruxes. But yours…you're as pure as the driven snow, aren't you? Well, except for the part of me that's already inside of you." He grinned widely. "I've been preparing you for this role for sixteen years, Potter. Are you ready?"

"You're…you're going to give me eternal life?" Harry stammered in disbelief.

"In a way, yes," Voldemort answered. "But you won't be able to enjoy it. I'm planning on taking over your life, you see." The Dark Lord suddenly fell to his knees. The acromantula venom was likely now eating away at his insides. "Perhaps we can continue this conversation…elsewhere…" And then Voldemort did something completely unexpected. He made his seventh horcrux, sending the final sliver of his dying soul into the body of Harry Potter.

Harry hit the ground at exactly the same time that Voldemort did, their bodies falling very close to each other; close enough for Harry to look into his eyes, which were still open and staring, but now bereft of the spark of life. The Dark Lord's frame was cold and motionless. He was dead. The battle was supposed to be over. Instead, it was just beginning.

Harry Potter writhed on the floor as he felt Voldemort's dark presence spreading throughout his body. What was worse, the new piece of the Dark Lord's soul within him had seemingly emboldened the old one. It was as though he could feel the evil coursing through his veins as the two pieces of soul slowly began to overwhelm him. "You are truly a great fool, Potter," he could hear Voldemort's voice still taunting him mercilessly, even from inside his head. "You've been beaten from the beginning, from the very moment I made you a horcrux. Why do you think I chose you over the pureblood Longbottom boy? It was because I wanted you to be just like me, to grow up without parents, to be hated and misunderstood. But your mind was poisoned by Dumbledore, the blood traitor Weasleys and that insufferable mudblood girl you've taken up with.

"Ah, the mudblood. I have plans for her, you know. Once I assume your life, we're going to have to have a little chat. It seems that you were confusing friendship for love. Sure, the sex was great but you just don't feel that way about her anymore. Couldn't you just be friends again?" Harry's heart broke for Hermione as he heard those words, even as his magically weakened body struggled in vain against Voldemort's presence within him as it grew ever more powerful. "Maybe I'll start seeing the Weasley girl again. She didn't seem to care very much what you did. I doubt she'll even notice that you're not you anymore."

"But Hermione will," Harry thought insistently. "Hermione will see right through you."

"She'll be too heartbroken to see anything," Voldemort informed him coldly. "Perhaps if the two of you had remained friends, it wouldn't have been so easy to throw her off my scent. As things stand, however, she'll probably dissolve into little more than a weeping mess when I break her heart."

"That would never be Hermione," Harry countered angrily. "Never!"

"Perhaps you don't know your girlfriend as well as you think," Voldemort told him. "The Weasley girl will just be the beginning. I'll make you watch me shag a parade of women, each one more of a slag than the last. Then we'll see if the mudblood wants anything more to do with you, won't we?"

Despair filled Harry. If he were to dump her and then take up with a string of other women, Hermione would be devastated. "I really did hate to part with my body, but that was the deal, wasn't it? I had to give up the thing that I would miss the most. Living as you will have its advantages, though. I'll be given a fresh start and a chance to accumulate new followers. In addition to all of my old ones, of course. And who among the Order of the Phoenix or the Ministry would suspect Harry Potter, the Chosen One, the wizard who defeated Lord Voldemort, of being a dark wizard himself?"

A thought occurred to Harry. "The Order members Snape told about the horcruxes. The ones who want to kill me. They'll be able to stop you."

"Unlikely," Voldemort scoffed. "They couldn't even stop you, as you might recall. All I have to do is bide my time. I have forever to make my move. I can afford to be patient."

Harry, however, could no longer stand to be patient. The two shards of Voldemort's soul were now almost in complete control of his body, his magical core was terribly weakened and he could feel his own consciousness slipping, descending deep within the recesses of his own mind, where it might never come out again. A sense of grave determination filled him. 'I have to end this. Before Voldemort gets a chance to do any of those terrible things. I…I'd rather die than have to watch myself do it.' With a great effort, Harry slowly rose from the floor and began crawling on his hands and knees in the direction of the fountain.

"Are you going to drown yourself, Potter?" Voldemort demanded contemptuously. "How noble of you, to sacrifice yourself for the greater good. It's just what your old Headmaster would have wanted. Unfortunately for you, you're already beaten. The sooner you realize that, the better."

"You're wrong," Harry replied defiantly. "As long as I can still fight you, I'm not beaten. I'm not going to give up."

"You're thinking of killing yourself, aren't you, Potter?" the Dark Lord's voice came back petulantly. "Most would deem that 'giving up'."

Harry shook his head as he lowered himself into the water. "Not if I take you with me." His body fell into the water, as much from his own weakness as a deliberate act of suicide, but he did nothing to stop it from happening. Perhaps it was fate; perhaps this was the only way he was ever really going to end Voldemort's reign of terror. As cold water rushed through his lungs, Harry could feel the two fragments of the evil wizard's spirit rise within him. His power was gone, completely drained from the exhausting events of the last twenty-four hours. He could only watch as the two halves of what remained of Voldemort's soul came together, allowing the Dark Lord to take control of his body permanently, and hope that he drowned before it came to pass.

Except…

Except that the two pieces of Voldemort's soul did not come together. Instead, they fought bitterly. Harry did not rightly know why it was happening or even who to root for, but it all seemed to be over rather quickly. And once it was, Harry was no longer in the bottom of a fountain, waiting morbidly for his own brain to run out of oxygen. He was standing in the middle of a graveyard at night, the ground covered by a thick fog. A tombstone lie in front of him and an older man he did not recognize was kneeling before it. The headstone read simply 'Tom Riddle'.

"I never did get over it, you know," the man Harry did not recognize told him in a very calm voice. "My father leaving my mother the way he did, I mean. I blamed him for her death. I suppose that's why I killed him. I thought it would give me peace of mind, but…it never did."

Harry could not help but gape at the man. His face was wrinkled and pale and his hair appeared to be graying at the temples. He was perhaps the same age as Hagrid, but….surely it couldn't be… "Are…are you Voldemort?"

The old man smiled knowingly. "I'm afraid that it's entirely up to you to decide who I am, Harry. In fact, that's why we're here."

Harry did not know whether he could trust the wizard in front of him, although he did not seem threatening. "Where are we?" Harry asked confusedly. "How did we get out of the Temple of Osiris?"

"We are still inside the Temple," the dark-haired man answered him. "We are also inside your mind at the moment. It seems that a decision has to be made before we can proceed."

"What decision is that?" Harry inquired, his brow knitting itself together in a frown.

"Who you are going to become, naturally," he replied. "To that end, you must decide whether I should live or die."

"Oh," Harry retorted blankly. "I'm sorry, who are you again?"

"I would have thought that would be rather obvious by now," the other man told him with a half-smile as he stood to his full height. "I'm Tom Marvolo Riddle, or at least the piece of his soul that he discarded sixteen years ago. Who I've been since…well, that's the matter at hand, isn't it?"

"What do you mean, 'who you've been since'?" Harry asked, his confusion seeming to grow by the moment. "Are you telling me that you've changed?"

Riddle nodded. "I didn't want to at first, of course. Voldemort intended for me to control your life from birth, to make you angry and resentful of your station in life. Another Dark Lord in the making. Your mother's spell and the barrier it created complicated things. Voldemort thought he had failed to create a horcrux and tried to murder you, but the spell backfired and destroyed him. And so I remained there, in your mind, seemingly forgotten but still watching you. What else could I do?

"At first, I only hoped to learn your vulnerabilities. To study you on Voldemort's behalf. Over time, however, I saw how even your mistreatment by the Dursleys' did not fill you with bitterness and hate. How those who loved you provided you with the strength to survive seemingly hopeless situations. And how you returned that love. It was something of a revelation to me. I…I had never experienced love before."

"Love was the power you knew not," Harry declared in a reverent whisper.

"The words of Trelawney's prophecy were indeed true," Riddle admitted. "When Voldemort destroyed the barrier between us in your fourth year, I was given my freedom at last. I was finally able to begin the task Voldemort had given me." Harry thought back to how angry and frustrated he had been the summer after fourth year and throughout his fifth year. "I had no stomach for it, however, or perhaps it would be better to say that my heart wasn't in it. I obeyed the Dark Lord's commands, but only out of some warped sense of obligation. In fact, I subverted his efforts more often than not. It was I who allowed you to see Nagini attacking Arthur Weasley in the Department of Mysteries."

"What about when he showed me Sirius being tortured?" Harry asked skeptically. "Were you behind that as well?"

"I swear to you that I wasn't." Tom Marvolo Riddle began to walk through the cemetery, apparently leading Harry elsewhere. "But I cannot say that I am blameless. I allowed it to happen. I saw how strong your love for your godfather was and thought of it only as a weakness. I allowed Voldemort to exploit that. However, once I saw the great lengths you went to in order to save him, I knew your love for what it was. Your source of strength." Riddle looked thoughtful. "That is also why I concealed your feelings for Miss Granger for so long. I feared how powerful they would make you and what they might cause you to do."

Harry was flabbergasted. "So…how long have I been…that is to say…"

"You've been in love with her since the summer after your fifth year," the older wizard informed him with a mildly amused smile.

Harry shook his head. "But…but what about Ginny?"

Riddle winced. "An unfortunate lust-fueled debacle and nothing more. If Dumbledore hadn't been holding me at bay all year with that carpe diem potion, perhaps I could have talked some sense into you." Before Harry could make an inquiry as to Dumbledore's motives, Tom Riddle continued. "I'm sure he was only trying to give me ample time to be won over. The truth is, this was a good plan. It worked magnificently."

Harry's eyebrows rose. "You think Dumbledore planned this?"

"I'm quite sure of it, in fact," Tom Marvolo Riddle confirmed with a nod. "Do you remember the smile on his face when he spoke of the barrier between us being destroyed? I think he knew that once I experienced love, once I felt it for myself, I could not go back to serving Voldemort. I suppose you could say I defected."

"But you destroyed a part of yourself," Harry interjected in a bewildered voice, "for me. Why?"

Tom Marvolo Riddle's eyes shone with a sincerity Harry never would have thought possible only moments ago. "Because I don't want to be part of him anymore. I wish to join with you." He turned his eyes back to face the path in front of them, which now wound around a grove of trees. "We face two paths now: a path of darkness and a path of light. The darkness has its own particular allure of power…but ultimately I have found it to be an empty one. If Dumbledore taught me anything, it's that the path of light can be much more uncertain, but that there are things like love, trust and friendship to help you along. What's more, you do not fear the journey's conclusion. Once it has come, you feel as though you've gained something worthwhile.

"I don't know where this path will lead me, but I am willing to take it. So long as you are willing to allow me to travel it alongside you." As they stopped walking, Harry noticed that Tom Riddle had led him to his parents' grave. The names 'James and Lily Potter' were etched on one large stone, followed by the words 'Beloved and missed by all who knew them.'

"I am still the wizard who killed your parents, Harry," Riddle noted sadly. "I've murdered countless others, but it is their deaths that have brought you the most grief. I know that I don't deserve it, but I'd like to ask you for your forgiveness." Harry's teary eyes examined Riddle carefully, searching his face, trying to discern whether or not the former dark wizard was having him on. "We could work together. There is much that you could teach me about life and love. Or you could destroy me right now. My life is in your hands. It is your decision to make."

Harry turned to face his parents' headstone once again. Briefly, he was filled with anger at what had happened to them so long ago, consigning him to life as an unloved orphan. However, the words of others echoed in his head. "Your desire for vengeance will be your undoing, Potter," he heard Snape say.

Hermione's voice came next. "You once told Sirius and Lupin that you didn't think your parents would want their best friends to become murderers. Do you really think that they'd want you to kill someone?"

Finally, he remembered what Dumbledore had said in his pensieve will. "Do not forget the words of the prophecy, Harry. You have a power the Dark Lord knows not. I believe that it is a willingness to forgive those who have wronged you, the ability to inspire trust and loyalty in others, the power to love unconditionally. Put simply, it is a desire to embrace what makes us mortal, rather than run from it."

"I…I dunno what's down the path for me, either," Harry began slowly. "But I don't think holding on to my anger is going to do me much good. Besides, you've proven yourself, haven't you? You could have just watched as Voldemort destroyed my life."

"Actually, I couldn't," Riddle told him earnestly. "I couldn't even stand the thought of it. You have an incredibly bright future and Miss Granger is such a lovely young woman…"

Harry narrowed his eyes suspiciously. "You do know that she's a muggleborn, right?"

Tom Riddle chuckled mirthlessly. "Yes. I know that she's a muggleborn. I'm long past believing in pureblood superiority. The contrast between your relationship with Miss Granger and your relationship with Miss Weasley hammered that idea home very well."

Harry let out a deep breath that he was not even aware that he had been holding. "I forgive you."

Tom Marvolo Riddle smiled widely. It was an odd thing, looking at this man whose face had once been defined by its serpentine features, but who now appeared so normal. "Then let's get out of here before we drown, shall we?"

Harry's eyes opened widely, his lungs nearly filled with water and his brain screaming for air. Seconds later, he surfaced, his head breaking through the surface of the water not a moment too soon. He took a few short, gasping breaths and then coughed up a good deal of water, his lungs feeling as though they had been set ablaze. Once he could breathe properly, he pulled himself out of the fountain, cleaned the water droplets from inside of his glasses and took one last look at the dead body of Lord Voldemort. Perhaps fittingly, Gryffindor's sword had fallen from the ceiling of the temple and pierced his heart, as though even fate had wanted to make sure that the Dark Lord was truly dead.

'The prophecy was wrong, though, wasn't it?' Harry found himself addressing the piece of Riddle within his own mind. 'It said that "either must die at the hand of the other, for neither can live while the other survives". Only I didn't kill Voldemort. I poisoned the cup, but he drank it willingly. He knew he was going to die and put the last piece of his soul into me. It was you who really defeated him.'

'I did it to save you, Harry,' Tom Marvolo Riddle answered him, 'and I only did that because you gave me something to fight for. Don't you see, Harry? Everything that you've fought for, everything that you've done, has inspired people; has made them willing to do things that they wouldn't ordinarily have done. Including me.' Harry withdrew Gryffindor's sword from Voldemort's chest and wiped the blood off on Salazar Slytherin's green wizarding robes. 'Voldemort died because of you, as surely as if you had killed him with that sword.'

Harry picked up the Sorting Hat (who was now oddly silent), and placed the sword inside it, returning both to the Box of Set. 'You know, Harry,' Riddle pointed out, 'you could have eternal life yourself. All you would have to do is drink from the Chalice of Horus.'

Harry thought the matter over for only a split second. 'Yeah, I could. But why would I want to? I don't care so much about living forever.' Thoughts of Hermione flashed through his mind. 'Seems like it would get lonely after a while.'

A sense of happiness washed over him, which no doubt was coming from Riddle. 'A wise decision. Now, as long as you have the Box of Set, why don't you take the relics of Osiris and put them inside, so that nobody else can try for eternal life once we're gone?'

As Harry began placing the ancient artifacts carefully inside the box, he couldn't help complaining to Riddle. 'It might have been nice to know that you were on my side from the beginning. Maybe I wouldn't have been so bloody terrified that Voldemort was going to kill me.'

'I couldn't risk Voldemort reading your mind and learning the truth beforehand,' Tom Riddle answered him solemnly. 'You really are quite terrible at occlumency.'

'I was getting better,' Harry replied testily. 'My lessons with Hermione…'

'Were a joke,' Riddle interrupted dismissively. 'Although they were great for your love life. Hermione Granger is no more a legilimens than she is a sumo wrestler. For pity's sake, she had Leon Chambers teaching her.'

'But…all of those times when she entered my mind…' Harry protested.

'I let her in,' Riddle informed him coyly. 'You probably should tell her, before she tries legilimency on someone else.'

Harry heaved a sigh. It would hurt her to know that she hadn't really mastered legilimency, but he supposed it had to be done. Perhaps he could con Ron into doing it for him somehow…

As Harry placed the last artifact inside the box, the entire temple shook. Flames erupted from the eyes of the onyx serpents above him and once again a large ball of flame formed in midair. 'I really hate it when they do that,' Harry thought.

'Me, too,' Riddle agreed.

Box of Set in hand, Harry scrambled to remove himself from the path of the ball of flame as it came billowing through the middle of the temple, destroying the sarcophagus completely in its wake. As much as he tried to avoid it, however, the ball of fire always seemed to be headed straight towards him. Finally, Harry was unable to run any farther, having literally hit a wall just near the entrance, which was now sealed. As the huge ball of flame bore down on him, he cringed and shut his eyes tightly, fully expecting the fire to engulf him. Instead, the force of the flames pushed the door open and the fireball escaped from the temple. Once he opened his eyes and saw what had happened, Harry quickly followed suit.

Just outside the door, Harry's eyes wandered upward. Only one wand now protruded from the fiery hot brick and it did not look like either his own or Voldemort's. Withdrawing it carefully, he found that it was longer than his own had been but shorter than Voldemort's and appeared to be composed both of holly and yew. 'They've been fused together,' Riddle assessed. 'The two wands have become one.'

"Has that happened before?" Harry asked aloud.

'In the days when wizard kings passed on pieces of their soul to their successors, it happened quite often,' Tom Riddle explained. 'It's never been common, though. You may find…well…'

"What?" Harry asked, his curiosity piqued.

'With this wand, you may be much more powerful,' Riddle informed him warily. 'Or it may not work at all. In which case, you'll have to get a new one.'

Harry marched up to the row of alabaster pillars. "Let's try it out, then." He pointed his amalgamated wand at one of the cylindrical blocks. "Wingardium leviosa." To Harry's amazement, the stone cylinder rose with a tremendous thump and did not come down again. To his even greater astonishment, every other pillar in the room did the same, without Harry having to repeat the spell. "Whoa." He began to walk underneath the pillars, unable to help staring at the ceiling where they were now raised aloft above him. "A bloke could get used to this."

'Your new powers aren't something trivial, Harry,' Riddle chided him. 'You must be very careful with them. The temptation to perform dark magic will come much more easily now. No matter what the provocation, you must avoid doing so.'

"I think I understand that now," Harry replied with a swift nod of his head. "Of course, I'm sure that Hermione will hex me into next week if I ever even think about…" His eyes grew very wide all of a sudden. "Hermione!" Amid all of these revelations, Harry had nearly forgotten about the battle raging at Hogwarts.

'I wouldn't worry too much about that,' Riddle said soothingly. 'Voldemort never intended to wage a large scale battle here. The force that he brought here was only a diversion. He was waiting until he emerged as you to truly gather all of his followers together for an attack on the Ministry.'

"She could still have gotten hurt," Harry snapped, conjuring a rope ladder with ease to exit the Temple of Osiris. "I would never forgive myself if something's happened to her. Or Ron, for that matter."

'Of course you wouldn't,' Tom Riddle noted with fond resignation. 'You wouldn't be Harry Potter otherwise.'

***
The interior of the castle was largely deserted, causing Harry to run outside, frantically searching for a familiar face. Thankfully, he found one. "Ron!"

Ron Weasley was standing just beyond the entrance, as if he were waiting for something to happen. The redhead smiled at the sight of his best friend, but his eyes betrayed a sadness that Harry had not seen in them before. "Harry, mate! You're alright!"

"Yeah, I'm fine," Harry assured him quickly. "Is…is everyone else OK?"

Pain flashed in Ron's eyes. "Not everyone." When Harry gave him a questioning look, he chose to change the subject. "What about Voldemort? Is he dead?"

"Everything didn't go exactly as planned," Harry confessed, "but Voldemort's dead, yeah." Harry put his hand on Ron's shoulder. "What about Hermione, Ron? Is she alright?"

Ron hung his head sadly. "She's in the hospital wing. It's nothing serious, probably just a sprained ankle, but…bloody hell, Harry, they attacked the kids. The first and second years. The Death Eaters got into the castle and they went right for them. They were going to murder all of them. They were vicious, Harry…I…I've never seen anything like it." Some tears escaped Ron's eyes and ran down his freckled cheeks. "Bill was there, guarding them, trying to herd them out once he saw how many of them there were and he…he died, Harry. They killed him."

Harry's emotions had quickly run the gamut from elation (once he realized that Hermione was still alive and well) to empathetic sadness. "I'm sorry, Ron. I…I don't have the words to tell you how sorry I am. Bill was a great guy."

"I already miss him, you know?" Ron sniffled. "He was my oldest brother. I looked up to him. I dunno if I'll know what to do anymore now that he's gone."

Harry thought back on all of the people whose guidance he had once sought who had now gone on to the next great adventure. Sirius. Dumbledore. Lupin. "I reckon you'll figure it out, mate." Harry gave Ron a manly slap on the back. "Somehow, I think we both will. Now, come on. Let's go see Hermione."

***
After a joyful Harry and Hermione reunion that brought both to tears (and Ron to some not-so-subtle eye rolling), Harry sat down and recounted the events of the Final Battle to his best friends. Both of them remained engrossed throughout, but when it was over they both fell deathly silent. Harry didn't know quite what to make of it. He gulped nervously. Would they stick by him, even if he had a piece of Voldemort inside of him for the rest of his life? Would Hermione still want to be with him? Finally, Ron spoke. "Voldemort finally got it, didn't he? Or at least a part of him did."

"What's that, Ron?" Harry asked.

"That there are some things worth dying for," Ron answered sagely, "and others worth living for."

Hermione snorted. "And just when did you get so wise in the ways of the world, Ron Weasley?"

Ron shrugged nonchalantly. "I've been around the broom shed a few times. Of course, the old squib who lives inside my head helps a bit, too."

"So…you're not mad at me that I let some part of Voldemort live?" Harry asked, his eyes betraying his vulnerability in this situation. "You're…you're not going to break up with me or anything, are you?"

"Well, I'm not," Ron said with a smirk. When Harry hit him in the shoulder lightly, he rubbed it in mock pain. "Seriously, though, what kind of hypocrite would I be if I stopped being your best mate just because you've got some old dark wizard stuck in your head, when I've got an old dark wizard stuck in mine? I figure this'll make us closer than ever, mate. We can give each other tips, start our own living horcrux club, maybe go in for psychoanalysis together in twenty years when the old coots start driving us nutters…"

Harry laughed, but his expression quickly turned serious as he looked at Hermione. "What about you, Hermione? Are you OK with this?" As she opened her mouth to speak, he went on. "Because I'm not sure I can do this without you."

"You won't have to," Hermione told him as she shook her head, tears of pride welling in her eyes. "I promise. I'll always be there for you, Harry. Just as I always have been. I love you so much."

Harry gave her a long, lingering kiss on the lips and then followed that with about a dozen more of the same. "Don't make me have to leave the room," Ron threatened jokingly.

After they stopped kissing, Hermione's eyes glanced downward. "Your wand looks different," she remarked with a curious frown. "Is it bigger?"

"That's it," Ron said as he threw his hands up in defeat. "I'm leaving. All this sex talk is driving me bananas. I'm going to go find Luna and…"

"Stay," Harry commanded. Ron stopped dead in his tracks. "I need to talk to you two about something." Ron and Hermione were now giving him their undivided attention. "Just because Voldemort's beaten, that doesn't mean that all of the evil in the world went with him. In fact, a great deal of it's still here, and it's not just in the ranks of Voldemort's Death Eaters. It's everywhere. It's even in the Ministry of Magic and the Order of the Phoenix.

"I may be more powerful than I was before, but I still need your help every bit as much as I ever did. I want to start an organization dedicated to fighting dark magic all of the time, not just when someone like Voldemort pops up. I don't trust the Ministry to do it and I can't say I much trust the Order anymore, either. Everything's too easily corrupted. I guess what I really need to know is: can I count on you guys to help me get it started?"

"Of course," Ron answered instantly. "I was looking for something to do after graduation, anyhow. This actually sounds safer than working for Fred and George."

Hermione scratched her chin. "Will this organization of yours address the plight of house elves?"

Harry smiled at her affectionately. "If you're one of the charter members, how could it not?"

"Alright then," Hermione agreed cheerfully. "I accept."

"Great," Harry said as he squeezed her hand. He stayed by her bedside with Ron as they laughed and joked together until Madame Pince threw them out. Free from the shadow of the Dark Lord at last, Harry could begin a whole new adventure, one which would eventually see him graduate from Hogwarts and fully enter adulthood. And, if Harry had any luck at all, Ron and Hermione would be right by his side on that journey as well.

Well, that's it. There will be one more chapter and also a Ron/Luna oneshot tie-in, but the final chapter's a coda (or an epilogue, although I've almost now come to loathe that word) and the R/LL fic is a fluff piece. So this is it. I hope you liked it. Even if you didn't, well, I hope you liked parts of it.

ITL

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