Daniel's distraught moan landed on Voldemort's delighted ears as he turned to examine his newest friends. The spiders grappling with the young wizard murmured about fresh tasty food. Daniel's eyes rolled up into the back of his head and fainted.
"My dear friends, I told you I would not fail you. I am the true King of Snakes."
Aragog pushed forward, ancient and blind. His eight eyes pasty white, he clicked his pinchers and rasped a few times before speaking. "Lord Voldemort, we have delivered you from defeat. There are enough bodies on the grave sight to feed my family for many moons. You promised them to us as part of our reward, but it is time for you to make good on your second promise. Give me the basilisk boy."
"I think not," Voldemort said calmly, tossing a glance over his shoulder at the still form of his nemesis. "You have not earned him. He is my prize."
"We saved your pathetic life…" Aragog clicked angrily. "You lied to us, wizard."
"Yes," Voldemort said simply, pushing back bushy brown hair with annoyance. "Now run off and claim your food while I still let you."
"Let us!" Aragog screamed. "You do not let us do anything. We do not obey your will."
"You'll find that you do," Voldemort sneered, using a cutting hex to butcher the hair that kept dropping in front of his eyes. How could the mudblood have lived with it was beyond him.
A spider in the back screamed. Voldemort looked over at the commotion as another spider fell. A female vampire rode into the road on a blinded sacramental. Its eyes were still bleeding, its pinchers and teeth ripping into its comrades in its panic.
"What is this trickery?" Aragog demanded, his voice croaking.
Two more blinded spiders came out from opposite sides ridden by two more vampires. Flaming arrows erupted out of the trees in the ambush. Voldemort sneered. The centaurs were still fighting it seemed. Spiders fell, emitting high pitched screams that grated on his ears. Voldemort batted away an arrow and sent a killing curse in return.
Occamies dived from the trees, swarming the skies. Voldemort watched them with loathing. Their hissing battle cries mingled with the garbled screams of the spiders. They still fought for the boy. They would learn who their master was even if he had to kill them to prove it.
He was out numbered, this much was true, but Voldemort knew no fear. He was the most powerful being on the planet and these fools would not stop him. He razed the nearest trees, throwing many of the foul halfbreeds into branches and trunks further into the forest. Several dying yelps echoed back to him and Voldemort laughed thriving on the pain.
"Stop this ridiculous fighting," Voldemort declared, sending a killing curse followed by a decapitation curse at the spider vampire duo nearest.
The spider and vampire fell quite dead. He had eyes only for the tiny powerful vampire as he offered allegiance once again. He hated repeating himself.
"We served you once," the female vampire intoned eerily. "But you broke your word. We side with the boy."
"He is dead!"
"And yet you still fear him," she declared, an occamy alighting agilely on her shoulder.
"I fear no one you stupid girl."
§Perhaps you should,§ snarled the snake, baring fangs.
---
Daniel came to looking up through the trees. What was he doing there? Merlin, his head hurt. Then he remembered. Harry dead. Voldemort--spiders!
Fearfully he turned his head and nearly gagged. His two captors lay on either side of him bleeding great white blood onto the ground. The smell was rank and fetid. Their bowels had spilled. Burning smells filled the air and Daniel covered his nose.
Cautiously he sat up and looked around. Some distance ahead of him stood Hermione, who was really You-Know-Who, engaged with a petite woman--no vampire! Daniel gasped in horror. Vampires here? Merlin's hairy balls he was not going to escape. They would find him and drink his blood. There was nobody coming to his rescue now that Harry was dead.
Dumbledore wasn't bloody likely to show up not with that botched asphyxiation curse afflicting him. He licked suddenly dry lips. Morgona's breath! He couldn't even count on Professor Snape! That dirty greasy git. What a load of bat droppings, this was… total bollocks.
He stood carefully and righted his glasses. Scanning the ground, he found his wand under one of the rotting spiders and wrinkled his nose in disgust. Daniel rolled up his sleeves and gingerly reached out for it when the legs of the spider twitched. He jumped.
"Stupid fool," he muttered to himself, steeling up his courage and reached out again to snatch it up.
He sighed in relief at the feel of it in his hand and scurried toward the safety of the forest. He could do this. He was Daniel Bloody Potter--Boy-Who… lacked valor, honor, glory. Boy-Nobody, whose laurels should have gone to Harry. He had defamed his brother because he had been afraid. He was always afraid.
Daniel's shoulders slumped in defeat. The movement skittered his shadow across the trunks of trees, startling him.
"Shit," he cursed. Afraid of his own shadow too.
Well no more.
---
"Persephone was it?" Voldemort hissed, ignoring the occamy. "Your species is known for its immortality but you all hold the same weaknesses."
She raised an eyebrow. "Is this where you threaten sunshine, decapitation, stabbing through the heart, and vow to make a necklace out of my fangs while scattering my ashes across two moving bodies of water?"
"Something like that," he snarled, throwing a flaming hex at her leering visage.
Persephone shrank back, fangs flashing in the night. The occamy leapt into the air with an angry hissing. The hex hit the trees behind her and caught on fire. Orange light blazed brightly as heat erupted at her backside. She eyed the perimeter as the method of escape shrank rapidly.
"Fire," she muttered with disgust. "Is that all you can do, mudblood?"
---
Daniel watched with a combination of awe and fear as You-Know-Who and the vampire fought. Something else was in their midst, but he couldn't tell what it was. It would soon be dead though.
Fire licked up through the branches of the trees and leapt across the road. As it spread, Daniel cast a bubblehead charm to give himself fresh clean air. He drenched himself with water next to fight the heat and crept forward.
He was a Gryffindor--strong, courageous, and brave. He could do this. He could. For Harry. For himself.
---
Voldemort cackled with glee. Possession had never worked out so well. This new body was amazingly young. It was a little out of shape, but so much more sprightly than his own dried out husk. Not that he could return to it. Rigor mortis would be settling by now.
Persephone darted out of the flickering shadows and struck at him. Voldemort fell back, twisting to the side as the supernatural speed of the vampire pushed her past him. He grabbed her arm and jerked her back with all his might. She sailed through the air. Voldemort grunted at the effort.
Strengthening rituals were a priority. This witch was weak.
---
Daniel stood just inside the fire circle, shaking like a leaf. His wand wavered unsteadily before him as he tried to line it up with You-Know-Who. He only had one shot. Only one, while the fucker was distracted by the vampire--
A loud snap followed by high pitched laughter prickled along Daniel's nerves. The vampire fell lifeless to the ground. He watched in horror as the fiendish gleam in You-Know-Who's eyes broke out into full bloom. Gleefully the evil wizard bent down and cut off the vampire's head with a concentrated cutting charm. He seemed to relish his task wholeheartedly.
The black object darting down again and as if it were a mere annoyance, Voldemort batted it aside. The dying yelp of the poor creature sent chills down Daniel's spine. That would be him next.
He gulped, steeling himself. As much as he couldn't stomach the red eyes in the sweet face of his Hermione, he could not stand by and do nothing. A quick prayer to Merlin, that Harry was guiding him.
"DIE YOU BASTARD! AVADA KEDAVRA!" Daniel yelled with conviction, striking out and down with his wand.
Reflexively Voldemort leapt to the side and summoned his wand right out of his hand. He was dead. Daniel knew it. He had failed.
"Impressive," Voldemort hissed softly, eyes gleaming in triumph, "but not impressive enough. You never were." He snapped the wand, laughing at Daniel's wince of pain. "Now that Harry is dead nobody can stop me now. Soon I will rule all."
Voldemort banished a fallen tree trunk at Daniel, smashing him against the ground. The sound of bone breaking echoed briefly as Daniel fell into unconsciousness. "Why don't you struggle with that weight, Little Pretender. You failed, the greatest fool of them all."
Ignoring Daniel, the sudden quiet of the scene, and the stench of the dead bodies, Voldemort glided over to Harry's crumpled form and smirked triumphantly. "At last, Harry Potter, you are no longer a pain in my side."
He prodded Harry's leg with his foot, satisfied at the lack of movement. "Dead, you will be the first forgotten."
He floated Harry's body up off the ground. "But first I will use your broken body as my banner. The sight of you will break fighting spirits of old fools."
Harry opened his eyes. "Over my dead body," he hissed, staring up into surprised red-tinged chocolate eyes.
Slowly Hermione fell to the ground, the life completely gone from her. Harry groaned, closing glowing green eyes in despair. He fell to the ground as the spell's magic lost power. Reaching out, Harry gathered her to him and wept bitterly. He had won, but the final price was too high. This above all else he could not pay.
She had made him promise to come back to her, but he had not forced a similar vow from her lips.
A quiet sob caught his attention. Harry looked up, through a haze of tears at a blurry figure pushing himself up off the ground.
"But you died--I saw you!" Daniel blubbered, holding his broken leg and hobbling forward.
Harry's gaze sharpened, the tears vanished. Daniel saw bright glowing green eyes before the world went dark. Harry slipped out of the partial transformation and cradled Hermione's form closer still, pushing soft bushy hair out of her unseeing eyes.
The heat of the fire crackled and burned, wrecking a desolation on the surroundings equal to the desperate anguish of his soul. Torches appeared at the base of the lane. Muggles were coming. Wizards too; if the sounds of apparition pops were anything to go by.
All around voices broke out in cheer. Harry brushed a trembling kiss across Hermione's lips. No one cared that two bodies turned to stone in the end, cold as ice. Or that without her Harry was dead to them as well. For it was over... entirely and completely over.
Someone was shouting at him, Harry didn't hear. He stared blankly down at the last expression Voldemort held; terror. He closed Hermione's eyes, smoothing out her features in an effort to erase the wizard's third possession of her.
---
Much later, when the fires were burned out, the dead bodies of man and creature removed, and the area washed clean by the spellfire of dozens of Ministry witches and wizards on clean-up duty, Harry sat alone and motionless in a private suite at St. Mungo's, staring at his hands.
He was trying and failing to clear his mind of its guilty contemplations. Voldemort was gone and that should have been enough to make him deliriously happy. But he wasn't for Voldemort's death was also Hermione's. By possessing her, Voldemort had hoped to play on Harry's love for her to save himself.
A tear landed on his knuckles. He had killed Oorjit similarly. As cold and heartlessly as that first time, Harry had done it again. Never mind that letting her or Oorjit live meant less than a half-life for the victim.
Voldemort had hoped to exploit the weakness brought on by emotions, feelings, connections to others. Harry discovered in the moment before he opened his eyes that he had as little humanity as the dark wizard. The snake in him, the king in him, would not let him fall victim to the timeless mistake of letting an enemy go free. If Voldemort had escaped, he would grow stronger. He would come back and try again thinking he could get away with more.
Harry had to be strong. Hopefully, he thought miserably, she understood that. In the hours after the fact he wasn't sure he did… at least not anymore. A hole the size of one of Hagrid's pumpkins gaped in the middle of his chest, fathoms deep. A pressure was building there behind his ribs, growing more agonizing even through his mental state of numbness.
He sent Flitwick and Luna away earlier, not able to bear their worried presences any longer. The great plover was dead and he didn't feel up to discussing it with Luna. And he certainly did not want to rehash the curse of his childhood, which she tended to bring up a little too often.
It was funny, Harry thought idly, looking at his fingernails, how he had told Hermione that he didn't think he had much longer to live. He should have known. One never tempted fate like that.
His legs itched, it felt like something was rubbing him. It dawned on Harry that something was indeed touching him. A swift hot glare downward revealed the runespoor.
§You were suppose to watch her!§ he snarled, jerking his leg back and kicking the snake across the room. §I put you in charge of her safety and you couldn't have fucked up any worse--§
§Sire, let me explain--!§ the middle head began.
§No,§ Harry sneered. §You will not explain. You can not explain it away. She is dead--§
§But sire--!§ the left head interrupted, pushing them forward.
Harry waved his hand and blasted them into the wall, taking satisfaction in the myriad of cracks that occurred. §Excuses. You think platitudes of great grasses and it's for the better will soothe my rage? She is gone forever because of your ineptitude. You will suffer as I suffer.§
§Please, sire!§ the right head entreated, waving his head wobbly as the mice raced around in circles above him. §We did as you asked, I swear!§
§Lies,§ Harry hissed menacingly. §Lies from you, dreamer? I should have known. You think all day and never do anything. You help no one--§
§You are being unreasonable my lord,§ the left head criticized, sounding stern.
Harry leveled a glare at the left head. §Unreasonable? Unreasonable! How dare you--§
§I dare,§ Logos interrupted, appearing beside the other runespoor, his fangs bared, §Because Oorjit gave me charge to watch over you in case something like this happened.§
Harry fell abruptly silent, staring at the six heads of the two runespoors. §He what?§ he asked flatly.
Logos nodded, his ruffled scales smoothing out. §Oorjit saw the pattern and was aware you might be called upon to make another sacrifice--another payment to get rid of Voldemort. With Serion and Myrtle already dead, having given up their lives for the cause, he knew he might be next. And he knew if he went, it was possible your chosen queen might follow.
§Snakes can not throw off a wizard's possession,§ Ethos reminded gently, curling protectively in front of its brethren. §You know this. It is why you killed Oorjit. Better to die by the hand of our King then to die when all of the life in us has been drained out by that wizard. Possessed, and we can not even claim a half-life. When Voldemort thought to possess Hermione we became powerless.§
§It's not fair,§ Harry growled, swiping everything off his end table with a single violent gesture.
§Apep never told us it would be.§
Harry looked at the runespoors and shook his head in defeat. What he wouldn't give to turn back the hands of time to change things.
"Daniel! Harry!" Dumbledore's voice boomed merrily from the help of a sonorous spell. The last person Harry wanted to see walked through the doorway clutching his chest.
Harry glared at the new arrival as Daniel struggled into a sitting position across from him. Several others stormed into the room after Dumbledore, speaking all together. Harry conjured earmuffs and slipped them on over his head. He didn't care to speak to lot of them, the bloody hypocrites.
A few minutes of crying and rejoicing over Daniel's safe return and the congregation turned as one on Harry. He stroked the top of Ethos brow, idly watching his ex-family stare at him. The awkward moment broke when Lily rushed forward.
"Oh, Harry," she gushed trying to hug him, knocking off his earmuffs.
He shrugged her off with a glower to rival Snape's patented sneer. "Don't touch me."
Lily trembled, her lower lip protruding as her eyes welled up with tears. "Harry, dear, your farther and I are so sorry."
Harry flicked his eyes to James before returning to Lily's. "My father is Filius Flitwick, as to you and your husband, you have only ever had the one son. He's sitting over there."
"Harry!" Sirius reprimanded as James strode over to cradle Lily's shaking shoulders. "What is wrong with you? Lily and James are apologizing, be man enough to accept that."
"What did you just say?" Harry growled dangerously, his eyes flashing bright green. "Tell me Black, what have you done to protect everyone from Voldemort. Did you kill your wife, your best friend, or any of your friends? What have you lost, you bastard! Tell me!"
Sirius remained silent, glaring hatefully at Harry.
"Nothing," Harry finished with derision. "You've lost nothing. You've done nothing."
"Harry," Remus said softly, apologetically, his voice a strangled thing. "Please."
"No, Lupin," Harry sneered, turning on him. "Whatever you want to say, I don't wish to hear. You're a coward. All of you. You have lost nothing and I have lost everything. I have to bury my wife. My new wife! Then, I have to go find her parents and let them know that their daughter is gone. Be a man you say? I have to live knowing I did everything to stop him and it still wasn't enough to save her."
"You could have done something different," Daniel spoke up, glowering at Harry. "You didn't have to kill her."
"How else do you through off a possession?" Harry threw back, glaring as well. "Ask Voldemort to free her, pretty please? No, I had no choice." He turned back to Remus and said, "So no, Lupin, I don't forgive them, or you four."
Remus flinched. Lily trembled. James and Sirius stared hard, mouths set into grim hard lines. Dumbledore looked like he wanted to object, but couldn't get enough air.
"You all claimed to be these great light wizards, but the truth is you are all a bunch of narrow-minded cretins who don't deserve to do magic. You all listened to Dumbledore, but what great truth did he speak? He won't tell me for the shame of it."
"Oh, this is entertaining," an oily voice said from the doorway. Everyone turned toward Snape as he skulked into the room. "I brought you something, Harry, but I see you're having a little family reunion. Couldn't get out?"
"It was an ambush," Harry returned, motioning Snape forward. "They don't understand the words, fuck off, so they're still here."
"Get out!" James blustered, glaring daggers at Severus. "You have no business here. We're discussing private family matters."
Snape arched an eyebrow. "I see," he droned softly. "From what I hear, you burned that bridge already, Potter. Political suicide wasn't it? Got you fired from your cushy job did it not? Malfoy cleaned your clock good, and you need Harry. That is why you're all here isn't it?"
"The hell you know," Sirius growled.
Snape passed a lazy mocking glance over the man behind James. "I know plenty, dog."
Sirius bristled. "We're here because we care for Harry."
"Ha," Harry mocked.
Snape smirked. "I read the papers," he said, his smirk growing larger. "Daniel is sick. Permanently damaged from over exposure to the black arts, the Cruciatus mainly, if I recall. You're going to ask Harry to help Daniel out once more. That is why you are here."
"I knew there was a reason for their sudden interest," Harry replied as Sirius shouted, "I'll get you, you greasy overgrown pompous windbag!"
James sprung forward ready to tear into the potions master. Snape brandished his wand, holding it steady against James' nose halting him in his tracks. "Oh dear, we are in trouble now, Potter. Call off your little lapdog."
"DAD!" Daniel shouted, struggling against Lily's hands holding him in place on the bed.
"Now Severus," Dumbledore began disapprovingly, coughing loudly.
"LET HIM GO!"
"Not this time Albus. Call off your lapdog."
"Sirius, back away," James said, shaking with impotent anger.
"But James--"
"Sirius!"
"I could turn him into stone for you," Harry offered gleefully from his bed.
Snape flicked his gaze over to Harry before returning to James. "Tempting. However, I would rather not brew the bastard another potion that takes two months of effort and time."
"Good point. I'm sure you have better things to do."
"It seems Potter," Snape sneered, "that we are at an impasse."
"I could call on the life debt you owe me. Put your wand down!"
Snape chuckled. "I owe you nothing."
"I saved your life!"
"And I gave yours back to you," Snape returned with narrowed eyes.
James' face paled, then mottled. "No," he whispered horrified.
"You should have died that night," Sirius growled, straining against Remus' hold.
"Sirius!" Remus shouted in dismay, letting go of Sirius and stepping away.
"ENOUGH!" Dumbledore yelled hoarsely, unable to draw enough air, the sonorous charm gone. His shout effectively stopped them in their tracks. They stared back at him owlishly.
"I am deeply sorry, Harry," Dumbledore inserted, his voice insistent, as he rested an aged hand on Sirius' neck, holding him back. "I made an error when I was younger that has cost you greatly. I took the evidence in at a glance and summarily decided something I had no right to decide."
"That's right, you didn't," Harry bit out. "I've been reading up on mind magics. You can hide behind the fact that entering a child's mind to find the truth would forever alter their mind--warping it beyond all recognition. That could explain your blindness then, but the mind is sufficiently settled by age eleven though when our magical core stabilizes. You could have done so then to discover the truth, but you didn't. Over the years you didn't even bother to check Daniel's lies, read him to see if his stories were true. Or me to see if I was telling the truth."
"Ah," Dumbledore said then, interrupting Harry. "Here is where we come to a significant glitch. It is my belief that when Voldemort attacked you and Daniel as children, the magic unleashed that night did more than protect you from the Killing Curse."
"Luna's already told me," Harry retorted. "So save it. I got the gist of the damn thing. Everything has a price. Voldemort wasn't expecting a pure unselfish act, the perfect counter to the evil of a killing curse and the cost of life was not paid that night. Voldemort's horcruxes kept him alive and therefore I became the recipient of a living death. I was invisible, protected from those who did not wish the best for me."
He cut a glance over at James and Lily there before flicking his eyes back to Dumbledore. "But Luna's told me I broke that protection recently with all my anger and with Voldemort unable to power up his end, the magic of the curse unraveled. I'm sure releasing it will have a cost. Everything has a cost, Dumbledore, didn't you know that? I've lost so many friends to this war. Friends nobody will remember for their bravery. They're the unsung heroes."
"Oh, Harry," Lily rushed forward again and tried to wrap Harry in a hug. "I'm so sorry."
Harry pushed her away. "Get off me, you crazy witch! You're not my mother; you've never been my mother; and you'll never be my mother; so don't start pretending to care now!"
"You don't mean that," Lily protested, reaching out to him, her eyes wet with fresh tears. "We love you and you love us. After all you went and saved Daniel--"
Harry gave a bark of laughter and scrambled up and over his mattress to avoid her and James. "I saved Daniel not for you two. And not because secretly deep down inside I still loved him like a brother. I hate him."
"You don't mean that," Dumbledore began.
"Oh, but I do. I saved Daniel for me. To prove that I was over the shit you all put me through."
"Harry--"
Harry pointed a finger at them and sneered, "Attention glory seeking Harry Potter did the right thing when you couldn't be bothered to. I stopped being a Potter long before James disowned me. I'm a Flitwick, and would have been a Flitwick sooner if Dumbledore hadn't taken to poisoning everyone's ears with drivel."
"You all should be ashamed of yourselves," Filius growled from the doorway, pushing past Remus and Sirius. Luna followed hot on his heels. "Leave my son alone. Haven't you done enough to him already? This isn't school, Albus, why are you here?"
"I needed to speak with Harry and Daniel, Filius," Dumbledore said with great calm.
"I certainly hope it is about taking their end of the year exams and not that rubbish I saw in the papers. Harry's been through enough." Filius placed his hands on his hips and glowered, managing to look menacing at barely four feet tall.
Dumbledore turned his attention back to Harry and looked at him with somber eyes. "The family you make for yourself can never replace the joy of being with your true family. If you would just hear them out and accept their apologies you would be so much happier. Surely, you still have the capacity to forgive."
Snape's lips thinned, his nostrils flaring, and Flitwick had his wand out in a flash, pointing it steadfastly at
Dumbledore. But neither of their reactions compared with Harry's anger.
"You have the audacity to come in here and tell me that I should be accepting your apologies and your condolences," he hissed, his eyes glowing."But it was the magic, Harry, you whine.So what?Others could see through it.That means you were either too weak or chose not to! Which is it?"
Harry's magic swelled in the room choking the air. Daniel, and the others gasped at the tingling rush of power. Luna stood unaffected, her intense blue eyes pinning Dumbledore in place.
"And you, Dumbledore," Harry vowed, "I promise the world will know the full extent of your actions.I won in spite of you. So go suck a lemon because I refuse to let you cry hopping pot and Beedle your way out of this one."
"Har--ack," Dumbledore began only to find himself choking on air and on Harry's power.
Harry sneered. "Have you ever considered the cost for the things you've done? Life's so much easier when you got someone to blame. It is too bad then that you can only blame yourselves. Now get out!"
With a push of magic Harry sent the lot of them flying out of the room. Even Dumbledore could not fight the wave of hatred Harry flung at them. When the last one fell down in the corridor outside the room, Harry took great satisfaction with slamming the door shut and locking it.
"Bloody hell," Daniel whispered in fear from his bed.
Harry's eyes flicked over to him and Daniel visibly shrank back against his pillows. Harry smirked.
"That was satisfying," Snape announced, his usual scowl replaced by a smile, that was even more terrifying.
"You didn't make them suffer enough," Flitwick countered, approaching Harry's bedside.
"Perhaps not, father," Harry sighed, rubbing one of the runespoors' heads, seeking comfort. "But they just weren't worth it."
Luna gazed narrowed in Daniel's direction. "No, not worth it," she agreed, sounding more somber then she had ever sounded before.
Filius enveloped him in a hug, pulling him close. "I know, son. But I would have liked to have seen it nonetheless."
---
"Hello, Harry," Luna whispered quietly, waking Harry up from disturbing dreams.
She handed him his glasses, which he gratefully put on. "What is it Luna? I didn't realize that visiting hours were still open."
"Budge over," she demanded, settling onto the tiny hospital bed with him. He scooted. "I have to tell you something."
Harry blinked sleepily, stifling a yawn. "Tell me what?"
"The wind sprites told me that time is changing. There are things you still have to do and things to do you've already done."
"That doesn't make any sense, Luna," he told her.
She turned her pale blue eyes on him. "I could send you into this blind, but your happiness means more to me, however. So please listen, it is important."
Harry's gaze turned serious as he steadied it on her. "I'm listening."
"You're about to get your secret wish," she informed him. "You must remember who you are, what you are."
"How can I not?"
"Sh…" she hushed. "The trapped hummingbird will go free. The chance to become again is ever near. A choice is to be made. The right choice will give you great happiness - the other only mild contentment. Making no choice will curse you worse than before."
"Luna," Harry murmured, shaking his head. "The hummingbird will go free? What on earth does that mean?"
"I love you, Harry," she confessed. "And not as a friend, so I pray you'll make the right choice."
"Do you know what it is?" he asked.
"Don't forget me," she whispered then, leaning forward and kissing him lightly on the mouth. "Remember I love you."
"Luna…"
"I have to go," she said hastily, scrambling backwards and running out of the room.
He saw tears on her cheeks and called out, confused. She didn't respond. Harry frowned at her retreating back, until he couldn't see her out of the open doorway. She didn't return again during the rest of his stay in the hospital.
---
Harry checked out of the hospital a week later. He managed to avoid Dumbledore's posse by switching rooms after they'd all left the first time. He had noted Daniel's sour expression and had smiled smugly to himself. It was about time Daniel was all but ignored in a room.
He gathered his meager possessions and shooed the runespoors away. It was time to check out and go home. Filius was going to be down in the lobby waiting for him and then they would go. He hoped Luna was there, he needed to speak with her, but she'd been avoiding him and his letters, much to Hedwig's distress and his own.
When he left this place he would figure out his life from there, what was left of it that was. He owed Persephone's kiss to try to change the vampire laws in Britain. Perhaps he would be a politician, use his newly acquired fame for some good. He certainly wasn't going to be an auror. Too much had been taken out of him fighting Voldemort, why would he want to go after his followers? Let others handle that.
He had Luna's warning to consider; hummingbirds and plovers, honestly. Then there was the matter of that vampire prophecy. He had to lead the snakes into greatness. How on Apep's green earth was he going to accomplish that? The challenge there alone would help him keep his mind off of his losses. There would be too much to do to brood over, or at least that is what he hoped.
He exchanged greetings with a Healer in the corridor and continued down toward the elevators. The lift came almost immediately, the doors sliding noiselessly open accompanied by the mechanical female voice heralding the floor. Harry looked up briefly noting the two Healers inside before stepping in.
"Lobby please," he intoned and the one nearest the panel pushed the button.
The doors slid shut as Harry stuck his hands into his pockets and took a deep breath. The Healers looked in askance at him but he shook his head at them. The lift opened on the following two floors to let others in an out. By the fifth floor he was alone in the lift and he breathed a sigh of relief.
He didn't want to be around strangers. Their shallow regard and open remarks were too much for him to handle. Perhaps that political route was not for him after all if he couldn't sweat the small stuff.
"Level Four: Spell Damage Ward for those unliftable jinxes, hexes, and incorrectly applied charms."
"Harry," came a frosty voice.
Oh great, Harry thought as he glanced up into identical green eyes. "Daniel."
"Leaving are we? Budge over."
Harry moved to allow Daniel entrance, saying nothing as the doors closed again.
"Why'd you do it?" Daniel asked after a moment's silence.
Harry's jaw clenched. "Do what?" he asked tersely. He didn't need this now.
"Kill her."
Harry didn't have to ask who her was, but he didn't respond to the bait. He was not going into Hermione's death with Daniel.
They past level three before Daniel spoke up again. "I couldn't have killed her for anything."
That was not what the runespoors had told him. Harry narrowed his eyes in distaste. "Hmm."
"Not even for You-Know-Who."
"Voldemort," Harry countered, unable to hold in his disgust, his upper lip curling. "That's why you failed in the end. I did what I had to."
"What… kill Hermione?"
"You think I wanted to kill my new wife?" Harry growled.
Daniel sneered, "I think you got your revenge in spite of everything."
"How dare you--" Harry hissed, slamming Daniel into the side of the elevator, locking his elbow underneath his jaw. "She was possessed. Do you understand what that means?"
"That you were a coward," Daniel returned defiantly, shoving Harry off of him. "I know you never really loved her. She wouldn't have wanted to die."
"She wouldn't have wanted staying possessed either."
"But you didn't look for options!"
"There wasn't time for options," Harry ground out, gnashing his teeth together. "My sources told me you threw a killing curse at her back. It seems to me like you came to the same conclusion that I did."
"Yes," Daniel acknowledged casually, shaking out the collar of his robes. "But I knew it wasn't going to work. Voldemort..."
"Congratulations," Harry bit out, scowling. "You can join the big boys now."
"Voldemort," Daniel continued unaffected, "would not fall to a simple thing like a killing curse. There were options. Had you had a time turner, for instance, things might have gone differently."
Harry stared at Daniel and saw red. "And you thought of this when? When there was still time to go back? I know you were delivered the mandagora potion by the Healers within six hours, Daniel. There would have been plenty of time to save her if you had just opened your mouth."
Daniel smirked. The lift opened.
"Level One: Creature-Induced Injuries including bites, stings, burns, embedded spiders, etc."
"Long enough to plan this," chortled a voice right outside the lift holding a wand.
Harry stared at his brother's doppleganger. "What are you doing?"
"Avenging Hermione," the second Daniel said casually as the original boxed Harry inside the lift. "She was always supposed to be mine you know."
"No, I don't know," he sneered, sneaking a hand into his robes.
"Like mum and dad, she and I were supposed to be together. Dumbledore promised."
Harry nodded nonchalantly, outwardly calm. "But he didn't deliver, did he?"
"No, he did not."
"Keep your hands were I can see them, Harry," the original tut-tutted.
Harry slowly eased his hand out of his pocket, clutching his wand, tense and ready. However his wand must have shown because Daniel hurled a hex at him, throwing him backwards. A disarming charm and another bludgeoner slammed into him and he lost his wand. Harry hissed in Parseltongue only to have it countered. That shouldn't be possible.
"No, brother," Daniel admonished. "No snake language for you."
"How?" shifting slightly, transforming his eyes.
"I did a little research since I woke up. Spiders if you recall are blood enemies with Basilisks. I've got your number, Harry. You can't escape."
Harry didn't get the chance to complete the transformation as the green of the killing curse washed over him. His lifeless body slumped down. Daniel snapped the holly wand in his hands and tossed them carelessly over his brother's dead body before his younger self pulled out Lavender's time turner from Professor Vector's Arithmancy project.
"See you in an hour," he said cheekily to himself before fading away.
---
"Platform 9 ¾?" Harry groused, rubbing his stinging eyes. "Why the hell am I at the bloody train station?"
"I can answer that one, young Harry," said a blonde woman with giant blue eyes wearing yellow bumblebee robes.
"And you are?"
"Luna's mother. You can think of me as Sacharissa."
"That explains the resemblance, but not how Luna got a normal name," he muttered, dropping his hand. "So why am I here then?"
Sacharissa laughed. "You're dead. I am too for that matter. This is the waiting station… purgatory."
"Oh, that makes sense," Harry grumbled recalling the bright green light Daniel had hit him with. He glanced around looking at the others milling about. "How do we leave?"
"I can leave when Xenophilius meets me here. You however could leave now."
Harry looked up, anxious. "Because Hermione's here?"
Sacharissa shook her head. "She's gone forward already."
"She didn't wait for me?" Harry asked, hurt.
"Some of us have no choice. You do. You can go back or forward."
"Go back? As in a ghost?"
She pinned him with her big blue eyes. "No, pumpkin. I meant you can live again."
"Rebirth? Or reincarnation?" Harry asked with a frown. "Wait--would I be a snake or something?"
"No, no. You're sacrifices to the war were seen as an over abundance. Fate, for the lack of a better word, is allowing you to travel back in time to your fourth year should you wish to try to change things for the better. There are things too, that Fate still wishes you to do, hummingbird, but you've died so you can not be forced into anything. You've earned your reprieve."
"I could save them," Harry said slowly.
"Yes, you could certainly try," Sacharissa replied gently, folding her hands in front of her.
"Even Hermione?"
"All the unsung heroes of the war."
Harry spared half a second to decide and nodded his head firmly. "I'll do it."
"Hold on a second there soldier," Sacharissa cautioned. "The magic to send you back has a price."
Harry looked at her wearily and sunk down onto one of the benches. "What is it?"
"Simply put. Half of your memories from year four and on will remain your own. The other half will go to Voldemort."
"Half to Voldemort! Are you insane?"
"It's the cost of keeping things balanced. This way you don't hold more knowledge of the future than Voldemort. Whatever you don't know, he does."
Harry eyed her narrowly. "I don't suppose I could choose which memories I retained then?"
"'Fraid not."
"What about my skills?"
"They would still be yours, you just might forget you have them or how to use them."
"Fate's chosen, you say?" Harry grumbled, raking a hand through his hair.
Luna's mum smiled serenely. "More like her bitch. So do you still want to go back?"
"Oh bloody hell," Harry cursed.
Sarchissa laughed. "I'll take that as a yes."
White light surrounded Harry until he had to close his eyes from the intensity.
---
Harry opened his eyes to bright sunshine and groaned, covering his face with his arm. He'd done it. He was alive again. If it worked like it was supposed to then he was back in time. Sometime around the summer before year four, which meant he was either thirteen or fourteen.
He tried recalling his adoptive father's face and came up with James' visage. That wasn't right. He remembered a girl telling him they loved him, but drew a blank when it came to her name or face. He remembered that he could use Parseltongue magic and defeated Voldemort with his animagus form's deadly gaze, but he couldn't recall how to transform or worse yet any of the locations for Voldemort's many Horcruxes, or how to defeat them.
Which meant Voldemort knew those things… but knowing the locations for the Horcruxes was something he should know already. Same with how to defeat them or at least Harry believed so. No harm there at least.
This was so bloody confusing. And if he thought it was confusing… Harry stifled a laugh, imagining Voldemort's face as the random knowledge from Harry's version of the future suddenly coming to him. Snake face's reaction would certainly have been hilarious to witness.
If only her advice came with instructions. If only he could remember who her was. Harry rubbed his temples and heaved a beleaguered sigh. Why did he always choose to be an idiot? He was a bloody Ravenclaw after all, he should be smarter than that--or at least learn from his mistakes.
§Flat face apes,§ hissed a disgruntled voice beside him, §always trampling on the little guys.§
Harry blinked and tilted his head. There half hidden in the grass was a tiny garden snake staring beadily at him.
§Serion?§ Harry breathed in disbelief.
The snake tipped its head, and said, §I do not recall meeting a speaker of the snake language before. How is it you know my name?§
Harry pushed up on his elbow and grinned at the sight of his suspicious familiar and long time friend. §That is because I am your King.§
º«««º»»»ºThe Endº«««º»»»º