Unofficial Portkey Archive

Sorry about the posting delay. Christmas is coming much too fast, and there's never a Time-Turner around when you really need one.

Those who knew Harry Potter, whether friend or enemy, knew that his courage was beyond question, being far in advance of his seventeen years. But if Harry was not a coward, neither was he a fool. When there was something worth fearing, he was afraid, nor was he ashamed to admit it. What set him apart from many a witch and wizard twice his age was that, by acknowledging his fear, he thus refused to permit it to become his master, to dictate his actions. But what value such discipline when one was about to come face-to-face - nor for the first time - with the most terrible Dark wizard ever to walk the Earth?

"What can we do?" Harry said with a quiet desperation that was not two steps removed from outright panic. "If only my dad had left his Invisibility Cloak behind. But Dumbledore told me back when he gave it to me that my dad left it with him before he died, probably for use by the Order of the Phoenix."

Hermione made one more unsuccessful attempt to open the back door before abandoning the effort. "Even if I could open it," she said, her own panic held in check by an effort of will, "we couldn't escape. Not on foot."

"Would the Disillusionment Charm work?" Harry asked as the soft knock on the front door was repeated (with a touch more force this time - or was that merely Harry's imagination?). Hermione shook her head.

"Dark Magic can penetrate the Disillusionment Charm easily," she said. "Otherwise, your mum would have used it to hide herself and you from Voldemort the first time."

Harry clapped his hand to his scar, his facial muscles tightening.

"He's getting angry," Harry gasped as his forehead burned under his fingers. "He's not going to wait any longer." Harry jerked about and raced into the living room as Hermione stared after him in bewilderment. "Don't get up, Lily," Harry called out in a light, casual voice. "I'll get it. Probably a Muggle with a collecting tin or something. I'll send them packing straightaway."

A hard, knowing smile was growing on Hermione's face as Harry looked over his shoulder, nodded once, and stood against the wall beside the front door. As Hermione stood on the opposite side of the door, Harry very carefully opened the curtains an inch or so before releasing them.

"IT'S HIM!" Harry shouted at the top of his lungs. "TAKE HARRY AND GO! I'LL HOLD HIM OFF!"

With a deafening roar, the front door exploded in a cloud of slivers and wood dust. A tall, gaunt figure stepped over the threshold, his wand poised, his dark eyes narrowed with an amalgam of anger, wariness and hatred. Giving no warning, Harry cried, "Avada Kedavra!"

A jet of green fire shot from Harry's wand and hit Voldemort full in the chest. The Dark Lord stared blankly as he collapsed like a rag doll and lay still.

Cautioning Hermione with an upraised hand, Harry stepped forward slowly, his eyes fixed on the unmoving face of Voldemort.

It can't be that easy, he thought. This isn't right..

Harry took a step backward, his gaze locked on Voldemort's slitted eyelids as he probed for the slightest twitch that would betray a sign of life lurking thereunder. He focused on Voldemort's narrow chest for long seconds, seeing no hint of inflation that would betray breathing. He dared a questioning glance up at Hermione, and in that split-second, Voldemort struck. His empty lungs having no breath to voice an incantation, Voldemort flicked his wand at Harry. A jet of red light struck Harry in the chest, sending him staggering backward, his whole body suddenly gone numb.

Hermione rushed forward, her wand pointed at Voldemort. The Dark Lord moved with inhuman speed and, drawing breath now, rasped, "Crucio!"

Voldemort laughed smoothly as his spell hit Hermione. But his smile vanished when she did not collapse in convulsions of agony, as he expected. Instead, she seemed on the verge of laughter as she thrust her wand before her in a whip-like motion and said sharply, "Expelliarmus!"

The air shimmered in front of Voldemort as its atoms hardened into a magical shield, blocking the spell aimed at depriving him of his wand. But his eyes flashed in surprise as he felt a faint tug on his wand where none should have been. In penetrating his shield, the Disarming Spell had been sapped of its full strength, rendering it too weak to snatch away his wand. But how had even a small portion of the spell got through at all?

Harry had witnessed this as he clung shakily to the high back of an easy chair. His fingers and toes were tingling. He suspected that this was the same spell which had precipitated his godfather through the fatal archway, leaving him too paralyzed to halt his backward motion toward oblivion. Harry would himself have been helpless before Voldemort without Hermione's unhesitating assault. She rushed over to him now, worry in her deep brown eyes. She touched him with her wand, and waves of gentle warmth spread through him, sweeping away the numbness. Their eyes met for a moment before they turned as one to face Voldemort.

The Dark Lord was on his feet now, regarding his two attackers analytically, yet also with a sort of casual dismissiveness. His attitude reminded Harry of a wolf that had just fended off an attack by an unusually assertive mouse. Though his opponents' wands were pointed directly at him, he betrayed no sign of concern. Instead, a thin, hard smile spread slowly across his gaunt face.

"You are full of surprises, Potter," he said, sounding almost amused. "I would not have thought you capable of employing the Killing Curse. Many a wizard twice your age cannot summon sufficient magic to empower it. It was quite adequate, actually. Any other wizard would have fallen dead at your feet. But Lord Voldemort is not any wizard. I have delved deeper into the mysteries of death than any before me. My Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher at Hogwarts assured me that there was no way to block the Killing Curse. And that is true. But as you can see, there are ways to alter the human body into something more than human so as to render the Curse ineffective."

This was not news to Harry. It was this protection that had saved Voldemort from his own rebounding Curse the night he tried to kill the one-year-old child whom he perceived to be his greatest potential enemy. But for all its devastating effect, that had been merely a reflected Killing Curse. Harry had hoped that a direct attack, employing the Curse in its pure, unadulterated form, would succeed where the lesser form had failed. In the end, his hope had proved forlorn. What matter if his spell lacked sufficient power due to his youth, or if Voldemort's transformed body were proof against the Curse in any form? The result was the same either way. He had spun the wheel of Chance, and lost.

Voldemort now turned his attention to Hermione. His lip curled into a sneer that was almost a mirror image of the one Malfoy habitually wore.

"What is it with you and Mudbloods, Potter? Oh, yes, I can smell them. Their stench is unmistakable. Pure-blood witches not good enough for you? Or are you simply not wizard enough to satisfy a true witch?"

Neither Harry nor Hermione deigned reply. They bided their time, Harry marshaling his returning strength as they both watched for an opening they might exploit, either for attack or flight.

"This one must be an Auror," Voldemort continued, an unmistakable note of contempt in his voice as his obsidian eyes avoided direct contact with hers. "She has a determined look about her, not to say an uncommon wisdom and skill. Why did my Cruciatus not work against her? I wonder…"

Harry was stung by Voldemort's unwillingness to address Hermione personally, as though being Muggle-born rendered her beneath his notice.

"I wonder…" Voldemort continued to ponder in a low mutter. With a quick motion of his wand, he sent tiny wisps of vapor swirling around Harry and Hermione like ghostly serpents. They closed in, tightened. But when they would have wrapped themselves around the young couple in a strangling grasp, instead they dissipated into smoke and drifted away harmlessly. "Yes," Voldemort hissed appreciatively. "Indeed. Very clever."

In another move too quick for the eye to follow, Voldemort unleashed a violent burst of golden energy at the young couple. Harry quickly saw that what appeared at first glance to be a single glowing sphere roughly the size of a football was, in fact, a tight mass of many hundreds, perhaps thousands, of individual points that coruscated like coals from a fire grate. The whole was like a seething, quivering mass of angry bees composed of glowing light. At a casual flick of Voldemort's wand, these erupted in a silent explosion and swarmed around and around Harry and Hermione, who clung to each other as their minds sought in vain for a viable response. But this was like nothing they had ever seen before, and lacking an understanding of it, they were powerless to defend against it.

Harry felt pricking sensations on his skin, like tiny electric shocks. The glowing specks seemed to be probing, as if searching him and Hermione. Searching for - what?

Without warning, Hermione screamed. Dreading what awaited him even as he jerked his head around, Harry saw that Hermione was clawing desperately at her Bonding Ring, which was enveloped in a glowing halo composed of the tiny points of light. The lights had apparently been searching for the source of the Inversion Charm, and they had found it. But what were they doing to Hermione? Tears were coursing down her cheeks as her throat rumbled in a long, rising cadence of agony. Harry instinctively grabbed at her ring, sweeping away the stinging motes of light, only to jerk his hand back an instant later as he cried out in surprise and pain. The ring was burning hot! An acrid smell touched Harry's nostrils - the smell of the skin of Hermione's finger searing where the ring encircled it! Acting without thought, Harry pointed his wand and, his eyes locked on Hermione's Bonding Ring, cried, "Accio!"

The ring flew from Hermione's finger, leaping over her wedding band by means of the built-in Sizing Spell common to wizard jewelry. Reacting without thought, Harry slapped it aside. In that brief instant of contact, he both felt and heard the flesh of his left palm sizzle. Harry stared aghast at Hermione's ring finger. There was a red, raw band of burned flesh on her finger marking the place where the Bonding Ring had sat only moments before. Unable to think of a better reply, Harry sent a beam of numbing cold from his wand-tip onto Hermione's hand. Hermione yelped sharply, but almost instantly she relaxed as the burning sensation abated.

From the corner of his eye, Harry was surprised to see that Voldemort was now holding Hermione's ring, which seemed to be normal once more, as Voldemort showed no sign of discomfort. Or perhaps he had sacrificed so much of his former humanity that he was no longer subject to pain, as were "lesser mortals." Harry longed to test that theory with the Cruciatus Curse.

"An Inversion Charm," Voldemort said analytically, sounding almost bored. "Not an easy spell to master, especially for one so young." Voldemort tossed the ring aside indifferently. It clattered to the floor out of Harry's sight. "Now," Voldemort hissed through a terrible smile, "to business. Where are your wife and son, Potter?"

"With Dumbledore," Harry said, seeing no point in lying. "You can't hurt them now."

"That is true," Voldemort agreed with surprising amicability. "I cannot hurt them...now. But there will be another time. They cannot hide under Dumbledore's robes forever. And when I find them again - as find them I shall - who will be there to stop me? Not you, James. You will be dead."

Harry clung fiercely to Hermione, his eyes fearful not for his life, but for hers. Voldemort seemed to sense this, and his eyebrows rose.

"Cheating on your wife, Potter? And with…this?" He looked disdainfully at Hermione. "Granted, Lily is a Mudblood, but she is at least a comely one. She would have made a passable handmaid in my keep…a plaything to amuse my Death Eaters in times of boredom. But this one…" Voldemort flashed his Malfoy-like sneer again.

Seething with rage, Harry snapped, "If you're going to kill us, Tom, I'd rather you made a quick job of it with your wand rather than boring us to death with your foul mouth!"

Voldemort's face abruptly contorted with a smoldering fury. "What did you call me, Potter?" he said in a low, dangerous hiss.

"What," Harry said defiantly, "you don't like your Muggle name? Personally, I think it suits you. You are a half-blood, after all." Playing the role of his father to the utmost, he added boldly, "Come to that, my son has purer blood than you do. At least his parents are both wizards."

Voldemort was now quivering with rage. He did not level his wand, but continued to hold it casually, fearlessly. "I was going to kill you quickly, Potter. But I think I will enjoy watching you die slowly. You and your Mudblood whore."

At some point, Hermione had switched her wand to her left hand, allowing her right arm to encircle Harry's waist and hold him firmly against her. Her left hand still ached from the fresh burn on her ring finger, but she had more than enough strength to grip her wand in anticipation of a last, gloriously defiant stand with her husband at her side.

As she stared at the predatory face of the wizard who would in all likelihood become her executioner very shortly, Hermione felt Harry's arm encircling her waist. His hand was on her hip, and to her utter bafflement, he was pressing his fingers into her flesh avidly, much as he had during their romantic liaison above the Leaky Cauldron. She thought at first it was no more than a final, wordless reminder by Harry of his love for her, a silent thank-you for their one (and, it now appeared, only) moment of carnal passion in the last hours of their brief lives. But she revised this thought as the true nature of Harry's action burst upon her. His fingers were applying and withdrawing their pressure in a pattern, one which she recognized. He was "speaking" to her with his fingers, giving her specific instructions using a secret Auror's code that was not unlike Muggle Morse code. It was one of the many things they had practiced together in the Room of Requirement at school last year.

When Harry's hand relaxed at last, his message completed, Hermione responded with a systematic squeeze of her own hand. Harry tapped her hip once in acknowledgment. Voldemort could not see the inner smile hidden behind the razor-thin line of Hermione's steely lips. If she and Harry were destined to die, by Merlin they would go down fighting!

Giving no warning, Harry exploded into action before Voldemort could bring his wand to bear.

"Lumos Magnus!"

A burst of light exploded from Harry's wand, like a hundred kilos of flash powder igniting from a thousand wizard cameras. Voldemort screamed, blinded, his left hand darting up to shield his eyes.

Harry had squeezed his eyes shut a moment before his incantation left his lips. Hermione had done likewise, but even as the blinding light filled the small chamber, she whirled about and pointed her wand at the bookcases lining the wall on either side of the fireplace.

"Animatus Libris!"

The books leaped from their shelves like a murder of falcons and fell upon Voldemort. They swirled around him, smote him from every side with relentless fury. Enraged, he sent bursts of destructive energy in every direction, causing books to explode in clouds of charred and shredded paper. But the pages themselves wheeled in mid-air and turned to the attack. Whereas the books had swarmed in the hundreds, the loose pages numbered in the thousands. Like a cloud of locusts they smothered Voldemort, covered him layer upon layer until he resembled a mummy. He fell to the floor, twisting like a snake, his muffled screams reverberating from the chamber.

Knowing they could not hope to defeat Voldemort in open combat, Harry had planned this coordinated attack solely to permit them to dash past him and out the door, where they would have at least some small chance of escaping while their enemy was disoriented. But they saw to their dismay that Voldemort, though for the moment blind and impotent, was writhing squarely in the doorway which was their only egress from the Potter house.

Both were at a loss how to proceed. Should they employ a Summoning Charm to yank the thrashing figure from their path, they might inadvertently tear the clinging pages from Voldemort, freeing him. A Levitation Charm? A Stunning Spell? They did not know how powerful were Voldemort's personal defensive spells. Any spells they cast might backfire against them. But Harry's mind suddenly flashed on the Disarming Spell Hermione had hurled at Voldemort when she had rushed to his aid following the Dark Lord's surprise attack on him. Had he imagined it? No, he remembered it clearly. But what did it mean? He cuffed himself mentally. There was no time for this. He had to decide on a course of action, and now.

The decision was abruptly rendered moot when, in startling fashion, Voldemort suddenly burst into flames before their eyes. The smothering pages curled into ash, and, like Fawkes the phoenix rising from his own pyre, Voldemort rose to his feet smoothly. Neither his skin nor his robes showed any sign of the flames which had consumed his prison of paper. His smile was terrible to behold.

"Fire is but an element of nature," he said contemptuously. "And what is nature compared to the power of Lord Voldemort? The universe itself is my playground, and all about me merely toys existing for my amusement. But toys are by nature temporary. One grows tired of them. And they do break so easily. Let us see how easily you break, shall we?"

Hermione's wand had slipped from her left hand, which was now stiff and unresponsive, both from her burn and Harry's Freezing Charm. She wrapped both arms around Harry, who stood defiantly with his wand pointed at Voldemort. The air wavered before her eyes. She blinked, thinking herself dazed and on the verge of losing consciousness. But she realized after a moment that it was the air itself that was at fault. Harry had erected a protective barrier around them. She knew it would not prevent their deaths. Voldemort's Dark magic would eventually break through. But at least they would die as they had lived: Together.

In a sudden, savage attack, Voldemort released a burst of energy from his wand. It struck Harry's barrier like a giant fist, the impact staggering them. But to Hermione's astonishment, the barrier did not shatter. Voldemort seemed equally surprised. Roaring his fury, the Dark Lord sent another explosive burst of magical energy against the barrier separating him from his foes. This time the blow knocked Harry and Hermione to the floor. The barrier wavered, fluctuated - and promptly reasserted itself.

Voldemort stared in disbelief. His black eyes narrowed to slits. "This is not possible," he muttered. His slitted eyes seemed to turn inward as his brow furrowed. "The Disarming Spell…" he whispered. With sharp, decisive strokes, he waved his wand before him, tracing what appeared to be intricate runes in the air. Ghostly traces of this writing lingered momentarily before fading to nothingness. Voldemort shook his head again. "Only two," he said, speaking to himself in a distracted manner. "And yet…there must be no fewer than three…"

"What is he talking about?" Hermione said faintly, her curiosity raging like wildfire even in the face of torture and death. "What does it mean?"

"I think I know," Harry said. "I don't know how…but there's only one answer…only one possible explanation…the Blood Circle."

Hermione's eyes went wide. "How can we have completed the spell without Ron? How can the two of us have formed the triangle without the third side?"

Voldemort was continuing to mutter to himself, his rage swept away by confusion. He scarcely seemed aware that Harry and Hermione were present.

"There's only one answer I can think of," Harry said, speaking in a low hush. He appeared to be speaking mechanically, his attention riveted on Voldemort as he held himself at the ready for the next assault which must come sooner or later. "The answer is in my scar."

"Your scar?"

"When we all drank Snape's potion," Harry said, "it was supposed to infuse you, me and Ron with a small fragment of Voldemort. In concert with the Blood Circle spell, that would give us a special resistance to Voldemort's magic. It would also attune our magic to Voldemort's 'wavelength,' so to speak, allowing our own spells to breach his defenses."

"But how can the Blood Circle be activated without Ron?" Hermione pressed. "The spell simply can't work with less than three people."

"But you're forgetting," Harry said, "what I myself forgot until just now. That even before I drank the potion, I already had a part of Voldemort inside me. Dumbledore said that when the Killing Curse rebounded from me and hit Voldemort, it accidentally transferred some of his powers to me. That's why I can speak parseltongue. Don't you see? When I drank the potion, I wasn't acquiring a fragment of Voldemort, as you and Ron were doing. I was adding another piece to the one I already had."

"Are you saying," Hermione said incredulously, "that you alone are supplying two sides of the triangle?"

"What other explanation is there?" Harry hissed. "It's only now, with you next to me, that the Blood Circle was fully activated. You supplied the third side to the triangle. How else do you explain that your Disarming Spell nearly penetrated Voldemort's shield when you first attacked him?"

"Did it?" Hermione whispered in surprise. "I didn't look back to see. I only cast the spell as a distraction so I'd have time to get to you."

"Exactly," Harry said. "Your thoughts were centered entirely on me. That must have 'connected' us somehow - maybe through our Bonding Rings - enabling the Charm for just a moment. Only a powerful emotion could have done that. The Blood Circle is all about emotional bonds, remember. Friendship. Loyalty. Love. And Snape's potion is part of the spell. Nothing else could have breached Voldemort's defenses. And the potion can only function as a part of the whole, ergo the Blood Circle must have been activated. And since you and I are the only members present…"

"This was never in the textbooks," Hermione said faintly.

"That's because no one ever survived the Killing Curse like I did," Harry said. "Be a shame if we don't live to revise the textbooks for future generations, wouldn't it?"

"I always wanted to write a book on magic," Hermione said bravely. "I've spotted more than a few errors in some of the books at Hogwarts."

"There's only one problem," Harry said. "The spell works by all the members of the Circle channeling their magic through one point. I was designated as the Focus Point, and nothing can alter that. It was supposed to be two sides - you and Ron - supporting the third one, me. The spell wasn't designed for one side to support the other two." Harry looked into Hermione's eyes, love and hope and desperation pouring out of his soul and into hers. "Can you do it alone?"

Hermione had no chance to reply. Voldemort's internal debate had reached a resolution, and the Dark Lord cast an appraising eye on Harry and Hermione, lingering foremost upon the latter.

"This is your doing, Mudblood," Voldemort said, his tone almost complimentary as he regarded Hermione appraisingly. Harry almost detected a grudging respect in the Dark Lord's flinty eyes. "Between this and the Inversion Charm, you have indeed proven yourself worthy of serving Lord Voldemort."

Hermione's insides jumped. Harry's turned to ice.

"Potter is of no moment," Voldemort went on, his head jerking shortly in a dismissive gesture. He appeared to be talking to himself rather than addressing his audience. "I will kill him - when I tire of playing with him. But the Mudblood will serve me under the Imperius Curse. It may prove amusing to see how many Muggles die through her servitude to the cause. And mayhap I misspoke earlier…she may make a passable handmaid. Crabbe or Goyle may find some sport with her. She would be a marginal improvement over those trollish wives of theirs, at the very least. If I didn't know they were purebloods…"

Harry had heard enough. He squeezed Hermione, at which signal she concentrated and focused all her magical energy through her fingertips and into Harry. Harry felt a surge, as of adrenaline. His senses sharpened. His muscles hummed.

With the swiftness of a striking cobra, Harry flicked his wand, and the hundreds upon hundreds of slivers of wood which had been the front door of the Potter house leaped up from the floor and flew at Voldemort like a swarm of angry hornets. Some of the tiny missiles were slender as needles, and Harry saw pinpoints of blood appear on Voldemort's hands and face. Attuned to Voldemort's personal aura, Harry's magic was, if but for moments at a span, the equal of Voldemort's. His scar hummed in tune with the potion flowing through his veins.

The Dark Lord covered his eyes, screaming with rage and confusion as his personal shield, powered by ancient Dark Magicks and theoretically impregnable, failed to prevent this attack upon his inviolable person. Spurred by Harry's sympathetic magic, each fragment of wood was charged by a magical aura which Voldemort's shield recognized as a part of itself. The shield was designed to protect its master against unfamiliar magicks, not its own. Each tiny missile was inconsequential in itself, but in numbers they were formidable weapons indeed.

Drawing now on his Auror training, Harry employed his surroundings as weapons. If Voldemort's physiology were altered to render magical attack impotent, Harry would use purely physical attacks which, if they would not kill his foe, might yet disorient him enough so that the young time-travelers might escape into the night. A jerking motion of his wand shattered the front window, and the shards of glass flew at Voldemort, slashing him like tiny razors. Screaming his wrath while covering his eyes with his left arm, Voldemort lashed out with a fusillade of attacking spells. Harry worried for a moment that his opponent would unleash the one spell against which there was no defense: The Killing Curse. But even for one as powerful as Voldemort, the Killing Curse required sufficient force of will to be effective. A clear head was needed for the Dark Lord to use that most potent of spells, and therefore that was the one thing Harry was determined to deny him.

Voldemort was now bleeding from hundreds of tiny cuts. Harry prepared to unleash another magical onslaught, but suddenly he felt Hermione sag at his side. He caught at her with his left hand, realization like a lump of stone in his gut. As he had feared from the first, the task of empowering the Blood Circle by herself had proved too great a burden for Hermione's small form. Of courage and fortitude she had no lack, but these alone were not enough. Like a thread of spider silk snapping, Harry's concentration broke. The magic with which Hermione had been strengthening him withdrew back into her own body as she instinctively endeavored to ward off an encroaching dizziness brought on by Harry's forceful attacks. The power that had been humming like electric current through Harry vanished as at the throwing of a switch. Harry glanced at Hermione for only a moment, assuring himself that her valiant efforts had not wrought any serious harm . When he turned back to Voldemort, the Dark Lord was laughing, the sound terrible as it issued from his blood-stained face.

Voldemort's wand lashed out, and the floor under Harry's feet exploded with the force of a volcano! There was no cellar under the Potter house. A geyser of dirt and rocks and foundation stones erupted, throwing Harry and Hermione off their feet. Their arms slipped from each other's waists as they fell back. Harry's protective barrier flickered and died.

Voldemort's wand flashed again. Hermione flew up and across the room, slamming against the empty bookshelves like a rag doll hurled by a petulant child. She slumped to the floor and lay unmoving.

"HERMIONE!" Harry screamed.

"She is not dead," Voldemort said. "I said she would serve me, and so she shall. But I did not promise that she would not suffer.

"But I can promise that her suffering will be as nothing next to yours!"

Harry's mind was racing at breakneck speed. He was remembering his Auror training, recalling the dogma repeatedly hammered into his brain by Tonks and Moody.

"Every opponent has a weakness that can be exploited," Moody growled incessantly. "If you know what it is, and if you've been trained to respond in precisely the right way, you can beat anyone!"

"Knowledge is the key," Tonks stressed at every opportunity. "If you know something about your opponent that he doesn't know you know, you can use it against him, and he won't be able to stop what he doesn't understand."

And Harry knew what he had to do.

"This ends now, Tom!" Harry said angrily.

"So it does, Potter," Voldemort said coolly. "Crucio!"

Harry dodged the spell by a hair's breadth . The beam from Voldemort's wand struck the fireplace, sending chips of stone flying like jagged shrapnel. Harry maneuvered across the room, trying for the angle he sought, the only angle that would serve his purpose. But Voldemort was a strategist, and he continued to attack Harry from odd angles which permitted no response. Beams of energy shot over Harry's shoulder, grazed his legs, even nicked his ear once. Voldemort was toying with him as a sadistic child might play with an insect trapped in a shoebox. The Cruciatus Curse had grazed him more than once, and sparks of pain danced through his body, slowing his movements. Maybe he was going about things the wrong way, he thought. Maybe -

A lance of red flame singed Harry's side. He cried out - and so, to his amazement, did Voldemort. The Dark Lord staggered, his free hand clutching at his chest. Harry wondered what had occurred, but he had no time to ponder the mystery. If his plan had any chance of working, he would have to take this last, desperate gamble.

Harry stumbled, fell on his back. He rose quickly to his knees, only to find himself looking full into the face of Voldemort.

"You would have made a good rat, Potter," Voldemort said. "You scurry about as well as Wormtail ever did."

"Never compare me to that son of a bitch!" Harry barked.

Startled by Harry's outburst, Voldemort narrowed his smile in concert with his eyes.

"I am going to enjoy watching you scream in agony, Potter," Voldemort breathed. "Crucio!"

Before the first syllable had passed Voldemort's lips, Harry aimed his wand straight and true and cried, "Avada Kedavra!"

The beams from the two wands met precisely in mid-air, exactly as Harry had hoped. It was necessary for him to be facing Voldemort squarely for this to come about, forcing Harry to feign stumbling so as to draw Voldemort into abandoning his previous tactics in favor of a frontal assault. The two beams of magical energy locked fast. Harry enjoyed the look of surprise that spread across Voldemort's face. Knowledge was the key, Tonks had said. Knowledge possessed by one but not the other. Here, it was the knowledge that Harry's wand and Voldemort's were brothers, both possessed of a core consisting of a phoenix feather taken from the tail of Albus Dumbledore's faithful pet. This was something of which Voldemort was unaware in the year 1981. Advantage: Harry. Furthermore, Harry had experienced this unique phenomenon during his first duel with Voldemort more than two years ago. Whereas Voldemort was now faced with the unknown, Harry was armed with the knowledge that might yet save his life.

Harry saw the tiny bead of energy marking the point where the two beams met. He knew that, left to their own devices, his and Voldemort's opposing beams would shortly split into hundreds of tiny filaments, spreading out to envelop them in a shimmering, impenetrable golden dome. Harry was counting on this. With the two of them locked inside that magical cage, there would be no escape for either of them until one had conquered the other. Seeing Voldemort's confusion escalating, Harry poured every ounce of energy and will power into forcing that bead of magical energy back toward Voldemort's wand.

Voldemort's bewilderment became full-blown astonishment as filaments of energy burst from his and Harry's wand-tips, spread out on all sides and wove themselves into a golden cage around the two of them.

No, Harry corrected himself with a twinge of silent anguish. The three of them. The magical cage had molded itself to the edges of the small room, encompassing Hermione as well as himself and Voldemort. Some small hope had lurked in the back of his brain that the cage would not be so large as to envelop Hermione. If she were outside, she would have had some chance of escaping whatever befell the combatants inside their golden prison. But the room was simply too small to permit this. It had been Harry's intention, did no other way present itself, to sacrifice his own life if he must, if in so doing he could take Voldemort with him while sparing Hermione. Could he now unleash his full power with Hermione in harm's way?

He had no choice. It was as she herself had said: At least they would die together. And now, as opposed to earlier scenarios, they might be able to take Voldemort with them. For just a moment, Harry thought that Hermione's life in exchange for a world free from Voldemort was too high a price. To him, she was worth a hundred worlds. A million. But the moment passed, and Harry steeled his soul for what he knew he must attempt.

Even without the Blood Circle, Harry was confident that this encounter would not end as had the first in the cemetery in Little Hangleton. Then, he had been too inexperienced and ill-prepared to face his enemy. But many things had changed in the intervening two-plus years. Harry was of age now. He had trained for the better part of a year to think and act as an Auror. His magic was stronger now (though, admittedly, not in the same league as Voldemort's), and his confidence was born of knowledge rather than cocksureness.

And there was the potion. Even without the Blood Circle spell, Harry believed that Snape's potion had interacted with the portion of Voldemort's powers that already slumbered in his body. As he engaged Voldemort now, Harry did not feel the familiar burning in his scar which proximity with the Dark Lord always engendered. Instead, his scar was humming - or perhaps that was merely the Phoenix song rising now to fill the small chamber, the echoes of which bathed his soul like warm, comforting rain.

With his magically-enhanced blood attuned to Voldemort's, Harry was confident that he could defend himself against the Dark Lord better than anyone, with the notable exception of Albus Dumbledore. Dumbledore was, it was said, the one wizard whom Voldemort feared. Even now, there was no fear of Harry in Voldemort's eyes. But there was something almost as potent: Uncertainty. Voldemort did not understand what was happening, how Harry had stymied him at every turn. How could he? How could even Voldemort imagine an enemy traveling back in time to use his own powers against him? If he saw the scar on Harry's forehead, he could not suspect its true meaning. Knowledge was Harry's edge - his only advantage. But it was a tenuous dam to hold back the tide of Voldemort's inhuman might. Unless Harry could turn back that tide quickly, it would ultimately overwhelm him. This was his one and only chance to avenge himself for a life of suffering and torment. Nor were his concerns for himself alone. If Voldemort lived, his parents - and his younger self - would always be in danger of renewed attack. No. No half-measures this time. It would be his life - his and Hermione's - for Voldemort's. More than a fair exchange, he thought, to rid the world of a monster.

And he knew deep inside that he could do it. Voldemort's own power was surging inside Harry. A scorpion was vulnerable to its own sting. Harry's whole being concentrated on turning Voldemort's power back on itself, destroying the source of that power utterly.

Harry staggered momentarily, his concentration wavering for a split-second. He was growing weak, more quickly than he had anticipated. Voldemort had boasted that he was become more (or less) than human. His vitality was not a natural one, and Harry feared now that he must finish the matter quickly or succumb to his opponent's inhuman stamina. Feeling his legs beginning to shake under the strain of his intense concentration, Harry backed up, hoping he might find something solid, perhaps a chair, upon which to rest. He dared not look back, for to take his eyes from the bead he was slowly forcing up his wand-beam might result in a slipback. He inched backward, praying he would not stumble on the debris littering the floor.

With a suddenness that surprised him, he felt his back impact with the rough stones of the fireplace. Taking some of the weight from his legs, he relaxed and held his wand arm as steady as he could.

Voldemort was wide-eyed, his wand-arm shaking as he tried to fathom so many unexpected phenomena, one heaped upon another in a seemingly endless profusion. Harry sent another surge of will power through his wand, and the bead slid forward another inch. This seemed to send a small shock of electricity through Voldemort's hand, and Harry enjoyed the alarmed expression that grew on the wizard's blood-stained face.

Harry wondered now whether the Priori Incantatum would occur, as it had the first time. Would his purpose be aided thereby? He didn't know, nor, he realized, did he care.

When he had found himself in this situation more than two years ago, he had been less a participant than a spectator, carried along by events he did not understand and therefore feared to influence. Not so now. Magic was a mindless force, impelled by the will of him who was its master. The last time, events had unfolded of their own volition, undirected. Now, Harry would exert his will to ensure the outcome he sought.

It was not by whim or chance that he had employed the Killing Curse as the counter to Voldemort's Cruciatus. It was Harry's intention to force his Curse straight into Voldemort's wand and compel it to rebound upon him. Harry had failed earlier this evening when he used the Killing Curse on Voldemort. But that spell had been backed solely by Harry's own magic, against which Voldemort's defenses were proof. But now he was drawing on all his power - and upon the remnants of the Blood Circle - to force Voldemort's own Dark power to rebound against him. It was Harry's hope to recreate the incident that had resulted in Voldemort's destruction, the one which he and Hermione had prevented this very night. But there would be a crucial difference this time. Baby Harry had survived the rebound Curse only through the magical protection imparted by his mother's sacrifice. This time, there was nothing to protect Harry - nor Hermione - from the terrible aftermath.

But now, as minutes crawled by like hours, a new factor entered the equation. Harry was beginning to feel anew the aches and pains induced by Voldemort's glancing Curses. An unexpected wave of nausea surged through him. His vision blurred. To his horror, he saw the bead surge back toward him. No, he thought desperately. Forward! The bead advanced an inch or so and stopped. Voldemort's face tightened with concentration. The bead slid back toward Harry again.

A throbbing pain shot through Harry's side. The glancing Curse that had just missed tearing a hole in his chest had evidently done some peripheral damage. The excitement of the moment - abetted, perhaps, by shock - had dulled the pain, but in the wake of Harry's waning concentration, it surged through him now with breath-quickening lances of rippling fire. He brought his left hand up against his side, thinking to compress the area and arrest the hot tide flowing through his ribs. But when he made contact with his side, his arm stiffened in surprise. He slipped his hand into his pocket and pulled out - Tom Riddle's diary!

The battered book was sticky with Harry's blood. Harry's eyes went instinctively to the gaping hole made by the basilisk's fang in the Chamber of Secrets. But his gaze was suddenly arrested by another, smaller mark, one which he did not recognize. There was a tiny burn mark on the edge of the book. Harry remembered when Voldemort's Curse had grazed his left side, and Voldemort had cried out, clutching his chest. Could there be a connection? Under the circumstances, could there not be?

Harry's desperate speculation was interrupted by a low groan to his left. From the corner of his eye, he could just see Hermione moving feebly, struggling to rise.

"Hermione!" Harry rasped.

Harry's concentration wavered for only a moment, but it was his undoing. With a savage roar, Voldemort sent the bead a full two feet closer to the tip of Harry's wand. Harry fought to send it away from him and toward Voldemort, but it was no use. The Dark Lord now had the upper hand. Despair washed over Harry like an icy tide. It was over. Harry could see the light of triumph on Voldemort's face. They both knew that there was no way to stop that bead from being thrown all the way back to Harry's wand. The Killing Curse invoked by his own lips would surge back upon him and kill him. And with that realization, Harry shifted his mind into Auror mode and made a decision. He surrendered.

The first time his and Voldemort's wands had dueled, he had been warned repeatedly, "Don't break the connection!" It had been sound advice then. Voldemort had unleashed the Killing Curse on him. Had he been unable to jump away in time, the Curse would have hit him squarely, killing him instantly. But now, in a manner of speaking, he wanted Voldemort's Curse to strike him.

Timing would be critical. Harry's hands tensed, the one on his wand, the other on the diary. With a sharp jerk, Harry flung his wand straight up, the beam blasting a hole in the ceiling and showering him with plaster dust as the golden cage winked out. In the same motion, he bought the diary up before him, interposing it between his body and the point of Voldemort's wand. Voldemort's Curse - the Cruciatus - struck the diary. And Voldemort screamed. He collapsed to the floor in a paroxysm of agony as Harry staggered back under the force of the spell. His muscles turning to water, Harry slumped back against the fireplace, too weak to move.

So you can feel pain, you sodding bastard, Harry thought sluggishly as he sagged against the rough stones. At least I did that much to you.

But that thought brought small comfort. Again he had miscalculated Voldemort's inhuman vitality. The Dark Lord was already shrugging off the effects of the Curse, which would have left an ordinary wizard with scarcely enough strength to breathe, much less move. But Harry's greatest miscalculation had been in overestimating his own vitality. Even had Voldemort been incapacitated, Harry was himself clinging to consciousness by the slimmest of threads. His wand had fallen from his grasp when he collapsed, along with the diary, and he could do no more than stare down at his empty hands in a kind of torpid vacuousness, his eyes lacking even the impetus to blink.

Voldemort rose slowly, the pain ebbing away quickly with the termination of the Curse. His face was livid. He glowered down at Harry, his wand leveled. Then his terrible scowl became an even more terrible smile.

"Dumbledore taught you well, Potter," Voldemort said. "Perhaps they should carve that on your tombstone, that you acquitted yourself in combat with Lord Voldemort. I can imagine worse epitaphs."

His body feeling as though an overpowering weight were pressing on him, yet defiance burned undimmed in Harry's eyes as he fixed his gaze on Voldemort. He longed to spit in Voldemort's face, though the gesture came with his dying breath, if only to wipe the smile from his countenance one last time. Lacking his wand, he felt his fingers closing reflexively around the shaft of a ghost-wand, which he envisioned his arm pointing unwaveringly at Voldemort. His eyes drooped, and he smiled as his mind's eye conjured the image of his enemy falling dead at his feet in a burst of emerald light.

He heard soft footfalls approaching. He knew Voldemort must be closing the distance between them, wanting, perhaps, to look directly into Harry's eyes when he unleashed the Killing Curse. Harry would not give him the satisfaction. If he could not prevent Voldemort from killing him, he would not grant his murderer the adjunctive triumph of gloating in his face. In a last act of defiance, his head lolled on his shoulders, his eyes opening slowly…

It was fortunate that Harry had not the strength to cry out, else Voldemort would have turned and seen as well. Hermione was propped up on one elbow. She was holding her wand - no, that couldn't be right. Harry had seen Hermione's wand fly away when Voldemort made the floor explode under them. There was only one answer. She was holding his wand. Harry's heart surged. Courageous to the end, Hermione, like Harry, was unwilling to die passively. If death was to be her portion, she would sell her life as high as she might. How he wished he had the strength to draw one more breath and tell her how much he loved her one last time.

"What is this?"

Harry's eyes darted away from Hermione, his insides turning to ice. Voldemort was now looking down on Hermione, an amused expression on his cruel face.

"The Mudblood thinks she can use your wand against Lord Voldemort better than you did, Potter. Let us see, shall we? Come, little Mudblood. Demonstrate your vaunted Auror's might against Lord Voldemort."

Hermione pointed Harry's wand with trembling fingers and gasped, "A-Ava…Avada…"

Her head and hand drooped together, and Voldemort laughed.

"Is that the best an Auror can do? Surely you can do better than that, little Mudblood. Try another Curse - say, the Cruciatus. I daresay it is one of my favorites."

Hermione struggled to lift her head as she mumbled, "Cr…Cru…"

Voldemort exploded with laughter. His wand was no longer directed at either Harry or Hermione. He held it casually, employing it more like an ornament than a weapon. He turned toward Harry again, his manner supremely confident.

"I was right about this one, Potter. Once I have shackled her mind with the Imperius, she will make a fitting servant for Lord Voldemort. A pity you will not live to see that happy circumstance." His dark eyes twinkling evilly, Voldemort remarked, "If she were strong enough, I might even command her to kill you, just to see the look on both of your faces. But no," he said with a shake of his head. "There will be ample apportunity for her to serve me in this manner. But your death, James - that is a pleasure I reserve for myself. You have thwarted me this night, James Potter, and Lord Voldemort ever repays those who dare to defy him."

Voldemort raised his wand slowly. He appeared to be savoring every moment of the triumph he had always known must be. Unwilling to give his enemy the satisfaction of betraying even a hint of fear (though, in fact, he was as afraid as his waning strength would permit), Harry averted his eyes again. His gaze fell once more on Hermione. To his amazement and abiding admiration, she was raising his wand yet again. But he knew it was hopeless. Any spell powerful enough to harm a wizard of Voldemort's might would require the fullest possible concentration. Voldemort himself had known that when he taunted her. Injured as she obviously was, she had no more hope of unleashing an Unforgivable Curse upon him than of heaving the Potter house onto her shoulders and pitching it across the English Channel. Harry would have been surprised if she had the strength to make a feather levitate as she had done in Flitwick's classroom six years ago. But none of that mattered. All he knew was that the last thing he would ever see before Voldemort's Killing Curse snuffed out his life was Hermione's beautiful and courageous face. And that, he thought, was worth dying for, and more.

Voldemort was holding his wand steady now - and so, to Harry's surprise, was Hermione. What was she doing? Surely even stubborn Hermione Granger knew by now that she had not the strength to stop Voldemort? Harry saw her struggle up onto both elbows now. His wand was clutched in her right hand, and her left hand was inching forward, holding -

Harry cried out without meaning to. Voldemort turned his head, saw Hermione's feeble efforts to bring the wand in her hand to bear. The Dark Lord laughed shortly, only to choke a moment later.

"What is that?" Voldemort said sharply. "Where did you get that?"

Ignoring Harry, Voldemort lunged for the book in Hermione's hand - the book which was impossibly but unmistakably his old school diary from his days at Hogwarts. His claw-like hand darted down to snatch the book from Hermione's fingers. But even as he lunged, Hermione pointed Harry's wand at the book and said, very softly: "Incendio!"

The book burst into flames - and so, to Harry's horror, did Voldemort! In the wink of an eye, the Dark Lord erupted into a pillar of roaring fire, like a scarecrow set ablaze by a carelessly discarded match. His screams reverberated from the living room walls as he stood rooted to the spot, his arms flung wide in a gesture of blind, unreasoning terror. Acting more by instinct than from reason, Voldemort whirled about and raced through the gaping maw of the shattered doorway and out into the night. Harry heard his shrieks reverberating from the houses lining the street. The screams grew fainter with distance until they were swallowed up in a numbing, leaden silence that was, if possible, even more terrible than the fearsome cries still echoing in Harry's throbbing head.

As Harry stared mutely through the shattered doorway into the darkness beyond, he could not credit the scene to which his own senses had just borne witness. Surely it was all just a dream. He had dreamed of his parents, and of Voldemort, so many times, always crying out in the night for the scene to alter, to reshape itself into something else, something better. Was this merely a wish given dream-form, a last fleeting vision of victory snatched from the dragon's jaws ere the Killing Curse snuffed out his life like a candle flame?

Flame? If it were only a dream, it yet touched his senses with an authenticity his mind could not sweep away. Voldemort had fled - hadn't he? Yes, Harry had seen with his own eyes, heard the screams receding in the darkness - yet if that were so, whence the flames? They were still there, dancing before his unfocused eyes. He felt heat on his face despite the chill of the night. And the smoke, filling his nostrils, strangling his breath -

Harry's head jerked up. No dream this! The curtains on either side of the ruined doorway were ablaze! Even as he watched, unable to tear his eyes away, sparks leaped from the flames and fell upon the couch, from which a thin tendril of smoke began to rise. Cold, skeletal fingers clutched at Harry's heart. Hermione!

Ignoring the pain and stiffness wracking his body, Harry hurled himself face-forward and crawled toward Hermione. The process was agonizingly slow, but at last he was close enough to grab a fistful of her robes and shake them with all the strength his desperation could muster.

"Get up, Hermione! We have to get out!"

Hermione looked into Harry's eyes, her expression an oasis of serenity in the midst of chaos.

"I think my back is broken, Harry. I can't feel my legs."

"I'll carry you," Harry gasped. "I'll - "

At that moment, the smoldering couch burst into flames. Turning at the sound, Harry saw that the doorway was a ring of fire. Sparks erupted from every direction. A tiny flame popped up on the seat of the easy chair against which Harry had steadied himself earlier. The rug at the center of the room was smoking from dozens of tiny pinpoints. Harry swung back around and strove to pull Hermione into an upright position from which he might sweep her into his arms and carry her safely away. How he expected to accomplish this when as yet he could not lift his head above his shoulders without nearly losing consciousness was a problem his reason chose not to address. He continued to tug Hermione up until she collapsed into his arms, where she clung to him with no more strength than a newborn kitten might have manifested.

Desperately, Harry cast about for his wand. If he could manage to produce enough water to keep the flames at bay -

His heart sank when he saw his wand lying next to the smoking diary, its once gleaming Holly shaft now a black husk mottled with flickering points of golden flame that danced mockingly before the young wizard's eyes. His last hope now turned to ash, even as his wand, Harry sank back against the hearth, his hands clutching Hermione's robes as he buried his face in her hair.

Harry began to tremble from within, his eyes burning with tears that streamed down his cheeks and into the tangle of Hermione's hair. "An hour ago," he said in a quavering hush, "We were together...holding each other…we were..." A gasping sob tore from his throat. "There was so much we were going to do…so many things to see, to experience…just you and me…I never thought it would end…like this…"

"This isn't an ending, Harry," Hermione smiled, lifting her head as the rising wind from the flames tossed the fringe of her hair about. "It's a beginning."

Twisting awkwardly, her legs lifeless under her, Hermione took Harry's face in her hands and looked into his eyes.

"Don't you see? We did what we came to do. We changed what was into what will be. This is no longer our world. It belongs to another Harry and Hermione now. There's no place for us here. Our pages have been torn out…like the homework parchment you and Ron used to wad up and chuck into the common room fire. New pages will be written to take their place, while ours…ours will soon be nothing but ash."

Harry dragged Hermione into a sitting position against the fireplace and held her against him. The stones against their backs were warm, heated as they were from flames both without and within. The heat from the expanding conflagration was searing his face. He could see Hermione's cheeks glowing. It reminded him of the blush she had worn following their torrid lovemaking session. He pushed those thoughts from his mind, averting his eyes. His gaze fell again on the blackened remains of Tom Riddle's diary, lying where Hermione had just managed to cast it with the last of her strength to keep it from igniting her robes. He wondered if Voldemort was in a like state now, a charred, lifeless hulk of smoking ash.

"How did you know?" Harry said quietly. It sounded to him as if the words were coming from someone else. There seemed to be no corresponding thought to match the sounds falling from his lips. "The diary?"

"I saw you use it to block Voldemort's Curse," Hermione said. "And how the Curse rebounded on him. I remembered his original attack on you - the one we prevented tonight when we warned your parents - how it was his own power turned back on him that destroyed him all those years ago. There was nothing to lose by trying it. I hadn't the strength to cast any powerful spells. But in the end, it was a first-year spell that did the trick. And it was Voldemort himself who gave me the idea when he set the pages alight to free himself from his cocoon."

Harry shook his head wearily. "When Voldemort burned the book pages off him, the fire didn't even singe him - why did the flames consume him this time and not before?"

"When he set the pages alight," Hermione said, "the flames never actually touched his body - he was surrounded by his personal shield, remember. All he did was burn off the pages from the outside. But when I burned the diary, his body itself was set alight from within. If anything, his protective barrier made things a hundred times worse, containing the flames and increasing their concentration."

Harry's thoughts were still reeling. "Trelawney was wrong," he muttered disjointedly. "The prophesy - she was wrong - I was never the one..."

"What makes you say that?" Hermione said in surprise.

"The first time Voldemort was destroyed," Harry said, "it was by his own magic - it only bounced off me when he tried to kill me. And now, it may have been my wand that set him alight, but it was your magic behind the spell, not mine."

"My magic as augmented by Snape's potion," Hermione replied, sounding professorial even in the heart of the flaming hell compassing them on all sides now. "Combined with your 'brother wand,' it was as if Voldemort himself had cast the spell. And I knew that must be your blood on the book. I hoped that would add the final element to the Blood Circle spell. Even then, I wasn't sure it would work. But we'd already seen the effect the Blood Circle enchantment had on Voldemort. So, being as the spell was empowered by the diary, it stood to reason that it would have the greatest effect on the very source of its power. It would be like a snake biting itself and succumbing to its own venom."

"But I still had nothing to do with it," Harry persisted.

"Didn't you?" Hermione smiled. "Don't you remember what Dumbledore said, how you had power the Dark Lord knows not?"

"Yeah," Harry said. "The power to love. But - "

"Don't you see?" Hermione said. "None of what we did tonight would have been possible without the love inside you - not the Bonding Rings, nor the Blood Circle - we wouldn't have had the diary at all if Dobby hadn't loved you enough to give you his most prized possession. It was love that saved you from Voldemort sixteen years ago, and now you've used the same power against him again. And as for Trelawney's prophesy, it said that the Dark Lord would mark you as his equal. It was Voldemort's power inside you that defeated him in the end, strengthened by the one power he couldn't overcome. Love."

"The prophesy said I was The One who was supposed to destroy Voldemort," Harry said. "But what if he wasn't destroyed tonight? Back when I was tied to his father's tombstone, he boasted that his whole life's purpose had been to conquer death. If he changed his body like he said so that mortal death can't touch him, who's to say he won't be back? Maybe all we did tonight was destroy his body in a different way from last time. If that's true, then we didn't accomplish anything here. Voldemort will go into hiding, looking for a way to restore his body. In another ten years, Quirrell will go on his holiday to Albania, and it will all begin again, just like before."

"Not like before," Hermione smiled, her tears glowing in the light of the flames. "This time, Harry Potter won't have to grow up alone and unloved. He'll have a mother and a father, and a godfather, and loads of friends, all of them united to help him fulfill his destiny."

"But will be have you?" Harry said. "What will that other Harry do without Hermione Granger to stop him from doing something stupid and getting himself killed - or worse, expelled?"

Hermione laughed, tears spilling from her eyes in rivers. Harry pulled Hermione to him, his hands tangling in her bushy hair. Clouds of smoke and tongues of flame surrounded them in a deadly embrace, but its might was as nothing to the strength with which the young witch and wizard clung to each other.

"I'm so lucky," Hermione said. "That other Hermione may never know what it's like to hold you in her arms...to kiss you...to make love to you..."

"The best thing I ever did," Harry said, his voice choking from more than the acrid smoke, "was fall in love with you."

Her smile glowing brighter than the flames, Hermione said softly, "I love you, Harry."

"I love you," Harry said, his soul embracing Hermione's with a power that reached beyond the boundaries of infinity. "Yesterday, today and tomorrow. Forever."

With a terrible roar of smoke and flame, as of an angry dragon venting its wrath, the Potter house collapsed, releasing acrid black plumes into the evening sky over Godric's Hollow.

"What d'yer reckon, Professor?" Hagrid said as he stepped from the perimeter of smoking ash and onto the front lawn of what had been the Potter house. "Yer think there was any truth in it?"

Dumbledore looked up, his reverie broken by the Hogwarts gamekeeper's gruff voice.

"Truth in what, Hagrid?"

"In the story Lily an' James tol' 'bout them two what came an' warned 'em ter get out 'fore You-Know-Who came along."

"Why should I not believe it?" Dumbledore countered pleasantly.

"'Cause I been through this wreckage careful-like," Hagrid said, "an' there ain't no sign o' any folks what might'a been caught in the fire, not skin ner bones. Lily said them two warned her 'bout a barrier aroun' the house ter keep anyone from Apparatin' out, din' she? An' you said none o' the Muggles saw anyone come out 'fore the roof caved in, an' them all standing aroun' gawkin' like they was, it ain' likely they'd'a missed 'em. I'm tellin' yer, it jus' don' add up."

"While it is true that the Potters' saviors were not authorized by the Order of the Phoenix, as they claimed," Dumbledore said, "I am inclined to believe Lily and James, despite evidence to the contrary."

"It don' make no sense," Hagrid grumbled. "That young wizard lookin' like James an' all. Him an' that Muggle-born witch sayin' they come from you, tellin' 'em things on'y you coulda tol' 'em, but what yer say yer never did. An' how did they know 'bout Pettigrew bein' Secret Keeper? I asked Black abou' it, jus' 'fore he took Pettigrew off ter the Ministry on that flyin' motorbike o' his, an' he said he din' tell nobody, not until he showed up here tonight an' tol' you an' me. An' he coul'n't even ha' come here hisself before the house was destroyed an' the Fidelius surroundin' it dissolved, yet them two come straigh' through all them magical barriers like it was their own ruddy house. It jus' don' add up no way yer looks at it."

"There are some things we may never know," Dumbledore conceded. "But every Muggle we questioned has told us the same story, that a burning man ran screaming from the Potter house less than an hour ago and disappeared in a manner that could only have been accomplished by wizardry. And my sources tell me that Lord Voldemort has disappeared utterly, leaving his Death Eaters in disarray. The two events must be connected."

"What's goin' ter happen with the Potters now?" Hagrid asked.

"They will go into hiding again," Dumbledore said. "When a suitable location has been found, I will engage another Fidelius Charm and plant the secret in Sirius Black, as Lily and James intended all along."

"Yer think You-Know-Who'll try ter hurt Harry again?" Hagrid said worriedly.

"Perhaps," Dumbledore said. "I do not think we have seen the last of him. But a terrible tragedy was averted tonight, thanks to the intervention of two brave souls whose names we may never know. That is enough to be getting on with now, I think. As for tomorrow, what will happen, will happen…and when it does, we shall be ready."

Hagrid nodded his great, shaggy head and tugged a flask of firewhiskey from his back pocket, uncorking it with undisguised longing.

"I hope the little bloke'll be alrigh'," Hagrid said sincerely as he hefted the flask in his massive hand and raised it to the sky. "Here's ter you, Harry." He took a long pull from the flask before corking it and slipping it back into his pocket.

The end? Not yet. One chapter remains, wherein the last threads will (I hope) be tied up. See you then.