Disclaimer: Yep.

A/N: I wasn’t actually planning on writing this chapter, the scenes in it, for a few more chapters. But there wasn’t really much I could put in that wasn’t filler from this point on, and to avoid the story running on and on with very little plot progression, I picked up the pace a little. You’ll see.

All the best,

Joe

*~*~*~*

Harry Potter and the Wastelands of Time

Chapter 22 – Of Harry and Voldemort

She collapsed with a flag in her hand;A flag white as snowA hero of war, is that what they see?Just medals and scarsSo damn proud of me…

~Rise Against

*~*~*~*

“You are still here?”

“I want to see it end.”

“…So do I.”

*~*~*~*

“You did it? You actually did it?” Tonks was on deck as Fleur and I arrived back at the partially restored battleship. Jason and Grace hung back as the Auror stood before me, blocking my path.

“Well, technically, Fleur did it…”

“Harry, that explosion lit up the whole sky! You say You-Know-Who is only a few miles away, what’s he going to think about this? I thought you were keeping a low profile?”

I shrugged. “Voldemort… will think whatever Voldemort thinks. There’s no way he’ll tie this to me, to us, not yet. But I want him worried, I want him to wonder what else is here in Atlantis, what could cause such devastation. I want him to contemplate the fact that he could be sitting on a time bomb, that at any moment this city could explode… and then I want him to know it was me.”

“Harry—”

“I want him to know that Harry Potter is out for fucking vengeance.” I unclipped the battleaxe from my back and tossed it aside. It thunked against the deck, punctuating my resolve. “For all he’s hurt, for all he will hurt. For Sirius, Tonks, for my parents and all the rest. If for nothing else that the bastard has been trying to kill me for as long as I’ve been alive.” And then some.

“But you can’t just destroy—”

“Who’s going to stop me?”

“You should stop yourself! If Dumbledore were here—”

I shook my head. “Dumbledore is not here, Tonks. And this is my war, my fight – if you want to stop me, please try, but I don’t think you do. What would all that wealth do in the wrong hands? Even in my hands it’s dangerous, especially in my hands…” I sighed. “Yet to have Voldemort claim it? No, not ever. I’m sorry if you disagree.”

Tonks took a moment before replying. “I don’t disagree, Harry, but you’re not even… you’re just too…”

“Too what?” I glanced around at my companions. Fleur stood by my side, her eyes still wild from the heat and haze following the bank explosion. A cool breeze, tasting of old salt, whistled through the enormous dock doors. “Too young? Too young to make these choices?”

“No,” Tonks said, choosing her words with care. “Too… crazy, Harry. Somehow you’ve got all this knowledge, all this power, and you use it… with very little care to the consequences.”

“I’m more aware of the consequences than anyone alive,” I said in a deadly whisper. My face grew hard, my patience was slipping. Crazy? “As always, you’ll just have to trust me.”

“You ask a lot for trust, ‘Arry,” Fleur said, her tone carefully neutral.

“What if that’s not good enough?” Tonks said. Her hair and her eyes had been storming through a variety of exasperated colours. She was stunningly beautiful in all of them, always and in all ways. “What if you should be called into check, Harry? What if, as your friend, I need to stop you from doing something stupid…?”

And there it was, I suppose. It all came back not to trust, not even to fear, but to that terrible, awful loyalty I somehow inspired in those closest to me. Time and time again my actions got people, good people like Tonks, killed, and yet they all still died for me. Died for Harry fucking Potter. Willingly.

But Tonks couldn’t stop me. None of them could. It was Voldemort – the king-high bastard of the lot – that could stop me. Not defeat me, no, but kill me. He could end me. Even then I just reset my soul back eight years – not anymore – but even then…

“Every move I make is calculated,” I said. “Every action I take is thought out long and hard beforehand.” How best to explain it? “These last few weeks, Tonks, since I left Privet Drive. Think of all I’ve done, how it’s all played out. I’ve evaded more than one worldwide manhunt, I’ve uncovered a city lost ten-thousand years ago, and I’ve just destroyed a potential source of inexhaustible gold for Voldemort.” I let my shoulders fall, my posture relax. “I’ve done more in a fortnight than the Ministry will ever do in this war, Tonks. And you have to remember, at all times, that we are at war.”

“I know that, Harry.”

“Do you?” I shrugged. “Then what’s the problem? You knew I was going to blow up the bank.”

Tonks opened her mouth to reply, but then her face paled and she rushed forward, placing a hand on my shoulder and staring at my forehead. “Harry, you’re bleeding!”

I frowned and took a step back. It was only then that I realised that my scar, that monstrous lightning bolt, was on fire. Pain, raw and untamed, sped like a brand through my skull. The scar had split along its ridged seam and a thin line of blood was beading just above my eyebrow.

I had to laugh. The pain had been damn-near indistinguishable from my constant headache. “Voldemort is extremely pissed off,” I said, glancing back to Tonks. “Job well done, Harry, I’d say. No?”

*~*~*~*

“Again and again… until I get it right.”

*~*~*~*

I was going to come face to face with Voldemort soon.

Very soon.

It was all part of the Big Plan. A plan that had seen me cast across the blasted wastelands of time, that had been years in the making, that left little margin for error. I got all warm and tingly thinking about it.

“You are smiling, ‘Arry,” Fleur said, sitting next to me up on the top deck of our ship. We gazed out over the docks and through the slipway doors, out at the barren, lifeless seabed beyond that disappeared over an azure horizon. “Why is zat?”

“I was just thinking about Voldemort,” I said, staring out into that eternal nothing. There was a subtle difference between nothing and nothingness. The latter was far worse – far, far worse… I drifted through it quite often.

“Then why are you smiling?”

“Because I have a plan, sweetheart, a plan to give the Dark Lord all that he desires from Atlantis… only to tear it away. I’m smiling at the anger, the frustration, the raw untempered hate Voldemort will feel once I play my hand. Son of a bitch won’t know what hit him.”

Fleur and I were holding hands. It was a calming, subtle gesture of our somewhat unspoken relationship. We’d been forged by blood and by circumstance over the last few weeks, nearly a month. More than enough time to fall in love, to fall stupidly head-over-heels once more. Was it love I felt for Fleur? Did it matter after all this time? Her presence was more than enough.

“You really know what you are doing, oui?”

“I wouldn’t have brought you here if I didn’t, Fleur.” I was doing a bit of quick math in my head, factoring in the ten days we had now been in Atlantis. “Today is my sixteenth birthday, by the way.”

Fleur squeezed my hand and leaned over, her blonde hair flickering through the twilit glare of forever, and kissed me just on the corner of my mouth. Her lips were full, moist, and they lingered a whole five seconds. “Happy birthday, ‘Arry Potter.”

I felt sixteen just then. In that one simple moment. But moments are brief, moments are eternally short-lived.

I was beyond sixteen.

I was years beyond sixteen. But in so many ways I was only just sixteen. More and more, though, new memories surfaced, slotted into place within the ruined mess of my mind. I was beginning to feel more of the deaths I’d died, more of the lives I’d lived, oh can you dig it, and perhaps sixteen became just a number – in truth I was ageless.

Ageless.

And although that terrified me, it felt right. Ageless and smilin’, darlin’. Yeehaw, yeehaw!

I took a sip from the last of a few beers I’d managed to sneak into the trunks without Tonks noticing. A bottle of cool Stella Artois, the glass frosty, resting on an ancient control panel that I hadn’t managed to fix yet. I needed to scavenge a few parts from the other defunct battleships rotting away nearby.

“It’s quiet here, isn’t it?” I said, running my tongue over the corner of my mouth. The kiss had been brief, oh so brief, but, as always, enough to set the heart racing. “Feels right…”

“’Arry,” Fleur said, with more than a hint of delighted frustration. “Are you being intentionally dense or just teasing me?”

I blinked. “Hmm?”

“Please kiss me back, ‘Arry Potter.”

“Oh…” I’d missed that opening entirely, it seemed, but if Fleur was willing. “Okay.”

We kissed – hard.

We made out.

All my thoughts of war and of time faded away as she moved into my lap, her weight sending raw shocks of desire sweeping through me. My hands ran up her back, under her blouse, as she cupped my face and our tongues did a neat little dancing act.

Happy birthday, Harry, I thought, shoving myself forward on the chest we had been seated on so Fleur could get a better grip, swinging her leg over until she was astride me. My hands fell to the waistband of her pants, her lower back, and I slipped my undamaged right hand under and down. Yeehaw… Fleur’s underwear felt soft… silky-smooth.

And all the while we kissed – we kissed the way two people kissed after time apart, after longing had become more than desire, after desire had become more than simple need. We kissed with passion, I suppose, and Fleur let my hands roam. It was a great feeling, a needed feeling, and always beyond words. Words were poor excuses for moments such as this…

After a few minutes Fleur placed a hand on my chest and gently pushed me back, still straddling me, her breathing hard – matching my own – and smiled. “We ‘ave to stop, ‘Arry, for now…”

I took a deep breath. “Oh but why?”

Fleur giggled. “Too much of a good thing, oui… and I do not want Tonks, Grace, or Jason to happen upon us up here.”

I took the initiative and wrapped my arms around the beautiful woman in my lap and we embraced and kissed a final time. I was more than a little happy to feel a shudder run through Fleur as our lips parted. If she felt even an ounce of the feelings that rushed through me… I’d done my job.

“There iz something different about kissing you, ‘Arry Potter,” Fleur said, tasting her lips with her tongue. “Something… different.”

“What do you mean?” I asked.

“Eet feels… well, eet feels…” She met my eyes and shrugged. “Do you promise not to laugh?”

“Always.”

Fleur hesitated, biting her bottom lip. “Timeless,” she finally said. “You feel timeless, ‘Arry.” She shook her head, her hair tickled my nose. “That sounds stupid, but… does eet make any sense?”

“Oh some,” I said, careless and carefree. “Nothing to worry about, is it?”

“Non…” Fleur patted my chest, raking her nails over my heart. “I suppose not.” A moment fell between us, one of those comfortable moments of shared thought that are impossible to describe. “Well, shall we head downstairs and prepare ze dinner?”

“Sure we can’t make-out some more?”

“Plenty of time for zat later.”

“Right… well you may want to do up your blouse then.” I smirked. “Black lace, my dear Fleur Delacour, well I never…”

Fleur glanced down and a small, playful blush rose in her cheeks. She slapped me gently and redid the buttons on her floral top, concealing her considerable, flawless breasts. “How did you manage zat?” she said. “I felt nothing.”

I laughed. “Quick hands, chérie. And more determination than I’ve ever shown in trying to stop Voldemort.” Well, almost. I couldn’t recall ever dying for Fleur Delacour’s breasts… but I reckon I would. Yes, sir, I reckon that’d make more sense than some of the deaths I’d died.

Probably be a helluva lot more fun, too.

*~*~*~*

“You damn the consequences, right, because you can’t afford guilt and power.”

“No, that’s not it… you cannot have power without guilt, because only the guilty understand the cost of power. Do you understand?”

“No…”

“I’m sorry, Harry, but you will.”

*~*~*~*

I’d tried going insane.

I’d tried love.

I’d tried begging for help.

I’d tried doing it on my own.

I’d tried saving the world in so many ways and across so many days, that it’d all become somewhat of a haze.

“’Take a look at the lawman… beating up the wrong guy’.” I shouldn’t have to justify my actions after so long. My way was the only way. “’Oh, man, wonder if he’ll ever know… da-da-da… he’s in the best selling show’.” Any other option led to ash and dust and the end of the world. “’Is there life on Mars? Da-da… Is there life on Mars?’”

“What are you doing, Harry?”

“Entire worlds are wondering that, Tonks,” I said, falling out of my memories. The mirror in my cabin must have been charmed to lie, because as I shrugged on the last of my undamaged fancy suit jackets, I didn’t look half-bad. “I’m getting ready.”

“For what?”

Pain. “We’re going to go blow up a library. A very special library containing knowledge best left in ashes.” Perhaps the few days since blowing up the bank had been good to me. Fleur had definitely been good to me. I was feeling ready for what was to come. Time to get the show on the road and all o’that…

“What about—?”

“Voldemort?” I could smell something good cooking in the galley. Bacon strips, maybe, and pancakes. It was Grace cooking, then. She put my canned soup efforts to shame. “I’m… I’m kind of counting on him noticing this. The library is practically on his doorstep anyway.”

Tonks took a step forward into the room, placing a hand against my forehead. “Hmm… no fever. You feeling okay, Harry? For a moment there it seemed like you were actually hoping to run into Voldemort.”

I thought of the days to come, of what had to be done. I had to go it alone soon, had to leave Fleur and Tonks, Jason and Grace, behind. Not for good, but for a week or two… or more. Depending on how long it took me to convince Voldemort of my intentions. And provided he didn’t just kill me on the spot. He’d hesitate, though, I was sure of it. My memories were telling me he would hesitate… long enough.

One helluva gamble – maybe yes, maybe no… but no guts, no glory. Although there had never been much glory in the war I had to fight.

“I have a plan, Tonks, and we’re going to discuss it over breakfast.”

“Am I going to like this plan?”

“Not one bit.”

“Ah.”

It was bacon and pancakes, bless Grace’s little heart. The young Muggle research assistant had taken to cooking as something normal in a world of impossibilities. She and Jason spent their days together, collecting and writing notes on everything from the mythril shards scattered throughout the docks to the strange purple sand down on the edge of the slipway, blowing in off the barren sea. It was a lot for them to absorb, even without the overarching fear of monsters and war that bothered the rest of us.

Fleur sat opposite me and tangled her feet up with mine under the table. Even through her jeans I could feel how smooth, how elegant, her legs were… Damn I was going to miss this after today.

“So Harry has a plan,” Tonks said. “One I’m not going to like. Harry?”

The quiet conversation ceased and I finished a strip of bacon before clearing my throat, four pairs of eyes regarding me with near-dreadful curiosity. “We’re going to float one of the trunks over to the Atlantean library, stock up on priceless tomes and invaluable knowledge, then blow it up as I did the bank.”

Jason frowned, Grace blinked, Fleur untangled her feet from around mine and Tonks sighed.

“I would really appreciate it if you stopped destroying the ten-thousand year old artefacts, Harry, I really would,” Jason said. He cast a glance at Tonks as her hair flickered between fiery-red and electric-blue. He was always fascinated by Tonks. If it wasn’t for my budding relationship with Fleur, I may have been a touch jealous of his attention. “There is so much we can learn from this city.”

“Exactly,” I said. “And as it stands, the motherfucking Dark Lord Voldemort is in a better position of learning it than we’ll ever be.” I chuckled. “Heh, unless anyone is willing to tear their soul into seven or so pieces and create a rift back to the real world? No? Didn’t think so.”

“But it’s a library, Harry,” Grace said. “You can’t—”

“Can and will,” I said. “I don’t want to, no. But there’s more at stake than a few books, believe me.”

Tonks tapped a fork against the side of her plate. “You said I wouldn’t like this plan? I’m all for stopping Voldemort getting his hands on forbidden magic, Harry.”

I nodded with half a grin. “Yeah, but the plan kind of goes downhill from there… You see, pretty much as soon as we enter the library, Voldemort’s going to know we’re there.”

Tonks took a deep breath. “I don’t like this plan.”

“Told you so.” And I’m not even telling you the worst part…

“May I suggest against entering ze library then, ‘Arry?” Fleur asked.

“You may.” I laughed. “But this is a good plan. The library is locked, you see, and he’s been trying for weeks to get in. The Death Eaters, too. So when I come along with my wicked flask of starlight and an unrivalled understanding of Atlantean runes, it’s going to piss him off terribly. Least of all the fact that I’m here in Atlantis at all.” A look of shock rippled across the Dark Lord’s face. Ha-ha. “Then, while I hold him and the Death Eaters back you guys are going to grab as many books from the shelves as you can. Then leg it back here.”

I let the plan sink in. The plan I wanted them to follow, not exactly the plan I had in mind.

“Question,” Tonks said. “Why don’t we just portkey back? Save us all some grief, I’d imagine. I know Apparation doesn’t seem to work here, don’t ask me why, but a portkey…”

I was shaking my head. “Portkey’s work on points of origin and of destination. Atlantis has neither.”

Tonks frowned. “What do you mean?”

“Using a portkey here, in the Lost City, a city straddling the border between the real world, the next world, and the realms of the Fáe and Forget…” I shivered. “At best, you’d be liquefied. At worst, you’ll live long enough to wish you were liquefied.”

“Portkey iz out then,” Fleur decided.

“This is actually taking the fight to Voldemort, isn’t it?” Tonks asked after a long moment. “Acting and not just reacting.”

“That’s what we do,” I said. “What we’re here for, after all is said and done.”

“Not just gold and battleships?” Grace asked.

“Voldemort wants what’s here – the knowledge, the power, the army… If Voldemort wants it then I very much want to take it from him.” It was that simple. Bitter, petty war, oh yes?

“And you can hold him off, can you?” Tonks asked. “It took Dumbledore to duel him to a standstill in the Ministry, Harry. Dumbledore!”

“I’ve come into my own since then,” I said, and the harsh truth there had shattered worlds. “Voldemort won’t know what hit him.” I was done explaining. What I was about to do, the pain I was about to sacrifice, more than justified the lies. “We leave in an hour – come if you want, ladies and gentlemen, or stay here. Either way, today I battle the Dark Lord. Dum-dum-dum!”

Just shy of an hour later found me sitting on the edge of my cot in the captain’s quarters. I had just finished shining my shoes, straightening my shirt, and charming my suit with a few spells and magical protections that would see me through the day. In the mirror once more, I looked at myself, pushing my glasses up the bridge of my nose. It was a god-awful day, and I did not recognise the sixteen year old boy that glared back at me in the reflection.

The eyes I recognised.

The eyes belonged to a man – to men – a lot older than sixteen. I was young in body alone. Everything else was old… worn… and so very tired. I took a deep breath, readying myself for what lay ahead. Forgive me Fleur… Tonks… but this is the way it has to be done.

I could hear footsteps above me, up on deck, several pairs of boots milling around. Sounded like we were ready to go. I hesitated only once before reaching down into my battered and trusty old briefcase, leaning against the wooden wall of the cabin. From within I removed a letter of folded parchment, tied with an emerald green ribbon.

Fleur, it said across the front in my untidy script.

I stepped out of my cabin, across the narrow hallway, and into the quarters Fleur was using. It was clean inside, and smelt vaguely of strawberries and fresh rainfall. Or maybe that was just my cracked imagination. It felt like I was invading her privacy, so I quickly left the letter where she would see it on her pillow and made my way up and on deck.

I found all my companions there, ready to go. They stood silhouetted against the azure sky beyond the slipway, a single empty trunk floating next to them. Fleur was foremost in my mind, next to Tonks, smiling at me in that secret, special way. Jason and Grace gripped their mythril weapons, the only real defence they had against the nightmare, and awaited my word.

“Well… who wants to go save the world?” I asked.

Tonks asked a better question. “How many Death Eaters does he have here, Harry? Do you… can you tell… through your scar?”

That malignant brand across my forehead twinged and twisted against my skull all the time now. I didn’t need it to tell me of the extent of Voldemort’s forces here. I’d found that out time and time again.

“Worst case scenario?” I asked. Tonks nodded. “Seven of his followers – Alecto and Amycus Carrow, Bellatrix Lestrange,” that bitch would definitely be here, “Pettigrew, Thorfinn Rowle, Mathius Yaxley, and Gregor Travers. The rest are in Azkaban, the most unsecure prison in all of Creation, or unavailable at this time.”

Tonks seemed taken aback. “Yaxley? Mathius Yaxley is a Death Eater?” she asked. “That’s… he was a trainer at the Academy. Are you sure, Harry?”

“As I’ll ever be. I also know he has planned with Voldemort to assassinate Rufus Scrimgeour and overthrow the Ministry. If we see him, best to put him out of all our misery. Actually, that’s the rule for any Death Eater, okay.”

“Right…” Tonks didn’t sound certain.

I guess none of them, none save me and possibly Dumbledore, were at the point where the realisation sunk in good and hard that people were going to have to die for this conflict to end. So far there had only been a few opening shots, a few deaths – Cedric, Sirius – but soon more would fall. Soon Tonks would realise it was kill or be killed. Because neither can live while the other survives…

“If all goes according to plan, we’ll be in and out before they know what hit ‘em.” That wasn’t the plan, not really. Not for me. “And we’ll deal the Dark Lord a solid blow, an effective shot…” I sighed. Shouldn’t I be numb to the anxiety after so long? I guess no one, not even Harry Potter, Time Warrior, could steel themselves against the pain I knew was coming. “Lennon’s on sale again… da-da…”

“What’s that, Harry?” Jason asked.

“Nothing. Let’s go, folks.”

*~*~*~*

“Can the ends ever justify the means then?”

“That depends on the cost, my boy. To justify this... idea of yours, you would need to know the outcome of changing an impossible amount of variables.”

“I’d have to predict time, yes, and anticipate the changes... it makes sense. I can do this.”

“Yes, perhaps, but should you do it? Look at the cost Voldemort paid for his soul – will you pay the same or, Merlin forbid, worse?”

*~*~*~*

Downtown Atlantis was a mess. We strode through the bones of some fallen leviathan – a creature with a ribcage that had crushed two buildings and a skull with a jaw the size of Muggle aeroplanes. It wasn’t actually apparent, at first, but soon enough the general outline of the beast became clear.

“Merlin, what is that?” Tonks asked. “Huge blackened bones?”

“It could fly, too,” I said, before I knew I said it. Damn. Tonks shot me a look, as did Fleur, but neither of them said anything. Perhaps they knew this wasn’t the best time, perhaps they just knew I wouldn’t answer with the truth.

Jason was fascinated. “You know about these creatures, Harry?”

I nodded. “They don’t exist anymore, just like this city. I don’t know where they come from, all I know is it’s from somewhere else. Realms beyond realms beyond realms, if you follow.” The real world was surrounded by so many invisible ones. “To tell the truth, there was one back in Rome – not as big as this one – and that one Chronos brought through at your home, Fleur, but I dealt with them both.”

“How do you deal with something this large?” Grace asked, wrapping her arms underneath her jumper.

I twirled my wand around in my good hand. “Fire usually does the trick. True fire. There are also runic incantations that can hold them back. They’re bound by the rules of the world more than you’d think.”

“Is this the army Voldemort is after?” Jason asked. “An army of creatures like this?”

“Yep.” I shrugged. “Only a lot more vicious and angry than this old dead thing. Let’s keep moving.”

This was the first time we had entered the inner city since our abrupt arrival nearly two weeks ago now. Towering skyscrapers, pockmarked with ruin and some barely aglow with the currents of magic running beneath the city, rose on either side, piercing the twilit sky. We hugged the shadows, staying out of sight. I didn’t want to draw the attention of anything just yet.

Apart from the dust and debris of fallen buildings, and apart from the bones and twisted stone, there were other signs of the last great struggle Atlantis had been through as we moved towards the dark tower next to the library. Half a battleship blocked one road – we lost fifteen minutes going around – but I was in no real hurry. It wasn’t a friendly place I was walking towards, not at all. Was that a noose tightening around my neck?

“That must be it,” Fleur said, as we rounded a bend in the road and came to a deserted plaza, strewn with rubble and caked in dust. “Ze pointed one, Arry, with ze large stone gates?”

“Yeah, that’s it,” I said. We stood almost at the foot of the tower that rose a clean mile above the city. Voldemort was in that tower. He was so damn close. My scar twitched, and I was thankful for the tumult of burning memory, despite the headache, that kept the Dark Lord from seeing into my mind.

“Someone has been here,” Tonks said, pointing at the ground. “Footprints in the dust – heavy boots from the look of them.”

“D-D-Death Eaters,” I stammered. It felt good to mock something that was about to cause me a whole world of pain. “Stay close now, folks.”

We approached the library from the right, avoided cutting across the empty plaza, and moved through the broken stone gates as silent as the night. A salty breeze whistled through the buildings, over the old bones and disturbed the dust. The library rose up before us several storeys high. It was a lot bigger on the inside, of course, like most of the places in the Lost City.

It was dark and quiet – it was always dark and quiet – yet I felt a sense of anticipation for what was to come now. I was committed to this course, for the good and the ill that would come from it, and now I held my wand at the ready as we passed beneath an ornate keystone arch, twisted with bracken, to enter the library proper.

Nothing more dangerous in the world than raw knowledge – and this place was raw enough to bleed.

“Stay quiet now,” I whispered, my companions gathered close behind me. The solitary trunk full of starlight, the last of my batch, hovered just next to Fleur. “Tonks, if you could join me on point. I don’t think we’re alone here...”

Inside the library was a grand foyer, similar in style to the Entrance Hall at Hogwarts. Yet as was standard for this ruin of a city, the place was in shambles. Large thrusts of stone and marble had crippled the once-smooth floors. Banisters of swollen ivory stood twisted and broken. The furniture that remained was rotten through, collapsed, and time, that harsh mistress, had left her thick layer of wasted dust settled over everything.

If not for the boot prints crunching through the chaff and debris... well, this place would just be one of many in Atlantis that had not seen life in over ten millennia.

“This place looks a lot more... official than the rest of the city so far,” Tonks said. “That was probably a security checkpoint.”

“Atlantis prided itself on knowledge,” I said. “There was nothing more respected, or more dangerous. Some of the old spell books here contain magics that could fry oceans.”

“Right...”

I held my wand at the ready, keeping my scarred and somewhat useless hand close against my body. I could already feel the strength of the magic to come, the spells to cast. Voldemort would be here soon. Through the broken checkpoint there were failed ward screens, force shields designed to block entrance beyond the grand foyer. They were a first line of defence against uninvited visitors. I strode through without giving them a second glance. All things being even, I had some right to this place, to the entire city. I had found the way here, the true way, left by Janus all those years ago. I had sacrificed time, lives, more than anyone, to be here. This was my city to protect, or to destroy, as I saw fit.

It was somewhat of a maze of corridors beyond the foyer, yet there was a clear path through the debris, and most of the torches on the walls were aglow with half-light. Soon enough, the way became clear, the corridors evened out, and we could hear voices up ahead. I raised my bad hand and motioned the group to stop.

“I keep telling you, we lack a specific catalyst, Thorfinn...”

“Yes, well,” a careful, quiet voice replied. “The Dark Lord tires of our failure, Gregor. He believes great lost magics reside beyond this door, and the grimoire, yet the outer shell remains intact despite our best efforts.”

“It is the absorption properties in the stone.” There was a sound like wood scraping against brick. “That silvery-clear metal that permeates everything here. There is simply no way we can force our way in. It requires a key.”

I listened to the two Death Eaters around the corner with detached interest. I’d already seen these two dead more times than I could yet remember. At times it was hard to recall any feeling at all beyond mere apathy for people who had been lost, the good and the bad, so many times. Just another way I was as ruined as this city, I guess.

“Thorfinn Rowle and Gregor Travers,” I whispered, low enough just for Tonks. “Stunners for now, okay. I need at least one of them alive.”

Tonks nodded, watching me almost askance. She was worried and trying not to show it. “You go left I go right? Fleur, head down the middle?”

“Sounds like a plan. Jason, Grace, stay back until we give the all clear. These people don’t have much love for non-magical folk.”

It had only sounded like the two of them, yet there was only so much I could infer hiding just out of sight around the corner. My gut was telling me there was only the two of them, but instincts could be wrong… No, I trusted my instincts, despite however often I died, as they had kept me going beyond death, beyond eternity.

“Fuck it, let’s go,” I said a heartbeat later. If there were other silent figures, so be it. They would all fall to my wand.

Like most things I planned, based on long – oh so long – experience, we took down Rowle and Travers in a carefully executed flanking effort, just like clockwork.

I moved out from behind the outer wall and beheld a chamber of glowing Atlantean runes opening out towards a heavy sealed vault door, much akin to the one I had disarmed in the bank the other day. The floor had been cleared, there were scorch marks all over it from the Death Eaters’ attempts to blast their way through something that could not be blasted.

Rowle and Travers weren’t even facing my corridor as Tonks moved through on my right, a fierce red light flaring to life at the tip of her wand. It was an unconscious effort to fire two non-verbal stunners, even as Travers swirled on the spot, his own instincts telling him to duck.

The bastard managed a shield and Tonks’ stunner went wide. Mine struck Rowle in the back of the head and he fell forward into the sealed wall, a sharp crack as his nose broke, and he slumped against the floor.

Fleur moved up as Travers ducked a follow-up curse from Tonks, his eyes wide and confused. He could not fathom how we were here, in Atlantis. He must have recognised me because his eyes narrowed and his wand swung in my direction. Fleur flicked her wand, “Stupefy,” and Travers had to defend again before he could get a shot off.

“Throw down your wand or we start using the nasty stuff, buddy,” I shouted over the din of sizzling magic and shattering shield charms. “You’re outnumbered and your back’s to the wall, Travers.”

The Death Eater hesitated, his mind whirring through the calculations. There was no Apparating in Atlantis, the man had to know that, and no portkeys. The only way out was through the three of us, and despite what he may have heard, I was no pushover. Tonks in her Auror robes would also be giving him pause.

Travers sneered, keeping his wand raised against us. “Potter, isn’t it? Harry Potter. The Dark Lord will be pleased to find you here.”

I laughed. “Voldemort is going to be pissed as all hell that I’m here, you dolt, or were you trying to frighten me? Wand. Down. Now.” I held the man’s gaze. “Or I will kill you.”

“You? Kill me?”

There was a hesitant uncertainty in his tone. Perhaps he believed me, for I was serious. The grin I flashed as I twirled my wand, the tip aglow with a festering purple light, was two parts crazy one part tragic.

Travers dropped his wand and raised his hands over his head. “What are you hoping to achieve here, Potter?” He glanced to Tonks and Fleur. “You’ve got a pet Auror but there is no Ministry here, kid. The only authority belongs to the Dark Lord!”

“Shut your stupid bearded face,” I said, and with a flick of my wand the man collapsed in a heap against the floor. “That’s two for Team Potter, aye.”

Jason and Grace appeared from within the darkened corridor, pulling our floating trunk behind them. The eyed the two Death Eaters with cautious care, taking in the dark flowing robes and the grizzled, almost crazy, look of the two men.

“Keep an eye on them, Tonks, while I open this library.”

A small vial of starlight poured into the seal and I tapped the runes in sequence as they appeared on the vaulted door. It had taken me years to figure out this code, years well spent. If I hadn’t done it then Voldemort would have eventually cracked it himself. He was nothing if not intelligent. Intelligent and patient. Woe be to the world should he gain even a scrap of the knowledge behind this door.

On silent, ancient hinges the large stone doors separated, millenniums of dust sprinkling on down into the gap. Air rushed into the first – and last – truly Great Library, screaming on the breeze. The knowledge in here, of which only I could read at this stage in the game, made the Magnus Fontis look like the kiddie’s table.

“Ladies and gentlemen,” I said, kicking Thorfinn Rowle’s wand out from under him as the doors came to a thudding halt. “Take a good look, because we’re going to burn it to the ground.”

Fleur and Jason stepped forward first, stepping into the light spreading up and outwards… to the far reaches of a chamber a lot bigger than it physically should be. Up and outwards into a chamber housing thousands of volumes, thousands of tiny little ways to end the world, all there for the taking. Oh boy oh boy.

“Merde, ‘Arry,” Fleur gasped. “Incredible.”

*~*~*~*

“I’ll know the future – I’ll be able to change it.”

“Yes, maybe. But if you do go back, if you do change the future, and Merlin, say you even destroy Voldemort and save all the poor souls that we’ve lost… what if they all just die in different ways.”

“That’s crazy.”

“Is it? The reason you’re going back is to stop them from dying. If you do succeed, then you would never have had the need to go back, you won’t go back. It creates a contradiction, which is something the very laws of reality have never allowed.”

“We’ll see, won’t we?”

“Well… I guess the universe will just have to make allowances for Harry Potter then.”

*~*~*~*

“We could be in and out before he knows we’re here, Harry.”

“No, I want to see him. Get to work, guys. See that cage on the second level? Melt your way in and fill the trunk with all the books in there. That’s the good stuff.” I levitated Rowle and Travers into the main atrium of the library. “Quick, quick now.”

“What about these two?”

“Travers I’ll keep because he pissed me off. Rowle we’re sending back to Voldemort to bring him on down here.”

Fleur hesitated at the expanse of the space around us. Stacks about thirty feet high were crammed with books, supported by vast thin mythril chains wrapped around a central chandelier hanging from the ceiling. A staircase of green marble rose up and around four levels, displaying further shelves and heavy stacks of magical texts.

It was the very centre of the room that drew attention, however. The space was as big as three quidditch pitches end on end, and the main atrium still held crippled petrified furniture – desks, reading tables, and such – yet there had been a surge from underneath the library sometime in the distant past.

The floor was cracked in the middle, a wide chasm about forty feet across stretched on and away under the foundations of the library. Sparks of soft silver light, of raw magic, floated up and out of the hole. At its precipice, just on the edge near the doors I had opened, we could all feel the heat emanating off the river of magic flowing beneath our feet.

I stepped carefully over to the edge of the chasm and gazed down into darkness. There was a flicker of silver light, a narrow line of fire, way down at the bottom – several miles away. I kicked a bunch of loose rubble over the edge and heard it whistle through the nothingness. Oh yeah, this would do just fine.

“First things first...”

From within the hovering trunk I removed the last of the starlight, a whole case of the stuff, and spent a few minutes levitating the individual vials all around the library, packing them in close against the vast stacks of books. As I did this Fleur and Tonks, accompanied by Jason and Grace, broke into the cage on the second level and began to raid its contents.

There was a singular text in that cache, bound in human skin and infused with unique and terrible magic, that I would put to good use in the days to come. From memory, at least. That book had to burn.

Travers and Rowle were slumped next to one another just inside the main expanse of the atrium. I muttered a quick conjuring charm and thick cords of rope snapped tight around Travers’s wrists and ankles, binding him up to his elbows and knees. Rowle I considered for a moment, sorely tempted to just slit the man’s throat, but then that wasn’t the plan.

“Ennervate...” I said, kneeling down on my haunches as Rowle’s eyes flickered open and he shrugged off the confusion of the stunner. “Hello, Thorfinn Rowle. My name is Harry Potter.”

“Potter...? Impossible.” His hand slipped inside his dark robes, searching for his wand. “You cannot be here. Atlantis belongs to the Dark Lord.”

“No. No it does not.” I pointed my wand between the Death Eater’s eyes. One curse is all it would take. With a thought I conjured a ball of green light at the tip, the colour of the Killing Curse, and just as cold. “Got a favour to ask, buddy. I need you to go get Voldemort and bring him down here.”

Rowle blinked. “You... you jest, surely.”

I shook my head. “There’s the door – you know the way up through his tower, yes?”

“But the Dark Lord will end you, boy.”

“Oh eventually, perhaps, but not today. Today is my show.”

Rowle backed away on his hands and knees. He glanced back at the exit, into the antechamber with the glowing Atlantean runes dancing across the walls. “Potter... he will kill you.”

Thorfinn Rowle was four or five times my age, a man who had lived and loved and chosen a cause he believed worth fighting for. Yet even some of the most trusted Death Eaters were not entirely bereft of a conscience. Yes, it was almost a guarantee that Voldemort would try to kill me before we were through. The man was giving me a chance to run, to flee, to die a later date.

“Just go get him, Rowle, and bring him on down here. He’ll want me alive... to begin with, at least.”

Rowle scuttled out of the room, casting a last glance over his shoulder as if fearing I’d come to my senses and would attack. I did not, and the man disappeared into shadows of ruin. He would be back all too soon. I gave him a few minutes head start, timing it all out in my head – time was everything – before proceeding with my plan.

“Two minutes, folks!” I hollered up through the library. “Get the trunk down here and be ready to run.”

I turned to Travers, still unconscious with his limbs bound together in strong corded rope. I gazed from him to the abyss running through the heart of the room, back to him and then up to the heavy support chandelier hanging up above the sparkling precipice.

“You’re the first to die, I guess,” I said to Travers, to myself, to no one in particular.

I eyed the angles, tapping my wand against my palm, and then conjured a long piece of rope from the high chandelier. I tied one end around the bonds holding Travers in place, and with the aid of magic wound the other end tight until the Death Eater was pulled along the broken floor right to the edge of the chasm. A good gust of wind would send him hurtling down to his death.

“What are you doing?” Grace asked, as she and Jason appeared ahead of Tonks and Fleur. The trunk now full of books hovered between them all.

“Creating leverage,” I said. “Now let’s see...” I kicked open the trunk and rifled through the piles of books. In the expanded space the few dozen tomes were spread out well, and I found what I was looking for quickly. “This book should not exist.” I turned back to my companions. “This is the Grefaénicon, and it was gifted to Atlantis by a race of creatures from the Faé and Forget nearly eleven millennia ago. It’s bound in human skin, and contains spells for summoning... for breaching gaps between worlds. If Voldemort had this...”

I gagged as a wave of nausea swept over me from just holding the book. It was evil. There was no better word for it. The creatures that had made it, that had presented it to the Atlanteans, had no concept of the damage it could do... or if they did, they deemed the Atlanteans capable of understanding the risk. They had understood, alright, and it had led to war between this world and the other.

“We burn it then,” Tonks said. “Yes?”

I nodded. “Sort of.” Travers was going to prove useful. I took the Grefaénicon, resisting the urge to scream as I touched it, and placed it underneath the Death Eater’s bound hands, in between the loose loops of rope. A sticking charm would keep it in place. Then I took the slack from the end of the rope tossed over the chandelier and wound it ever tighter, keeping a firm grip on that end with cords of magic.

Travers slipped off the edge of the wide chasm and swung out into the middle, back and forth like a pendulum, held in place by the grace of my spellwork. I fused the loose end of the rope to the floor and that left him – still unconscious – swinging out over the abyss holding the blasted book of doom.

“’Arry—”

“Cut the rope and that’s one less pain in my ass, Fleur.” The French beauty regarded me with an unreadable expression. “As I said, leverage, for when Voldemort shows up.” I made a point of checking my watch, which was still spinning backwards and hadn’t told true time since we arrived here. “Wonder what’s keeping him.”

“We should leave,” Tonks said. “Harry, whatever you’re planning, we’re only three wands against six, maybe seven, and one of them is You Know Who!”

“I’ve had worse odds.” Which was true, oh so true. It was also true that those worse odds had often killed me. Damn.

“Let’s go while we still can.”

“Too late,” I said. “It is always too late, you know, because time flies... so fast.” I began to laugh, to laugh and cry at the looks of equal horror on the four faces of my companions.

A thin trickle of blood cut down my forehead and into my eye.

*~*~*~*

“Perhaps you’re not meant to beat him, Harry. Perhaps you were Chosen to die.”

*~*~*~*

As one, we all turned to the antechamber beyond the unsealed vault door, perhaps sensing the approaching presence of the creature once known as Tom Marvolo Riddle, and his dark entourage.

There were four pinpricks of light growing in the darkness, and shadows fled over the electric-blue half-light from the dull torches on the walls. I may have imagined it, but was there a brief flash of raw, crimson eyes in that darkness?

My scar was on fire.

*~*~*~*

“Because I may be insane, but there are right kinds of insane, yes sir, and some of them can even save the world...”

*~*~*~*

My headache threatened to cripple me. The pain increased tenfold, and ten again. A dark haze crept into the corners of my vision. Worlds were colliding all around me, all around Harry fuckin’ Potter, the Time Warrior, and the one contradiction the universe had to account for...

Dead yet alive.

Alive yet dead so many times.

I was screaming without a sound as the devil approached, and the reason I had gone back in time in the first place, all those lives ago, locked eyes with me from within the darkness.

I felt the Dark Lord’s fierce smile, a grin from a lipless mouth, before I saw it...

*~*~*~*

“So is this the end?”

“It is one end – one of many, you know.”

“You terrify me, Harry. What did you do?”

“Do? Nothing I haven’t done before. Oh no, no, no... All I’ve done is spit in the face of infinity. All I’ve done is set the track to repeat. I’ve done the devil’s work, boss, yeehaw... yeehaw...”

*~*~*~*

“Harry James Potter.”

That voice cut through me like a dull razorblade, slicing at my heart, my mind... and what remained of my soul.

Here was the cause of my endless suffering. Here was the end of the world. Here was the reason I had turned Time into the blasted wastelands of forever. God save me, here was the reason for my eternal damnation.

“Hello, Lord Voldemort.”

The Dark Lord entered the Great Library at the forefront of a group of four Death Eaters. Bellatrix Lestrange stood on his right, grinning with wild eyes and licking her lips. Behind her was Rowle, wandless, and on Voldemort’s left stood Amycus and Alecto Carrow.

“I must confess to a certain amount of... surprise,” Voldemort said, his wand pointed at the floor. His face was relaxed, calm, yet I could see the barely concealed rage rippling beneath the surface. His pale skin, that slit of a nose, and those crimson eyes... I was marked for imminent death.

“Of all the lost cities in all the lost worlds I had to walk into yours...”

Voldemort’s gaze fell to Tonks, to Fleur, over Jason and Grace, and finally to Travers dangling like a worm on a hook over the precipice. He stepped forward, closing the gap between us to less than thirty feet. Far too close for comfort, even on the best of days...

“Three wands and two Muggles, Harry,” Voldemort mused. “Is Albus Dumbledore waiting in the wings, hmm?” The Dark Lord’s eyes narrowed to twin lines of smouldering fire. “Surely Harry Potter, the Chosen One, did not breach Atlantis so alone?”

“Want to know how I did it?” I asked. I raised my bad hand. “It cost me a few fingers, a few night’s sleep, and more than one fine Italian suit, but here I am.”

The Death Eaters were spreading out behind Voldemort, covering the entrance. Bellatrix grinned at me and winked, her eyes promising death and worse than death. She’d keep that promise before the day was out.

“Yes, here you are.” Voldemort shook his head. “Why call my attention down upon you, Harry? You could have gone unnoticed, I’m sure.”

“First things first – my companions are leaving, and you’ll let them leave.”

Voldemort laughed. “You are in no position to make demands of me, Potter.”

“Fuck you, yes I am.” I levelled my wand against the rope that kept Travers alive. “Let them go or he falls, Voldemort. I’ll kill him.”

“Come now, Harry, you do not have it in you.”

“Try me.” My voice was hard – defiant and unbreakable.

“Even so, the loss of one is more than a fair price to end your interference.” Voldemort considered me for a moment, perhaps waiting to test my resolve. “However resilient you have proven yourself to be across the years.”

“Yeah, you’re a heartless bastard,” I said. “However, if you look closely, our mutual friend Travers has a certain book tucked into his bonds. The very book you have been trying for weeks to locate. The book that will open the Crypt of Forget up in that tower of yours. Oh yeah, now I have your attention.”

“Master,” Bellatrix whispered. Her voice always seemed to be dancing along the edge of some impossible insanity. “Master, allow me... I’ll deal with Potter and his fr—”

“Be silent,” Voldemort said. His tone was forced calm; his eyes didn’t leave my face. “You are remarkably well informed, Harry. Still, I do not believe you will cut that rope. That is not how you work, is it?” Voldemort shook his head. “No. Dumbledore would not want his young protégé taking such dark, drastic steps. What would your dear, sweet mother say?”

“Dumbledore,” I said, “is not here. And neither is my mother. Because you fucking killed her!” I took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “But why take the risk? Let my companions leave unmolested and I’ll throw down my wand. You get Travers back, you get the book, and you get me.”

Fleur stepped forward and grasped my arm. “’Arry, don’t you dare—”

“Agreed.”

There was dread silence for a moment, and then Voldemort motioned to his Death Eaters and they reluctantly cleared a path to the vaulted doors back through the outer library.

“No, Harry,” Tonks said, glancing quickly at me then back to the Dark Lord and his Death Eaters. “Not an option.”

I offered both Tonks and Fleur a soft, tired smile. “Arguing with me again? Trust me. Take Jason and Grace and the trunk and run.”

“We cannot leave you—“ Fleur began.

“Harry, they’ll kill you.”

I laughed. “You’re not going to kill me are you, Voldemort?”

“I would not dream of it, Harry.”

I winked at Tonks and Fleur. “See. Who wouldn’t trust that pale face? Now I really, really need you to go and leave me here.”

There was a note of urgency in my tone, a hint of frustration. Leave, I demanded the light in my eyes to convey my conviction. To get the goddamn message across. It’s all part of the plan, ladies and gentlemen, all part of the plan... Fleur and Tonks had to know I was captured, had to see all of this, meet Voldemort, otherwise I could have just come here on my own. It all had to happen this way.

Any other way and they died, they all died, trying to rescue me, or trying to make it back to the real world on their own. This is how it had to be.

“I think we should go,” Jason said, watching me and trying very hard not to look at Voldemort. He was pale and frightened, almost shaking. “Fleur, Tonks... we should go.” Grace was nodding alongside him, holding his arm.

“I’ll be back soon,” I said, smiling that same old defeated smile. “Voldemort and I are just going to discuss a few things...”

“Harry, my patience is wearing thin.” Voldemort took another step forward, brandishing his wand. “Your companions will leave now, in my mercy, or I will have to dispose of them myself.”

My hand clenched around my wand. I wanted to fight, to fire a barrage of spells into that hated face, but I restrained myself. “Go,” I practically growled. “No more arguing. Just trust me and go.”

They went.

Cautiously, with Jason and Grace between them nudging the hovering trunk forward, Fleur and Tonks moved around the outer edge of the room, around the Death Eaters and Voldemort, who kept his wand trained towards me, and disappeared into the antechamber.

Fleur paused only once to glance back at me and I winked, offering her that much, before she disappeared around the corner and out of sight. I reminded myself that this was the way it had to happen, the way the story had to end, in the long run. Anything else cost lives I couldn’t afford to lose.

“I’m surprised you let them go,” I said in the silence that followed. I was regarded by the four Death Eaters and Voldemort with remarkable indifference. I reckon none of them thought I had long to live.

“It will be a small matter to hunt them down later. After all, how long can they survive in the dust of this once great city?”

I shrugged. “We brought a lot of soup with us, so it may surprise you.”

“Indeed.” Voldemort paused. “How did you find Atlantis, Harry?”

“Persistence, bit of luck, and I had a distinct advantage.” I tapped my scar, which still trickled a thin line of blood down over my eye. “I knew you were here.”

Voldemort said nothing, merely inclined his head. “There is more to it than that, is there not?”

I nodded. “Of course there is. In fact I’d go as far to say as—Diffindo!”

I’d had enough back and forth screwing around. The rope keeping Travers alive was sliced cleanly in two and the man fell without so much as a grunt, deadweight disappearing down the massive chasm.

Yeehaw! Yeehaw, indeed.

Voldemort acted fast, spinning his wand to catch the falling Death Eater, yet I was faster. Faster, smarter, better prepared.

I cast a multitude of curses in the blink of an eye, all non-verbal, and lit up the old library with the light of bone-breaking hexes, severing charms, and blinding jinxes. Voldemort was forced to spin to the side to avoid my curse light, and missed his window on catching Travers.

The unconscious Death Eater fell to his death, taking the dreaded Grefaénicon with him.

I had just killed a man – and it felt great. My blood pounded in my ears, my lips pulled back in a vicious snarl. I was awash with adrenalin – with fire and anger and rage.

The Death Eaters converged on me as one. Voldemort snarled and drew his wand against mine.

I hadn’t paused to contemplate all of this, however. No. My wand was busy burning a rune into the cracked marble at my feet. Harsh lines, crisscrossing over one another. I muttered harsh Atlantean and pressed my hand to the rune in the ruin as it flared with pure silver light. It took less than a second.

There was a muffled explosion from behind me, then several more – much louder and a lot closer. A great fist of heat punched me in the back and I flew forward through the air, even as sick, oily green light blasted apart the stone where I had been standing. I spun through the air, so did the Death Eaters, and glimpsed the white fires that roared through the old dusty stacks.

My starlight bombs had done their trick again.

Voldemort braced himself against the explosion, a blue domed shield protecting his form from the heat and the chunks of hurtling debris. I slammed into the floor only a few feet from the Dark Lord, my wand clattered away, and a relentless wave of blistering air washed over me.

Alone and unarmed, I looked up at Voldemort and smiled my best shitkickin’ grin.

For his part, the Dark Lord surveyed me with unmasked hatred... then looked beyond at the library as it went up in flames. Best laid plans going up in smoke, or falling into deep, dark chasms. His eyes flared with crimson malice and he snarled displeasure.

As the initial shockwave abated I slowly got to my knees, my skin burnt and cut in a dozen separate little nicks from the flying rubble. I made no move for my wand – there was no point. I rose to one knee and Voldemort smacked me back down with a wave of unseen force. He used his free hand to hold me in place by my hair, practically pulling it out at the roots. His hands were clammy and cold – the hands of a corpse.

“Harry, Harry...” Voldemort said, as the library began to really burn. Wood cracked and splintered, the books seemed to scream.

Suddenly Bellatrix was at her master’s side, her eyes wide and wild in the light of the pure white flames. “My lord,” she breathed and giggled, completely at ease in the chaos. If not for the ravages of Azkaban, she would have looked almost hot amongst the bedlam. Maybe that was just my fucked up mind. “My lord... take his life, take it...”

Voldemort pressed his wand against my throat. I made no move to fight him, no move to stop him... The tip was fiercely hot. I could smell my skin burning... Ash began to fall like flakes of snow as the library was consumed. I couldn’t have stopped him – wandless as I was against this madman.

I was playing a hunch from memories belonging to other madmen. Memories that were mine by Time-given right. How it played out would depend on how enraged the Dark Lord was by what I had just done... Time was on my side.

It had to be.

“It was an interesting read, that book Travers died with...” I said. Think on that, you snake-faced wanker.

Voldemort’s wand was burning a hole in my beck. The pain was excruciating, near-maddening, but always bearable.

“Do it,” Bellatrix whispered, breathing hard. Her lips were wet with excitement. She was crying.

“You are a constant thorn in my side, Harry Potter,” Voldemort said. “I am going to kill you.”

The Dark Lord screamed and drew his wand across my neck in one vicious swipe.

I blinked in surprise, feeling no immediate pain, and raised my hand to my neck. It came away slick, red with blood. My dirtied white shirt was already soaked in the same vital fluid. I laughed and the sound caught in my throat – became a bubbling gurgle that sent numb pain shooting through my entire body.

It was impossible, Time said as much, yet Voldemort had just slit my throat.

Damn.

He let my hair go with a snarl of such hate, of such blind fury, that I could only keep smiling. Above all, ya gotta keep smiling, boss. Ha-ha. I hit the floor hard, my glasses fell from my face, and the world blurred into a haze of white fire, of dark silhouettes. Two crimson eyes, unblinking and devoid of warmth, stayed in sharp focus.

Then there was darkness. Hazy at first, uncertain, but then as true as always. Always and in all ways.

Oh... god.

And all faded to black.

*~*~*~*

A/N: Yep, cliffhanger. Express your undying hate for me in a review, and maybe also tell me how you thought this chapter went. I was a fan of the Harry/Fleur making out on the bridge of the ship scene, and the whole Voldemort confrontation. I’ve been waiting about 200,000 words to get to the whole Voldemort confrontation. As expected, the Dark Lord was a bastard about the godawful small affair.

Also, I’m away for a week this coming week, so if you email me don’t expect an immediate reply. Won’t be back until December, really, and there’ll be minimal (read none) interwebz access for me where I’m going, so won’t I have a nice lot of reviews to read when I get back. Heh. But seriously. Look out for the next chapter soon,

Joe