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Chapter Text

David Carlisle sat behind his desk with his hand over his telephone, strongly considering dialing the number writ long ago in black ink on a calling card for a restaurant that had gone out of business years ago. He was that desperate. Something had gone wrong—a lot had gone wrong, recently—and he needed help.

It was only a year ago that Fudge had appeared into his office to inform him of the return of some "You-Know-Who" (no, he didn't), and then stuck around to introduce him to the New Other Minister, a "Rufus Scrimgeour" ("a former head of the auror corps, you know", Fudge had "explained"). He'd learnt that his own government, the "muggle" side of governance, had been compromised. Really, he should have dialed the number then.

Was he desperate enough? He'd been told to call only in an emergency, and there were no nunchuck-wielding ninja lurking in the corners of his office, no assassins with futuristic weaponry leveled at vital organs. No immediate threat. Could he justify it?

"Never you fear. We'll sort this out. We'll protect your citizens," Scrimgeour had promised him (not in those exact words). The wizards were going to handle this.

Or, that was what he had been told. But, Scrimgeour had also promised to check back with him when their little secret war was finished, and it had been a year, and no news had come through. In this case, no news was definitely not good news.

Probably. Should he call?

Sometimes, he almost convinced himself that he'd dreamt it all—the lightshow, the man in the black suit, the shapeshifting aliens—all of it.

But, he knew that he hadn't. The calling card was proof. In case he needed help from a secret society dedicated to fighting weird malarkey in secret, he'd been given an extra leg up, an ace in his pocket, whatever idiom you wanted.

But, he didn't trust them.

Oh, he trusted them to do their jobs, and to do them well. They'd win the wizards' little war for them, contain the threat, protect the people.

But, would they leave? Something itched in his mind—a sense that calling them in might be tantamount to handing off British sovereignty to this mysterious Supreme Council. Not that he knew much about them.

His hand continued to hover over the phone. He'd had his schedule cleared to make this very important call. He should make it. There was no way that the war, which apparently hinged on some sort of prophecy where the fate of an entire world rested squarely on the shoulders of a teenage boy, could be won by the "good guys". (Were Fudge and Scrimgeour the good guys? They were the government; they must be.)

All the same….

The fireplace flashed green, his first warning that Scrimgeour or an emissary was going to come through. He stuffed his calling card into his pocket, and tried not to feel so relieved.

An hour later, he sat there again, behind his desk, his mind in turmoil, the urge to call stronger than before. Dumbledore, their champion of the light, had fallen in battle.  Only Harry Potter, their Chosen One, his school, and a secret nearby town, continued to defy the "Dark Lord". It was like something out of The Lord of the Rings.

And yet, he still hadn't called. Perhaps, it was the surprise with which Scrimgeour grudgingly conceded that the Potter boy had done quite well thus far in fending off the enemy. Then again, he recalled Scrimgeour continuing, Hogwarts was a castle. Those were historically built for sieges.

Sieges.

Did he really trust a teenage boy to fight this war? But… Dumbledore's guerrilla army, the Order of the Phoenix, remained. The aurors remained. And, if all else failed, really the British Ministry of Magic should call in wizards from outside the country before they called in muggles. If he called the number…it could not be undone. Not even by the mindwipers the Ministry of Magic employed.

He'd give them a month. He wasn't sure why, but he felt that they deserved a month's trial. They'd kept their promise surprisingly well thus far.

A month. Then, he'd call.

In the days leading up to the beginning of the siege, Harry was plagued by nightmares. Or, rather, memories. It was part of the knowledge that he hadn't realised that he'd lost, and that would have put him on edge all on its own. It was of Thanos.

He worked most often by proxy, staying hidden in the shadows as he sent others to do his work. These others were dragged through the mud by the respective worlds they were sent to conquer. Loki was not an exception. There was, understandably, no love lost between would-be world conquerors and their victims.

Most of them were far more successful than he.

There was no need to hide anything from him who was being trained as just such an "ally". Yet, hide Thanos continued to do. Only by paying rapt attention and jumping to a few conclusions could Loki begin to unravel what sort of company he'd unwillingly fallen in with.

He wished, in silence, that he'd been allowed to stay dead. The Beyond had seemed wonderful and full of promise. Perhaps, a life not founded on a lie. Instead, he was given pain served up with pretty words. He was quite fond of words, and hated when they turned on him.

Words to build bridges. That had been the start, long ago. A place for him in a warlike culture, a way to win wars without mess and fuss.

That, too, an illusion. That revelation had spread a sort of numbness through him, after the immediate blow and adrenaline wore off. That was how they'd found him, trying not to think, and hoping that he'd find either an illusion to fill the rest of his days with what was, or a death that would tell him what he deserved.

Born into one world, raised in another. Your people's blood on your hands.

Whoever they were.

You tried to kill your own brother.

The recriminations and insults so like the ones he'd told himself over the last few days that he couldn't tell whether or not they were foreign. They spoke with his voice, but not the sort of words he was used to using.

"He'll take you apart and put you back together wrong, as he did me," said the blue woman. He never caught her name.

"Don't mind her. She's just a sore loser," said the green woman. She was usually in charge. He came to… wish reprieve from her visits. They promised pain. Of one sort and another.

He knew her name. Or one of them. She was proud and a warrior. They both were, but the blue woman never liked to stick around. She seemed to be avoiding the green one.

Better, better, better.

The small glimpses he had into their relationship just made it even worse. One, admired and exalted by her father, the other a monster who was turned away.

For that reason, he preferred the company of the green woman. She was angry and rash in a familiar way. Looking at her was not like looking in a fun-house mirror and seeing a twisted version of his own reflection, two monsters examining one another.

She was a monster, he swift discovered. But, it was less readily apparent. In many ways, she and her sister were twisted counterparts of him and his brother, whom he had by that point disowned.

But, there was this to be said in her favour, outside the coiling reality that Thanos and Gamora were trapping him into: she was like Thor. Anymore, it was almost an automatic thing, to try to talk around someone like that. Someone rash and angry was open to manipulation. Even as she poisoned his mind and tore it apart with her questions, he tried a series of probes to figure out what made her tick. Why she did this.

"My father set me to it," she told him, once. "It is his vision: a world without suffering. A world of plenty."

Surely no one believed that that would work. It sounded altruistic, but only someone who never troubled themselves to think through the ramifications of their plans would think it a good idea. And, what happened to all the unique races throughout the galaxy? What was one divided by two?

He learnt a lot. He saw a lot. There was no reason to hide things from him, although they did. Days blurred together. Certainty faded.

"Do they welcome you as their protectors in the worlds you conquer?" he asked her, once. "There it is you who divides the world in half. Do they welcome your interference? Have you ever returned to see whether or not they thrive in their newly halved world? Are you sure that the survivors survived?"

It gave her pause. She was gone for a month, he thought. Less memorable minions filled in—the world conquerors he'd heard her speak of. And the mad king. All of the days blurred together, and even now, he couldn't tell what had happened before what, except that window, when Gamora had gone, and come back shaken. What had she seen?

Even as he faded and fell, she began her ascent. Perhaps, it had been aborted before it could really begin. He might never know.

She loved her father—in the way that anyone who has been brainwashed and indoctrinated will love the one who violated them, a sort of helpless, desperate affection meant to protect them from further harm. A backwards, counterproductive protection. But, it was there.

There is always something stronger than love. Especially false affection. He found it too late to save himself, but, looking back on it after a series of nights broken into fragments of memories, he hoped that it had come to him not too late to save her.

Dumbledore's funeral was a surprisingly grand affair, given current circumstances. It was held out in the open, between the Black Lake and the Forbidden Woods.

Aberforth Dumbledore was somehow persuaded to attend, and to give some manner of speech regarding the coming war. The eulogy was given by Alastor Moody, Dumbledore's longtime friend.

Harry had to blink several times to confirm that, yes, that was Grawp in a formal suit, attending the proceedings. This past year with Hagrid teaching him manners and English must have paid off.

Dumbledore was buried in a white tomb with the wand he had used before the duel with Grindelwald clutched tight in his fist. It was all very ceremonial and remote.

Harry's thoughts turned back to the wand that he had stolen from Dumbledore's body before anyone else could think of trying to claim it for their own. His mind was only half on the proceedings. He was considering the "Tale of Three Brothers".

It had to be true. Dumbledore had given him the Resurrection Stone in Marvolo Gaunt's ring. The invisibility cloak that he had inherited was of more than sentimental value. Both hallows connected to Dumbledore. Wasn't it possible that Dumbledore had also found the third?

But: "he who gathers all three shall be Master of Death". That was how Luna had put it. Something more must have been needed, or Dumbledore would have been made Master of Death. Or had he?

But, doubtless, he was disqualified on account of not possessing all three Hallows at the same time.

Which raised the question: if you assumed that the wand that Dumbledore had won from Grindelwald was the Elder Wand from the fairytale, then Harry had now gathered all three Hallows. Did that mean that he was Master of Death?

Thinking back on the tale, not even quite sure of what the role meant, there was too little information to be sure. He felt no different from how he had, that night, facing Malfoy and Snape outside Hogwarts castle. Wearier, more burdened—but not changed in the way that he had half-hoped he might be.

Thanos sought for widespread slaughter—the death of half of all that lived across the universe. It was not the first time that Harry had had the idle thought: how better to counter him than to be made Master of that very force he hoped to wield?

But maybe, it was just as well that nothing had changed. There was no guarantee that the title of Master of Death wouldn't make him a more appealing target for the enemy. That was the last thing he needed. He would just have to learn (as he suspected Dumbledore had once had to train himself to do) to set aside any such aspiration, and work with what he had. And hope that it was enough.

To distract himself from trying to solve this particular mystery, he tried, first, to pay attention to the speeches and eulogies—quite a number of people had come to bid Dumbledore their respects.

Instead, he took count of those who had come to the funeral—he stood with Ginny, Ron, and Hermione, by the edge of the forest, in an area neither secluded nor prominent. No one was looking at him for once; he quite enjoyed the sensation of being unnoticed, one among a crowd, that he rarely had in the Wizarding World—even if it did give him time to dwell on things he'd rather forget or set aside.

He cast his gaze around the gathered crowd, covertly noting the faces, both unexpected and anticipated, of those who had gathered here—Madame Maxime, Headmistress of Beauxbatons (he recalled that Karkaroff had been killed), and Fleur Delacour, standing beside Bill Weasley.

Krum he had himself sent for, although he'd been in the country, anyway, working with or for the Order of the Phoenix. The dragon figurine that was Krum's hovered about his head, but no one seemed to notice.

The last champion, Cedric, seemed to be trying to make himself invisible, one arm around Cho Chang. Despite that, he seemed to fold into himself, slightly, when he caught Harry's gaze. Oh.

McGonagall was there, too, of course.

Remus, Tonks, and Sirius had all also come, Remus glancing around every few seconds before settling his face into a stern glare. When he caught Harry's eye, he abruptly stilled. It seemed that just about everyone had something they needed to speak with Harry about.

Well, the question of "what" made for a good distraction from the Hallows.

The Twins set off a respectful memorial of fireworks, custom designed for the funeral. Unfortunately for those gathered, Dumbledore was known for his sense of humour, and for considering death to be "a next great adventure". There were plenty of glittering lights and silvery streaks in amongst the manticores and golden gryphons and what seemed to be actual candy corn and lemon drops, however, so no one minded much.

A number of people sought him out after the funeral. The first were the three other champions, all four united in common cause against the foe awaiting outside the castle's walls. Each of them had more personal reasons for their fights than most of the rest of the crowd. Fleur had been targeted in the maze, Krum put under the Imperius, and his headmaster had been killed, and Cedric had nearly died himself, all under Riddle's orders. Their shared experience gave them a common bond, as the Tournament had been designed to do.

They each swore to stay and to fight for Hogwarts. Cedric was the last to leave, with a grim nod, as if he felt that he had made a promise more lasting than an Unbreakable Vow. It reminded Harry of two years ago. He didn't much want to think of that, either.

Sirius shoved Remus at Harry, when the four Champions had wandered off, each in his own direction. Remus stumbled, turned to glare back at Sirius, and then marched over with flagging steps, as if he did this only under duress.

Which was what surprised Harry with what he'd said.

"I'm going to ask you to do me a favour," Remus said, casting another glare over his shoulder at Sirius, who smiled and waved in return. "You see—there's been a bit of a problem."

This, again, did not seem to bode well. Harry waited with exaggerated patience for Remus to come to his point, but whatever it was, it was big news, and difficult for Remus to admit to—

"Tonks is pregnant," Remus half-snarled. Harry blinked. That hadn't been what he'd been expecting.

"You have that—that seventh sense," Remus continued. "I was wondering if you could check to see if the kid is—well—and if it is, maybe you could—sort of edge that away? Or seal it. I mean, can you do that?"

This seemed to be an almost physically painful thing for Remus to ask. He edged around the issue, and Harry, distracted, took a second too long to understand what he meant. Remus began to explain in an awkward rush, clearly unsure of which version of their relationship he was trying to invoke. "You see, I mean, we aren't married, but I thought—well, Tonks insisted, she was distraught after the battle, and it seemed—I don't think I was really thinking, or thought it through—"

This was Remus as no one ever saw him: Remus who had lost his cool.

"You're asking me to make sure your kid isn't a werewolf?" he asked. There weren't words for this, but….

He remembered those mythology books. Animagus magic perhaps came from the Celtic gods, but could he do something about the werewolf curse?

The infuriating thing was: he was almost certain that he could. If he just understood Loki's notes. Perhaps, if he could make just a little headway— (When would he have the time?)

"I'll see what I can do," he said, voice flat. It was yet another task on top of all the others, but he thought that the final battle against Riddle was near at hand. After that, there'd be a sort of lull. He could give the notes his full attention then—

"Good," Remus said, with an abrupt swerve of demeanour that suggested that this weight off his mind had left him bouncy as a spring. There was an almost mischievous glint in his eyes. Harry hadn't seen that since…well, probably that first day of class, back in third year.

"The other favour I mentioned—would you be the child's godfather?"

Now, Harry stared. That, he hadn't expected.

"What of Sirius?" he demanded to know. Sirius was the obvious choice.

"Well," Remus said, glancing over at the man in question. "He's still recovering. And besides…I think he rather has his hands full looking after you. If you were the kid's godfather, it would have to be the best of both worlds."

That was not why he'd been chosen. He could see two sorts of injokes hidden underneath the request. The Marauders, four who had been five (one a traitor, outcast now from their group), that unknown fifth a natural choice for a godfather. And also, a god, himself. A "God-father".

Remus would be the sort to prank people with twisted words. And yet—nothing that Remus had said could be denied, and it wasn't as if anyone else would know. It wasn't as if he had any great desire to stand out of such a role.

But, he didn't really expect to survive the final battle, either. Maybe he should look back over Loki's notes now, and see what more he could make of them? Or speak to Tonks, and look at her with his seventh sense directly, in case he didn't make it?

"The final battle is soon. Speak to me after that," Harry said, unwilling to commit when he half-expected to die in the end.

But privately, he swore to look after that child—even from the Beyond, if need be. He would not permit his own tale to repeat.

Bill and Fleur were getting married. She was joining the Weasley household. That was all the news that Bill and Fleur had wanted to further impart.

Chapter Text

The Siege of Hogwarts began even before students would have returned home for the summer holidays. It caught them unawares, after the recent invasion. Only those who had stayed behind to prepare for the coming war had any notion that a battle might come so soon, and even they hadn't expected it as soon as it had come.

The first battle of Hogwarts had been difficult enough, but the school had been a disorganised network of groups. Each house kept to themselves, unless they were members of the Defence Association. Somehow, the threat of an army (no matter how small) outside the walls was enough to inspire school unity as even the Sorting Hat's warnings had not.

By which it is meant: Harry finally called in his alliances with slytherin, and Slughorn quite independently had galvanised what of his students were not Death Eater sympathisers to work on what he dubbed "castle loopholes".

By which he meant: means of escape.

There had been a time when the castle, as most well-fortified places will, had had any number of secret exits. The Marauders had found most of these, but some remained secret to them, some were known to Riddle, and yet others had been found by neither.

And Slytherin had its fair share of secrets.

It became a priority, early in the siege, to sort students into groups in a slightly different manner. Muggleborn students who were in their lower years were considered too weak to defend themselves, and therefore a secret hidden bastion was needed as a last line of defence for them. Slytherin had been put in charge of finding one by Harry, who thought that if anyone would be able to think of a place where a slytherin would not be able to enter, it would be they.

Then again, there was always that old network of passageways beneath the school, although Riddle knew of it. It did not seem to be the sort of place that he would remember as well as he did the Chamber of Secrets. It was defensible, but—

If breached, there would be no escape.

The second category of students were the lower years who were pure or half-bloods from "inoffensive" (i.e. not gryffindor) houses. These must be sent home, lest they be drawn into the conflict. There was not the space to protect those who would only need protecting if they wandered into a war zone (and were young and foolish enough to).

The last category were the upper years—those who could and would fight. These were in charge of shoring up Hogwarts's defences and readying themselves for a siege. Except for slytherin, of course, who were tasked with finding a safe house, and an exit for the second category of students, and for the inevitable wounded.

Dumbledore had activated the school's defensive spells. No one could enter or exit save through the front gate, and whatever backdoor as the slytherins might find. Not even above or below the exterior castle walls into which the front gates were set. Malfoy and Snape had disappeared via the Forbidden Forest.

That protective barrier blazed as an invisible shield all over the grounds, which meant that they would not want for supplies, but which also made it more difficult to track the enemy's movements.

The single gate into Hogwarts had shut when Harry and Dumbledore had returned into the school, allowed Snape to retreat, and then had activated a second layer of the spell that prevented intruders leaving through the front gate.

Harry was acutely aware, perhaps more than ever, that now Riddle was down to one? horcrux, it was imperative that he look for any sort of opening to ridding them of the snake, Nagini. It was almost a relief therefore when the siege began, as it meant that Riddle recognised that Harry had entrenched himself here at Hogwarts, and that the only way he might lure Harry into the open was to bring his army to the castle and assail the gates, try to break into Hogwarts itself.

He thought that he still had six failsafes. He had no cause to leave Nagini unattended, when he could use her as a living weapon, or for intimidation. She was a rather large target, difficult to miss, and incapable of sneaking into the school in any ordinary way. The Chamber of Secrets was isolated, and not a proper entrance to Hogwarts. When Nagini arrived, Harry would know. He was certain of it. He'd just seek for the scuttling, hiding pocket of darkness. But he remembered, too, the danger posed to him, being so close to a snake, the way he'd felt their pain. He would have to contrive to be elsewhere, and send someone else to finish off Nagini.

He thought he knew whom to send. Ron was too valuable on the front lines. Hermione was not a good enough fighter. Stephen could not be relied upon to be there when Nagini came. And a selfish part of him sought to protect Ginny, Sirius, and Remus from further psychological damage to the maximum extent possible, regardless of what protests he knew that they would make, were he to tell them. He'd just have to find other tasks for them—

Sirius and Remus were former Marauders. They knew many of the castle's secrets. He made Sirius in charge of finding and securing secret passageways, and Remus as a co-finder/liaison between Sirius and the gryffindors, and slytherin house. There was too much bad blood to trust Sirius to set it aside.

Ginny seemed to think that she was required to stay by Harry's side at all times. He frowned at her, and then sat her down for a meeting where he discussed an alternate option.

"A safe haven?" she repeated. "Outside of Hogwarts?"

"Our original plan," he said, with a wry smile. "Put into effect as soon as possible. Apparation doesn't work in Hogwarts, so we'll have to find a way to sneak down there."

A new way. Sirius and Remus had already barred off their standard exits (including the one through which they had themselves entered for the funeral). At least Ginny did not seem to realise that he was keeping her out of harm's way. It helped that she was doing something genuinely important.

On what turned out to be the last day before the Siege began, Harry went out to the Forbidden Forest. It was the most obvious gap in their defences. It's a strange thing about forests, the way they refuse to be contained. Like most natural formations, they serve as natural connectors between areas. He needed to barricade that bridge off.

And to find out, at long last, what manner of place the Forbidden Forest was. He had never before had the sense and focus needed to examine it. But, as long as the wards Dumbledore had erected held, he needed to extend those defences to the Forest, or else find a way to appeal to the Forest itself. Somehow.

He recalled what Mr. Weasley had said at the dinner table that one night before fifth year—that the Death Eaters worked in part by giving rights to disenfranchised outcasts—like the "half-breeds" that Umbridge so loathed. If the energy of the Forest was born of its inhabitants, Harry might well have his work cut out for him.

He had his work cut out for him, anyway. The centaurs seemed willing to grudgingly overlook his presence, as he really wasn't quite human. Grawp lived still in the Forest, but Hagrid had finally gotten through to him.

That didn't change the fact that, amongst the known dangers, like the acromantulai with whom he was distressingly well-acquainted, were unknown horrors, like the thing with silver eyes he'd encountered but never identified in first year. He'd have to somehow keep his guard up whilst trying to figure out the magic of the Forest.

He wished that he might have had backup, but there wasn't anyone that really could be spared. Ginny was using as much energy as she dared, already, in the task he had set her to—equally as important as his—Sirius, Remus, Tonks, and Ron were all working on defences. Perhaps—and this was iffy—perhaps Hermione was free to assist, but she was not the most reliable backup. That exhausted the list of people in the know, and then some, except for the unpredictable Stephen. Well, he could hope that if worse truly came to worst, that Stephen would know and prevent it happening.

He'd have to stand on his own two feet sometime. He still wandered into the Forest wearing the invisibility cloak.

The forest had a heart, somewhere, but Harry knew better than to seek for it. Its magic would be strongest there, but that just meant that there would be more dangerous creatures. It was best to stay within sight of the Forest's edge—just far enough in that no one would notice him.

Still at the forest's edge, he reached out, trying to gauge its scope, and was overwhelmed. The magic in the Forest was, as it should have occurred to him, stronger even than in Hogwarts Castle. It was everywhere.

It was also stubbornly intractable, refusing to leave the Forest's edge. And, the magic was old, and somehow twisted-not-twisted. It did not reek of dark magic. It was not like Riddle and his Death Eaters. Perhaps more than evil, it was amoral. If he'd known more about legends and fairytales, he wouldn't have been surprised.

But, (as he'd reflected a few times to himself, including at the end of year four), he was hardly a predictable, orderly thing himself. Sirius had perhaps put it best.

He reached out to the forest as a sort of kindred spirit, and then reached for the vulnerability of its edges. The Forest was as much of a thinking thing as the Veil of Death, with that same almost-knowledge. He found himself drawing the probable Hallow, the Elder Wand, thinking that only if he supercharged it could he build a barrier strong enough to keep out the Death Eaters.

Once upon a time, Death walked these woods, something seemed to say. Was it speaking of Riddle, when he had slain those unicorns in first year?

His thoughts left this seemingly unimportant question when, reaching deeper into the Forest to try to cross it, he hit on something jarringly familiar. A hole. A gap. The road to elsewhere unknown. He edged around it, fought the urge to learn more (if it were important surely something would have come of it by now, right?) and moved on.

Stephen had never been to Patchwork Palace before—he'd only ever heard of it, known that it existed. It was easy to find, despite that. Or, at least, it was easy enough with a guide. Although he wasn't quite sure why his guide was even there.

"Shouldn't you be in school?" he asked the teenager currently leading him through the system of caves which was not the location of the place. Just the only way to get there reliably.

The boy paused to glare at him with almost-human blue eyes. "The Headmaster needed a break from me," he admitted.

Yeah, that made sense. James had apparently known Stephen all his life, even though this was the first time Stephen had met him. He had to wonder what his various future selves had said or done to make this kid that defensive. Come to think of it….

Right. This was the kid who could set anything on fire. And who enjoyed pretending to be a metamorphmagus. And who had, rumour had it, played enough pranks on the Headmaster that he'd been sent home at least once a year, every year since he'd started at Hogwarts.

Presumably, some of these had to do with his inhuman ability to make and sustain unnatural fires, but Ginny wouldn't talk about it, and she refused to let anyone else fill Stephen in. "James doesn't need any more encouragement to make trouble," she'd said, firmly, whenever Stephen had tried to ask.

Being the son of one of the most infamous tricksters to ever exist, and named after two legendary pranksters, was all the encouragement James had ever needed.

"Dad doesn't want you to go to the battle of Hogwarts," James said abruptly. He stopped where they stood, at the middle of a junction that went three ways. Stephen was ninety percent sure that one of them led to a cave-in, one a wall of fire, and one a waterfall. It seemed to fit the previous trials. The safe way for James was probably the wall of fire, but damned if Stephen knew how normal people came to Patchwork Palace.

Then again, given whose house it was, he doubted that they wanted very many visitors.

"Why—?"

"It's a wizarding war. If you go, you'll just reveal your existence to the wizards. That would be bad. They've forgotten about sorcerers."

Stephen stared. "How is it any different from the end of fifth year, when I saved Sirius from being killed?"

James actually took a moment to consider this.

"Not as many people," he said. "Not as public a place. The Ministry wanted to sweep that under the rug, anyway. You had a single task, and were inconspicuous. It was the middle of the night. You name it, the differences are there."

"Is that why I'm finally allowed to see Patchwork Palace?" Stephen had to know. "As a consolation prize, or to keep me busy when I'd normally time travel?"

James shrugged. "I don't think anyone really understands Dad," he said, with a surprising amount of venom. "I certainly don't. It's not like he tells me anything."

James was, what? Seventeen? Eighteen? Teenagers had that phase when they thought no one understood them, and no one loved them. Was that what this was?

"He thinks I'm irresponsible, just because I invented the at-home detention. Shouldn't he be proud of me for that?"

"He is proud of you," Stephen said. He couldn't believe that he was having this conversation. Loki was the one who had fits of daddy problems. Then again, did he really have a paternal figure to refer to for hands-on fathering?

No. No, Stephen was not tackling this problem now. It was not his responsibility to solve all of his friends' problems. Just the ones that involved time travel.

"He doesn't trust me. Just because I'm the eldest," James insisted.

Stephen sensed an incoming second problem. James knew Stephen, and the reverse wasn't true. James clearly saw him as something like a friend or family.

"Look, I'm not the me you should be unloading these problems to. Or, maybe you're not the you I should be having this conversation with."

Incoming headache. Stephen pressed against his temples despite himself. "I don't know your family dynamics, but trust me: family is a big deal for your dad. He just isn't very good at showing it."

James went stiff, and shoved his hands into jeans pockets. "Of course. I just wanted to remind you that you don't have to do everything Dad says. He says he doesn't think it's a good idea to mix too many magics at the battle of Hogwarts—that he stayed with wizarding magic, except for the Hallows. I think he's hiding something, and he just doesn't want you to know what."

That was entirely possible, but Stephen was aware that James had an angle of his own.

"Thanks for the advice," he said. "I'll keep it in mind."

James nodded, and pushed off the wall, taking the middle path, which, of course, was barred off with a tall wall of fire that pulled aside as James approached. "Coming?"

Stephen gave a polite nod, and reminded himself that he only had to go through this once.

Maybe tomorrow he'd go see twelve-year-old James, or something. Instead of going back to the Battle of Hogwarts. If James was right about that.

He didn't need to be reminded that he didn't have to follow the quartet's orders. He already knew that.

The siege was quite literally presaged by the dramatic entrance of Trelawney. Her entrances are generally dramatic, so the noteworthy fact was that she appeared in the Great Hall, where she had almost never been seen, and demanded to speak with Harry.

Harry thought that it might have been to check on his independent study work, but, no, this was him functioning as her liaison and spokesman, or perhaps mere benefactor. He was the cause of her success, and had first access? Was that how he had arranged it in fifth year? He didn't think so, but couldn't be sure.

It was, nonetheless, the second time in as many years that she had stridden up to Gryffindor table in the middle of breakfast at the Great Hall, to approach Harry. The last time, he could not help thinking with a touch of guilt and regret, Dumbledore had been there, and had intercepted them. Then again, last time, there had been a third True Prophecy.

That just brought to mind the line about the "lost soul, trapped between realms". That wouldn't do.

Or maybe it would, he amended, in response to her first, frantic words, spoken with a deliberate tilt of the head and arms set with a dramatic flourish at her sides.

"They come!" she pronounced to what she seemed to have intended to be the room at large. She hadn't accounted for the vastness of the Hall, how it muffled sound. She continued, undaunted. "I have seen it in my dreams. When the Ministry flies the Dark Lord's flag, the wall defending our school shall fall. I will know more, then. For now, the enemy is at the wall."

It had a half-direct, half-metaphorical sound to it that Harry trusted implicitly. He nodded. "Thank you, Professor."

"Oh, it's no problem, dear," she said, in a return to her usual airy voice. "I do like being useful. How is your homework coming?"

He resisted the urge to groan, glad that he at least had cause for avoidance. He turned to see Ron, already taking charge of Hogwarts's defences, doubtless. At least this time he wasn't protesting that this was Harry's quest.

Sirius and Remus, anymore always lurking nearby, came over when they heard this news. "The entrances to Hogwarts—are they sealed?" he asked Sirius.

"All except the one Ginny uses to sneak into Hogsmeade," Sirius said with a shrug. "Are you planning an evacuation?"

That was a difficult choice. He didn't know how long it was until the Ministry fell—that was what Trelawney had meant, he knew, as sure as he knew that it would happen. It struck him as dangerous to move anyone before Hogsmeade was set up as a safe haven. At the same time, he had yet to finish his perimeter of the Forbidden Forest. Still, he thought that they had time. As long as Riddle's forces were amassed here, they were not overthrowing the government. That bought them time.

"No," he said. "I need to finish a barricade in the Forest. We need to contrive a way to keep the Death Eaters here, even when they can't get past Dumbledore's barriers. Make them think it worth it to continue their current plan, and pick some of them off if we can."

He, Ginny, the slytherins in charge of finding another way out of Hogsmeade—they all needed more time.

It was simpler than that. They had a few aurors among them—and Sirius and Remus were skilled enough to be aurors. They had the knowledge of how to make anti-apparation wards. After that, it was a matter of flanking the Death Eaters, that they not escape.

The Order of the Phoenix, those among them who had stayed in Hogwarts after Dumbledore's funeral, left to barricade and occupy the Death Eaters. They were joined by others who hadn't come to Hogwarts at all. The unfortunate thing about the Order, Harry grumbled to no one in particular, was their no-kill policy. It was like fighting a zombie army that rose to fight you with the same men, over and over.

It gave the Death Eaters hope that they might win, and kept them fighting. The fact that Krum, Fleur, and Cedric were there meant that Harry could keep updated on how the battle was going even as he did important other things like block off the Forest, and, later, go with Ginny to infuse magic into the safe zone at Hogsmeade.

He did not like what he heard. The reports agreed that Lestrange was there, mad as ever, Avery, Crabbe, Goyle, Macnair, a couple of Death Eaters whose names meant nothing to him—the "Carrows"—but not the two individuals he most expected and hoped to find.

Nagini and Riddle. Where were they? Still, even Riddle couldn't take the Ministry on his own. Could he?

Hogwarts had dungeons. It had chains. It had the Room of Requirement, that did whatever its summoner required it to. Ron's suggestion that they take some Death Eaters captive and hold them in Hogwarts made Harry uneasy, but it also struck him as a good plan. Risky, but necessary.

They were still trying to buy time, and that meant leaving Death Eaters hope that they could actually defeat the Order of the Phoenix. At the same time, while he knew that sacrifices had to be made in war, he wanted to minimise casualties on their side. And, who knew? Maybe some of the "Death Eaters" were Imperiused, and would join their side.

The order went out via mini-dragon, along with the order to retreat for the night. They were a week in. He'd finished as best he could with fortifying the protections on the Forest. Really, it was self-sustaining once he reminded it that one of them had been killing unicorns, and that it didn't like human intruders anyway. But, making a safe zone in Hogsmeade was harder, even though he'd already sunken more time into it.

Most wars, Harry recalled hearing in school—or somewhere else he didn't much care to analyse—were wars of attrition. All about wearing down the other side. Hogwarts could sustain itself, having its own gardens and water supply, but the Death Eaters were free to raid wherever they liked.

Including Hogsmeade. Now the Siege had begun, and the Death Eaters were getting restless, he was glad to accompany Ginny to Hogsmeade, and note the continued lack of Death Eaters (suspicious though that was). He reserved more energy than perhaps he ought, in case of ambush.

And, ambush he found. Just, not the type he'd expected.

Chapter Text

That garden in Hogsmeade had changed since first he'd seen it, in the middle of winter. It was something that he should have expected, but somehow didn't. Everything in full bloom, with plants that he suspected no longer existed anywhere else, sending sweet scents into the air, and trees that politely kept even their longest boughs within the confines of the park.

He knew enough about gardens to know that everything shouldn't have been in bloom, that there shouldn't have been fruits and flowers at the same time—harvest was an autumnal affair. He took it as a sign that the garden was trying to become a magical place.

It was peaceful here, even with the rest of the Wizarding World at war. But, it was not yet ready for use.

They were running out of time. The Death Eaters would eventually breach the barrier around Hogwarts grounds. Before that happened, the most vulnerable would need a safe haven. He took heart that, judging by the not-quite-rightness of the garden as it now was, it was almost ready.

Ginny seemed to sense it, too, and she had a greater familiarity with gardens, given Mrs. Weasley's habit of assigning chores related to their own, much smaller, home garden. Ginny seemed almost incredulous, staring around at this place, desolate when she found it, now beginning to teem with life and magic. She met his eye, and no words needed to be spoken. They were close.

Even when the garden—or park, as it more rightly was—had reawakened its latent magic, that wasn't the end of complications. There was the matter of transporting the muggleborn lower years out of Hogwarts, currently under siege, for one. The passageway, exiting into Honeydukes, that Harry and Ginny used under the safety of the invisibility cloak, would not work.

The most reasonable course of action was also the riskiest—wait until the enemy retreat (but would they ever?), and then usher the students out through the open front gates. There were too many for secret passages, too many for a portkey, apparation didn't work on Hogwarts grounds, and multiple trips increased the risk. For the first time, Harry lamented the lack of variety in wizarding transportation. If only they could just ride the Hogwarts Express out—it was well protected—

A terrible idea occurred to him. It was the sort of idea that ordinarily occurred to Ron. It was such an atrocious idea that Harry quickly set it aside, locking away to look at later, if ever he could bring himself to look at it impartially.

He and Ginny walked through the park, talking about the war effort, for the most part. "There's plenty of fruits and vegetables," she mused, tilting her head back to look at the not-quite-summer sky. "But, what will they do for other supplies?"

Logistics. It was another problem. But—"I suppose we could ask the house-elves, as long as we kept it from Hermione," Harry said, after a moment.

Ginny gave a slightly weary smile that still looked almost a proper grin, and reached back for him. "I don't want to be there for that confrontation," she said lightly.

He shrugged. "It seems my lot to say the things that no one wishes to hear. I'm used to it."

Her gaze dimmed. "Yeah," she said, in a subdued voice. "It all seems to happen to you, doesn't it? I bet you can't wait for the war to end."

He raised an eyebrow at her. "Not when only this war divides time from the next."

She took his hand, and squeezed it, and for a while, they walked in silence.

It was on that same day that they had a strange encounter, as they approached the perimeter-boundary of the park, the place where its magic protection, such as it was, abruptly halted as if before a physical boundary.

There were visitors to the garden-park, and, although the magic of the garden was not yet activated, Harry had enough trust in its slowly unfurling power to trust that these two were not Death Eaters, imperiused, or otherwise the enemy.

It was odd, seeing the two of them standing there. Ginny, as if on impulse, unwitting, clutched his hand tight, looking at these two wide-eyed.

"Harry," she hissed. "Is that—?"

To all outward appearances, the answer was "yes". But, Harry had ways of digging beneath the surface. He had the habit, furthermore, of leaving at least some of his magic to himself when he visited the park, in case he need to retreat.

Being able to defend Ginny was a priority, as he wasn't sure that she had the foresight to reserve some of her strength for a hasty retreat, and suspected that she would be insulted if he asked.

He knew that he could be fooled, even as regarded magic, however it was unlikely that these were impostors. The magic of the park, such as it was, was nevertheless strong enough that those who meant them ill should be unable to cross its borders.

He deferred to the judgement of the park, opened his sixth sense and listened with his seventh. Nothing seemed wrong about them.

"I think it's really them," he said to Ginny, and turned at last to face their visitors. "How did you know about this place?"

Alice gave a small smile, and rolled her shoulders in a sort of shrug. It was Frank who answered.

"Word travels far. We heard that Hogwarts was under attack, and came to offer our assistance. We were on our way there when Alice noticed how odd this park looked. She didn't remember it ever looking this…lively. Neither did I."

They seemed to know that he and Ginny were students at Hogwarts. But, was it their school robes, or was it that they remembered those incursions he'd made, into their minds? And, if they remember that, then did they also remember who he was?

"We're all better, now," Alice said at last, voice firm. "And Neville is up at that school—I haven't seen him in so long, and—"

She broke off, her voice trembling and strained with evident pain, but then she squared her shoulders and turned back to Harry and Ginny.

"You. You're students up at the school, aren't you?" Alice said. "But, you're not there. Either you're with the Death Eaters, or you've snuck out of school like two little miscreants." There was a hint of laughter in her voice. "You remind me of James Potter, so I'm assuming the latter."

He blinked. Okay. They probably didn't remember, then. Ginny glanced back and forth between the two of them, and took Harry's left hand, again. Alice gave a knowing smile, and Harry had the thought that Ginny might have had the foresight to have chosen her actions to lead them to just that conclusion. Still—

"Harry," Ginny said, looking around as if they had been surrounded by the enemy. "What's going on? How can those be Neville's parents? We met them only a year and a half ago, and they didn't seem like they'd recover anytime soon."

Ah. She'd caught on to the slight hints as well as remembered seeing those two, laid out in the Dai Lewellyn Ward.

Frank seemed to think that her question was directed at him. "We don't know. One day, I recall just…waking up, as if no time had passed. I wanted to know where Neville was—he was just there—but Alice, who'd been awake longer, told me what had happened. We don't know how or why, and neither do the healers. It just happened. 'Spontaneous recovery', they called it."

Harry knew that they were only answering these questions to earn his and Ginny's trust by proving themselves. It left a sour taste in his mouth. They didn't have to prove themselves. He already knew well enough who they were.

He knew how they'd recovered themselves, even if they didn't. He sought for a way to change the topic.

"We'll have to bring you back up the long way around," he said. "The route we took isn't big enough for four."

It probably was. But, Ginny gave no protest.

"We'll fill you in on some matters you have missed, these past fifteen years."

He waved a hand, as if bowing them out. Ginny took the hint first, and, still clutching his hand, they at last exited the park.

Alice and Frank Longbottom followed.

He had to tell them again many of the things he'd told them inside their minds. It did not seem quite new to them, either of them, as if there was still a bit of influence to the deepest corners of their mind. Which, he had to concede, made a lot of sense.

They accepted with little proof that he was Harry Potter, and that Ginny was Ginny Weasley. They accepted that Harry Potter was considered a sort of "chosen one" destined to defeat "You-Know-Who", and that he knew of the Order of the Phoenix. They accepted that Peter Pettigrew had been a traitor—the traitor—to the Order of the Phoenix, and that he'd died shortly after You-Know-Who had returned from the dead. They accepted that Riddle had returned from the dead. That Sirius was innocent.

The first stumbling block was their refusal to believe that Dumbledore could have died. Ginny backed Harry up, providing lots of mournful details of the beautiful memorial ceremony. Still, Harry couldn't blame them having a hard time accepting this. They'd surely heard the news, or they wouldn't have believed, even now.

"I thought it was just propaganda," Alice said in a whisper, and had to take a few minutes to compose herself, and have a brief council of war with Frank. She went off to speak with him a good distance away, and came back with fire in her eyes that Harry knew couldn't mean anything that would make his life easier.

"We propose a deal," she said, jutting her chin. "You seem to be in a spot of bother, waiting for the line to break. I think I know how to break it for you—and get a bit of my own back at the same time."

Harry's creeping dread increased tenfold at the way she put this.

It was worse than he'd expected. She must have been planning it even before meeting them in the garden. It was why she'd given no objection to returning to Hogwarts via the least safe route. As it were, they'd be coming up along behind the Order of the Phoenix, with only the other Order members serving as a barrier between them and the Death Eaters.

The other members of the Order of the Phoenix, Harry knew, had no notion of the efforts Harry had made into healing Frank and Alice Longbottom—all except for Sirius and Remus, who were in the castle. Furthermore, no one knew that he and Ginny had "snuck out". It was a precarious position to be in.

Still, there is one very easy way to prove your loyalties during a war. Harry shook his head, keeping the Hallows, all three, out of sight. It wasn't that he didn't trust the Order of the Phoenix. Well, maybe it was. And, it wasn't as if Alice and Frank seemed to remember that they owed him a debt.

A debt that they seemed bound and determined to throw away. Were they gryffindors like Neville? They should have been, if they hadn't. This was unconscionably reckless.

"So…Lestrange sent you to St. Mungo's for a decade and a half, and your first thought is to confront her the moment you're recovered?" asked Ginny, arms folded, eyebrows raised, expressing Harry's stupefied incredulity almost better than he could have, himself.

Alice gave them both a pleasant smile, as if they were sitting down for tea and biscuits. "Well, not the moment we recovered," she said.

Frank had been more difficult to draw out of the depths of his mind than Alice had, and Harry had to question whether his continued taciturnity was on account of his nature, or owing to a less than complete recovery. Alice did not seemed too alarmed, however. Maybe Frank had always just been the quiet sort.

"It will work," Alice said. "Lestrange is You-Know-Who's second-in-command, unless things have changed more than I thought in the past decade."

"He has a giant, man-eating snake," Harry felt the need to remind her.

Alice waved him off. "He has a whole army of monstrous creatures. A giant snake is the least of our worries."

"A giant, venomous snake with anti-coagulant venom that nearly killed Mr. Weasley," Harry elaborated. This was the first he'd mentioned either the incident or Nagini's venom, but neither Longbottom seemed fazed.

He gave common sense up for a lost cause.

"Alright," he said with a sigh. "What do you need us to do?"

Other than somehow convince the Order of the Phoenix that they weren't impostors, that was.

It went better than Harry had hoped. Figuring that there was no point in hiding the Star Preserver Spell from the Longbottoms when the Death Eaters already knew of it, he supercharged Ginny's wand, and his own, and made for the front lines.

Cedric and Moody were both there. Cedric took one look at Harry and Ginny, gulped, and seemed to understand at least a little of the situation—that Harry and Ginny were themselves, and out of bounds. Harry gave him a level look. The dragon from the Tournament flew out of Harry's pocket, and sought out Krum. There was no letter attached, but there was almost an intelligence to these unliving figurines.

The Death Eaters had yet to amass a true army, although they'd made great strides in that direction over the course of the last two years, thanks to the Ministry's incompetence. Harry's sixth sense warned him of the proximity of Fenrir Greyback, an unnatural threat. The area by the gate-entrance to Hogwarts was open, and the giants that Riddle had recruited back in fifth year were hard to miss. He was putting a show of force against Hogwarts.

Nagini was nowhere to be seen. Nor was there any pain in Harry's scar to suggest that Riddle was overseeing things personally. Perhaps, the Longbottoms were right in suggesting that capturing Bellatrix Lestrange was the best way to break the siege. That didn't change the fact that it seemed foolhardy and reckless to believe that the four of them could succeed where the entire Order of the Phoenix had failed.

Of course, they had help. Cedric, Fleur, and Krum were game to help with any plan that Harry had in mind. He really hadn't done anything to warrant that level of trust. Nonetheless, with Sirius, Remus, and Tonks all coordinating the castle defences from within the perimeter, this was the best help that Harry could find.

"These are Neville's parents," Harry said, when Cedric had come over, ignoring Moody's shouts about running away, and "don't turn your back on the enemy, boy" to pick a rather more difficult path through the weeds to Harry, Ginny, and the Longbottoms. He clearly thought that Harry was the greater threat of the two parties.

"He knows, doesn't he?" Ginny asked, folding her arms with a long-suffering sigh. Cedric glanced over at her, but determined to say nothing. Ginny had not known the last Cedric had seen her.

Alice and Frank stayed focused on the task at hand. "We're Alice and Frank," Frank said. "And we can catch up about all what's going on later. For now, we need to break this siege, to give your vulnerable young'uns a chance to escape."

Cedric continued to sort of stare daftly as Krum and Fleur came over. Fleur was the sort of person whom everyone stared at—or at least, anyone with even an aesthetic appreciation of a woman's appearance.

Frank did not glance her way. He was peering through the brush, but the giants guarding the gate served the added purpose of hiding all their smaller comrades from view. Finding Lestrange would be half the problem.

Frank began to lay out the sketch of a plan—something about bombarding the entire area with spells and hoping to drive Lestrange out. Harry ignored it in favour of making his own plans. There had to be a better way to draw Lestrange out.

Part of it, he was sure, would be the mere appearance of the Longbottoms, once she caught wind of it. To her, it would seem that all her hard work had been undone. Harry had some notion as to how the minds of supervillains worked. Lestrange would want to "fix" her undone work. But the Longbottoms' plan seemed to rely on saturation, ambush, and a cheap shot or two, since Lestrange wouldn't be expecting them.

There had to be something else.

The goal of the siege was to take Hogwarts. Harry knew that. And he knew, equally, that even faking the opportunity for them to take the school wouldn't work, especially not with them on the outside.

There had to be something else that she'd be willing to come out of hiding for….

Harry smiled. Could he really pull off something like that without calling unwanted attention to himself…?

The only reason that he could get away with it was because Dumbledore had pulled similar stunts, even without Harry's supposedly limited knowledge. More than only Polyjuice Potion and metamorphmagus abilities could be used to disguise yourself. Granted, having Tonks would have been very useful.

Cedric glanced at him, askance, as if suspecting that what Harry was doing was not really wizarding magic, but he kept it all nonverbal. (A magician never reveals his secrets, and doubtless neither do gods or wizards.) As in the summer before second year, when he'd been making Ginny's life miserable, he kept it all just to the side of what was possible using wizarding magic. Thankfully, the comparison eluded her.

When Riddle called for her, Bellatrix Lestrange, devoted (or besotted) devotee that she was, wasted no time in scurrying out of hiding, following the instructions she was given, and into a clearing.

To all outward appearances, nothing was there. Then, as the aurors had surrounded the perimeter and saturated the clearing with stunners during the disastrous Quidditch World Cup after-"party", a radius of stunners were sent her way.

Her reaction time was quicker than Crouch Junior's. She ducked, casting a shield charm to block half of the spells sent her way, and letting the other half pass her by.

Harry understood why she was considered so dangerous. Her guard had been up the moment that she saw that the clearing had been empty. Now, she knew the locations of all of her assailants. Even alone, she started throwing out a wide arsenal of spells, all of them designed to affect as broad an area as possible. She knew that her opponents would have moved the moment they cast their spells.

Fleur and Cedric were sent flying by a couple of reductor curses, and Krum narrowly avoided some sort of violent cutting curse. Half of her spells seemed to be nonverbal, which made telling what she was sending out difficult.

Harry had stepped in front of Ginny, surrounding them with a sort of bubble-shield, and then retaliating with a few hexes of his own. He chose the full-body bind and leg-locker curses just for the sake of decreased mobility, and followed them up with the impediment jinx.

He had her attention. "Potter," she hissed, clearly thinking about the end of fifth year. Even without his armour, she knew to be wary of him. He stepped out of cover to confront her directly.

The Longbottoms were still in hiding. They had not taken part in the first volley of spells fired. Harry had lent them the invisibility cloak. He had the sense that it couldn't be stolen from him, at the very least—something about magical artefacts finding their way back to their owners. Maybe he was listening to Stephen too much.

He kept her busy until one of the Longbottoms suddenly appeared out of thin air between them, as if he were a ghost.

Lestrange hesitated. Needless to say, she hadn't expected this. You had to wonder what she thought of it. Did she perhaps think that they had died, and truly returned to haunt her?

Chapter Text

Bellatrix Lestrange's skills had dulled after her stint in Azkaban, but the Ministry had given her time, and she'd had two years to practise. However, this peculiar turn of events slowed her reaction time. She spent too long staring at Frank Longbottom, and Alice shot off two spells in rapid succession: first, a stunner, and then, some sort of binding. Hadn't they been aurors, once? Aurors knew all the best tricks.

Now came the question of what to do next. With Lestrange incapacitated, it made sense to bring her through the front gates. Only, that wouldn't work. The Death Eaters couldn't get in; neither could they. Harry was loath to use a secret passageway to transport a Death Eater. It was too much of a risk. (Who even knew how long she'd be out?)

He supposed it might be preferable, now, to admit that he and Ginny had snuck out of Hogwarts. The presence of the Longbottoms would be difficult to hide. Nor did he think that he had any right to keep them from Neville.

His Triwizard Tournament dragon had returned to him, but he didn't have any paper with which to send a message. But, he kept his Pog with him at all times.

He wandered off under the invisibility cloak to contact Ron and Hermione. They contacted the professors and the members of the Order within the school. Most of them stayed to defend the school.

They sent out Professor McGonagall, the Deputy Headmistress, because if anyone could open the front gates, even the small amount it would take to bring Lestrange through, it would be she.

Hogwarts was a large castle, and the area comprising its grounds was far vaster. Death Eaters had spread around the sides to try to find alternate methods of entering, accompanied by Death Eater allies. There were still quite a few of them, and none of the Death Eaters were exactly poor duelists, that Harry had ever seen.

Not everyone was guarding the Front Gate, and most of the Order was stationed there, knowing that this would be the weakest part of the castle's defences. It was not as difficult to break into Hogwarts as it might have been.

McGonagall was an impressive witch. She needed only to open the door, just a little, for them to slip through. But, Dumbledore was a legend even in his own time, and the protections that he put onto Hogwarts were strong.

It took a lot of her focus to open a hole in the defences, particularly as, not having a seventh sense, she'd never learnt to use it. She was mostly grasping at half a notion as to how to accomplish her task. The only thing that she could think of to do was to force the gate open, as if that would tear open the spell itself, but instinctively trusting it to repair itself, if she did not do that much damage to it.

All she had to do was open the spell, and hold the portal open long enough for them to slip through. But, for that span of time, she was vulnerable, as she hadn't brought any backup.

On the one hand, this made sense: Hogwarts needed its defenders, in case anyone got past McGonagall, and everyone that could be spared were already out patrolling the boundary outside the school gates. On the other hand, it seemed a senseless risk, given that there were Death Eaters on patrol, and that the prisoner was Lestrange.

It had already been decided that the fewer people who passed through the barrier protecting the castle, the better it would be. They would just be as quick as they could, and trust in those who remained behind enemy lines to cover them in the fight.

They were not quick enough.

McGonagall had her faults. Harry had little trust that he could afford her, after how little that she had given him. At the same time, she deserved better than her fate. At least the fact that she was guarding the front gates meant that she was on the Hogwarts side of the defences (or rather, between), and easy enough for Harry and Ginny to drag within the perimeter of defence.

And, it was an honour. It had taken at least five different shots before one of them had hit her. She had an honourable death, even if she'd been unable to defend herself. The four of them paused, on the far side of the barrier, to pay their respects to McGonagall. She must have been astounded to see the Longbottoms after all this time, but had recognised the urgency and foregone any demand for answers. Now, she would get them only in the next world.

Yet another soul to argue for with Harry's father. There were more of them than he'd ever known before. McGonagall might not have been his favourite teacher, but she had at least tried to make amends, these past two years, for an early rocky start.

Harry turned, opening his seventh sense just enough to notice the way the material of Dumbledore's ward-spell pulled closed around the small hole McGonagall had made, as Ginny pushed the gate shut again.

"What an underhanded tactic! Imagine ganging up on McGonagall when she can't defend herself!"

Harry shrugged. War was war. It seemed perhaps a bit of an overkill, but what had they hoped to accomplish? It seemed stupid to him.

"Neville is here, right?" Alice asked urgently. "Where is he?" She seemed to have forgotten their current quest, with her son so close.

Frank took over the levitation spell that they were using to carry Lestrange. Alice seemed exhausted from leading for this long, anyway, and the recent battle must also have taken its toll—she hadn't used any magic for the past decade and a half, and who knew if magic got rusty? Then again…she must have practised before she'd come here. Maybe it was just…being back into the war she'd left, as if she'd never left?

It probably didn't matter, as long as it didn't hamper her ability to fight.

They made a grim procession into Hogwarts, Bellatrix Lestrange, still subdued, kept with the square formation. It did not occur to Harry to tell any of the others of the Ministry Six what had just occurred. He was numb.

McGonagall had been a staple of Hogwarts life from the start. The thought of her gone…it was unthinkable. Then, too, she had never chosen a successor. There was no headmaster (or headmistress) of Hogwarts, with McGonagall gone. It was a lucky chance that Dumbledore's ward hadn't fallen with no headmaster to sustain it. They had taken a greater risk than they had thought. Was it worth it?

If Hogwarts had fallen, that would have drawn Riddle out of hiding. Forced a confrontation before they were ready. Perhaps this course of action had been foolhardy.

At the same time, it had worked, and had bought them the time to evacuate the most vulnerable.

There was no point in looking backward. They could only continue their plans with McGonagall gone. Later, they could hold a funeral for her, and mourn, and wonder what they should have done, and contemplate what course of action should have been taken.

Those of the Order who had remained within Hogwarts to protect it were there to meet them. Sirius and Remus were at the fore, Sirius looking only mildly impressed at the capture of Lestrange, Remus thoroughly distracted by the presence of the restored Longbottoms. They served as a vanguard, leading the way and shielding them from onlookers.

Filch had often lamented that he was no longer allowed to hang students from the walls with chains. Harry had come to the correct conclusion that these were a sort of magical chain. It was doubtless barbaric, but it would keep Lestrange out of their hair without need of a constant guard on duty watching her.

Not that that meant that Harry thought that they should forego having a guard set on her. Redundant security measure? Perhaps, but necessary. Lestrange must not be underestimated, particularly since she was not quite right in the head, and her thoughts and ideas no longer were limited by logic or sense. To the extent that they ever had been.

Ron and Hermione had encountered them on the way to the dungeons, and Ron could not have made it clearer that he was just restraining himself from ordering an explanation, but only just. Sirius and Remus were clearly in the same boat. The moment Lestrange was secured, and Harry had made an arrangement that Dean and Tonks (mostly because they had encountered these two on the way to the dungeons), Harry braced himself for a lengthy explanation of just what was going on.

The Longbottoms, meanwhile, had not felt the need to stick around once Lestrange had been secured. They gave perfunctory smiles and cordial greetings to her guards, and the people they passed on the way they greeted with nods and waves and small, unassuming smiles, but their attention was elsewhere, and they took the opportunity afforded by the mild sort of controversy that surrounded their reappearance to disappear. No one was looking at them. The attention seemed to be fixed on the boy, Harry Potter.

And, strange though it was to reflect back and to realise that they'd missed out on so many years that Harry Potter was now in his late teens, they'd had a year to come to terms with this fact, reading it in papers, hearing the rippling whispers of a "Chosen One", "The Boy-who-Lived". But, all the time in the world would not make them come to grips with the matter that, for them, loomed far larger.

Almost sixteen years since the defeat of the Dark Lord. Almost sixteen years to the time when Death Eater loyalists had come for them. Almost sixteen years since they'd last seen Neville, only a baby at the time.

He had no knowledge of them. He had no memory of them. He'd come to see them every time school had let out for the holidays, and they'd been unresponsive. Barely there. Dead in mind and spirit, dead to the world, with only their bodies remaining.

This last year, they'd been in hiding, with some clever tricks to disguise an innocent victim or two as themselves. Not that it matted: Augusta Longbottom never did like to stay long. Alice and Frank had snuck back into the hospital at night to renew their transfiguration spells, but hadn't dared to be anywhere nearby when Frank's mother, or their son, had been in the vicinity. They hadn't trusted themselves to lie low with such precious people right there.

It had been sixteen years since they'd last seen, heard, or spoken to Frank's mother, Augusta, or, more importantly, their son. Neville.

Neville, who was here in Hogwarts. Would they know him if they saw him? How would he react to them? They'd spent a year trying to come to terms with their absence from his life, thinking ahead to the reunion to come, and using it to strengthen their resolve. They had no idea what to expect. It was not the sort of thing anyone could prepare himself for.

Now, with the reunion near at hand, they found themselves questioning whether or not it was even a good idea to get involved with Neville's life right now. There was no guarantee that all of them would survive the war. Wouldn't it be cruel of them to give Neville that hope only to then snatch it way? All the same…they knew that they couldn't stay away. And, without a good idea of what Neville did, what he was like, or even what he looked like, it would be difficult to avoid him. Even if they'd wanted to. Which they didn't.

Hogwarts was as timeless and unchanged as ever. If you had only recently graduated from Hogwarts, and then your life had essentially paused for sixteen years, it meant that they still remembered a lot of the secrets that adults who'd been away for a long time, as they had, usually had forgotten by now.

They snuck back to the Great Hall by not-quite-secret roads, and entered to find that McGonagall's body had been retrieved from the front gates. They paused to pay their respects in the side doors leading into the Great Hall, and took a moment to watch as a group of students—quite possibly the gryffindors who were, after all, her former charges, clustered around her, many openly crying.

What house was Neville in?

Then, Alice noticed one among them with sandy blond hair. She wasn't sure what made her eyes gravitate towards him—maybe it was the way he moved, with a familiar slight awkwardness, or that chubby round face, or—something. But she was almost sure, even then. She tugged at Frank's sleeve, pointed towards that boy, saw him follow her finger.

Maybe.

It could be Neville. Or, it could be a stranger. But somehow, being trapped in their own minds, as Harry Potter had told them, even though neither of them remembered the experience of being within their own minds, nevertheless had some effects. They both trusted their intuition more than perhaps they would have before. Perhaps they'd accessed some inner knowledge that the spiritual quested after.

They felt almost-sure that this was Neville, standing guard at McGonagall's body, paying his respects. Sure enough that for a moment, they just stared and watched him, coming to terms anew with the idea that they'd lost the formative years of his life, scrutinising every detail of his appearance, memorising it as if a first meeting to be enshrined in their hearts, as if rather than meeting for the first time, they were meeting for the last. Perhaps, they were.

And, despite this, there came to both of them the powerful realisation that even if they were soon to be parted forever by death, it would still be worth it to have this one last meeting. They'd just have to wait until there were fewer people around. This was a family moment, a moment just for them. They had waited for a year. They could wait longer.

And, when Neville left McGonagall at last, having paid his respects as best he knew how, he wandered to that side exit, unthinking, his mind occupied with memories of his six years at Hogwarts instead of any choice of destination. He passed by them without knowing it, too mired in grief to recognise the presence of anyone else, when he knew that the Death Eaters were still trapped outside the castle gates.

All save for one. And this knowledge, too—the knowledge that the woman who had, for all intents and purposes, killed his parents—was here in the castle, was another distraction for him, something else to occupy his thoughts. What would his parents think of him? Now that he had a wand that had chosen him, he'd noticed a marked improvement of his spellwork. Would it be good enough for them? Worthy of his name?

He didn't notice the two break away from the shadow of the door to follow him. He didn't notice being followed until someone shoved him into an empty classroom (there was no shortage of these at Hogwarts), and shut the door behind him.

When he noticed, he had to work on believing. He could hardly forget these two, whom he'd just been thinking of. Even last Christmas, when the Ministry had acknowledged that Wizarding Britain was again at war, his grandmother had still managed to find time to go to St. Mungo's for an hour to see them.

Had something happened to them, where they lay in St. Mungo's, and they had died? Should he be glad or horrified if it had? They'd be free at last of their torment and empty lives, but—somehow, he'd always thought there'd been at least a flicker of life in them—at least until the last visit. To see them here, now—even in the muggle world, sometimes it was held that the dead would appear to their living loved ones to say a final goodbye.

"Neville?" asked his mum, stretching out a shaking arm towards him. She looked solid, in the traditional witch's garb of solid black. The ghosts of Hogwarts were seethrough and white. Then again, they weren't the spirits of departing loved ones. Perhaps, there were different rules there. Neville didn't want to get his hopes up, lest they be crushed again, and yet….

It hadn't happened yet that he'd managed to make them proud. He'd done his best, joining the D.A., invading the Ministry to…protect a prophecy? And now, organising his corner of the efforts to protect Hogwarts with Dumbledore gone. He still didn't really feel that he'd lived up to the legacy his parents had left him. Not as his grandmother had described it.

He could ask, couldn't he? Maybe they were hallucinations, or ghosts, soon to depart this world, but either way, they might give him some solace heading into this high stakes final battle against the Death Eaters. When the Death Eaters returned, as Neville knew without anyone having to tell him, they would return because they could breach the castle defences.

"Are you…proud of me?" he asked, turning to face them with eyes blurred with tears.

"Oh, Neville," his mum cried, rushing forth as if his words had destroyed some sort of invisible barrier separating them. She seemed solid as she crashed into him, and her arms felt solid as she flung them around him.

As did his dad, when he joined her. "Of course we're proud of you, son," he said.

No more words seemed necessary, suddenly. That time would come, when Neville realised that this was real, that they were really here and restored to their former selves. For now, being reunited after over fifteen years apart was enough. Even if they die tomorrow, they would have had this.

Chapter Text

There wasn't the time to give McGonagall a proper funeral before the Ministry fell, and the Death Eaters returned. Dumbledore had made arrangements in anticipation of his own death which had only needed to be rushed through. McGonagall's death, by contrast, came as a surprise to everyone involved. There were ways to preserve the body for a short period of time until the funeral, which had been used for a shorter time for even Dumbledore's body, to give people time to rearrange their schedules and come to Hogwarts.

Thoughts for another day.

The less than a month long gap between the end of the Siege of Hogwarts, and the beginning of the Second Battle of Hogwarts, did give them enough time to accomplish a few things. The first was convincing Hagrid that Fang would in fact be safest here within the Hogwarts castle walls. Fang was getting older—big dogs don't live as long as small dogs, even in the Wizarding World—and was less energetic than he used to be.

Furthermore, most of the castle cats had already made their acquaintances with him at some point in their life here at Hogwarts, and had all dismissed him as beneath their attention. Fang was also a coward who had no desire to pick any fights. Instead, drawn by the lure of food, he spent his time in the Great Hall, when meals were in session, or trying to find his way through the portrait-door into the kitchens, when they weren't. It kept him busy, and out of danger, which was good enough for Harry. Crookshanks occasionally took pity on him, and accompanied him on his adventures. This amused Sirius perhaps more than it should have.

Their other main success was the activation of Hogsmeade Sanctuary. Harry noticed the change—as if the air had snapped into place around them—right away. Ginny did too, if he could judge only by the way her head whipped around, eyes sparkling as she took in the new scene. Of course, it was hard to miss the sudden vibrancy of the plants around them, or the way the air seemed to shimmer with thousands of pinpricks of light. It was beautiful, in a way that didn't seem to fully belong to this world.

They spent longer than they'd intended to upon first setting out just wandering the garden/park, observing the plants and sudden pond that had sprung into existence there. He was sure that some of these plants, too, hadn't been there before. There were trees for a sort of makeshift shelter, and magic could do the rest.

"But, you won't get a balanced diet, here," Ginny said. "And how will they know what's edible and what's not?"

This was a fair point, but then again, house-elves could do things that humans couldn't, and Dobby and Kreacher both seemed to like him. Harry was more focused on figuring out how to get the vulnerable to this sanctuary in the first place, and on whom he should bring to watch them. He was not foolish enough to think that, no matter the circumstances, even a war, that eleven- and twelve-year-olds could be trusted not to wander out of the park unless monitored. Then, there was the war itself, which suggested that bringing them out in the open air even for brief periods of time would not be a good idea. Ideally, they'd come under the cover of night, and spend as little time in the open as possible. That meant not walking through the Hogwarts gates, even if they'd been open.

Well, they had a safe haven, now. He thought that he could find an excuse for Ginny to stay here while he went and gathered the first- and second-years.

Convincing Hermione of the necessity of his plan was more difficult than he'd previously assumed. Or rather, she kept finding excuses not to even try the spell. It was only good for short distances, she said, not for carving tunnels below ground. Or, she conceded, perhaps that was possible with a larger crew, but for the moment, with only her working on it and not enough time to let the spell "set", it wouldn't work, and it was highly dangerous anyway.

Harry thought for a moment, and then dragged The Twins into the mix.

"Didn't you tell me, when you first gave me the Map, that there were a few caved in passages that no longer worked? Do any of them lead to Hogsmeade?"

The Twins became invested in the plan, and Hermione felt almost that she had to show them how to properly use magic. She agreed that this insane plan of Harry's was worth a shot, at least if no one else could think of a better way to get to the sanctuary.

"Couldn't you use a portkey?" she asked again. It was the next best option, which is why she kept bringing it up. It was proven safer, but—

"They're limited—only as many people as are touching the portkey will be transported at a time. Even if we could establish one that could take us straight to the garden, it would still take too much time and energy to transport all those students in such a way."

It was possible, but not ideal. As he'd explained at least three times by now. The Twins had taken to nodding along, miming taking notes. He thought that they could actually parrot back his explanation to Hermione if she asked again, and went to recruit chaperones for the muggleborns.

Remus and Tonks were near the top of his list for obvious reasons—as were Cedric and Fleur—but Remus brought up his own problems.

"Are you crazy? Harry, I'm a werewolf. You can't send me to guard a group of children! What if I bite one of them?"

Harry raised an eyebrow in response. "Isn't Tonks pregnant?!" he asked.

Remus sputtered incoherently in response. "You're worried that your child will be born a werewolf—enough to think to ask me if I can't ensure that he isn't born a werewolf—but you have planned no way of protecting him after he is born?"

Remus fell silent.

"Regardless, we have already a means of protecting the students of Hogwarts from you. None can enter Hogsmeade Sanctuary if they intend to harm those hidden within. It should be able to deflect or absorb most curses, even, and it's bigger on the inside than it appears from without.

"Have you forgotten the Shrieking Shack? You hid there in your school years. It was good enough to protect the citizens of Hogsmeade then, why not the hidden students of Hogwarts now?"

There was no good retort to be made for this, but that didn't stop Remus from trying.

There was another important thing to do besides: to see what the slytherins had accomplished since Harry had last spoken with them, and particularly whether or not they'd completed their "purge", separating the Riddle loyalists from the defenders of Hogwarts.

That task had been completed with surprising swiftness. It was hard not to suspect the children of Death Eaters by default, but not all of the Death Eater sympathisers were children of Death Eaters, and not all the children of Death Eaters were Death Eater sympathisers. Blaise Zabini had decided to head up that particular investigation, having just enough credibility with both sides to tread that difficult line.

Slughorn, meanwhile, had recruited a number of his students to various tasks designed to the protection of the castle. Some of them, as investigating and strengthening the castle's defences, were tasks that Harry had also asked of them. Others, as researching various restricted spells that Riddle might use (or that they might use against him) were entirely Slughorn's ideas.

From this line of questioning, Harry was reminded of the Sorting Hat's warning about unity. Slughorn had the interesting theory that the four houses working together to repel invaders was itself a spell that would assist in its protection.

Perhaps. He must have cause.

There were about a hundred fifty students needing to be escorted out of Hogwarts. Harry looked at the numbers and felt that perhaps they'd overestimated the sanctuary at Hogsmeade. He'd certainly underestimated the number of chaperones they'd need. As Hermione fervently studied back over what she'd read of the World Opener spell, Harry went about recruiting more defenders for the lower years who would be hiding.

Hermione being Hermione, she acquitted herself beautifully. She stood at the very front of their little expedition, and, although she had privately confided her uncertainty in this entire undertaking to Harry, Sirius, Ron, and Remus, she now gave no sign of such.

Show no weakness, she perhaps thought to herself, or, perhaps, she just wanted to reassure these much younger students by acting as if she knew everything would work out.

It worked out.

It was slow going, making their way through the collapsed tunnel. Fred and George had come along, to show the proper route, and because they had decided to become chaperones, themselves. They knew that their line of joke shop products would keep the kids entertained, and Angelina was left working in the shop. Still, they'd troubled themselves to contact Mrs. Weasley, who had, with less regret than she would have shown had their joke shop not been as lucrative, contacted Lee Jordan and a few other business associates to help hold down the fort for…however long this second battle of Hogwarts lasted.

Harry followed close behind Hermione, alongside Fred and George, but all three of them were too focused on the task at hand to talk about anything. Harry contented himself with watching Hermione at work.

At first, the younger students were impressed or dubious about their ability to seemingly walk through a rockfall, but the novelty wore off, and still they persisted on and on.

At last, however, they emerged into a network of caves that Harry had never known existed near Hogsmeade. The rockfall ended first, and Hermione leant against the wall, exhausted, but not about to ask for any help. Harry would have offered, or forced it upon her if she had been in any great danger.

Which was not to say that she hadn't put herself in danger. But he knew well that they could, all three of them, be rather stubborn when they put their minds to it.

When they emerged into the open air of Hogsmeade, it was a rush for Harry to identify where they were, and to let himself be pulled towards the place of strongest magic nearby. He knew it to be the sanctuary.

Ginny had been pumping magic into it, as he had supposed that she would continue to do as time passed. It looked different from how it had, even a few days ago, when he'd seen her last.

Harry did not relax until everyone had entered the sanctuary. There were quite a few adults here, too, when they ought to have been protecting Hogwarts, but looking after these less responsible younger years was also important. They didn't yet understand the dangers of the world into which they had entered. If not properly watched, some might venture out of this safe area.

Remus, Tonks, Dean, Seamus, Fred-and-George, Fleur and Bill, and a few members of the D.A. besides. It would have to do.

After that, Harry glanced around, and then extracted Remus from their midst, to show him the way into the Shrieking Shack.

Hermione insisted upon returning to Hogwarts with Harry, who insisted that Ginny remain at Hogsmeade Sanctuary to continue to channel magic into it, and to watch over the younger students as one of the many babysitters.

In reality, of course, it was to keep them safe. Harry had not forgot that in at least one timeline Stephen had said that the Second Battle of Hogwarts had killed Remus.

Where was Stephen, anyway? Well, Harry assumed that he'd be there, somehow, on the day that the Siege broke and the Second Battle of Hogwarts began. Harry knew that that battle was coming—he had both the benefit of a time traveler's knowledge, as well as his own common sense, to tell him this.

How, though?

He had his answer when the Ministry fell to the Death Eaters, and the protections Dumbledore had erected before he died fell. That was a few weeks later.

The attack came in the afternoon. Their first warning was Professor Trelawney bursting in on the scene, crying, "They're coming! The noonday sun sees the fall or rise of the light. You, boy, shall sever the head of the snake."

Oh, right. Harry had a sensitivity to snakes, and couldn't be the one to kill Nagini. Well, at least he sort of now knew that Neville would kill her, and Neville was as good a choice as any. Being around his parents these last few weeks had really bolstered his confidence, or his resolve, or something. There was a determined set to his jaw. Impressive.

"Here," Harry said, handing over the Sword of Gryffindor, which, at the moment, looked like the Sword of Gryffindor. Alice's eyes fell to the blade, but she kept her arm around Neville's shoulder. There was a bit of a frown between her eyebrows, but that was all the notice she seemed to take of the sword.

A lingering impression from her time in her mind-maze, doubtless. There were bound to be some.

Trelawney had not yet finished. She had the decency to speak more quietly when she addressed Harry personally. "Your fate I do not understand," she admitted. She would never have done so, back in the day, but she had more confidence in her own abilities, now. "I saw you wandering a world of purple and pink. It seemed hazy, and you were difficult to see, as if that world was made of mist."

Harry froze. Everyone was staring at him. "I see. Thank you for informing me of that. Perhaps, it is some sort of metaphor."

Somehow, he kept his voice level and calm, despite it all. He knew what she meant.

He did not glance over at Ron. If Ron were suspicious of his reaction, he would, inevitably corner Harry later to demand an explanation. Looking over now would only catch his eye, make him suspicious when he might otherwise not have been.

Harry shoved all his thoughts, all his feelings, everything he had ever thought he wanted or needed to the side. The words of Professor Trelawney's last prophecy rang in his ears:

The lost soul, trapped between realms/ Bound in exile, freed in death.

Death makes an equal of all.

Now that he was sure that he was shortly to die, there was a part of him that refused to say his farewells. He had some regrets concerning Stephen, but perhaps that was the reason that Stephen had not appeared since the end of the year. Perhaps it was that Harry would die, here.

Nevertheless, the Before. There were ways out, ways to advise the living even from that place. In time, he could find a way to make it work, to make himself even more liminal than he was.

He was not giving up. If he had been reincarnated once, it might happen again in time for him to be of service in the future. But, that could not be counted upon.

Instead, he had to admit he was mostly thinking that his consciousness might rejoin that other-self, currently alive, not yet aware of the horrors his future held. Harry was almost certain that there was a way to do that—it was in how he'd traversed the Beyond after he'd died that final time, before being reborn as Harry Potter.

All of that gone, now. There was no point in treating this as if it were some sort of temporary death that he could just recover from. What if he were wrong?

The prophecy seemed to suggest that he'd regain more of his abilities if he died, anyway. Perhaps enough to…rejoin the other realm?

He was going to die. There was no point in speaking to Ron, Sirius, or Hermione about it—they would try to dissuade him. Ginny and Remus were too far away. It was just as well.

This was how it had to be, his seventh sense insisted. Dying alone, as he had every time before. He would die, but—

Part of him would stay behind, to assist the ones he loved. That was what ghosts were.

There was a chance that he would live. He didn't see how, but there must have been a chance, or otherwise, Stephen would have never met him in the future. Riddle could not have survived, then. But, somehow, something Harry had done had necessitated his true death, here and now, and Stephen was unrestored in the future, unable to stop it. Unable to warn them, when Harry had done whatever he had done that had destroyed whatever had saved him in every other timeline.

Harry made his peace with it. And when Riddle called him, he went.

He went under the cover of the invisibility cloak, and, with shaking hands, fetched out the Resurrection Stone. He would never have another chance to see whether or not he'd figured this out, if he was right, if it could be done. He would die soon, anyway. The corruption of the Stone, such as it was, would have no time with which to affect him, and he wanted to apologise to his mother. He was her tie to the physical world. Perhaps, she'd have some advice, even, for some alternative. It was his last shot at this.

He walked into the Forbidden Forest, as Riddle had demanded, but stopped at the edge, putting on the Ring of Gaunt, and turning over the Stone, thinking of that line in the prophecy that seemed to suggest that he should. If a prophecy could be said to be addressed to any individual, Trelawney's third prophecy had probably been addressed to him.

"Lily Evans," he whispered to it, as he turned the stone around once. He thought of what he remembered of her, how she'd appeared in the graveyard, two years ago.

She appeared as a misty, vaporous form, and began to whisper to him about how it was alright, how dying wasn't that bad, how she was proud of him for being willing to die to protect those he loved. This was the shade that the Resurrection Stone had drawn forth. It was real, in a sense. But, as his father had only been a piece of himself in the graveyard, so, too, was this only a fragment of Lily Evans.

As she spoke, he reached out for her. Her hand was too wispy to take, but an energy that burnt with cold flooded out from his hands in a colourless scatter of light, and then she was material. Solid. As she had been when he'd drawn her from the Mirror of Desire. As she had been in the graveyard. As she was when he visited her in the cottage of her dreams. That was how she appeared to him, now, albeit in that blue blouse and blue jeans instead of the dresses and capes she wore in the dream cottage.

"Do you know, Mum? I told you about the third prophecy. Now, Riddle says that he will kill all my friends, everyone I care about, one by one, unless I surrender and let him kill me. The Hogwarts main doors will hold the Death Eaters for a while. There are quite a few members of the Order of the Phoenix here, now. The Longbottoms, Sirius, Moody, Shacklebolt.

"That isn't why I'm here. It's an excuse. Trelawney saw me wandering in a world of pink and violet mist. And that line—and what Dumbledore said about the final horcrux. Neville will kill Nagini. And I must die by Riddle's hand. Mustn't I?"

He waited for her to tell him that it wasn't necessary, but she knew that it was no good to speak right away, without making it clear that she'd given the idea the thought it deserved.

"It is your choice," his mother said. "However, it is your soul that binds him to this world. As long as that tether remain, he is immortal. There may be other ways to break that chain, but if you take the time to seek them out, Riddle will have killed many before you find an alternative."

Harry's heart raced. He was not as ready for death as he had assumed that he was. Each time, layers upon layers seemed added to the already writhing mass of reservations and hopes surrounding his knowledge of the Before. If just to avoid that tangled mess, he would have tried to avoid dying. But also, he recalled….

"But, what about the wars I was meant to fight? And Ron and Ginny? What of…Thanos?"

His mother's gaze turned downcast. "They have been forewarned. Forewarned is forearmed, as the saying goes. You've done enough. It is time for you to rest. As I stayed behind to guide you, so too will your spirit remain to help them."

As he had thought, before. But then, too, he had also considered the matter for his mother's sake.

"What of you? Are you at peace with losing your connection to the world?"

She nodded. "This is how it must be. A death without regrets, the willing sacrifice, is the kindest fate I can hope for you in this war. A warrior's death."

She held her chin high, and there was a strange glint in her eyes that Harry knew better than to try to understand. He trusted his mother. If she believed that this was the best course of action—

"Others have entered the Beyond. That artefact you bear can call their shades into the world of the living. They will not be more than a sliver of personality to lead you to your grave. Call three of them to be your honour guard, and to send you back on your path if you should develop reservations. Follow Riddle's instructions, and free yourself of his influence, forever. In death, you will be free."

She stood aside, and waited.

Chapter Text

At first, Harry was leary of summoning any other shades. But, there was something—a barrier?—between whatever usually ate through his magical energy when he brought Mother into the physical world, and him. The ring truly did house one of the three Deathly Hallows. And, the energy that sustained his mother was drawn first from the Ring, then from the wand that he had stolen from Dumbledore, now hidden in the second holster, the one in his right arm, and then from him, himself. The wand had vast reserves of energy. All the same….

"Servo stellas!" he cried, supercharging the energy well he drew from. He had never quite figured out whether he was boosting his own energy, or the energy stored in the wand he'd wielded exclusively until now. Perhaps it was a bit of both. He'd certainly used the spell performing wandless magic, or the other magic.

Yet now, he felt what felt like an expansion of the available energy at his disposal both from the holly-and-phoenix-feather wand that he still kept in his left holster, and from the Elder Wand. This energy, in turn, flowed into the Resurrection Stone, which helped to sustain Mother. Each time, it was magnified by the Star Preserver spell, until it ended up being much less drain on his reserves than he'd expected.

Hmm. Well, that was something he would have loved to have had the opportunity to someday examine, but now he supposed that he'd never have the chance. Although, he was planning to hang around after his death; maybe he could do it then.

Perhaps, he could sustain three other slivers of souls, after all. But whom to choose? Well, the Resurrection Stone only summoned the souls of the dead, right?

Just to be sure, he tested it out. "Sirius Black," he said, and turned the stone over. Nothing happened.

It became suddenly tempting to go through the list of people he'd seen alive when he'd left them, but who even now were fighting against the Death Eaters, who had, by the sound of it, breached the front doors.

"Severus Snape?" he asked the Stone, wondering what had become of the spy. A flickering shadow emerged.

"You are what binds the Dark Lord to this world…" it whispered. "But, through your death you can still save your friends…."

It really didn't sound like Snape at all. Harry frowned, wondering just how much reality these shades had to them.

And not daring to call any of the next three names that came to his mind. He didn't want to know what any of them thought of him. Instead,

"Frank Bryce," he said, turning the stone around again to call forth a second shade as Mother watched. And, why not…."Peter Pettigrew."

Even Mother seemed surprised at that one. But there was no figure that would fill him with more conflicted self-loathing than Peter Pettigrew. To what extent was the threat Pettigrew had posed to his parents of his own making? Yet, the man professed loyalty to him. And then, despite that, sought for his death?

"Go to the forest. Fulfil your destiny," said "Snape".

"The Dark Lord is merciful. It will be quick," said Pettigrew.

"Sacrifices have to be made in war," said Bryce.

Harry turned to his mother. She watched and stayed behind when he went to face Riddle. Somehow, it felt better, thus, as if it protected her cottage in the centre of his heart.

And, when he came to the clearing in which Riddle lay waiting, he pulled off the invisibility cloak with a flourish, and stuffed it into his robes, where it usually sat. He stored it as if he had nothing to fear, and the last three of his guides left him. "Here I am," he declared, determined to face death with his pride intact. He knew his way, in the Beyond.

"Avada Kedavra!" Riddle cried, as if in answer. There was a flash of familiar green light, and he felt his body falling. Then, he was elsewhere.

He found himself, still wearing his Hogwarts school robes, standing in a vague, fuzzy sort of place. It looked as if someone had taken a couple of bottles of spray paint and mistily sprayed his surroundings. There was green underfoot that might be mistaken for grass or moss. There was a sort of dirt brown that might have approximated a dense forest above that, and then, for the sky, a canopy of green frondy leaves.

Maybe it was supposed to be a forest. Most people would probably assume that it was. There were brown "trees" everywhere around him; there were gaps where the green underfoot cut through to make paths. With no better idea as to what to do, he followed the path, thinking that this place perhaps looked a bit familiar as he did.

As he walked, the green and the brown changed colour, the green fading into the yellow of summer and autumn; the brown intensifying into orange, each colour beginning to encroach into the territory of the other, until he seemed to be surrounded by a motionless fire that didn't burn.

There were the shadows of motion in the areas just out of his sight, in the vagueness where there was no colour. They were small and nonthreatening. Staying still and watching showed him that one belonged to a squirrel, which blended in particularly well with the warm colours.

It was not for him. He moved on.

The shadows and motions grew larger as he walked, as yellow became orange, and orange red, and the two continued to blend together. He saw dogs and cats, bears and dragons, creatures of legend and myth walking among the "mundane".

He walked on, and now he knew where he was. It was the Beyond. He confirmed this by looking down at himself, and seeing nothing.

He frowned. He'd come here for a reason, hadn't he? He had to go a certain way forwards—to where humans went—and then turn back. Or go on?

No, there was a reason not to go on. There were people counting on him to come back. A looming threat in the future.

Red faded into purple. Orange faded into red. Neither could be called up or down, forwards or backwards, ground or sky, anymore. They were all mixed around. If he hadn't been dead, it might have induced him to panic, that there was no longer a way to tell whence he had come, nor whither he was bound.

This was the stop for human beings. There was nothing more for him to do but to press on. Whatever he thought would happen when he reached it hadn't happened yet. He followed the path, instead, as it began to turn from purple and red into blue and purple. The purple had gone indigo. The red had reached fuchsia.

There was an inconsistency in an offway to the right. He could forge through the mistiness—probably. It would not be easy, but the dark was a comfort against the harsh bright bold colours he'd been surrounded by since he'd arrived.

He left the beaten path, pushing through insubstantial resistance that slowly gained in solidity as he approached that patch of darkness. The insubstantial mist grew solid, gained form, became objects and physical things to which he could put names. Grass. Flowers. Bushes. Leaves. Trees.

Water. A woods. A clearing.

Like Markhaven Meadow? No.

A ring of black dogs surrounded a figure standing in the centre of the clearing. As Harry entered the clearing, form returned to him, too. It wasn't the Hogwarts robes he'd been wearing when he first arrived.

He looked at the dogs, with their shaggy black coats and burning red eyes, muzzles bared into snarls at his approach. They were not on leads.

He looked away, and met the gaze of the man, pale, dark-haired, and all in white robes. It was a strange choice of fashion if you were wandering in a woods. Then again, this hadn't been a woods at all outside of this clearing.

Harry approached, just as if this were an arranged meeting, with the sense that this man had been waiting for him. He could feel that he was being evaluated, even though the man's eyes never moved. Were they green? He thought they were. A strange case of similar-differences, both black-haired, both green-eyed, but the man all in white, older, with a severe expression and an intense blankness to his stare.

"You aren't supposed to be here," the stranger decided, at last. There was no reproach in his voice. Not quite curiosity, either.

Harry, for once, didn't know how to react. The stranger seemed to realise this, and waved a hand. There was a square table in the middle of the clearing, and chairs. The stranger sat, and gestured before him. Harry could take a hint. He sat in the chair opposite, and tried to stay out of the way of the hounds.

His mind didn't seem to be functioning quite right. All that wandering around as a formless thing would doubtless do that to anyone. Even now, he wasn't quite clear on who he was. Here in what lay before the afterlife, he didn't know which, if either, of his living identities applied. He assumed that he qualified as human, as he was just now wearing his Hogwarts robes, again.

"Are you a wizard?" he asked the man, although that didn't seem like it could fit. The other just gave him an unimpressed raised eyebrow.

"Are you?" he retorted, and the world seemed to snap back into focus at these words, as if Harry'd been sleepwalking only to be doused suddenly in cold water. The way that this man had turned his own question back on him suggested more than mere commonality of difference—not just that neither of them were human, but also the same type of non-human.

Harry knew where he was. And these at the man's feet must be real black dogs—the feared omens of madness and of death. Who governed such creatures?

"We meet again," the man said, pausing as he bowed and then straightened up again, "Odinsson."

Not any part of this greeting what Harry might have expected, although if he'd thought to anticipate any one part, he might have likewise anticipated the others.

Was this the God of Death?

"I don't recall ever meeting you before," Harry said, tilting his head to the side. The probable god of death looked unimpressed, flicking his wrist and then steepling his fingers. A full tea service appeared on the table—or, at least, crumpets, scones, biscuits, sugar, milk, knives, spoons, and little teacups in saucers—but from them wafted the distinctive smell of lemons. Harry knew what happened when life gave you lemons—but what did you do when Death gave you lemonade?

If "Death" were surprised at Harry's statement, he didn't show it. All he did was to lean over his lemonade and ask, "But you know where you are?"

"In the Beyond," Harry said promptly, with an internal sigh. He shouldn't remember anything about this place, but perhaps he'd been here too often. The only real memory he had of it was from the time he had been intended to die, and had instead been pulled back—

"Yes, the Beyond. Where have you heard that name? No matter. I doubt that you remember that, either. That is not the proper subject of discussion, however. That is the fact that you are not where you should be. You are outside of my jurisdiction."

"Because I died in Britain?" asked Harry, unsure. But, if he'd met this man before, had it been the first few times he'd ever died? The way he'd been greeted suggested that—

"I govern only the mortal creatures of this world. You do not seem to qualify as either. What perplexes me is that you came here at all."

Then again, maybe not. Perhaps he had met this one when he'd died at the end of first year—and second—and fourth—

Mother.

"My mother," he said, almost desperate. He was not entirely sure that he should be calling any attention to her to the god of death, but she was a goddess herself, albeit of a different pantheon. "Is she—?"

Death had been brooding, but he looked over at Harry. "Ah, yes, the soul that never came to the Beyond. How did that happen?"

Harry gave a helpless shrug, and it was true that he'd never understood the details of it. Privately, he thought it had something to do with him dying—and then coming back to life!—so soon after she had, combined with both her sacrifice and her renaissance as a goddess.

"Does it matter? I have no details to give you. She was always there, from when I was too young to remember. She is a goddess, besides, and, as you yourself said, 'outside of your jurisdiction'."

Death paused. He gripped the arms of his dining chair, curling one hand over the front. "I see. Then as you return to life, so shall she return to whatever of life she held."

As you return to life? When had Harry started to assume that, even in such an odd situation, he would probably return to his life, as he had before? Oh, sure, he'd tried to steel himself for the possibility, on the way to his death in the Forbidden Forest, but beneath that, hadn't there lurked a suspicion?

And then, there was Trelawney's third prophecy. Perhaps it was yet unfulfilled, or perhaps it spoke of death as a great liberator. He still didn't know much to make of the line "bound in exile, freed in death", only that it sounded like a new beginning. But, then again, he could speak to there being plenty of ways that could be the case. Including death followed by reincarnation.

"This is coming to be a problem," Death said. "I do not have the authority to send you on, even now. I could send you to the proper deity in charge of the older souls…." He seemed to be musing to himself. He was ignoring Harry.

Harry hated being ignored. But, before he could force this being's attention back onto him, the man himself returned his attention to Harry.

"There remains beside another problem, or I would just have sent you back, as I did before. There are two likely reasons for your arrival here in the Beyond, where I could reach you. I don't know myself which I consider the more plausible.

"The first concerns one Tom Marvolo Riddle directly. Fragments of his shattered soul have been arriving here for the past few years. There was a sizable break between the arrival of the first and the second, as I'm sure that you can guess, and then they seemed to be coming in at a steadier and rapider rate. A change in circumstances on mortal Earth, I suppose. Dumbledore's doing, doubtless."

He paused, resting his chin on his hand, and stared out at the woods that surrounded them for the time being.

"Dumbledore wished to see you personally, but I overrode him. No one ought to linger on the fringes of the Beyond as he has. It is not good for the soul. Regardless, from observation I have gleaned that he has destroyed a few of Riddle's 'horcruxes' that bound him to mortality.

"In the past twenty-four hours, however, it has somehow happened that the last two have come into The Beyond. Being incomplete, they soon lost their way, as all their fellows have. It might result in the complete destruction of his soul. But, as you were bound to one of those souls, it is possible that the force that drew the horcrux here also brought you."

A pause, a stern look, and a sip of lemonade ensued. This was followed by several more, until Harry took the point and took a drink. It was, of course, very sour. He didn't know what he'd been expecting. He supposed that he could hope that the white granules in the sugar pot were actual sugar, to the extent that that was possible in a non-physical place, anyway.

"Sugar?" Death asked, then. Harry resisted any impulse towards glaring, and accepted the sugar with relative grace.

"And the other option?" he prompted, after a few more minutes, and a lemon and a blueberry scone. Why not, at this point?

"Yes. That is a far more relevant question," Death said. "One that it is difficult to properly frame. If you had not come here on your own, I would have had to fetch you on its account, regardless. I speak, of course, of the Deathly Hallows."

Oh. Harry set aside his teacup. This had the potential to be a particular messy affair.

"I think you know the 'Tale of the Three Brothers' to some extent, at least. How they outwitted Death, only for Death to get his own back upon all but the youngest of the three. He did not fear death, or if he did, he mastered his fear. The youngest of the Peverells, and an ancestor of your father, James Potter. Through him was handed down mastery to you of the invisibility cloak. My invisibility cloak, for the moment bound into the mortal world."

"As I thought of it then, gathering all three Hallows was an impossible task, and mastering all three would take an individual of very specific character. Now, however, I wonder if there might not have been greater forces at work than gods involved in these matters."

He returned to steepling his fingers, and looked askance at Harry. "There are secrets that I have no right to tell. Instead, I will tell you that I am called 'Gwyn', and that I am but one of many gods with some jurisdiction over death. I preside over the Wild Hunt."

As if hearing an unspoken cue, one of the hellhounds under the table raised a head to stare at Gwyn with an almost pleading look in its glowing red eyes. Gwyn unsteepled his fingers to scratch behind its ears, and it subsided again.

"In the Wild Hunt, the souls of the newly departed traveled with me until they could find their way into the Beyond. Nowadays, a change in culture means that I have a much lighter workload, as few among those who die need such escort any longer. I have more free time."

His head went back to resting on his chin, so that the other could fall down at his side for the dogs. Apparently, none of the dogs shed, or there was something special about Gwyn's white clothes, because there didn't seem to be a single black hair on them. Nor any mud.

"Three relics, each with control over a different aspect of death. One to summon the shades of the dead—which you used to summon at least one true soul, using the stone for a purpose beyond what should have been its limitations, fueling it—and yourself—with the Elder Wand, that some wizards name the 'Death Stick', and the invisibility cloak, an heirloom of less-than-obvious power, meant to hide its master from Death, you used to find your own.

"The fatal Elder Wand, used to buy time and vitality for those whom you cherish. The Resurrection Stone, meant to recall only the shades of the dead, that you used to draw out at least one's true self. The invisibility cloak, repurposed into its original form. You used the Hallows as others would not, and they recognise that. 

"A relic to kill. A relic to guide the souls of the dead. A relic to traverse the barrier between life and death.  All together, three Hallows imbued with holy power. And only one who did not seek their power could master it. Death rules those who fear it. You, on the other hand, neither welcomed it nor rejected it, neither sought for it nor avoided it. You with a history of being ruled by objects of strong will fought off that will. And, once before, you borrowed the power of the Veil between worlds. You are a unique case. I wonder if the Hallows were perhaps not intended for you, all along, although I myself didn't know it."

There was a very long pause, here, that Harry gave him because he saw that "Gwyn" had come to a particularly thorny problem that was outside of his own ability to surmount. It was as if there were something he very much felt that he needed to say to Harry, but the words would not come. At length, Gwyn looked up from the tea-table, and addressed Harry directly.

"In every pantheon, there is at least one god of death or the otherworld. With the Hallows, any god could obtain those powers—the powers to preside over death in that pantheon. If there were another with similar abilities, the Hallows would allow him to match that one. Perhaps.

"Do not take their abilities for granted. Know your limits. But, I think that I shall leave them with you. Over time, you will come to understand how they work. Eventually, if you choose, you will not need them anymore to use the abilities and strengths that they offer to you. When that time comes, I hope that you will do as I once did, and scatter them in some world for another destined to be a master of death."

This seemed to be the most relevant thing, or what Gwyn had been most dreading. He leant back in his chair and reached down for another of the black dogs. This was a kindness intended to give Harry time to process all…this. It was a lot.

He had become Master of Death, then. But, it was not a singular title. Rather, it was bound up in pantheons and ideas about the personifications of death. He seemed to be suggesting that Harry could choose the next god of death in his own pantheon—or was that a warning to guard the Hallows against those back home who might abuse them?

It was probably that. That seemed to be his lot in life—to keep dangerous artefacts out of the hands of those who would abuse them, to atone for past mistakes.

He took a deep breath, closed his eyes, and steeled himself for the responsibility. But, when he opened his eyes again, he was still at the tea-table with Gwyn.

"Alright, then. I will guard them, as you have asked." Gwyn gave a nod in return, and Harry, somewhat irked at his continued calm, nonetheless asked in a still pleasant voice, "How do I leave this place?"

He had assumed that he could.

But Gwyn said, "Not so fast. I have not finished with you."

Chapter Text

Despite Gwyn's words—that he had just forbidden Harry to return back to Hogwarts—he returned to his silence. A chilly wind swept across their clearing, but nothing else moved. Harry took a drink of lemonade and tried to brace himself for an extended session of attempting to outwait someone.

"You will leave this place, but this time, you will not forget. That is neither my design, nor counter to it. Your relationship to the Beyond has changed, and it is not within my ability to prevent you remembering this place. It serves us both, that you remember what has been said here."

Gwyn spoke with great deliberation and excessive certainty. There was a sort of fatal finality to his words, as if they'd set…something in stone. Certainly, he did not return to their previous subject when he continued.

"It suits your cause for more time to have elapsed between your death and your return than before. I will give to you this excess time for your friend to fulfil his own destiny concerning that snake, Nagini. You will return to Hogwarts, and what you do there is your own choice.

He paused for only a moment before adding, "But, be forewarned: for the moment, everyone thinks you dead, as you in truth died. For the Death Eaters and Riddle, this is a liberating thought. For your allies, it is a blow.

"However, there is an…unanticipated side-effect to your death. Perhaps an ability of the Hallows of which I never became aware. It is only slight, but it is there; luck is against the Death Eaters. As is skill. Their spells are less likely to hit a target. Of course, the cleverer amongst them have modified their spells to affect a larger area, or to cause structural damage to the school.

"Nevertheless, I don't think they'll have found too many workarounds before your return. I suspect that this—the bending of reality out of order, as it were, will only last until your return to life. I know that there is no need to tell you to take advantage of the chaos."

He paused, and seemed almost to be on the verge of laughing, for a moment, before returning to his solemnity. "Go with my blessing, for whatever it be worth. I bestow upon you the title and weight of 'Master of Death'. You have the right to judge and to call the dead. I know that you will not abuse it.

"The Veil watches. Be careful. You will not always notice the toll their use incurs. Let that be my final warning to you. Until we meet again, the exit is that way."

With that anticlimactic finish, he pointed unnecessarily back to what was still, for the moment, a forest. Harry stood, turning and walking toward the perimeter.

Then, Harry remembered his manners, and to be grateful for the advice. He turned back around to face Gwyn, and bowed. "Thank you for the lemonade and scones. And for the advice," he said, bowing, and Gwyn bowed in return. Then, Harry turned back around, and entered back into the pink and purple of the Beyond.

It was loud. Compared to Gwyn's peaceful meadow, anything would seem noisy, but Hogwarts was particularly loud. Harry slit his eyes open, and glanced around as best he could without excessive motion. He was on the floor of the Great Hall. No one seemed to be looking at him.

He reached for the Resurrection Stone, and turned it around in his hand. There were a lot of people he could have called, at the moment, but there was one in particular that he needed.

"Albus Dumbledore," he whispered, and turned the stone around. Even as the shade formed into white vapour, he reached out to it, and channeled almost-familiar magic through the Elder Wand into its former owner.

Dumbledore looked down at him, where he still lay on the floor. "Ah. Harry, I had hoped to speak with you one final time, before the end. I wished to explain to you why I—"

Harry tried to keep his voice quiet when he interrupted. "Maybe later, professor, sir," he said, with as great of politeness as he could muster. His body ached, and he felt drained. He didn't know how much of that was use of the Hallows, how much was lying dead on a cold stone floor, and how much his treatment by the Death Eaters (he had to have left the Forbidden Forest somehow). All he knew was that—"There seems to be a battle going on. I think that perhaps your explanation should wait."

"Yes, well said, Harry," Dumbledore agreed. "Is this the mayhem that happens if I leave Hogwarts for even a month?" He sounded almost like his own self, and Harry tensed, almost expecting an accusation, demands to explain what had happened shortly before his death.

He glanced guiltily at Dumbledore's hand, but it was whole, and the curse had gone.

Harry, against his better judgement, and thinking that he had better not summon his mother, as she was a goddess, and Dumbledore's immense power was a drain enough as it was, turned the stone around again, saying, "Severus Snape".

He reached out again with the Elder Wand, and Snape looked down at him. The real Snape, not the shade. He was getting the hang of this!

"Riddle fears death," Harry said with a shrug. "Let's see if he fears the dead."

With someone there to protect Harry, Dumbledore entered the fray. Harry lurched to his feet, and surveyed the room again from this better position.

Because they were dead, every step these two took, and every spell they attempted to cast, drew indirectly from Harry via the Resurrection Stone and Elder Wand. He could keep this up better than he had before, but it was taxing. It was good that he hadn't called more, particularly given the unpredictability of the spells.

Dumbledore wielded the wand he must have used before he had defeated Grindelwald to surprising effect given the weakened nature of the spells. It made sense as neither Dumbledore nor Snape were gods, and they were both still dead, citizens of the underworld. Despite that, Dumbledore's summoned soul still commanded quite a bit of fear from the Death Eaters.

"You!" Harry heard Riddle shout. "You can't be here! I killed you!"

"Technically, Severus killed me," Dumbledore said, with that familiar calm that had assured Hogwarts students for decades and more that everything would be alright. "And he did that on my orders. I knew that you would never understand the power of love, Tom."

"Don't—call me that!" Riddle sputtered. Dumbledore's back was to Harry, but if Harry had to guess, he would guess that Dumbledore's eyes were twinkling.

"I never feared death, as you do, Tom. And I have been rewarded for my calm. To a well-organised mind, death is but the next great adventure."

Dumbledore was calling the attention of everyone in the Great Hall, in the calm yet commanding way that he had. Most of those fighting seemed to have some sort of silent accord: watching the spectacle of a dead man returned to face the Dark Lord was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. Only the Death Eaters hardcore enough to go to Azkaban, and their opponents, continued in their duels.

Harry twitched, and considered calling McGonagall. Somehow, that seemed highly disrespectful, or something, as she had not yet even had her funeral.

Then again, perhaps it wasn't a seeming of disrespect. He was Master of Death, now. Perhaps something was warning him against trying to summon her, for whatever reason.

Such as, for instance, that she had not yet even entered the Beyond, and thus the Stone would have a harder time of finding her.

Oh.

"He's not the only dead person come back to haunt you," Harry cheerfully informed him. Beneath his skin, Mother's love began to burn. It would not avail him in this fight. He knew that. At the end of fifth year, he had cut off Riddle's access to the magic of home, but blood still bound them together.

Her love couldn't protect him in that way, but her spirit remained, and he took assurance from that.

"You!" Riddle said, taking a step back. "A—"

"Expelliarmus!" Harry cried, and then, after a shrug. "Avada Kedavra!"

As the yew-and-phoenix-feather wand soared towards Harry, Riddle fell to the ground and did not move again.

"That was anticlimactic," Harry stated.

Almost the entirety of the Great Hall turned to glare at him. They just had very different reasons for why.

Dumbledore's reproachful gaze burnt into him. "Harry, you—"

"Should have taken some risks, put my friends lives in danger, instead of using the Killing Curse, a guaranteed finishing blow?" he finished for Dumbledore as he approached Riddle's body.

Before he could reach it, a beautiful melody he had heard only once before filled the room. He only remembered Fawkes's mysterious teleportation ability when the bird swooped down on him from the upper air of the Great Hall, snatching Riddle's wand out of Harry's unprotesting fingers.

The wand burst into flames where Fawkes flew. Although Harry was dimly aware of the Order and Hogwarts rallying themselves for a second sally, and of the Death Eaters grimacing in what seemed physical pain, some even foolishly dropping their wands to cover their ears, he mostly was entranced by the display, as the yew wood burst into a blaze of bright white light.

In a moment, only ashes and a single fiery feather remained. Fawkes stared at him meaningly, and when Harry did not take the hint, picked up the feather and dropped it over Harry's still clenched hand. His hand opened, and then closed over the feather, reflexively.

"I thought you'd gone, Guy," he said to Fawkes. Fawkes gave a sad trill in return. "I guess… this is goodbye now, then?"

Fawkes trilled at him again, cocked his head, and flew off to Dumbledore.

Dumbledore had been busy tying up Death Eaters, but he seemed to sense Fawkes's approach (as perhaps he did). At the very least, he could scarcely have missed Fawkes flying right at him, still with a different, more melancholic, mournful tune. The tears that Fawkes shed were unable to heal Dumbledore's death.

"Hello, old friend," Dumbledore said in a fragile whisper. "You're right. I didn't say goodbye. But, you and I can no longer continue on our journeys together. I have moved on to another adventure, and you must find a new one of your own."

Fawkes tucked his head under his wing, as the entire Great Hall seemed to hold its breath, as spellbound in that moment as Harry.

Dumbledore flung up his arm, launching Fawkes into the air, who hovered there for a moment, staring at Dumbledore, before, screaming, he took to the sky again. He disappeared.

Dumbledore turned to face the Great Hall. "My life had many regrets. I have been allowed to return, one last time, to help you all. Farewell, my former students. Remember to choose what Is right, instead of what is easy."

That line connecting the power of the Hallows to Dumbledore seemed to snap of its own accord, and Dumbledore vanished.

"How melodramatic," Snape said with a sneer. "Well, what about the rest of you? The Dark Lord thought I was still loyal to his cause when he killed me, and he isn't even here anymore looming over your heads. Why don't you all surrender and throw yourselves at the Ministry's good graces."

Most of the Death Eaters lacked that common sense.

The Second Battle of Hogwarts was not without its casualties, but there were perhaps suspiciously few. Colin Creevey, Lavender Brown, and a whole bunch of students from other houses whose names Harry had never troubled himself with learning. And Zacharias Smith. He didn't know what to make of that.

He wasn't given time to mourn. Who knew where the other members of the Ministry Six were? He didn't have time to contact them surreptitiously, because Narcissa Malfoy had come with the invasion but was currently setting out rounding up Death Eaters under the ever-watchful eye of Professor Snape.

"Potter," she said, in an almost civil voice. "I have an offer to make you. Help my son, and I'll help you liberate the Ministry."

Because of course that would be the next step. Harry huffed, but set out looking for Malfoy Junior.

Draco Malfoy had dithered and hesitated, never going for a killing blow, which had made him rather hard to find. There was no trail of destruction or bodies to follow. In fact, Harry found Ron first, although he hadn't meant to.

"Harry!" he cried, clamping a hand hard on Harry's shoulder. Perhaps it was his imagination, but it didn't seem as tight as usual. "What—how did you? You died again, and I thought—" A pause. "You died. Again."

"I have things to do, Malfoys to find," Harry said, not bothering to deny it. The alternative interpretations were worse.

"You are not leaving my sight. When Hermione and I ever stop watching you, you die." And Ron refused to be dismissed.

"I had to go become Master of Death," said Harry. Ron's eyes widened, and he stopped in the corridor to turn to examine Harry.

"By dying?" he asked. Ah. The mother henning was back.

Harry shrugged. "I suppose. I met a god of death named Gwyn. We had lemonade. It was interesting. I don't think I'm going to die again anytime soon. I'm free of Riddle's soul that was poisoning me before."

He paused. Was that what Trelawney had meant, when she'd given that third prophecy?

He shook his head. "You needn't watch me. I have no need of a nursemaid. Or of a bodyguard."

"And what does it mean, to be Master of Death?" asked Ron, oddly insistent. Harry waited for him to elaborate. "I saw what you did in the Great Hall. You did what no wizard has done before you. You summoned the souls of the dead. I recall what Stephen said, when you said that you would bring Mother into the physical world—"

"I could—"

"No!" Ron said and now his grip on Harry's shoulder clamped down. "You did what is considered impossible. What no wizard has done before."

Harry shrugged. "No wizard has gathered the Deathly Hallows before, either," he said. He had the sense to keep an eye out for anyone approaching even as he spoke. He saw that he wouldn't be getting anywhere until he'd reached an understanding with Ron.

They could, all three of them, be rather stubborn when they put their minds to it. Good thing Hermione wasn't here to back Ron up. Ginny was still off in Hogsmeade.

"And it seems that those Deathly Hallows are wearing you out. You must rest." What did Ron see that Harry couldn't? Did he look like death warmed over? It would be either ironic or oddly appropriate.

Then again, he hadn't realised just how much it had drained him, any of the times that he'd pulled his mother into the physical world, before. And had dying restored his energy, drained it, or left it as it had been?

"It's mostly the Elder Wand and the Resurrection Stone taking the strain, now," Harry said. "The Resurrection Stone, mostly, I think."

"No one has ever used these three artefacts together before. It is dangerous," Ron began.

"I'm fine. Gwyn already warned me all about knowing my limits. I won't push it too far."

Ron frowned. He refused to let go. "You always do."

Harry gave a half-hearted effort to shrug him off. "You should get rid of the Hallows," Ron suggested.

Harry leveled a glare at him in return. "Gwyn and Dumbledore both gave me the responsibility for looking after them."

A flicker of something crossed Ron's face. Suspicion, perhaps. Fear? He might be following the same train of thought that Harry had, back when he'd first received the ring, that he ought to avoid it.

"Do you think that the Resurrection Stone might not be one of the Infinity Stones?" Ron asked.

Harry froze. That seemed highly unlikely, but made a strange amount of sense. If it were true, however, it was one of which they'd heard no rumour. But, Harry didn't trust himself with any of those, and wasn't the ring of comparable power?

Still. Gwyn had trusted him. That was rare for anyone who didn't know him to do. Perhaps rarer for anyone who did. He set his feet, and braced himself for a few minutes of trying to talk sense to Ron.

"He said something about passing it on, that it would make its wielder the match for any who would call themselves a god of death."

Realisation dawned on Ron's face. "And you thought of Thanos. This, then, is your plan to combat him?"

Right. That had been an idea, back before Harry had given up the idea of becoming the Master of Death. "Perhaps."

There was a brief pause, as Ron seemed to be bracing himself, steeling himself to say something that he thought that Harry wouldn't want to hear.

"'Bound in exile, freed in death'," Ron quoted at him. "You're no longer human."

Harry stared at this latest bout of incomprehensible stupidity. "What? All I did was—"

"Become Master of Death," said Ron, and Harry knew that this was going to be one of those rare times when Ron had insight he'd somehow overlooked. Ron was never more insufferable than those times. "Tell me, Brother. Does 'Master of Death' sound a human title to you?"

Harry froze. A second layer of meaning emerged from Gwyn's words. Still, he could feel it. That was true. He could feel that he was still human. At the same time, something he hadn't even noticed had blazed back into life when he hadn't been looking. It must have been wandering the Beyond. Everything there was unreal, and before and after had the Beyond in between.

What did this mean for the future?

The rest of the day managed to be a haze as a result. He was thinking of the implications for the future instead of paying his customary attention. Riddle was gone, now, and Harry's focus had shifted to the greater threat.

Ron saw that he was not at his best, and accordingly refused to let Harry out of his sight. It was Ron who found Draco Malfoy, and not Harry. They were, Harry thought, somewhere near the slytherin dorms, but was not about to pull out the Map to check such a thing (even had it occurred to him). It was a flustered Malfoy, and a relentless Crabbe and Goyle, against the slytherin defenders. This faction was led by Blaise Zabini. There were only ten members of this particular party, and Zabini was the only one whom Harry could identify, which was hardly surprising.

When they walked into the fight, the slytherins were each accusing the other party of being traitors and not true slytherins. It was almost a shame to interrupt.

"Your mother wants to talk to you, Malfoy," he said, calmly.

"You can't have a go at my mother, Potter—"

Harry rolled his eyes. "I'm not having a go at anyone, but you wouldn't know the difference. Are you the only one who's allowed to insult someone's parents?" He spread his hands. "Well, we can do this the easy way or the hard way."

Harry hoped that Malfoy would choose the hard way. True to form, Malfoy didn't disappoint, so Ron and Harry joined the Slytherin defenders for a twelve against three fight. At least it put Ron back in a good mood? Just what had he been doing the past few hours, anyway?

Narcissa Malfoy hadn't specified that her son must be unharmed or unrestrained. She turned down her nose at Harry, but thanked him for finding her son with surprising grace.

Harry's major realisation of the rest of the day was that Ron and Hermione had missed about half of the Second Battle of Hogwarts looking for him. He only realised this because Neville Longbottom found him to proclaim, with a bright smile, that he'd killed that giant snake as Harry had asked him to. It had been when Harry was dead, so he wouldn't have felt Nagini's death, regardless. Harry thanked Neville, and left him to return back to his mum and dad, who looked a bit weary, streaked with blood and dirt from the underhanded tactics the Death Eaters had used.

Hermione found him, next, and put her hands on her hips. "Harry. Where did you go?"

Sirius noticed that Hermione had found Harry, and joined the coming argument.

"Can't we talk about this later? Say, after we retake the Ministry?" he demanded to know.

"No," Sirius and Hermione said at the same time.

"Let's at least finish rounding up the Death Eaters," Harry said, running a hand through his hair with a sigh. It had twigs in it, which was annoying, but made sense.

He was fairly sure that no one had noticed.

Chapter Text

Retaking the Ministry was ridiculously easy. The Battle of Hogwarts had gathered most of the Death Eaters in one place. What remained were the Imperiused Members of the Ministry. And Dolores Umbridge. And a couple of Death Eaters.

"Not you again," he said, when he encountered Umbridge. "Really, you were subjected to your own Unforgivable Curse, antagonised the centaurs to the point of needing therapy…what punishment suits you, exactly?"

His hands clenched into tight fists. The words I must not tell lies stood out stark white against his skin. Something had to be done about Umbridge. What she'd tried to do to these poor muggleborns….

She seemed to recognise his anger, but there was no glee at seeing it, now when she could inflict no punishment on him, and the scales were tipped back in Harry's favour.

"Hermione is dedicated to finding a fitting punishment for you. We've given her that authority. But that doesn't meant that I can't find a stopgap punishment or two."

He turned to Ginny. "Send her to Azkaban," she suggested.

"Yes, but they'll be instituting reforms. The dementors won't be there anymore to trap her in her own worst fears."

Ginny nodded, and smiled at him. He felt good about the promise of her words even before she spoke. "When has that ever stopped you?" she asked sweetly over her shoulder at him. Umbridge wiggled in her bonds, but apparently Ginny had figured out how to make them like chains. Or maybe that was an unexpected benefit of the Star Preserver Spell.

He took the hint, and a smile started to spread across his face almost against his wishes. Umbridge attempted to back away, and failed. "When, indeed?" he asked. "How would you feel about your own, personal, invisible dementor?"

There are always workarounds.

Lucius Malfoy had been put in charge of part of the operation, under the assumption that it was so simple that even he couldn't screw it up. Narcissa Malfoy was having none of it.

"Really, Lucius," she said, shaking her head. "The Dark Lord has been defeated at long last. There is no more need to pretend to serve him."

Harry rolled his eyes. Sometimes, you just had to. Still, he understood what Narcissa was doing. If Malfoy unexpectedly snapped to his senses with this news, he could claim that he was being blackmailed and threatened into serving, he never meant any of the muggle baiting. He had to, to protect his lovely pureblood wife from the mean old Death Eaters.

Harry knew better. Ginny knew better, judging by the gagging sounds she was making behind Harry. But if the Malfoys put on enough of a show, they'd get off lighter—not scotfree this time, but lighter.

But, of course Lucius Malfoy's pride got in his way.

"Well, I tried," Narcissa Malfoy's expression said as she stunned him to cut off his speech about how no one manipulated a Malfoy, their blood was purer than the rest of Wizarding Britain, and—what was that, something about Merlin? Never mind, Harry didn't want to know.

"I suppose Azkaban was just too much for him," Narcissa Malfoy said with a sad smile. "I do help he regains his sensibility soon. I will stand by him, as a dutiful spouse should."

She pulled off the look of distraught damsel quite well.

"I was what?" asked Pius Thicknesse.

"Under the Imperius Curse," Thor repeated, wondering why he'd been set to this task.

"You fed information to the Death Eaters," Hermione added.

"I—what—no, I wouldn't—"

"If it's any consolation, only about one in every fifty wizards has any resistance to the Curse," Hermione said sympathetically, patting him on the shoulder as he sobbed.

And, when what few orders as Riddle had managed to pass through the Ministry had been rescinded by a horrified Minister of Magic Pius Thicknesse, Harry, Ron, Hermione, Ginny, and Sirius went back to Hogwarts. It took a while for news to spread that Voldemort had gone—for real, this time. Harry was safe in Hogwarts by then.

He was lucky to be in Hogwarts for the next year. He stopped by for a visit to the Dursleys, to tell that Riddle was no longer a threat to anyone. They had almost a friendly argument about what should have been done to Voldemort, given their druthers.

"What?" Minister Carlisle asked, stunned. "He—he did it? In less than a month, he defeated this big bad wizard that your lot have been trying to off for years?"

He peered more closely at the stranger before him. "You do seem to go through Ministers for Magic, don't you? In the past year or so, it's been that Cornelius Fudge, and then Rufus Scrimmage—"

"—Scrimgeour, yes. He was supposed to be a perfect pick. Former auror and all. May God have mercy on his soul."

"And now, you. Well, at least you have a memorable name. Pious Thickness, yes?"

"I was made Minister for Magic when the Death Eaters took over. Put under the Imperius Curse. It was dreadful. But everything's okay now."

Unfortunately for the newest Minster for Magic, David Carlisle remembered what the Imperius Curse was, and what could have been a short conversation turned into a much longer one that ended up calling in some hotshot wizard named Kingsley Shacklebolt to reassure Carlisle that the Curse was no longer active.

Professor McGonagall's funeral was postponed until her friends from overseas could come. She was a highly influential witch, and had touched a lot of lives. She'd let Harry down sometimes, but he had to acknowledge that she was doing her best, and trying to be fair and impartial in her own way (even if it failed). Despite their long-standing rivalry, even Professor Trelawney came to pay her respects, and said nothing bad about her.

She was buried on Hogwarts grounds, recognised as Hogwarts's Headmistress. But her tenure was so short that a successor had not been chosen. Despite that, her portrait and Dumbledore's were put up, together at the same time, in the Headmaster's Office. Since there was no Headmaster at the moment, anyone could come and go. There was a period of time when former students and strangers streamed in and out of the office constantly, to gain closure, and say the things that they couldn't at the funeral.

"Thank you," Harry said, even though he could speak to the real headmistress at any time with the Resurrection Stone and his knowledge of how to bring the souls of the dead into their shades. He didn't want to speak to McGonagall, really. It was his fault that she'd died. His idea, executed not-well-enough.

"Your sacrifice helped to reunite a family. It helped to save Hogwarts. I'm sorry that I couldn't save you."

"Now that the war is over, Remus and I are getting married!" Tonks cried, beaming. "We wanted to make sure that you knew, right now, so that you could make the arrangements you need to come to the wedding! Don't worry, I won't steal Bill and Fleur's fire. It was a lovely wedding, wasn't it?"

Apparently, Tonks had seen fit to celebrate this latest burst of good fortune by turning her hair a different colour. It was teal, now, and hung to her shoulders in separated locks tied with hot-pink hairbands.

"But, there isn't any discomfort?" Harry asked. "I don't know how well this is working—"

"Oh, it's fine. Don't worry about it. Remus worries too much as it is. There are potions to help suppress werewolf genes, too, you know. Or, at least, there's something in the works. Professor Slughorn said something about a modified version of the Wolfsbane Potion perhaps doing the trick. Between your oh-so-mysterious special skills and the potions, I know I'm set."

Truth be told, there just hadn't been much of a sense of not-quite-humanity about the baby, whatever it was. It was possible that werewolf genes didn't show until later in a pregnancy, so Harry had committed to looking again every month.

"You're coming to the wedding, right?"

For being a pregnant woman, she sure had a lot of energy. But she and Remus were both Harry's friends. Still, it was odd. He didn't know how to behave with the war over. For seven years it had been his focus. Now, he had to confront the idea that life went on. This period of peace was a reward to all of them for the difficult choices they'd had to make, and for fighting so hard for it.

Somewhere in the back of his mind, he remembered a time before suffering and war. Of innocence. "Of course we'll come. Me, and Ginny, and Ron, and Hermione."

"Wonderful!" Tonks cried. She pressed a hand to her abdomen. "Look! The baby's pleased, too."

Harry smiled.

"I was at the Battle of Hogwarts," Stephen insisted. "I just didn't interfere. I don't think the wizarding world would react well to muggles with magic."

"You were hiding using that invisibility disc," Harry said, narrowing his eyes at Stephen. Stephen shrugged, in response.

"And you died. Again. How do you keep dying and coming back to life? I think I deserve to know, as every time, you risk collapsing time because I no longer regain my memories in 2002."

Harry smiled. "I don't think you have to worry about that, anymore. I'm not dying again anytime soon. And…I have a new weapon for the war."

Stephen did not take this as well as Harry had expected. "That was the reason you were out for the count for three days straight?"

"I've been through worse," Harry said. Somehow, he was now on the defensive. "I can do so much more now that I have the Deathly Hallows—"

"No," said Stephen. It was Thor all over again. "They're called 'Deathly Hallows' for a reason. Using them brought you to death's door, and this time you couldn't even tell, because the strain of using them is hidden from you."

It really was like trying to talk to Thor. "I know my limits," Harry snapped.

"Which was why you were in the Hospital Wing for three days after the Second Battle of Hogwarts. Retaking the Ministry had to wait on you."

"Everyone was tired after the Second Battle of Hogwarts," Harry said, with a shrug. "And Dumbledore is powerful. He took more than I expected—"

"See!" Stephen said. "The Hallows are different—"

"How am I supposed to learn how to use them in time if everyone worries needlessly over inconsequential dangers?"

"You're talking about the artefacts that, according to a fairy tale that is apparently more truth than fiction, killed two out of three of its first masters before their time! A wand that trades owners when the previous one dies! A ring that encourages their owners to kill themselves. How is that not dangerous, especially for someone like you?"

Harry let the injustice of that last part slide for the moment, especially since he had to know: "Ron told you about the fairy tale, didn't he?"

"He agrees with me that those relics are trouble. Just having them gives you a fancy title and abilities, apparently. Why not use those?"

"They only work with the Deathly Hallows!" Harry replied immediately. "I don't know why you two won't let me try to learn—"

"Because it could kill you," Stephen said, as if that would be the end of that.

Harry foresaw a new recurring argument ahead. It would take him a long while to win any of them over. Why did no one trust him?

"I'm not going to be Headmaster of Hogwarts, son," Moody insisted. "I'm retired—"

"We called you out of retirement. You came. You showed that you still have great skill in combat. You were Dumbledore's friend. In the next few years, as we're still rounding up the last of the Death Eaters, and freeing victims of the Imperius Curse, we'll need someone who knows these things. You're a war hero. There's no better choice."

"People call me paranoid—"

"A highly valuable trait in headmasters. Children are not to be trusted. I heard the Marauders pranked Dumbledore a few times. You'd never be taken unawares."

Moody narrowed his eye at Harry. "You seem determined about this, son. You lose a bet?"

Harry frowned, and folded his arms, leaning back against the wall of the corridor. "Come on. I'm sure for someone like you, retirement is a bit boring. You miss a bit of excitement to keep you justifiably on your toes. Schools are like war zones." He waved a hand in the direction of the Great Hall. "Someday, my kids are going to come to Hogwarts. I want to know that they're safe. The Ministry's too stupid to hire Remus or Tonks because of werewolf 'contamination', and Sirius needs a chance to go stretch his legs. I can't think of any other adults I'd trust with my kids' safety."

Moody glared down at him with an impassive expression. "I'll think about it," he said, and limped away.

Harry smothered a smile.

He graduated from Hogwarts. It was a matter of pride. He'd taken his N.E.W.T.s, and was now certified. This chapter of his life had closed.

And he hadn't discovered how muggles knew divination, any more than he'd figured out its origins. At least he'd at last had the opportunity to give the subject the time and effort it deserved. At least he'd asked Trelawney, even if she hadn't had the answers.

His tarot card readings were less than impressive even after two years, but he passed his Divination N.E.W.T., so it was okay. Trelawney did not even seem to mind. She was ecstatic to have had some part in preparing the school for the final battle at Hogwarts.

The Headmaster kept a tight eye on him, and offered him some one-on-one auror training "since I'm here". Harry shared the knowledge with Ron, who would follow him, of course.

Becoming an auror was nothing next to the excitement Harry was used to dealing with. His reputation preceded him. Within a couple of years of graduating, he was already on track to becoming head auror.

He married Ginny soon after she graduated from Hogwarts. There was sort of the sense that he didn't have much time left. It was 1999, and the year 2000 loomed close. The second war seemed so much closer with that "two" at the front of the year. At least he had Ginny, and Ron, and Hermione, and Sirius, Remus, Tonks, and Teddy, and Stephen, when he deigned to show his face.

Teddy was not a werewolf. He'd never shown signs of becoming a werewolf. He was, however, a metamorphmagus like his mother. They got into competitions, sometimes, about who could make the silliest faces. Of course, she had to take a break from that when she got pregnant again, which made Teddy throw a tantrum, but it was okay.

Really, he was five years old, he should understand that he might not be an only child forever. Or maybe it was that he'd thought that he was this old and still didn't have any siblings, and his parents were constantly fussing over worrying that he'd become a werewolf, that they wouldn't risk it?

He'd sulked and refused to talk to anyone but Harry and Ginny for a week. Remus showcased where Teddy had inherited his sulking skills from by falling into a broody sulk himself. Sirius laughed at him.

Harry had to wonder why Teddy was willing to spend time with him, even though he was aiding and abetting Teddy's parents by giving Tonks all those checkups.

"Well, it's better than something happening to Mum!" Teddy insisted.

Still, it was a bit of a hassle, trying to juggle watching little James and taking care of Teddy at the same time. Teddy earned his keep by making strange faces to keep the baby entertained. He seemed a bit fascinated by James, actually. He left with the decision that having a younger sibling might not be all bad—as long as it were a boy.

Rhea Silvia was born seven months later, much to Teddy's dismay. Really, if Tonks had become pregnant the year before, Teddy would have risked running into Stephen. That would have been hard to explain. Juggling who should be where back then was difficult, and Harry and Ginny had spent half their time at Meadow-Gate with Ron and Hermione. Teddy would have gone there, and if he'd happened to be there when Stephen had showed up in June….

Still, it hadn't happened. Maybe, someday, their paths would cross, but if so, that was in the future. It was a more promising future than it had been a decade ago.

And every month, Mother was there, in the cottage in the woods, to help guide him towards the end goal. There was now only one major goal, burning bright, before him. The Deathly Hallows had twisted his healing. It was much harder to use, now. It seemed to have been twisted into something new, and strange.

He retained the ability to repair serious wounds, but the milder the injury, the harder it was for him to heal. The Deathly Hallows had too strong of a hold on him.

"I need to learn to use the Hallows," he told her, a few years after the Battle, when things had settled down. "But Ron and Stephen won't let me."

"They worry for you," she said. "That is not a bad thing. They have not tried to take the Hallows from you. I believe the time will come that you will need to learn to use the Hallows. If they will not help you, then I will. But, know your limits. It is a risk. The stone and the wand do not behave for you as they did the mortals in the fairytale. That is not the danger."

She paused, leaning back in an armchair that looked out at the back garden were they'd first spoken. "They cannot prevent you from using the Hallows. But, talk to them. Use it for limited periods of time only, and under supervision. Show them that there is nothing to fear. I suspect that, given the time, they will come to accept these small uses, when they see that you are alright. But, remember your limits. You are not as limited as you were before you became Master of Death, but you are still mortal. And, if they tell you to take a break, listen to them. You have time to learn. You need to be free to live, my son."

And live he would, for the next decade or so. While he could. At least this time he knew when everything would start to fall apart.

{end He Who Gathers All Three}

Chapter Text

Epilogue: Ellis Island

Today had not gone at all as expected. Granted, things rarely go as you expect, but the last few hours hadn't even gone in the right general direction.

Nowhere in his expectations for today, for instance, had he expected to be nearly run over by a group of people on flying broomsticks, chasing after some odd, purplish speedy flash. The rest of today had gone rather well, but he clearly shouldn't've gone walking to clear his head after a particularly difficult business deal had gone through.

I mean, everyone knows that New York has a reputation for weirdness, but this kind of takes the cake. He might have been able to dismiss that purple whatever-it-was, but people on flying broomsticks shouting shorthand and code at each other? That was hard to forget.

He could have just gone on his own way after that, back to his hotel, back to scouting properties online, maybe, but he was intrigued. The situation didn't seem dangerous at the time—he hadn't realised that the purple thing had tusks or claws or something, nor that the people on the broomsticks could shoot jets of colourful light. How would he have known?

Witches and wizards. Right. If he hadn't seen it for himself, he wouldn't have believed it.

It was also somewhat difficult for him to believe that they'd never heard of him. What rock had they been living under?

When they were getting his eyewitness testimony—or rather in retrospect, trying rather ineffectually to find out what he'd seen, how much, and how much he'd figured out on his own—they explained a few basic things. It was all, "Yes, Mr. Stark, we are witches and wizards. We don't generally try to draw attention to ourselves in public. What? YouTube? Cell phones? Well, magic interferes with tech. Like photos, they just tend not to turn out (what's the word? develop?) right. They're unbelievably blurry. Or they develop but the magic is gone. Magic doesn't show up on tech."

He'd demanded a demonstration, of course, because who would pass that up? Even if he hadn't, the way they talked about it—and about him—suggested that they'd be doing this anyway.

A mindwipe, like something out of a sci-fi show. That had to be breaking some sort of law, surely. Well, that must explain why no one had blown the lid on the secret magical society living right under their noses.

There had to be a way out of this. He couldn't just lose his memory. How much of it would they take, anyway? Could they be sure of only taking away the past thirty minutes? Was this the secret reason why total amnesia was a thing that happened?

There had to be some way to stop this. If he called his secretary and told her about the secret world, they'd surely be unable to hit both of them, and she'd know why if he started acting like a complete space-case.

Then again, maybe they'd go after her, and he really didn't want that.

"Look, can we just talk about this? I promise I'll keep my mouth shut. I can keep my mouth shut. I'm very good at keeping secrets. Ask anyone. Well, they won't know that I'm keeping secrets, that kind of defeats the whole purpose of keeping secrets, but they'll know that I'm keeping their secrets."

He was making a fool of himself. He should just shut up. But, he'd seen the first Men in Black movie. He knew how this worked. (He may have seen the second one, too, but don't tell anyone.) The Neuralizer had seemed really cool until he was faced with the prospect of someone using it on him.

"I'm a very famous person, you know. People will talk if I disappear, or come back thinking I'm a rabbit, or something."

He hoped that he wasn't giving them ideas. This was terrifying in its absurdity. The New York City streets were supposed to be dangerous, but not in this way.

"Long-term mental damage usually only results when we have to use a memory charm several times within a very short span of time. You have nothing to worry about," said a woman—a witch!—in hot pink flapping robes. How the hell did any of these people think that they were hiding from the public?

He came to the correct assumption then and there that they didn't, and spent their time wiping people's memories, instead. For people who could fly and who were antithetical to tech, they were sure doing a poor job of flying under the radar.

"Now, if you stay still, we can just—"

"That won't be necessary," said a new voice. Its owner was hidden behind a wall of variegated robes. This one had a foreign accent, was all that Tony could tell. "He already knows about Voldemort."

The wizards around Tony flinched in unison. Tony had no words.

The hidden speaker continued, "Word from the ICW via MACUSA. He's right: he's too prominent of a figure in the public consciousness. People will be suspicious of any discrepancies in his behaviour or memories. The media will dig, and we'll all be found out. The odds are against us."

"Who are you, and how dare you—?" the man who had been trying rather unsuccessfully and counterproductively to reassure Tony that memory loss was probably not going to be an issue turned to face the speaker, and fell silent.

"Who? Who is it?" asked a rather bubbly witch in lime green.

"It can't be," said a third figure, unable to resist turning his back to the prisoner to see. "Harry Potter?"

A murmur ran amongst the assembled magic-users. Tony squirmed against his ropes, but it wasn't necessary. His captors parted like the Red Sea.

Harry Potter, if that's who it was, was the single most unassuming person that Stark had ever met. He also looked a bit familiar, maybe. Black hair, and eyes that seemed almost to glow, they were such a pure shade of green. Actual, sensible clothes for walking around in an area populated by non magic-users. A nagging sense of familiarity. At least, the name seemed to be ringing a bit of a bell.

"I'm the head of the auror department, so I have more authority in these matters than you seem to think," the newcomer continued, as if he hadn't heard the whispers surrounding his arrival. "We're going to try something new. Call it a test of integration, if you will. It's a very big deal. They want it in…professional hands."

The snub appeared to go unnoticed by the other figures, who stood stock still. "As I have some prior acquaintance with your prisoner, I've been put in charge of this operation. You are free to go."

"Now, hang on, you can't just—even if you're the Harry Potter, celebrity status won't let you—"

"Sent by the ICW, by way of MACUSA," he said again, implacable. "I think you've done enough damage for one day. You caused a spectacle that you're lucky if it isn't all over the evening news. Why don't you take care of that?"

No one moved. "Or do you want me to make a note in your files—something to the effect of you interfering with official ICW business?"

They scattered. Instead of drawing a wand, "Harry Potter" at last approached with what seemed a Swiss Army Knife.

"I suppose you've had enough of magic for a while," he said, with a wry grin, as he cut through the ropes. "Hello, again, Mr. Stark. I don't suppose you remember me. I'm Harry Potter. It's been over a decade, but we met while you were in England for the summer. Surrey? Privet Drive? Grunnings?"

Oh. That. He vaguely remembered that. The most interesting thing about them, with their cookie cutter house, and their stiff, artificial respect, had been their nephew—

He hadn't had cause to think of that night in over a decade. But, if he thought about it really hard, it stood out amongst the boredom of the rest of that summer. Yeah, they'd had a nephew named Harry Potter, who'd suggested he not take the deal.  Said something about going into police work, or something? Tony supposed that he had, after a fashion. He must have been a wizard all that time.

There was part of him that suddenly understood the Dursleys' fear, that they hadn't wanted Harry around. At the same time, he was repulsed at the idea of agreeing with those people, even as an impulse.

"I'm head auror, now. Made quite a name for myself, other than just surviving when the 'Darkest Wizard in a century' tried to kill me when I was a baby."

The lights were dim, but Tony could hear the eye roll.

Harry extended a hand to help him up, and Tony took it, more warily than he would have a few hours ago.

"So, magic's real?" he managed to ask.

"You tell me," Harry replied. "The secret magical communities are going to be revealed, sooner or later. We can't stay in hiding forever. Especially not with what's coming… So, I've been tasked with watching over you, informing you on the magical world, and tracking your reaction. I'm calling in two…associates to help me. We're going to prove that non-magical people can be trusted not to react with torches and pitchforks to the magical world's existence. In return you'll have to keep quiet about it. To everyone. The magical world is watching. The longer you know the secret, the more memories you're going to lose if you become a risk."

A double-edged sword, Tony thought that was called. He gulped. All he had to do was prove that he could keep a secret. It couldn't be that hard. It was better than losing his memories.

"It's your choice, of course. We can find someone else. No one is forcing you to do this. We don't want you to participate under duress. That's…not an auspicious beginning to this venture. Think about it."

It was a gamble. He could lose his memory of the past few hours, or he could take a risk that he'd end up losing far more than that, in the longterm—but if he could just exhibit some self-control, he'd be fine. No memories lost whatever.

Self-control. Right. Because anyone at all thought that he had any of that.

"My cover is that you once offered me a job," Harry continued, relentless. "Find you on either coast. Well, here we both are in New York. I'll take that job offer. Me and my two associates will work at Stark Enterprises for you, but really, we're watching you. If, in ten years, you prove that you're trustworthy, you might just bring the whole magical world out of hiding. Usher in a new era of harmony and goodwill. I don't think it'll even take ten years to win them over—that's the long guess—"

"Are you done monologuing?" asked Tony. Really, it was the only word that seemed to fit, even if it was generally associated with supervillains. Even in the dim light, Tony saw Harry take a step back. "I'll take the deal. What choice do I have?"

"Well then. It's an honour to work with you, Mr. Stark," said Harry, after a moment.

"Yeah, yeah. Welcome to Stark Enterprises, then. I guess."

{end The Long, Harsh Road}