The scream tore out of him, anguished, high and raw. It warped into hatred and blackest rage in an instant and exploded from his wand in a burst of pure wordless intent that knocked Voldemort back from the altar and buried the knife in his hand hilt-deep into the black marble behind him.

Then, moving faster than he ever had in his life, he shoved Draco away from him and twisted aside as a curse flew at them from the shadows of a giant pillar. The heat of its passing sent blistering pain down his left shoulder. He dropped into a crouch, spitting curses, eyes scanning the darkness behind the altar for their unseen attacker.

"Lumos!" Draco cried beside him. The light flared from his wand and fizzled away instantly, but it was enough to reveal the glint of long silver hair of the man who had issued the deadly curse.

"Father," Draco whispered, as Lucius Malfoy stepped out smoothly from the shadows to face them.

"Draco," the older man greeted his son coolly in his rich, haughty voice. "You disappoint me. I had expected you to come to see the foolishness of your allegiances. Instead, you persist in aligning yourself with these Muggle-lovers and riff-raff, defying the pride of your name and the rightful reign of our Lord. Yes, Draco, you disappoint me," Lucius Malfoy repeated with deliberate emphasis. "Your mother would have been mortified."

Draco drew in a quick breath, but the older Malfoy didn't seem to notice as he went on, "But there is still time, Draco. You see, our Lord has been generous enough to offer you one last chance, even after all the times you failed us. Now come to my side and abase yourself before our Lord, Draco, and reclaim your title as my son."

Draco, standing completely still in his place, raised his head proudly. "You're wrong, Father. I am my own man now. I am not your lackey," he replied in a steady, clear voice. "Neither will I be his. I've made my own choices."

Lucius stared down at his son, contempt twisting his lips. "You would betray our name for Mudbloods and Muggles?" he hissed.

Draco raised his wand defiantly. "Our ancestors never bowed to anyone," he said with a gentleness that contrasted oddly with the straight, tense line of his body. "The freedom to make my own choices is better than any amount of power as a slave. Do you think that Mother would have rejoiced to hear that Malfoy and Black have fallen to Voldemort? She followed you because she loved you, not—"

"Silence!" Lucius hissed. "Stupid boy, you have no idea what you're—"

Voldemort interrupted him. "You know what to do, Lucius," he said coldly.

There might have been the slightest hesitation in Lucius Malfoy's reply, but he said, "Yes, my lord."

They were an even match. The elder Malfoy had years of experience over his son, of course, but Draco had been tutored by the most meticulous and knowledgeable Dark Arts teacher at Hogwarts. For a brief moment Harry wondered if Lucius Malfoy could understand the fierce pride in his son's eyes. Then his gaze was wrenched away from Draco's duel as Voldemort unfolded from the ground with a snake's hypnotic grace and slowly raised his wand. Harry cast the strongest ward he could summon around the altar as they began to circle each other warily.

"Harry Potter," Voldemort said in his high, sibilant voice, cold red eyes boring into his. "And so we meet again at last. You've grown into a man, I see. But do you have the power to defeat me? We shall see—we shall see. For this is the day of the Prophecy, when you shall die, and I shall live again!"

A soft hiss from the shadows froze his heart for an instant. He spun around, just quickly enough to point his wand at the giant snake towering over Draco, poised to strike from behind. "Stop!" he hissed the command with the full force of Imperius, and the snake froze.

The Cruciatus ripped into him from behind, and he fell to the ground, still trying desperately to maintain his hold on Voldemort's familiar. He convulsed silently, clamped his jaws down around the screams that threatened to escape from behind his clenched teeth. But in a small corner of his mind, he realized that Voldemort would not kill outright. He liked the power of having someone at his mercy too much, and he had never feared anyone apart from Albus because only the Headmaster of Hogwarts had ever surpassed him in power or even come close to it. And that was a weakness, for Voldemort had always considered Harry to be beneath him...

Harry stopped fighting the pain. His right hand still clutched his wand desperately, but his bones felt as if they had been pulverized within him. He reached out with his mind alone, pulling sharply at the long yew-wood wand ready to deal his death.

It flew out of Voldemort's hands to the other side of the room. They stared at each other for a moment, Voldemort wandless, Harry still shaking from the aftereffects of the Cruciatus Curse. Harry stood slowly, pointing his wand at the glittering, rage-filled red eyes of the Dark Lord.

"Wormtail!" Voldemort screeched.

Harry stumbled aside as a hex scorched the spot where he had been standing. He snarled, caught it as it passed, and flung it back to its sender. There was a squeal, a scrabbling of tiny feet, and then a small brown shape hurled itself at Voldemort's feet. Pettigrew transformed back, panting, hunched over the cramping spasms his returned hex had left him, and presented Voldemort with his wand.

"Very good, Wormtail," Voldemort hissed. "You shall be awarded."

"Y-yes, my lord. Thank you, my lord," Pettigrew gasped.

"Nagini!" Voldemort commanded.

The snake stirred out of Harry's Imperius and reared back. "No!" Harry shouted. He blasted a curse at Voldemort, then turned towards the snake and cried, "Sectumcarpus!" Nagini flew backwards and crashed against the wall, where it lay pinned by the few invisible daggers of Harry's spell to have penetrated past Voldemort's protections.

Voldemort shrieked in rage and swung his wand in an obliterating arc. "Avada Kedavra."

"Rakhamo Euomroa," Harry cried in the same instant.

The two spells met in the air between them and shattered into a shower of golden dust. Glorious, breathtaking phoenix song burst into existence from the silent explosion. Spidersilk strands of light spun out from their wands, reaching for each other across the space of their battle. Harry felt the jerk of his wand as the seeking strands connected, and he held onto it with grim determination. Light caged them both and lifted them up as golden phoenix song continued to pour into the room.

Augmented with Harry's spell, the ghosts of those killed by Voldemort raced out of his wand as Priori Incantatem rippled across the space between them. They crowded into the room, too numerous to count. Harry, through blurring eyes, saw a familiar gangly figure as he emerged from the wand.

"Neville," he called. "Oh Neville, I'm sorry. I'm so sorry I wasn't there—" But Neville only smiled at him, shook his head and waved, and took this place in the circle of ghosts surrounding Voldemort.

Voldemort's bloodshot eyes burned at him from across the room. "It would seem that I have underestimated you," he hissed malevolently, backing away slowly from the ghosts advancing towards him. His teeth bared with manic glee as his jerk of the wand broke a few of the strands connecting them. In a moment the spell would be broken.

But that moment was enough. Cedric Diggory emerged from the wand, followed swiftly by an old man whose ghost Harry had seen once before. He cried out to the two ghostly figures who followed, "Mum, Dad, help me!"

They nodded as one. There was a strangled sound from beneath him as his father gave him a sly grin and a thumbs-up. He vanished, and a great silver stag stood in his place. The stag reared, hooves pawing the air, and charged Voldemort with majestic antlers lowered. His mother paused for a moment. She came to him, cupping his cheeks gently in feather-light warmth like a summer breeze and touched his forehead with her lips. We love you, Harry, she whispered in his ear. You are all that we could ever have hoped for, and so much more than we could have imagined. Don't forget that last door in the Department of Mystery, and don't be afraid to follow your heart.

Harry saw the sparkle of mischief in her eyes just before she turned. His eyes widened as she followed his father, transforming mid-leap into a bird with brilliant crimson and gold plumage, trailing fiery sparks behind her. To one side, Cedric gave a low whistle of appreciation. Then he saluted Harry and sprang into battle as the badger of his House with a wickedly sharp stake in his hands.

"Well, I'll be!" exclaimed the age-roughed voice of the white-haired old man. Harry's sideways glance showed the old man's face absorbed with concentration. In a second, a gigantic shaggy bear stood in his place, an identical look of concentration in his intelligent black eyes. The bear, standing upright on his hind feet, looked down at himself and rubbed an ear quizzically with one paw. Then he gave a great bear-grin, showing rows of pointed teeth, and dropped down to all fours. "Come on, you lot!" he called to the remaining ghosts, before loping off into the fray.

Neville came up to him and placed his hands on Harry's shoulders. "Don't you dare blame yourself," his friend said fiercely. "I knew what I wanted, and I knew what I was doing, so don't you dare blame yourself."

Harry nodded, and tried to smile. "I know," he replied hoarsely. "I know."

Neville nodded. "Good. You know what to do. I'm charging you with fulfilling the Prophecy, Harry, because you're the only one who can. I'm charging you to live." He stepped back, a trace of the shy smile Harry had once known warming his face, but not softening its determination. "Bye, Harry."

Harry swallowed hard. "Bye, Neville."

What he had to do. What only he could do. What all of them—stag and firebird and bear, Neville—his mother and father, his friends, total strangers, all those who believed in him—had come to give him a chance to do.

Harry gripped his wand tightly with both hands. "Fulcio," he whispered, "prolatio, suscipio." The light around them grew brighter, filigree wisps reaching up into the darkness of the unseen ceiling above.

Harry closed his eyes and reached out with his mind to the phoenix-born strands of light around them. He touched it, felt it waken to him, and whispered to it the shape he molded in his mind. The light responded, the strands moving slowly to his will, in answer to a magic that was neither purely wizardry nor elven mind-magic, but something born of his own will. A bright glowing cage coalesced around Voldemort, who was still frantically fighting the ghosts of his victims.

Harry was panting with the strain of holding his wand steady while he closed his trap even more tightly around Voldemort. From the other end, Voldemort suddenly screamed, "Wormtail!"

There was a snuffling noise underneath him. Peter Pettigrew, crouched low against the ground and trembling with fear at he stared up at the battle above him with bulging eyes, whimpered, "Master, master, master..."

Harry's eyes widened. "No," he whispered desperately. "Don't—"

"Wormtail," Voldemort shrieked, "help me now and I will make you the most powerful wizard the world has ever seen! I swear to you as the Lord of Dragonsweyr!"

A glimmering silver shape broke from the battle and galloped through the air to reach Harry's side. It reared and transformed back into a man, holding out one hand to the sobbing, twitching shape huddled on the floor, now shaking his head slowly as he stared at his reflection in the mirror surface of the gold-veined black marble, still repeating, "Master, master, master..."

"Peter," James called softly as he sank toward the floor. "Peter, it's me, James."

Pettigrew's head snapped up, terror filling his short-sighted brown eyes. "No!" he suddenly screeched. "You're dead! You died! I killed you!" He crawled rapidly backwards as James Potter floated towards him.

"Peter," James repeated gently, a note of sorrow in his voice. "Why did you do it? Why did you betray us? I thought we were happy together, Sirius and Remus and you and me. Didn't we have good times together? Weren't we your friends?"

"Friends?" Pettigrew echoed, stopping. A bitter laugh forced itself out of his throat, coming out almost a gasp as his face twisted. "Friends? Oh yes, we were friends. But I was always the dumb one, the slow one, the one who followed your lead. But did anyone ask what I wanted? Did anyone ever wonder how I felt, always tagging along in whatever grand adventures the rest of you dreamed up? Did anyone ever want to know what I thought about anything? I was barely a step above Snivellus in your eyes. But then—then you needed a Secret Keeper, and Sirius was too afraid for his own life to do it. Oh, then your old pal Wormtail was important. But you didn't know, did you, how valuable that secret was to me—and to my Master. Can you imagine how I felt, to hold your life and the lives of everyone you loved in my hands?"

"Peter," James approached him slowly, "I'm so sorry I failed as your friend. I'm sorry I didn't guess how lonely you felt with us. We never wanted it to be that way. But if you want to avenge yourself, let it be on the ones who truly deserve it. Don't let Voldemort's evil spread because of our mistakes."

Pettigrew seemed to hesitate, still staring down at his reflection. Please, please, let him listen, Harry prayed. He gathered all the strands of the cage in his mind like the spinal threads of a fishnet made of light. "Claudio!" he shouted.

As if someone had shredded time into a series of single image frames, his mind seemed to grasp the next few moments only as separate disconnected snapshots, clear and vivid but unmoving as Muggle photographs: thick strands of light closing upon Voldemort with a snap; his father bending down, frozen with one hand almost touching Pettigrew's shoulder; Peter Pettigrew, the whites showing around his eyes and teeth bared in a paroxysm of terror, holding his arm up before him; the blood-streaked fireball that burst from a wand held by a silver hand; the crimson and white explosion as the fireball met the golden thread connecting his wand to Voldemort's, as silent in his mind as his own cry of anguished pain; his father kneeling in front of Pettigrew just before his body dissolved into wisps of shadow; his mother turning to him, half woman and half bird, trailing firesparks in her hair and whispering words of love, before she, too, vanished; intermingled strands of light and darkness flying past him; another explosion of red agony as his body crashed into the wall behind him; and then Voldemort standing over him, triumph glinting in his eyes.

"And so, Harry Potter," Voldemort said in his high, thin voice, triumph glinting in his cold eyes, "you now see the true value of friendship." He gestured to Pettigrew, who crept slowly forward. "Take his wand."

Pettigrew picked up the fallen holly and core of phoenix feather and held it uncertainly, as if he were a child with his first wand in his hands. Harry blinked the blood out of his eyes and whispered the words of a tiny healing spell, fighting the black vortex that threatening to engulf him. Dimly, he heard, "This is your reward, Wormtail. See how generous I can be. You may take your revenge on your old friend's son. Just keep in mind that I shall be the one to take his life."

There was a moment of silence, during which the darkness finally receded from his eyes. He looked up to see Pettigrew staring uncertainly at him, Harry's wand still held point-first in his hands.

"What? You will not claim your prize? Would you, too, follow our friend Se-ve-rus' example?" Voldemort hissed menacingly.

"N-no, my lord," Pettigrew stammered, and raised the wand in his silvered hand. But though his lips moved silently, no spell struck Harry from the wand.

"You too, Wormtail, my faithful servant?" Voldemort mused. Before Pettigrew could react, the Dark Lord flicked his wand in an almost bored motion towards him. Pettigrew dropped to his knees, screaming pitifully as blood burst from countless cuts all over his body. Harry's wand clattered again to the floor.

"You will be silent." Voldemort waved his wand again, and Pettigrew's face bloated purple, choked by his own screams.

"Stop it," Harry said desperately, a trickle of his own blood weaving a warm trail down his back. "Stop it!" He summoned his wand to his hand and directed a paralysis spell at Voldemort. The other wizard blocked it effortlessly. He turned, red eyes burning with unholy glee.

"You would fight for this pathetic traitor, Harry Potter?" the Dark Lord asked him. "Then would you like to hear how I deal with traitors? What would you do, I wonder, for Severus Snape? Wouldn't you like to hear of how I tore away the walls around his mind, one by one—how I destroyed every trace of his will until he screamed and pleaded with me for mercy?"

Harry hissed against his heart's keening, "You inhuman monster!" He pulled the Ayrgen Sword out of the air at his back and charged at Voldemort. The shield the Dark Lord had erected around himself picked Harry up bodily and flung him back against the wall, and this time he tasted blood in his mouth.

"No?" Voldemort smiled chillingly. "You would, perhaps, not be so quick to jump to that traitor's defense if you knew what I found in his mind. Did you think him cold, emotionless, a paragon of self-denial? Oh yes, on the surface our Severus was quite the noble willing sacrifice. He was a master of misdirection, our Potions master. But he did manage to betray his hand a few times too many—and rather tellingly, always when it came to you, Harry Potter. Do you not think that strange? But you have never truly delved into his mind, have you? Wouldn't you like to know the truth?"

The truth? He would have laughed, had he been able to draw breath past the pain of the memory of a voice saying, Do not call me coward! "I will kill you, Tom Marvolo Riddle," Harry gritted out.

"You don't wish to hear any more?" Voldemort asked with self-satisfied amusement. "Ah, but you have aroused my curiosity. Perhaps our dear Severus would reveal to you what he so obstinately refused me." His next curse was aimed not at Harry, but at the barrier he had erected around the unmoving body of Severus Snape on the black altar.

"No!" Harry shouted, and somehow moved fast enough to interpose himself between the spell and the altar. Voldemort's curse crackled against his shields like lightening and scored his arms with thin stripes of scorched flesh. But Harry advanced steadily, the Ayrgen Sword held in front of him, casting curses with a speed and passion that he had never known, not caring that his spells shattered against Voldemort's shields like spears of ice against a stonework barrier.

Voldemort, surprised, gave way before him. Then his eyes narrowed. "You shall never defeat me, Harry Potter. For I am protected by the blood of my enemies," he hissed.

Voldemort's next granite blow crashed into Harry's shields, making them buckle. Blood Wizardry, he dazedly registered, as he twisted desperately to avoid the next curse and the next. His own attacks were absorbed without a ripple by Voldemort's shields. His wards dissolved on Voldemort's next curse, and he tumbled heavily to the ground as pain lanced up his ankle. His wand spun away into the foot of a night-black pillar, and the Ayrgen Sword clanged to the floor.

He did not close his eyes as the next wave of obliterating heat rushed toward him, though he knew that it would kill him. Somehow he could not register fear, only surprise and a numbing exhaustion. And regret, for it seemed that there was always room for that.

The spell exploded against the small brown shape that had hurled itself in front of him. Pettigrew transformed back in midair as his screeched in agony, his body broken in a hundred different places. He landed in front of Harry and dragged his head up, panting. "You," he gasped. "You whose blood he shares. You're the only one who can stop this. Blood to blood. My debt to you is repaid, Harry Potter." The last breath rattled from his lungs and he fell back, blank eyes staring at the ceiling.

You whose blood he shares.

He left a crumbled illusion of himself there against the black marble and stood noiselessly. He willed himself into movement, into shadow. He flowed back into existence behind Voldemort, and the Sword came to his hand as if it were an extension of his mind. He thrust it, glowing with blue flame, at Voldemort with all the strength in his body.

The Dark Lord seemed to realize what had occurred at the last moment; he spun to face Harry, in time to see the Sword plunged straight into his heart. His red eyes widened in surprise. Then he opened his mouth and laughed, a horrible gurgling sound that froze Harry's blood. He slowly lifted his left hand, closed his long skeletal fingers as if he were grasping air. Then the hand snapped forward. Behind him, Harry heard a scream.

"Father!"

An irrevocable force slammed him back against the far wall, pinned him there for a moment with unrelenting power, and then dropped him with a blaze of agony onto the hard floor. Through the red haze over his eyes he could see Draco where he knelt by his father's side, eyes full of horror as Lucius Malfoy gasped for breath, his hand at his throat, blood fountaining from his mouth and down his chest. Draco looked up, his eyes full of hatred. "Let him go!" he shouted, his wand a blur as it swung upward to point at Voldemort. Lucius' hand came up to clench in his son's hair. The Dark Mark glowed acid-green on his arm. His mouth moved, but no sound came out as he toppled sideways.

The merest flicker of Voldemort's wand sent Draco flying backwards to crash against the wall behind him with a sickening crack. He slid down into a crumbled unmoving heap upon the floor.

Voldemort laughed as he advanced on Harry. "Not quite what you expected, Harry Potter?" He reached for the sword protruding from his chest and pulled it out by the hilt. The blade, no longer glowing, dripped with black ichors. "Did you really think this toy sword of yours could kill me?" he hissed with amusement. "This pretty little artifact is useless to those who do not know how to use it. I am no longer quite human, you see, and my soul has fed on power even the Lios Alfar would quail at. And I do think it would be amusing indeed if we were to turn this Ayrgen Sword, this last Gift of the Lios Alfar to a darker purpose... For you, my dear Harry Potter, are still human...ah, so many possibilities! Such a pity, though, that you cannot replace the pet dementors that you so carelessly destroyed. But that, I'm afraid, is the domain of the Svart Alfar." His eyes barely flicked to Severus before settling back on Harry's face.

You whose blood he shares...

So it came down to this. Had been inevitable all along?

He tilted his head back passively to watch Voldemort's approach and felt almost like laughing. What was it about the banality of evil? But Voldemort's eyes were colder than the eyes of his snake and glinting with insanity. Harry sobered. He stood with effort, supporting himself with trembling hands against the wall behind him, and raised his head with unflinching determination. So this was it. Very well. Then let it at least mean something. Let him be the sacrifice, if sacrifice was needed, not Severus—please, not Severus, he prayed. This was his destiny; he'd been marked for it, after all. Pettigrew had died to give him this one chance. If Voldemort wanted his blood, he would have it. And when it ran red upon the black marble floor Harry would show him the true power of Blood Wizardry.

Voldemort was standing over him now, and he looked up into those mad red eyes calmly. First would come the pain, a crashing, searing, white-hot wave of it. Then would come the final, true battle, to endure long enough to pull Voldemort with him into the darkness.

Blood to blood. Death for death.

He couldn't quite remember when exactly the constant resentment he had carried within himself against his unwieldy destiny had transmuted into pure and simple determination. Perhaps it had been when the elven children had died, and the free-elves, even in the midst of their own grieving, had tried to comfort him, who had opened the doors of their once-idyllic home to irrevocable Death. How could he not want to protect them? How could he not try to keep safe the children that Neville had given his life to rescue, or to end the war that had cost all of them so much? What was this pain, compared to what Severus Snape had endured to allow him this moment?

Harry watched the Ayrgen Sword rise in Voldemort's hand in a blur of shadowed silver. Had he truly awakened the sword for this purpose? Was this the price the Sword demanded, and was this, too, written somewhere—in tea leaves scattered on the floor of some small, dark, airless room, in the twisted, weathered roots of a thousand-year-old tree standing in the midst of some secret forest—the words that condemned him to death by a silver sword carrying his name? What was the magic the Lios Alfar had woven into the bright sleeping blade that could only be awoken by the spilling of his blood? What sorrow had they bound into the blood-colored rubies on its hilt, that would bind them both to death?

The last door...

He thought then, one last time, of Christmas. He would never now have the chance to ask the question that had ached inside him for so very long. But perhaps he could still give Severus the chance to answer that question for himself. Could that be enough, if that was all he had left to give? If there was anything he could ask for, at the end, he would ask for that. It would be the last gift he could give that proud, stubborn man.

Choices. Freedom, at last. Wings to fly over the wild currents of air.

Then there was no more time for thought, for the Sword was descending now in a burning trail of fractured torchlight, and time had stilled, had stopped in the fraying space beneath that luminous blade-edge.

In the next moment the air around him blurred emerald-bright, and then blazed with a green fire so intense that he had to close his eyes so as not to be blinded by that light. Distantly, through the fire-scorched air, he heard a scream of rage and the silvery clangor of a sword against the night-black marble. He blinked his eyes open to see Voldemort unfolding himself from the floor on the far side of the room. Black smoke rose from the sleeves of his robes, but he seemed not to notice as he drew his wand with a high-pitched scream of fury—point not at Harry, but at the still form lying upon the altar.

And Harry knew that his wards could not withstand Voldemort's full demented rage. He pushed himself to his feet, took one stumbling step forward, re-appearing in front of the altar between Voldemort and his intended victim, and reached out with all the desperation in his soul.

The Sword sang.

It resonated in his mind, a single note of piercing purity and sweetness more felt than heard. Around them, the shadows stirred.

An immense power, rooted as deeply as the bedrock beneath them—even deeper, perhaps, than that—moved within the stones of the ancient castle, freezing both of them where they stood.

Voldemort stared at something behind him with wide, ravenous eyes, but Harry dared not turn around to see. The entire castle held its breath, waiting... Waiting for what, Harry could not guess. The weight of power whispered once more over his skin like a snow-laden breeze, and he shivered.

Then he saw them.

A diamond eye swirling with deepest hues of amethyst and sapphire opened out of darkness and gazed at him from across the room. A giant wingtip unfurled out of shadow and melted back in an instant. Mesmerized, Harry stared as a silhouette of mist danced gracefully to the flickering torch lights into and out of the stone walls, there and not there in the same paradoxical moment. Harry shook his head, closed his eyes and opened them again to see a sinuous shape twining out of the darkness.

The true Lord of Dragonsweyr had come.

"It has been long since I have taken shape in the mortal world," a deep voice, harsh with stone and time, touched his mind. "For what reason have you summoned me from my dreams?"

Harry turned slowly. A shimmering dragon unfurled its smoky wings above him; it had taken shape from the darkness pooled at the feet of the onyx columns and the cool scent of midnight breezes winding through the snow-covered pine forest to appear before them. Its voice echoed the secret timbre of the hollowed caverns beneath the castle. Its body was a deeper black than the marble around them: the ebony of the sky on a night without moon or stars. Its glimmering scales flowed as if with the shifting of the torches upon the walls, but they reflected some secret inner fire with a heart of royal indigo, not the heated orange of the torch-flames. Its eyes, frozen and crystalline with shades of deep amethyst, held him captive and motionless with wonder.

At the far side of the chamber Voldemort took one step forward and raised his hand beseechingly towards the shadow-dragon. "Make me one with you," he rasped. "Give me the power of Darkness. Give me the power to free my soul from my body."

The dragon's eyes, whirling towards a sapphire as dark as its scales, moved to Voldemort. "Tell us, Mortal, what you would give in exchange for all the Darkness winding through the paths of time."

"Anything!" Voldemort cried hoarsely. "Everything. A soul. A soul in my power."

"No!" Harry croaked desperately. "That soul—that soul is not his to give," he gasped. His knees nearly buckled when the glacial weight of that gaze returned to him. He clutched at the Ayrgen Sword with numb fingers, shivering uncontrollably in the bone-deep cold. Nevertheless he raised the Sword in a gesture of defiance, wondering at his own calm in that insane moment.

"You have courage, Man-child," the dragon said to him. "But you expend it foolishly."

The gold beneath his feet cracked apart in long streaks of frosted white. Harry, lost within the maze of darkness shifting endlessly in the dragon's gaze, could not recall the sound of any word that meant warmth. A silver light slipped from his nerveless fingers to strike a bell-tone against the floor. A moment later the dragon's eyes faded into grey, and then white.

Harry opened his mouth, but could not speak. He closed his eyes, opened them again to nothingness. He whimpered at the burning against his cheek and shifted desperately until he found a scattering of color in the field of white. He reached for it, felt the sudden razored pain that was almost a relief against the numbness. Red the color of rubies welled from his palm to drip in patterns of ebony and crimson against the white. Memory poured through him like molten fire, and he gasped.

Warmth blazed around him, melting the white back to black. Flame in the shape of a bird landed lightly next to Harry's hand and tilted its head to shed its tears upon his wound. "Fawkes," Harry murmured almost soundlessly. He met the golden, burning eyes of the bird and drew strength from somewhere deep inside of himself to drag himself upward with the Sword in his hand.

He raised his head. The shadows stirred restlessly around him.

"You have meddled for the last time, Harry Potter." Voldemort's menacing whisper came just a second before the green flash of roiling death which he had no hope of eluding.

The spell shattered against a great ebony wing. Harry looked up into sapphire eyes as deep and crystalline as a star-spotted night sky. "You have no power over us, Chosen of the Light. Leave."

Harry shivered, his mind grappling against the command. "No," he breathed. He took a deep hurtful breath, desperately casting back for the words of a fairy tale Luna given him one late autumn day, and held out the Ayrgen Sword in both hands in offering. "Once the Light sang to the Darkness and the Darkness dreamed of Light," he whispered. "Once—once your Children cherished this world and saw beauty within everything in it. Once the Leviathan gave up his immortal body and the earth and the sea to fly beside the Phoenix."

"Our dreams were twisted by humans." The dragon's voice, harsh with long bitterness, drew burning tears into Harry's eyes.

He said, "We still remember how to love."

The darkness stilled.

Harry kept his hold on the Sword, though his arms trembled. "The Dragon still flies beside the Phoenix among the stars," he whispered. "And we—we still treasure the Gifts of the Light. We still dream in the Darkness. We have not forgotten. We cannot forget. As long as magic is the heart's Will, we will never forget."

His name flared on the Ayrgen Sword, turned it to blue flame. "So there yet exists one who can riddle with dragons," the shadow-dragon mused. "Tell me, heir of my children, what you would of me."

"No!" Voldemort's high, inhuman shriek echoed against the black marble walls, and the castle shuddered around them. "You will not have what is mine! I am the Lord of Dragonsweyr!"

Harry fell with bruising impact to his knees on the floor. He looked up to see Voldemort with his mouth stretched in a wide grotesque grin, hands raised high above him. A swirling darkness formed between his clawed fingers and struck downward in a flash of black lightning. Voldemort arched backwards, his mouth opening in a silent scream. When he straightened, he stared at Harry out of pupil-less, pure black eyes devoid of any semblance of humanity. He raised his hand. His wand burst into black flame and drifted in specks of ash to the floor. Beside him, Fawkes cried a note of heart-breaking sorrow.

"Do you wish for darkness so much, Mortal?" the dragon rumbled, and the walls of the castle shook again. It spread its wings high above Harry. "Then come to me," the dragon roared, as Voldemort flung his arms wide, and streaks of daggered blackness shot towards Harry. The dragon flowed between Harry and the deadly attack. The thick strands rebound upon their creator, transformed into smoky talons wrapped around Voldemort's skeletal body. The Dark Lord screamed shrilly as if he had been pierced by a thousand needles before he dissolved with the darkness, his body turned to smoke and the echoes of a last disbelieving cry.

The shadow-dragon asked Harry, "What do you wish for, Mortal? Answer."

Harry stood, shaking, looking up into the dragon's emerald, amber eyes. "Nothing," he whispered. "Nothing but the chance to live my life. I have no soul to give."

A great muzzle brushed past his cheek in a smoky caress. "The Sword chose its bearer well. Farewell, Harry Potter." Fawkes flung his wings wide and sang a single note of triumph.

Power retreated from him, and Harry shivered with both loss and relief. Shadows melded back into black marble in silence. The voice in his mind faded away until only ordinary darkness remained in the room.

Harry sank to the ground as his shaking legs gave out. The great oaken doors opened with a crash, and he stared blankly at the handsome man with long black hair who had appeared there until he wrapped strong arms around Harry with a cocky grin on his face and nearly hugged the breath out of him.

"Si-Sirius?" he stammered. "Is that—"

"The last door, Harry," he laughed wildly. "You opened it!"

"The door..." Harry drew back a little and touched Sirius' face with wondering fingertips. "Sirius. I can't believe it. You're back? To stay?" Harry laughed happily and hugged Sirius again.

But Sirius replied gently as he stroked Harry's hair, "No, Harry, not to stay. I'm sorry. I've been in that other world for too long. But I had debts to repay that I have a chance to now, thanks to you."

Harry met Sirius' eyes. "Bellatrix?"

Sirius gave a wide, feral grin. "Bellatrix." The grin faded. "And..."

Harry stiffened and pulled away. "Severus," he whispered. He tried to stand too quickly, and Sirius caught him as his injured leg collapsed beneath him. "Oh Merlin, Severus. And Draco..."

"Draco Malfoy is fine," a new voice said from somewhere to his left. Harry looked up to see Remus' gentle, sad smile. He took the other man's proffered hand to pull himself upright, leaning half his weight on Sirius.

There was a horrified gasp from his right. "Se...Severus?" Poppy.

Harry wrenched around. Poppy stood next to the altar with its sacrifice. The Black Bishop. So much blood—how could he not have noticed the blood before?

"Sirius," Harry whispered. His godfather silently wrapped Harry's right arm over his shoulder. Remus did the same on the other hand. Together, they carried him to the altar, to Severus' side.

Poppy slowly looked up. "Know that there must be no doubt or hesitation in this, gentlemen. This will be an all-or-nothing attempt. If we fail, we may very well fall along with Severus. Do you understand?"

They nodded in turn. Sirius released Harry and held out his open hands towards Remus. "Well, old friend," he said with a smile. "Once more for the pride of the Marauders?"

Remus clasped Sirius' hands strongly and met his eyes, a stream of almost tangible memories passing between them through that connection. "For the Marauders," he agreed, smiling as well. And seemed to Harry that in that moment, the years fell away from the two men, leaving them with the youthful, hopeful, carefree spirits of the boys they had been. He bowed his head and placed both of his hands over theirs.

And then there were steady hands supporting him from behind, and an arm around each shoulder. Ron. Hermione. And...Draco? He smiled at them, grateful beyond expression of words for their strength.

They lowered their hands until they rested over Severus' heart. "Rakhamo Euomroa!" they cried in unison.

For the second time that day phoenix song soared through the sunless, black-stoned chamber.

Harry gasped as their entwined hands began to glow with a light so bright that his eyes began to tear. He closed them and swayed as the rest of his magic drained out of him at a rate that he knew should have alarmed him. But he only felt a soul-deep exhaustion and an emptiness that ached and spread and ate into him like the sort of cold that killed with numbness.

"Harry!" he heard Hermione cry urgently beside him.

"Dammit, Harry, stop blocking us. Let us help, you prat!" Ron growled behind him.

Harry startled a little and fumbled weakly for their presence. He suddenly touched two—no, three strands of magic reaching out to him. He caught them—ocean-blue, mercurial silver, flame-shot amber—opened himself to them, let them flow like the currents of a swift river into him. Power poured from his hands, and warmth seeped into the cold empty places within him like spring sunlight into frozen earth.

He could see now what Poppy saw: torn, mutilated flesh, shattered bones, ruptured veins...and deeper inside, cracked ribs bending inward, blood seeping into a punctured lung, a heart struggling desperately to continue beating but growing fainter with every passing minute...and deeper still, magic fading away, dying as the body was dying.

He shouted a denial, caught at a thin tendril of emerald and clutched it tightly in a desperate embrace. He traced the strand of magic to Severus' heart, saw the glowing web of healing magic Poppy had erected around it, feeding it energy, lending it the rhythm that it had lost. Harry touched the web gently, saw it waver as Poppy began to heal the rupture in the lung. He eased his own power into the strands, channeling energy into the woven structure until it stopped fluctuating and began pulsing with a steady, purposeful beat that the heart echoed.

Everywhere he looked, webs of green healing light covered the uncountable wounds of Severus' body, but it was not enough. He knew that sooner or later their magic would falter, and they, too, would succumb to the black void eating away at Severus' magic. "No," he said out loud. "I won't give in." All or nothing. He drew all the magic he could hold into his hands—sapphire, silver, amber, and his own deep crimson, and fed it all recklessly into the healing web. The seeking tendrils of the small webs touched, connected, and merged into larger wholes. Poppy, viridian green, reached out to him, followed by the intertwined bright jasper and shadowy onyx of Remus and Sirius. They joined with him, and their power took and gave of each other through their open minds in absolute rejection of the void that threatened to devour Severus' life and their own. Fawkes flamed into fire in the air above them, and the Ayrgen Sword blazed into song in his mind. The webs flared with a sunburst of bright living green the color of newly-born leaves in spring as all the strands met to create one large web of healing across Severus' body. Harry gasped at the intensity of the completion, at the joy of absolute rightness binding all their minds together in a moment of complete and utter harmony.

They returned to themselves, still dazed with the light, and separated reluctantly.

"I...that was...wow," Ron muttered incoherently, awe in his voice. He drew Hermione to him with a tender arm across her waist, and she buried her face against his chest.

Harry looked up at Poppy. She ran her wand slowly over the prone body, now wrapped in filigree strands of healing green. The open wounds across Severus body had disappeared; his torn robes showed only unblemished skin. But Harry knew that the deeper wounds inside his body were far from healed. He held his breath until Poppy looked up at Harry and nodded.

Draco took a few steps away from them wordlessly, swayed, and toppled quietly and unceremoniously to the ground.

Harry closed his eyes, felt himself falling. Strong arms caught him in a tight embrace, and a familiar voice whispered into his ear, "Your father wanted me to tell you that you've grown into a better man than him, that he is so proud of having you as his son. I am too, Harry. You've been able to see more clearly than any of us. Thank you for giving me the chance to repay my debts. I have to go, so I'll say goodbye for now. Until we meet again." Cool lips touched his forehead for a moment, and gentle fingertips brushed the hair from his eyes. He smiled, and allowed the world to go blank.