Chapter Text
The battle rages on, but Harry can’t hear it. All he can hear are his own harsh breaths catching painfully in his throat with every inhale and the quiet whispers from the tattered veil that has already resumed its tranquil rippling, as if nothing has passed through it at all. His feet propel him towards the centre of the room of their own accord, heedless of the spells that whiz past his ears.
He has a vague awareness of a hand catching his wrist and pulling him into a firm embrace, of words being shouted into his ear, but he can’t spare a thought to anything but fighting the grasp that keeps him from getting to the archway.
If only Harry can get to the archway, he’ll be able to reach through it to where Sirius waits just on the other side, and the man will give Harry a wild grin as they rejoin the fight together. He thrashes once more against the arms holding him back, but they only tighten further. Harry snarls wordlessly over his shoulder at the one restraining him, meeting startled, sorrowful amber eyes.
Lupin.
Why is Lupin stopping him from getting to Sirius? Can’t he see that he must be just on the other side of the curtain, winded from his fall, waiting for Harry to come and offer a hand to help him up? Doesn’t he realise that any second now, the slow undulations of the fabric will be disturbed once more, and Sirius will stumble through with breathless laughter spilling from his lips?
Harry’s struggles weaken with every moment that passes without Sirius’ reappearance, and finally, he goes limp in Lupin’s hold, letting himself be dragged back out of the paths of flying curses and into the shadows that line the edges of the room. Lupin relaxes his grip, turning Harry to face him but keeping his hands on Harry’s shoulders as if afraid he’ll try to make a break for it again.
Harry is helpless to do anything but look up into the pity that lines Lupin’s face, the anguish that turns the corners of his mouth down and coats his eyes with the shine of unshed tears. Lupin’s voice wavers when he speaks.
“You couldn’t have done anything, Harry, it was too late. There’s nothing you can do. He’s–”
“Dead.”
If Harry hadn’t felt the word scrape its way up his throat, he wouldn’t have known he was the one to say it. He can’t stop himself from looking back towards the veil, and he knows that if he allowed himself to focus on the whispers that emanate from its fabric, he would now hear Sirius’ voice among them. He feels Lupin’s grasp on his shoulders slacken further, senses his gaze following Harry’s to the centre of the room.
To the centre of the room, and then past it to where Bellatrix Lestrange stands tall amidst the duelling forces, staring straight back at Harry with a goading smile on her face.
Harry can feel Lupin try to regain his hold on him, but it’s too late – Harry is already off, hurtling down the stone steps and across the room in pursuit of Bellatrix. She races up the stairs ahead of him and through a door, mad laughter echoing in her wake. Harry lets his instincts guide him across the battlefield, ducking and weaving through the spellfire that ricochets in every direction. He hears a faint call of his name from Lupin as he reaches the door, but he pays it no mind, focused entirely on the cackle emanating from the darkened room.
The second after Harry bursts through the door, a shower of rust-coloured sparks hits it, slamming it shut behind him. Whipping around to face the source of the spell, he sees Bellatrix’s silhouette outlined in light from another doorway.
“Petrificus Totalus!” Harry shouts, but she slips into the next room before his spell can make contact, and it splashes harmlessly against the far wall.
In the back of his mind, Harry registers that he must be in the room Luna was talking about earlier, with the planets. He races across the dark space towards where Bellatrix vanished, pushing himself to run even faster when he feels his body getting lighter and his footsteps propelling him farther into the air than should be possible. In three more massive strides, he crosses the threshold into the next room, stumbling at the sudden restoration of normal gravity and blinking rapidly to adjust his vision to the sparkling brightness that tells him that he is, once again, in the Room of Time.
But there is no sign of Bellatrix.
Harry steps away from the door cautiously and closes it behind him. To his right, the bell jar still holds its glittery wind and bizarrely ageing hummingbird, and he can also see the door off to the left that he knows leads back to the Department of Mysteries’ dark, spinning antechamber.
He takes another step forward, drawing even with the first row of desks, and then nearly jumps out of his skin when every clock in the room – of which there are many – chimes midnight at once, forming a deafening cacophony that has him desperately squeezing his hands over his ears.
Then, in the silent moment after the last clock’s final toll, Bellatrix strikes. She shimmers into sight sitting on one of the desks to Harry’s left, swinging her legs back and forth gleefully, and then she is stalking forward, sending curse after curse towards him with negligent flicks of her wand. It’s all Harry can do to throw up a hasty Protego, and still, he can feel the way the shield trembles under the vicious onslaught. It shatters with only three spells, and he hastily replaces it, stumbling backwards towards the bell jar as Bellatrix advances. His second shield also breaks in less than a minute, so he casts a third, tiring rapidly, but it seems he doesn’t need it – the barrage of curses has stopped.
Harry blinks in confusion. Bellatrix is still grinning at him, but she makes no move to resume casting, just starts twirling her wand through her fingers casually. The shimmer of his shield between them warps his vision, causing her features to distort grotesquely. He stares, but when seconds pass and all remains quiet, he moves his feet into a more stable stance. Bellatrix’s grin widens. He drops his shield.
“Expelliarmus!”
Batting away the spell like it’s a fly, Bellatrix cackles in glee.
“Itty bitty Potter is mad, is he?”
She shoots a putrid fuchsia bolt of magic too fast for him to block or dodge, and it hits his cheek, leaving a searing wound.
“Not so scary now, no he isn’t. Weak and pathetic, gullible, getting his godfather killed–”
“YOU KILLED HIM!”
Harry’s spells crash against Bellatrix’s shield, but it holds firm, and she pouts at him, unfazed by the attack.
“That I did,” she coos in her horrible baby voice, “but he wouldn’t have even been here if it weren’t for how worried a certain someone gets about him… It was the easiest thing in the world for my Lord to send you that vision, and just as he predicted, you showed up to save the day…”
Harry forces more power into his spells, barely bothering to say the incantations aloud, just letting the magic pour through his wand at the deranged witch.
“And you brought your little friends, too! Oh, I was so happy when I saw them. More treats for me… I’m sure that, after I have captured the precious saviour for him, my Lord will gladly allow me to do as I wish with the rest. I’m especially looking forward to the Longbottom boy – he looks just like his mother, you know? Mmm… I wonder if he screams like her, too?”
Neville.
Harry sees, in his mind’s eye, Neville’s bloodied face and wide eyes. He sees the bubble-gum wrapper that Neville had slipped quietly into his pocket in St. Mungo’s, the love and pain on his face when he thanked his mum. He sees the words of the Daily Prophet article, Bellatrix’s photo smirking in black and white above them… convicted of the torture and permanent incapacitation of Frank and Alice Longbottom.
He sees red.
“Crucio.”
Bellatrix’s eyes widen, and then she is screaming, her knees giving out and the back of her head hitting the floor with a crack. She writhes under Harry’s wand. For a long moment, all he can think is– no one else. She took Sirius, she can’t take anyone else.
But it is only for a moment. Harry sees the way her spine arches in agony, hears the way her screams bounce off the walls, feels the way his magic sings with her pain, and he stumbles back. He wrenches his wand away. Bellatrix slumps, panting, and then she pushes herself up onto her elbows, slowly getting to her feet. Harry takes an unconscious step away when he sees the leer on her face.
“Well, isn’t this a lovely surprise,” she purrs, all traces of the mocking, childish tone long gone. Her voice is hoarse from screaming, and her slow steps toward him are more of a stagger. “Not bad, for a first try, but you’ve still got a lot to learn… I suppose I’ll just have to teach you.”
Harry’s back hits a bookshelf, and he startles. His gaze shifts back and forth from the wand pointed at his chest to the dark satisfaction on Bellatrix’s face. He braces himself as she casts the spell in a reverent whisper.
Pain.
His head whips back, colliding with the shelves behind him, but that is less than an afterthought compared to the burn of the Cruciatus racing through him. He has forgotten, since that night in the graveyard a year ago, what it felt like. His skin is on fire, his heart pounds against his ribs like it wants to break them. When he sucks in a breath to scream, it is not air that fills his lungs, but razor blades. And then it’s over. He sags against the bookshelf, staying on his feet through sheer force of will. He barely flinches when a cutting curse hits him, slicing deep into his right shoulder; the pain of it is nothing compared to what he has just borne. The ringing in his ears slowly fades away, leaving only the sound of Bellatrix’s ranting.
“So little Potter wants to play, huh? Casts the torture curse and suddenly he’s all cocky, thinking that he can defeat me, that he can defeat the Dark Lord. Oh, what a precious thing! So naive, so damaged.” She flicks her wand, and Harry sails across the room, crashing like a ragdoll through the front of a glass-faced cabinet. The contents – a variety of vaguely hourglass-shaped trinkets – fall to the floor and shatter, sending up plumes of silvery dust that make his eyes itch and coat his throat when he inhales. Shards of glass fall from his back and dig into his palms when he tries to push himself off the ground. He knows that if he looks, he will find hundreds of tiny cuts covering his body.
Unable to force himself to his feet, Harry collapses onto his side, exhausted. He lets his eyelids fall shut so he won’t have to see Bellatrix’s maniacal grin, and wishes he could block out the crunch of her footsteps in the shattered glass that adorns the floor between them.
“Giving up, Potter?” she whispers into his ear. “I can’t say I blame you. I’m glad I could make it nice and painful for you, sweetheart. Just something for you to remember me by, something to tell my dear cousin about when you see him. Don’t worry, you won’t be separated for long… Avada Ke–”
“CRUCIO!”
Harry’s eyes fly open at the shout. There, in all his glory, stands Voldemort. His focus is not on Harry, however, but on Bellatrix, who is screaming on the ground once more. Endless seconds pass while the Dark Lord tortures his loyal follower, slitted nostrils flared with rage. Finally, finally, when Harry begins to think that the noise of the witch’s screeching will never stop, Voldemort ends the curse, and Bellatrix curls into a ball, sobbing.
Voldemort sweeps past Harry’s helpless form without a glance. He kicks Bellatrix onto her back, and she cowers away, muttering frantic apologies.
“You dare… ” hisses Voldemort, while Bellatrix shakes her head forcefully. “You dare presume to take what is rightfully mine?”
“No, my Lord! I would never– I couldn’t possibly–”
“Silence.”
Bellatrix whimpers, but holds her tongue. Voldemort turns away from her shuddering form, making eye contact with Harry at last. His scar erupts in pain, but before Voldemort can take more than one step towards him, a bright, warm flash of light fills the room, bringing with it the sound of phoenix song; Dumbledore has arrived. Harry can’t move his head to see the man, but a moment later, Voldemort no longer stands above Bellatrix’s shuddering body, and the sounds of battle resume.
Fawkes lands before Harry, crimson feathers shining with the colours of reflected spellfire. The bird greets Harry with a soft, melodic warble, his eyes wise and sad, and Harry has the strangest feeling that Fawkes knows what he’s done to Bellatrix. He sighs, eyelids fluttering shut, awaiting the phoenix’s judgement.
Harry nearly sobs when he feels the first tear drop onto his cheek. The bird continues singing as he heals Harry, a gentle, mournful tune that speaks of understanding. The noise of the fight fades into the background, and then disappears entirely, until the only thing Harry can hear is Fawkes’ song.
He’s so tired. He wants to sleep, but the brilliant golden light shining through his eyelids is making that impossible, and his scar is starting to ache again. He squints his eyes open and realises that the bright light does not, in fact, originate from the duelling wizards like he thought – it’s emanating from him. Fawkes is nowhere to be seen, the last echoes of his song fading from the room. The battle between Voldemort and Dumbledore has stopped. Both men are now in his field of view, and both are staring at him; Dumbledore in shock, Voldemort in what looks like fascination.
The ache in his scar grows into an insistent pull, and then grows even further, until it feels like something is trying to claw its way out of his forehead. He lets out a scream, the light grows blinding, and then he knows nothing more.
When Harry comes to, he is still in the Time Room, but it is different. The destruction caused by his duel with Bellatrix and the battle between Dumbledore and Voldemort is gone, along with the people themselves. The room has returned to the pristine condition it was in during Harry’s first trip through it. However, while before it was abandoned and empty, there’s now a lone figure working at one of the desks near the bell jar. The person wears a silvery-grey cloak that shines in the dancing light, but their hood is down around their shoulders, revealing a head of short, dirty-blond hair.
As Harry watches, the figure gets up from the desk and turns to grab a book from one of the shelves, allowing Harry to see his face in profile. He looks vaguely familiar, but Harry can’t remember where he’s seen him before.
Harry must have made a sound, because the wizard flinches and looks towards him sharply. When he sees Harry lying on the floor, covered in broken glass, blood, and who knows what else, his eyes widen. He hurries over, his wand appearing in his hand. The last thing Harry processes before his eyes close again is the feeling of being lifted into someone’s arms.
After what feels like only moments, he’s set down somewhat roughly on the floor of a different room. Indistinct voices are conversing above him. He groans, curling into himself, and the noise stops. He feels a hand press against his shoulder and, too weak to resist, he lets himself be turned onto his back. There, crouching next to him with an expression of slight concern, is the man from the Time Room. But he is no longer alone.
Tom Riddle stands on Harry’s other side, his appearance caught somewhere between the handsome looks of his sixteen-year-old self and the pale, serpentine visage that Harry associates with Voldemort. He sees the man’s lips forming words, but he is too exhausted, too confused, to tell what’s being said.
“Tom…” Harry rasps. He coughs, and tries again. “Tom Riddle?”
Riddle’s scarlet eyes narrow. This time, when he speaks, Harry understands.
“I think not. I’ll ask again: who are you?”
It’s too late, though. Harry is unconscious once more.