Nothing but wreckage and rubble. Nothing left of what the Order had fought so long to rebuild. Nothing but destruction. Nothing but blood and crushed stone. Nothing left.

Harry stood on the edge of the Forbidden Forest, clutching his chest and breathing heavily. All around him were cries and yells and the agonized screams of the dying. The sky was obscured by multicolored smoke, and the only light came from the intermittent fires blazing in the rubble, casting sharp shadows onto every surface.

Only the skull like form of Lord Voldemort's pale visage was visible to Harry, whose vision was reddening with his own blood, which trickled past his eyelashes. The flames cast Voldemort's pointed features into sharp relief.

Death Eaters, students, and Order members looked on, as, for one moment, the battle halted. They stood, two enemies, eyes locked, hatred flowing between them in an almost visible fashion.

Harry looked up into the gleaming red slits with pained defiance still in his face. He knew this was the end. He could taste it coming. There, curtained in green smoke, stood his enemy, the one who would destroy him. The skeletal figure raised his wand, eyes burning with excitement, and shouted, in a high, cold voice, "AVADA KEDAVRA!"

Harry caught a glimpse of the stars over the hill as some of the smoke parted. They had never looked so plentiful or so beautiful. They were vast beyond numbering tonight, and each one gleamed with a divine radiance beyond description. They called out to Harry, they reached into his being, where, deep within him, something clawed at the walls of his mind, trying to escape.

The green light hit Harry square in the chest and he stumbled backward. He looked at Voldemort for one last long second, delighting in his look of complete shock and horror, and then felt all of his senses shut down. The deep, inky darkness enshrouding him was heavy and like nothing he'd ever known. Where was he? What was he? He existed. That was all he knew for now.

To the few shocked onlookers who were still alive, Ron Weasley and Hermione Granger among them, huddled together in a soul-crushing embrace under a fallen battlement, Harry seemed dead and gone. When Hermione's shocked eyes darted up to Voldemort's, however, the look of deep fear on his face, reminiscent of his encounters with Albus Dumbledore, betrayed his own terrifying knowledge.

"Oh, Harry!" she whispered agonizingly. She wanted to believe it, but she didn't know how she could.

Ron and Hermione lay there, hour after hour, holding each other like they never had before, trembling. Neither could find a sound that would convey their pain, but each silently allowed a steady stream of tears to cascade down their faces, cutting through the accumulated dust that had settled on their skin.

They heard the screams, the curses flying, people running, and bodies thudding to the ground as the night wore on. They lay, shaking, as Ministry defense squads arrived, led by Aurors and Order members, barely disbanding the Death Eaters. When they were pulled from the wreckage they knew it would only be a matter of time before Voldemort was back on the scene with an even worse array of Dark magic. There was no time for crying, only time enough to search for survivors and to make their way into hiding.

The scene passed like a dream for everybody involved. Arthur Weasley shepherded stunned students and his own family into emerald green flames as everybody made their way out by Floo powder. Nymphadora Tonks sorted through rubble and flames with a look of silent shock on her face, magically shifting rock and earth, turning up little more than mangled bodies. And Remus Lupin crouched over Harry's body, his face wrinkled into an expression of pain that looked as though it would never leave.

The smoke cleared, dawn began to break, and the castle was deserted. What survived of Hogwarts was caked with dust and devoid of all life. Classrooms lay empty and deserted, the four-posters in the Gryffindor dormitories were cracked, their sheets scattered, and paintings lay about the floor, their inhabitants gone, the empty frames reflecting the barren lifelessness of the castle.

All the quirky personality of Hogwarts School was gone. The staircases stood still, and the ceiling of the Great Hall was now just a ceiling. As Voldemort strode through the doorless entry of the entrance hall, a look of demonic focus adorning his face, it seemed as though the castle so many had once called home, as well as Harry Potter, were now both, unbelievably, dead.

Harry Potter, however, knew otherwise. Existing in insubstantial darkness, free of mortality but imprisoned by something much more powerful, Harry knew. And his barely present essence was sustained by one piece of knowledge: Voldemort knew, too.

Lord Voldemort sat in the Headmaster’s office, his slit eyes fixed upon his pointed fingers, musing silently to himself. A red sun rose over the Forbidden Forest and cast its bloody rays over the walls and grounds of Hogwarts, bathing everything in a deep, surreal hue. The cold stone of Hogwarts was unnaturally quiet, and the empty portraits filling the Headmaster’s office cast a deep, empty shadow over the room. Lord Voldemort raised his head to the deep stone basin on the massive desk in front of him. The contents of the basin, usually silver and gracefully swirling, were now a deep inky black, churning and producing fierce looking peaks and valleys.

Lord Voldemort let out a hiss which vaguely resembled an exasperated sigh. His head fell in an unusually human way into his hands as he vigorously rubbed his eyes and then suddenly, violently pounded on the desk. His eyes burned with reptilian anger as he gripped the sides of the Pensieve, staring deeply within it. With his ugly face contorted in rage, he leaned forward into the basin, disappearing from the office.

He saw it again. Harry Potter’s expression of triumph as his killing curse hit him in the chest. Voldemort let out a shrill cry of frustration and leapt back into the office.


Nobody was talking at the Burrow. Hermione, Ron, Mr. and Mrs. Weasley, Bill, Fleur, Tonks, Remus, and Neville Longbottom sat around the large dinner table in the dining room, staring at the wood. Nobody could think of anything to say. There was nothing to say, not right now.

Ron saw Harry as he fell slowly to the ground, eyes still bright and open. He saw Harry on the Quidditch pitch, cheering him on when nobody else would. He saw his argument with Harry in the fourth year, their fight over the tribulations of fame. He thought of all of the adventures he’d been on with Harry, from their sneaking around the school to the dangerous and daring situations they’d narrowly gotten away from.

Mr. Weasley thought of Harry and how bad he felt for never realizing how grateful he was for his presence. Harry had been another son to him, and he had loved him fiercely. He would have given as much for Harry as he would have for any of his other sons.

Mrs. Weasley’s mind raced with painful memories of worry and fear for Harry. She loved the children in her life with a torturous passion that consumed her and kept her nerves as tight as a drum. She had spent years tormenting herself with fear over Harry’s wellbeing. Feeding him well had not been her only priority; she had regularly sent letters to Dumbledore inquiring not only over the state of her own children, but over Harry as well. Now that her fear had come to fruition, her mind echoed with an empty shadow. There was nothing there, she felt, nothing left. The feeling was freeing, and though she was incredibly sad, Mrs. Weasley felt stronger than she ever had and energized with a vengeance only a mother could possess.

Remus stared at his hands, his heart feeling too heavy even to carry. He had lost so much. James, who was more than even a brother could have been to him, Sirius, who was more than any friend could ever have been to him, and now Harry, who was his only tie to all of his memories as a Marauder. He reached over to Nymphadora, not meeting her eyes but grabbing her hand in a vice like grip, clinging to all he had left with loving intensity. This was it, he thought, and they wouldn’t take anything more from him without a fight. He was paralyzed with sadness, unable to think of anything cheerful.

Bill and Fleur held hands on the table, contemplating this newest lost with terrible sadness. Though neither had spent much time with Harry, they valued him deeply, as did all of the wizarding world. Bill remembered waking in the Hospital Wing last summer to find his family and Harry waiting anxiously for him. For the past few years, any time Bill was with his family, he was with Harry. Harry was a brother and a hero. Fleur remembered the second task of the Triwizard tournament three years ago and how Harry had saved Gabrielle from the Lake. Though she had been informed through her hysterical shouts that Gabrielle would have been safe without Harry’s help, she had never forgotten his heroic personality and his well mannered sense of equality in competition. Harry’s brief stays at the Burrow had given her more time to get to know Harry, and she had proudly accepted him as a member of the Weasley and Delacour families.

Neville remembered his first year at Hogwarts and Harry’s selfless sense of friendship and openness toward the shy, forgetful Neville. He saw Harry in his mind, flying for the first time on a broomstick as he pursued Draco Malfoy, trying to recover the Remembrall. He remembered the feeling of acceptance Harry had given to him and so many others as the leader of Dumbledore’s Army. He remembered the battle in the Department of Mysteries in his fifth year, when his friendship with Harry had solidified.

Hermione sat in a state of deep shock, barely believing what she knew must be true. Her sharp mind, dulled with anguish, raced through possibilities and calculations as she scanned that past year and remembered Harry’s behavior. How could it be possible? How could he have done it? Was Harry really capable of murder? Or did he find another way?

Harry was alive. She knew it. Harry had created a Horcrux, unbelievably, and he was alive, somewhere. She knew her calculations were premature, but she sorted through the possibilities, trying to make sense of it all.

Surely Harry had not placed his Horcrux in Hogwarts; the Order knew for months that Voldemort would try to take the castle. Was it hidden in the wilderness? Was it here, at the Burrow? Was it at Number Twelve, Grimmauld Place? Questions burned through Hermione’s mind as she felt a pounding headache rip through her skull. And what of Harry? Surely he was afraid and alone somewhere, existing as insubstantial spirit. How had he expected to be resurrected? Hermione’s mind reeled at the thought of how deeply Harry must have delved into Dark magic. Was it all really for the best? How could Harry have done it? Hermione did not like to think about it, but she knew, unlike the others, that there was some kind of dark, twisted hope for the Order and for the world.


Voldemort still sat in the Headmaster’s office, staring at the churning surface of Dumbledore’s blackened Pensieve, when he heard a clear, kind voice coming from the wall behind him. The portrait of Dumbledore was occupied again.

“You knew it was coming, Tom,” said the portrait of Dumbledore.

“You are dead, old man, and you do not scare me.” Voldemort’s eyes burned red and his face was twisted as he replied to the portrait.

“Tom, when will you see?” said Dumbledore, a twinkle of parental frustration in his voice, “That weak shell of a body may be gone, but do you really think I am dead? The Order continues to fight, Harry continues to exist, and still your eyes betray horror at the sound of my voice. I am dead, yes, but I live on in those who knew me. You knew it was coming, Tom, and it is only drawing nearer.”

Horror and revulsion filled Voldemort’s face as he rose to his feet fluidly and drew back his head like a cobra ready to strike. “You do not know what you are talking about, you speak nonsense. The boy was never capable of anything like it.”

“Why do you think I was never afraid of you, Tom?” asked the portrait of Dumbledore.

“Liar! You do not know what you are talking about!” screamed Voldemort.

The portrait of Dumbledore chuckled. “I am just a portrait, Tom. Who are you trying to convince?”

Voldemort roared with fury once more, and the portrait of Dumbledore was empty again. There was work to be done, but even the great Lord Voldemort did not know where to begin. He had known anger before, but never this kind of anguish. So many years of work, all for nothing. He knew that Harry’s actions were deeper than they seemed; that the cosmic repercussions of Voldemort’s own actions would be monumental. He was coming face to face with himself. He sat back down quietly, fear and hatred etched onto his snake like face. He was afraid, and he couldn’t deny it.