"Happy birthday!" Adrian says, and Harry grins at him. The sun is half-shining down, refracting through the light grey drizzle of the afternoon and leaving rainbows to burst across the sky. It's like the weather can't decide what it's going - even with the rain, the day itself is comfortably warm, though the humidity is uncomfortable and stifling. Adrian is dressed in a t-shirt and loose shorts, but sweat makes his hair cling around his scalp, and his skin has a slight sheen to it as he gives Harry a hug. Harry draws away, and he sticks his hands into his pockets, looking at the other boy. "By the way, uh, how old are you?"

"Fifteen," Harry says, shifting his hands in his pockets and feeling the weight of his cigarettes, a pen, his wand, his wallet. Adrian's eyes widen slightly.

"Shit, really?" He blinks a few times, hand going up to draw through his hair, the thickly blond locks giving way as his fingers comb through them. "I'm sixteen in two months, but I thought you were older." Harry raises his eyebrows slightly, glancing down at Adrian's feet and then looking up to meet his gaze again; there's a height difference of almost a foot between them, and when Adrian realizes what he's referring to, he gives Harry a shove. "Oh, shut up. Short people can be older."

"Hear that, Sirius?" Remus asks mildly, seeming pleased with himself as he puts his hands in the pockets of his loosely worn jacket, worn for the rain rather than to stave off the cold. He and Sirius have only just caught up, and Harry chuckles. "You can be shorter than me and older than me."

"I don't want to go for lunch with the kids anymore," Sirius says immediately. "We'll get separate tables. Actually, you guys go to the restaurant - we'll go to that Wetherspoons around the corner." Remus winces, and Sirius laughs quietly. He puts out his hand to shake Adrian's, and Adrian takes it easily, stepping forwards to shake Remus' too, and Harry glances at the restaurant.

Remus had picked it, in the end, as Harry hadn't had any idea about any of the Muggle restaurants in town - it's a small, simple place with narrow windows and stone floors, set inside an old building that reminds Harry of Hogwarts, a little bit. On one wall, there's a mural of a dinner that happened 500 or 600 years ago, a wedding between two families, and their crests are both carved into the stone over the cheerfully roaring fireplace. Despite the fact that the fire is lit, it's by no means too warm inside, and the four of them sit down beside a window, Adrian and Harry on one side of the table, Remus and Sirius on the other.

"Ah, Sirius!" says a female voice, and they look up. She's a tall woman with black hair that comes down to her mid-back, and she kisses Sirius on each of his cheeks. As she sets menus in front of each of them, she says, "Oh, and you must be Remus... And that makes you Harry Potter!"

"Yes, Ma'am," Harry says politely, nodding his head and smiling. The menu in front of him is bound in leather, and beneath an etching of a lion asleep on a rock is the restaurant's name: The Lion's Rest, written in a looping script of gold.

"Such a pleasure to meet you," she says, putting out her hand to shake. "My name is Xiao Chang - you know my niece, Cho?" Harry stands to shake her hand, giving a nod of his head. Her gaze flits to Adrian as she draws her hand back, and she says, "Do you go to school with Harry?"

"No, Mrs Chang, I live here in London. I go to Fairhill." She nods, a knowing look in her eyes as she glances to Harry, and then she claps her hands together, looking at the four of them.

"What can I get you boys to drink?" After they give their orders (Xiao doesn't have a notebook, and seems content to remember each drink off the top of her head), she gives them a warm smile and heads off toward the bar. Adrian leans forwards, looking at Sirius curiously. "You know the owner?"

"Yeah, me and Xiao go way back," Sirius says, grinning. "Her sister went to school with us. She was a few years below us... What house was she, Moony?"

"Jing? Ravenclaw, I think. Maybe Slytherin... No, she was Ravenclaw, remember, she beat James to the Snitch one time, so she must have been on their team for--" Remus seems to come to his senses, and abruptly says, "Lacrosse."

"What's a Snitch?" Adrian asks, but before Harry can say anything, Remus already has a lie on his tongue.

"Stupid public school rules," Remus says dismissively, waving his hand and shaking his head. "Anyway, Xiao didn't have the grades to get in, so her parents sent her to a more normal boarding school. We used to sneak out sometimes, and occasionally we'd take outings out there. It was an all-girls school, so Sirius and James - that was Harry's father, Adrian - used to adore having all of them fuss over them." Sirius grins, looking very pleased with himself, and Harry sniggers. Adrian grins a little, leaning back in his seat.

"How did you get over there? If it was a few hours away?" Harry worries for a second that it's going to be another difficult answer, but Sirius is already laughing.

"I got my motorcycle when I was fifteen or so, so we used to go on that! I'd drive, Remus would be on the back of the bike, and we used to shove James and Peter into the sidecar. James was always short, like Harry here, and Peter was pudgy, but he wasn't very tall, so they fit in quite nicely. We drove all around Scotland, when we had a weekend we could spare. Even got stopped by the police once or twice!" Sirius lets out a bark of laughter, slapping his hand upon his knee, and Remus chuckles quietly, shaking his head. It seems easier for Sirius to talk about Peter than it used to be - he brushes him off as if he's just another friend dead from the war, and it's only when they talk in more detail that he seems to get upset.

"How did that go?" Harry asks sardonically. "I assume you didn't have a license?"

"Oh, Peter used to be excellent with police," Remus says seriously. He has a faraway look in his eyes, as if remembering this specific incident in detail. "You have no idea, Harry, the stuff he got us out of... The first time we got caught it was because Sirius had lost one of the tyres, and we went straight off the road. No serious injuries, but Sirius got knocked out, and none of us knew how to drive. Peter flagged down a police car, and not only got him to drive us all back to the school, but convinced him not to try to contact any of our parents or staff. I can't remember what it was he said - I think he told him Sirius was a cousin of the Duke of York, and that the four of us had evaded his bodyguard."

Sirius laughs, grinning to himself. "It was a good story when I was laid up in the Infirmary the next day. He had my whole genealogy laid out, and he sat in the front with the copper as James and Remus kept quiet in the back with me, making sure I was fine and then keeping me quiet once I was conscious."

Harry looks at Adrian, who meets his gaze, and then the two of them start laughing: even though Harry has no doubt they're not hearing the full story, given how much magic is probably being cut out, it's absolutely ridiculous, and Harry has no idea what idea Adrian must have about how posh they are, even though they definitely come across as quite normal. Adrian doesn't seem to mind, though, and although Harry feels a little on edge, trying to act normal when they have to keep everything secret from a Muggle, it's actually really nice to be sat with both him, and Remus and Sirius.

"Oh, by the way, I got you something," Adrian says, and he pushes a bag across the table to Harry. "Happy birthday." Harry smiles, reaching into the bag and pulling it open. The parcel inside is neatly wrapped in rainbow paper, and Harry carefully opens it up. It's a white t-shirt emblazoned with a very simple text in black: FRANKIE SAYS RELAX.

"Cheers," Harry says, with a grin, and he sets the t-shirt aside. It's almost a shame he can't wear t-shirts at Hogwarts - he'd love to explain it to Draco and the other Slytherin boys.

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"See you later, Adrian!" Harry says, waving as they part ways, and he falls into step between Sirius and Remus as they begin walking toward the Leaky Cauldron. "Thanks for that, Sirius."

"It's okay," Sirius says, grabbing Harry around the shoulder and leaning on him. Harry's getting a little taller now, but Sirius, short as he is, is still two inches or so taller. Given what they keep telling him about his dad, though, Harry is half-worried he's not going to get any closer to Sirius in height, let alone overtake him. "Sorry we couldn't invite him to your party, but at least we had lunch with him." Harry inhales slightly, looking at his watch. It's coming up to five o'clock, and although most people aren't going to arrive until six, they'd decided to go straight to Florean Fortescue's.

Fortescue had been delighted to host a birthday party for Harry, and he'd initially he'd sent out just a few invitations, but Fortescue had insisted if Harry wanted to make a real bonanza out of it, he could, and Sirius had told him he wouldn't come if there weren't at least fifty people. Harry grins a little just thinking about it, but... Why would anybody--?

Dudley had never really had birthday parties. It had always been trips to the zoo or to the rugby or something, given that he'd never had many friends beyond Piers Polkiss and some of the local thugs. What is it going to be like? Any invitation Harry had to a birthday party at primary school was always quickly snatched out of his hand, and given that they're all at boarding school, such things aren't normally worth organising.

"I need to run back to the flat," Sirius says suddenly. "Just realized I forgot something! You guys go on ahead, I'll catch up."

"Right," Remus says, and Sirius runs quickly down the street ahead of them, making a quick left turn into a side street; he's put on a lot of weight in the past year, filling out his face properly again and making sure he's no longer so gaunt, as well as packing on some muscle. Two years ago, straight out of Azkaban, he couldn't have run like that without later collapsing with exhaustion. "How are you feeling about the party?" Remus' smile is soft, and as he speaks, he very gently touches over the back of Harry's hair.

"I feel okay. Excited, but just... Nervous. What if nobody comes?"

"People will come," Remus assures him quietly. There's so much confidence in the words that they genuinely do soothe some of Harry's anxiety away, and he looks forwards. Remus has put on weight in the past year or so too, even if the change isn't as dramatic as the one in Sirius. Snape makes him Wolfsbane every month, and Harry doesn't know where Remus spends his transformations, because he doesn't usually spend them in the flat, but they seem easier on him these years.

"Last night, I was thinking about it... Back after Sirius was pardoned, I was pretty terrible to you," Harry says. He speaks very quietly, but he knows that Remus will pick it up. "I didn't realize at the time, I know, that you were a werewolf, but even after. I don't know, how hard it was for you to be around people who understood, let alone a kid. I know you wouldn't have been able to take care of me."

"I didn't tell you this at the time," Remus says very softly, even more quietly than Harry. "But I did try. I wanted to be in your life, even if all I could do was visit a few times a month, when the moon was at its weakest. But Albus wouldn't tell me where you lived immediately, and he said he'd write to your Aunt and Uncle, to ask. They destroyed every letter he sent them." There's a heavy pit in Harry's stomach, and he can feel his blood run cold with a distant fury.

Remus stops walking, puts his hands on Harry's shoulders - even if he overpasses Sirius, Harry knows, he'll never be as tall as the lanky figure of Remus Lupin. Remus looks seriously at Harry with his tired, grey eyes, and says, "I want you to understand, Harry, that everything Sirius and I do, everything, is always done with you in mind. Even the stupid things - especially the stupid things, at times. What Sirius did, when he went after Peter, it was insane, and ill-conceived, and he was mad at the time, but as much as it was about revenge, it was about protecting you. And when I gave up, after Dumbledore's third letter to the Dursleys was burned... I suppose I convinced myself that if they were so opposed, not even knowing that I was a werewolf, it was best for you. I'm sorry. I wish I could go back, Harry, and make everything the way it should be - make it so Peter and James and Lily are telling you their own stories instead of me and Sirius telling them, but I can't. All Sirius and I can do now is love you as best we can."

Harry throws his arms around Remus, and they hug tightly.

The walk to Fortescue's isn't a long one - they move through the Leaky Cauldron, which is beginning to get busy with parents on their school shopping trips, and then they move through the wall in the back alley. Harry leads the way, with Remus slightly behind him, and he takes hold of the door to the shop, hearing the bell tinkle above their heads as they step over the threshold. Looking around the room, though, it is completely empty - there aren't yet any decorations up, and no one has arrived for the party, but there isn't even a sign of Fortescue himself.

"Mr Fortescue?" Harry asks. "Are you there?"

There's a sudden bang from above their heads, and Harry looks up to see hundreds of balloons released, hovering a few feet above his and Remus' heads as confetti and streamers rain down from above: once Harry looks around the room again, he sees that every seat in the restaurant is filled, and there's a loud shout of, "SURPRISE!" All Harry can feel is the huge grin on his face as a flash catches his eye. He looks to see Sirius on his knees, the camera in his hands, and he feels himself laugh.

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"So what we did was write everyone on your guest list and told them to come an hour and twenty minutes earlier, so they could surprise you," Sirius explains over a chocolate sundae, and Harry laughs, looking down at his own banana split. "The camera I found in the attic a few days back. I used to take a lot of photos back at Hogwarts, thought I'd take it up again."

"Thanks, Sirius," Harry says quietly. Setting his spoon down, he begins to walk around the room again, talking to different people; from speakers in the corners of the ceiling, the Weird Sisters sing about escapades with ghouls, and some people are even dancing. Most of the people in Harry's year are here, even though Harry privately had worried people would think he was too old for a birthday party in an ice cream parlour, and most everyone greets him warmly. "Mrs Longbottom! How are you doing?"

"Oh, I'm very well, thank you," Augusta says, beaming. Next to her, Neville sits, looking a little uncomfortable.

"Neville, happy birthday for yesterday," Harry says, giving him a grin, and Neville smiles warmly. "Did you like the gloves?" Harry had been worried that Neville would feel overshadowed, coming to a party so close to his own birthday, but Neville doesn’t seem to mind at all.

"Oh, they're great, Harry. Our Venomous Tentacula is teething at home, and they're really helping." Neville is a different boy when he smiles: most of the time he looks so uncertain, and a little bit sad. Harry just wishes he could get him to smile more often... And part of the problem is maybe that his grandmother is the only person he's talking to at Harry's birthday party. "Uh, Neville, Hannah Abbott and Susan Bones are actually having a conversation about Herbology with Hermione over there - maybe you could go and sort it out? Hermione's smart, but she doesn't know plants like you do." Neville looks to Augusta for permission, and she gives him an airy nod: immediately, Neville all but sprints across the room.

"Call me Augusta, Harry," she says immediately, and Harry grins at her. "That Tentacula is a dastardly thing, I can tell you. It's good that Neville loves his plants so much, but it doesn't often feel like they love him back." Harry laughs.

"Yeah, I get what you mean. I think he's kind of drawn to the worst of them, though."

"Like a moth to a flame," Augusta says, shaking her head, and she looks across the room, smiling fondly. Susan and Hannah hadn't been discussing anything of the sort, but from across the room Harry can see that Neville is talking animatedly and almost confidently about his subject, and all three girls are being very attentive. "You're very good for him, you know, Harry. Thank you, for inviting us."

"I couldn't imagine a birthday party without both of you here, Ma'am. You've taught me half of what I know."

"Pish-posh," she says immediately, but Harry can tell she's very flattered. "You go on now, and have a good birthday. I'm going to go chat to Healer Tonks." Harry smiles, stepping past Augusta as she goes to Andromeda and Ted. In the corner of the room, talking quietly with Theodore Nott and staying very close to his mother, is Draco. Both him and Narcissa are dressed in mourning black, and Harry had sent the invitation out of politeness, not expecting them to come. When she sees him, though, Narcissa smiles very sweetly, and she puts out her arms to pull Harry into a hug.

"Thank you, Harry," she murmurs against the top of his head. "It's best he has excuses to go out." Harry looks to Draco as Narcissa draws away, and he offers the other boy a small smile, which Draco weakly returns. Harry's never seem him look so bad, even when he's been confined to the Infirmary or to bed with sickness. Draco is not just pale, but pallid, his eyes red from lack of sleep and too much crying, and his normally healthy, pink lips are dry and chapped. Theo is talking to him very gently, more so even than usual, and Harry joins the conversation for a good twenty minutes before he keeps going around and saying his hellos.

It's then that Florean Fortescue brings out the cake, which Harry hadn't asked for (Remus and Sirius at work once more), and Harry stands in the middle of the room, frozen, as everyone sings him a loud "Happy Birthday", which Augusta Longbottom turns into a rendition of, "For He's A Jolly Good Fellow" at the end. Harry stares at the fifteen candles on the ice cream cake, which depicts a basilisk most of the way through eating a lion, and Harry grins.

Sirius photographs him as he blows out the candles, and Fortescue delightedly begins cutting pieces out and handing them around to people - Harry hadn't known before last week that Fortescue and his wife had both been Slytherins when they were at Hogwarts fifty years ago, and the old man seems to take a lot of delight in the design on the cake.

"Photographs!" Sirius demands, clapping his hands together as he lets his camera hang around his neck. "You eat your cake, you lot - Harry, come outside with me and Moony, and we'll do some photos with just you before we do a big group one."

"Oh, Sirius," Harry groans, but Sirius is already dragging him by the sleeve of his jacket, chattering away, mostly to Remus, about it being Harry's only fifteenth birthday and they can't really let it go past without some pictures. Harry reaches out dramatically to Hermione and the twins as Sirius drags him outside, and they each give him a cheerful wave. Harry lets Remus position him in front of Fortescue's, facing the parlour with the street behind him, rolling his eyes as Remus "fixes" his hair by messing it up even more and does his best to ruffle his lapels. Remus then runs back to Sirius, and as Harry poses, he can see all the faces at the windows, watching.

There's a distant pop, and Harry tilts his head, wondering where it had come from - there's an enchantment preventing Apparition right onto the main streets of Diagon Alley, in case of Splinching or Apparating directly into the course of a cart or something, so it can't be that. Then he sees Sirius' eyes widen as the camera drops from his hands and thumps by its straps, with a flash, against his chest; he sees Remus drop limply to the ground as a stream of red light hits him right in the chest, and he whirls on his feet as if in slow motion, grabbing for his wand.

There are too many of them.

He's aware immediately that there are far too many of them for him to fight them off - behind him, Harry hears Sirius yell and then go silent, but he can't afford to turn around as he hears them step on his every side, surrounding him in a dark-robed circle. Death Eaters. Each of them wears a silver mask to hide his face, and their robes come right down over their shoes, but there are nearly thirty of them, and Harry can hear them laughing and talking to each other.

From the crowd in front of him, out steps Voldemort.

Harry's never actually faced this man. He's heard of him in so many different contexts, been told terrible stories about him, and even inhabited his own head, for a fleeting time, but he's never had Voldemort right in front of him. As he feels the slight pressure on his Occlumency shields (because the pressure, the threat, was never supposed to be this close), he is struck by the thought that he always imagined Voldemort would be taller.

Voldemort stands at six feet tall, but the image Harry had in his head had been positively cartoonish, he realizes how - he'd thought of him as being maybe seven or eight feet, with white, scaly limbs.

Voldemort is six feet tall, and his eyes are red, with snake-like pupils: he has no hair, and he has the face of someone who used to be handsome, and doesn't care that times have changed. His jaw is a strange shape, and his nose is half the size it should be, collapsed into the skull like the snout of some snake-man; he wears a robe of deepest black with a high collar. It's a battle robe, hugging close to his legs and his arms, with the skirt flowing only around his knees and showing the enchanted leggings that tuck right into his dragonhide boots.

For some reason, Harry had also thought Voldemort would be barefoot.

"It's a pleasure to meet you at last, sir," Harry says, loudly enough that it cuts through the talk of the Death Eaters and leaves all of them abruptly silent. They're staring at him, all of them, and even behind their masks, Harry is certain many of their mouths are open. How many of them has Harry met? How many of them write him polite letters? How many of them have children at the very party behind him? Voldemort's expression shows mild amusement, his wand held at an angle out from his side; Harry copies his position. "I've heard so much about you, but I feared we'd never meet face to face."

"He mocks you, my lord!" says a masked woman with a sudden desperation, her hood down and her black hair coming out from behind her mask in a thickly curled cascade, but before she can continue, Voldemort holds up his other hand in a graceful push to silence. His fingers are smooth as marble, and his fingernails are long and polished to a shine: even as he quiets the woman, who Harry immediately knows as Bellatrix Lestrange, he keeps his gaze on Harry.

"We have, of course, met before, Harry. I hope I can call you Harry?" Voldemort's voice is high in pitch and almost ethereal, with magic seemingly woven into every word. Although he speaks at a normal volume, it seems to ring through Diagon Alley, and Harry feels like he could be heard thirty miles away. "Or have you forgotten?"

"And what should I call you, sir? I've heard you don't like your name being bandied about." Harry feels every hair on his body standing on end, and although he can feel the fear running cold in his blood and down the length of his spine, he keeps his voice as cold and calm as he can. He thinks of Lucius Malfoy's voice in a crisis, collected and cool, and he does his best to replicate it. Voldemort takes a step to the left, and Harry immediately mirrors him, taking a step to the right. Voldemort's mouth, which is nearly lipless and the same colour as the rest of his face, quirks into something almost like a smile.

"You're confident," Voldemort says, and he chuckles. "Don't you know, Harry, that you are about to die?"

"I hear that a lot," Harry admits. "It's stopped giving me too much pause."

"You've never heard it from me."

"Well, you know what they say, sir. Actions speak louder than words. Didn't go too well for you the last time, did it?" Harry hears many of the Death Eaters gasp or let out quiet exclamations, horrified that he would provoke their "lord" in such a way. Voldemort's eyes flash, and Harry dodges to the side as he flicks a sickly-green spell in his direction: he gets to his feet and now him and Voldemort are both standing, facing each other with their wands raised.

"You won't win this duel, Harry," Voldemort whispers.

"It doesn't matter," Harry replies. "You won't win this war." Voldemort's lips twist into a snarl, and the spell moves too quickly for Harry this time. He's already dodging, but he can read the spell on Voldemort's mouth, and when it hits Harry in the chest, it's not as cold as he thought it would be. Avada Kedavra feels like sudden warmth that tingles on the skin, and the sensation lasts less than a second, because Harry's vision has already faded to black, and the last thing he is aware of is the sensation of falling.

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Harry is standing in a broad, white room. It is made of stone, and it is lightly furnished, but all of the colours are wrong: it seems unnaturally white. That colour should be black, he thinks, and this should be green. Where is he? He feels cold. No, he doesn't. He feels warm. What does cold feel like? This is the Slytherin Common Room.

Harry looks down at his feet, and it feels difficult just to turn his head, as if his joints need oiling: beneath him, in sickly shades of off-white, he looks down at a rug that should be in Slytherin colours. How strange. There is a grind of stone, and Harry looks up, seeing the portrait door open at the edge of the room.

Outside, in the corridor, it is neither white nor brightly lit: it is an expanse of black.

Go through the door, something tells him. Laughter rings in the room around him, ghostly and ethereal. A boy's laugh, but it's high.

"No," Harry says. His tongue is heavy.

Go, it tells him again, and he feels a shove against his back, making him stumble. It's a wrong touch, a sickly touch, a thousand times worse than a ghost walking through him, and Harry turns abruptly, his arm shooting out, but there's nothing for him to grab at. The laughter rings around the room again, and he reaches for the wand at his side, but it isn't there.

He is hot. He is cold. He is unarmed, and he is at risk.

Although his feet feel weighted down, he turns slowly in the centre of the room, eyes searching for whatever it is, and the laughter continues, continues. He looks to the mantelpiece, looks at the cream-coloured snake carved into it, and he grins. His teeth feel bloody. "Open," Harry hisses, the Parseltongue ringing through the room like a cold draught, and he hears the thing cry with horror as the wall moves just like it did when Harry was twelve, this time showing a long tunnel that leads up to the surface instead of an empty library. At the end of the tunnel, he sees light, real light, and colours.

Harry begins to run, and behind him, the ghostly thing screams its loss and its rage.

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Harry awakes to smoke and screams. Crowds of people are running around him, and he ignores them all. He scrambles from the floor, wand in his hand, and looks wildly around. The conductor of the Hogwarts Express is barking orders, his Scottish accent carrying in the streets, and people are obeying him, moving to the sides of the street and leaving the two black-robed bodies in the middle of the street. Harry runs forwards, pulling the mask off the first one and letting his fingers go to his pulse. He recognizes the man's face - he's a Nott, one of Theo's older uncles, well into his seventies. He hasn't a heartbeat, and when Harry leans back, he can see the mixture of blood and pink tissue soaking through the fabric of his robes; he'd hit the cobblestone much too hard to be pulled back up.

Harry hops over Nott's body and leans over the other one. This one is groaning, and when Harry pulls off his mask, he recognizes his face exactly. "Hi there, Marcus," he says, catching the wand from his hand as Flint tries to raise it up. "Twisted your ankle there, have you?" Flint lets out a moan of pain, looking at Harry with fear in his eyes, but when Harry pulls up the hem of his robes to have a look at the ankle, he realizes there's nothing he can do to get Flint moving right now.

Flint's kneecap is yellow and bloody and as far down as Flint's left leg goes, because Flint has Splinched himself and lost the rest of it.

"Healer!" Harry yells over his shoulder. He looks up, and he sees Andromeda Tonks coming at speed from Fortescue's, fighting through the Aurors trying to keep her back. "Healer Tonks, here, please. This is Marcus Flint: he's eighteen, he's Death Eater scum, and he's Splinched himself." As Dromeda gets to work on the leg, Harry leans right into Flint's ugly, troll-like face, and looks into his eyes. Flint looks terrified of him, and Harry says in a very slow, deliberate voice, "When you're in a Ministry cell tonight, awaiting trial, I want you to think about how I let you live. Do you know why I let you live, Flint?" Flint is breathing heavily, staring up at him. "Because it'll be more entertaining for me when Voldemort comes back and kills you himself." The tiny bit of colour left in Flint's face drains away, and Harry watches his head drop back onto the stone. "He's fainted, Drom. Too much pain."

"Righto, Harry," Andromeda says, focusing on the leg, and Harry stands. Aurors are beginning to arrive on scene, and Harry searches for Sirius. A Mediwizard is looking over Remus on a table that had been displaying cauldrons half an hour ago: he is limp, but the Mediwizard is calm and working carefully. Sirius is quite conscious and nervously standing next to him.

"Sirius!" Harry says, and Sirius turns to stare at him. His blue eyes are wide, and then he grabs for Harry clutching him tightly.

"He used the Killing Curse," Sirius says, putting his hands on Harry's hair, his cheeks, his neck, his shoulders. "How are you... You're alive, you're alive, but he--"

"Give me your camera," Harry says, cutting through Sirius' desperate talk. "I know you're shaken right now, but give it to me." Harry's order is clean and sharp, and it overrides Sirius' horror and cut-through grief: he pulls the camera from around his neck, and Harry makes his way over to the body of Canton Nott. The camera flashes as he takes a photograph of the old man's head surrounded in a cloud of sickly pink fluid, and Drom leans back so he can take a photo of the struggling Flint, too. His leg is looking better already.

"Potter!" says a voice, and Harry turns. Mad-Eye Moody limps towards him, giving him a once-over. "They said you were dead."

"I think I was. I got back up again." Harry speaks cleanly and sharply, and he immediately asks, “What can I do to help?" Just as Harry takes his death in his stride, as much as he can in the moment, Moody follows suit.

"Get into Fortescue's, have Tonks and Arthur Weasley take control in there. I need everyone sat down, and I need them all ready to give statements to us. That's an official declaration of the Dark Lord's return – you got pictures?"

"Of Nott and Flint here. None of the other Death Eaters, though." Moody clucks his tongue, but then he nods. He limps off, and Harry makes his way over to Fortescue's, but he sees the conductor talking with Dawn Hadworth, from the secondhand shop, and he stops with them.

"You guys are with Lockhart, right?" Harry asks. Immediately, Dawn's brown eyes widen, and the conductor looks at Harry with surprise. "You're doing a really good job keeping people calm. Sir—"

"My name's Billy," the conductor interrupts him. "Billy O'Neill."

"You should co-ordinate with Auror Moody, get everyone to give statements to him. This is a declaration of war – I think, anyway. We need to make sure the Ministry and the presses can't deny this."

"You were dead," Dawn says quietly. Does she have children, Harry wonders? He guesses so. "I saw the curse hit you."

"It hit me the first time too, Ma'am, I'm pretty sure of that." He doesn't have time to walk her through it, and he turns toward the ice cream parlour, making his way in. Immediately, he is best by voices, people yelling that no one will let them out of the parlour, and he jumps on top of a chair to address them all. Outside, the yells begin to die down, and everyone is anxious, but quiet.

Happy fucking birthday, Harry thinks to himself, bitterly, and he forces himself to keep his mind on business. He can feel sorry for himself later - right now, he needs to keep everyone else safe and on track.

b04; b02; b09; ~ a90; c1; a89; ~ THE LERNAEAN HYDRA ~ a90; c1; a89; ~ b09; b02; b04;

At the head of the table in the empty Grimmauld Place, Severus Snape hits alone, staring into the middle distance.

Severus had been there, at the Dark Lord's right hand, as he'd cast the curse: he had been powerless, unable to do a thing. He'd believed there would be only a meeting today, and had not known of the plan to accost Potter on the very day of his birthday, arriving in Diagon Alley, and he couldn't have reported it to Dumbledore, couldn't have done a thing.

When the Dark Lord had cast his spell, the green light had hit Potter soundly, and as his killer threw back his unnatural head and laughed, Severus had stood stock still, staring at the crumpling form of Harry Potter, as his fellows had Apparated from about him. He had acted once only a few were left, flicking his wand at Nott's head and softening the bone before tripping him with a Hex that had also caught Flint, making him yell out as he tried to Apparate himself. With little satisfaction, Severus had turned on his heel and Apparated back to Malfoy Manor, where the Dark Lord was already crowing his victory.

The Death Eaters had been dismissed but minutes later, and Severus had returned to Grimmauld Place, where soon the Order of the Phoenix would alight, broken with grief.

Severus feels that any moment he may well vomit: what had been the point, he wonders, in killing Nott? There had been no pleasure in it, and he could never kill every other Death Eater himself. There are too many, and he will be too easy to suspect: what chance has he, he wonders, to convince the Order of the necessity of it? If the Dark Lord is truly to be defeated, they must sever every last link he has...

The dead form of Harry Potter tumbling to the ground like a rag doll flits across Severus' mind, mocking him, taunting him, and he allows himself a second's weakness. He drops his forehead slowly down onto his hands, closing his eyes, and he wonders what he is to do. What are any of them to do, how that Potter is dead? The Order of the Phoenix might have been upset by Lucius' murder, but Potter had been more than a boy: he had been a symbol to them.

He's dead now, like Lucius, like Lily, like every connection Severus has ever dared to have, and he half-expects Albus will declare the war lost at once.

In the entrance hall, he hears the door slam open, hears the angry footsteps in the hall. Who is it first? Narcissa? Black and Lupin? Shacklebolt?

Severus stares, his lips slightly parted, as Potter walks into the room. It must be a trick, a Boggart, a ghost - Potter walks clumsily, and he drops to his knees before a wide vase and does precisely what Severus feels like doing: he grips the sides of it and retches. There's a spatter as his lunch hits the bottom of the vase, and Severus slowly stands.

He couldn't have done it. He couldn't have survived the curse... And yet he had, the first time. Albus had called it Lily's protection, and told Severus such a thing could never be replicated, but he must have been wrong. Potter is standing there, vomiting, and Severus feels euphoria soar within him, suddenly.  Potter retches and retches, coughing, and then he looks at Severus, not moving from his kneeling position on the carpet.

"I had been informed," Severus says in a measured tone, as Potter meets his gaze, "that you were dead."

"People keep getting informed that," Potter says. He doesn't look like his father. Everyone tells Potter so, but Severus knows the face of James Potter better than his own, even after all these years, and he doesn't have that man's face, not like he has Lily's eyes. He's too thin, and his features don't carry enough cruelty in them. The hair is the same, perhaps, but arrogance doesn't shine from his pores as it did from his father's, even when he's being so stupid as to talk back to the Dark Lord himself.  "It's not true."

"So I see," Severus says. Over the years, Potter has formed a rapport of sorts with him, and Severus wonders if he ought ever should have allowed it, but Potter has such an irritating wit to him... It does remind Severus of Lily, yes, but most of all, it reminds him that Potter is his own self, a vibrant soul that still shines, even though Lily's is gone. In the moment he had first realized that, he had hated himself anew for letting her die, for killing her in the way that he did by betraying the prophecy to the Dark Lord. But that had not been new. "Were you dead?"

"I think so," Potter says. He stares down into the vase' sickly contents, his expression blank. "The Killing Curse feels warm, when it hits you, and it tingles on the skin. We can add that to the text books." He lets out a short, crazed laugh, and there is a short pause. "I was in a white room, like a white version of the Common Room. There was something else in there with me, a poltergeist or... Or something. It kept laughing, pushing me to this black hole." Potter's eyes move as if he's searching his own memories, and Severus is rapt as he listens. This is not any normal after-death experience, after all - the Killing Curse had hit him. He had most certainly died. "I managed to beat it, I ran back to the life. I-- I think if I hadn't, whatever it was... I get the feeling if I hadn't beaten it, it would have come back in my body. I think it was Voldemort, somehow."

Severus stares at the boy, this stupid, stupid boy who has faced Dementors, a basilisk, and now twice, the Dark Lord himself, and come out not only alive, but with a sarcastic comment waiting on his tongue.

He is saved from having to say anything by the sound of a commotion in the entrance hall, Order members now arriving in their dozens, and Severus knows he doesn't imagine the fatigue and reluctance on Potter's face as he stands and begins answering the hundreds of questions from the rest of the Order. Severus, for his part, is grateful that nobody's attention falls to him.

Nobody except Narcissa, who comes directly to him and falls into his arms. Severus allows the older woman her moment of desperate weakness, lets her clutch onto the fabric of Severus' robes and bury her face against his shoulder. Severus is not Lucius, he knows. He does not love Narcissa, and he is not broad or comforting or poetic or charming: he is a thin, ugly man with nothing but words that are too true and cut too deeply, but all that matters in this moment, to Narcissa, is that she can hold on tightly to him. He is uncomfortable, moreso even than he had been at Lucius' funeral, where at least he had the distraction of his own grief, but he does his best.

Gently, as gently as he is capable, he pats Narcissa's back, and murmurs quietly, "We all yet live."

"For how long?" Narcissa asks, but she doesn't want an answer from him. She lets her words linger in the air, and then she collects herself. She stands straight, raises her chin, schools her expression into the perfect, Pureblood mask of neutrality. As he looks into Narcissa's eyes, he thinks, You miss him. Narcissa's eyes reply what he knew they would, what they always do, You miss him too.

Together, they turn to Potter, and Severus wonders when Dumbledore will arrive, so that he might feedback what information he can to him.