That Potter didn’t pass out this time was the first thing Severus noticed. The second was that the boy seemed to be the one in control of the situation, as if he were trying to get cursed. Which, to anyone who had ever felt the Cruciatus curse before, was sheer insanity. Yet, Potter didn’t look insane – or rather, any more insane. In fact, he seemed almost…victorious.

Severus couldn’t help but wonder what Potter knew that the rest of them didn’t.

Finally, the curse ended and Potter was allowed to lie limp, gasping for air. The boy had his eyes closed over damp cheeks, and anyone who didn’t know Potter very well would say he was breaking. But Severus had, over the past several weeks, come to know Potter’s face almost better than his own, and it seemed to him that the youth had never seemed so strong.

“I trust you will answer me with more respect now, Harry,” Voldemort drawled arrogantly. “Tell me what I wish to know, tell me about your destiny, or I will push you to the brink of insanity before I let you die.”

“Alright, alright!” Potter sobbed, his voice painfully hoarse. “I give up. I’m the….I…I’m the one.” His voice started to trail off and Voldemort leaned in eagerly. Suddenly, Potter’s hand shot out and grabbed the Dark Lord’s robe as the boy pulled himself up a bit off the floor. “I stole the cookies from the cookie jar!” he declared, then laughed maniacally. Severus felt an answering laugh wanting to bubble up, but swallowed it firmly.

“Hateful worm!” Voldemort spat, snapping his foot out to catch Potter on the jaw. The boy rolled onto his side, back to the Dark lord, curled protectively to protect his organs and head – obviously a well-practiced move – but Voldemort had more weapons than Potter’s usual attackers. “If you will not tell me yourself, then I will make you tell me. Imperio!”

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James, who had been watching avidly as It grew, feeding off the Dark nature of the curse, was quite startled to find himself in the black void of the unconscious. As he looked around, he realized that his brothers and sisters were also outside the cupboard, which had itself become a boundless inconsistency. Suddenly, he realized what was happening; it was something they had only experienced a few times before, over a year ago.

The Imperius curse.

While watching the Imperius from the sidelines could be amusing, and being afflicted with it was unsettling, there was nothing quite as fearful as the true understanding of the curse one got from the subconscious.

The human mind was separated into three areas, or fields. The conscious, which held active thoughts and impressions, emotions, and the ribbon of memory; the unconscious, which was a black void providing a refuge from thought and a barrier for the subconscious; and the subconscious, a room at the heart of the mind that held all forgotten memories and the deepest truths of a person’s heart. When under the curse, the barriers between the fields were ripped away and muddled until they were almost unrecognizable. The entire ribbon of memory became the subconscious, inaccessible to the mind, the room of the subconscious and the rest of the conscious were isolated in the unconscious, leaving control securely in the hands of the caster.

Unless, of course, someone had other people in their head ready to take that control back.

“Tell me the prophecy,” Voldemort’s voice echoed persuasively in the void, his very presence putrid and obtrusive.

“No,” James shouted back.

“Tell me!” Voldemort commanded again.

James moved toward what he hoped was the conscious, trying to find the source of the spell.

“No grassing!” Foster shouted, taking up the charge.

It had to be somewhere in the void, James just had to look in the right direction.

“Not going to tell you anything,” Mike added bitterly.

There! A spot of blue-white, like a cloud of poisonous vapor. James gathered it together, pulling it’s influence from Harry’s mind tendril by creeping tendril.

“You will tell me the prophecy, now!” Voldemort ordered angrily, his voice pounding harshly against James’ ears from the pool of condensed magic in his arms. He grit his teeth and continued to pull.

“Never!” John asserted.

“I will not be denied,” the Dark Lord’s voice came again, rattling the whole Mind.

James felt his grip slipping on the offensive substance and hurried back to where his fellows waited, finding quickly the battered shoebox – the only boundary that resisted the Imperius’ mangling influence – and shoving the spell inside. Immediately, the cupboard reformed around them and the ribbon of memory righted itself. The Mind gave a collective sigh of relief.

Contrary to popular belief, the Imperius wasn’t an unforgivable just because of the violation of the victim’s free will – that was relatively easy to overcome with any amount of training – but because of the absolute havoc it wreaked on the victim’s entire mind. Imperius could bring about an insanity deeper and more comprehensive than any caused by Cruciatus.

Unnoticed by the others, the shoebox bulged and it’s lid tipped up.

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Harry found himself quite suddenly on the rock floor of the dungeon, staring up at Voldemort. He had woken up from his Blank Out during the Imperius curse, and was quite surprised he had been able to throw it off, considering how disoriented he was. He almost (but not really) wished he were still under the curse, as the falsely-peaceful environment was probably preferable to whatever Voldemort had in store for him.

Luckily, whatever the Dark Lord was about to say was cut off by the sound of crashing from above. Shouts of alarm echoed down the corridors and Harry’s, Severus’, the Death Eaters’ and Voldemort’s heads turned as one toward the commotion. Silence fell over the small group as they listened to the muddle of sounds. Finally, one voice was distinguishable.

“Harry, Snape, are you down there?” Harry recognized Shacklebolt’s deep voice.

“Here!” Snape boomed out before anyone else could react. He was immediately thrown to the floor, magically bound and silenced, but it was too late, the call had been made.

“So, your rescue party is here,” Voldemort sneered. “How wonderful; you will all die together.”

As a chorus of footsteps rang out in the approaching hallway, the Dark Lord turned, wand raised and ready to attack.

“No!” Harry shouted, and before any figment of rational caused him to rethink what he was doing, the Gryffindor had launched himself off the floor at the spindly wizard, rugby-tackling him and forcing him against the wall. A familiar, cleaner magic tingled under his fingertips as Harry’s left hand found Voldemort’s pocket, and he pulled out his own, 11½ inch holly-and-phoenix-feather wand.

“Now it’s a fair fight,” the boy growled, pointing the wand at his captor.

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Hermione almost hyperventilated when the curse was put on Harry again. It was beyond torture to watch her friend in such pain and be unable to aid him at all. She wished so hard that she was there with him, she would – well, she didn’t know what she would do, but it would certainly be a whole lot more productive than standing miles away in an old shack with nothing but an image. The girl had to close her eyes and forcefully control her breathing so she didn’t pass out – if watching what happened was all she could do for Harry, then she would see it until the end.

As soon as the screaming stopped and Hermione felt she could breathe properly, she opened her eyes, just in time to see the Imperius curse cast. Voldemort was tying to force Harry to reveal the prophecy, that much was clear.

But the prophecy was lost! Hermione thought frantically. What did the Imperius Curse do to it’s victim if the order was left unfulfilled?

However, she needn’t have worried. Within moments, the curse was broken, with Harry apparently none the worse for wear, even if he did look a little dazed. From what she had experienced of the Imperius in fourth year, that was justifiable.

When Shacklebolt called out, Hermione almost fainted with relief. She clenched her eyes shut and let out a silent thanks to whatever angel must be watching out for them, and by the time she had opened them, Harry had gotten his wand back from Voldemort and was facing him one-on-one. The other Death Eaters were occupied fighting members of the Order.

Finally, finally! She thought. Victory is near!

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Draco felt a great sense of satisfaction when he first heard the commotion begin through the scrying flame. In his mind, there was nothing that felt better than the knowledge that one of his plans was successful. Surely all of Dumbledore’s little army would be able to get Snape out alive. And Potter too, of course. But mostly Snape.

However, that feeling of satisfaction lasted only so long as it took for that bloke to call out for the prisoners. The man was an obvious moron, and Draco felt his hope plummet.

This is what I get for placing my bets on a team of Gryffindors, he thought snidely. No Slytherin would, in the middle of a rescue mission, yell out something to the effect of ‘I’m coming in, please lay an ambush so that I die a horrible death of failure’.

Sure enough, no sooner were footsteps sounding in the corridor beyond the cell than the Dark Lord himself was readying the trap.

Luckily, the only cure for Gryffindor stupidity was, apparently, more Gryffindor stupidity, as proven by Potters next course of action. Nobody with an ounce of sense – common or fashion – would attempt to body-slam a wizard so powerful he could cast Unforgivables in his sleep. Not that Draco had ever considered accusing Potter of sense. Still, Draco couldn’t fault the results – the boy now had his wand and the ambush had been foiled. Not a moment later, Dumbledore’s group arrived, fighting off the Death Eaters. Not counting the wounded and wandless potions master, the two sides were evenly matched in numbers.

Which meant that now the entire plan hinged on one sixteen-year-old mental case defeating the strongest Dark wizard in a century.

Huzzah.

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When Shacklebolt, Tonks, Moody, Lupin and Vance dashed through the doorway, the Death Eaters holding Severus threw him to the ground and turned to fight. Unfortunately, being thrown to the ground is not proper healing procedure for a twisted ankle. The professor felt more than heard the sickening crack as a bone broke. Daggers of pain shot up his leg, making him nauseous, but he knew it was pittance compared to what the boy had suffered already, and refused to even flinch as he kept his eyes fixed solidly on the fight unfolding before him.

Potter faced the Dark Lord like a man, pale and trembling from the effects of the dark curses he had been under, but unshaken emotionally. That was odd as, by all accounts, the personality ‘Potter’ should be the one facing the Dark Lord, not the host Potter.

Severus couldn’t decide if this was a sign of progress or of impending doom, but he knew which to hope for. Though the man had long ago decided that hope was just a false pedestal from which a fall was made that much worse, for now, he let that hope fill him, not for his own sake, but for the sake of a young man who faced his demons so often they became part of him; a boy with more pain inside him than his mind could take, and more life than seemed possible despite it; a child who should have been hailed as a hero, but instead had been treated as worse than garbage by those charged with his care.

There was a reason Severus had always assumed Potter had been pampered at home – it was because, had Potter been placed in his care, that was what he would have done.

So, forgetting for once his own life of disappointment and remorse, Severus Snape hoped, for Potter’s sake.

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For those in the thick of it, the battle was nothing more than a confused muddle of curses, dust, noise, and shadows cast into relief by the frequent brightness of a cast spell. However, to those watching from above, time seemed to slow until every move of every duelist could be seen clearly.

Hermione watched, cataloguing in her head the chronological order of events, as Harry lifted his wand to cast a spell. Voldemort was quicker, shooting a curse at him before Harry could finish his spell. Luckily, Harry’s spell was the shield charm and he finished it just before the curse would have connected. Still, the sheer force of the magic pushed him back several feet, almost pushing him into a dueling Death Eater.

Harry recovered quickly and sent a reductor curse at the Dark Lord, but Voldemort conjured a shield and the spell shattered against it. From behind his shield, the scaly wizard sent another curse at the Gryffindor, but Harry ducked and the curse hit the Death Eater he had almost bumped into, sending the man to the floor howling in pain. Not even flinching, Harry cast a flame spell at his opponent, but Voldemort transfigured the spell into a snake and sent it back at him, hissing in Parseltongue.

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“Go! Kill!” Voldemort commanded the snake as it hurtled toward him. Harry thought he should be shocked that he could understand the words, but memory seeped in of him chatting happily with a boa constrictor in a zoo, and he realized what he had to do.

“Stop! I command you to stop!” Harry shouted, the words coming out as strange hissing. Amazingly, the snake stopped, and the Gryffindor cast around him for some task to set the snake to. His eyes met Snape’s as the professor sat on the ground, unarmed and apparently unable to move. “Protect that man on the ground,” ordered Harry, and the snake turned and left, curling up protectively in front of Snape.

Harry didn’t have time to ponder Snape’s shocked and wary expression, because, in his moment of distraction, Voldemort had sent another curse at him.

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Draco held his breath (against the smell of the scrying flames, of course; not out of any anxiety) as Potter threw himself to the side, away from the curse. The last one had hit a Death Eater, but this one was now headed straight for the werewolf teacher from third year. Potter saw this and, apparently taking a page from their impromptu duel in fourth year, sent a spell at the curse, causing it to ricochet and hit the wall harmlessly. With a speed Draco had only seen Potter achieve on the Quidditch pitch, the Gryffindor jumped to his feet and threw three curses in quick succession at the Dark Lord – one to the left, the second to the right, and the third straight on.

Either Potter was secretly a master strategist or he got incredibly lucky. Voldemort stood there and laughed as the spells came at him, seeing only the first two that were off their marks. The third curse was hidden in a blind spot created by the light of the first two spells, and it hit Voldemort dead on, causing his face to start sprouting tentacles. The Dark Lord stopped laughing.

Clutching his writhing face with one hand, Voldemort waved his wand at himself, trying to vanish the tentacles. Draco knew from unfortunate experience that only the combined counter-curses to the Furunculous hex and the Jelly Legs jinx would rid him of the spell. Seeing his vulnerability, the Dark Lord turned and ran, dodging quickly out the door. Potter followed without hesitation and soon both were out of range of the spell.

Granger groaned piteously beside him before falling to the floor in a dead faint. Wait, Granger never fainted in her life…

“Well, well, well. Conspiring with mudbloods, Malfoy?”

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At some point, perhaps during the Blank Out, perhaps during the Imperius, something at the core of Harry had hardened. He had made the decision, and now he would not let Voldemort get away. According to the prophecy, he had to kill the Dark Lord, because he was the only one who could, and now was the time. There would be no more hesitation, no more hoping for someone else to come in and save him; and no more fear.

For a withered old skeleton, though, Voldemort was surprisingly fast, and Harry found himself charging down the hallway, up a flight of stairs, down another hallway and into a small courtyard before he finally got close enough to cast a spell accurately.

“Colloportus,” Harry incanted softly, then shouted, without raising his wand. “Stupefy!”

Voldemort spun around and jumped out of the way of the spell, leaving it free to lock the Dark Lord’s only escape.

Furious, Voldemort touched his wand to his face and muttered something. There was a flash of magic that Harry could feel all the way from where he stood, it was obviously a Dark spell, and just the barest touch of it sent chills down Harry’s spine. But, whatever it was, it was successful in removing the tentacles.

“You, boy, are going to die tonight,” Voldemort declared coldly.

“One of us will,” Harry responded with a shrug, keeping his wand pointed at his enemy. “Frankly I have the better record for staying alive.”

Despite his taunting words, Harry felt frozen inside. He wasn’t afraid, he was far beyond fear now, but the usual fire of anger and the heat of the battle were missing. This was no quick battle where Harry was only trying to escape; no, this was a duel to the death, and anger had no place in it.

“Avada Kedavra!” Voldemort cast the first spell, going right for the heart of the matter, but Harry quickly raised a barrier of earth in front of him, using a spell they had learnt just this year in Herbology. The killing curse scorched the grass, but did not pass through, and the barrier fell.

Ever the Slytherin, the Dark Lord had cast again while Harry couldn’t see, and now a jet of bright green was sailing straight for him. His scar flared up and something within Harry burst. He raised his wand and opened his mouth.

“AVADA KEDAVRAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA”