“The Tortoise begins to play: B-A-C- – but as he bows the final H, suddenly, without warning, a shattering sound rudely interrupts his performance. Both he and Achilles spin around, just in time to catch a glimpse of myriad fragments of glass tinkling to the floor from the shelf where Goblet G had stood, only moments before. And then … dead silence.”

Douglas R. Hofstadter
Gödel, Escher, Bach

---

The Dark Lord had won.

---

Hogwarts Castle
June 13, 1992. 20:43:24

The Stone instantiated in Lord Voldemort’s hand, glistening coldly in the reflected light of the mirror, free from any imperfection.

A quick flick of the wrist.

A swift twitch of the finger.

A deafening crash of a pistol firing.

Harry’s eyes barely had a chance to widen before the bullet entered his forehead.

The Boy Who Lived was dead.

The entirety of his being; his mind, unprotected by Horcrux or ritual or saved state, was currently settling onto the ground, a red mist of gore, bone, and brain. The remainder was stuck to the walls behind the Mirror, (the Mirror itself being perfectly unblemished), or still clung desperately to the inside of his ruined skull. The chamber still echoed with the discharge of the weapon, but Lord Voldemort was already gone, willing to take no chances with what might happen upon the Boy’s death.

---

Sagittarius A*
Now, Before, Later

Dumbledore emerged from the tunnel. His world was all worlds. His world was fire. His world was void. His world was formless nothing. His world was stagnant death. He focused all his being onto the two worlds that mattered. In one, the star burned, rendering the world insane, its very soul raging with white plasma that rendered such abstract notions as space and time irrelevant in the face of the heat.

He looked across the span of eons into the other world, wherein the Boy Who Lived was dead.

He had all of eternity to rehearse the ritual, and yet, he still felt the slightest bit of nervousness. He began, using the Line of Merlin to harness the magic of all worlds into this one final act. He was Dumbledore, destroyer of worlds, creactor of life. Everything that ever was and everything that ever will be in the universe had led him to this moment. This moment that must come to pass because it already has.

All worlds had narrowed to two, and from those two all worlds would be born. When the Line of Merlin could bear the strain no longer, it glowed white, and began to fray apart at the edges. Dumbledore could feel the eyes of prophecy in the heavens upon him, about to be torn apart by the ritual of Harry’s creation. The Headmaster connected the nodes in his mind, and it was done.

Sagitarrius A* collapsed in less than a second. It folded in upon itself, and distorting the very fabric of reality as it did so. In the final moments of its life, the Headmaster flitted through some dimension that only exists in the minds of addled physics professors, and emerged to the place Beyond Time, where he was connected by the power of the ritual.

In the world he left behind, a galaxy was born. A galaxy where the balance of the world was held in place by a single thread of time, a universe where the only means by which the Crux could succeed was to seek the path of the Scorpion and the Archer. The fires of prophecy would burn with the white light of truth; they had come to be because they had come to be.

He entered a world that was already born, a world where the balance of the world was held in place by a single thread of time that had, until now, been snipped. It was at this very moment that he emerged. He was outside the Mirror. No, he was inside? It was a curious sensation, experiencing time backwards. He took a brief moment to consider the runes that had once been incomprehensible to him. He smiled.

Inside and outside the Mirror, the world was hazy, a confounded miasma of abstraction, like some sort of halfway lucid dream that someone had pressed the rewind button on. His brother took the stone from him. Not from him. From his shadowform. It was not him?  He was talking to his brother. But it wasn’t him. He was saying the war was over. They had won. That was true, no? It was Time. Time to stop holding on to the stone. Give away the stone. Yes.

You could change the past, you just had to think about it at the right time.

As he moved further backwards in time, he considered the tools of his craft that he still had upon his person. The Line of Merlin. The Stone of Permanence. The Elder Wand. A curious glass bottle.

A curious glass bottle of viscous black ichor.

---

Mid-Fall, 1998

Wilbraham, Massachusetts

“Everett, was that you?”

Sarah Snipes was cleaning dishes in the kitchen when she heard the crack. Or was it a pop? It was probably just her husband playing around in his lab. He was a compounding pharmacist, and owned his own store, so he often experimented with different formulations of various creams or pastes to sell.

As it were, Everett Snipes was not in his laboratory. Rather, he was in his study. “Yes, dear. One of my vials popped a cork,” he yelled a blatant lie back to her.

“Okay, well make sure to clean it up before you let Lily in there. She’s at that age, you know?”

As if on cue, Lily burst in through the study door, her hair all fire and curls, her eyes an angry emerald-green. She had all the energy of a five-year old, and all of the precociousness as well. She stared at her dad who was sitting on the Comfy Chair, and the strange man sitting on the Chair That Mom Yells At Me When I Climb On. “Hi Daddy. Hi Mister Man. Guess what? I learned what a Quine was today in school. I bet you don’t know what a Quine is, Mister Man.”

She glared at the stranger. He considered for a moment, then replied, “If I did not, then this statement would be a lie.”

She paused, thought for a moment, then giggled. “You’re funny, Mister Man. But you’ve got a girl’s hair.” At this, he self consciously adjusted his ponytail. To break the ensuing silence, he reached over and grabbed the thick glass bottle filled with viscous black ichor, and placed it into his suit pocket. It created an awkward lump in his figure.

“I hope that you know, ah, ‘Everett’–”

Lily cut in, “His name’s Daddy, you know!”

“Well, I hope that you know, ‘Daddy’, that I truly understand the gravity of this intrusion. And I hope that you understand that my need is proportionate.”

Everett nodded.

The stranger spoke again, “I would tell you that what you have done today would honor my mother’s memory more than anything else you’ve done in your life. But,” he looked at Lily who had already grown bored, and was splayed out on the floor, playing idly with the rug. He smiled, widely, “I see that this is not true.”

Everett smiled, genuinely. “Thank you.”

“Besides, I have a gift for you in return. A bottle of my own magic that will hopefully aid you in your life’s quest,” at this, the stranger produced a plastic bottle from an extendable space within his robes, and handed it to Everett, who looked at the label.

Head and Shoulders

Everett laughed. “Drop dead.”

---

Early Fall, 1998
The Tower

Harry had informed the Shichinin that, especially considering to whom they were delivering the message, that they were to not under any circumstances, read its contents. Which of course, meant, especially considering to whom they were delivering the message, that they absolutely were going to be reading its contents. In fact, they didn’t even wait to leave the Tower before they ripped open the envelope.

It had been quite some time since they had a good old fashioned, film noir-esque missing person search. And the person that they were looking for? Oh, this was going to be spectacular. Unfortunately, they were slightly underwhelmed (although a bit intrigued), at the contents of the message.

“Bahl’s Stupefaction. 1 week.”

---

King’s Cross
Outside Time

“No,” said Albus Dumbledore. “No, no, NO! ”

The building sense of power rose to an unbearable peak, and then disappeared.

And then, there was nothing.

He lay facedown, listening to the silence. He was perfectly alone. Nobody else was there. A long time later, or maybe no time at all, it came to him that he must exist, must be more than disembodied thought, because he had a sense of touch, and the thing against which he lay existed too.

He sat up. His body appeared unscathed. He touched his face. He was not wearing glasses anymore. His beard was gone. As were the wrinkles.

Albus turned slowly on the spot, and his surroundings seemed to invent themselves before his eyes. A wide-open space, bright and clean. He was the only person there, except for–

He recoiled. He spotted him sitting on a bench, idly reading a curiously thick book. Tom Riddle. He seemed thoroughly unconcerned with the situation.

“He cannot hurt you.” He spun around. Harry James Potter-Evans-Verres was walking towards him, sprightly and upright, wearing sweeping robes over a Muggle suit.  “Prophecy has proven true. I have come to rescue you, Headmaster.”

“Harry. You have… You have aged. How long has it been?”

“Oh, about 20,000 years, objectively. Subjectively? Well, for you, it’s been but a few seconds, has it not?”

“It has, but I am trapped outside of Time. I would fear for you, but you are The Crux, the Once and Future King. You do not carry the look of sadness about you, which lightens my heart greatly. Dare I ask if you have succeeded? Did you tear apart the very stars in heaven to save its people?”

“Ah… Well…. Not quite.” Harry tittered on his feet a bit, “In fact, we’re not really out of the woods just yet.”

“I confess, I do not understand. But then again, that is more than fair turnabout. Would you do an old man the honor of explaining what I must do?”

---

King’s Cross
Later

The Headmaster’s head was still reeling from the enormity of the plan. But, then again, it fit with all the prophecies. For the first time since Nicholas Flamel had bequeathed upon him the Words of the First Enchanter that unlocked the keys to the entire Web of Prophecy, things began to make sense.

“We have a final pair of gifts to give you, that I suspect you will greatly need.” Harry removed from his robes a thin stone rod, “The Line of Merlin Unbroken.” Harry handed the Headmaster the wand with reverence.

Tom Riddle stood up from the bench, put down his book, and strode forward. “And, Headmaster, my old enemy and future friend, I also have a gift for you.” He produced a thick glass bottle filled with viscous black ichor, and handed it to Dumbledore.

Dumbledore understood.

“Headmaster,” Harry spoke, “You need to understand something. You have a choice at this moment. All worlds, ultimately, have narrowed down to this one choice. Although I am, as you say, the Crux, you still must make this choice of your own volition. You would be sacrificing your Life, and your Time. Truly.”

“Harry. You know my views on this matter. I have already sacrificed my Life and my Time once for your sake, for the sake of the world. Besides, you are the Boy Who Lived. I’m sure you’ll find a way to rescue me again.” He smiled with a twinkle in his eye. “Now, how do I leave this place?”

“Oh yes,” Harry smiled at him. “We are in King’s Cross, are we not? I think that if you decided to move on, you would be able to… Let’s say.. Board a train.”

“And where would it take me?”

“Beyond.” said Harry simply.

Silence again.

“Goodbye, Headmaster. And thank you, truly.”

“Do not pity the dead, Harry James Potter-Evans-Verres. Pity those who live without love.” And with that, he boarded a train, and disappeared into the tunnel.

---

estlaC strawgoH
72:34:02 .2991, 13 enuJ

The Boy Who Lived was dead.

Harry’s eyes barely had a chance to widen before the bullet entered his forehead.

A deafening crash of a pistol firing.

A swift twitch of the finger.

A quick flick of the wrist.

The Stone instantiated in Lord Voldemort’s hand, glistening coldly in the reflected light of the mirror, covered in a viscous black ichor.

---

The Dark Lord was laughing.

Britain
Another Time
Another Place

The Dark Lord had won.

---

The end had come without noise or notice. One by one, he individually visited his Death Eaters, revealing his return. He spoke of power beyond reckoning, and a new era for Wizardkind. His most loyal lieutenants, he bestowed great gifts upon. His more erstwhile followers were set to other tasks, such as serving as permanently transfigured simulacra of various political figureheads; Scrimegeour, Bones, Thicknesse and the like were as easily replaced as they were murdered.

Alastor Moody was only slightly more difficult to deal with. The following morning’s Daily Prophet read: “THE DARK LORD RETURNS:  Dumbledore, Boy who Lived Dead”  and beneath the menacing headline was a picture of Not-Amelia-Bones and Not-Alastor-Moody kneeling at the foot of Lord Voldemort who was giving the Hand of Benediction. The message was as clear to the true Moody as it was inscrutable to everyone else: No one can be trusted. You are not safe. Recant. Relent. Retreat.

Moody had long ago learned the tactical value of a complete and hasty retreat. You did not live to tangle with as many Dark witches and wizards as Moody if you made it a regular occurrence to charge headlong into almost-certain death. So with a dull pop, the true Alastor Moody disapparated to a safe house whose location was known only to him, and was never heard from again.

---

Tom Morfin Riddle was the master of life and death. His True Horcrux gave him mastery over life, enabling him to travel freely from vessel to vessel, body to body, soul to soul. His Deathly Hallows gave him mastery over death: The Spirit Stone, rightfully passed from heir to heir. The Elder Wand, forcefully wrested from the hand of his foe. And the True Cloak of Invisibility, bequeathed to him by his mirror self, his shadowform. He was truly king, and God, and as such had abandoned his previous moniker of Lord Voldemort, and chose the simple epithet: The God King.

The majority of the Wizarding public simply counted themselves lucky: although the God King was quick to mete out punishment, he was also quick to bestow favors, and as long as they kept their heads down and toed the party line, life was actually not so bad. In fact, it was better in many respects. Gone was the bloated, impotent Ministry of the past, whose sole purpose was to maintain the outdated hegemony, not to better the lives of its subjects. The God King did not need to resort to mean, petty politics in order to extend his reign. Any challengers were simply killed. As such, there were no challengers. But also as such, it freed the Ministry to actually do some good every now and then.

More shrewd members of the Wizarding public recognized Voldemort’s change of identity and methods as a brilliant political gambit: history has taught us that tyrants rarely rule longer than a generation or two before being replaced by an ostensibly less tyrannous tyrant. Furthermore, history has also taught us that hope is like a virus, and will take root in the most unlikely of places, breeding and growing until it can no longer be contained. A lesser tyrant will try to quash all hope, and thus allow hope to proliferate: the hope of revolution. A shrewd ruler knows that hope must be accounted for and allowed to fluorish in a controlled fashion. A brilliant ruler will be the very person who provides hope to his subjects. The God King was cruel, yes, but he also brought great wealth to Britain, and His advancements in the realms of health and medicine were staggering. His subjects could live in hope that one day the God King would bestow His blessing upon them.

No one in the Wizarding public knew the true method behind the madness. The truth was that the God King was a man obsessed. Obsessed with a small prophecy he had heard from the lips of a sherry-soaked Divination professor. A prophecy that upon further research was The Prophecy, the one prophecy upon which all others hinged. A prophecy whose fulfillment was the crux of everything. The God King spent most of his days deep within the Department of Mysteries, trying to salvage what he could from the ruined Hall of Prophecy. He sought out and met, under many disguises, with many students of deep, hidden knowledge.

After years of collecting lore, and countless days spent poring over the ancient text, The Transmygracioun, the thought of a ritual began to grow in the mind of the God King, the Ritual of the Starfire, a ritual by which prophecy could be fulfilled and the world be saved.

There has always been a Crux upon which the web of prophecy circles itself around. However it is not strictly accurate to say that there is only one Crux. In every world, the Fate of All Things hinges upon a single choice. Who makes the choice? What is the nature of the choice they must make? Only those Outside Time know for certain. But what is known is that the Choice must be made, and the mere death of one possible vehicle of prophecy would not stop things. The God King knew this much, and he knew that the mantle of the Crux had been passed to him.

What he did not know was that there was another named by prophecy, one who was Fated, in a time of great strife, when all worlds narrow to two, to bring down a great house. A Slytherin boy who had read tales of The Boy Who Lived, who combined the Muggle knowledge of science with the Wizard knowledge of magic and whose legacy was cut tragically short by the God King himself. A Slytherin boy who, emboldened by being Named by Prophecy, took it upon himself to experiment in secrecy, utmost secrecy, with the deepest laws of magic and nature, just like his idol Harry James Potter-Evans-Verres. He made great strides in the field of transfiguration, and had such a fine command that he could manipulate the Form of things on an atomic, even subatomic level. A boy who was desperate enough to overthrow the God King that we would resort to desperate, even insane means.

He was, however, alone, unlike his idol. He had his companion, but unlike his idol, he chose not to seek her counsel. She knew as little of Muggle physics as he did: that is to say, she studied a pair of purloined physics books for a few weeks. She grasped the broad strokes of quantum mechanics without any true understanding. However, she could have been what he needed: a staying hand, someone to shape his curiosity, someone to guide his intellect, someone to tell him, for the love of Merlin and all that is holy, do not try to find out what happens when you transfigure a cubic millimeter of up quarks, just the up quarks, without any down quarks to bind them!

As it was, a young boy’s choice to trust his own flawed intellect over all else was the Crux of that world, and so it was that he fulfilled the final legacy of Atlantis in the worst possible way, tearing apart the very stars in heaven and bringing about the end of that world.

At the moment the world began to die, few people felt it.

Even fewer knew they could do something about it.

Even fewer still had the requisite skills or knowledge to act on that knowledge.

And even fewer still had the technology that could harness those skills into something useful for this particular situation.

And so there were twelve.

---

Earlier

It was the ultimate weapon.

It would decisively, conclusively, and immediately end the war, that secret war that had been waged since time immemorial. The enemy would be irrevocably destroyed, defeated in detail, sacrificed to the cause of the righteous. Of course, there were the doomsayers, proclaiming that the hubris of the project would end us all. It was hard to claim John was hubristic, however, when he subjected his system to every conceivable iteration of failure testing.

They had identified thousands of possible failure points, and fixed them all. That left seven distinct failure modes, and although they were fundamentally impossible to avoid, John’s team was able to decrease their probability to roughly one-in-ten-trillion each.

It still wasn’t enough to feel safe. They developed fail safes and response protocols to the failure modes, and John had personally rehearsed them all. Hundreds of thousands of times.

It still wasn’t enough.

A one-in-10^88 chance was impossibly small, but it was still possible. So there was always the ultimate fail safe. The Line. He rubbed his right forearm like a touchstone. An astute observer would note that the system actually had but a single point of failure, and that was John, but John had personally accounted for that, as well. That small portion of his free will was locked away, in a place he could only access if they had really and truly won.

For a brief, bemused moment, he thought that the only flaw in the system was that the activation sequence wasn’t something more dramatic. It should have been a massive switch, or an ominous button, or some incantation. But, as it were, it was relatively unceremonious. A few keystrokes, and it was done.

---

The world shuddered.

---

No need to panic, he thought himself as he went through the motions. He had literally rehearsed this exact scenario at least fifteen hundred times, enough to where the movements were rote. His team controlled the outputs and inputs and monitored the status of the buffer. John did the intense series of on-the-fly calculations in order to determine the precise initial vector, and after a few tense moments, the variables checked out, and he rotated the dial.

In short, they would simply roll the system back an hour, and start over. They’d have to triple-check everything. Twice. Each day. It would be at least another year before they’d be confident enough to try again. But, he’d waited this long. A year was trivial.

As the dial rotated past the origin, his forearm, which had begun to ache since the start of the process, now throbbed in earnest.

---

The world shuddered again.

---

At this point, it was cacaphony. The team was visibly agitated. Some were even panicked. This didn’t make sense.

One in ten-trillion is tremendously unlucky. But one-in-ten-trillion, squared? Probability analysis goes out the window. The question itself changes. It’s no longer, Is this just coincidence? No, the question on everyone’s mind was simply, What the hell is going on?  The possibility space was endless, but one immediately leaped to mind: Sabotage. No matter, he couldn’t spare the thought. He needed to focus. They had still rehearsed the failure modes. This was still comfortably in the realm of their practice.  But the response protocol was drastic enough that everyone was agitated and on edge.

“The lines, sir. They’ll be–”

“Short circuit the whole fucking physical system if you have to. The whole thing is fucked anyway! DO IT!”

“Sir, this is going to be a destructive read. If we can’t–”

“There’s no other options. Back them. Back them all up.”

“If it doesn’t work, we’re all…”

A pause.

“This is a direct order.”

---

The world shuddered as the transmigration began.

---

John looked around. His colleagues were the first to go, their brains literally vanishing from their skulls, then converted into raw data, then pumped back into the system via the γ-class L.E. lines. As he scanned this displays, he saw the same scene playing out across the entirety of the system. If you zoomed out far enough, it didn’t even seem like much had changed. No explosions, no catastrophic crashes, nothing of that sort. After all most of the systems with the potential for catastrophic disaster were managed by the deadminds.

But seeing it up close and in person? He had seen people die before, very rarely. Usually it was willingly, people who had simply grown tired and were ready to “move on”. Idiots. They died as they deserved, peacefully but without pomp or fanfare. But these people did not will it, and they did not die peacefully. It reminded him of a puppet whose strings were cut. All the motive power that was keeping the awkward automatons of flesh balanced, gone in an instant. Billions, all massacred in the span of a moment.

John made the snap decision to pipe the data from the payload back into the system as it was being constructed. If another component failed, he couldn’t risk losing all the data. It would divert a small measure of resources, and they would still have the physical storage structure to recover the payload.  The only downside was the potential for signal degradation; it was almost guaranteed that they would lose a few to noise, which would be a tragedy, for certain. But it paled in comparison to the possibility of losing everything. Besides, you could still recreate them, for the most part. The memories might be tricky to reconstruct, but at least they’d still be there.

No.

Yes, there was noise. There was too much noise. Every signal was being garbled. Warped beyond recognition. There was interference coming from… Somewhere? Only about 1,000 identities were piped through, and of those, the only thing left was raw DNA.  Change of plans.

The payload was already constructed. It existed conceptually, in abstract. Now he needed to realize it. The Line was the most secure object in the known universe, and it had more than enough capacity within its buffer. He did more calculations. It would cut into its capabilities significantly. Maybe six hours, tops? It didn’t matter.

He’d saved the people. He didn’t save the world. The world was done for, but a world could be recreated easily. No. Not easily, of course. Nothing would be easy at this point. The system had failed at three separate junctures. This was not chance. Something, someone, was responsible.

And that’s when he saw him. The man who was out of place, out of time.

He was old.

Old.

No one was old anymore.

This was his doing. There was no question. In pure reflex, he activated his Battle forms. He had even practiced this, fighting against countless unseen enemies. But, what good would it do? What to do? Fight or flight? What would he be fighting? What was the man doing? Those hand gestures were ancient. A past architect? A back door? No, the system was sacrosanct. Besides, the man had a tool. It was–

The old man was holding The Line.

No, No, No, no, NO.

Flight. It was done. There would be no climactic fight to save the world or its people.  It didn’t matter what the old man’s motivations were, how he got there, anything.  Any time spent thinking about it was time wasted. There was no option left but to run, and to rebuild. He’d have to destroy the entire system, every last remnant though, to fully rebuild. He began to–

No. No time.

He didn’t have time. He’d have to do that part later. He’d have time later, but not now. It was time to run. He didn’t know what the old man was capable of, and none of this was rehearsed. He committed to the decision, and it was done. It was out of his hands now, so he had time to think, wonder, and speculate.

Who was the old man? How did he get a copy of The Line? Is it even a copy? How will I recover the payload? How much of the system would survive? How useful would it be? How will I destroy it? What would this new world look like?

Questions, questions, questions. All the answers would be there, eventually.

The system was procedurally generating humans as fast as it could churn them out. It started with the thousand or so genetic patterns it had recovered from the first aborted payload attempt. The rest, it built from patterns. Ten million and change.

And then with all the fury of an exploding star, a new world was born.

John emerged on the back end of eternity.

---

An Eternity Later
February 2, 1368
The forests outside Череповец, Вологодская область

The stench of sex and blood was thick in the air, affronting the nostrils of the lone traveller. If he were with Muggles, he would be cutting through the wild gorse with his shashka, but it hung, unused, on his belt. If he were with wizards, a few well-placed Reductos would clear the path, but his wand was in its holster on his wrist.

This traveller was alone, and had no appearances to keep up, for now, and as such, the path cleared its own way, saving him also the trouble of locating his quarry. The smell would have been enough, but easier is always better. As he drew closer, sounds began to mingle with the scents to form a two-pronged assault on the senses.

Moans. Shrieks. Wails.

Pounding. Thumping. Banging.

Flesh atop flesh. Bows across strings. Lips upon horns.

He approached the small cabin, and glanced at the awkward stilts that held it above the ground. They were disguised with a small and silly glamour to look like the legs of a chicken. He paused for a moment, deciding how best to enter. Sometimes, dramatics were useful tools to achieving your ends. But sometimes, they backfired. What would the consequences be? And what were the consequences of his hesitation, however slight?

Every decision was like this. Every minute, every moment, was another moment in which his enemy was allowed to persist. Even the fractional amount of time it took to pause and consider the question, “To knock, or not to knock”, was another dread deed, another bit of senseless evil.

Every decision. It was torture. Time, time was of the essence. And so he entered.

The scene was ridiculous. Caligula would have been proud. Or more likely, he would have been envious to the point of rage. Every possible indulgence was being fulfilled. There was sex, of course. Always the obsession with sex. But if it gave them a moment of solace, why begrudge them? Every reasonable iteration of sexual combinations was currently being explored on almost every available surface within the grand hall whose interior was far larger than the simple cabin’s exterior.

There was food, and drink, as well. Food and sex. Drink and sex. Food and drink and sex. Sex with food and drink. Drinking food. Drinking sex. Food and drink and sex and then more food and then more drink and then more sex. A swirling miasma of what should be “pleasure”, and yet, he was struck by the hollowness of it all. Did they truly enjoy this? Did he truly enjoy this?

Then again, if they did enjoy it, what did it matter?

There were important people in this universe. People upon whose actions his plans were contingent. These people needed to be closely watched, guided, mentored, or in some cases, manipulated or coerced, into following the correct path. These people, these cruxes, were few and far between, and he was thankful for that, as he had spent much of the last few centuries guiding them through the eye of the needle. The universe did not permit more than a few kings and queens upon the chessboard.

There were also influential people in this universe. People are resources, put simply. Two people have more absolute potential than one person, but that potential is not always exercised. Those of influence, more often than not, pushed people towards one extreme or another. He saw them at every scale: globally, nationally, locally, socially. And those influential people themselves needed to be influenced, but that was easy enough to do behind the scenes with a hidden hand. A war here. A social movement there. Sprinkle in a few shifts in cultural direction.

Then, there were effective people in this universe. Not necessarily creative thinkers in their own right, but actors, capable of putting a plan into action. These were the pawns, the rank and file that were sacrificed without much thought. But, (as he always reminded his protege), a pawn could always be promoted to something greater, so they were not to be summarily dismissed.

Finally, there was everyone else. People who would live their lives and die without any measurable impact on the course of the universe. What purpose did they serve? He could spend half an eternity converting every single one of them, and it would do nothing. Little would be lost if they were gone. And yet, little would be lost if they remained. He was as a God, but he was not malevolent.

And if this was how some of them filled their small lives, and it brought them pleasure, why begrudge them that?

But there was one, an aberration, someone who, like him, didn’t fit the pattern. It sat at the head of the hall, in an elaborate throne, watching the proceedings languidly. She was beautiful. He? It? He could detect the Glamour, prismatic and ever-changing, attempting to probe his mind. Its intent was to determine what one found most deeply and profoundly attractive, and then subtly present that back to the viewer. But it was still magic, which meant it had limits.

Merlin of the Line was that limit, and he had reached his. “Max.”

The beautiful anomaly raised her head. “John.”

They could have called each other by a thousand different appellations or epithets. But there were no pretenses to keep up, no battles to fight. The battles had already been fought, and Merlin had won them all.

“It’s time, Max.”

At this point, all the Glamours had melted away. The beautiful people who were splayed about the floor in indulging in various ecstasies were dismayed to see their platonic figures melt back into the flabby, second-rate bodies of peasants and adventurers. They looked around, ashamed of their nakedness, and self consciously began to skulk out of what was now a simple cabin in the woods.

The two Ancients ignored them. “I knew you’d come for me eventually. I’ve been expecting it ever since the Interdict. Which, I have to say, I don’t quite understand.”

Merlin cocked an eyebrow. “Oh?”

“I never played the game on as many levels as you. I never had the need to, and I never had the want to, either. The games bore me, and if we’re being honest, the world will move on without me. I know you. You’re going to shape the world how you want it to be shaped and there’s not a god damned thing any of us can do about it.” At this, Max idly spat on the ground. “It’s why we’re all here, and not there,” he added, bitterly.

A beat of silence passed. None of what Max said required a rebuttal or response, so Merlin provided none. Besides, it was clear Max was mostly thinking out loud, and it was not long before he continued. “The first level interpretation is that you saw the danger of magic and did something about it. Only a fool would accept that at face value, which is why the majority of the world doesn’t look farther.

“The second level is that, it’s part of a larger plot, the first move in an epic, century-long war of attrition to eradicate magic. Of course, the hypocrisy of that is blatant: using magic to eradicate magic? That’s something that a villain out of storybook would do. And that’s where I’m stuck. You’re not a storybook villain. And tactically, it doesn’t make sense. If you have that kind of power at your disposal, and magic is your enemy, why limit it in this oddly specific, easily circumvented kind of way? There’s another level here.”

Merlin began to smile. It was a slow, sad smile, but it carried with it a hint of amusement. “I thought you said that the games bored you?”

“So it is part of the game, then.”

“Isn’t everything part of the game?”

“Depends on your definition. The game itself bores me. But the meta-game does not. Like I said, I’ve been waiting for this for centuries, to see what you have planned for me. It’s really the only thing that I’ve looked forward to, the only thing that has kept me going.”

“Then what I have planned for you will be poetic.”

Another beat. Max spoke, “You want me to die.”

“We all must die, in order for the world to live.”

“You know as well as I do that there’s no middle ground, here. Either everyone dies, always, and forever. Or everyone lives. Always and forever. Infinity or zero. Nothing in between.”

At this, Merlin smiled. This truly was the crux of everything.

“You said you’re bored? Well, there’s your riddle. Figure out what I want, and then do it. Because it’s going to happen, one way or another,” Merlin paused, briefly, and then turned to leave. As he opened the door and stepped out onto the stilted porch, he looked over his shoulder. “It’s good to see you, Max.”

“You too, John.”

And for the first time in millenia, Max Koschey, Koschei the Deathless, Baba Yaga, Ma’krt of the Rock, He-With-A-Thousand-Names and a thousand other names, was interested in something.

Earlier

Maksimillian Koschey watched the seconds tick by, as the world died around him. Even the end was unbearably anticlimactic.

I wonder how long I can wait before I truly die? That might be interesting. Then again…. Maybe something interesting is on the other side. Might as well give it a shot. After all, I can die whenever.

He requisitioned the necessary mass-energy, created a suitable vessel for himself, and bound it to one of the countless power crystals he had surreptitiously (and quite illegally) stowed away for himself. After all, he figured this day would come sooner or later.

With but a flicker of his Will, the entirety of his being transmuted, and traversed all barriers.

And with that, Maksimillian Koschey awoke somewhere new.

---

Seconds later

Adnan Nejem was roused, unceremoniously, from his game.

Shit. What a fucking waste of an hour. Almost there, too.

These kinds of power spikes were rare, but not unheard of. He started to reboot. While he waited, he glanced briefly over at his work terminal and–

Shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit

He ripped the inputs out of his arms and temples, and with a swift kick, propelled himself in his rolling chair across the polished metal floor of his flat. It had to be a false positive. What he was seeing was just… “Impossible” doesn’t even really begin to cover it.

A few quick keystrokes. Some regression analysis.

Shit.

Adnan’s code was spaghetti. It always was. But it worked. It worked in ways that other people couldn’t fathom, which is what made Adnan so singularly valuable. But it all so made him a liability. He always told himself that he would eventually rewrite everything, make it extendable, add some documentation, all that stuff that he would get around to some day if only he weren’t too busy doing more important shit.

Well, didn’t he feel stupid, now?

The system had begun to fail almost a full two minutes earlier. More specifically, his module had begun to fail almost a full two minutes earlier. The code was fine. It had to be. But, it was failing. And no one across the whole of Humanity was capable of troubleshooting it except for him. And he had waited an entire two minutes. It was over. Even if he had been there when it started, it still may have been over.

It was like a waterfall. Layers of failure, rippling, crashing against the rocks. The weight of it was heavy, too heavy to bear. His fault. It had to be. The system was inviolate. He was the weak link. Everyone dead, all his fault.

Adnan was already preparing. He looked at the various prototypes and experiments in his flat. No. It wouldn’t do. He needed to be anonymous; that ruled out the majority of his options. No, he wouldn’t be coming back from backup. It would be him, in the flesh.

Hmmm… Options, options, options…

His eyes stopped on Dinsdale. He had been experimenting with this particular variety of Chol for centuries. Fire was the constituent element, but that was just another kludge. It was so much easier to just complete the metaphor than to do the hard work of explicitly defining the connections: the Chol judged intent, and the fire purged and purified. Of course, Adnan wasn’t a monster: the fire didn’t do any lasting harm, it was just a means of transport.

He looked at the bird-like creature, perched on the thin glass shelf. As he stared into his creation’s eyes, he formed the question in his mind. Dinsdale looked back at him, and cocked its head, quizzically.

“Caw?”

Judgment was issued. And the conflagration began. A fiery menagerie stampeded into the room, purging and purifying, whipping around with angry lashes, surrounding Adnan and Dinsdale. He was being judged, and he had failed. The fire burned, and burned, and burned; it burned until there was nothing left of Adnan. The sound and the fury had ceased as quickly as it began.

The immolation was complete. And with that, all that was of Adnan Nejem had been burnt away.

Dinsdale idly pecked at his feathers, feeling a distant sense of loss. But for what? It couldn’t quite recall. It seemed so far, so far away. After all, time is the shortest distance between two places.

---

Seconds later

Natalie Kyros was always amazed at the propensity for the religious to fold modern advances into their belief system rather than update their belief system to account for modern advances. But, people had always been that way, and trying to fight it was a fruitless endeavor. Many of her friends and colleagues had tried. For centuries. And they were perpetually frustrated.

Natalie, on the other hand, had realized early on that some flaws in human cognition weren’t worth fixing; it was better and easier to simply use them to your advantage. That was how the central node of her network had come to take its current form: a three-meter tall cross, crafted of a metal that outwardly appeared to be iron.

The geometry was actually quite convenient for its intended purpose. It could have been a tesseract, but unfolding the cube before extending it into four-dimensional space had quite the same effect, but with a few advantages. The infrastructure was actually more modular and extensible, but that came with a few key drawbacks as well. Namely, it was also more corruptible.

She remembered her conversations with her colleague, Gus. They always argued with each other, but in a respectful way. There was an implicit understanding between them that having a constant Devil’s Advocate was exceedingly useful, despite being exceedingly frustrating. Their coworkers, of course, did not have this understanding, and simply wondered when they were going to get it over with and finally start dating.

Technically speaking, every structure is a four-dimensional structure, he would always remind her. Which, sure, it’s true, from a certain point of view. But it’s an asinine point of view to take, because by that logic, every structure is an infinite-dimensional structure. Yes, and that’s quite the point, isn’t it?

He had an obnoxious habit of being smug and cryptic like that. She never really had patience for the riddles though. The point was that the True Cross was deliberately extended, by conscious design. It was that conscious intent, in her mind, that truly gave weight to a structure.

And it was with conscious intent that she incorporated several elements of the standard mythologies into her design, just to make it more palatable for the masses. If she only had more time, she could have come up with a suitable spin for the events unfolding around her. Apocalypse. Revelation. Rapture.

But she had no time. Her followers would not be saved. Gus wouldn’t be saved. It was hard to tell which was more sad. No time to think though. Action. She spoke the phrase:

‎”אברא כדברא”

As the Cross began to unfold itself in that unseen dimension, its physical form in this Time and Space diminished. The Cross was reducing itself to a point, a single, one-dimensional vertex: massless and volumeless. Natalie’s corporeal form was already gone, her Life and subsequent Death Burst both channeling through and powering the machination.

And with that, Natalie Kyros and her True Cross were gone: nothing but myth and legend.

---

Seconds later

Christopher Chang stared at his reflection in his mirror. The mirror was the answer after the answer. Reaching eternity was one thing, but once you answered the Last Question, there was still one more: what next?

He hadn’t completed it. Of course he hadn’t. How could he? The risk was so untenable that it did not even need to be articulated. The project itself was, in the parlance of the 21st century, “open source”. Anyone could build upon it, improve it, perfect it. Which of course, meant, that few did. Some things never changed. The producers of the world were far outnumbered by the consumers, in every facet of life.

Which is why it had been so important to cultivate those less productive than oneself. Teach them to become producers. Of course, it didn’t matter now. Well, it wasn’t supposed to matter. But something was wrong. Something hadn’t worked. He could feel it, like some fundamental flaw in the generating function of the universe.

There was nothing that could be done, of course. This was John’s problem to fix. And he didn’t mean that in the defeatist sense: it was just a matter of pure logistics. Even if Christopher had been capable of affecting any sort of real change, he was full minutes away, and that was assuming he used the fastest possible transportation protocols.

So, he stood in front of his Mirror, and allowed it to reflect his deepest, most profound volition. The image of Christopher and the classroom behind him vanished, and in its place, the Mirror displayed Question.

He provided the answer. And with that, Christopher Chang was gone.

The golden oval stood, inviolate, in this world, in all worlds.

---

Seconds later

Constantine Atreides rushed manically around the lab. The anchoring rods were uniquely equipped to handle, channel, and redirect the absurd amount of power coursing through the system from the network of L.E. lines. Calling them “Low Energy” lines really was a bit of a misnomer. Certainly with the correct state of mind and the proper knowledge, one could access that energy without the aid of tools. But the whole point of Constantine’s rods was to harness the energy from something wild, dangerous and mind-bendingly powerful into something tame, usable, and above all, safe.

For a brief moment, Constantine thought that he might save the world. If he could force everything to channel through the cluster of rods, it could be dispersed safely. He’d have to direct it. He’d have to use it to create something. He’d make…

Damn it.

He never really was the creative type. He spend whole moments pondering, then realized his folly, and simply let his mind drift towards a random series of fractal patterns, maybe that would work?

It did not. Of course it did not. The rods required intent of some kind.

Even if his mind was capable of containing a structure grand enough, complex enough, even if he had taken the time beforehand to plan all of his movements and thoughts to the microsecond, it simply would not have been enough. There was too much. But Constantine did not know this. The system was flitting through failure modes faster that he could keep track of them. He continued to look for an answer. No time, no time.

Nat.

Not enough time. He couldn’t save her. He couldn’t save anyone. What now? Save himself. Save himself. The one grand, complex structure his mind was capable of containing was, of course, itself. Clever self-referencing hacks wouldn’t cut it in this use case. Were he performing a simple transform, he would be fine; the mind would provide the Form ad-hoc as the Substance was being assembled.

But this was a clean write, which meant it had to be done in one fell swoop. That left no room for anything else. Unless… Yes, that actually would work. Before the operation, he sacrificed a small portion of who he was, of his being, kept in reserve to hold on to that one idea, that one hope, that one dream: her.

And with that, Constantine and his hope were gone.

---

Seconds later

Dexter Charles giggled. As the lead Seer, he was privy to secrets, knowledge, information. Oh yes, he was privy. Things that no one else knew. Things that no one else could know. Yes, of course he knew this day would come. All paths led to it.

All paths led to him, through him. He was the gate. Of course he was. He knew the gate, he was its key and guardian. Past, present, and future were one. His past, the world’s past, a fixed line. The present, a hot white point that encompassed this world and all worlds. And the future, a diffuse web of background noise for as far as the mind could fathom.

But of course, he knew what lay beyond that. He knew. Of course he knew. How could he not? Past, present and future were one. Even as the world died around him, he giggled as he watched the future loop back upon itself, over and over and over and over and over spiraling out and up and down and out and up and down and out of control until all that was left were two paths, and it all went through him, which was so silly, so sad, but so, so silly that he couldn’t help but giggle.

Needless to say, one of the occupational hazards of being a Seer is that it’s not exactly conducive to preserving one’s mental health. Dexter’s mind had been shredded by the enormity of what he was trying to encompass: he had walked down both paths, just to see how it all would end. But, what he saw could not be comprehended by a finite mind.

One path could not permit the finite.

The other path could not permit the mind.

No matter. It didn’t matter, couldn’t matter. For all he knew, all paths led to him. Why wouldn’t they? He was the gate. So, he simply opened the gate, and exited the world.

And with that, Dexter Charles entered the world.

---

Seconds later

Janus Tucker knew that this was the end. But he also knew that there was a loophole. There always were loopholes. The scales as a metaphor for justice had persisted from ancient times even to today. But it was done now, it served no further purpose. What use was Justice in a dead world? He reached into the metaphor, pondered for a moment, and removed the two cups from the scale.

As long as there were people, things, structures that obeyed the laws, in whatever form those laws would take, the metaphor would hold. Justice. Balance. It was written into the very fabric of Creation, it was the canvas on which the tale of the world was spun.

The question now, was what to do… Ah, yes. He simply inserted himself into that fabric, into the tale. The will of the world was being Bound, regardless, regardless of his own actions. So why not Bind himself to it? Yes, it was a moment of darkness for the world. But it was said that the darkest hour of midnight came just before the dawn. And he would be there for that dawn, to see what we be born.

He grasped the two cups, and smiled for a brief moment as he struck a suitably dramatic pose. If he was to be a God, he may as well play the part.

And with that, the tale of Janus Tucker was written.

---

Seconds later

Kayla Rahl examined the three boxes. There were only a few moments left, but she had designed the Box for this very purpose. A surprisingly effective failsafe. It was an exercise in pushing things to their limits. An arbitrarily large extendable space. An arbitrarily long connection. In this case, though, about 26,000 light years sufficed.

She knew when she created it that she could never open the Box. The very notion of her opening the Box was a paradox unto itself. And yet, here she was. That small fraction of her mind that did not exist, the part that would permit itself to open the Box, suddenly was there. Just popped into existence, five minutes prior.

She immediately felt it. And she immediately went to check on the Box. And that’s when she saw there were three. It was, in reality, a single Box. The Box in the present. The Box in the past. The Box in the future. Each was its own distinct physical entity. She had heard once that the cells in our bodies were completely replaced every seven years. It was nonsense, of course, that’s not how biology works. But even still, she was always fascinated by Theseus’ Ship. She suspected that is why the Box presented itself as three rather than one.

But, most importantly, she was able to open the Box. For eons, the very nature of the world prevented the Box from ever being opened. But it had changed, everything had changed. This meant only one thing; the world had already passed its own event horizon. The world was already going Beyond.

Which meant there was no harm in going Beyond along with it.

So she willed the Box open. The three aspects obliged, unfolding themselves. Kayla gazed into the gaping maw of the Beyond, and entered.

Once she was truly locked Beyond, the boxes snapped shut.

And with that, Kayla Rahl and the world were gone.

---

And with that, the new world was born.

The world unfolded, like a fully grown adult emerging from the womb. The new Gods of the new world emerged, as well, shaking off the afterbirth, their eyes sensitive to the intense, penetrating waves of this new sun.

Each knew there were others, for they each knew that they were not the oldest, or the cleverest, or the most knowledgable. And if they were able to do it, someone older, someone cleverer, someone more knowledgeable would have been able to do it too.

But it wasn’t turtles all the way up. Someone had to be the best, the oldest, the cleverest, the most knowledgeable.

---

Swift River Valley, Massachusetts
January, 1938

Merlin looked out over the valley. The sky was remarkably clear for the early hour, so from this vantage point, he could see “The Two Towers”. Ilvermorny Castle, about 60 miles to the west on Mount Greylock, and the Salem Witches’ Institute, which rested on Sentinel Hill, about 20 miles to the south.

Salem predated its more famous competitor by several centuries, and specialized in Ritual Magic. Few remember its more ancient name, which served to honor the Misqat tribe who formed the school centuries before. Back then it was little more than a stone circle and a curious altar on a small island in the middle of the Swift River. The land itself seemed to swell in response to the power that coursed through the place, and Sentinel Hill was coaxed from the ground over the years.

The eastern line of Merlin’s will ran through the Berkshire mountain range, and cut sharply across the heart of central Massachusetts, before eventually terminating in Boston Harbor. The point where he stood was the future site of the Russell Institute, the newest American bastion of magical knowledge.

The final steps of his plan were coming to fruition. The gears fit together so seamlessly. The Wilbraham Incident had galvanized the Scourers, who had emerged from their decades of hiding. The pressure on the Westphalians was enormous. Exposure simply could not be risked. And when it seemed that matters could not get worse for them, Grindelwald began cooperating with the European muggle dictatorship. Non-interventionism was simply not an option.

The Scourers had disposed of the last of the Old Ones; The Gate had been closed. The Westphalians and their No-Maj counterparts had entered the global theater and toppled Grindelwald and the Third Reich. The Eastern Ley was significantly weakened. And, perhaps most importantly, one more step of the Prophecy was fulfilled.

Born to those that have thrice defied him…

Three schools, formed in defiance of the true Dark Lord.

He smiled, despite himself.

August, 1962
London

Cygnus Black was not a man who cried.

It was simply not in the Black family nature to reveal signs of weakness. And emotion is for the weak. Thus, Cygnus Black did not so much as weep, even when his firstborn daughter was readying herself for the Hogwarts’ Express for the first time.

“Daddy?”

His daughter looked up at him with heavy-lidded eyes, glittering with an innocent, good-natured curiosity.

“Yes, Bella?”

“What if I AM put into Gryffindor?”

“And what would be wrong with that?”

Bella paused for a moment to think. “It’s the house of the foolish. It’s not a house for the clever, or the cunning. It’s not Slytherin. What if I’m not good enough to get in to Slytherin?”

Cygnus kneeled down and put a large hand on Bella’s frizzy mop of hair. “Bella. Dear Bella. Gryffindor is also the house of the brave, the house of the strong. Two of the best men I’ve known were–”

“Cygnus! What is that ridiculous nonsense you’re filling her head with?”

Druella Black had overheard that one small bit of their conversation, and glowered at them both.

“Druella,” he whispered in a sidebar, “She’s worried. What you have me say to her?”

She loudly directed her next comment towards Bellatrix, “I would have you say that she should see to it that she gets sorted into Slytherin, or else both of her parents will be quite disappointed in her.” She turned her head as she caught the eye of someone in the crowd, waving them over.

Cygnus took this moment to speak directly to Bella. “Dear Bella, you will do well wherever you are sorted. And I want you to know that the Sorting Hat does take your choice into account. That’s not to say that’s the only thing it considers. But I will be proud of you, and will love you, regardless of the choice you make.”

He gave her a quick peck on the cheek, stood up, straightened himself, and pat her on the head. “Now, what you’ll want to do is walk straight at the wall between platforms nine and ten. Best to do it at a bit of a run if you’re nervous.”

Later, as Cygnus watched the train pull away, his heart swelled with emotion. But Cygnus Black was not a man who cried.

---

July, 1963
Coventry

Bella’s 13th birthday party was held at the sprawling Rosier Estate, where she had spent her youth outside of Hogwarts. Although it was deeded to her Uncle Gilles, the current scion of the Rosier family, Cygnus and Druella Black had made it their home. For her part, Bella was surprised when Uncle Gilles decided to attend the party: he had been coming up with flimsy excuses to avoid Black family gatherings for as long as she could remember.

As the night drew on, Bella noticed Uncle Gilles’ eyes growing glassy; he did seem to be drinking quite a large amount of her dad’s firewhiskey. Daddy really favored that particular vintage, and, although they were quite well off, it was still very expensive. That must have been why Bella kept catching him glaring at Uncle Gilles surreptitiously throughout the evening.

As the festivities drew on, Bella opened several fabulously expensive, lavishly wrapped presents. A new pair of cauldrons, a gilded set of Wizard’s Chess from Andromeda, a beautiful sapphire telescope from Cissy (although, neither of her sisters were present at the party; it was tradition that only those who had come of age could attend). After she unwrapped the last of them, Uncle Gilles strode behind her, leaned over, and whispered.

“You haven’t opened Uncle Gilles’ present, Bella.”

“Oh! I didn’t? I don’t think I saw it!”

Gilles chortled. He was a large man, with ruddy cheeks, bushy eyebrows, and stubbly fingers. Currently, those stubbly fingers were resting on Bella’s shoulders. “How foolish of me. I must have left it in my chambers. Bella, why don’t you come with me, and help me find it?”

At this, Cygnus stood up and coughed loudly. “Gilles, that’s quite alright. Why don’t I help you with that? We wouldn’t want to keep Bella from the festivities.”

Druella shot him an angry glance. “Cygnus, sit down. You’re being rude to our guest.”

Gilles said nothing, and simply smiled warmly at Druella. Cygnus shook. “I… No. I will not have this. Not in my house.”

At this, Gilles laughed, humorless and mocking.

There was a beat of silence, then Druella spoke. “Cygnus. Dear. Need I remind you that this is the ancestral home of the Rosiers, not the Blacks? So it is, in fact, MY home. Now sit down. I do believe you are offending my brother.”

Cygnus did not sit.

“Sit. Down.”

He closed his eyes, and slowly sunk into his chair, his teeth gritting. Bella was, well, confused. It wasn’t that big of a deal, Uncle Gilles just forgot to bring the present out. Daddy must have just been upset that Uncle drank all of the firewhiskey.

As she followed Uncle Gilles down the hall, Cygnus turned away. He couldn’t watch. And he would not cry. Even when he heard the muffled shouts and clipped sobs coming from the chambers, he did not cry.

---

May, 1966
Coventry

“Greetings, Uncle Gilles.” Bella intoned, icily.

“Bellatrix Black, you will greet your superiors with a smile, not with a scowl.” Druella warned.

“Greetings, Uncle Gilles!” She repeated, her voice dripping with saccharine sweetness.

Druella’s hand flew back, and Bella instinctively flinched.

“Greetings, Uncle Gilles…” Bella curtsied politely.

“Greetings, little Bella,” he replied, and he kneeled to cup her cheek in his hand. He lightly brushed her neck with his pinky.

Uncle Gilles stood and surveyed the house. He walked over to the sitting area, eyes locked on the bottle of firewhiskey that daddy had always favored. “I’m pleased to see that you still have some of the 1899, Cygnus. The vintage is truly delightful. Care for a glass, good man?”

“Gilles, it’s barely even noon…” Cygnus shifted, uncomfortably.

“Ha! Nonsense. Don’t be silly. Who is going to judge us?” He filled his tumbler about an inch from the top with liquor, and dipped two plump fingers into the glass. After swirling them around for a moment, he placed them lovingly in his mouth, tasting the firewhiskey with a wet, sucking noise. He let out an exaggerated moan. “Simply delightful.”

He stretched out his hand and waved his two fingers underneath Cygnus’ nose. “Come on now lad, give it a whiff.” He lifted his fingers up a bit, wafting the smell upwards, and Cygnus tilted his head back to avoid physical contact.

Uncle Gilles extended his remaining fingers, and with his open palm, gave Cygnus a hard yet good natured slap, and laughed uproariously. “There’s a lad!” Gilles took a loud slurp from the glass, and stared at Cygnus. “Curious, isn’t it, that some things actually taste better the older they get?”

At this, Uncle Gilles whipped around and smiled broadly. “And this must be little Cissy!”

“Narcissa,” Bella corrected. Druella shot her a warning glare. “Allow me to introduce Narcissa. Narcissa Black.”

“And how old are you, little Cissy?”

“I’m eleven sir. Pleased to meet you.” Narcissa giggled a bit.

“Pleased to meet you, darling.” Uncle Gilles ran his thumb across her cheek and she giggled even more. He was so silly. His round features and rosy cheeks reminded her of those kindly garden gnomes from the stories father used to tell her.

“And I hear another one is about to have a birthday soon… Her 13th, no?” Gilles inquired.

Druella turned away in disgust. “Andromeda will not be joining us for the summer. She has decided to spend her days in less… Desirable company.”

“She’s dating a Muggle,” Bella provided. Beneath the perfunctory tone of disgust, a perceptive listener may have noted a hint of triumph and challenge.

Uncle Gilles choked quietly on his firewhiskey. “Disgusting.” He made a face, worked his mouth a bit, and spit the remaining firewhiskey onto the plush carpet of the sitting room. “A Muggle, Cygnus? Truly?” Cygnus gave a slow sad shake of his head.

“Well, I suppose I shan’t be returning again this summer. I never much cared for the taste of mud.”

---

June, 1968
Coventry

It was Narcissa Black’s 13th birthday party, and Bellatrix had just graduated from Hogwarts. She was speaking pleasantly with other members of her family and extended family who had showed up for the twin festivities.

“–and I was thinking of picking up work at Burgin and Burke’s while I–

“A Rosier-Black, a common shopkeep?” Aunt Matilda scoffed.

“No, no, nothing of the sort. Their newest purchasing director, he has made some very interesting advances in the field of ritual magic, and–”

As Bellatrix spoke, a flicker of recognition glint across Aunt Matilda’s eyes. “Oh yes, I actually do recall that. I’ll have you know, I actually went to school with him. A good boy, a nice Slytherin. I’ll have you know, I fancied that boy once,” she cackled lasciviously. “Not as handsome now, though, sadly.” She lowered her voice conspiratorially, “I hear he took a curse to the face in Albania. Which reminds me, my husband I were just vacationing in the forests of–”

Bellatrix nodded vacantly. She was not listening, she was too busy staring across the room. She could pick up indistinct bits of the conversation. The words were missing, but the intent was crystal clear.

“But Cissy, you haven’t opened Uncle Gilles’ present.”

Narcissa cocked her head, looking around the dining room. “Oh! I didn’t see it! Where is it?”

Uncle Gilles chuckled. “Silly me! I must have left it in my chambers. It is a bit heavy, though… Do you think you could help me lift–”

He stopped mid sentence at the sound. Clambering footsteps, broken glass, a high-pitched shriek:

“NOT MY SISTER, YOU SON OF A BITCH!!!”

Bella had closed the distance between the two of them in the span of a moment, and she flung herself protectively in front of Cissy. With one hand, she pushed Cissy backward, and with the other, she lashed out across Uncle Gilles’ face.

She was still holding the shards of her broken wine glass.

The jagged edges of the crystal cut deep crimson ridges across Uncle Gilles’ ruddy cheeks. Blood gushed out in angry rivulets as he stumbled backward, crashing into the delicate glass coffee table. He lost his footing, and fell fully over onto the table, the glass giving away underneath with a terrific crash.

Druella stood up, her face ruddy with anger. “Bellatrix Black, what do you–”

“EXPELLIARMUS! SILENCIO!”

Bella flourished her wand, and shadowy black cords shot out, wrapping like tendrils around Druella’s feet and Uncle Gilles’ torso. With a swift motion, she cracked her hand and the cords whipped up, suspending the two mid-air.

It was Judgement Day. Reckoning. Vengeance. There was no one to stop her. No one that could keep her from taking what was hers, no one to keep her from protecting–

“PETRIFICUS TOTALIS!”

Bella’s body stiffened abruptly. The cords winked out of existence instantaneously, unceremoniously dropping both Druella and Uncle Gilles to the ground.

Cygnus Black stood, shaking, his wand out, his eyes filled with tears.

“I’m sorry, Gilles. She didn’t know what she was doing, she’s just–”

Uncle Gilles spoke as he stood up, the wounds already healing with the wordless gesture of his wand. “I’ve seen enough, Cygnus. One daughter who fornicates with Muggles, and another who would dare attack a pureblood superior? I had my reservations when my sister married a Black, but it’s disappointing to see them come true.”

“Gilles, please.”

“You can forget about my support on the Roanoke matter. And Druella: this man is no longer welcome in my house. I expect him to leave, immediately. Druella, you may stay if you wish. I think there is much business that you and I have to discuss.”

Druella nodded, and turned angrily towards Bellatrix, but she was already gone, as was Narcissa.

Bella had apparated them both to the hill, their hill. It was already dark, and they could see the stars through the clearing. She held her sister tightly, openly weeping. “Cissy, I may be going away for awhile. But you go back home. Go back to Hogwarts. I’ll make sure to write, I’ll make sure to visit.” She pressed something into Narcissa’s hand, a small blue sculpture carved of brilliant sapphire. It was a dolphin. Bella’s dolphin.

“Bella, I don’t understand.”

“You will, Cissy. You will.”

And with that, Bella apparated away, leaving Narcissa alone, staring up at the stars.

---

December, 1975
Wiltshire

It pleased her to know that Uncle Gilles never came to another Black family birthday celebration. If she had only done one thing in her life, that was enough. She protected Cissy. If she was safe, that was all that mattered. Eventually, she forgave Father. But the relationship was never the same. How could it be? She wasn’t Daddy’s dear Bella anymore. She was Bellatrix.

It also pleased her when she received the owl informing her of mother’s untimely death (although she lived long enough to scorch Andromeda off the family tree). Yes, Andromeda had run off with a Muggle. But she too was safe, in her own way.

But, it pleased her most of all,to be with her family and friends to witness the marriage of her Cissy. Malfoy Manor was resplendent and glorious, with the sun setting elegantly behind the Declaration of Intent. Now, Cissy truly was protected. She carried the protection of the Lord Malfoy. And soon enough, she would carry his children. And oh, how Cissy wanted children.

Some of Bella’s most wonderful memories as a child were of laying on the ground in the foothills outside the sprawling Rosier Estate. Due to the various enchantments surrounding the property, the night sky was always preternaturally dark. Cissy and Bella would stare up at the sky for hours, talking about the stars, telling stories about the constellations and thinking ahead into the future.

They talked about their future families and children. They would name them children after the constellations, to remind them of their destiny in the stars. Cissy always wanted a big family. She’d start with a boy and a girl. Draco would be the oldest, the greatest: king of the serpents. And Lyra, she represented the love story of Orpheus and Eurydice. Bella could appreciate that. If any harm ever came to Cissy, she too would travel to the depths of Hell and challenge the Lord of the Underworld himself to make things right.

For her part, Bella only wanted one child. A little girl who she would call Delphini. The dolphin, Bella had once told Cissy, is one of the most intelligent, most social animals. Oh, how Bella loved animals. She was protective, maternal. And one day, she would have that daughter of her own to protect and nurture. But until that day came, she would see to it that Cissy was safe.

Now, she was. Cissy would have her family. Bella looked up through her heavy lidded eyes, which sparkled like twin stars. She smiled lovingly at Cissy, who smiled lovingly back at her, and she gave the young Lord Malfoy an approving nod.

All was well.

---

June, 1980
Malfoy Manor

It was dark times, truly dark times. One Dark Lord fell decades before, and another had risen in his place, more terrible and more powerful than any before him. One who saw the Malfoys as an enemy, and therefore saw Cissy as an enemy. A foe that even Bella, with her newfound power and lore, could not protect Cissy from. Bella needed allies, someone worthy of leading an army against the rising tide of Albus Dumbledore.

She found one.

There was something inscrutable about him. He was insane, yes, and powerful beyond measure. But something was off, and she noted a tiny hint of confusion. He spouted ridiculous ideologies, saying openly the kinds of hateful rhetoric that was typically exchanged behind closed doors within the ivory towers of privilege. Bella knew what it was like to speak those words aloud, and knew what it was like to not truly believe them. And she saw that quality in him.

But why? It was not even a means to an end. His power would have been sufficient to cow the noble families into submission. His cunning would have been sufficient to outmaneuver even the most seasoned Wizengamot veterans. The lore he possessed was sufficient to entice even the most erudite of scholars.

He could have easily won over the nobility. And when you win over the nobility, you win over the undesirables. He did not need to appeal to the Carrows of the world. And yet, he did. And so Bella needed to understand, to comprehend. If he was to be the new leader, their new ruler, she needed to know what type of ruler he would grow to becomes. Even a tyrant would be preferable, so long as Cissy was safe. Bella needed to understand.

But those were long term concerns. In the short-term, she needed protection. War was raging. And yet, in the middle of the darkness there was light. She stood beside Cissy’s bed, holding a small, frail baby boy, with piercing eyes and the thinnest wisps of platinum blonde hair. There was light in the world. And she would fight to protect that.

---

September, 1980
Wiltshire

He’s dead. Albus silly, bully billy, bobbing Albus, silly silly silly silly silly Dumbledore, so silly and wily, why? Why why why did you take her, why why why why why why, now you are dead, dead by little Bella, deary Bella, silly Bella isn’t silly anymore, Cissy. Sweet Cissy and little Lyra, all burnt up. Burnt through, murdered. Burned up and burnt through and crisped up like little flakes of burning burning burning burning burning burning burning burning every last one of you will burn like phoenixes and I will burn you until you die and I will burn you when you are reborn and burn you burn you burn you when you wake up again, you took away sweet Cissy and little Lyra, burn burn burn burn burn burn burn–

The crackling power of Bella’s manic intensity filled the air outside Malfoy manor. She felt the very moment that the sapphire statue of a dolphin that she had given Cissy so many years before was consumed by the magical fire. Immediately, she apparated outside the grounds of Malfoy Manor, and she tore past the wards and jinxes, forcing her body into Mistform and bouncing off the ground in order to go faster.

When she arrived, it was too late. Dumbledore was gone, and so was Cissy. Lucius stood outside with several of the servants and a few members of the family who had been staying the night. He held little Draco in his arms. His face was white, his eyes sullen, the shock of it all rendering him dead to the world.

Once she gathered her bearings, she directed the mist of her body upwards, through the oppressive heat and licking flames, into bedroom of the Lord and Lady Malfoy. If there was even the remotest hint of a chance, she would do anything, give everything.

There was not.

She arrived in time only to see the last bits of ruined flesh bubble and crack, melting away from Cissy’s face. Although her bonds had long since burned away, her position suggested she had been tied to the bed. There were no eyes left to look into, no final shared gaze. Just a flaming, grinning skull, staring lifelessly back at her.

Bella’s scream was one of unending pain, as if all sorrow, loss, grief and rage in the world had condensed into a single point which was then stretched into a sound. With a terrifying crack of power and a whooshing thump, the temperature in the room dropped by about 150 degrees, covering everything in a chill of ice and frost. The heat was gone, but the scream continued.

She didn’t notice when another sound joined the scream: a hiss. That hiss. That cruel, terrible, baleful hiss that masqueraded as laughter. It echoed across the grounds of Malfoy Manor, unmistakable in its source. The laughter penetrated her mind, devoid of any hint of positive emotion. The laughter was a deliberate mockery of the very notion of happiness.

Beneath the laughter were the pops of various wizards and witches apparating. Still screaming, Bella looked up, and saw the Dark Mark burning bright green in the night sky. It was bright, oppressive, and it blocked out the other pinpricks of light. She could not see Draco, she could not see Lyra, she could not see Delphini. She could see nothing, and could feel only rage.

The Death Eaters were arriving, one by one, in response to their masters’ call. Lord Voldemort continued his insane, shrieking laughter, and compelled his dear Bella to return to the ground, where she slumped forward, fists on the ground, body wracking with sobs.

When they had all arrived, the Dark Lord spoke: “Dumbledore is finally learning to play the game as it should be played. He has grown up, and we now finally have a foe worthy of Lord Voldemort’s attention! Today, the battle has truly begun.

“You look somber, my servants. This is a cause for celebration! The game is afoot, and for that, you should be happy. For that, I shall reward you for your loyalty. For that…” His lips curled upward in a cruel smile, “we shall have a Dark Revel!”

He gestured with his skeleton-fingers towards the prostrate form of Bellatrix. She heard nothing. She did not hear the hushed, shocked silence. She did not hear the awkward cheers and forced shouts of celebration. And she did not feel any of what was to come. Her world was pain, and her world was rage, and there was no room for anything else.

---

June, 1981
Sontag

“HA HAHA HAHAHA HAHA!”

The cruel high-pitched laughter echo through the ruins of Sontag.

“The silly stupid stinking Scottish slut has a sissy for herself!”

It was too late to run. The anti-apparition wards had already been complete. No time to think. Physical escape was the only real option. If they could just get beyond the bounds of the wards. But the city was walled, there was only one exit point and it was sure to be guarded.

Well, it wasn’t the first time that Minerva and Moira McGonagall were going to go have to fight their way out of a sticky situation.

Of course, Bellatrix Black was far more than just a sticky situation. She remembered teaching the girl, she remembered her skill, and she remembered her soft, sad smile, and her quiet, reserved manner. She wondered what the Dark Lord had done to break her so completely.

”Come out, you old hag! Pull the snakes of of yer’ quim and fight us like a true lady!” Moira shouted, angrily.

“I cannot say I approve of my sisters choice of language, but I agree with the sentiment. Enough with the games. You came to fight, so fight you shall have, Ms. Black!”

“HA HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHHAAHA”

The laughter rang out from behind them now, and they both whipped around. Bellatrix Black, in the flesh, not 10 meters away.

“Quim, Quim, Qualabim, Rastaban, let’s finish them!” Bellatrix sang.

“With pleasure.”

Rastaban LeStrange’s low, guttural voice rumbled from where Minerva and Moira were just looking, a few moments before they spun to face Bellatrix. Moira turned slowly, keeping her back against Minerva’s, as they both stood with their wands drawn.

The ground was flat, there was no cover to be had or high ground to be exploited. Two against two, nowhere to run, and nowhere to hide. This was a duel of pure power and skill. You devote exactly as much energy towards constructing a defense as is necessary, and pour the rest into your attack. An infinity of split-second decisions must be made, and any one of them could prove to be the crucial determiner of the fight.

Every shield has its weak point, and every shield can only tolerate so much abuse before its structure is compromised. Do you attack the weak point, spending more time and energy on precision and aim? Do you simply attack with pure brute force, sacrificing efficiency for speed and attention? If it’s your shield, do you take the time to craft false weak points to draw attacks elsewhere, or do you just reinforce the structure as much as you can? Or do you not even bother with shields, and rely on physical prowess to avoid curses?

Bellatrix was, at first, a vision of pure offensive power. She fired curse after curse, putting no effort whatsoever into the creation of any shield. The intensity of the onslaught forced Minerva into a defensive position. Her first shield was hastily assembled, and inefficient. She lost time, and had to make it up. Not seconds into the fight and she was already backpedaling. Not a chance to even fire a counter curse.

Bellatrix pressed the advantage. Sensing the lack of counterattack, she took her focus away from enhancing her physical maneuvers and poured everything into the ensemble of curses. Minerva threw up a Prismatic Wall, to give herself about a second and a half to think. No shields. Too fast, no point curse. No bystanders, use AOE. Limber, can duck or leap versus Line. Need Field. Mental math, look at feet. Bota Lunga, minimal lateral movement. Concentrated Field, 3 meters, Diffuse Field, 10 meters.

A ten foot wide burst of flame shot from Minerva’s wand, quickly followed by a cloud of needles three times the size. There was nowhere for Bellatrix to dodge, she could only counter or shield. Minerva prepared for both. She prepared a brute force volley of multiple weak physical attacks; it was a minimal expenditure of magic, and it would not do much if it actually landed, but it was enough to severely weaken most shields.

At the same time, she loosed an ice blast, in the event that Bellatrix opted for an elemental counter to the fire: ice trumps water trumps fire. Finally, Minerva prepared a single concentrated lance, in case Bellatrix tried a purely magical hard counter. Such a counter would need to be an applied area of magic, which would be easily penetrated by a directed burst.

Bellatrix indeed used the elemental counter, and her wall of water was quickly frozen by Minerva’s blast of ice. But Bellatrix had anticipated this, and directed a flow of magic into the wall of ice to lend it a measure of permanency. The now-physical barrier blocked the volley of blows intended to weaken a magical shield, and it trivially absorbed the impact of the lance. Bellatrix had the initiative now, and used it to withdraw her magic from the wall and turn it inward, rupturing it from the inside out and send an explosion of knife-sharp ice crystals towards the McGonagall sisters.

Minerva sensed the impending destruction, and also sensed an opportunity. Redirecting or blocking the crystals would not be difficult. But instead, she twisted her wand and summoned a vortex of wind, allowing the crystals to simply bypass them and continue their path. A path which happened to contain Rastaban LeStrange, who was ferociously engaged in his fight with Moira.

If Minerva and Bellatrix’s duel was a chess match, Moira and Rastaban’s was a fistfight. There was no elegance, no levels upon levels of moves, counters, counter-counters, contingencies or gambits. It was a knock-down, drag-out battle of who could out-magic the other. The simply fired curse after curse into each other, both opting for the pure brute-force approach. They were swapping shield-and-curse combinations ruthlessly, and one of them would eventually break.

Rastaban’s shield had been dropped by one of Moira’s curses, but he was already in the middle of loosing a curse of his own. As the magic began to flow from his wand, he saw the burst of ice-daggers flying towards him. He hastily attempted to assemble a barrier, but it was shattered by the hex that Moira had fired the moment she noticed the opening.

The shards pierced his skin, ripping chunks of a flesh away and crumpling him into a heap. It was over for him. A quick stunner from Moira, and it was over. She spared a brief moment to perform an Abjuration ritual; one of the links of the fine platinum chain in her pouch disappeared into nothingness. Massive chains, firmly rooted in the ground, sprung forth from the aether and bound Rastaban.

Bellatrix cackled. “SPECTACULAR, SPECTACULAR!”

There was a brief détente, as they all gauged what the next move was to be. Bellatrix was still cackling. Moira whispered, “She’s as mad a shit-house rat…”

“Mad or no, she could still turn you into a pile of blubbering jelly faster than you can say ‘Death Eater’.” Minerva cautioned.

“Sounds preferable than hearing another lecture from you.” Moira smirked, as they both readied themselves.

“MUSICAL LITTLE MINERVA AND MOIRA, MISERABLE MOUCHES! Time to fly, little flies!”

Rather than wait, Moira took the first action, and fired a standard blade volley at Bellatrix. Minerva backed her up with a trio of non-lethal area of effect jinxes with the intent of hobbling Bellatrix’s ability to respond effectively to Moira’s ceaseless attacks.

“SO EXCITING!” Bellatrix cackled. She cast her hand out, and rather than any sort of deadly curse or counterattack, a massive whirlwind of daffodils shot out, like some arcane blizzard of flower petals.

A distraction?

The flowers billowed around them, but they could still see her form so they continued the attack. But at the moment the blows would have struck, Bellatrix dissolved into viscous black smoke, and flickered backwards and then up. She continued to cackle as the flowers continued to rain down from nowhere. And then, the music.

Music?

A familiar tune, from an unknown source, bawdy and uplifting. Another distraction?

“ELEPHANTS, ARABIANS!”

Minerva tried to trace the position of the black smoke with her wand and fire Halting Hexes, but they could find no purchase. The black smoke landed, and Bellatrix instantiated once more. She grinned, baring her teeth, waving her wand. But there was no attack. Just more flowers, and more music.

“INDIANS AND COURTESEANS!”

“What is she blubbering about?” Moira whispered through the side of her mouth.

Minerva was barely paying attention to her sister, she was trying to focus on firing her curses. But as soon as she let out another round, Bellatrix flickered back into the thick black mist, and erratically bounced around the field once more.

“ACROBATS AND JUGGLING BEARS!”

The music was growing louder and louder, and the rain of flowers was getting too thick to see through. They could see Bellatrix in the distance, waving her wand like a conductor, kicking her legs up in time with the music. She wasn’t fighting back. It was almost like she was… Stalling? But what —

Oh no.

“Moira, construct a shield, now!” Minerva shouted, her voice barely registering now over the blaring horns and drums.

“Wha–”

Dear Bella….

No. That hiss.

Dear Bella… Take what we came here for, and depart. I will kill the spares.

No, no, no.

Minerva and Moira McGonagall were going to die.

The music cut out abruptly. Whatever eldritch wind was powering the tornado of flowers had ceased, and they began to drift silently to the ground. Bellatrix was nowhere to be seen.

He was coming. He was here.

She was going to die. And in that cold moment of clarity, she also realized the monumental mistake she had made earlier. It was so obvious, now. Anti-apparition jinxes were always exponentially wider than they were tall. Immediately, she thrust her wand into the air.

“EXPECTO PATRONUM!”

A bolt of white light shot upward. It only took a few meters, and then the form of her Patronus was able to escape.

Why, why didn’t she just think? She should have called for help from the very beginning. Once again, she was too busy playing a role, the plucky duo of sisters who complemented each other perfectly and could fight their way through anything. But where there is smoke, there is fire, and she should have known that the presence of Bellatrix Black most likely meant the presence of Lord Voldemort.

And no one could fight their way through him. Except for maybe…

POP

Alastor Moody appeared directly overhead, and immediately sped downward on his broom, assembling shields and fields and traps and weapons, even as he dismounted. His wand hand continued to cast every manner of protective spell, and his free hand was manipulating the landscape to provide cover, obstacles, and an advantageous position. No one except Dumbledore could ever hope to take on Voldemort in a fair fight.

But Alastor Moody never fought in a fair fight in his life.

“I’ve alerted Dumbledore. He’s bound by a Time Turner currently but he has…” The Eye of Vance whirled in his head, as he took a brief moment to check Albus’ status. “Seven minutes. We just need to hold him off for seven minutes.”

“AND IN THE END SHOULD SOMEONE DIE?” Bellatrix shrieked from somewhere in the distance.

“Quiet, Bella.”

And there he stood. Terrible, powerful, glorious.

It began.

If Moira’s duel was a fistfight, and Minerva’s was a chess match, then the duel between Alastor Moody and Lord Voldemort was… There was no comparison. It was like watching a gunfight where the combatants were shooting each others’ bullets out of midair.

It was an exercise in horrifically brutal efficiency. Shields were raised on a millisecond by millisecond basis, using no more magic than absolutely necessary. And they were dismantled just as swiftly, analyzed for their weak points and ruthlessly dispatched.

The physical element was equally impressive. There were no unnecessary flourishes or wasted movements. Just pure reaction time and power, traded back and forth. Minerva replenished Alastor’s magic with her own, bolstered his shields, and subtly manipulated the territory to their advantage. Moira, who was not as accomplished at battlefield control, desperately fired curse after curse.

Voldemort was still winning. But they weren’t expecting to win. They were doing what Bellatrix had done. They were stalling until their own Champion could arrive. Seven minutes. That’s all they needed.

Somewhere in the distance, they heard Bellatrix shout in glee. “MY LORD! I HAVE IT!”

From the corner of her eye, Minerva could see Bellatrix in her Mistform, hurtling towards them. The mist hurtled past Moira, who deftly dodged, and towards Lord Voldemort. She instantiated, grinning maliciously.

“Time to fly, dear Bella.”

And in an instant, they both were gone.

A beat passed. Minerva stood, wide-eyed, in shock. She had just faced Lord Voldemort and lived to tell the tale. They had all faced Lord Voldemort and lived to tell the tale.

Alastor took no time for such frivolities. He was already layering the entire area with dark detectors, protection spells, and shields. Moody gave a wolfish grin. “A few more minutes and we would have had that snaky bastard. Almost.”

“I’ll tell you the same thing I tell my students, Alastor: ‘Almost’ only counts in Divination and Gobstones.”

She paused, expectantly. That was odd. Moira usually never passed up an opportunity to quip. Minerva glanced over at her.

Minerva’s eyes widened.

Moira was hunched over in pain. She was bleeding out. Fast, too fast.

“Alastor. ALASTOR!” Minerva called. It was unnecessary; he was already rushing over. Minerva was casting as many healing charms as she could think of, and she held her sister tightly. She continued to work her magic, but spared a moment to glare at Moody expectantly, who was still casting defensive spells around their perimeter.

“Damnit, woman. I’m an Auror, not a healer. And this doesn’t look good…”

“Have you no Healer’s Kit? One would think, constant vigilance would dictate–”

“Minerva, for the types of wounds my men suffer on the job, a Healer’s Kit would do about as good as pumpkin juice. Just stem the bleeding. Three more minutes until Albus is here, and he’s sure to bring an army of healers.”

Moira coughed, and a light mist of blood sprayed from her mouth, and trickled down the corner of her cheek. She spoke, weakly. “Why didn’t YOU bring a Healer’s Kit, Minerva?”

Minerva froze, until she saw the small hint of a smile on Moira’s face. “I…” Minerva had been fighting the war for long enough to know how this was going to end. But she needed to be strong. She needed to quip. “I… I assumed that your unflappable sense of self-importance would be enough to protect you from any harm the Dark Lord might have thrown at you.”

“I AM important… You should have been more prepared…” Despite the pain, Moira grinned. Moody was respectfully giving them their distance. Minerva choked out a sob, but still smiled, which prompted Moira to laugh, softly. Minerva laughed too, as best as she could.

Laughter. Cold, dark, hissing laughter, mingled with a mad, manic cackle. That horrible laughter, that mockery, was Voldemort and Bellatrix’s parting gift, and it reverberated throughout the ruins of Sontag. They would not even allow her one final laugh to share with her sister, they took even that from her.

The laughter ceased only when Moira McGonagall’s eyes closed for the last time.

---

May, 1999
Hogwarts

There was no hope. Cissy was ashamed of what Bella had become. But the shame, it was just an act. It had to be. And, if the Dark Lord were to rise again, Cissy could stop the act, remove the mask. Cissy and Bella could be sisters again. Cissy didn’t need Bella’s protection anymore. A new Lord Malfoy protected her, who was in turn protected by the dark reflection of the Dark Lord, who was in turn protected by the true Dark Lord. There was hope.

Until today.

That man, that ancient man, had burned into her mind and she saw the truth, the horrifying, final, inexorable truth. The Dark Lord was gone. The mask would stay on forever. Cissy and Bella were no more. There was nothing left. Nothing to strive for. Nothing left but combat.

She felt no pleasure, or pain, or anything as she dueled with the boy. She fought without thinking. What was the point? She wore the mask, because why remove it? The mask protected her. The manic, mad smile. The cruel, nonsensical taunts that were as much a part of her combat technique as her curses. The singsong voice, the high pitched laugh, the insane ramblings, the horrible, soul-shredding curses. They protected her.

But the boy, he smashed mercilessly against her mask. With attack after attack, he was the waves and she was being battered upon the rocks. Battered, battered, battered through all of her protection. The mask cracked.

She was afraid.

And in one brief, tragic moment of clarity, she realized something terrible. She did not want to die. It didn’t have to be this way. Although she chose her path, the path of death, many years before, there was no law of the universe stating she had to continue down the path she had lay for herself. She could stop at any time, turn around, and walk back into the light. Back to Cissy.

As she desperately ducked the hundredth attack, and she shrieked with a voice full of fear, “Stop!”

And like a wrathful god, Neville Longbottom, a thousand feet tall and burning with brimstone, roared in return, “That’s what they said to you!  Avada Kedavra!”