Early the next morning, Harry sat in the privacy of his trunk, and thought.

To-do list:

1. Save every sapient being in the universe.

2. Resurrect all dead sapient beings in the universe.

He had wanted a challenge. He had wanted to be significant. He had no real right to complain.

Right. What do I have to get done right now?

Dumbledore had wanted to discuss more with him, if he had nothing better to do.

List of things to ask Dumbledore:

1. How are spells really made?

2. How does magical power work? Why aren't I as powerful as Voldemort was?

3. Where does magic come from?

He needed to contact Professor Quirrell, as soon as possible. They needed the Stone. Harry reached for his wand-

"Hello again, Mr. Potter."

Harry spun around, almost falling off his chair.

Professor Quirrell was not leaning against a wall, as had once been his custom: he was standing solidly, and there seemed to be more to him than there had been before - like he was more real, somehow.

The sense of doom was gone, the prophecy fulfilled.

"That was quick," Harry said, recovering. "And most people would have knocked."

Idiot, Harry chastised himself. He'd just resolved to be more sensible, and he hadn't taken any precautions against, say, Professor Quirrell deciding it might be a good idea to kill the prophesied end of the world.

It wouldn't be easy for Professor Quirrell to kill Harry. Harry's fingers rested casually on his wand. Quirrell might try something to circumvent the Horcrux system, but if he did, Harry would Transfigure enough antimatter inside his own skull to kill himself instantly (he'd calculated the amount required long ago, of course. Be prepared.)

The fact that Harry was still there was evidence enough that Quirrell didn't want him dead, but just to be safe...

"Musst ssay ssomething cruccial," hissed Harry as quickly as he could. "Iss prophesssied for me to desstroy world, yess, but world iss inevitably doomed - alternative iss end of all life. Am only chancce to resscue people of world before all thingss end."

"I see," said Quirrell after a moment's pause. His wand hand gestured rapidly as he spoke, casting as many privacy spells as could be evoked within the castle Hogwarts.

"Am told original wordss of prophecccy, from one who heard it, can be helpful. Parsseltongue will not count, I think." Professor Quirrell cleared his throat. "He is here. The one who will tear apart the very stars in Heaven. He is here. He is the end of the world."

Harry shivered. There was nothing particular about the words themselves, but inside the calm, precise tones of that voice was a kind of elemental force.

"Now, how do you plan to sset about doing thiss?"

"Wass told yessterday."

"No excusse."

"Had jusst ssslain Dark Lord."

"Sstill no excusse".

Harry gave the closest Parseltongue could come to a long-suffering sigh. "'End of world' could ssimply refer to thiss..." Parseltongue had a word for "planet", but something told Harry that Salazar Slytherin had meant the little moving points of light in the sky, not what he'd been standing on... "planet, sso minimum neccesssary iss desstruction of two sstarss and one planet... could find ssome meanss of adapting great creation, presserving all thinking creaturess..."

"This," said Professor Quirrell slowly, in human speech, and the troubling thought occurred to Harry that the Defence Professor had just as little understanding as he did, "is challenging enough to be interesting."

"More knowledge neccesssary. Can you concceive, teacher, of ssome meanss of lifting interdict of anccient-wizard-chief?"

Professor Quirrell looked almost horrified. "Wass raissed for good reasson-"

"Am not ssstupid. Sshould be possible to usse knowledge sso gained to casst interdict once more, and better thiss time. If not, think acceptable rissk, to ssave world. Are there any known librariess, hoardss of ssecretss ssurviving but hidden by interdict?"

"The Twilit Archives," murmured Quirrell in human speech, "and perhaps a few more."

Harry smiled. Now we're getting somewhere.

"Sso. Breaking the Interdict?"

OoOoO

Albus Dumbledore was not all that elderly, as it happened. For all his years, both the natural and the Time-Turned, he was still a wizard. His body consisted under its own magic; he had access to such things as Healing Charms, should the need arise. In physical terms, he was in no worse condition than a middle-aged Muggle.

But it was times like this when he felt so, so old.

His feet pushed away the dark stone steps.

"Lumos," he murmured. It wasn't necessary. He could have lit that room without speaking a word, without touching a wand, but he had always taken some comfort from executing the precise techniques of spellcasting.

A small statue of Hermione Granger, wand raised and eyes set in her camouflage practice uniform, occupied the centre of the room. In its hand was her wand, almost unique amongst the wands in this room in that it was intact.

Hermione held a special position in this room, not because she had been closer or greater than any other, not because she had been young or innocent, but because she had been his student. Her parents had been promised that she would be safe at Hogwarts...

He'd come here on that awful day and wondered briefly if it might be the right thing to do to surrender Hogwarts. He had joined the ranks of those Headmasters under whom a pupil had died.

But that was no help to anyone, and so Albus had spoken to Hogwarts and raised this as a tribute to yet another he'd failed to save, made all the worse for the fact that she had been a first-year of Hogwarts, and a hero if ever there had been one.

Albus reached up and took Hermione's wand, and with a small gesture the statue receded back into the stone floor.

Albus shook himself slightly. The Ravenclaw within him had burned to ask Harry what had happened, how Hermione had survived after all, but the boy had been through enough.

No, Albus was here to celebrate another, one who would be missed by far fewer than had mourned Hermione, even after most of the country had been convinced she was a murderer.

Severus would not have wanted special recognition. The man had been convinced that the life he was risking was no life at all.

There were things Albus could have said, to help Severus, to free him. But there were other dangers in that. The Potions Master might not have been strong enough to understand, could have ended up broken even more. Looking around the room he was in, Albus knew quite well that he would not have freed Severus even if he had been sure.

He would make the announcement at dinner. He would tell the students the truth. They deserved that much. Severus deserved that much.

On a small black pedestal stood a framed photograph of a young Severus Snape with a rare smile, standing next to a laughing red-haired woman. Just in front of it lay a small urn of ashes, and a cracked and scorched wand.

The door closed soundlessly behind Albus Dumbledore.

OoOoO

Harry leant back in his reading chair.

Professor Quirrell didn't know a handy counter-spell to the Interdict of Merlin. There had been attempts to break through it throughout history, but nobody had ever succeeded, and Quirrell couldn't recall anyone trying to lift it completely.

He did hypothesise that the Interdict was tied to the Line of Merlin Unbroken.

Sadly, Professor Quirrell had told Harry, the Line was amongst the greatest artefacts known. There were seven things, Professor Quirrell said, that might endure the passage of time indefinitely, resist any material force, withstand even Fiendfyre: the Mirror, the Hallows, the Hall, the Line, and of course the Philosopher's Stone.

That brought Harry to the next point. "Ah," he said. Mess this up, and people keep dying. "About the Stone..."

There was a long, calculating look. Harry wasn't sure if he was imagining it, but he thought he saw the man smirk.

If you value human life, if you care at all about other people, please...

"Tell me," Quirrell said neutrally, "what would you do first, if I handed you the Stone at this moment?"

Not have to get Dumbledore and half the Order to steal it from you, thought Harry. "Set up a hospital. Portkey people in, Transfigure them, touch them with the Stone. We could punish the worst criminals by having them bind Unbreakable Vows, or use them for security and healing. Begin dismantling the-"

Harry clamped his mouth shut. Begin dismantling the Statute of Secrecy.

For once, Harry had actually managed to think before speaking.

Harry had used his knowledge of science to his advantage, doing things no other first-year could. But he was far from unique. How many Muggle children had heard of antimatter? How many happened to be friends with a wizard child? What if some idiot science enthusiast who didn't understand how big c^2 was thought it would be fun to get his wizard neighbour to Conjure some neutronium/antineutronium, and the wizard humoured him and cast the spell...

Wizards and witches hid magical lore for the sake of safety, but that wasn't what they ought to worry about.

"Begin healing Muggles in secret. Heal dementia in its early stages, cancer before it's diagnosed. Fake the invention of highly-effective but rare treatments..."

"All very ambitious, yes. But what would you do now? The very first change you could make?"

Oh.

Harry's heart started racing.

A Patronus was not effective against Dementors without its caster close by. But touch it with the Stone...

That wasn't all. The harm could be reversed with the Stone. Harry could make it all as though it had never happened. That woman might remember her children's faces again.

Harry's wand was halfway raised when the Defence Professor shook his head. "Again, you must continue thinking. A phoenix came to you when you wished to destroy Azkaban, and it might yet come to another."

"You mean-"

"You are too valuable to risk on any phoenix's venture. But phoenixes are powerfully magical. It is not inconceivable that there is something you and she might learn, students both of Muggle arts, from a phoenix. Dumbledore will not gladly surrender Fawkes."

Quirrell's tone sharpened. "He may mean well, but Dumbledore is still the man who told a young Tom Riddle not to meddle when he went down on his knees and begged to meet Nicholas Flamel."

Harry hesitated only a fraction of a second. He was not going to rush into another of Quirrell's plans without thinking. "It's not worth the risk to Hermione. It's not worth the extra time the prisoners have to suffer. And I'm pretty sure Dumbledore will-"

"Will hesitate and wring his hands and gently dissuade you from trying anything vaguely distasteful, for all that it might save us all. As for Miss Granger, it is only necessary that she think that she is risking her life. Send copies of your Patronus to her after she has left."

After a moment, Harry nodded.

OoOoO

Lucius had noticed immediately, that morning.

It had taken him a while to work out just what that feeling was.

The Dark Mark had left his arm and his mind and his magic, leaving smooth and unmarked skin, as though it had never been there at all.

This rather changed things.

OoOoO

Later, at dinner:

The Headmaster rose solemnly to his feet as the last of the food vanished.

When he spoke, his voice was far from its accustomed boom. It was not gentle, but old, sorrowful.

"Students, staff, I am afraid I must share with you the gravest news."

There were glances between students. The staff either knew already, or kept themselves composed.

Harry sat stiffly.

It could have been so much worse. Another few minutes, and Snape might have been joined by Dumbledore and McGonagall and Bones and Moody. And after that, who knew how many more...

Harry knew that the death of one person - two - was an unbelievably light price to pay for killing Lord Voldemort. He knew that Snape would have gone to that death willingly, if he had somehow known.

That didn't make it right.

"Professor Severus Snape," spoke Dumbledore carefully, "died last night."

That simple phrase seemed to burn in the crowded hall. No student breathed. First-years who, minutes previously, might have gleefully imagined the hated man's death, sat stunned by the simple force of the words.

"Make no mistake," continued Dumbledore, "Severus was not a flawless man. But he was our respected Potions Master, a most gifted wizard, and - far more importantly - a good friend to me."

The silence was absolute.

"The truth is sacred," continued Dumbledore, "and I will not lie to spare young ears. Severus Snape was killed by Lord Voldemort."

That broke the spell, and there was a moment of horrified whispering before Dumbledore raised a hand once more.

"The danger is past. Thanks in part to Severus' own actions, the Dark Lord can threaten nobody ever again. It is safe to tell you now that Severus was a spy for the Light for almost all his life. His unwavering dedication and unspeakable mental discipline saved many lives."

"Severus died in the act of defending myself, Amelia Bones, Alastor Moody and Minerva McGonagall. Severus had his own demons, but I ask you all to remember him as the man who overcame his background, his flaws and his circumstances, and lived and died ultimately for love. Thank you."

Dumbledore sat down again.

Harry stared hard at the grain of the table wood, trying to absorb himself in it, trying to forget his failure.

The students sat in sombre silence, saying little.

Tears shone on the faces of some of the Slytherins.

At the far end of the Slytherin table, Rhianne Felthorne sat with her head in her hands and sobbed. She couldn't quite remember... something, but it made her heart ache anyway.

OoOoO

Baba Yaga stood unsteadily in her living room, brandy clutched tightly in trembling fingers. Her boots were still on, her heavy cloak tattered and scorched about her. There was a kind of calmness there that bespoke only helplessness.

Without warning her control broke, and she wound up and threw the goblet with force nobody could muster without magical aid into the fire. With a sob, magic lashed out of her and tore the opposing wall free of the rest of the house.

It didn't help.

After a while, she calmed again. She drank, and tried to forget, or at least think of something else.

It didn't work.