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"One may live as a conqueror, a king, or a magistrate; but he must die as a man."

Chapter Seven – This Isn't My First Time

"I will enjoy this," Grindelwald said simply.

Harry closed his eyes for a moment, and took a deep breath, before moving his arm enough to have his wand drop into his hand. In the next second he opened his eyes, raised his wand, and howled a spell.

A bright silver flash of light erupted out of the end of his wand, and the duel was on.

XxXx

Grindelwald barely raised his wand, firing precisely the same spell Harry had cast right back at him – a silver curse designed to turn ribs to dust. The spells collided in mid air scant feet from the four men, with Grindelwald's effortlessly blowing Harry's into sparks and rocketing forward to hit the surprised Boy-Who-Lived in the chest.

Harry grunted in pain, flying backwards over a table, sending various desserts and cutlery flying in all directions. He landed hard on his side, thankful for the weak shield he had managed to raise to block the worst of Grindelwald's spell – the curse had still hit like a tank, however. He rolled to the side to avoid a follow-up curse which bisected the table he had fallen over, and scrambled to his feet, Banishing a chair in Grindelwald's direction – the Dark Lord merely batted it aside with an open hand.

Crouch Jr. and the Unspeakable, meanwhile, had begun a less flashy but no less deadly duel – they were sending spells at each other, moving towards the other side of the room. The Unspeakable was no master duellist, but he seemed to be able to hold his own nicely.

"Hurespex!" Harry spat, whipping his wand to the left, and then to the right, before thrusting forward and sending a torrent of acidic globules forward in a deadly spray towards the Germanic Dark Lord; Grindelwald smiled a lazy smile and waved a hand to bat the acid aside, before casually disintegrating a pair of chairs Harry had Banished at him. He replied with a pair of powerful spells which Harry blocked with relative ease – he was, however, detecting that he was horribly outclassed.

He had stood up to Voldemort, and killed him in the storm-lashed grounds of Hogwarts, essentially with his bare hands. But that nasty little voice at the back of his mind - whispering insidiously as he deflected a trio of curses and replied with one of his own, diving over another food-laden table - was reminding him that he had probably only managed that because he was undead and so had massive advantages over his opponent who had also endured a duel with Dumbledore himself that fateful night.

"This is unimpressive," Grindelwald deadpanned as he blocked more of Harry's spellfire with a thick bottle-green shield. "I was lead to believe you had defeated Lord Voldemort in single combat. He must have been a mediocre wizard, at best."

Crouch and the Unspeakable had moved into their own half of the dining hall, most of the tables in their area blown apart or to the side of the room. It was unclear who had the upper hand – Crouch was firing more spells, but had been nicked and cut in more places than the Unspeakable.

"Sorry if I'm not impressing you," Harry shot back, firing off a Pulverising curse, before lashing out with a whip of flame which caused Grindelwald to step back slightly – one of the few movements he had done in the short duel. "But I'm somewhat out of practice and Polyjuice tends to throw me off a bit."

Grindelwald raised an eyebrow, before thrusting his long wand forward and shouting an incantation, causing ten nearby broken and battered tables to shudder, before launching towards Harry all at once. The Boy-Who-Lived merely crouched, before whispering a spell which coated his body in a silvery shield, rendering him impervious from harm as the various dining tables smote themselves upon his body, sending debris everywhere.

Harry then cancelled the spell, thrusting forward with a spell-chain; the last syllable of one spell flowing into the other. A quick barrage of nearly a dozen curses was hurled at Grindelwald in less than ten seconds, causing the man to pause slightly before hissing a complex countercurse, and forcing him to dodge to the side out of the way. Several of the colourful spells which had been knocked aside by the duellists had blown holes in the walls, and some of the portraits were now smouldering or outright burning, filling the high ceiling with black smoke.

"Harus, Yaskrey, Tulindis!" Harry continued, his wand flowing in ever more complex movements as he fired a crescent shaped arc of energy, followed by a series of small darts of light, followed again by a heavyset ball of lead which rocketed forward at almost the speed of sound. Grindelwald managed to bring up a shield which looked akin to a sheet of translucent blue glass, which absorbed the spells but was battered aside by the cannonball, which caught him in the gut and broke the quickly-conjured green shield he had managed to cast. For the first time he looked fazed – his eyes bulged and he staggered back, his free hand holding his stomach. The ball of lead should have, by all rights, probably bisected him, but this Dark Lord was made of stronger stuff.

Grindelwald replied with a scorching beam of blue electrical energy from his wand, which Harry grabbed, muttering a spell to protect his hand with a golden sheen, and yanked hard like a rope, knocking the Dark Lord off balance and causing him to burn his cream robes with the rope of electricity. The man was quick, however, and cancelled the spell, sending Harry stumbling.

Harry swore in anger, throwing himself over a broken chair as Grindelwald sent back some orange counterspells, and yelped in surprise as a vermillion spell from the duel between Crouch and the Unspeakable hissed past his face, almost scorching his flesh as he scrambled to his feet to turn back and face Grindelwald. All he saw, to his surprise, was a black-gloved fist come crashing down towards his nose, before there was a sickening crunch and Harry was sent staggering back, slipping on an abandoned plate of trifle and sent unceremoniously onto his arse – a fact which saved his life as a green Killing Curse rocketed forward where his head had been seconds ago.

Grindelwald, wasting no time, sent a second Killing Curse to where Harry was lying on his back, holding himself up on one food-stained elbow and trying to see through the pain of what was possibly a broken nose. The time-traveller managed to hurl himself aside, the Curse blowing a not-inconsiderable sized hole in the carpet, and roll to his feet, whispering a healing charm to relieve the pain in his nose. He parried another curse which would have taken his head off, and managed to reply with one of his own – Grindelwald was just too fast, however.

Holding his wand in both hands, the Germanic duellist pointed it at Harry's head, before spitting a spell in German. An invisible wind whipped up, bodily picking Harry up as though using a massive hand of air, and hurling him across the wrecked and burning dining hall to land, extremely hard, in a pile of debris from the duel between Crouch and the Unspeakable. With another contemptuous wave of his wand, Grindelwald launched a further three tables, food and cutlery along with them, to slam into the Boy-Who-Lived, burying him in a pile of wood and mess, with the fires on the wall tapestries and paintings creeping closer to the wooden mound.

With a decidedly wicked smile, he stroked his beard and turned to observe the battle between Crouch and the Unspeakable, which was going decidedly in Crouch Jr.'s favour.

XxXx

"Why the fuck can't we get into the fucking house, Wethers? Are you honestly taking the piss?" Robards half shouted at the thin bespectacled pencil-pusher who was standing in front of him. As soon as Grindelwald had begun to duel Harry he had activated a spell Crouch Jr. had laid when they had entered the property, which had reversed the Arithmancy in the wards, unceremoniously ejecting everyone in the place and protecting the house from their re-entry.

"I honestly can't say, sir, whoever attacked the Minister and poisoned him did something to the wards. They're reading us as the enemy." Wethers replied, looking concerned at his superior's outburst.

Robards let out a wordless growl of anger, his temper getting the better of him as he viciously kicked a daisy and turned on his heel to stride across the lawn to where the majority of the guests who hadn't already fled were gathered. Dumbledore was standing unsteadily at the head of the group, talking to some of the Aurors – everyone injured and a great majority of people who had collapsed simultaneously from some sort of magically-activated poison had been taken to St. Mungos. The entire situation, barely ten minutes old, was a mess. Robards took several deep breaths as he approached them, calming himself down. It wouldn't do to look out of control in front of everyone.

Night had fallen on the mansion and its modest grounds, and it was getting a bit chilly, it not quite being summer yet. The dining hall was in the heart of the house, but the crashes and bangs of some sort of duel occurring within were clearly audible.

Bones had said something about a Lancaster fellow engaging the person who had tried to kill the Minister – people claimed it was Grindelwald, but Robards was too wise to fall for that – clearly someone using a glamour. A common trick. Most people had come to the conclusion it was a simple assassination rather than a Dark Lord risen from the dead.

The Aurors who had been ejected from the premises signalled to Robards from where they were talking to Dumbledore – they were ready to try rebreaching the wards.

"Headmaster Dumbledore," Robards said as he approached the venerable Headmaster, ignoring the whispers and gossip of the various remaining guests who were standing on the dewy lawn, "They said this Lancaster was trying to engage the assassin. What do you know of him?"

Dumbledore looked wearied – he had apparently been laid out by a spell to the gut, but seemed to be able to hold himself well enough. Robards was mildly struck by how old he looked – as any student of Hogwarts could attest, Dumbledore was basically ageless and mystical. It was a bit of a crisis of faith to have that illusion shattered.

"I feel," the Headmaster replied vaguely, "that master Lancaster can hold himself well enough against whoever is inside that house." He blinked in surprise as a massive crash echoed from within the house. "I feel that it is probably not Gellert, but someone wearing his visage. I feel I can attest that it is certainly not Gellert, in fact," he said firmly, and Robards nodded. Dumbledore, of all people, would know. He looked away, missing the look of concern in Dumbledore's eyes, and addressed the Aurors.

"We know the attacker is still in there, fighting an Unspeakable and this Lancaster fellow. We know they can't escape – only Portkeys work and they'll redirect to the enlarged shed over there," he gestured to where everyone had ended up, a small nondescript wooden shed internally enlarged to the size of a large Quidditch pitch. "This is the Minister's party, and we've all cocked this one up."

Dumbledore coughed gently behind him, as though in quiet agreement, but the Headmaster looked the school of innocence when Robards shot him a look.

Without further ado, the Aurors stormed in formation up the lawn towards the front of the house, and began to cast chains of ward breaking and disabling spells in concert. To the assembled crowds it was a brilliant display of deft and colourful spellwork – to Dumbledore it was a clear exercise in futility. Whoever had tried to kill the Minister – it couldn't possibly be Gellert, he thought to himself, as he tried to stamp down the logic in his mind which was trying to join the dots of his missing journals and the kidnapped children – had done a superb job in reversing the well-prepared and strengthened wards.

He just hoped Harry would be able to hold out inside.

XxXx

"You're a bit... shit at this whole hero thing recently, Harry,"

Harry groaned, rolling over and spitting out blood and what he seriously suspected was his right canine and one of his front teeth. He'd bitten his tongue, and it felt raw and sore in his mouth. The rest of his body was an orchestra of various pains, and he reckoned his ankle was broken. Even more disconcertingly, he tried to lie flat on the ground and found something propping him up – something which hurt like being kicked in the balls by Hagrid.

He opened his eyes, looking down at his body. A huge splinter of wood was wedged under his ribs, his left hand was a broken claw, and he was absolutely covered in blood. The Polyjuice seemed to have worn off.

With an internal sigh he noticed he was back in the white vista he often inhabited when his fractured mind had sustained serious trauma, such as being hurled into a wall at forty miles an hour by an angry German, and then having several items of furniture broken on his head.

He tried to speak, but only coughed up more blood and phlegm, splattering it down his chin.

"Not good, mate," he heard Ron say from somewhere behind him, and he slowly turned his head, hissing in pain. Ron was sitting, leaning back on a chair, smoking a cigarette and looking nonchalant as he scratched one of his facial scars and the stubble on his chin. He took a drag.

"Healing spe-" he faltered, and Harry's vision went dark for a moment, before everything reappeared, Ron now crouching next to him and looking very concerned, his face very close to Harry's.

"Wake up. Healing spells. That splinter is in your fucking lung, Harry. Healing spel-" Harry's vision darkened again, for slightly longer. The whiteness flickered back, and he saw the briefest instant of Ron's booted foot descending on his face.

XxXx

Ivan Edmunds was in serious, serious trouble.

More trouble than he'd ever been in in his life, and that was saying something for an Unspeakable studying the Veil.

He was staring down the end of two wands, both held by people he never thought he'd ever meet, let alone be brutally tortured and killed by. His own wand was clutched in the grasp of a triumphant looking Barty Crouch Jr., whom Ivan had only ever seen in newspaper clippings about the Longbottoms.

The other was some freak pretending to be Grindelwald. He'd fought that stranger, Lancaster, who had put up a good fight, but had launched him to the other side of the room and probably killed him. Grindelwald was currently twirling Lancaster's wand in his free hand.

"So." Crouch said, licking his lips. "We need someone to deliver a message."

Grindelwald shook his head, motioning with the stolen wand for Crouch to be quiet. The German observed the rather terrified looking Unspeakable with inscrutable blue eyes.

"Are you afraid of me?" he asked, quietly.

Ivan shook his head, inside trying desperately not to shake with fear. He was not a bad duellist, and he'd messed up Crouch's flank with a decent cutting curse, but he was no Auror. He hadn't even been there when the Ministry had been attacked.

"Liar," Grindelwald said quietly, flicking his wand absently and shattering Ivan's knee. The Unspeakable's mind filled with red hot pain as he howled in agony, falling onto the injured knee and nearly passing out from the resulting shock. Whimpering, he knelt on his good knee and looked up at the two men, his vision blurred with tears.

He hadn't expected to die like this, in his finest dress robes at the Minister of Magic's birthday party. Then again, he hadn't expected to meet two men supposed to dead, either.

He looked down at the floor, unable to meet Grindelwald's mocking gaze, and waited for the inevitable.

XxXx

Harry coughed, spluttered, and brought up blood, clogging his throat and causing him to panic and spasm under the pitch-black debris he was pinned down by. He flailed, causing a spike of pain from his broken left hand, and scrabbled at his throat with his free right hand, desperately thinking a medical spell to try to unclog his airways. After a beat, the spell took hold, forcing the congealed mass of blood, some teeth and phlegm to shoot out of his mouth and splatter over his face, which was wedged against some wood at an uncomfortable angle.

Messy, but he could vaguely breathe. One breath, two breaths. He then realised he was getting basically no oxygen, as one of his lungs had a massive spike of wood wedged into it, which was depriving oxygen to his brain and causing him to make lethally detached observations like the one he currently was making, rather than doing anything about it.

A second, barely held together, spell, and the wood painfully shot out of his body, causing him to sob in pain and tears to leak from his eyes, which were stinging from dust. It hurt a lot.

A third spell repaired the lung – a makeshift remedy, but one which had served him in battle before, back in the previous timeline.

Now he could think slightly more clearly, albeit still in extreme pain and with a feeling like he was drunk. He was trapped under the remains of several heavy tables and chairs, although thankfully he was in no immediate danger of dying from his injuries – just from the Dark Lord standing probably not too far away. He didn't have his wand, and his left hand was broken, not to mention several ribs and probably his ankle.

He categorised his injuries, then seriously considered just passing out and hoping Dumbledore came to the rescue.

This sounded like a good idea, in all honesty. He could just sleep for a bit.

A horrible crack and an anguished howl of pain filtered through the wood which was on top of him and into Harry's ears. The cry of an Unspeakable who had fought by his side.

"Go on, mate," he heard Ron whisper in his ear.

"Ah, for fucks sake," Harry whispered to no one in particular through ruined lips, feeling anger bubble up from his battered stomach, filling his extremities with energy and vigour, summoning his magic around him until it heated up his beaten body and made him feel like he'd just snorted Pepper-Up potion. He ignored the pain in his left hand, ignored the pain from his ankle, ignored the pain coursing through his body with every breath.

Harry Potter inhaled.

XxXx

"Pathetic," Grindelwald spat, aiming his wand at the crown of the whimpering Unspeakable. "Albus always favoured the weak."

He opened his mouth, beginning to form the first syllable of the Killing Curse, before a piece of table slammed into his back, sending him staggering, but not quite knocking him over. He cursed in German and turned, leaving Crouch to keep an eye on the Unspeakable, who had fallen onto all fours and looked close to passing out from the pain from his shattered knee.

Harry Potter, Polyjuice removed, was standing amid the debris, his hands outstretched and magical fire coating his body, scorching and burning the wooden remains of the tables. Fire was now burning merrily around the dining hall, turning the air slightly grey with the smoke, and the ceiling was essentially invisible with the amount of smog which had collected.

As Grindelwald watched, Harry reset all the bones in his left hand, clicked his ankle back into place, and pushed a rib which had poked through the skin back into his slot, wincing with pain. He still looked a godawful mess – his robes were ruined, and his hair was matted with blood, not to mention his face. He was missing a few teeth, his lips were smashed and raw, and he had a cut down his left cheek. His scar stood out clear against his dusty face. He looked dangerously calm.

"Sorry about that," Harry said hoarsely, clicking the fingers in his recently-repaired hand, causing his robes to transfigure into flawless white, and a black featureless mask to appear in his empty right hand, which was encased in red fire. "I'm a bit... out of practice."

He placed the mask on his face with a flourish, and raised his hands. "You seem to have my wand, so I'll have to do this a bit differently."

"Now that is what I have heard stories of," Grindelwald said with gleaming eyes and a small smile on his face. "Impress me."

Harry snarled, and thrust both his hands forward, azure bolts of energy lashing out of them, only to be deflected into the walls by Grindelwald. The Boy-Who-Lived immediately followed up with a click of his burning fingers, summoning a ball of green fire which he hurled like a cricket ball at the Dark Lord, while simultaneously summoning a silver dagger into his left hand and throwing that as well. Not letting up, he then dived to the side out of the smouldering table fragments he was standing in and fired two more darts of light at Grindelwald, the magical aura turning him into a crimson blur.

As Grindelwald replied with a summoned whirlwind of fire, Harry couldn't help but think Dumbledore couldn't get there fast enough.

XxXx

"Sir, fire," an Auror said, pointing to one of the upstairs windows. Robards looked up, seeing ugly black smoke coming from a window which was connected to a room above the dining hall, where the duels were occurring.

"How close are we to breaking in?" he asked, looking along his line of Aurors, who were all slowly dismantling the complex ward net which had been placed over the mansion by the Ministry itself. Bright flashes of lights and sounds of varying volume echoed across the lawn – there were still a good group of bystanders, although no one new had joined in the few minutes they had been trying – the Ministry had been alerted, but with the Minister evacuated to St. Mungos (still no news of the poisoned peoples' condition) there was no immediate cause for alarm – after all, Dumbledore and a few dozen Aurors were already there.

"We're making headway, sir," another Auror chimed in – a young woman who was currently biting her lip as she flicked her wand at a window, casting golden sparks at it and causing steam to gush from her wand. "Problem is, the Arithmancy is totally turned against us – none of the back doors we put into the spellwork are working. Whoever did this has serious power."

Dumbledore, standing behind the Aurors and examining the wards with a spell, frowned. He was having second thoughts about his hope that this was a man wearing Grindelwald's face – coming to any sort of solid conclusion at a time like this was difficult, however. He scrutinised the glowing ball of multicoloured light in his hand, muttering under his breath at some calculations most couldn't fathom.

"I feel I have determined a course of action," the Headmaster announced, his eyes twinkling briefly at the looks of visible relief on the faces of the Aurors and Robards – if Dumbledore had an idea, then their job was probably about to get a lot easier. Two Aurors currently casting spells at the main front door stood aside, letting the Headmaster through. Dumbledore paused, very gingerly laying a hand on the wooden doors, before beginning to mutter a spell.

Robards gritted his teeth, ordering the Aurors to redouble their efforts to help Dumbledore, and some others to go and control the crowd of guests, who were growing restless at the growing smoke issuing from the windows.

It was going to be close.

XxXx

Wandless magic.

Harry liked to flatter himself that he was pretty damn good at wandless magic. He certainly had been better than Ron when they had fought for their lives for five horrible years, and he had kept his hand in, as it were, during his stint as the Phoenix. He could do a lot of spells wandlessly as effectively as with a wand, but most of the Unforgivables and high class destructive spellwork was tricky, if not impossible.

Ordinarily having to fight without a wand would, therefore, not be a problem. Of course, 'ordinarily', Harry would not be manifesting magical fire, fighting in a room which was on fire and trying to avoid being set on fire by a crazed reborn German Dark Lord who could probably have killed Voldemort. And all this having had the stuffing knocked out of him by the aforementioned Dark Lord just minutes before. And the Dark Lord had two wands, one of which was Harry's own.

That said, they didn't call him the Boy-Who-Lived for nothing.

XxXx

"Argentum Telum!" Harry shouted, shooting a silver arrow out of his palm while flicking his other hand to raise up a jagged spar of broken table to intercept Grindelwald's incoming orange curse. He coughed, wandlessly casting a charm to clear his airways and vision of the now-thick grey smoke which had filled the burning dining hall. Flames coated the walls and many bits of furniture were now freely burning; the temperature was reaching intolerable levels.

The blue bands on the doors were still present, however, making escape currently impossible. Crouch had Portkeyed away on Grindelwald's order when Harry had reappeared, using some sort of spell to bypass the wards, leaving the now-unconscious Unspeakable lying face down, dangerously close to the fires which were consuming the building.

Grindelwald spat a spell, touching the tips of both wands in his hands together, sending a molten beam of sickly red light which thundered forward towards a surprised Harry – he was unaware of spells involving two wands. The Boy-Who-Lived crossed his arms over his chest, before flinging them out in a star shape, conjuring a sphere of frigid clear liquid around himself which instantly turned to steam as the beam touched it. Harry yelled with the effort of maintaining the water barrier, before finally cancelling the spell and hurling himself to one side, knocking himself against a broken chair and hitting his head painfully on the floor.

He rolled again, hissing in pain as his foot went into a bit of fire, to avoid two more piercing curses from Grindelwald, before forcing himself to his feet, his mask slipping off his face to reveal a bloodied and grim face.

He pointed his aura-wreathed hands out, fingers spread and pointing at Grindelwald, and almost sang a spell, an intricate string of five words which caused the tips of his hands to glow with silver light, before a spray of infinitesimally small pellets of light shot out of all eight fingers, flying towards the Dark Lord in a thick cloud of dazzling magic. Grindelwald frowned, conjuring up a translucent azure sphere as a shield with both wands, before wincing in pain as the silver motes shredded it with ease and scored thousands of tiny cuts in the flesh of his face and chest. He swore in German, and Harry pressed his advantage.

Stepping over an abandoned apple pie, he clapped his hands, unleashing a wave of sonic energy which dazed Grindelwald slightly, before the German shook it off and replied with a wicked pair of Killing curses from his wands. Harry sidestepped them both nimbly, replying with a double handed Blasting curse, which thundered forward, distorting the air as it went. Grindelwald effortlessly parried the spell, only to have to hurriedly duck to avoid a second one. Harry had nearly closed the gap between the two, magical fire still playing over his body, albeit weaker – the effect empowered his spells but was hard to maintain.

"This better?" he questioned, running his tongue over the gaps where some of his teeth used to be as he used both hands to catch and crush a ball of electricity Grindelwald had fired at his approaching enemy. The battle was getting more ferocious as Harry got within scant feet of his enemy – a blur of wandwork and deft hands pushing, grabbing and flicking spells away – it was as though they were connected by a multicoloured rope of light. All around them the room began to crumble and give way, bits of the ceiling falling on fire to smash into the smouldering carpet. Thick smoke choked the ceiling and escaped through holes to the other floors, and the temperature was causing both combatants to sweat profusely.

Grindelwald spat something in German before throwing both of the wands aside and launching himself forward to close the final gap, bringing a fist up to Harry's jaw. Harry was quick and blocked the strike, but soon instantly regretted his overconfidence in besting Grindelwald in hand to hand combat – he was clearly better than Voldemort had been. Within seconds Harry was seeing stars as the Dark Lord kneed him in the thigh and struck him open handed in the temple, before driving his fingers into the Boy-Who-Lived's throat; the shock of the impact dissipated Harry's magical aura and caused him to stagger back, gagging.

Grindelwald pressed the advantage, delivering two swift strikes to Harry's jaw, before punching him in the chest with a magically-assisted strike, sending Harry sprawling backwards onto a burning table, with an ominous crack of ribs. The Boy-Who-Lived howled in pain, rolling off of the scorching wood, and struggled to breathe as Grindelwald summoned his own wand back into his hand, levelling it at Harry, who was prone.

"Not particularly impressed," the Dark Lord sneered, his accent becoming thicker from the exertion of the duel. He opened his mouth to verbalise a spell, before suddenly his eyes widened and he swore viciously in German, his limbs seemingly seized by some unknown force. Shouting a curse he tried to fire off a spell at Harry – a nasty spell which would constrict his heart until it ruptured – but missed, the blood-red bolt of magic striking wide. With one last hate-filled look at Harry, Grindelwald was seized by the magic of the wards and forcibly Apparated out of the room, whereupon he would almost certainly Apparate out of the holding area, or use a Portkey to safety.

Harry rolled onto his back, finding himself lying next to the unknown Unspeakable, who was pale and breathing only intermittently. He snapped his fingers weakly, summoning his wand to himself, and tried to ignore the now intolerable heat which battered his senses. Weakly casting a flame-retardant spell on himself and the Unspeakable, he felt his chest, wincing at the fact it was now slightly concave, and there was a lot of blood on his white robes – it seemed a rib had pierced his skin, and the magical spell on his lung was beginning to fail under the stress.

There was a lot of pain.

It hit Harry like a sledgehammer to the forehead, as the last of the magical energy he had been forcing through his body faded, and everything returned to how it should be.

"Hold on, mate," he heard Ron whisper in his ear, as Harry Potter faded into unconsciousness in the burning wreck of the dining room.