A/N: THIS STORY IS A SEQUEL. There will be a short summary of the previous story in italics at the bottom of the page. I hope you enjoy the story.

Danse Macabre

Figures weave and spin in dance through a high arched room covered in mirrors to the music of a single fiddle and pipe. A tree, half gold, half black, towers over them dripping wax from ancient candles which sit on its twisted branches, burning with shadows.

Yesteryear's leaves carpet the floor swirling around the dancers in whirling eddies. The lady of the house is a tall, thin woman with sharp blue eyes like pins and light, loose hair bound with a crown of feathers. She sits above it all on a burnished throne fingers twitching as if impatient to be about some business. The Lady nods to a maiden, who wears a dress of moonlight and clouds; the maiden curtsies before joining the dance. A gentleman in a ragged coat leads her to join the dance.

Light sparkles in the mirrors, and the dancers merge together. A man with skin covered in curling flames spins cheek to cheek with something robed in mist and shadow. The music rises, faster and faster. A lithe woman covered in downy iridescent plumage twirls backwards and forwards.

The wind whispers through the chamber. Darkness falls over the tree. The candles burn high, filling the hall with shadows. The mirrors ripple and through one steps a figure dressed in monkish robes. His head is bare, his hands are folded behind his back.

The lady of the house rises and bows, 'Welcome. Join us.'

'I dance only once dance.'

The Lady claps her hands, the music changes.

Summary of To Play the Devil

Harry lost the second war. He was unable to destroy the horcrux within himself as Snape had died at the Battle of Seven Potters and left no information on the course events were supposed to take. Instead Harry cut a deal with Voldemort, unbeknownst to his friends. Harry made an unbreakable vow with Voldemort which restricted their actions against one another and prevented Voldemort from seeking to conqueror or destroy (en masse) those outside wizarding Britain's borders. For his part Harry was unable to seek a way to destroy Voldemort and, preserved as a horcrux, was doomed to live on unaging now that he had reached maturity.

Voldemort was left with a kingdom to rule and immortality. The resistance fled into exile and Harry hid himself from friends and enemies alike. As time passed Voldemort's old followers slowly died and he was left without support for a stagnant regime, and without the will to maintain a country he had lost interest in.

By the middle of the twenty-second century Voldemort had been reduced to a political figurehead, though he still wielded great personal power. The elderly Draco Malfoy was head of an aggressively expansionist wizarding Britain and was fostering the ill-feeling between France and Britain to bring about a war between the two. As part of a plan to separate France from potential allies in Germany and destroy them. if possible, he persuaded Voldemort (and forced Harry) to undertake a mission to help the ruler of the principality of Stuttgart. The mission was a trap. Malfoy intended that his allies in Germany should use Harry and Voldemort as sacrifices to open a Hell-gate and unleash a daemonic host upon the city of Stuttgart and then all of central Europe whilst he and his goblin allies crushed the French in a pincer movement.

Malfoy's plans were foiled, largely by chance. Harry and Voldemort were sent on a suicide mission to kill Malfoy in exchange for a variety of promises. They in turn planned to use the opportunity to fake their own deaths and gain access to the Veil in the Department of Mysteries, which Voldemort had discovered could be manipulated to enable inter-dimensional travel. After eliminating Malfoy they put the plan into action and escaped through the Veil …