Disclaimer - I don't own Harry Potter. I just own this story.

My thanks to White Angel of Auralon for how Horcruxes could be destroyed.

Please let me know what you think.

Halle Potter

Now, this is what I'm talking about! I haven't had a decent duel for a long time! Sirius yelled in delight mentally while he kept his usual devil-may-care smile on his face as he battled two Death Eaters at the same time, relying on his duelling training and magical mastery to keep up with the duo.

He was ecstatic at having the chance to really prove to the Order of the Phoenix after he'd spent the past year moping around his parents old house, and he hadn't really done anything beyond sitting around bored, eating and drinking enough to keep himself going while attending the pointless and useless meetings Dumbledore insisted was making a difference against the Death Eaters and their sick master.

The old fool had lost the plot if he honestly thought talking was going to make a difference.

Action was the only way to stop Voldemort, not words.

And now he was getting some action for the first time in years.

And fuck, didn't it feel great?

A part of him thought it was a mistake to battle two Death Eaters at the same time since they had been able to use their magic freely for the last decade without being hindered by years of being locked in a filthy prison cell in Azkaban, but he ignored the little voice. It wasn't difficult since he had regularly ignored his voice of reason over the years.

In any case, he was enjoying himself, but it wasn't long before he began to feel the effects of using so much of his magic in this one go, and he began to slow down.

The two Death Eaters he'd been fighting against for the last twenty minutes realised what was happening very quickly. "You seem to have run out of steam, eh Black?" one of them laughed.

"What's wrong, not had enough practice? Not like you, you used to be able to best one of us. Perhaps it's your magic's way of telling you that you're on the wrong side!" the other jeered cruelly.

Sirius ground his teeth angrily as he started to realise he had made a stupid mistake in duelling more than one Death Eater at the same time, but he had been so ecstatic at having the chance to really make a difference he had ignored his reasoning, and he had gone on the offensive. Now it looked like it would cost him.

Suddenly the two Death Eaters screamed in agony, and a cloud of wispy grey smoke was being drained from their bodies and was dissipating before Sirius's eyes.

Nearby, Kingsley who had been fighting off four Death Eaters and didn't seem to have broken a sweat once, backed away in shock when he saw the same thing happening to his Death Eaters.

Kingsley glanced at his fellow Order member in surprise. "What happened to them?" Sirius whispered, looking down at the six bodies in shock. The Death Eaters were writhing around, moaning in pain.

"I don't know, Sirius," Shacklebolt replied, lifting up his wand to perform a scan to get some answers. A soft green glow emerged from the tip as he scanned their bodies. Shacklebolt's eyes widened.

"No, that can't be right…," he whispered.

"Why?" Sirius asked, looking at his friend in confusion. "What's happened to them?"

"These readings make no sense," Kingsley whispered, looking at his wand as if he had never seen it before. He flicked his wand silently again to cast the same spell, but it came up with the same result. "It's true. Sirius, the Death Eaters…they have no magic anymore."

No magic?

Sirius almost couldn't believe it, so he pointed his own wand at the two Death Eaters he'd been fighting against to see if the same result happened. It wasn't that he didn't trust Shacklebolt, he did, but he wanted to see if it was true for his own readings. It was, and he looked down at the Death Eaters in surprise. He wasn't sure if he should laugh or weep with terror in case whatever had happened to them happened to him and the rest of the Order.

Losing their magic….Sirius simply could not work out anything more insulting for a Death Eater to endure, they believed their pureblood heritage gave them advantages and powers beyond anybody's comprehension, and now they lost it, they had lost their own rights. There was no way they would be able to get away with their crimes, especially since they couldn't use their age-old lies of being compelled or confounded. In any case, muggles and squibs had no rights in the magical world, although Sirius was not certain which category these Death Eaters fell into.

He almost laughed at the irony. For years the Death Eaters claimed muggles were the filthiest creatures on Earth, while they mocked and demeaned the squibs while offering "polite condolences" to the families of those who had squibs in them, while they sneered disdainfully at them. Sirius wondered how they would feel when they came to grips with what had happened to them, but he could not find it within himself to truly care what happened to them.

Sirius and Kingsley looked up as Remus and Tonks ran towards them; Sirius knew his friend well enough to see from the expression on the werewolf's face to know he was surprised for some reason but he wasn't completely taken by surprise.

"It's happened here as well?" Tonks asked, her metamorphic powers changing her hair into different dull colours, though Sirius had no idea what that meant, not with his cousin's flushed face and the way she looked slack jawed just looking down at their enemies.

"What, you mean this has happened throughout the Ministry?" Shacklebolt asked with equal surprise clear on his face.

"Looks like it, one minute I was fighting off three of them the next they were screaming in pain, and there was this weird mist swirling above them," Remus explained with a shake of his head as he tried to work out what had happened to all the Death Eaters, which had taken place at the same moment. "I scanned them, but they'd lost their magic."

"Yeah, the same thing happened to us," Sirius nodded at his old friend, but he shook his head. "I don't get it. How did this happen?"

Tonks was about to open her mouth to say something when the bright light of an approaching phoenix patronus came flying towards them.

"Voldemort's….dead!" An eternal form of Dumbledore's voice emerged from the patronus, and all of the Order members glanced at each other in shock, but they heard the disbelief in their leader's voice. "Fudge and Madam Bones are here, in the atrium. Get up here, and if Sirius is with you, come along. I have a feeling we can prove his innocence without any trouble."

The Order members looked at one another in surprise by the sudden turn of events, all of them wondering about the new dynamic and its potential outcomes. Tonks summed it up better. "What the fuck is going on?" she asked, but no-one had an answer for her.

XXX

A few minutes earlier….

XXX

Oh, Tom…I had hoped your long, boring exile had withered away some of your madness and made you a little bit more controlled. But, alas, you are still the same, petulant child you always were, Dumbledore thought to himself as he only just managed to bat away the curse Voldemort had snapped off in his direction, thankful that he shared the Dark Lord's intellectual approach to fighting duels, although he did still use high-powered curses, as well as low-powered household charms, and simple transfiguration spells which he chose thanks to his command of the mind arts.

Dumbledore used a similar approach to this particular duel, while at the same time he took note of every single spell Voldemort used against him, and making sure he kept ahead of the curve, relieved that although Voldemort had fifty years of magical knowledge and experience, he himself had a lot more magical control and experience to make his casting ability more creative.

He knew he had to maintain his concentration, knowing full well if he lost even a gram of it, Voldemort would get the upper hand. At the same time he had no intention of using high-powered spells or curses; while he was powerful and capable, Voldemort was not your usual opponent, and he knew if he slipped up then he would be defeated swiftly, although he had no idea if Voldemort would play with him, or just kill him outright.

As they fought against each other Dumbledore could not help but admire Voldemort's power, and he wondered if the younger wizard's power came from his Horcruxes.

He decided it made little difference.

"I am amazed, Dumbledore," Voldemort sneered, "how did you come to the Ministry so quickly?"

"I have my ways, Tom," Dumbledore replied airily, snapping another spell at Voldemort, who dispelled it quickly, only for Dumbledore to fire another two spells, only the last one Voldemort hadn't noticed.

"No, I'm serious. How did you get here, I doubt your precious Girl Who Lived had anything to do with it?" Voldemort smirked.

Dumbledore's face darkened a little. A look of disappointment crossed his features.

"Why so disappointed, Albus?" Voldemort asked in a tone Dumbledore would have taken to be curious and sympathetic if he wasn't already aware Tom Riddle had never been that way in his life.

"She is a disappointment," Dumbledore replied, hoping to throw his opponent off; if he could confuse Voldemort with false information, then he would underestimate her when they faced off in battle, believing that she was far more powerful than she was in actuality and as proficient with magic than she was, the same battle which would see Halle dead, and Voldemort weakened enough for him, Dumbledore, to deal with Voldemort once and for all.

In truth, Dumbledore was looking forward to that.

Halle Potter was, frankly, a disappointment.

Ever since the girl had arrived at Hogwarts, she had disappointed all of the staff at school, especially Minerva and Filius since they had found favourite students in James and Lily respectively with their proficiency in transfiguration and charms.

Even Remus had been disappointed with the girl since she wasn't interested in anything he taught.

Halle wasn't interested in her studies. She was more interested in her appearance, fashion, and boys. She wasn't interested in anything else. Alright, granted; the last year when the Tri-wizard tournament was taking place, Halle had surprised everyone when she arrived with perfect points in all but the third task, but that was more of a desire to live, really.

"She's hardly worth it, Tom."

Voldemort, to his surprise, laughed that same cold, high laugh he had perfected at some point around the year he had released the basilisk when he had been a prefect at Hogwarts. "Is that what you truly think, Dumbledore? Ah, it shows just how much you actually know about your students; she was lethal during our confrontation. Even I was taken by surprise, I had heard for years she was useless, and yet she was dangerous."

Dumbledore listened with surprise to the statement Voldemort had just given, and he only needed a few seconds to realise Voldemort was telling the truth. He knew the younger wizard well; when Riddle had discovered occlumency in his second year, he had been an open book, and it gave Dumbledore the means to know Riddle's terrible excuse for a mind, but he was also an expert on body language; occlumency was good for masking the mind, but that didn't stop body language from radiating information like a good library.

It never failed to amaze the elderly wizard that you could have a spoken conversation with someone, only to receive a completely different story from the individual's body language.

Out of the corner of his eye, Dumbledore noticed the atrium coming alive. He mentally despaired of the Ministry's current security procedures, in the past, the Aurors would have been here quickly, but ever since Fudge had taken control from Bagnold the disease which was complacency had atrophied the Ministry's timing in a manner Dumbledore had never liked.

He felt some satisfaction when he saw Fudge was in the front of the group, and although he couldn't really see the idiot Minister's expression, Dumbledore hoped Fudge was stunned. After a full year of acting like a fool, slandering two people, believing he was right, Dumbledore imagined the fool was in denial rather than accepting the possibility he had made a monumental mistake.

Dumbledore kept his attention wholly on Voldemort.

The Dark Lord was snickering, but then he stiffened and gasped in pain.

Bellatrix also choked and gasped in pain (Dumbledore was stunned to hear her voice, he had virtually forgotten the mad witch was there). "M-Master, what's happening?"

Voldemort was choking too much to answer her, and he gaped with horror and fear when he saw his hands starting to disintegrate into flakes of dust while a grey mist began to rise from his body, and there was a sickening sound as Voldemort's back went rigid, and more of the mist came out of what was left of his body.

Bellatrix let out a final scream as the mist left her own body before she fell to the ground, her breathing was shallow while Voldemort disintegrated into a pile of ash-like remains.

Dumbledore was rooted to the ground in shock at what he had just seen, by what had just happened. Ignoring the crowd behind him, Dumbledore walked towards the pile of ashes which had once been one of his biggest enemies, and he took out his wand to discern whether or not Voldemort was truly dead. For a good two minutes, he scanned the remains with the arcane spell he had read up about over the years. He stood up grimly, looking down at the remains thoughtfully.

There was not a drop of magic in the ashes. It was like it had all been drained. A theory was starting to blossom in Dumbledore's mind, and he walked over to Bellatrix, idly kicking her over onto her back while he scanned her body. He gasped in shock.

"Now see here, Dumbledore, what is going on? Is….he really back?" Fudge demanded as he blustered forward.

Dumbledore had no time to waste on Fudge. He lifted his wand and after mentally selecting the right words for the message, he silently casted the patronus charm, and sent the phoenix off to round up the rest of the Order fighting the Death Eaters. Only once it had left did he turn to look down at Fudge.

"Yes, Cornelius. That was Lord Voldemort. However, I am pretty sure he is dead, but I would like the expert help of the Unspeakables to get a second opinion," Dumbledore replied, more than willing to admit he was out of his depth with this latest twist of events.

Fudge looked around at the different faces hoping to find someone willing to tell him what to do, but he turned back to the old wizard. "But…he-," he began.

"Yes, Cornelius," Dumbledore's voice was full of annoyance. "You have hounded me and Halle Potter for the last year for no reason what so ever. You also sabotaged the education of Hogwarts by sending Dolores Umbridge, setting them back by years. I have just summoned the rest of the Order here to the atrium, now one of them is rather…notorious, but if you try anything, I will ensure you regret it."

Even as he said that, he wondered just how many shocks Fudge could take.