Humans have long held two conflicting beliefs.

Some believe in free will, the ability to determine one's own actions and in doing so, control one's life. The belief that they are the master of their own destiny, and their lives are their own to make the most of. There is no fate, because every man's action is his own.

Others believe in fate. Predetermined actions that people have no control over, and are simply left acting out a prewritten play on the stage of life, with no ability to alter the course of action they are made to take. There is no free will, because no man's choices are his own.

Many humans do not realize, free will and fate are not as exclusive of each other as they like to believe. Both groups are right, and both are wrong.

Fate is the final destination.

Free will is how much you choose to progress towards it.

But questions are left. What if one's fate is actually determined by their choices, and not their choices by their fate? What should happen if the destiny one resigns to; and that path they walk, only becomes fate due to their chosen actions?

And what if the information that causes the belief of a predetermined fate, is a lie?

--

Luna didn't ask.

It was a blessing in and of itself, for both Harry's sake as well as her own.

Things Luna Lovegood wondered about, she searched out the answers for. If they required her to ask something, then she was of the belief that it was therefore not yet meant for her to know, and she waited. Of all the things Luna wasn't, she was patient.

And because she didn't ask, Harry never had to be dishonest to her. He had yet to, and was firmly of the belief that he wouldn't even have to, as long as she stayed who she was. Because there were things he wouldn't tell her. He was capable of explaining things to her; Luna was quite intelligent, so he was sure she would understand anything 

he said. But he had no intention of telling her, or anyone for that matter, some things. Which is why Harry was glad for Luna Lovegood.

Luna didn't ask.

So Harry didn't lie.

--

Albus Dumbledore had been an old man. No one in the Wizarding world deluded themselves with the belief that that wasn't the case. A side effect of living for well over a century, was the accumulation of quite a vast amount of physical possessions.

The downside to that fact was, along with growing both in age and possessions, Albus Dumbledore, near his later days, also grew in distrust of those around him to keep secrets he told. The secrets of his old age were regarded the man not only as his property, but his burden to bear as long as he breathed.

But he didn't delude himself into believing that when he passed, what he called his personal "curse" would simply fade with him. And that curse was knowledge, knowledge of many things. And he would be doing a disservice to the world if he allowed knowledge to be lost. And in order to spare the world, he had to inconvenience a select few.

Which was why there was a large group of owls all leaving the Hogwarts ground carrying a variety of items, several headed to different directions. Knowledge had been Albus Dumbledore's curse, his knowledge of his impending death fueled everything he did his last week of existence, and one of those missions had been a time-delayed mass owl delivery, scheduled to be released after a certain amount of time from his demise.

His last hopes as far as those had been, was the hope that someone who received the information he gave, would take the weight of his previously held curse, and help Harry. And in doing so, help the world.

--

Severus Snape was many things, but he was not a man to sit idly by and waste his time. Even in his potion making, he had the tendency to have several going at once, so he had something going on at all times.

His time trapped within his own mind was no different.

Biding time and storing mental energy was a very foreign practice to him, and using that energy to attempt to erect some kind of mental shielding, or even using some mental energy to try and get out of his personal prison, refused to work for him. Either he would run out of energy while building his shield and therefore have it crumble, or he would become exhausted and fall unconscious while trying to escape from his mind, and end up back where he started upon awakening.

He soon realized that what he was trying, wasn't going to work.

His time to strike arose when he heard a voice he recognized quite well approaching him down the corridor. His cell door was slung open in a loud and overstated manner, and there in the doorway, stood Bellatrix.

"Good day, Half-Blood." She spat this, but on the same note, it seemed to come out almost teasingly. She walked around the edges of his sight radius, almost prancing around just too far from where he could see her. "My master has been teaching me many things, especially regaling how you had once been in the position I currently am." She stepped directly in front of him so he could see her, and leaned down as if talking to a small child. "You were his favorite once. But apparently, somehow, you ruined that, didn't you."

She stood and walked away from him, swaying her hips intent on drawing his eyes. But he was much beyond the weak draw of her slight hips in the all-concealing robes, and as such, didn't bother to turn his eyes to them.

"Something else he has been teaching me, is that little mind trick that got you stuck in this position. I'm interested in seeing for myself, what it is that you did that has made him treat your mind like a four-Knut whore. Is that alright with you, Severus my dear?" She paused as if suspecting an answer, which was impossible for Snape to give, so he didn't bother attempting to, as it would simply make him drool on his robes and make a groaning sound. And even in his destroyed state, Severus Snape refused to be that undignified.

It wasn't until Bellatrix had leaned forward, resting her hands on the cauterized wounds across the man's thighs, and begun searching for eye contact with him, that Severus was struck by inspiration.

Using all of the physical energy he had, he lifted his head, made eye contact, and immediately sent a weak push against her mind with the energy he had. Because of his weakness, he didn't have nearly the amount of strength required to ransack the woman's mind in much the way Voldemort had done to him. So he did the next best thing.

His push caused her to immediately attempt to expel him from her mind. And in doing so, she over-pursued, and he used this to drag her into his mind, and trap her there. Whereas, it took quite a bit of energy to push into someone else's mind, it took vastly less to trap someone else in your own once pulled there out of their own control.

And so that was how Voldemort found them. Snape in his usual vegetative state, and Bellatrix slumped over, he head in the man's lap, in quite the similar state, her body twitching every so often.

His scream of rage echoed throughout the room and down the corridor Bellatrix had skipped down happily not long before.

--

Ronald Weasley found himself very unhappily working his summer away in the backroom of his brothers' store, attempting to repair minimal collateral spell damage by hand, and placing fallen products back on the shelves in the eclectic order his identical brothers favored.

And he hated every moment of it.

He had been regaled with the tales of Harry Potter saving people in the Alley from the dangerous Bellatrix Lestrange and her contingent of Death Eaters, and he had been struck by an overwhelming feeling of uncertainty. On the one hand, his friends had lived and he was deeply relieved by that. He knew every time they went into a fight, he expected them not to come out of it alive and intact, and he was very thankful that the luck had stayed.

But on the other side, it was another widely publicized event in the war, and something that his friends had been party to, that he had missed out on by a short amount of time. He supposed in some way, he had achieved a level of safety they didn't have, and he had to take the good with the bad, the bad in his eyes being missing out on being seen as a true fighter in the war, as a hero. But the good being, he had missed any possibility 

of death on the same Alleyway-turned-battlefield that he had also wished he could have made his stand on.

He wasn't an idiot, and he wasn't heartless. He had seen the numbers released of people that were killed in the Alley before the battle turned in such a way that spellfire was redirected from those fleeing, toward Harry.

He knew it was Harry. Not Luna, not Hermione, Harry. As much as he hated how everything seemed to always be focused on Harry, he knew that it wasn't just the good. Ronald Weasley didn't delude himself to that extent in the least. Harry was the person most likely to have the worst shit in life happen to him, and often times, in public. It was one of the only things Ron didn't envy the other boy over.

He waged a war within his own mind over his natural instincts of jealousy toward Harry, and his rational mind saying he shouldn't envy Harry…he should pity him. Fate routinely seemed to keep Harry in extremes. When the universe liked him, it loved him. When it didn't like him so much, it hated him.

And despite it all, Ron couldn't stop a part of his mind from being just a little bit jealous. He had wished he had been able to be there for the fight. Make the front page. Cause his mother to cry tears of both happiness and worry upon seeing the article. Have the pride people had when speaking of Harry, directed at him.

Ron sighed to himself and went back to stocking up the backroom, hoping Harry stayed safe, and out of the news, until Ron could get in contact with him to be by his side, and watch his back.

--