Sydney, Australia

The Dark Mark on Lucius Malfoy's arm was hot-white with pain, and both his and Draco's minds here spinning, albeit in different directions. Draco pulled at the hem of his aunt's dress. "Aunt Bella... Mum... you heard him. You heard what he said, what was at stake."

Narcissa Malfoy was shaking her head desperately, "No. No, Lucius, please, don't go. I can't lose you again. I just can't. And Draco, too, oh Draco. He's so young, my baby..."

"My love, to ignore the call would be death, not just for me, but for all of you. Dumbledore is gone, there is nothing now to stand in the Dark Lord's way. My absence would not go unnoticed. But Draco, you... You cannot. You must not."

"Dad! You heard what Dumbledore said! 'The unlikely friend of the one marked by lightning?' And 'the gate thrown open by the one who is bound by the Dark Lord?' This isn't a coincidence and we can't just ignore it."

Bellatrix Black was nodding, sadly, as she removed the irregular, orange chunk of glass from her dress. "Wheels are in motion, Lucius. Wheels that rotate far above our heads. You are a Malfoy, you are cunning and wise, you can navigate the waters ahead. But this must be done."

She thrust the gem into Draco's hand which closed around it. He could feel some ineffable sense of power that was locked behind the sparkling facets of the gem's face, but he had no sense of what that power might mean or how to use it.

Lucius sighed. "Narcissa, I love you. I never stopped loving you these twelve long years. If I don't return-"

"Don't say that. Don't. Just don't. Just... return. Stay alive, my love. And you," she turned to Draco, "Keep your head down, don't act until you're absolutely sure of what must be done. Make me proud, son."

She planted a kiss on Draco's forehead, then another on Lucius' cheek, and watched with deep concern as father and son disapparated with a dull POP.

The Graveyard

Moments Before

Pinkie Pie's arms were outstretched, examining her sparkling nail polish, seemingly oblivious to the gossamer, shimmering dagger hovered in midair at her throat. "I tollllllld you!" she called out in a sing-song voice.

"Should have seen this one coming from a mile away," grumbled Applejack.

"I don't understand what is happening," Harry said. There was nothing else left. "Please explain to me."

The Dark Lord was now regarding Harry with a grim look. "Your intellect is not everything I hoped for, but it should suffice for this, Tom. Now answer me, why am I calling you Tom?"

Harry's mouth seemed to know the answer before his brain could manage to focus on the question. "Tom Riddle is your name. Our name. That's who Lord Voldemort is, or was, or - something."

Professor Quirrell nodded. "Better. You have already vanquished the Dark Lord, the one and only time that you will ever do so. I have already destroyed all but a remnant of Harry Potter, eliminating the difference between our spirits and enabling us to reside in the same world."

The Dark Lord was now regarding Harry with a grim look. "When girl-child died, wass in company of sschool'ss Sseer, heard prophecy sspoken that you would become force of vasst desstruction. You would become threat beyond imagination, beyond apocalypsse. That iss why I went to ssuch lengthss to undo my killing of girl-child, keep it undone."

"Are," what "are you sure," what.

"Dare not ssay sspecificss to you. Prophecy I heard of mysself led me to fulfill it. Have not forgotten that dissasster." Voldemort backed further away from Harry, red slitted eyes fixed upon the Boy-Who-Lived, gun unwavering in the left hand. "All thiss, all I have done, iss to ssmassh that desstiny at every point of intervention. If ssome fate makess me fail in what comess next, idiot-child of foretold desstruction, then you musst kill yoursself to ssave girl-child. Elsse all you claim to value diess by your own hand."

"Sir," Harry's voice went up an octave, "Sir," another octave, "I... listen, we both heard Dumbledore's warning, and we both know that he wasn't speaking to me. He spoke of 'tearing apart the stars in heaven', which isn't necessarily a bad thing."

"Ssilence, fool. Remain ssilent unlesss given leave by me to sspeak. Keep your wand pointed down and do not raisse it unlesss told. Elsse you die upon the sspot, and mark that I ssaid that in Parsseltongue."Voldemort reached into the altar again. "You are letting your foolish wishful thinking cloud your judgment, blinding you to the obvious conclusion you should have drawn ages ago. Dumbledore's warning was nothing more than confirmation that the path I have laid out for us is the correct one to guide us through the coming storm."

For a second Harry's mind couldn't process what he was seeing, and then he saw that Voldemort was holding a human arm, severed near the shoulder; it seemed too thin, that arm.

The Dark Lord pressed his wand to the flesh above the severed arm's elbow, and the fingers twitched, twitched like they were alive; by dim moonlight, Harry saw a darker mark appear on that flesh, just above the elbow.

Seconds later the first hooded figure appeared inside the graveyard with the popping sound of an Apparition. A moment after that came another pop, and then another.

The hooded figures wore silver skull masks, and moonlight fled from the robes beneath them.

"Master!" cried one of the black robes, the third to arrive. The voice was of peculiar timbre, from behind the silver skull mask. "Master - it has been so long - we had lost hope -"

"Silence!" shouted the high voice of the Dark Lord Voldemort. Every trace of Professor Quirrell was now gone from the too-tall figure. "Train your wand upon the Boy-Who-Lived, and watch him! Do not be distracted, not by anything! Stun him at once if he moves, if he begins to speak!"

More pops. Between graves, behind a tree, in all the shadowy spaces, more black robes were Apparating, all hooded and masked. Some of them voiced exclamations of joy, many of those sounding rather forced; others moved forwards as though to greet their Master. Voldemort gave them all the same instruction, except that some were commanded to Cruciate Harry Potter if he moved, others to restrain the Boy-Who-Lived if he moved, others told to fire hexes and curses, others told to cancel his magic.

Thirty-eight pops, Harry counted before the black robes and skull masks seemed to stop arriving. All of them were now holding their wands pointed at Harry, aligned in a semicircle before him, where they wouldn't get into each other's lines of fire.

Behind one of the masked, robed Death Eaters was a smaller figure, bathed in shadow, but it unmistakably was...

"Draco?!" Harry wheezed. Draco did not reply.

The Dark Lord surveyed the gathered masses with grim satisfaction. The gibbous moon riding higher in the cloudless sky, the stars and wash of the Milky Way visible in all their majesty within the darkness.

"Welcome, my Death Eaters," spoke Lord Voldemort's voice, smooth and high and terrible. "No, do not look at me, you fools! Eyes upon the Potter child! Ten years, it has been, ten years since we last met. Yet you answer my call as though it were yesterday..." The Dark Lord Voldemort came near to one hooded figure, tapped fingers upon the mask. "In a hastily Transfigured mockery of a Death Eater's true armor, with a childish Charm to distort your voice. Explain, Mr. White."

"Master," one of the robes said in a faltering voice distorted by his skull mask. "Master, please - I would never defy you, I am obedient as you see - but Master, I beg you, let me return, the better to serve you later - I came here in haste, forsaking - Master, with so many of us being gone, others will wonder, they will mark the absences, who has disappeared. Soon there shall be no alibi I can offer."

A cold high laugh. "Ah, Mr. White, the most delinquent of my servants. I have less need of you than I once did, Mr. White. In two days' time, the Death Eaters shall walk openly. My powers have increased, and I have just this day disposed of Dumbledore." More gasps of shock arose from the Death Eaters, Voldemort paid them no heed. "Tomorrow I shall slay Bones, Crouch, Moody, and Scrimgeour, if they have not fled. The rest of you shall go into the Ministry and the Wizengamot, and cast Imperius Curses as I direct you. We are finished waiting. By tomorrow's nightfall, I shall have declared myself Lord Ruler of Britain!"

Voldemort resumed pacing behind the black-robed figures. "I suppose you are also wondering what Harry Potter is doing here... Why he is a guest at my rebirthing party."

"I know, Master!" said one of the robes. "You mean to prove your power by killing him, in front of us all, to leave no doubt as to which of you is stronger! To show how your Killing Curse can slay even this so-called Boy-Who-Lived!"

There was a pause. None of the cloaked figures dared to speak.

Slowly, the Dark Lord Voldemort, in his high-collared shirt and dark robes, turned to face the Death Eater who had spoken.

"That," whispered Voldemort in a voice chill as death, "is a little too much folly for me to credit, Mr. Sallow. You heard that theory of how I died, and tried to provoke me into repeating a mistake?" Lord Voldemort was floating, rising high off the ground. "I suppose you came to prefer your laziness to my mastery, Macnair? "

With a sudden movement, Lucius Malfoy drew out his wand and cried "Avada Kedavra! ". Both he and the Death Eater who'd spoken was suddenly surrounded by a blue haze. Voldemort simply tilted to one side in midair, dodging the green bolt. His hand that didn't hold a wand was making other gestures, further colors and layers building up in his shielding haze with each gesture completed. Lucius shouted to the gathered wizards, "This cannot be the true Dark Lord, why would he keep the Potter boy alive?! This is a trick of some sort! Help me, my brothers!"

Other Death eaters shifted uncomfortably, seeing the merit of Lucius' accusation, but too terrified to do anything about it. Their indecision, however, crystallized into inaction as Macnair suddenly fell in seven flaming pieces to the ground, chunks of flesh with the cauterized edges still glowing. A quick flick of Voldemort's wand and Lucius Malfoy was frozen on the spot, lifted into the air, as Draco gasped, "No!"

"Eyes and wands on Harry Potter, all of you," Voldemort repeated, his voice low and dangerous. "I command your Marks, as I always shall. I am immortal. Macnair acted in sheer stupidity, with rank opportunism just then, and so to him, I delivered punishment. But you, Lucius... you showed bravery, cunning. Perhaps you truly did believe me to be an imposter, a pretender, a mere trick concocted by the Potter boy designed to lure you here to your deaths."

With another lazy flick of Voldemort's wand and a whispered word, Lucius began convulsing, and the Dark Lord continued. "No matter. When I flay his mind apart, I shall know for certain. Either way, to Lucius, I deliver mercy. Crucio!" he hissed, with louder venom.

Draco was openly weeping. The Dark Lord knew, of course, that Lucius did not truly believe him to be an impostor. But better to keep him alive so as to maintain leverage over Draco and therefore leverage over Harry Potter. He continued to whip his wand, torturing Lucius with the Cruciatus curse.

The only sounds that pierced the night were the shrieks of Voldemort's curse and the screams of Lucius' pain. But soon, a new sound would join them, that of gasps of shock and mutters of confusion.

At first, the pain that suddenly shot into the arms of the gathered Death Eaters was thought to be the Dark Lord's rage. But those who had felt his punishment knew immediately that this was a different kind of pain, the hot, purifying pain of a wound stitching itself together.

It was the pain of healing.

Without warning, their masks began melting away. Many of the Death Eaters' eyes were momentarily drawn down to their now blank wrists and naked faces; their Dark Marks were gone. But their attention, along with that of Voldemort, Harry, and the five witches who stood with knives at their throats, was quickly drawn to a new site: a towering pillar of flame that erupted in the middle of the graveyard, behind the half-circle of Death Eaters.

When the tower had reached its full height, the menacing figure of Albus Dumbledore emerged, his wand leveled at Lord Voldemort.

His deep green eyes, the shade of dragon-emeralds, flashed with unbound rage.

"It was foolish of you to come here tonight, Tom."