Draco closed his eyes and concentrated on his bond with Henry.
He remembered all the stories that his parents had told him down the years of his twin who had gone missing, his own daydreams about what it would be like to have a brother, his private grief the first time he really understood what it meant for his twin to have been kidnapped and how he might never know him.
He remembered the shock of hearing Henry speak Parseltongue and his immediate certainty that Harry Potter was Aldebaran Malfoy.
He remembered struggling with his own jealousy as he watched his parents coddle Henry and give him anything he wanted, and Henry act as if he didn't want that, as if he wanted to go back to being the lonely and Gryffindor and orphaned Harry Potter.
He remembered how he had come to feel protective, and how much he enjoyed lording it over Henry that he was the big brother.
He remembered frustration, and anger, and debates, and laughter, and incredible hope.
He loved his brother, and he flung all of that at Voldemort as hard as he could, his own power joined with Henry's and that of other members of their family.
For vengeance, and love.
Narcissa could see that Draco had crumpled completely to the floor out of the corner of her eye, but she could also see that his lips were still moving in the chant. She leaned over and put more pressure into the hold she had on Henry's wrist, and the strength flowed out of her, and she found she still had more to give.
Andromeda clenched her teeth. Something had begun to destroy the glittering black bits of the shattered Horcrux, but that only meant that what was there pressed more closely together and was harder to retrieve. She drove herself on, with slash after slash of her wand, cut after cut.
Tonks could feel her nosebleed increasing. She clenched her teeth and decided she would prank Henry for a year for all this trouble. It was the least he could do to make it up to her.
Harry felt the moment when his and Draco's combined magic hit Riddle.
The Horcrux screamed aloud. The scream rang over the silver field, the lake, the box of bones, the endless stars. Harry could feel things shattering and twisting around him, and he clung to Draco. Sirius was bowed down with his hands over his ears and the locket blazing around his neck as if it was trying to protect him.
There was a great thrum far below them, a heave so great that Harry felt as if the magic were pulling something out of deep water.
And then—
Then everything broke and scattered.
Harry opened his eyes, slowly.
He was once again lying on the floor in the ritual room underneath Malfoy Manor, and he was lying there without his shackles, but with Draco's hand clamped on his right arm and his mother's locked around his left wrist.
Harry coughed and turned his head to the side. Mother was staring at him. "Mum?" he whispered.
She swept him up, him and Draco both, and held them crushingly close. Harry clung back, and barely heard the spell that Aunt Andromeda whispered with a hoarse voice.
"The Horcrux is gone," she said, in the same voice.
Harry wasn't sure who started crying first. He wasn't sure when Father came across the room and the now inert circle to join them. He wasn't sure whether he felt all that different than he had when he lay down at the start of the ritual.
Maybe it didn't matter.
He was alive.
He was free.
Sirius opened his eyes and found himself lying on the couch in front of the fireplace in Grimmauld Place. He might have thought it was a dream, except that his fingernails were crusted with dirt, the way they got when he'd been running around on all fours in earth, and the locket was wrapped around his throat.
Sirius shuddered and buried his head in his hands.
On the one hand, he had helped Harry fight Voldemort, somehow. He didn't know exactly how, but he knew the manifestation of the teenager who had tried to kill them was no Malfoy.
On the other hand, he had entrenched Harry further in the Malfoy family, and kept him from escaping.
The locket around his neck seemed to vibrate consolingly. Sirius stroked it and thought that it was different from the majority of the artifacts his ancestors had stored here. He didn't know exactly how, but it was comforting.
He thought he'd keep it.
The blackness that had kept him prisoner for so many years tore.
Suddenly he was screaming, and suddenly he had a body, and suddenly he had a use for his strength.
For long moments, he could do nothing but sprawl on the shore and sob. Pain echoed through a body that had utterly forgotten it. He actually thought his mind might shatter before the force of it, and part of him would have welcomed that.
But in the end, the pain settled, and he became aware that he was cold and wet and tired in a way that probably had to do with being slammed back into reality and life.
Regulus Black rolled over, stared down at his thin hands, and wondered what in the world he should do next.
....
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