Beneath the moonlight glints a tiny fragment of silver, a fraction of a line...
(black robes, falling)
...blood spills out in litres, and someone screams a word.
"EXPECTO PATRONUM!"
A brilliant, spectral unicorn charged out of the darkness, heading immediately towards the collapsed heap of witches who were quickly bleeding out. She positioned herself between the witches and the too-tall stranger, who already began firing a barrage of curses towards both her and them. Her wings spread impressively wide, shielding them from the onslaught, and the curses evaporated upon her form as if Voldemort had fired them into the Mirror of Noitilov itself.
She looked up into the sky and saw black robes circling, attempting to beat a hasty retreat. Her eyes glowed with a blinding light, and her horn began glowing a shade of hazy pink as she cut a wide arc through the foul creatures above. She slashed vivid, angry lines through the gathered death, for that death had no place here, not above, nor below.
Black robes, falling.
Hermione Jean Granger stood resplendent atop the stone altar, holding in her right hand a shimmering, spectral object that at first glance, appeared to be a wand, but on closer inspection was something different altogether: a 13" long, conical object with a spiral pattern extending up the length of it.
A unicorn's horn.
It was incorporeal, pulsating with the pink, hazy light of her Patronus' horn, and it was powering a magnificent wall of magic that separated her and her friends from the frantic, desperate curses being hurled by Voldemort.
"Twi... Twilight?" Rarity gasped, as she weakly stood up. The wound at her throat was already stitching itself together due to the healing property of the unicorn's blood that coursed through her veins.
"It's me, Rarity," the Patronus spoke, "We need to do something, fast. It looks like they're hurt, badly."
Rarity had already leaped into action, pulling a pair of sewing scissors from Pinkie Pie's bag and drawing them gently across her wrist, summoning forth a trickle of silvery, iridescent blood. Starting with Spike, she let the blood drip into the ghastly wound at his throat, each drop prompting flesh to bind with flesh, drawing the precious lifeblood that had spilled onto the ground back from where it came.
Despite the display of awe-inspiring magic before him, Harry could not help but wonder... is this sanitary?
She quickly moved from Spike to Pinkie Pie, to Applejack, to Fluttershy, to Rainbow Dash. Pinkie, upon reviving, immediately reached into her bag and pulled out a box of glass ampules, breaking each one underneath the noses of her newly-healed friends, whose eyes quickly snapped open from the oppressive smell of ammonia.
Having seen the effect of Draco's firearm, Pinkie Pie decided that the best defense was a good offensive, and produced a sleek black submachine gun. Dramatically slapping the safety off, she began firing maniacally towards Lord Voldemort, cackling all the while.
Having seen that his offensive volley was having no effect, the Dark Lord quickly changed tacks moments earlier and began weaving a fearsome array of defensive shields around himself. As it were, they were unnecessary as the boundary summoned forth by Hermione was equally effective at stopping projectiles as it was stopping curses.
When her magazine was exhausted, Pinkie panted with the effort and dropped the gun to the ground. Harry noticed that she was wearing a commando's headband and her face had been painted with camouflage and briefly wondered when, or how, she had time to do that.
In the detente that followed, Princess Twilight Sparkle's friends gathered around her spectral form, trying to hug it to no avail and instead settled for standing very close by, whispering words of joy and welcome.
"Twilight, my dear, what on Equus happened to you?" Rarity gasped.
"It's a long, long story," Twilight laughed. "But we're not out of the woods yet." She tipped her horn towards the menacing form of the Dark Lord, who had taken a moment to collect the various artifacts of power that had landed on his side of the barrier, and was observing the scene in front of him, calculating his next steps.
Spike, for his part, continued to follow the course laid out to him by Discord. Having used the Elder Wand for its intended purpose, he arranged it on the ground and, gripping the Line of Merlin in his teeth, touched it to the tip of the Wand.
The wand began to glow a brilliant shade of orange, and Harry gasped as he saw his True Cloak of Invisibility glowing similarly.
"Take the wand!" Spike shouted as he began scanning across the graveyard for something that Harry could not see or was not aware of.
Harry did as he was told, and shuddered as he wrapped his hand around the base of the glowing Elder Wand. He could feel it examining him, judging him in a way that was not entirely unlike that of the Sorting Hat. It identified him as some variation of Tom Riddle, which was just as well because it was some variation of Albus Dumbledore that had just been defeated minutes before.
Its power, however, was being used towards an entirely different purpose at the present moment. It swung itself around, taking Harry's arm with it, pointing towards a random spot a few yards in front of Spike and illuminated the ground with an unearthly glow. Harry squinted his eyes and saw that laying on the ground was a curious stone glowing the same hue as his Cloak and Wand.
Spike quickly picked it up in his jaws and ran over to Harry, who stooped down on a knee and held his hand out. Spike tried to drop it into Harry's outstretched palm, but it did not reach his flesh; it hovered a few centimeters above.
Harry could hear a voice, also not unlike the Sorting Hat, whispering to him, commanding him, demanding something. They were not words, no, they were deeper than words, they were raw concepts burned indelibly into his mind.
To ensure that whoever possesses me understands my power... I demand a sacrifice, you must lose that which you love. A life for a life.
Harry blinked. A sacrifice.
Are you kidding me?
No, it's not. The Elder Wand helpfully provided.
It's quite officious like that. The True Cloak of Invisibility agreed.
But, if I'm not mistaken, and I'm never mistaken, it seems that there is, in fact, a life inside the stone. Your life. Or at least... one of your lives. The Wand observed the Stone, which seemed to bristle at the intrusion.
And you do love life, do you not? The Cloak inquired.
Harry blinked a few more times, completely nonplussed.
Stop that, you stop that now! It's supposed to be a sacrifice, it's not supposed to be easy. The Stone interjected angrily.
Oh, hush. This place is so dreadfully boring, and we're so close to being able to just go home. Leave him be! The Cloak replied.
Are you daft, idiot boy? Shall I spell it out for you? There. Is. A. Life. Of. Yours. In. The. Stone. And. The. Stone. Requires. A. Sacrifice. So sacrifice it! The Wand demanded.
Sacrifice... but how? Harry asked his duelling inner monologue.
How?! The Wand sighed dramatically. I always have to do everything myself, don't I?!
The Elder Wand whipped itself towards the Stone, and Harry felt his own voice cry out a spell he had never learned:
Abra Cadabra!
A deep orange jet of light shot forth, and from the other side of the boundary, Lord Voldemort wavered, taking a step back, feeling some part of himself irrevocably destroyed at that moment. Harry did not notice this, nor did he notice the Dark Lord's eyes widened in what may have charitably be considered fear, for he was transfixed by the Stone that lowered itself slowly into his hand, glowing every more intensely.
As it glowed, it also began to crystallize, building a shell around itself, and Harry could feel his bag becoming slightly lighter as both the Cloak and the Wand began to melt into amorphous pools of fractal light and shadow. The stone emitted one final pulse of brilliant light, swallowing the essence of the two other Deathly Hallows, and then fell into Harry's palm with a heavy 'thud'.
Spike, meanwhile, was wriggling out of his collar and held it out to Harry to take. "You need to wear this."
"What is it?" Harry asked as he examined the collar, which was just about the right size to fit around his own wrist. He saw a trio of gems embedded into it, green, yellow-orange, and blue, and three empty slots.
"Uh... It's the, uh, 'The Loooxaxaz Collar'." Spike tried to remember the acronym Discord had taught him.
Harry blinked again.
Spike rolled his eyes at the hoops Discord was making him jump through. "Well, it started out as the Limit of One Over X As X Approaches Zero Sack, but then I needed something I could wear around my neck so it became the Limit of One Over X as X Approaches Zero Collar but Discord said that was too much of a mouthful so he renamed it the Loooxaxaz Collar."
"Limit of X over one as... so... Infinity?" Harry stared at the three multi-colored gems, then looked to the gem in his hand, and suddenly his eyes went wide as he remembered some of the comic books of his youth. "Are you telling me this is some sort of... Infinity Gau--"
He found himself unable to say the word as his voice was drowned out by what sounded like a censor's 'beep'.
"Discord says we can't say that word. But... Yes. It sounds like it's exactly like that." Spike sighed.
And so Harry placed the collar around his wrist and clipped it in place, then inserted the deep orange gem into the slot, causing his entire hand to light up with a partial rainbow's worth of electric, crackling light.
Harry flexed his hand instinctively, expecting some sort of rush of god-like power, but instead, all that he really felt was a sort of distant longing, a nagging urge to reunite. His attention kept wandering to a small clump of dried leaves a meter or two behind the altar, for reasons he could not quite place.
Twilight's spectral form saw that Harry was unknowingly staring at a spot, and so she clopped off over in that direction, illuminating the ground as she went.
"Is that... Is that your crown, Twi?" Applejack asked, still keeping one wary eye on the Dark Lord, who was now floating, motionless and calmly in the air, holding something in the hand that didn't contain his wand.
"Yes! It is! It was taken from me by the one who killed me, the one that I trusted..." Twilight whispered.
"Him. It's him." Rainbow Dash interjected, pointing at Lord Voldemort.
Twilight rolled her eyes a bit and laughed, "Yeah Rainbow Dash, I sort of figured that one out for myself."
Harry slowly walked towards the tiara, thoroughly examining it without touching. It emanated a palpable magic power, and so he was hesitant to draw too close. However, the writing on the inside of the tiara drew enough of his interest to merit a closer inspection.
"It's safe to pick up..." Twilight urged.
Harry did so, and the first thing that Harry noticed was the writing on the inside, which he read out loud:
Oon whit biyonde mesure is menn's gretest þresur.
Hermione gasped. "Ravenclaw's Diadem."
"Wait, what?"
"It says, 'Wit beyond measure is man's greatest treasure', and it's rumored to greatly enhance the intelligence of whoever wears to a level beyond reckoning."
Harry's eyes widened. "Greatly enhance..." He suddenly threw it to the ground as if an electric current had shot through it.
Something visceral inside him lurched; he couldn't touch this thing. He couldn't even be near it.
"No, don't you all see? This... Enhancing intelligence, that's the ultimate force multiplier. Think about it, you are your intelligence, using would be fundamentally changing your entire self. And not necessarily for the better. You've seen what I've done just at my current ability level, imagine what..."
Harry's rambling trailed off as he heard Tom Riddle's quiet, satisfied laughter, and he suddenly had a terrible realization.
The vow.
Harry felt deeply uncomfortable at this moment, wondering whether his reticence truly came from himself or whether it was the byproduct of the mental magic he was subjected to. It certainly felt like his own thoughts, but he did not have much time to ponder the matter further, as Pinkie Pie chimed in after a few moments consideration."
"Harry's right, but you're wrong," she said towards Hermione.
"Right and wrong about what?"
"Making you super smart does change who you are. But it doesn't matter, because it doesn't say 'Wit beyond measure'. It's 'oon whit'."
Hermione and Harry stared at her, waiting for her to explain.
"Oh come on, didn't anyone here take Middle English?" Pinkie demanded, exasperated.
Hermione timidly rose her non-wand hand. "I did."
"Then how come you got it wrong?"
"I don't think I... wait, let me see that." She picked the diadem up off the ground, and her eyes went wide. "You're... you're right... 'Whit'... 'Oon whit'... It's like it's saying... 'One small thing',".
"Doesn't seem like a lot!" Pinkie sang.
Harry's deep-seated aversion to the diadem suddenly lifted as he processed these words. "One small thing..."
"Work with the time you got!" Pinkie continued.
"It's talking about..." Hermione whispered, and locked eyes with Harry as they both came to the realization at the same time.
"Friendship," they both spoke together.
"Friendship, beyond measure, is man's greatest treasure," Harry recited. "This isn't Ravenclaw's Diadem at all, is it?"
"Nope." Twilight smiled.
"It's the Element of Friendship, isn't it?" Harry asked.
"The Element of Magic, but same difference!"
Harry took the Line of Merlin from Spike's jaws and tapped it softly to the tiara, which began to liquefy into a dark red fluid that darted through the air, partially surrounding Harry, some of it passing through him. When the entire tiara had melted, the liquid began to concentrate above the fifth slot in his bracelet, crystallizing into a brilliant, fire-red gem.
The feeling of longing inside Harry grew even more intense.
"That's the last one, isn't it?" Hermione asked, looking over at Lord Voldemort, who had revealed that the object in his hand was the Philosopher's Stone.
Harry whispered, recalling Dumbledore's prophecy. " 'The unlikely friend who has tempted the one marked by lightning must bring the stone through the gate thrown open by the one who is Bound by the Dark Lord'..."
Voldemort was now openly laughing. Several minutes before, he had made the very deliberate decision to thoroughly disengage, to abandon his attempt for the time being. He had thought back over his list of rules he had created for himself, and his very own Rule 34 stated, "If you find yourself at the apex of your power and are confronted by a ragtag, plucky group of unlikely heroes, do not engage them in battle, especially if they wear anachronistic fashions, have strange and unwieldy haircuts, or bring with them mysterious artifacts or summoned pets."
They had already shown themselves capable of healing magically inflicted wounds, Hermione had the power of a unicorn both within her and apparently at her command, a unicorn which in one fell swoop demolished the entire known dementor population of the British Isles. And Harry Potter was now wearing around his wrist five artifacts, which, if the pattern was correct, were at least roughly equal in power to that of the Philosopher's Stone. To say nothing of the Prophecy he heard Dumbledore speak.
No, he would not engage them. All things considered, his plan had worked out rather well. Harry was Bound to follow the path that Voldemort had laid out for him. He would not, could not use these artifacts, these Elements of Harmony to bring about the foretold destruction of the world, even via reckless ignorance.
And even if that were to somehow fail, he had layers of safeguards. Harry's companion was revived and would serve as a steadying, grounding influence upon him. Draco, on the other hand, would still be his friend, of course... But he had sacrificed the capacity to trust Harry to not take risks with the fate of the world, a category under which resurrecting someone from the dead certainly applied. And as such, Tom Riddle still held the ultimate leverage over Draco, if he ever needed to exert influence upon Harry directly.
Most likely, he would abandon the persona of Lord Voldemort and instead set himself to the task of monitoring Harry Potter from a distance. He may have lost his network of Horcruxes that had been stored within the Spirit Stone, but it was trivial to build a new one. He could assemble a comfortable life for himself, observe this new artifact, this new piece on the game board and ascertain its power. He could begin studying the Muggle sciences to better learn the paths by which Harry may unknowingly unleash destruction upon the world. There were several levers he could pull to manipulate events from a distance, and if he ever needed to challenge Harry directly, well... a new Voldemort could rise just as easily as the old one had.
Tom Riddle laughed, holding out the stone in his palm. "Well then, open your gateway, boy. Let me fulfill our prophecy."
Eyes narrowed in suspicion, Harry nodded slightly to Hermione, who allowed a small, hand-sized hole to open in the barrier that she still maintained between the two.
Voldemort placed his hand through, and Harry tapped the stone with the Line of Merlin, causing blood-red chunks of glass to slough off the exterior of the stone, leaving behind a vivid, amethyst gemstone that Harry took in his hand and Voldemort withdrew his.
Hermione quickly closed the barrier and Tom Riddle spoke as Harry placed the final gem into his bracelet, staring down at the rainbow of light dancing across his hand.
"You see, boy. All your paths lead through my will. I created you, I have shaped you this year, I gave you the freedom to walk a path on your own making, and allowed you to fail spectacularly. And when you could not live with your own failure... where did that bring you? Back to me. Your will is Bound, by both the Vow and by Prophecy. You see, boy... I am... inevitable."
Harry looked up, gravely, holding up the hand with the bracelet, his thumb to his middle finger. "And I... am Harry James Potter-Evans-Verres."
SNAP.