Tom Riddle knew that, in a contest of pure magical skill, he was outmatched. Dumbledore had decades of experience over him, the elixir of life, and pure rage. But he'd prepared for this eventuality, and though he knew he was beaten, there was still a chance. He just needed to hold Dumbledore off for a few more moments, and the proper distraction.
Quicksilver encircled his wand hand, prying his wand from his grasp before he could get another spell off. Potter's innovation, of using sonic pulses to disrupt the construct had been useful, but it had only delayed the inevitable. He was lifted into the air, the liquid metal wrapping around his wrists and ankles and cuffing around his throat. Dumbledore's hold was not gentle, and Riddle was finding it hard to breathe.
"I would kill you, right here and now, traitor." Dumbledore said, his eyes nearly glowing. "But I need information from you. I need to know why, for what purpose, and who you worked with."
Riddle kept his face impassive. All was not lost, he had an ace up his sleeve- a secret weapon in the palm of his hand, and far more knowledge than he should. He knew Dumbledore's weakness.
"Albus?" The voice of a young girl cried out. He had commanded those words from her, but by the raw emotion in them, he suspected that they were genuine. "What have you done?" Dumbledore went pale, his eyes wide with shock. Riddle knew that his better judgement would tell him to keep his focus on the enemy, but he also knew that when it came to Ariana Dumbledore, his better judgement could be overridden. He'd seen it in a previous world, where the old man had picked up a cursed ring for the chance of seeing her again.
Dumbledore turned, a pained look in his eyes and his sister's name on his lips, and instantly toppled to the floor- the gaze of the Basilisk felling him. Riddle fell to the ground, scrambling to his feet and set to work. His position was beyond precarious. Killing Dumbledore was one thing, but he needed to pin the blame on Potter, or he'd have an equally dangerous and far more murderous foe on his hands.
"You can't win, you know." Ariana said. These words, spoken of her own accord, were said so matter-of-factly and they rattled him. "You can't beat her."
"I'm the only one who can beat her." The girl favored him a skeptical look. "What would you know?" He snapped as he repaired walls and cleared rubble. He'd need to make the fight seem much more contained. Perhaps he'd say he'd been knocked out early… some might buy that, but he doubted Grindelwald would. No, he needed more drastic measures. His cover was likely blown, and he needed to make his move, soon.
"You know I can't answer that question, even if you compel me." The girl said. The urge to banish her then and there warred with the desire for more information.
"What can you say, then?"
"There are only two ways this ends. With Harry Potter repairing the timeline, or with Death taking control of the mortal plane."
"Begone." The specter vanished. Riddle shook his head, wishing he could dispel her words as easily as he had dispelled their speaker. It wasn't as if he could trust her. He scoffed. She was dead, under Death's thrall. Anyone he summoned may only be able to tell him what she wanted him to hear, and of course Death would wish him to give up.
He knew it had to be him. The memories he'd seen from Harry had been terrifying, yes, but they'd filled him with a terrible purpose. Only he could defeat Death, do what needed to be done. Dumbledore and Grindelwald had dug their own graves for decades. Harry Potter would seek out his friends, if only for the pleasure of dying with them. Only he had the vision to see what needed to be done, and the will to do it. There were some lines that Potter would never cross, things he could never bring himself to do.
He would be the flight of Death. Tom Riddle would become Voldemort again.
Riddle unclenched his hand. In his palm rested a pendent- goblin silver surrounding a luminescent yellow gem. He'd interrogated a fair few of the dead, including Herpo the Foul and Salazar Slytherin himself. They'd been less willing to share than he'd hoped, but he'd been able to compel some wisdom from them on the limits of magic and what might be possible. Still there were clearly some topics, particularly surrounding the Soul Stone, that they had not been allowed to speak on.
It was time to explore those topics, in detail. "Don't worry, my sweet." He stroked the Basilisk's head. "I will need you again, soon."
-----
"Who are you?" Lily asked.
What a question, Harry thought distantly, beneath the sea of emotions that wracked his mind. This woman was his mother. This was the woman who had saved his life, who'd died for him, who when he faced Death down in the astral realm, had come to save him. He'd been told she'd been smart, talented, brave, and loving. That entire edifice, that image of her as a perfect, flawless protector crumbled in an instant, leaving… what?
With a roar, he unleashed a shockwave, not so much a spell as pure force directed at the woman who, in another life, had been his mother. She raised a shield, but the spell clashed against it with such force that she went tumbling back.
"Why?" He asked. "Why would you do this?"
"Don't moralize to me!" She snapped, rising to her feet. "I did what I needed to do. I don't care if people don't understand." Each word she said was like another blow, another crack in his psyche.
"What you needed to do?" He demanded. "You needed to torture teenagers. You needed to lock my friends in a dungeon for years! You needed that."
She sent a shower of low-powered spells at him. They sprung from her fingertips like water, and glanced off his own shield like raindrops. "It was for the greater good! For our people."
"I didn't realize I was talking to Albus Dumbledore." Harry said sardonically.
She scoffed. "I don't know you, but I can tell… you had it so easy. You were gifted with this kind of magic. I had to struggle and claw for it. I did the right thing, even though it was hard-"
"You know nothing about me!" He snarled, whipping a bolt of electricity at her. Lily intercepted it by forming a wall of loose stones and rubble between them. Harry unleashed a barrage of blasting curses at the barrier, forcing her out. "I was left alone, without a wand, no magic! I spent a decade learning how to do wandless magic. That was hard. This-" He gestured indistinctly around the room. "-was easy."
She lunged, the tattoos running along her arms and legs lighting up as she kicked off the wall and streaked through the air towards him. She came down on him with her arms poised for a physical blow. Lily Snape may have been able to enhance her strength, but she hadn't been trained in physical combat. He blocked her with his arms, and her eyes went wide with shock. She hadn't been expecting him to match her strength, and she certainly wouldn't see what was coming. He kicked her legs out from under her, and as she tried to regain her balance, he grappled her, twisting her body into a helpless position with a few efficient motions. She struggled, the glowing of her tattoos spreading as she strained against him. It was useless, Natasha had put him in this position in training, there was just no leverage to be had.
It was then that Harry realized he was crying, that he'd been crying this entire time. It hurt him, almost physically, to do this to her, to fight her, to hurt her. He hated this. Even after everything, she was still his mum, and he loved her, even if he hated her.
"Why?" He choked out. "Give me the real answer. Why?" It couldn't just be a calculation, there had to be something more. Something that made her like this, something he could cling to so that he could tell himself his mum could never have turned out like this.
"Its my son!" She shouted. "He's- he's dying. And it's my fault!" He heard the tortured grief in her voice, and knew she was telling the truth. "I need to save him."
"You need the elixir." He said, feeling a sense of dread wash over him. This was worse. In a moment of terrible clarity, he could see exactly how the woman who had died to save him might also be the woman who'd torture and kill to save her son. Lily noticed his distraction. Stunners materialized in the air, shooting towards him from multiple directions. He raised his hand to quickly bat them away with a shield. She used the opportunity to surge against his grip, pushing against the floor hard enough to leave cracks spiderwebbing out from her hands. She slipped free, limping to her feet.
He had missed his chance. He could have taken her out, even killed her while he'd had her pinned but he hadn't… couldn't. He hated her, yet he loved her. He couldn't bring himself to kill her, but he couldn't imagine himself forgiving her. It was a weakness, he thought with cold self-recrimination.
"You think I like being on Dumbledore's chain?" She spat. "Why do you think I've modified myself? I've been trying to find a way out of this, to save him!" She turned her head to a woman Harry didn't recognize. She'd been suspended in the air when Harry had arrived, but now she was on her knees, looking at them with shock. "That's why I have her. She can drain magic from anything! If I could just refine her powers, I could- could-"
Harry overcharged a blasting curse, shattering her shield. Lily fell back, tumbling and rolling awkwardly as she hit the ground. He'd heard enough. There was nothing for him here, no solace or closure. He looked around at his friends, and he couldn't bear the pity in their eyes. "Let's go." He said, his voice empty.
Ding.
"You had the situation well in hand, eh Lily?" Grindelwald said sarcastically, striding out of the elevator with confidence. "Perhaps I can be of assistance." That was their only warning. Time slowed as the spells arced through the air, forming a formidable wall. At the leading edge of the tide were explosive spells, designed to clear the way for the next wave. The killing curses were next, two apiece targeted at every person in the room. The final wave was a grab bag of dark curses- blood boiling curses, cruciatus curses, and a half-dozen spells Harry couldn't identify, which would pick off anyone who'd managed to survive the first two waves. The avalanche of spells cast the room in a terrible glow, the orange of the explosive curses, the sickly green of Avada Kedavra, the muted reds, blacks and purples of the final wave. It was an attack that was simultaneously overwhelming and perfectly orchestrated. This was the power of the Elder Wand, Harry knew. He'd wielded it once, and it had felt like being ascended. Now he was seeing it in the hands of someone with far more experience and brutality.
He let time go, and Harry's robes shredded as the pieces of his vibranium armor- including the shattered remains of his chest plate- ripped through, intercepting the explosive and killing curses in mid-air. The resulting explosion filled the air between him and Grindelwald, and Harry pushed the inferno back. He knew that wouldn't be enough to kill him, and just as the flames parted, Harry froze time again. He needed to act carefully. He could only spend so long in this state before it became too painful to hold, and he was wary of what overusing the Time Stone would do to him. He'd used the ability sparingly in the battle with Riddle and Dumbledore for this very reason, but he no longer had that luxury.
There were limits to what he could do. He could move, but not affect the outside world while he had time frozen like this, but that didn't mean he couldn't take advantage of this freedom of movement. To those on the outside it would appear like teleportation, a massive advantage when any form of true teleportation was impossible. Harry rushed forward to point blank range, and time resumed. "Avada-"
He was engulfed in fire. If it weren't for the herb, he'd be dead. Instead, he stumbled back. He clenched his teeth, fighting the pain while he channeled his magic and the herb to heal himself. Grindelwald must have used some variation of the proximity alarm, that instead of alerting the caster when someone got close, tried to incinerate the offender. It was clever, and would have been quite useful against Hela, even if he wasn't in the mindset to appreciate it at the moment.
Harry was given no breathing space as a barrage of spells pelted him, and he was forced to stop time again to escape the counterattack. He noticed that the mutant woman had taken advantage of Lily's prone position, the two of the grappling on the floor for control. Harry had to continue playing defense as Grindelwald launched killing curses at the others in the room. Desperately, Harry sent rubble to intercept the spells, and pushed Lily and the mutant woman back with a banishing spell. The two women rolled apart. The others, at least, had the good sense to retreat to the back halls, but not her. She lunged for Lily again, and would have died for it, had Harry not paused time again with a luminescent black curse frozen a mere foot from her chest.
He could feel the strain now, of repeatedly using this ability. The Time Stone had been shattered and absorbed into him. He could feel it, embedded in him like broken shards of glass. The more he used it, the more those shards dug into his being, and he didn't want to think about what damage they might be doing. He pushed through the pain, and with a burst of focus, grabbed the woman's hand.
In order to pull her to safety, he'd also had to bring her into the time bubble with him. He instantly felt the pull of her powers, not just at his magic, but at his very life force. Shocked at the strength and speed of the drain, he used his instinctual sense of magic to again tap into the heart-shaped herb, stoppering the flow to a trickle. She was looking around them in confusion at the frozen scene around them. Then she looked down at their conjoined hands, lips parted with awe. "Who are you? How did you do that?" She asked in a distinctive southern drawl.
"Doesn't matter." He said, wincing at a sudden pain in his chest where a glowing green crack had formed. He couldn't keep doing this. "We don't have time." An ironic thing to say while frozen within a moment.
"Can you get me close to her? I can finish her."
"Finish her?" Harry said uneasily, his stomach turning at the implications of her words.
"You have a soft spot for her." She said, and there was a hint of accusation in her voice. He supposed it was obvious, by their confrontation, that he was emotionally compromised. What could he say, other than the truth?
"She's my mother."
There was pity in her eyes, which was almost worse than accusation. "Shit."
Harry barked out a bitter half laugh. "Yeah, that's a good way of describing it. I know I can't ask anything of you. But-" His eyes stung. "Even though she's a terrible person, and hurt so many people, I can't just turn those feelings off."
"Well shit. Do… you want me to try to capture her instead?" He was surprised she was even offering, after everything she'd gone through. Despite her powers, she was a kind soul. What a curse they must be.
"I trust your judgement." On this, he trusted this stranger's judgment far better than his own. "If it comes down to it, do what I can't." He looked at Grindelwald. "But I'm not sure it'll matter." The archmage had surrounded himself with curtains of flowing quicksilver, making him nearly untouchable. He could momentarily disperse them with a sonic shock, but then what? He couldn't get close to him, and now Grindelwald was expecting his little trick. What could he do?
Another crack appeared on his chest.
"But… you can beat him, right?" She said, an almost naïve hope in her voice. He hated that he might fail that hope. If only he had more control of the Time Stone, if only he could hold this moment for longer, he might be able to slip all of them out. But he hadn't, and he couldn't. There was a good chance that all of his moral handwringing would be moot, that he'd fail them all.
"You wiped the floor with her." She said. "And you can do this." She held up their still joined hands. She said that with such awe, and he wondered if she'd ever encountered anyone she could touch. "You can beat him? Right?"
Harry sucked in a deep breath. Screw it. It was time to go all in. He comforted himself with the knowledge that Lily and T'Chone were alive. "Let's find out."
-----
Rogue grabbed Lily again before she could rise. She felt her powers engage, sucking, taking unendingly. She met resistance from Lily as her tattoos powered up to fight her pull, their magic absorbing abilities pitted against hers. She didn't quite understand how the tattoos worked, or why her life force was so damn persistent. Still, she could tell that she was winning, that Lily was fading. Her thrashing was much weaker now. "Get off me!" She barked, as she struggled in futility against Rogue's grip.
"I hate you." Rogue whispered. She'd killed her friends, taken her from her family, locked her in this prison. She deserved to die. Rogue had hoped that this moment would feel cathartic, or vindicating. It didn't. There was nothing for her in this pit, even if she drained this woman to death, there wouldn't be closure.
She thought about their mysterious savior. The first person she'd touched safely in years. The man who had trusted her, a stranger, to decide his mother's fate. If she could, she'd spare Lily. If only for his sake. She figured she owed him that much. They could hold her prisoner, if they got out of this somehow, interrogate her for information about the Order.
She glanced at the wizard who had saved them, and her heart dropped- he had collapsed to the floor. The glowing green cracks had spread across his body and had jumped into the air. Like cracks in a pane of glass, they spread quickly, forming a barrier between them and Grindelwald. Whatever his last gambit had been, she wasn't sure it had gone according to plan. They were safe for the moment, sure, but only until Grindelwald found a way around. And they were trapped. All their enemies would have to do is wait and let them waste away in a prison of their own making. "I can save you. It's your only hope." Lily bargained. "I need you to save my son. I'll let you go after this, I promise. But you need to-"
"Shut up!" Rogue slapped her. She knew better than to trust any of this woman's 'promises'. "You think I'm giving up? You took me from my friends, you think I'd just roll over for you?" That, more than anything else, had been keeping her going all this time. Her friends, more like family, and that faint hope of seeing them again. "I'll never give up on them. And I know that they'll never give up on me." She thought of her friends, of Bobby and Logan, of Jean and the Professor. She hoped they were okay, wherever they were.
Then she heard it- phoenix song.
-----
All Harry knew was pain, pain and the distant knowledge that he'd failed. He'd pushed himself to the limit and beyond, and it hadn't been enough. If it all hadn't hurt so much, the guilt would have been overpowering.
Then, piercing through his bubble of despair, Harry heard the phoenix's song. The melody gave him peace, it told him that his friends were safe, it told him to let go. He did. Harry fell limply onto the floor, feeling an ache in his soul where the shards of the Time Stone resided. Then his vision was engulfed by fire, and he was somewhere else. His vision swam, and he tried to focus. His friends were there, safe. But what about Lily, T'Chone? No, they'd been in the Room of Requirement. They were safe too, even if they weren't here.
"Oh my god." A wonderfully familiar voice said. "It's him. It's him." Harry blinked up at Wanda Maximoff, who was looking at him with something akin to awe. Fawkes gave a trill, lifting up from Harry's body and alighting on a redheaded woman's shoulder- Jean, his brain provided. She'd once rescued Ron and Neville… and Wanda.
Something fluttered to the floor in front of him, resting there was a lone phoenix feather.
-----
"Not… dead?" Riddle said. It took every bit of willpower to keep his voice level. How? How? How had Dumbledore survived the Basilisk's gaze? How had he failed so spectacularly?
Grindelwald leveled him with a cold stare. "No, merely petrified." As soon as Grindelwald revived Dumbledore with the Elixir of Life, he would know, and there was nothing Riddle could do about it.
Riddle bowed his head. "That is good to hear. I was beginning to think today was a complete disaster."
"I will bring him to Nurmengard. There, we will regroup and plan for this threat." Grindelwald said. "That Harry Potter was powerful. I can see how he bested you, though I do not think he could kill Dumbledore on his own."
"I will watch over Hogwarts until our Headmaster returns." Riddle said. He braced himself for Grindelwald's reaction. He could only hope that he didn't already suspect him.
"See that you do." With a swish of his cloak, he was off. Riddle let himself relax a fraction. In his zeal to revive his partner, Grindelwald had not done his due diligence. It gave him some time, a few hours, at the very most, before the full power and fury of two Archmages came down upon him. It was a battle he couldn't hope to win.
Not without… drastic measures.