Sunlight spilled from a clear, bright-blue summer sky across the vibrant green gardens of Northdawn Manor, bathing his mother's tulip beds and the blossoming lilac hedges thrumming with the faint buzz of bees in soft golden light. Cheerful birdsong rose from the apple orchard by the shore, carried towards Tristan's ears by the gentle breeze whispering across the calm blue waters of the lake.
Aurelia danced through woven yew arches with a huge grin, tossing crimson rose petals from her little, woven basket and giggling to herself.
And through that last slim arch of sprouting yew, Fleur drifted toward him.
All the air caught in Tristan's lungs.
She floated on bare feet, clad in nothing but pure white silk, her long blonde braids trailing after her, threaded with wildflowers, and the small, soft smile grazing her rose-pink lips sent Tristan's heart flopping in his chest.
Fleur cupped his cheek in a wash of sweet, familiar vanilla. "Regarde, mon Coeur." She raised her left hand; the summer sun flashed in the slim band of gold circling her ring finger. "Are you happy now?"
A desperate yearning rose in Tristan's breast, hot and bright as molten gold. He stared at the ring as if it held all the answers; beyond its faint gleam, Valeria, Galahad, and Gabby waved and beamed at him and his mother and father stood arm in arm next to Fleur's parents, blinking fast and watching on with teary smiles.
"Yes," Tristan whispered, swallowing the storm of fierce emotion at the tip of his tongue. "I'm so happy it almost hurts."
Fleur crossed her slender arms behind his neck and rose onto her tiptoes. "I am very happy, too, mon Coeur." Her lips brushed across his, soft as summer rain and gentle as settling snow. "Happy to marry a monster."
Tristan flinched back.
Blood spurted from Fleur's nostrils, trickling across her lips and dripping from her chin, staining the pure white dress with specks of crimson.
She swayed.
"Fleur!" Tristan caught her in his arms, brushing slick blonde hair from her face. "What's wrong?!" Panic rose in his heart as he watched blood thick and dark as tar spill from her lips like a bubbling potion from a cauldron. "Talk to me, please!"
The grass wilted and blackened beneath his feet; it spread like rot through the garden, devouring loose rose petals in its wake, withering the plants and soiling the flowerbeds. The yew arches shed their green coats, spurting pale, jagged thorns, and all around Tristan, golden mist ate through crumbling lilac hedges.
Northdawn Manor burst into flames and burned bright as the Beltane fire against the night sky; the windows shattered and the towers and slate roof crumbled into a smoking heap of rubble, veiling the sunset behind a cloud of thick black ash.
"Look around you, mon Coeur," Fleur whispered, coughing crimson. "Everything you touch dies."
Battered bodies sprawled across the scorched grass, limbs bent and broken, necks twisted and chests carved wide open. They stared up at him, the familiar faces of Aurelia, Galahad, Valeria and his parents frozen in masks of raw agony, lips parted, mouths full of rose petals slick with blood.
Dread stripped the world bare as bone.
"No." Tristan cradled Fleur against him. "Please, don't leave me, Fleur. You promised. You promised you'd always stay with me."
"What good are promises to a monster?" Her blue eyes bled red as rage and her mouth split open at the corners, stretching into a wide, grotesque smile. "Bred in bitterness... forged in fear." Fleur's voice turned as deep and dark and hoarse as Trelawney's. "As the seventh month dies, so does either of them."
A serpent struck from her gaping jaw, fangs ablaze.
Tristan jerked upright into the gloom of his room, his heart pounding.
Pale moonlight slipped through the slim gap in the curtains, turning Fleur's disheveled braids into streams of spun silver.
Tristan watched the gentle rise and fall of her chest beneath the white blanket. 'Just a dream.' Before his mind's eye, a patch of dark spread across the smooth silk. 'Just another fucking dream.'
Fleur stirred. "Mon Coeur," she murmured, voice laced with sleep. "Why are you not holding me?"
Tristan took deep breaths until the pounding of his heart subsided.
Fleur blinked one blue eye open and rose in the bed, clutching the thin blanket to her chest. "What is wrong, Tristan?"
'Waiting here is wrong.' He swallowed hard. "I have to go."
Silence hung through the shadowed bedroom.
Her slim blonde brows drew together. "It has been less than a day..."
"James and Crouch won't wait for whenever Neville will be tried in court; I can't wait either," Tristan said. "The second he can speak, they'll pump him full of Veritaserum and make him spill everything he knows about Father."
"They also expect you to come and finish what you started, mon Coeur." Fleur clasped his hand. "They will set traps for you."
"I don't care; I will not be stopped," Tristan murmured, heaving himself out of the bed and dragging on his trousers. "As long as Neville draws breath, my family will be in danger. And my siblings–" His stomach clenched at the memory of that dream and their broken, bloodied faces. "My siblings deal with enough hardship; I don't want them to hear that their entire life is a lie, or to think they were never meant to be born in the first place."
"Fine." Fleur tossed the blanket aside and leaped to her feet. "Then let us go."
"Fleur..."
She shed her nightgown in one smooth motion and snatched up her dress from the chair. "I promised to be by your side, mon Coeur, always."
Tristan sighed. "I can get through any wards undetected with my cloak, but the two of us won't fit under there together."
"So?" Fleur stuck her nose up at him, flattening the wrinkles in her dress. "We both know my disillusionment charm is perfect. I will be fine."
"If you're caught breaking into my Ministry, your career is over."
"You think I care?" She crossed her arms, tiny white feathers prickling along her skin. "You are much more important to me."
"Please, Fleur." Tristan took her hands in his, wincing at their scorching heat. "I don't have time to argue. Let me go alone; just this once, please."
Fleur's eyes bored into him, huge and dark. "Go in, kill him, and get back here to me." Her lips quivered. "Do not let yourself get caught. Promets-le-moi!"
"I'll always come back to you." Tristan pressed a kiss to her forehead. "I promise."
Fleur retrieved his wand from under the pillow and slipped it into the sleeve of his shirt. "They could hold him anywhere; where will you start?"
"The Ministry," Tristan murmured, gathering his Invisibility Cloak out of the wardrobe. "But if they don't keep him there, I'll go to St. Mungo's next, and after that to Azkaban." Iron-clad determination seized him like a vice. "I'll comb through Minister Crouch's fucking manor room by room until I find him, if I have to."
'I will not be stopped.'
"Will you apparate?"
"No." He shook his head. "The wards will alert my parents I'm gone, and they might try to follow or stop me. I can't have them mess this up; I'll go to the edge of the ward line under my cloak and apparate from there."
Tristan moved for the door, but Fleur stepped into his path, catching his lips in a long, hard kiss. "Je t'aime, mon Coeur. Come back to me quickly."
"Always." He pried himself out of her embrace and slipped out of his bedroom into the moonlit hallway.
Silence held the manor in its grasp save for the sparse portraits of his family snoozing in their frames along the walls. Tristan sneaked down the marble staircase, through the foyer and out of the main entrance, closing the heavy oak doors behind himself with a quiet thud.
On the gravel pathway leading to the manor, sat his father in a simple lawn chair, green eyes fixed on him.
'Oh fuck.' Tristan cursed under his breath. "What are you doing out here?"
His father rose from the chair and stretched, stifling a yawn. "You're the one out of bed at–," he glanced at his wristwatch, "–three in the morning, so really I should be asking you that question..."
"How did you know?"
"You're my son; I'm meant to know you that well." His father's gaze flickered over Tristan's shoulder. "Where did you leave Fleur?"
"In bed."
"Good. That's exactly where you should be, too."
He smothered a trickle of irritation. "I don't have time to argue. Just let me go and protect our family."
"I am also protecting this family," his father murmured, "by stopping you from risking your life trying to fix my mistakes."
"The only thing you're risking is my chance to get this done on time." Tristan showed him the smooth silk folded about his arm. "I'll use my cloak; I won't be seen or caught."
"You'll still be all alone if something does happen." His father's green eyes swam with shadows. "We could go together. Or you could let me use the cloak myself."
"You passed it on to me," Tristan retorted. "And you said yourself that from that point onward it'll never work the same for you again. Just let me go, please."
His father shook his head. "I'm sorry, Tristan, but I promised your mother I'd protect you."
The irritation cracked into something colder, and that last thread of patience tore loose, like the seam of a wound splitting back open.
"Alright." Tristan hardened his heart. 'I've tried everything I could.' He flicked his wand into his palm. "Petrificus Totalus."
His father's fingers froze halfway to his waist and he stood still as stone.
Tristan removed the body-bind from the neck upward, stepping closer. "I'm sorry it has to be this way, Father, but I won't be stopped, not even by you."
A single tear swam in his father's wide green eyes, trickling down his right cheek. "I remember when you used to call me Dad."
'So do I.' He clamped down on the soft ache rising in his heart and locked it somewhere deep. "Perhaps, I'll call you Dad again once this is all over." Tristan regarded the pale, thin piece of elder in his father's stiff fingers. "I won't take your wand away; I don't need its allegiance, I'm more than happy with my own wand. My spell won't hold you for long anyway; just please, don't follow me."
"But I have to; I swore it to your mother."
"If we're both caught, there's no one left to protect Mother and my siblings from Teddy."
"Then promise me–" a touch of pleading crept into his father's voice, "–promise me one thing and I won't."
Tristan held the pair of green eyes brimming with raw emotion. "I'm listening."
"Bring Neville back here," his father croaked. "I need... I need to understand why he's doing all of this."
He smothered a stab of cold rage. "I care more for their grand plan than his reasons, but if there's a chance to take him alive, I'll do it so you can get your closure." Tristan threw the Invisibility Cloak over his shoulder. "I'll see you soon, Father."
And he rose into the night like smoke on the breeze, letting the winds whistling from the lake carry him aloft, high above the gardens and apple orchard, soaring across the estate until his eyes stung with tears.
Tristan passed the tall iron fence and wrenched the world back past him, stepping onto the cobblestone pavement of muggle London before the lopsided red phone box.
'Six, two, four, four, and two.' He jabbed the dials and watched them whir back into place. The box lurched with a harsh screech, the sidewalk sliding up past the window.
A bright, clear thrill trickled through his veins, swirling into firm determination, and Tristan flexed his fingers about his wand as the lift came to a rattling halt, doors swinging back open.
"Stupefy!"
A flash of red soared at him.
Tristan leaped out of the box, rolling into the atrium as the spell burst behind him in a shower of sparks and bouncing back up onto his feet.
A pair of red-robed Aurors jogged from the golden fountain, wands raised.
"Easy, Kingsley," the left one called. "The lift probably just malfunctioned again."
Kingsley Shacklebolt scanned the atrium with sharp, dark-brown eyes. "Homenum revelio!"
A ripple of magic swept over Tristan; he clutched the Cloak tight about himself and crept closer.
Shacklebolt frowned. "Just the two of us, still."
"Well, yeah, obviously." The other Auror snorted. "No intruder is dumb enough to take the visitor entrance at three in the morning; some homeless muggle probably took a piss in the box and set off the magic."
"We should still notify Potter," Shacklebolt suggested. "His orders were to report anything suspicious."
His partner flapped a lazy hand. "Whatever. If you want to get yelled at again then go ahead and send a Patronus."
Shacklebolt raised his wand.
'Imperio!' Tristan washed his own will through him, drowning any resistance beneath that iron resolve.
Shacklebolt blinked. "I'd better tell James in person," he mumbled, lowering the wand. "Do you mind fixing the telephone box in the meantime, Dawlish? Might as well give it a new paint job while you're at it."
"You're the one who destroyed it, mate," Dawlish scoffed. "But I'd still rather do that than get yelled at by the captain for leaving our post, so..."
Shacklebolt chuckled and crossed the atrium towards the elevators; Tristan slipped in beside him.
"Level Two," the smooth, high female voice announced as golden doors rattled open again. "Department of Magical Law Enforcement."
A pair of red-robed Aurors leaned against the wall, spinning their wands through their fingers. "Anything interesting happen up there, Kingsley?"
"No," Shacklebolt replied. "Is Captain Potter in his office?"
"Captain went to check on the prisoner thirty minutes ago." The Auror yawned into his elbow. "Mind asking him how long he needs us on watch tonight? I'm fucking tired of waiting around."
"Sure." Shacklebolt jabbed the button and the lift sank further down.
Two corridors, walled and tiledin smooth black stone, branched off into opposite directions; torches cast eerie shadows onto the familiar stout wooden doors lining the left one, but the right one plunged into complete darkness.
'That's the one leading to the Department of Mysteries.' Tristan smothered a tug of curiosity beneath firm determination. 'But that's not what I'm here for.' He stepped out of the lift into the cool, dim passage. "Wait here for five minutes," he told Shacklebolt. "Then go back up and retake your post in the atrium."
Tristan pointed his wand down the corridor. "Homenum Revelio."
The smooth elder wood buzzed twice in his fingers.
'Only two people; Neville and James, and they're all the way at the end of the corridor.' He took a deep breath of cool air and strode past torch after flickering torch, spinning his wand through his fingers to the throb of his heart in his ears. 'Almost there, and I won't be stopped.'
A broad, iron-barred door etched with strange glowing runes stood at the end of the corridor.
'Finally.' He picked up his stride, excitement whispering through his veins, but one of the black tiles beneath his foot gave in with a faint click.
'Ah, shit.'
"Alright then, that's far enough." Nymphadora Tonks shimmered into view in front of the door, clad in tight red auror robes and wand raised. "Show yourself or I'll start blasting the sort of curses you really don't want to be hit with."
Tristan drew back the hood off the Invisibility Cloak.
Nymphadora's steel-gray eyes widened a touch as they swept him up and down. "It's really you, little cousin." She blew a bubble of bright pink gum until it popped and collected it off her lips with the tip of her tongue. "Damn, James was right."
"If you're here, then–"
The rune-covered door opened and James marched out, wand tip pointing at Tristan. "I knew you'd come and try to finish what you started; to silence him." His hazel eyes held none of that gentle, mischievous warmth Tristan recalled from his childhood; they blazed with pure contempt. "It was either going to be you or Harry, but my money was on you."
"How are Magnolia and Aunt Lily?" Tristan murmured, folding up the cloak and slipping it into his pocket. "I didn't see them yesterday after –"
"Don't call her aunt," James growled. "My wife and daughter almost died because you used them as bait."
"You agreed to the plan beforehand and I'm not the one who attacked them." A touch of heat rose in Tristan's heart, seeping into his tone like poison. "The person you're hiding did, just as they attacked Dorea."
"I wasn't there; for all I know it could've been you."
"I'm telling you it was him." Tristan clamped down on a hot rush of frustration and fury. "He killed my aunt, uncle, and cousins, Arcturus and Melania, and Sirius's entire family." The rage bubbled over and black mist bled from his wrists, swirling about his fingers. "He slaughtered my little baby sister in my mother's womb and yet here you are… still protecting him..."
"I'm making sure you don't silence him so he can be trialed, and we finally get to the bottom of this fucking mess Harry dragged us into." James' jaw clenched. "I'm no longer turning a blind eye to you and your father; you two will be tried in court right after."
"For what? Protecting our family?"
"You're no longer family after all the pain and suffering you brought to mine." James spat. "Hand over your wand."
"I didn't come here to fight you, James," Tristan whispered. "And I really don't want to, so please don't make me."
"I wouldn't want to fight us either." Nymphadora popped her bubble of chewing gum. "But the Captain's orders were clear; hand over your wand, little cousin."
Tristan studied the heat blazing in James' hazel eyes; it burned fierce as fiendfyre, devouring every last joyful childhood memory and moment of shared laughter between them.
"So be it then." He sealed the sorrow behind clenched teeth and let the freezing fury well up in his breast, felt the black mist creep across his skin cold and sharp as the frost seizing his heart. "I won't be stopped."
Spellfire lit up the dark corridor.
Tristan conjured a bright white shield and watched the curses fizzle out against it like droplets of rain in washes of color.
With a growl, James jabbed his wand at the floor and yanked, stripping the black tiles from it and hurling them at Tristan.
Black mist exploded from his wrist, slicing his sleeves to tatters, and swallowed the tiles in a furious, screaming storm of shadow. The mist lunged on further still, jagged lances and curved hooks poised at a wide-eyed James.
'No.' Tristan ripped his magic back inches from him, seizing the storm, but one of Nymphadora's curses slipped through and pierced his thigh in a flash of agony.
"Got you, little cousin," she cheered.
Fury flashed through his veins. 'Fine.' Tristan slashed his wand, hurling the air at them; they flew off their feet and slammed back against the wall with dull groans in a heap of limbs and crimson robes.
"Oh, fuck me; Gideon and Fabian weren't lying about him." Nymphadora hauled herself to her feet, clutching her shoulder. "I think I'll call for some backup, Captain," she wheezed, pointing her wand at the ceiling. "Expecto–"
'No, you don't.' Tristan thrust out his left palm, closing a noose of magic about her throat and hoisting her into the air.
Nymphadora's wand bounced across the floor as she clutched her neck and choked for breath, spitting out her chewing gum and flailing like a fish on a hook.
"Let her go!" James roared, firing bright red spells from his wand.
Tristan leaned left and let them whisper past his face; he closed his fingers and squeezed until Nymphadora's legs stopped kicking and her gray eyes slid shut.
With a wave of his hand, Tristan brushed her aside against the wall.
James gaped at her still form, breathing hard. "You killed her!"
"She's just unconscious," he replied. "I don't want to kill either of you; you're the one making this difficult."
"Sectumsempra!" James slashed his wand. "Sectumsempra!"
Tristan swatted the spells into the walls either side of him with deft flicks of his wand, watching deep, jagged gashes splitting the tiles. "I doubt that one's from your Auror Manual."
James grabbed his wand with both hands; cherry-red tongues of flame spewed from the tip, rushing down the corridor in a torrent of hungry whispers.
Scalding heat clawed at Tristan, licking at his fingers and forearms. He poured his magic into the fire and smothered James's hot, furious intent beneath Fleur's bright blue eyes and gentle smile.
"Fiendfyre," Tristan muttered, stifling the waves of throbbing pain pulsing through him. "You really hate me enough to cast it…"
James stared at the fresh pink skin creeping over the raw red flesh along Tristan's fingers and arm. "I remember holding you in my arms the day you were born." Pure disgust burned in his hard hazel eyes. "What have you become?"
'Something great.' Tristan ripped the wand from his grasp and tossed it behind himself, hurling James to his knees. "Tell me where you're hiding him."
"Never!" James spat.
"I'm tired of you wasting my time. Legilimens." Tristan brushed their thoughts together, diving through a web of rage and fear.
In a small dark room beyond the iron-barred door, he found himself tracing the tip of his wand down the middle of the right wall, his lips whispering words in latin.
'Nemo est supra leges.'
Tristan severed their connection and held the wide terrified hazel eyes, touching the tip of his wand to James' temple. "After everything you've said and cast at me, a part of me would be lying if I told you I was sorry. Obliviate."
He ripped every word exchanged from James' recent memory but left their duel intact, layering Teddy's gray eyes and small sad smile beneath that mob of turquoise hair over the memory of his own face.
James slumped to the floor.
Tristan spared a glance at Nymphadora's still form. 'Still sleeping. Good.' He flung open the thick iron door and stepped through; a simply flatbed and small wooden table stood to the left of a plain metal sink.
"Nemo est supra leges," Tristan murmured, running the tip of his wand down the wall to his right.
A slim steel handle grew from the smooth black stone.
He twisted it and pushed.
In the shallow dimly lit room beyond, Neville lay on a wide hospital bed, limbs wrapped in white bandages; his chest rose and fell in long, even breaths.
'I could kill him right now.' Tristan wrestled with the temptation for half a second. 'But I promised Father I'd take him back alive.'
"Stupefy." Tristan levitated Neville with a flick of his wand and covered him with the cloak from head to toe. "Hopefully this works." He slipped back out through the first room and into the corridor, steering Neville's invisible form by the ankle of his foot.
'Now I still need to distract Shacklebolt and Dawlish somehow so I can use the lift back up into muggle London.' His eyes fell on the slumbering form of Nymphadora. "Sorry, big cousin." Tristan crouched next to her and pointed his wand at her chest. "Rennervate."
Gray eyes snapped open.
"Obliviate." He modified Nymphadora's memory as he had James'. "Imperio."
Tristan crushed her will beneath his; she rose to her feet, dusted off her red Auror robes, and led the way back down the corridor. He disillusioned himself and followed her into the elevator, wand in his right hand and holding Neville's floating ankle in the left.
The first rays of dawn crept through the enchanted windows of the atrium. Dawlish and Shacklebolt sat on the edge of the golden fountain, swiping their fingers through the spurts of water from the wands of the two statues.
"Tonks?" Dawlish frowned. "What are you doing up here?"
"Captain sent me to give you boys some company for the last hour." Tonks chirped. "Does one of you have any chewing gum by chance? I think I lost mine."
Tristan slipped around them across the atrium towards the telephone box gleaming in a fresh coat of red paint. He squeezed in alongside Neville and pushed the button for up.
Dawlish and Shacklebolt chatted with Nymphadora as the box ascended with a faint drone, and the second he felt himself pass through the wards, Tristan seized Neville's ankle in a tight grip and apparated home.
Three pairs of eyes snapped up at him from across the dining table, two blue ones and a green one, and three chairs scraped over the floor.
"Shhh." Tristan placed a finger across his lips. "Are my siblings still asleep, the doors locked, and is the room soundproof?"
His mother flicked her wand and the doors slammed shut. "Yes. Now speak."
He removed the invisible cloak and lowered Neville onto the carpet.
Sharp intakes of breath echoed through the dining room and Tristan's parents' faces paled.
"Is he... dead?" Fleur whispered.
"No." He touched the tip of his wand to Neville's chest. "Rennervate."
Neville jerked awake with a hiss, squeezing his eyes shut tight as his body shook and blood dribbled from his lips. "What the fuck is that?!"
"That's our wards welcoming you," Tristan's father murmured.
"Harry? Is that you?" Neville blinked one eye open and winced. "Where am I?"
"At my home."
Neville heaved himself upright, glanced about, and froze. "You're insane. You actually broke me out of the Ministry?"
"No, Tristan did."
He turned his head, twitching as he met Tristan's eye. "We've fought monsters before, Harry, we both have, but you created the worst I've ever seen."
Freezing fury flashed through Tristan's veins. "It was you who made me this way. You and Isabella, and Draco, and Teddy," he snapped, a trickle of ink-black magic bleeding from his wrists. "Everything you took from me shaped me into who I am today."
"Mon Coeur..." Fleur whispered in his ear, warm fingers closing about his. "Calm."
Tristan smothered the rage with a deep breath and glanced at his father. "Get your closure and let's be done with this."
His parents exchanged a long look.
"Why Neville?" Tristan's father's whisper was soft and silent as settling snow. "Why are you doing all of this?"
"Why?!" Neville echoed. "Look around you, Harry. Your wife is meant to be long dead, your monster of a son was never meant to be born and you–" he snorted at Fleur, "–you're meant to marry Bill Weasley next month and give birth to your first daughter by this point next year."
Fleur glared down her nose at him with pitch black eyes. "The only man I will one day marry stands beside me," she murmured, "If I do carry children into this world, it will be his."
"Then your life is a lie," Neville muttered. "And we will correct it."
"All you've done so far is kill innocent people. Two of you are already dead and soon, there'll be a third." Tristan scoffed. "Just what are you correcting?"
"I'm not telling you anything, monster," Neville spat. "You'll see soon enough."
"I think I'd rather see now." He caught Neville's brown eyes and brushed their thoughts together, but all he glimpsed beyond the thick, bubbling hatred – no matter how hard he probed – was the crest of crossed golden rapiers burning bright and hot as the rising sun.
Tristan yanked back, leaving Neville clutching his temples, a thin trickle of crimson leaking from his nostrils. "You're a much better Occlumens than your two friends, but you'll speak eventually; I'll just have to torture the truth out of you."
Neville paled and swallowed hard. "I'm not afraid of pain. You will learn nothing from me, no matter what you try. Ted and I swore an unbreakable vow to each other; the second I reveal anything, I will die."
Tristan clamped down on a hot rush of frustration as nothing but the blank truth stared up at him from within those brown eyes.
"He could be bluffing," his mother suggested.
"He's not lying about the vow," he muttered. "But that also means he's completely useless to us." Tristan nodded to his father. "This one's all yours... unless you want me to do it, because I will gladly."
"No." His father steeled himself with a deep breath and drew the pale elder wand from within his sleeve, pointing the tip at Neville's heart. "I'll do it myself. I have to."
Neville raised his chin in defiance. "Will you, Harry? Will you really kill your childhood friend?"
Shadows swam in Tristan's father's green eyes, deep and dark as dust. "You're not the same Neville who defied Voldemort and the Carrows," he murmured. "You're not the boy who stood up to Hermione, Ron, and I at the end of First Year."
Neville scoffed. "And you're not the same Harry who stepped through the flames to stop Quirrell all alone."
"You're right; I'm not alone anymore, I was given a second chance." His father gritted his teeth. "And I can't let anyone take it away."
"I am fighting for my wife and my two daughters." Neville's lips trembled. "The family that was ripped from me; the one you took away."
"Then we're both fighting for something worthwhile."
"No, Harry." Neville chuckled, a low, cold note of humor. "No, we're not. What you call family isn't real; it never was."
"It is real to me." Tristan's father whispered, raising the wand. "Avada Kedavra."
Emerald light washed through the dining room.