Rukia Potter

Chapter One - One life ends

Disclaimer - Don't own Harry Potter or Bleach

Bellatrix was almost at the telephone lift at the other end of the hall, but she looked back as he sprinted towards her and aimed another spell at him. He dodged behind the fountain of Magical Brethren: the spell zoomed past him and hit the wrought-gold gates at the other end of the Atrium so that they rang like bells. There were no more footsteps. She had stopped running. He crouched behind the statues, listening.

"Come out, come out, little Harry!" she called in her mock baby voice, which echoed off the polished wooden floors. "What did you come after me for, then? I thought you were here to avenge my dear cousin!"

"I am!" shouted Harry, and a score of ghostly Harrys seemed to chorus I am! I am! I am! All around the room.

"Aaaaaah . . . did you love him, little baby Potter?"

Hatred rose in Harry such as he had never known before; he flung himself out from behind the fountain and bellowed, "Crucio!"

Bellatrix screamed: the spell had knocked her off her feet, but she did not writhe and shriek with pain as Neville had - she was already back on her feet, breathless, no longer laughing. Harry dodged behind the golden fountain again. Her counter-spell hit the head of the handsome wizard, which was blown off and landed twenty feet away, gouging long scratches into the wooden floor.

"Never used an Unforgivable Curse before, have you, boy?" She yelled. She had abandoned her baby voice now. "You need to mean them, Potter! You need to really want to cause pain - to enjoy it - righteous anger won't hurt me for long - I'll show you how it is done, shall I? I'll give you a lesson -"

Harry was edging around the fountain on the other side when she screamed, "Crucio!" and he was forced to duck down again as the centaurs arm, holding its bow, span off and landed with a crash on the floor a short distance from the golden wizards head.

"Potter, you cannot win against me!" she cried.

He could hear her moving to the right, trying to get a clear shot of him. He backed around the statue away from her, crouching behind the centaur's legs, his head level with the house-elf's.

"I was and am the Dark Lord's most loyal servant. I learned the Dark Arts from him, and I know spells of such power that you, pathetic little boy, can never hope to compete - "

"Stupefy!" yelled Harry. He had edged right around to where the goblin stood beaming up at the now headless wizard and taken aim at her back as she peered around the fountain. She reacted so fast he barely had time to duck.

"Protego!"

The jet of red light, his own Stunning Spell, bounced back at him. Harry scrambled back behind the fountain and one of the goblin's ears went flying across the room.

"Potter, I'm going to give you one chance!" shouted Bellatrix. "Give me the prophecy - roll it out towards me now - and I may spare your life!"

"Well, you're going to have to kill me, because it's gone!" Harry roared and, as he shouted it, pain seared across his forehead; his scar was on fire again, and he felt a surge of fury that was quite unconnected with his own rage. "And he knows!" said Harry, with a mad laugh to match Bellatrix's own. "Your dear old mate Voldemort knows it's gone! He's not going to be happy with you, is he?"

"What? What do you mean?" she cried, and for the first time there was fear in her voice.

"The prophecy smashed when I was trying to get Neville up the steps! What do you think Voldemort'll say about that, then?"

His scar seared and burned . . . the pain of it was making his eyes stream . . .

"LIAR!" she shrieked, but he could hear the terror behind the anger now. "YOU'VE GOT IT, POTTER, AND YOU WILL GIVE IT TO ME! Accio prophecy! ACCIO PROPHECY!"

Harry laughed again because he knew it would incense her, the pain building in his head so badly he thought his skull might burst. He waved his empty hand from behind the one-eared goblin and withdrew it quickly as she sent another jet of green light flying at him.

"Nothing there!" he shouted. "Nothing to summon! It smashed and nobody heard what it said, tell your boss that!"

"No!" she screamed. "It isn't true, you're lying! MASTER, I TRIED, I TRIED - DO NOT PUNISH ME -"

"Don't waste your breath!" yelled Harry, his eyes screwed up against the pain in his scar, now more terrible than ever. "He can't hear you from here!"

"Can't I, Potter?" said a high, cold voice.

Harry opened his eyes.

Tall, thin and black-hooded, his terrible snakelike face white and gaunt, his scarlet, slit-pupilled eyes staring . . . Lord Voldemort had appeared in the middle of the hall, his wand pointing at Harry who stood frozen, quite unable to move.

"So, you smashed my prophecy?" said Voldemort softly, staring at Harry with those pitiless red eyes. "No, Bella, he is not lying . . . I see the truth looking at me from within his worthless mind . . . months of preparation, months of effort . . . and my Death Eaters have let Harry Potter thwart me again . . ."

"Master, I am sorry, I knew not, I was fighting the Animagus Black!" sobbed Bellatrix, flinging herself down at Voldemort's feet as he paced slowly nearer. "Master, you should know -"

"Be quiet, Bella," said Voldemort dangerously. "I shall deal with you in a moment. Do you think I have entered the Ministry of Magic to hear your snivelling apologies?"

"But Master - he is here - he is below -"

Voldemort paid no attention.

"I have nothing more to say to you, Potter," he said quietly. "You have irked me too often, for too long. AVADA KEDAVRA!"

Harry had not even responded his mind was blank, his wand pointing uselessly at the floor. From the corner of his eye Harry could see Dumbledore point his wand at the statue of the wizard, which ran forward to block the curse that Harry was unable dodge.

But then it went horribly wrong Bellatrix seeing that Dumbledore would save Harry sent a powerful blasting hex at the statue which seemed to explode from the force of the hit. The last things Harry saw were Dumbledore's angry and upset expression, his friends and the members of the order of the phoenix's shocked faces and finally Voldemort's triumphant expression as they all watched him get struck by the killing curse.

Voldemort seeing he had been successful in killing one of his greatest enemies broke out into a maniacal grin and let out a chilling laugh that caused Dumbledore to send a stunner, which he expertly dodged. He then grabbed an ecstatic Bellatrix and apparated out of the atrium just as Fudge and several aurors flooed in and saw him grab Bellatrix and disappear.

The forces of the light on the other hand looked down at their fallen ally and friend hoping beyond all hope that he would survive this curse just as he had done when he was a baby. They were still staring at Harry's body in shock when Minister Fudge and the aurors came over with looks of confusion and fear on their faces.

"Dumbledore what's going on here? Why are those students here? Was that Voldemort? " Fudge asked very quickly. Worried that something was wrong because of the number of people in the group crying.

Dumbledore didn't even look up, he could tell they hadn't noticed Harry yet because they were so focused on him for answers he let out a long sigh and replied "Yes that was indeed Voldemort he was here to try and steal a prophecy regarding him and Harry Potter, and the students and others here are here because we were trying to stop him."

Fudge and the others looked troubled and shocked at this information, Fudge looked troubled because he knew now that denying you-know-who was back for a year was going to come back and bite him now so he decided he would just rely on Dumbledore to tell him what to do. "Okay Dumbledore let's go to the Wizegmont chambers and call a full meeting to decide the best course of action."

Dumbledore looked up slowly amazed that none of them had noticed the body on the ground right in front of them. "I'm sorry Cornelius the meeting will have to wait; there is something even more important to attend to right now."

"What is it?" Fudge asked nervously, what could be more important than the return of you-know-who?

"A funeral." He replied simply, with that he bent down and picked up Harry's body ignoring the gasps of shock from Cornelius and the aurors. He turned to the forces of the light "Come let us return to Hogwarts floo straight into my office and we shall walk to the hospital wing to treat the injured and store Harry's body." Dumbledore's voice broke at that last part and they all started to walk to the fireplaces.

Before they could start to floo away Cornelius yelled worriedly "Dumbledore is that Harry Potter? Is he actually dead?" All he got in return was a sad nod of the head.

Harry watched in shock as the killing curse sped towards him. When it was mere centimetres away he closed his eyes and prepared himself for unbearable pain, instead all he felt was a ripping sensation in his chest. He opened his eyes to find himself still standing in the atrium.

He watched, still confused as to how he survived, and noticed a stunner flying towards him from Dumbledore's wand, so he dived in the direction of his friends. Then he turned to Voldemort just in time to watch him apparate with Bellatrix out of the atrium as the aurors arrived.

Harry then turned to the headmaster and yelled angrily "Why the hell did you try to stun me? Why didn't you stop Voldemort?"

Harry's anger only increased as he watched everyone in the atrium, gather around the spot where he had almost been stunned, and completely ignore him. He stalked over to them intent on yelling at Dumbledore. But then he saw what they were gathered around, he stared in shock for what seemed like days but in reality where only minutes and finally yelled, "WHAT THE HELL!"

For there laying on the ground in front of Harry was himself. Harry continued to stare in shock at the same spot even after 'he' was moved he didn't notice anything until he heard Dumbledore say about a funeral and storing his body. As Harry saw everyone was leaving he finally realised that he was dead, he was just starting to think on why he was there when he noticed everyone leaving. So he jumped up, hearing a rattling that for now he ignored, and ran over to get their attention but it did no good and soon Harry found himself as the only person in the huge atrium.

Seeing as he was now alone Harry decided to try and figure out what had happened and how he could fix it. So he sat down and tried to remember every detail, after a while Harry remembered that when he had jumped up there had been a rattling sound that came from him.

Looking down he saw straight away what had made the noise, what he saw shocked him because attached to his chest was a chain that went on for about seven links. Feeling worried about what it might be he pulled on the chain only to nearly pass out from the pain it caused.

Looking down at the chain harry saw that after pulling it the links had started to deteriorate, as it got closer he saw that it started to slow down and saw there were now only four links left. With nothing else left to do harry sat down on the ground and decided to wait for himself to pass on or get pulled to his body or anything. After a few hours had passed harry had decided that being dead was the most boring experience of his ... afterlife. After this thought passed through his mind he was suddenly blinded by a light coming from the centre of the atrium that took the shape of a door, as the shape formed he noticed a figure standing in the door that looked like a petite woman. As the light faded he noticed that she was looking around as if searching for something, when he got the urge to try communicate with her despite being dead. So he walked right up behind her and put a hand on her shoulder and said "hi I'm harry what's your name?"

The girl then spun around faster then he could see and drew a sword he hasn't noticed and put it to his neck and glared at him. "How can you see me human?" She then looked down and saw his chain and then seemed to instantly relax.

Harry seeing he wasn't going to be killed for the second time tonight decided to try again. "So like I said I'm Harry Potter, what about you?"

She then stared at him as if assessing his worthiness and then smiled and replied warmly "I'm sorry my name is Rukia Kuchiki."

Authors notes - Review and tell me if i should continue with this story.