At that moment, Severus Snape was currently sitting in the abandoned World War II bunker that had served as his home for the last several months while he had the undesirable task of watching Lily.
Everything had simply gone wrong for him, he concluded.
He should never have brought Lily back.
At first he had been easily persuaded by Dumbledore, confident that together they could bring her back, but after more than a decade of effort only to finally fail, he had been about ready to give up when Dumbledore suggested they clone her instead.
It was not really to his taste since it really wouldn't be the same Lily, but Dumbledore finally convinced him that it would still be her, complete with all of her memories.
In the end he had agreed, still nurturing the fantasy that once she realized that it had been he that had saved her, that she would finally fall in love with him.
The result however had been just the opposite.
After telling her just what had happened to her original and then what he had done in making a copy of her, she had actually spit in his face and refused to talk with him further.
While she had mellowed out as the months continued on as he remained her only company, she was still quite upset with him, especially after he refused to let her leave or in particular visit her son.
He had still been obliged to keep her locked up in a room where she couldn't hurt herself should she try and commit suicide or try to escape.
She was simply being foolish, he had finally decided. Harry wasn't really her son. She had no family, no one except him.
Wasn't he enough? Hadn't they been friends once, and hadn't he been the one to spend so much of his life trying to bring her back?
Shame on her for being so ungrateful and shame on himself for ever letting himself believe that he would ever truly have her.
He was sick of it, sick of the fact that his life no longer had meaning, and sick of this blasted bunker.
It was a total and complete failure everything he had hoped to accomplish, causing him to once again rue the loss of the last 13 years of his life spent trying to achieve... what? Babysitting duty of a woman who he loved but who still hated him? Now he was pretty much a prisoner himself here, both body and mind as he still couldn't help but dwell on what might have been.
As he was still thinking, he heard a clang that marked the arrival of someone just outside the bunker.
He was slightly surprised, but after checking, he found that it was only Dumbledore, his blasted fire chicken currently perched on his shoulder.
'Great, just who I wanted to see...' Snape thought. He would be telling Dumbledore flat out that he wasn't going to do this anymore. If he wanted to hide Lily away from the world, then he could guard her himself.
Removing the security spells on the door so that it would be easier for Dumbledore to get in, he waited until Dumbledore slid it open and stepped inside.
Before Dumbledore could even say anything, Snape insisted, "I'm not doing this anymore Dumbledore. She hates me and I can't deal with being around her any longer!"
"Don't worry, I've come to solve your problem Severus." Dumbledore replied calmly.
The way he said it however made Snape suspicious. "What are you planning to do with her?" He asked.
"Merely getting rid of the problem." Dumbledore informed him as if he were merely taking out the rubbish bin, "the thing is I have recently become aware that our little project might have been compromised. I'm merely getting rid of loose ends in case they are discovered."
"You plan to kill her?" Snape asked in alarm.
"It's like you've always said Snape, she isn't really Lily so there shouldn't be any real loss." Dumbledore argued.
"She's still got all of her memories though and she still looks and acts like her. To kill her would be murdering her all over again." Snape countered.
It would be accurate to say that Dumbledore was right in assuming that she wasn't Lily, but he also couldn't bring himself to see her die either.
What was the point then in the last 13 years if they were just going to kill her?
"Helping to get Lily killed is something that you should already be very familiar with already, need I remind you." Dumbledore told him.
It was an extremely low blow, even if it was accurate.
"I'm not going to let you kill her," Snape said, still holding his ground, "and that's final."
"What makes you think you still have a decision?" Dumbledore pointed out.
"We're partners in this." Snape reminded him, "I do what you want to do and you do what I want to do, that's how it's always been."
"Only when it still served my own interests." Dumbledore informed him, "I'll admit that in the past I did have to cater to many of your demands because I still needed you. However, if you continue to insist then I suppose I don't really need you either."
"So it's come to this then," Snape said, drawing his wand, "I always thought I'd be the one to turn against you, but I have to admit I never saw this coming."
"Not if you don't want it to, come now, Snape, must we really fight this out?" Dumbledore asked, "You know that I'm the far better duelist."
"I backed down from this fight when I learned Voldemort was planning to kill Lily, and I've regretted it every day since." Snape insisted, "I'm not going to make the same mistake twice."
"It's a pity," Dumbledore declared with absolutely no pity on his face, "I suppose I shall just have to kill you too then."
Snape fired a spell at Dumbledore, which Dumbledore dodged as he fired off his own spell.
Now beginning to trade spells, Dumbledore said, "I'll bet you wish you hadn't made me all of those vitality potions to make sure I stayed physically strong and healthy. I might have been a doddering old man by now."
"I regret everything I ever did for you!" Snape roared as he returned a spell.
He knew that he was no match for Dumbledore, but he also couldn't just stand by and let him kill Lily all over again. While he admittedly was a horrible excuse for a human being and had likely done little that was right, he would at least do this one good thing, for Lily, in whatever form or condition she happened to be in.
Soon, Dumbledore unleashed several spells that were simply beyond his ability to counter.
He was knocked against a wall, and then found that he had suddenly lost all movement in his body as he still stood facing a now grinning Dumbledore.
The last thing he saw in his life was the words Avada Kedavra and a green light.
"That was easy." Dumbledore announced to himself as he looked down at Snape's body, feeling not the least bit guilty.
"It certainly was." agreed a woman's voice behind him.
He turned to see a woman that he recognized as one of his former students, Tonks he was pretty sure was her name.
She must have come in while he had been busy dueling Snape or he would have noticed her presence.
It seemed to be the final revenge from Snape. In his laziness he had left the security spells down after he had entered, allowing her to enter as well, even though he wasn't entirely sure how she had gotten there or even found this place.
She might have even been trying to get inside for some time, not that Snape could be trusted to notice such things, yet him coming here with the security wards down had finally provided her the opportunity to slip in.
However she was not alone.
Two other Aurors also appeared, both hidden under an invisibility cloak.
"I was hoping to find Snape and just interrogate him, but this is even better." Tonks declared, "I'm afraid I'm going to have arrest you Dumbledore for the murder of Severus Snape and the illegal use of an unforgivable."
Tonks gestured for both Aurors with her to go arrest him, but they seemed to hesitate when Dumbledore held up a piece of paper.
"This gives me a license to kill any suspected criminals." Dumbledore claimed, now prepared to argue himself out of it. He'd obtained the license during the war with Voldemort from the Ministry and had held on to it for just such a situation as this, "I was merely trying to help that's all. It appears I was wrong about him having shunned his Death Eater ways and he committed some very serious crimes, including illegal cloning. I believe you'll find evidence to this all around this building. When I confronted him about it I had no choice but to kill him in order to protect myself and others from whatever his evil plans were."
"Weren't you the one to kidnap Fleur Delacour only earlier today?" Tonks then asked.
Dumbledore laughed and said, "Is that what she told you? It's probably merely a ploy to try and get back at me after me and several teachers caught several of their friends trying to break into my private room. There is no evidence that I did anything of the sort because it simply didn't happen."
"You're very clever Dumbledore even while you've got your back to the wall." Tonks said, "You might very well have gotten out of this if it wasn't for one thing."
"What's that?" He asked.
"Since you're still under suspicion of having committed an illegal murder, we're legally allowed to interrogate any eyewitnesses who actually saw everything take place." Tonks informed him.
"Well, you're free to interrogate me if you'd like." Dumbledore offered condescendingly.
"I wasn't referring to you, I was referring to your phoenix." Tonks said, gesturing at Fawkes, who was still on his shoulder, "I can take him and detain him for 24 hours for questioning legally."
"It's merely a bird." Dumbledore tried to say.
"We'll see." Tonks said cheekily, "So if you don't mind I'll just take him."
"You're not taking Fawkes anywhere." Dumbledore defended.
"If you didn't commit any crimes, then what's your problem Dumbledore?" Tonks insisted unable to hide a grin, "Scared about what a mere bird might tell us?"
Dumbledore knew then. Knew that they had learned about him subduing Fawkes and this time he had no reason not to let them take him.
Perhaps he could sue them for heavily checking on Fawkes if they didn't find anything, but he knew that 24 hours was a long time and he knew that they would spend every effort in trying to find it.
He'd been obligated to keep Fawkes around in order to achieve his clone experimentation and he couldn't guarantee that they wouldn't get a hold of his memories of things that would certainly implicate him as well.
It appeared that the reason his plan had succeeded could also be what caused it to fail.
Quickly, he went over his options. He could either run or fight back. Running would only make him look guilty and like the coward that he wasn't.
The other was to fight back. If he managed to subdue all of them, he could simply modify their memory and make them forget. It would be 3 of them against him. You had to feel sorry for them.
Faster than a person could blink, he fired off his first spell at the nearest Auror, who was caught unprepared.
It knocked him out, and Dumbledore thought to himself, make that two to one. They didn't stand a chance.
Tonks and the other Auror that he recognized as Warhol, another former student of his instantly sprang into action.
Dumbledore got Fawkes to flame travel out and away from danger as he took stance in front of them.
They began firing off spells at him, while they struggled to get close enough to their fallen comrade to revive him.
He made little effort to stop them for as soon as Warhol touched his fellow Auror to check him over, there was a satisfying shock as he was also knocked unconscious on top of his comrade, a little trap he liked to use.
Tonks, on the other hand dueled on, although surely she must have realized that it was futile. She was simply no match for him.
Still she put up a good effort and Dumbledore was prepared to spend the time to finally subdue her when the door to the bunker opened up unexpectedly again as he watched as Harry Potter and his little harem girls filed in, along with Sirius Black and his clone sister Ariana, who shot him a look of complete rage.
"Did I forget to mention I brought back up?" Tonks asked smiling.
Now it was more like 8 to 1, and while most of them were children they were also very skilled duelists.
It was Ariana, however, that he worried about the most. She had been created as an extremely powerful weapon and he knew quite well her capabilities.
She wouldn't have won in a one on one fight with him, but with so much support this was a duel he simply couldn't win.
He allowed himself to call upon his clones for aid.
His opponents had likely tried to set up anti-apparition wards to prevent his escape or him calling in back up of his own but he'd thought of even that possibility.
The same protections that they had managed to get past by the idiotic Snape leaving them open while he arrived also had a fail safe designed just for him to still allow apparition to him and his clones.
Immediately all of his clones arrived, which now numbered a dozen, all ready to fight to the death if need be.
"It looks like you aren't the only one who can bring back up," Dumbledore pointed out.
Each clone chose an opponent to fight.
Clone Crouch began dueling Gabrielle.
Clones Umbridge and Hopkirk began dueling Tonks.
Voldemort on the other hand was absent. He was the best duelist out of all of them, but he was currently still busy reorganizing the Death Eaters.
What he had however should be sufficient he hoped.
The rest he didn't have time to notice just who they were dueling since his attention was diverted by a scream of rage as Ariana ran up to him, firing spells even as she went.
"YOU MONSTER!" She roared, "I'm a clone! Everything you gave me is a lie!"
"I gave you life." Dumbledore answered even as he fired a spell at her.
"After you killed me in the first place!" She reminded him, still trying to hit him.
"I spent all this time trying to bring you back, to give you what you should have had." He argued.
"You did it for your own evil ambitions nothing more." She declared,
"I did it for the greater good, to help make the world a better place." He told her.
"You did it for your own greater good," She reminded him.
"What would you know? You're merely my creation." He pointed out, "I gave you everything you know. That's also why you have no hope of defeating me."
"Not everything." She answered boldly.
His mind was suddenly assaulted by her as images and thoughts entered his mind.
Images of kissing a girl he recognized as Susan Bones, of kissing Harry, and then tons of images he realized were merely fantasies, but he still struggled to get them out of his head.
She was stronger than Harry had been in the mental arts, stronger than all but himself just as he had created her only she was using a technique he definitely had never taught her.
He simply hadn't had enough time to create a defense against it since his mental duel with Harry, as such he was relentlessly barraged with it.
Yet it was an outside threat that finally got him as his mind was still totally distracted.
So focused was he on the mental assault he failed to notice the spell fly at him until the last second.
He moved just to the right so that instead of it hitting his chest, it hit his arm, the one still holding his wand.
Before he could even process it, he watched as his entire arm below the shoulder fell to the ground, his wand still gripped in it.
He looked over to see just who had done it.
It was Harry Potter, having already taken out both of the clones he had been fighting.
"You idiots!" Dumbledore screeched in anger.
He unlike all other wizards did not need a wand however, more powerful than any wizard that had ever lived.
Before he could be stopped, he used his remaining hand to release a blast of magic from it which he launched at Ariana.
She tried to put up a shield but it went right through and it hit her anyway, just as he expected it to. She was right, he hadn't taught her everything including this.
The spell would slowly sap at her strength, though it didn't depend upon her strength, which was certainly substantial.
It depended upon her will to live and from what little he had managed to glean from her mind in their mental duel, she simply didn't have much. She wasn't even worried whether she lived or died, even expecting to die in her duel with him.
He'd be giving her exactly what she wanted.
When she slumped to the ground, he used the opportunity to try and Apparate out, but as he tried to, he felt like he was about to explode as his body was suddenly inundated with electricity as if a lightning bolt had struck him.
"You aren't getting away...!" Ariana managed to say weakly as she could only lay there on the ground, the spell she had cast already doing it's work.
He slumped to the ground himself, neither of his legs now working properly as he felt like every part of his body was on fire and from what he could tell, badly electrocuted.
Even all of his hair and beard was totally singed off. He'd be totally left badly scarred all over his body after this. He knew enough about the spell she had used to know this.
It would appear that he was finished, yet he still had one last trick up his sleeve.
Calling for his now well used phoenix, Fawkes flamed over to him and immediately flame traveled them to safety.
He had been defeated, he knew that, and it would take time to recover both physically and with his plans as it was only a matter time before his secret cloning room at Hogwarts was found, but it still wasn't over. He could still rebuild and then make more clones. It would just take time, and he had always been a patient man.
DUELDUELDUEL
Meanwhile Harry gave a cry of rage as he finished off the last of the clones.
"How could we let him escape?" He roared.
Su said something but Harry was no longer listening, not really even caring for an answer to his own question, now focused on checking on Ariana who was being tended to by Pansy.
"How is she?" He asked worriedly.
Pansy just shook her head and said, "From what I can tell, it's a spell designed to slowly weaken her. I'm not a full mediwitch but I would say that it's all up to her, whether she has the will to fight it or not."
That was certainly a problem. Only hours ago Ariana had admitted even being tempted to kill herself.
"You got to fight it and try and live, you've got to." Harry told her as he dropped down onto his knees and held her hands.
She weakly looked over at him and said in a voice that was barely even a whisper, "I'm not sure if I'm strong enough."
"What do I need to say to convince you?" Harry asked, begging her.
Earlier that day, he'd offered her many things, some he wasn't even sure if he meant, but in the effort to save her, he would have said anything to get her to stay.
He simply couldn't bear to lose her.
"Will you marry me then Harry?" She asked.
From what he could tell, she was delusional and out of it, he could even see it in her eyes.
Nevertheless he didn't know what to say.
"He will," Pansy answered for him, "you just need to live so that you can."
He realized what Pansy was doing. She was promising her in her delusional state so that Ariana would have a reason to live.
"That's right, I will marry you Ariana," Harry told her, "I love you."
Ariana closed her eyes happily and then said still in barely a whisper, "I love you too Harry."
So what if he didn't actually love her or that Ariana probably didn't know what love was herself. He felt that it was enough to keep her alive and that was all that mattered for now.
Ariana finally drifted off into sleep.
He sat there for several minutes, still gazing into her beautiful face.
She really was beautiful, he thought.
Maybe not as beautiful as some of the other girls in looks, but he still found her beautiful somehow.
Perhaps it was just him being in awe of her.
Ariana had only really been alive for a few months but he couldn't imagine a more difficult existence.
She really had no family since she had never been born, all of her memories and everything she had ever known had been planted there by an evil man who she had been brainwashed into believing was her grandfather.
Yet in spite of all that, she had still turned against him, going against everything she would have known in order to help take him down.
They couldn't have done it without her.
Perhaps that was why he was still willing to do anything for her, but he knew there was more to it than that.
It could be that he saw a great deal of himself in her.
He'd once considered himself a freak by the Dursleys and it had taken a great deal for him to move past that. Even if it wasn't Ariana, he likely would want to save anyone who felt like that.
Yet he wouldn't have necessarily considered them beautiful.
Another realization hit him as he thought of the fact that Ariana was the perfect example of a person, emphasis on person, who did the right thing not because it was convenient, not because it was easy, but because it was who she was.
Not what she was, who she was.
He would never see her as a clone, but as a person and a beautiful one at that.
While his mind told him that it would help encourage her to stay alive, he still couldn't resist kissing her on the lips.
Pansy gave him a curious look.
"It's to help her still fight." He told her, trying to explain.
"I wouldn't have minded otherwise." She replied, much to his surprise, "I was actually just thinking that after I told her that you would marry her. I realized that if you really were marrying her like you were marrying all of us, that I would support you and still be okay with it."
"Realistically, do I really have enough room left in my heart for another girl?" He asked her.
She paused for a second and then finally said, "I think that's up to you."
Much to his even greater surprise, Pansy herself leaned in and kissed Ariana.
"I figured it might help too." She briefly explained.
They both stayed by her while Tonks continued giving out orders as they carefully searched the bunker for anything else they could find.
Last he had heard, they were still trying to break into a room with a large amount of security spells on it.
Tonks finally came back to check on Ariana and them however.
"Five of the clones were killed in the attack," Tonks informed them, "Three more committed suicide before we could apprehend them and four are still in our custody. I already got Peakes and Warhol to take them to the ministry. I'd say that this whole thing is going to create quite a stir among everyone, especially if we can't find the originals of the clones, but for now we'll be trying to keep it under wraps. Also I should probably give this back to you."
She tossed his wand back which he was grateful to have. His dad's old wand had worked pretty well in the fight but it still just wasn't the same as his own.
"I got it off of the Crouch clone, he evidently still had it in his pocket." She informed him.
"What are we going to do about Dumbledore?" Harry asked her.
"I'd imagine he's going to need time to recover." Tonks answered, "We dealt a major blow to his plans and likely stopped them just in time. He lost today, but we'll still need to be on our guard for our next confrontation. At least we'll have the full support of the Ministry from now on, he'll be in hiding and we can devote all our resources to finding him and see if there are any more clones out there."
At that moment as Pansy went over Ariana with her wand again, she pronounced, "The spell seems to be fading and I'd say she's already through the worst of it."
"So is she going to be okay?" Harry asked.
"I really can't say for certain, but I'd say that yes, I believe that she's going to make it."
Feeling elated at the news, he almost didn't hear Su's voice.
"Harry?" She asked him, now tapping him on the shoulder.
"What is it?" He asked.
"I think there's something that you need to see," She informed him.
"I'm a bit busy right now." He said, rather annoyed.
"I care about Ariana too, but there is something that you really need to see. Right now." She insisted.
Harry reluctantly left Ariana's side, giving her another kiss just for extra measure as he wondered just what was so important that he had to leave Ariana's side.
He hadn't begrudged them for going off and leaving her while they handled things, since they didn't all need to be crowded around her, but he still felt it was right to be there anyway.
Following Su down a hallway, she came to a door at the end of it and opened it up, allowing him to gaze inside.
When he saw who was inside, currently lying on a bed asleep, his mouth immediately dropped.
He couldn't actually remember ever actually having seen her, but he'd seen enough pictures of her that he immediately knew who it was.
"Mum?" He asked.