KEYNOTE: David Tennant is Barty Crouch Jr, man didn't get nearly enough screen time.

P.S. This is a small chapter but hopefully, I did this duel justice.

Chapter 34 - Towers Falls

Albus didn't recognise the charm Barty released into the room, but it muddled his mind long enough to slow him.

Only Fawkes flying in front of him kept saved from the killing curse.

Albus caught the hatchling in his free palm in the resulting burst of flame.

"It seems today is a burning day," Albus mused as he fired back a counter attack in the limited space.

Barty grinned, easily flicking the attack aside.

Albus dispelled the fog as the mad men stalked further into the room.

"Albus Dumbledore, how many times is this now that you've hired an enemy? Welcomed them into your walls?"

Albus narrowed his gaze, mindful of the portraits rushing out of their frames for help.

Barty, sharp-eyed and quick-witted as ever he was, noticed, and sent an incendeo at the wall.

Albus cinched the flames before they could do harm, but he feared it was a mistake by the way Barty's eyes brightened, his smile gaining teeth.

"You knew," Barty said conversationally. "You knew who the boy was, what, he was. Were you waiting for him to show his darker side? He was never meant to be the Dark Lord's equal but to become the Dark Lord."

Albus's lips thinned, "I had my suspicions, but Harry surpassed all expectations."

"The Dark Lord took it back, you mean," Barty said as he sauntered closer. "I saw it in him, or rather what he is now lacking. Harry Potter is no longer the Dark Lord and no longer his equal."

"He knows a power you know not," Albus said.

Barty laughed, "It doesn't matter what power he has, Dumbledore. He's fighting a losing game."

"As are you," Albus said.

Barty's smile was nothing short of vicious, "Is that what you think? Do you think your power makes you better than me? Do you think greatness once bestowed cannot be torn down?"

"It is not my power that makes me greater than you."

"Wrong!" Barty yelled, the sudden volume increase striking a cord in Albus's heart, his pulse picking up speed. "So wrong. It's fear that made you what you are. They feared you. Feared that once defeating another that you yourself could be worse. If ever my lord made a mistake, it was in fearing you. Without fear, you are nothing."

There was something distinctly disturbing about Barty, the way he moved, the dramatization of his words. He looked like a junky at the top of his high, an artist at the height of their craft. What was most disturbing was that this restless and rabid demeanor was his comfortable self that he could easily be folded away. Pretending to be Alastor Moody couldn't have been too difficult, only a madman could have pretended to be Alastor, but to also perfect Bill Weasley.

Barty was hungry for this malevolent game, starving and single minded in his self appointed purpose.

Albus raised a brow, "Is that what you think?"

Barty grinned, "It's what I know."

"You were so unafraid of me, you've spent the last two years hiding," Albus said, eyes flicking to the portraits, looking for some sign help was coming.

There was no such sign.

Albus believed that in a duel between them, Barty would lose, but there was a look in his eyes that he had seen more from Gellert's followers than Voldemort's. A devotion born from admiration and love rather than fear and ambition.

The truly fearless were not brave, they owned a madness to a cause bigger than themselves.

A fearless man did things beyond reason or predictability.

Barty giggled and as if reading his mind, he taunted, "You have too much to lose, old man. Whereas I have nothing to lose, and thus nothing to fear."

Albus's wand moved in tandem with Barty's, but Albus misjudged his target.

One of his book cases was set aflame.

It was a simple matter to put it out, but the look of victorious ecstasy on the younger man's face said that Albus had played his hand.

Barty targeted the portraits again and between bursts of flames directed at the walls and ceilings, he struck at Albus.

Barty started simple, but the complexity of the spells quickly grew, proving that Barty Crouch Jr. was even more brilliant than they had expected him to be when he was attending Hogwarts.

"Come on, old man, fight me!"

Albus transformed the furniture into dragons of wood that were now set ablaze as barrelled toward Barty like a freight train.

Barty laughed as he swept his wand to the side like a musical conductor, "Impress me! Come on, show me something impressive!"

The flames cooled and the wooden dragons crumbled to ash at Barty's feet.

The ash grew wings of shadows and the portraits began to scream as they were swarmed by moths of smault and decay.

Albus had no time to counter as he shielded himself against the charmed ribbons of energy Barty felled upon him.

Albus's skillset wasn't all that different from Voldemort's who had mastered in Transfiguration and the Dark Arts as Albus had in his youth.

Therefore, it took Albus a heartbeat before he realised that the other wizard was charming the smoke in the air into bands of destructive power.

Resorting to shields, Albus was appalled by the power Barty was expressing as his unceasing spells ate at the barrier.

Underestimating your enemies was never wise thing to do, and Albus had to admit that he had severely underestimated this man.

The portraits continued to scream as Albus began looking for an escape when the ceiling of the tower began to fold inward.

"What did you do!?" Albus yelled as the sound of stone and glass rended itself apart.

Barty smiled, "All must fall to chaos and ruin before a new way can be paved, fresh and free of the taint of the past."

Albus tried to disapparate away when the floor exploded and Albus realised that when the Death Eater said he had too much to lose, he hadn't merely meant the things and portraits in his office.

The tower was falling, and if it fell in the wrong direction it would take out the main corridor and the Great Hall.

Along with anyone, any students, there which approaching, might very well be the majority of the school.

"Forgive me, Minerva," Albus breathed as he turned his back on Barty who was jumping off the crumbling balcony.

Albus gripped in his mind the layout of the school, of the stones that had become his home, that had sheltered him and his hope for his students.

The transfiguration spell he used, blasted the tower away toward the exterior of the castle not its interior and the students it sheltered.

Had there been more time, he might have banished the stone, might have frozen the fall, but these stones were resistant to such transformative magic.

Destruction was always so much simpler than creation.

Albus had no time, not to save himself nor ponder his regrets.

He aided the explosion, the ruin of his own home, and blew himself away in the process.

He wasn't thinking of the next grand adventure nor was he thinking of the impending pain.

Till the last, Albus Dumbledore knew only fear that his efforts would not be enough to keep those most precious safe.

Hogwarts could not save Albus, but it could aid him in his final breath of magic, with his last wish.

When the tower fell, only Albus fell with it. His very last act was curling around the baby phoenix who had saved his life long enough to give his death a purpose.

oOo

Minerva McGonagall got the warning from Albus, and perhaps, she could have left the evacuation of the students to Pomona and Severus, the only two other professors lingering over a late lunch.

But she did not, nor could she regret it as the last of the students descended toward the dungeons with Severus and Pomona redirecting the other students who had run toward the fire (because of course they did) back toward the Gryffindor tower, just in time as the Great Staircase collapsed and exploded.

Minerva felt in her heart that her friend had not made it, the sun itself seemed to dim.

Or maybe that was from the dust and smoke.

It took a long time to calm the students, get a headcount, and to organise the staff, including the kitchen staff, ensuring no one was lost.

Only one person was left uncounted and it took much too long to find him.

Or rather, what was left of him.

Aberforth stood beside Minerva, having told her about Barty Jr. successful deception and crimes, he said now, "I always expected magic to be the death of him. Especially dying by his own magic, but damn him for even now, doing so in such a noble way."

Minerva glared at him, cradling a baby Fawkes against her chest, "He was your brother."

Aberforth did not respond, and she saw in his eyes that seeing the remains of his brother's broken body had shaken him more than he cared to admit.

Minerva sighed, "He was my friend."

"Then you loved him more than I," Aberfothe said gruffly.

"Perhaps," she answered, looking up to watch the sun set over the shattered walls of the castle.

The walls that had stood for a thousand years, that should have protected them, that had, in the end, fallen as all towers eventually do.

oOo

AN: Thoughts, demi-dragons, or feedback, pretty please?