Harry raised his wand, thinking of Neville, back on the steps of the Three Broomsticks, blood pouring from his eyes and ears, thinking of Sirius falling back through the veil two years ago, thinking of Lupin's scream as she'd gone after Tonks. The hate inside him was huge and demanding, and his hand was shaking with rage. "Ava--"
"Don't do it."
Harry ignored the ghost that was suddenly standing in front of him, except to lean around it to get a better view. For a ghost, he was rather difficult to see through--nearly opaque, and in full color, with ambient blue light around him--but he was a ghost. He wasn't solid. He couldn't do anything. "Ava--"
The ghost moved its hand slightly, and Harry's wand flew back into the Forest. Bellatrix made a grab for it, but the ghost waved an impatient hand at her. "Stay down," he said in an authoritative voice. As if under the Imperius Curse, Bellatrix folded her hands neatly and laid her head down on the ground. He turned back to Harry. "You don't want to do this."
"Do you know how many people she's killed? Tortured?"
The ghost shrugged. "I doubt she has much on me," he said. Bellatrix laughed feebly. "My name is Anakin. You wouldn't know it. You wouldn't know the other name, either. It's... far from here. Long before you." He looked between the trees. "There are others coming. They'll take her away. She'll spend the rest of her miserable life in your prison. I sense that life will be... somewhat abbreviated as it is, with her master gone. You won't gain anything by killing her in anger, but you could lose everything."
"I'll risk it," Harry muttered and raised his hand, concentrating all of his energy on his wand. It flew to him.
"Impressive," the ghost called Anakin said. "Not a common skill among your people." He pointed at the wand again, and Harry felt it slipping away. He fought it this time, but the struggle kept him from using it, and that was apparently all Anakin was going to worry about. "I'm promising you," he said. "You don't want to do this. Unless you have some great desire to be miserable for the rest of your natural life and spend the next few millennia chasing around stupid adolescents who are about to royally screw up their own lives. Are you listening?"
"Not really, no."
Anakin rolled his eyes. "They never do. Why do I bother? I could save time and just choke you before you do serious damage to your world. They'd lecture me, but that's pretty much a given no matter what I do, so really, I might as well." Harry's wand was suddenly free, and there was a tightness in his throat. Anakin narrowed his eyes, then shook his head and let go. "You're an idiot. And trust me, I know idiots."
Harry was too sputtering mad to bother answering him anymore. The wand was in his control again, and he pointed it at Bellatrix directly through Anakin's ghost.
Anakin reached out casually and touched his forehead, and the sensation wasn't cold like the Hogwarts ghosts, but a kind of painful electricity. And Harry's mind flew from the Forbidden Forest, into a chain of images.
He stood in Hogsmeade as his friends crawled to him, kissing his robe.
He stalked over a battlefield in the future, the young boys fighting him falling in bloody tatters that he barely noticed.
He saw Ginny turn her back on him and walk away, and he saw himself going after her with murder in his eyes.
He saw a river of blood and a mountain of bones.
The painful sense of electric shock left, and he blinked at Anakin stupidly. The ghost faded away as the Order poured into the clearing and gathered Bellatrix to take her away.
Harry put his hands to his head and knelt on the mossy ground.
