The next great adventure

If you're wondering how Snape ended up eating out of Harry's hand, you will have to read the whole of the series, because it's been a very long journey for both of them.

I ummed and aahed over ending the series this way, but was encouraged by the highly esteemed BAGGE's "Destruction of his own making".

Chapter 1: Severus Snape

Harry had cooked breakfast as he always did, Muggle-fashion, with a frying pan and grill, because while Spinner's End is warded to hide magic every use of magic requires the wards to be replenished - and Arthur Weasley's Muggle-mania hadn't rubbed off on his kids, Ronald and Ginevra Weasley could barely strike a match, and the Muggle-born Granger didn't seem able to so much as boil an egg without an instruction manual. And although he, Severus Snape, normally breakfasted only on tea and toast, he'd picked at the bacon and eggs, because it would have been rude to refuse the plate that Harry had passed to him, and it's a trick that every kid knows, cut the food up into small pieces and push it around a bit, make it look as if you've eaten at least some of it.

The grubby little kitchen had been hopelessly crowded with five people, two owls and Granger's orange monster of a cat – the beast was enormous, and part-Kneazle, if he was any judge – and he'd thought, it's like another frigging Order meeting, a roomful of bloody Gryffindors ...

At Order meetings he'd stuck close to the Headmaster and then got the hell out of 12 Grimmauld Place as soon as the meeting was over, so he'd just inched his chair a little closer to Harry, and watched Ginny Weasley feeding bacon rinds to her boyfriend's Snowy Owl. There's a hard edge to beautiful, talented, spirited Ginny Weasley and if he didn't know about the prophecy, if he didn't know that Harry Potter shares his soul with the Dark Lord, he'd have picked Ginny as the more likely of the pair to have what it takes to bring down the Dark Lord – and Ginny Weasley has her own history with the Dark Lord, her own reasons to hate the snake-eyed bastard. He'd shivered a little at that thought – because that's one abomination the Dark Lord has never committed against him, the Dark Lord has never possessed him, never walked in his body ...

Weasley's hyperactive little owl had started zooming around his head, he'd been irritated beyond endurance so he'd snatched it out of the air and passed it to Weasley – told him that he'd put a Freezing Charm on the creature if he couldn't keep it under control, and enjoyed the glare he'd got in reply. Looking into Ron Weasley's mind was like watching goldfish in a bowl, as one idea after another swam slowly across what passed as a mind, and he'd sneered to himself, get over it, Weasley, get over it - Harry Potter trusts me, he trusts me.

In Granger's mind, on the other hand, a dozen thoughts dart around constantly like a shoal of minnows - and he'd been disgusted, she admires his courage! For all her brains, Hermione Granger is still a typical simple-minded Gryffindor, she doesn't understand hatred, she doesn't understand revenge – and he's determined to be revenged on the Dark Lord, for Lily's death, and for Dumbledore's, and he'd thought, even if Harry Potter had been Sorted into Slytherin, I would still be his man, I would still do whatever needs to be done to fulfil the prophecy ...

He'd been glad when the breakfast things had been cleared away and he could smoke, because when you've got a two pack a day habit, thirty minutes is a long time to go without a fag, and today is D-Day, as the Muggles would say, Destruction of Horcruxes day, and they need to go over the plan one more time - and take their potassium iodide tablets, because magic and radioactivity don't mix. It's not the heat that will destroy the locket and the cup - it's only a few hundred degrees inside the reactor, not even close to the melting point of gold – it's the radioactivity, and that the Muggles have a power greater than magic isn't something they teach in Muggle Studies, or that the Ministry is prepared to share with the Muggle Prime Minister.

If Alastor Moody, Mr Constant Vigilance himself, hadn't been stupid enough to get himself caught and killed, it would have been a piece of cake, they'd have put some of the Muggles who work at the Sizewell B reactor under imperio and given them the job of shoving the Horcruxes into a fuel rod - but Harry Potter doesn't use the Unforgiveables, the Chosen One will have power the Dark Lord knows not, and maybe it's Muggle stuff, Harry is a Muggle-raised half-blood and the Dark Lord must be a pure-blood ...

For a moment he'd imagined Harry holding the muzzle of the gun that he'd given him against the Dark Lord's temple and pulling the trigger, imagined the Dark Lord's brains splattering against a wall - because you don't need to hate someone to kill them with a Muggle gun, all you need to do is squeeze the trigger - but it could be something else, even love, as the Headmaster had thought, because the Dark Lord certainly doesn't love anyone, the Dark Lord hadn't blinked at the news that poor deluded, devoted Bellatrix Lestrange was dead, and then he'd pushed the thought away, because he doesn't worry any more about how the prophecy that's ruled his life for seventeen years will be fulfilled. And it will be fulfilled, one way or another, the Dark Lord must know what Harry Potter is - even though he doesn't know the whole of the prophecy the Dark Lord must know how dangerous Harry is – and he'll kill Harry if he can, Harry Potter is for the Dark Lord alone because he'd never allow a mere servant to destroy one of his precious Horcruxes.

And by the end of the day all of the Horcruxes, save one, will be destroyed – Merlin willing. It's his job to deal with Nagini, and the Gryffindors' job to deal with Slytherin's locket and Hufflepuff's cup, and the plan has been timed to the minute, he's even taken them to Sizewell B for a dry run. They can't Apparate into the reactor complex itself, because it's not a pretty sight when a wizard Apparates into a solid object and Apparation inside a building that you don't know well isn't for beginners – he could do it, he's studied the plans carefully enough, but they can't, they've only just learned to Apparate. So they'll Apparate to the car park at Sizewell B, materialize discreetly behind a bus, and mingle with the Muggles taking the visitors' tour.

The Muggles are proud of their new nuclear power station, capable of generating three per cent of Britain's electricity needs, they actually let the public swarm all over it, even into the reactor containment building, but that's only one target; Hermione Granger and Ron Weasley will need to get into the reactor control room to activate the fuel rod assembly, and the know-it-all is the only one of them he'd trust to follow the instructions he'd extracted – gently, because Harry Potter has a soft spot for Muggles – from the Muggle technician, because the control room is a mass of flashing lights and computer screens, it looks like the inside of a fricking space-ship ... and it's a non-standard procedure, too, the Muggles close the reactor down before they change the fuel rods, but they need the reactor to be going full blast to deal with the Horcruxes.

He'd looked at the clock – it was time the kids were on their way, they've got to walk all the way down the hill to the smelly river-bank to get to the Apparation point – and nodded a curt farewell, but Harry had insisted on shaking his hand, wishing him luck ... and when will Harry Potter learn to guard his thoughts, when will Harry Potter learn to close his mind? He'd been a little bit rattled when he looked into those green eyes, Harry Potter actually cares about him, Harry is afraid for him ... and it's a pity that Lily's son has to look so much like his father, except for that lightning-shaped scar and his mother's eyes - because that twat James Potter was never good enough for Lily Evans, not that he'd ever say so to Harry, what was the point of upsetting the kid? And James has been dead for sixteen years, anyway ...

Then he'd sat out on the back steps for an hour, next to the pile of empty pizza boxes, idly enjoying the very last of the summer sunshine and chain-smoking, waiting until it was time to leave, until the destruction of the locket and the cup must be well underway, and it was time for his part in the plan – and that's simplicity itself, all he has to do is to Apparate to the Dark Lord's side and kill the snake Horcrux. And when Nagini is dead, his duty is done and he can please himself - and he never thinks beyond that, there's just a black curtain, with nothing, no future, beyond it. And he won't be coming back from this mission, you can't Apparate or Disapparate inside the building that the Dark Lord is using as his headquarters, once he's killed the snake he's a dead man. Big deal, he's been a dead man walking since the return of the Dark Lord ...

He'd stubbed out his cigarette and remembered what Dumbledore had said once, to the well-organised mind, death is but the next great adventure – he hadn't said anything at the time, but he'd wondered how many people the Headmaster had seen die, because most people who saw death coming sobbed or cursed or begged, even Dumbledore had begged, Severus, please, though Dumbledore hadn't been begging for his own life. Well, whatever death is, he'll be damned if he'd leave some pale, pitiful shadow of himself to encumber the earth, and that was one reason why he'd killed Pettigrew in his Animagus form, if Spinner's End was going to be haunted by the coward's ghost, he'd prefer it to be haunted by a ghost that couldn't talk.

When he'd walked into the Dark Lord's headquarters, there'd been the usual little crowd of courtiers waiting to be summoned into the presence, they'd scattered out of the way of the Dark Lord's favourite, and it couldn't have been easier because Nagini hadn't been with her master, she hadn't been in that dark, curtained room lit by a single branch of candles that he knows so well - she'd been in the anteroom, busy swallowing a rat. He'd sliced the snake into pieces with Sectumsempra, for enemies, and then without a word of threat or warning he'd turned on the gaping onlookers, looking for familiar faces – and Fenrir Greyback had been next. He'd pointed his wand straight between the eyes of the filthy stinking werewolf, the thing had dared to boast of how he'd threatened the Headmaster on the Astronomy Tower, I could do you for afters - he'd cast the Killing Curse, and then he'd gone fighting-mad, and why not, every Death Eater he takes down is one less for Harry Potter to deal with. It had turned into a firefight, flashes of green and red light, shouts and screams, but nothing seemed to touch him, and he'd shouted the reckless, age-old challenge, "Come on, you cowards - do you want to live for ever?"

And then the wand had been torn out of his hand, he'd looked up and seen the Dark Lord with his wand raised – but he'd felt no fear because it will be over now, he's never seen the Dark Lord so enraged, the Dark Lord will tear him apart and it will be over.

But the Dark Lord hadn't killed him, and now he's on his knees, but he still doesn't feel any fear because the Dark Lord isn't his master any longer, he serves another now – but even so, he flinches away when the Dark Lord stretches out that pale hand with the unnaturally long fingers to him, places the palm under his chin and forces him to look up into that white face, the red-pupilled eyes and the nose as flat as a snake's, with slits for nostrils, the lipless mouth ...

For a moment he gathers his defences, braces himself against the coming assault on his mind, and then he thinks, defiantly, why not screw with the Dark Lord's head, show him the whole of the prophecy, show the Dark Lord exactly what he's coming up against? So he doesn't resist the frantic probing, lets the prophecy drift into his mind, the prophecy that the Headmaster had entrusted to him before he died, lets the Dark Lord see the memory of Sybill Trelawney's harsh, hoarse tones, The one with the power to vanquish the Dark Lord approaches ... born to those who have thrice defied him, born as the seventh month dies ... and the Dark Lord will mark him as his equal, but he will have power the Dark Lord knows not ... and either must die at the hand of the other for neither can live while the other survives ... the one with the power to vanquish the Dark Lord will be born as the seventh month dies ...

Now there's fear in that hideous simulacrum of a human face, fear as well as rage - and then he shows the Dark Lord something else, the white dome of the reactor containment building at Sizewell B, the Dark Lord will know what that is, the Dark Lord knows very well that the Muggles wield a power that can destroy magic itself, that's one of the reasons why he hates them so much ...

Oh yes, there's fear and desperation in those red eyes, but now it's his turn to be afraid because he's let himself get carried away, he's shown the Dark Lord too much, shown him where to find Harry Potter - his left arm is burning like a white-hot poker, the Dark Lord is going to do to him what he did to Quirrell - he cries out in horror, and the familiar sensation of Apparation, of being squeezed through a thick rubber tube, is the last thing he knows before everything goes blank ...

When he comes back to himself, he's still on his knees, but he's kneeling in front of Harry Potter now, and Harry is OK, he looks fine, although there's something different about him - the scar has gone from his forehead - and it's all quite confusing, because there's green light everywhere, the whole world has turned green. Hermione Granger and Ron Weasley are bending over something on the ground, Ginny Weasley is standing with her wand out, a hard, blazing look on her face, but he doesn't pay much attention to them because Harry is speaking to someone, he looks back over his shoulder and he's mildly surprised to see the Dark Lord standing behind him, but the Dark Lord doesn't have his wand out, they're not duelling, they're talking. And although normally he would hesitate to interrupt his master, he has vital information to give Harry, the snake is dead ...

Harry tells the Dark Lord that the last of his Horcruxes has been destroyed, he can't quite understand what Harry is saying, but it seems that the prophecy wasn't so important, after all, and there doesn't seem to be any reason to be angry or frightened. And now the conversation is over, Harry has dismissed Voldemort – there was a reason why he was afraid to say that name, but he can't remember what it was – Harry is reaching down to help him to his feet, and telling him that it's over, time to go, and although he's not sure where they're going, there's nothing to hold him back, nothing he regrets leaving, and he knows, too, with absolute certainty, that if he is with Harry, everything is going to be all right.