Difference Always Matters Chapter 12: TWELVE, a harry potter fanfic

Disclaimer: I own nothing of this.

A/N: Only the epilogue left after this. I'll have a longer author's note at that time explaining what I have planned afterward. To all that that stuck along during these past six- holy jesus god, wow- years, thank you. I'm so glad to have finally reached this point with this story.

Difference Always Matters

by:

carpetfibers

a.k.a

s. stewart

TWELVE

half empty

THERE WAS NO warning. No sudden clanging or drumming or gentle bustle of smoke to hint at what was descending through the castle. The common room roared with its typical noise and energy, as it would on any other non-Hogsmeade Saturday. Finals were still distant enough to allow a procrastination that translated into loud games of exploding snap, a betting game involving smuggled bottles of butterbeer, and a raucous debate over the legitimacy of the monarchy- the latter most conversation having devolved into a shouting match and sparking wands. Neville attempted to avoid the cluttered groups as he crossed through the Fat Lady's entrance and toward the boys' stair, the real test being to not get entangled in the actual activities.

He lingered for a second near the fireplace, where the lone figure of silence curled up near the open flame, the orange light shadowing her angled features into long lines that forced a heaviness to his chest that almost made him open his lips to speak. But Ginny's solitude was absolute, her small space of quiet a deftly placed turret of defense. Neville watched her, his own posture awkwardly bent and the books in his arms haphazardly gripped. He knew where her thoughts traveled, why her lips, a rosebud- the fragrant tips of a leonidas- wilted downwards. He knew where her gaze searched when facing the flames.

It was the only thing she thought of, and in a dark, deep and selfish part of his heart, Neville held a hope that wherever Harry was, he stayed there longer. Oh safe and unhurt, surely, but far away, so that perhaps, one day, Ginny Weasley might look up from that fireplace and see what stood beyond. Who stood beyond, always waiting.

"Neville? What're you doing there?" Her voice came so unexpectedly that the books slipped from his tenuous grasp, the abrupt crash drawing a second of interruption from the room's din. A vague mutter of "Just Longbottom again" caused a brief titter of laughter, and then all resumed their conversation, attentions drawn elsewhere. Except for Ginny, who stood and stretched slightly before reaching to help with the dropped books.

"It's mean of them to just laugh like that," she said lowly, voice irritated. "You'd think they'd help instead."

"It's all right." He tried not to blush, all too aware of how his complexion turned when darkened in a flush. "Thanks, though, G-Ginny."

She brightened, seemingly pleased by something unknown to him. "Did you need something then- you were staring."

He tried again to resist the rush of blood that flooded his cheeks- unsuccessfully. "Yeah, sorry about that. You looked far away."

"Ah, well," she bent her head, her fingers fluttering near her waist. "Just thinking about this and that."

Neville hesitated for a moment, questioning the wisdom of opening his mouth further. Still, the way she stood spoke of a need, and if all he could ever do for her was sit and listen, then he would do that fully. "Did you want to talk about it?"

Her laugh was short, and sad, but sincere, and his heart twisted from the sound. It wasn't right that she should sound like that- that she sound so very worn and defeated. Not when she was as brave as he knew her to be, as beautiful and brilliant and like a vast firework that shot across a darkened sky. She was lightning in a bottle, and he wished she was more aware of it. That the world existed as such as to convince her of it. Perhaps, if he had the voice to tell her, he might. One day.

"I think I'm done talking it out, really. What I could honestly go for is a good fly." Her gaze turned to one of the lancets that lined the curved tower. "The pitch is reserved for Ravenclaw practice today. Unfortunately."

He stared, his depression mirroring her own, until an idea sparked. He couldn't help the grin that filled his features, unaware completely of the way the expression took his boyish wistfulness and transformed it into something older and kinder, hinting at future handsomeness. "I have just the thing then." He mistook the sudden color on her cheeks for remnants from the flame's heat when he grasped her hand and tugged her back through the common room and out into the main hall.

Neville did not become conscious of the warmth of her fingers between his own until he had them standing in front of the blank expanse of wall that he knew to hide the entrance to whatever they required. Still, he relished the delicate feel of her skin against his own, as awkward as he knew his hand to be- far too clumsy for potions' ingredients but made for the hardiness of soil and plant. The door materialized as he completed the third pacing, and still heady from both her hand and the pleasure he knew his idea would give her, pushed Ginny through the doorway.

The pitch was certainly not comparable to the one on the grounds, but it would do for now he decided. "If you can't get the Ginny to the pitch, take the pitch to the Ginny," he announced, obviously pleased. "I'm sure we have brooms here somewhere. . . ah, here we go! My aim's pretty terrible, but I can catch fine enough if you want to practice at all. . ." Neville trailed off, realizing that he had heard none of the positive responses he had been expecting. Instead, there was only the unmistakable sound of first one sniffle and then another.

Hurriedly, he dropped the broom he'd found and returned back to the entrance where Ginny stood, holding her elbows tightly. "What's wrong? I'm sorry, I know it's not very big, but you said you wanted to fly, so I thought at least, this way, you could a little. Was I wrong? I'm sorry-"

"Neville, stop." She wiped at her eyes angrily, audibly inhaling. "You didn't do anything wrong at all- this is probably the nicest thing anyone's done for me in a long time. And that's not right, is it?"

Neville didn't know what to say, and so, as was his typical way, stayed silent and tried not to pull on his thumb too hard. "What I mean is that, before Harry was taken, he was my boyfriend- oh god, I mean, is my boyfriend. Is. How could I even say it like that?" She exhaled stiffly, a sob trapped in the sound. "But he never would have thought of this. And I know he's going to come back, he's going to be safe and sound and back at Hogwarts and with me, but create a pitch for me to fly in just because I'm unhappy?" She shook her head. "It's so selfish of me to admit, and I know it's ugly to say, but he wouldn't think of this."

"I'm sure that's not right-" But she interrupted him, her tight smile unexpectedly arresting.

"It's okay, Neville. I mean, if you can do this for me, and we're just friends-" The word stabbed him. "- then surely my boyfriend should be able to do the same. But oh god, Neville, I'm horrid, aren't I?"

No, he disagreed silent. Ginny Weasley was not horrid or anything ugly. She was just like the roses his grandmother grew, brittle stalks of thorn and green until weather and temperature and rain and sun all united in glorious balance, giving birth to bursts of supple beauty, delicate and dangerous and perfumed with promises of future flashes of greatness. Ginny Weasley was all things green to him, and he only wished he could tell her, wished he had one brief second of grandiose bravery to admit to all the things he thought of her.

"I do wish I was kind, like you, but kindness eludes me. I know I'm greedy, but it can't always be bad, can it?" Her tone was rhetorical, but- She had that tone again, that expression of such loneliness that he had to answer.

Slowly, his hands trembling and his ears burnt red from the burst of nervousness that threatened to mute him, he took her fingers tenderly between his own. "I think you're wonderful."

Her lips fell into an 'o' of surprise, and he felt her fingers flex once and then twice. "Neville-"

"Please don't interrupt, because I don't know that I'll ever feel brave enough to say this again, but G-Ginny." He took a deep breath. "Ginny, I've always thought you're wonderful. To me, you are everyth-"

The stone moved underfoot milliseconds before the first assault on the castle wards cut through and reverberated past his ears. It took precious milliseconds more before he realized what the sound meant. Ginny met his eyes. "We're under attack," she whispered.

"And this feels like it's for real," he confirmed grimly, her fingers tightening between his. The walls shook a second time and already he could hear the telltale sounds of battle.

Time disappeared from him, his actions and words feeling as if coming from a far distant place. And yet, it only took a brief twenty minutes to have the Room of Requirement transformed into a highly defensible bunker. Ginny managed the organizing of those prefects she could gather, who in turn where escorting the younger students through back passages in to the room. A cacophony of fighting from the upper levels sifted down through the stone, and with each tremble of the walls, Neville knew the wards were weakening. He had a vague recollection of having heard Hermione once explain the relationship between the castle wards and the headmaster, but all he could remember from it was that with Dumbledore in a coma, the wards were more vulnerable than normal. Even acting in his stead, McGonagall was but a stop-gap for the real thing.

He took point for the next group of students, a half dozen second years found in the library and led by a dazed Philip Blagdon. Keeping his voice low, he queried the fourth year Hufflepuff. "How bad is it?"

"It was one of 'em Slytherins, something to do with a vanishing cabinet- that's all Professor Flitwick would tell me before 'e ran off." Philip tone spoke to his shock, his non-wand hand still curled tightly around a book.

A Slytherin? Neville didn't need to think long to guess which such Slytherin it might be. "Malfoy."

Philip nodded blankly. "Maybe. But Zabini said to stay to the lower levels-"

"Zabini?" Neville interrupted. There had been no sign of either the headboy or headgirl, and he hadn't given a thought to the Slytherin prefects. "Where did you see him?"

"Outside the library. He was bleeding badly from the forehead, but he stunned one of 'em-" Philip's voice fell to a horrified hush. "-them Death Eaters near dead. It looked something awful."

Neville nodded and then made the quick triple passing that was required for the Room's door to appear. "You did good, Philip," he said as he ushered the lot in through the passage, wand and gaze focused on the hallway. So far their entire section of the castle had been safe from the fighting underway. Ginny appeared behind him, another rag-tag group of students following from the west. At least two were obviously injured, and one, a first year, was clutching the very stiff body of a kitten, most likely a byproduct of a hex having gone awry.

"It's getting worse," she told him. "And there's still at least half the school still unaccounted for. Not to mention, I still can't find Hermione or Ron anywhere."

The two's absence was growing increasingly obvious as more and more of the former DA members had gathered in the past hour. Neville had attempted to use the coins to signal a meeting point but had flubbed the charm; Ginny's attempt was more successful, but had only resulted in warming the galleons. It was enough, though, and he knew for a fact that Hermione always kept hers on a chain around her neck. There was no reason for her to have not come, unless-

Resolutely, Neville shook his head. He wouldn't consider that. And Ron was most likely with her. Wherever they were, they could take care of themselves. "We need to get to the dungeons," he said a minute later, once he had been joined by several other of the self-appointed leaders, including Luna Lovegood and Ernie Macmillan. Immediate argument flared up, but Ginny fixed a glare that had the objections silenced. "It's bad down there, one of the fourth years saw Blaise Zabini. He'd been injured. There are some bad seeds, yes, but I need volunteers to join me to see what can be done to help those who aren't."

He was unsurprised when all five agreed; he hesitated before leaving right away, pulling Ginny back briefly. "I think you should stay." She bristled immediately, which he couldn't help but smile at, the reaction so typical and right for her. She stilled, her lips turning grave. "Not because you'll be safer, but because they need you here."

"I can help," she whispered fiercely.

"Then stay and protect them." And throwing all other caution and hesitation to the wind, Neville stooped down the seven inches needed to reach her lips and kissed her, the touch ever so brief and barely qualifying for the term. But he felt the tremor of her lips against his for that slight second of touch, and it was with exaltation and adrenaline that he turned and left, not daring chance a glance behind. He knew rejection would come, once it was all over- whatever it all was- but until then, he would play at being hero and enjoy having had the girl.

HE HAD NO wand. He had no weapons or plans. He had nothing but the stinking and threadbare robes on his back. His sneakers reeked of a day's march through a strangely silent forest, all of the various creatures and plants that served to make it forbidden having vanished from sight and sound. Harry had walked without stopping, his energy having tapped into some hidden pool that forced him forward. He knew that he had to hurry; he knew that he had to get there, to Hogwarts before- before it happened. The pale white mouse remained quiet throughout the journey, its tiny warmth throbbing from within Harry's hands, traveling through his arms and to his cheeks and finally settling in his chest.

Harry had no explanation for what had happened in his cell, his tomb. Had he hallucinated the entire thing? This mouse was no animagus; it was only a mouse, and yet, he was sure. Ever so completely sure that it had drawn the rune for him: Uruz, the rune for endurance and manifestation, an indicator of independence and freedom. And when translated through the dust on the ground of his tomb, it had meant an escape. A manifestation of freedom for him- of independence. Harry knew he had no knowledge of such a thing; no conscious knowledge surely. Yet-

The mouse nibbled gently on his finger, and Harry provided another small piece of rice from his pocket to it.

The rune was just another unknown piece of this unknown puzzle that was drawing him toward Hogwarts like a magnet toward north. He knew that it was desperately important that he arrive in time- in time for what, he did not know- but just that he get there. His mind was buzzing with an answer that he could not reach, his blood strumming with a certainty that he could not grasp. His skin throbbed with the whole of it. He had no awareness of the pain that surely stung from his feet, the soles of his sneakers having worn themselves into nothingness. The branches and limbs that knotted in his hair or struck his cheeks left red streaks of wounded skin, and thick lines of dark blood swelled with each strike.

He felt none of it.

There was no time.

III

CONSCIOUSNESS CAMETO him painfully, and Ron resisted the surge of awareness desperately. From his right shoulder came ripping gasps of knife-sharp jabs, each tiny movement an agony of violence. From his left arm came nothing, and that blissful absence of feeling terrified him enough into drifting past the cloudy gathering of his thoughts and into reality. Hearing was the first of the senses to reach him after touch.

"- still crying little Draco? Not so tough without your big, bad daddy around, are you?"

"Shut up!"

"I didn't think you'd manage it on your first try. Even if your target was a Weasley. Just thought you'd like the practice. You have to really mean it, you know, to get the curse just right. You have to hate, and mean it. But you can't manage even that, can you?" The laughter that followed was equal parts desperate and miserable. "You don't know yet what it means to have that feeling, to know with every fiber of your being that you wish a person dead. But I do."

"Shut up, shut up, shut up, shut up-"

The words stopped abruptly, interrupted by the sound of solid force meeting brittle bone. Ron's head ached, memory returning to him in fleeting bursts. Detention with Slughorn. Scrubbing cauldrons. A snap of the doorway. A loud shout. His wand broken in two. A searing brilliance of pain on his back, and then blackness. His eyes flew open.

"What perfect timing. How kind of you to join us, Ronald. I had hoped to meet with you again, if only for old time's sake." The silver arm sparkled in the gloom of the dungeon classroom, its owner grinning manically above it. Peter Pettigrew crouched down beside him, using one silver digit to prod painfully at Ron's shoulder. "You were asleep an awfully long time, Ronald."

Ron's gaze flicked past him briefly, to the prone pale body across the room. Malfoy's eyes stared vacantly, the only movement proving life being a slight twitching in his hands. "Still looking as ratty as ever, Wormtail."

The wizard flinched noticeably, straightening as he backed up. "Don't use that name. Don't use that name!"

"Why? It remind you of the friends you betrayed, the people you killed?" Ron struggled to pull himself from the floor, the pain blinding him briefly. He fought to not lose consciousness again and then leaned back against the wall, gasping. "What's it like, giving up your friends and family so you can lick at some snake-thing's feet?"

"You wouldn't understand. Friends? They weren't friends- I was a convenience! A token goblin so that they could have some place to hang their insults and superiority on. They were not friends." Pettigrew laughed again, the sound becoming a sob. "Never friends. What I have now is better than friendship or those thin things you so desperately cling to."

"No, you're wrong- you had people who cared about you. You had people willing to die for you- and now what do you have?" Ron hurried to finish, struggling to ignore silver palm that now pressed dangerously against his throat. "You have people willing to sacrifice you. Willing to betray you." The hand trembled against his skin; Ron inhaled deeply. The words came to him, the truth one that he knew as deeply and truly as he did his family and name. "You destroyed your chance to ever have anyone ever love you again. And you'll lose because of that. V-Voldemort will lose because of that." The name stumbled on his lips, the terror all the more real.

"You lie! You lie." Pettigrew drew back his hand, eyes empty from all feeling. His voice dropped to a whisper. "You know nothing. Love is nothing in the face of power, true power."

Ron knew what spell was readying behind the silver hand, what words were poised at Pettigrew's lips. He faced the truth of it directly, mouth trembling. Slowly, he smiled and closed his eyes, the pain in his shoulder disappearing as a deep calm settled over him. Pettigrew was wrong. "Harry will win, and then you'll face them- everyone you ever betrayed or murdered. And then, after all of that, you'll be alone. Alone and unlov-"

"Avada kedavra!"

He was twelve again. The end of his first year. Supper was corn beef, with heaping piles of buttered potatoes, the heat wafting in clouds of scent and expectation across the table. His plate was filled once and then twice, each bite reminding him of home and family. But he felt nothing of homesickness. To his right sat his best friend, the boy-who-lived, the boy who had saved the whole of the wizarding world when only a toddler. The boy Ron had saved himself with only a knight and a pawn. The boy he would time and time again help be the hero he was born to be. The boy he would lay his life down for. The boy he called his brother and family. To his left sat another, the girl who had known nothing of spells or magic a year earlier. The girl who had spent half the year crying in the bathroom. The girl who had lied for him and let him cheat off her homework. The girl he would someday see in blue dress robes, with hair twisted high across her crown, her throat naked to his eyes. The girl he would someday realize was more than a best friend, more than a class mate- so much more than all these things. Hermione-

A searing heat trailed by a rush of chilled wind touched him, the sensations a tender caress. A crash thundered in his ears, the sound of wood on flesh. He sighed, exhaled once, and then felt nothing. All was dark.

IT TOOK TOO long to reach the castle, minutes and seconds of time wasted by the long passage and fighting past the soil and brush that struck out as if to stop her. Hermione heard nothing of what George said to her, his words vanishing into a white noise of non-necessity. Her lips were still bruised, her blood still rushed from the thrill of his hand on her cheeks and mouth on her throat. And violently, she pushed forward, unable to forgive herself for yet again being absent when she might be needed.

For playing truant with George Weasley when her friends might be in danger.

The passage ended abruptly, and she nearly killed them both when she knocked the knot on the Whomping Willow's trunk with too much force. George pulled her out of the way of one sweeping branch, and then rolled them both halfway down the hillside to escape two others. They landed in a tangle of limbs and hair, Hermione opening her eyes from their defensive wince to find her face entirely too near to his. Forcefully, she pulled herself free and readied her wand.

The late evening air was entirely too still, the earlier clamor of the attack on the castle wards having silenced in an unnatural quiet. Either the fighting was still being contained to the inside, or the school had- She tightened her jaw. No, the school would not fall so easily. First, she had to get into Hogwarts, find the rest of the DA, and then work out what was happening. Then she could do what she did best: make a plan. "Do you know a way inside- a not obvious way that is?"

George frowned, considering. His cheek was smudged with dirt from the tunnel, and Hermione felt a distant desire to touch the skin there, to smooth away the soil and brush back the lock of pale red hair that fell across his forehead. The sudden appearance of a smile, crooked and mulish in tone, forced tears to her eyes. "You happen to be speaking to an expert at secret entrances."

The stagnant air was broken by a tidal wave of expelled magic and sound, Hermione's ears left ringing and her head spinning. When the world righted itself, she looked upward, to the northern tower. The Dark Mark hung over the headmaster's tower. She inhaled sharply, dizzy and overwhelmed with the knowledge that above all else, she had to the get to the tower. Before-

Before-

She did not know. "Do you know of one that'll get us to the tower?"

"Yes."

HE FOUND ZABINI first, crumpled in a discard sprawl on the stairwell heading to the second floor dungeons. He groaned when touched, and Luna volunteered to remain with him, the lack of confidence inspired by her vacant smile mitigated by the litany of healing spells she began to string off. Ravenclaw, he reminded himself.

Another two hallways over and he uncovered a group of five first year Slytherins crouched behind a classroom door. They had stacked several desks around them, a make-shift bunker of wood and nail. One of the girls immediately burst into tears and clutched at Neville's side, crying for her mum. Another of his group stayed to lead the five back to the Room of Requirement.

He found similar situations littered throughout the dungeons, seemingly the ground zero for the attack. A guilt struck him after sending off the fourth group of huddled Slytherins; not he, not any of them had considered to look after the Slytherins. Were they not part of Hogwarts as well? Did he not have classes and meals with them every day as well? Not all were as bigoted as Malfoy, or as bullying as Crabbe and Goyle. Some were just fine, if a little different.

Slytherins like Zabini, and Jerome Dorny who had apparently held off two of the Death Eater's before succumbing to a particular nasty hex that left a bubbling gash circling around his torso. Neville bit down on his lip and stared down the hallway. He didn't know where the Slytherin dormitory was and he doubted any of them would trust him enough to show him the entrance. Still, there were at least a half dozen classrooms in the area that might house yet more frightened students.

"Ernie, can you get Jerome back on your own?" Neville asked.

The Hufflepuff eyed his charge without confidence. "I don't know, whatever that hex was, I don't think we should move him. It looks like it's spreading."

Gingerly, Neville lowered his wand toward the bubbling ooze that continued to sizzle where it sat on Jerome's skin. He considered touching it, if only to test the outcome, and found a wand lowered to his face. His eyes jerked upward and immediately narrowed.

"Malfoy!"

Ernie's wand was already trained and ready. "I would back off if I were you, Draco."

Malfoy sneered, the gesture laced with a frayed exhaustion. "Like you have it in you, Macmillan. And don't touch that, Longbottom. You need salt, it'll counteract the acid until you can get Sprout or Pomfrey in here."

"I said to back off!" Ernie stood carefully, his wand unflinching.

Neville watched with hooded eyes; there was something damaged in the way Malfoy held himself. His arm hung too straight, the limb awkward in its position. Cautiously, he moved his hand to craze the limb. Malfoy stumbled in pain.

Neville straightened and pushed forward, trapping the Slytherin between him and wall. "You're the one responsible for this, aren't you?"

Malfoy's pale eyes widened, a panic settling. "No. . .no, but you see, I had no choice!"

"There's always a choice," Neville scoffed, no stumble or stutter in his words. "You chose to make the wrong one."

"But I didn't—I didn't go through with it, not all of it. I couldn't, in the end." Genuine fear rested there, caught in both Malfoy's words and his gaze. "He'll kill them now, the Dark Lord will kill my parents. I have to warn them."

Neville's hand wavered; there was no lie here, no deceit. Slowly, he lowered his wand and stood back. Behind him, Ernie sputtered. "Neville, what are you doing?"

"There's no point. He can't do any more harm, and if he wants to be with his parents, then. . ." He straightened, giving exit to the door way. "I'm not going to stop him."

Ernie looked incredulous, but nevertheless lowered his wand as well, moving back from the door. Malfoy appeared equally shocked, his eyes darting back and forth as if expecting a trick. Neville wondered briefly if that had always been the way of it, all kindness couched in hidden agendas and subtext. How exhausting if that was how they lived, the Death Eaters and their kind.

Malfoy shuffled to the door, arm grasped in apparent pain. He paused by the door, exhaling slowly. "Your friend, Weasley, he's in the next room. He's hurt."

Neville darted past both boys, crashing through the neighboring door with heavy gasps. He nearly fell, his feet slipping and sliding through the thick liquid that coated the floor. It took his eyes a moment to adjust to the dimmed lighting, and then with a horror, he realized what the stickiness under his feet was. Blood; the floor was coated in it. A prone body lay out-stretched in the center, the face beaten beyond recognition and a detached silver hand twitching beside it.

Gagging, Neville forced himself deeper into the room, toward the back where he found another body, propped up against the wall. The shock of red hair identified him immediately, and Neville fell beside him, desperate to check for a moving chest and the sound of breathing. The darkness made it difficult to see—

With a low curse, Neville motioned with his wand. "Lumos."

Flooded by light, without a doubt, Ron's chest moved, the room echoing in the faint exhalation that followed the movement. Neville felt his own chest tighten as gratefulness overwhelmed him. His gaze turned to the body in the middle of the room and then back to Ron. That meant then. . .

"They'll kill him if they find out."

THE WORLD STILLED, time slowed, and Hermione found herself powerless to change any of it. Harry stood in the tower window, his face ashen and wounded. Below, so very far below, white robes were buffeted in the wind, the body encased much too still and silent for the life that once touched it. She heard the sound, distantly, an agonized cry of such wretchedness that she cringed from it, but her eyes did not obey. She was forced to watch, to see all that she wished vanished from her. The cloak disguised her, hid her from the room's scrutiny, while the spell prevented her from moving, from speaking. George lay at her feet, unconscious, and but for the faint movement of his chest, she might have fainted herself, so desperate was she to know- to act!

"What did you do?" Harry's voice, full of horror and anger, came lowly from the ledge. He turned, wand outstretched, and marched toward the black-encased wizard whose jaw shook and arms trembled. "Snape, what did you do?"

"His wish, his final command-" The words broke into laughter, clipped and hysterical.

Harry seemed unmoved, his gaze unbearably cold without the veil of his glasses to guard the expression. "Avada kedavra." His wand sputtered a brief flicker of green light, and Snape's laughter silenced.

"Try again," he demanded, pushing himself forward so that the wand struck him directly in the chest. "Try it again, Potter. This time with feeling." A desperate quality overtook the normally sibilant tones. Hermione remembered that one night, over the summer, when she had watched Snape stand in the headquarter's hallway, his face touched by the shadows and light. No, she begged mutely, Please Harry, don't!

"Avada kedavra. Avada kedavra! AVADA KEDAVRA!" With each utterance, the wand jerked, flashes of green light stuttering from its tip. Snape did not flinch, his expression open in his need. This was what he wanted, Hermione realized. He wanted to die, he wanted it.

"I said, with feeling. Did you not see what I just did, Potter? I killed your headmaster- I killed a person you loved. I could do it to others. The Weasleys, your little girlfriend. I could take my time with it, slice her open and watch her bleed dry."

Harry shook with the words, his knuckles tightening to a pure white. "Stop it. Stop talking!"

"I could slaughter them one by one. I would make it particularly special for your pet mudblood." Harry's arm stilled, and Hermione's vision began to darken as the spell that held her fought to restrict her will. She had to stop him- she couldn't let Harry become a murderer.

"Don't say it. Leave Hermione al-"

"Why? What could you do about it? I could find her now. Torture her with the Cruciatus, drive her to the point where her mind goes mad. She would never read again, never think again. She would be a shell, an empty vessel of nothing but madness and ruin. It would be easy to-" Snape leaned closer, his mouth drawing near to Harry's ear. She could hear nothing of it, but Harry reacted visibly, the wand discarded for the immediacy of the physical.

"You coward!" With a roar, Harry pushed Snape toward the window ledge, dragging him to the precipice. Snape offered no resistance, his expression hidden from Harry but open to Hermione. She could see the pleased acceptance there, the stark relief and sadness. He seemed to see past the cloak, through the invisibility and to her gaze. For an instance, he held it, a lifetime of emotion blanketed in the glance. But she knew he could not see her; he could see nothing but the wall beyond her, and that if she could not break from the hex, Snape would die with his blood on Harry's hands.

She pushed against the spell, felt it crackle around her, and then- But she was not strong enough. She could only watch.

Harry held Snape to the ledge, the ground below still shadowed by the white robes of Albus Dumbledore. He could not forgive it; he could not. It was Snape's fault, all of it. His parents might have been saved had Snape spoken up sooner, told the truth sooner. His father still alive to plant his roses and tell bad jokes. His mother still alive to comb his hair and kiss him good-night. His whole life might have been one of happiness and family, and none of the bitterness and loneliness that had plagued his reality. It was Snape who ruined his chances at happiness when a baby, and Snape who now ruined his chances at happiness as an adult. Without Dumbledore- without Dumbledore. . .

Harry knew. He would never survive that final confrontation. He would surely die.

"You deserve worse, you murderer." A coldness crept into him, an unsettling lack of feeling. It was his tomb again, a stark apathy that left him only desiring a change from the present. He felt assured that nothing else would grant that change as much as Snape's death would. "You deserve a life time of horror."

"I've had it. And now I've earned my release. Now, do it, boy. Kill me. Exact your revenge." Snape seemed expectant, almost joyful. It made Harry pause, just long enough for something other than the coldness to seep past his skin. His eyes fell past Snape's exultant gaze to the hazy ground below. He could make no distinction from the white robes that rested against the green of the earth, his vision forcing the two to blur into one solid. And yet impossibly, he could see Dumbledore's face there, aged and unmistakably at peace. There was no surprise or betrayal caught in that final expression, only gratitude.

Near his breast, from a pocket deep within his robes, the mouse stirred.

With a jerk, Harry released his hold on Snape's robes and stood back. "No, I won't. I won't."

Snape stared with outrage, palpable frustration raking his stark features into trembling relief. "You fool. . . you fool! Now is not the time for nobility. You should kill me—Do it, kill me!"

Harry resisted and took another step back, spreading his hands in plain surrender. "I'm not like you."

Snape laughed, the tone rising and stretching to fill the room. He drew a hand over his eyes, wiping at the wetness gathered there. When his hand withdrew, all emotion was vanished. He had returned to the mask that Harry had known for the past six years. "Selfish boy. Stupify."

The spell wound him tightly, crushing him to the ground. Snape stood overhead, his expression still carefully vacant. He stooped to where Harry lay prone, and using the tip of his wand, opened his robes. The mouse, unaffected by the spell, crept out of Harry's pocket and stepped unflinchingly into Snape's open palm. He replaced the mouse with a thin stretch of wood, wrought of thirteen inches of holly. Harry could only stare, unable to make sense of it.

Snape straightened and then circled the room, pausing only by the portrait that featured a sleeping Dumbledore, the death still too new to grant intelligence to the paint. He lifted a hand to the frame, his lips painfully drawn. "You call it kindness and love, but it is a mask for your selfishness. You asked too much."

Seconds after Snape's departure, the sounds of battle silenced from below. McGonagall was the first to rush in, her eyes trained on first the window, a deep sorrow settling there, and then to where Harry laid bound beneath it. Madame Pomfrey stumbled in shortly after, her wand already making fast work of the gash over his forehead and wounds on his face. He remembered Hermione, distantly, freeing her from the immobilization hex he'd placed to keep her safe and hidden beneath the cloak. There had been no time to do the same for George, who would be forced to sleep out the remainder of the curse that had caught him in the chest.

Once freed from the spell, Hermione clutched at him, her hands firm on his robes and tears wet against his cheek. He felt the beat of her heart against his chest, the warmth of her hair near his nose. Dumbledore was dead, he repeated to himself. Albus Dumbledore was dead. He gripped her shoulders first and then her back, and then fell against her, his best friend of six years, and wept. "Please, don't leave me again."

"Oh Harry. I'm so sorry."

He wept, the sadness equal parts for the loss of his mentor and guardian, and equal parts for the future he knew he must now face. The weight of that future threatened to suffocate. And either must die at the hand of the other for neither can live while the other survives. He shuddered. Hermione drew back far enough to grasp his face, her fingers gentle.

"You did the right thing, not killing him. You're not a murderer," she told him.

But he will have power the Dark Lord knows not.