Disclaimer 1: This is fanfic. That means I do not own any of it. I just borrow it to play with for a little while and let people see the pathetic results if they really want to.
Disclaimer 2: I'm not making any money from it. It's just for fun.
Disclaimer 3: What isn't borrowed is all made up. None of this is real or most likely at all realistic. Please don't trust any of the information in here. Most likely you know more about whatever I'm writing about than I do.
Disclaimer 4: Attitudes, views and opinions expressed by the characters or in the story are not necessarily those of the author. Even when writing Science Fiction or Fantasy I do not tend to attempt to create perfect/better worlds in which everybody gets a happy end ... or whatever is best for them. Please accept that some characters will have a bad ending or be unhappy.
Disclaimer 5: I intend no insult to anyone. If I offend anyone I'm very sorry. Please understand that it was an accident as I tend to be very clumsy in these things.
Chapter 36: The Flaw in the Plan
Only moments seemed to have passed between Harry's death and his reawakening in the same clearing he had died in. He was still lying next to Professor Snape clutching the Professor's wand, but with Professor Dumbledore's words still ringing in his ears as well as the voice of You-Know-Who who was demanding to know whether he was dead and ordering somebody to check.
Harry sat up.
"I'm not," he stated. "You can't kill me, but maybe I can kill you and save the wizarding world."
Professor Dumbledore had said that that was more important than Harry's survival after all.
He pointed the unfamiliar wand at the Dark Lord wondering whether it would work for him, wondering whether he could cast an unfamiliar spell that he'd never wanted to learn, wondering ... hand trembling.
"Nonsense!" You-Know-Who yelled and pointed his own wand at Harry.
"The snake, Harry! The snake!" Professor Snape shouted.
"Avada Kedavra!"
"Avada Kedavra!"
Two simultaneous flashes of green light lit up the clearing, something heavy and dark slammed into Harry and buried him under it.
"Nooooooo!" The Dark Lord yelled in fury. "Nagini!"
"Severus!" a woman's voice screamed.
"Shut up you fool!" a man hissed. "The traitor got what he deserved."
"Is he dead?" another voice asked. "Did the spell hit him or Potter?"
"Either way both must die for this," You-Know-Who declared. "Avada Kedavra!"
Still buried under the dark thing that just might be the body of his most formidable teacher Harry couldn't see the green flash. He clutched the wand more tightly. If it had worked on Nagini and that was the only explanation for You-Know-Who shouting her name like that, it would work for him again. The wand worked and the spell worked! Now all he'd have to do would be to cast faster than the most formidable wizard the war had still left alive.
"Levicorpus!"
The weight lifted. It was indeed Professor Snape's body now drifting lifelessly through the air directed by You-Know-Who's wand.
That gave Harry the advantage he needed. No wizard could simultaneously levitate one thing and cast a curse on another.
"Avada Kedavra!" Harry screamed at the top of his lungs throwing all his rage and despair into the spell.
Once again green light blinded him and then Professor Snape's body slammed back down onto him.
Body! Snape's body! Like Victor's body on that stretcher what seemed like a lifetime ago!
Harry screamed and struggled to push it away, to get out, get away from it.
There were other screams ringing in his ears, shouts, but he could not make sense of them. He just wanted to get out from under the body ... the pile of bodies that was growing higher and higher on top of him. Snape's and You-Know-Who's and Dumbledore's and Victor's and Uncle Sirius' and the Minister's and Barty Crouch's ... both the Barty Crouches'.
The bodies were too heavy to lift, but eventually he managed to claw and drag himself out from under the pile and crawl away backwards until he hit a tree and sat leaning against it gasping for air.
He didn't know how long he had been sitting there when it finally filtered into his mind that there was no pile of bodies, just one black heap on the ground that had been Professor Snape whose black robes occasionally fluttered in the wind, the huge snake lying as if asleep on the other side of the clearing and between them mindless and dead the monstrous body of You-Know-Who.
Other than that there were only the grass, the trees and the silence. There were no Death Eaters left. Harry was the only living person here. He had to get away from this and ... Do what?
Alert the Aurors! Let them deal with the bodies and the Death Eaters. Harry was just a boy.
Well, no, not a boy. He was an employee, an assembly line trainee. Assembly line workers didn't have to deal with bodies, though. Aurors did.
He got up, started to pocket his wand, remembered that he was wearing Muggle clothes that didn't have a wand-pocket and that it was Snape's wand, not his own. A dead man's wand!
Harry threw it away and left it there on the ground next to its dead master along with the dead snitch and the invisibility cloak that had somehow ended up half buried under Professor Snape's body.
He stumbled back to the castle where he and his news were welcomed with joy and shouting. People hugged him and patted him on the back and celebrated all around him while Harry watched it all numbly.
Draco ran up to him and told him about the battle. Luna said something about Ginevra and her family grieving for Fred. Yet another body. So many bodies.
"The Lupins are dead, too," Neville reported sombrely. "Both of them. And they were only so recently married."
Bodies, nothing but bodies.
"Harry, my boy! I am proud of you!" Auror Potter gabbed him and squeezed him. "You really are a true Potter after all!"
"Let me go! Leave me alone! I want nothing to do with you or your kind!" Harry fought him off and stepped away. "I'm a Prewett. I'm Harry Prewett."
People stared at him.
Then Professor McGonagall came over and put a hand on his shoulder.
"Now Harry, you are over-tired. And no wonder. This has been a terribly exhausting day for us all," she said and led him to Gryffindor tower where he fell into his old bed and slept.
He was woken by his mother in the middle of the night.
"Oh Harry, you really are alive!" she said tearfully and hugged him again and again. "When Severus didn't call I thought ... I thought ... And then we heard the news from Aldous and ... Oh Harry! Harry!"
"He's dead," Harry explained. "He couldn't call you because he's dead."
He didn't know who Aldous was, but right now it was much more important that his mother was here and that she was hugging him and that Mafalda was alive.
All was well, his mother told him. You-Know-Who was gone for good this time and their family had all survived the war unhurt.
The world was once again safe for Muggles, Muggleborns, Squibs, half-bloods and pure-bloods alike.