Chapter 21: How to Save a Life

• − ○ ◊ Harry ◊ ○ − •

"We all knew this day would come and you all know what needs to be done," said Professor Dumbledore to the growing crowd. "The wards could fall in less than an hour, and before that happens the only wizards and witches I want in this castle are those willing and able to fight. Please begin evacuation procedures immediately."

As he spoke, a bell-like alarm began to ring across the grounds and the crowd scattered with an explosion of shouts and orders.

"How are we supposed to get people out?" Harry asked as he and his parents ducked out of the crowd's way. He watched the Death Eaters work on the wards with a cold sense of de ja vu.

"Portkeys," said Lily. "We've got hundreds of them prepared to take us to various safehouses all over Europe for exactly this reason."

"Harry, go and find Holly and Harry and evacuate with the others. Get yourselves as far away from here as possible," said James, attempting to usher Harry up the stairs.

"Are you kidding me?" Harry retorted, fending him off. "I'm more than willing to fight and just as able."

James gave him the kind of severe, don't-mess-with-me look that only a father could give. "That doesn't matter. You're not the Champion of Worlds anymore, Harry. You're our son, and we're going to protect you. Go and find you brother and sister and evacuate with the others. That isn't a suggestion."

Harry stared hard at James. "Has it occurred to you that maybe I'm the one who's-"

"Now."

Harry closed his mouth. He tried to retort, only for the words to die in his throat. He wordlessly turned his back on James and Lily and stalked up the stairs, heart thumping against his ribs. He felt about twelve years old. He weaved in and out of an agitated yet orderly crowd and raced to the Gryffindor Common Room. He wasn't entirely sure why he hadn't argued back. Hadn't he been doing precisely that from the moment he'd gotten here?

Harry realised then that James had just fathered him. That wasn't fair. James has had lots of practise at being a father. Harry had no idea how to be a son. All he knew was that if he'd argued against James it would have felt like he was betraying something.

When he arrived at the dorms, he found his counterpart rifling through his belongings.

"Oh, hi," his counterpart said distractedly before extracting a snitch from somewhere in the recesses of his trunk.

"What are you doing?"

His counterpart turned sheepish. He slung his Invisibility Cloak over his shoulder and clicked open the snitch to show the Resurrection Stone within. "Okay, I know I don't have the Elder Wand but I do have two Deathly Hallows, and that's got to count for something, right?"

Harry blinked. "What do you mean you have two Deathly Hallows? Who the hell is going around giving you Deathly Hallows?"

He smiled. "My Invisibility Cloak is a hallow. It's been handed down through our family for generations. Didn't you know?"

"No, I didn't," Harry said slowly. He decided to file that bit of information away for later. "What exactly is your plan?"

His counterpart deflated a little and said insecurely, "Well, they're powerful relics, right? I might not be Master of Death... but this is the best way I can think of to help. I'll find a way to..." he trailed off unsurely.

Harry had recognised bits of himself in his counterpart before, but this was the first time he'd been slapped in the face by it. Of course his counterpart wouldn't think for a second about evacuating. He wanted to fight. He wanted to do whatever it would take to protect what he loved, and it wouldn't matter if he had the Deathly Hallows or his bare hands, he would still fight. For all his counterpart was arrogant, childish, and needlessly antagonistic, he had to be given credit for that. Maybe that was why Dumbledore had given him the stone, and if he already had the cloak...

"Mate, you're already the Master of Death," Harry said, only just realising the fact himself. "Don't you know how wand loyalty works? I won the Elder Wand's loyalty from Dumbledore during James' duelling session, and Voldemort would have won its loyalty from me when I gave it to him but before I could you came into my room and snatched it right out of my hand, remember?"

His counterpart's eyes widened. "You mean the wand's loyalty… is mine?"

Harry couldn't help but smirk. "Don't get any ideas. Just because Voldemort doesn't have its' loyalties doesn't mean it's not still a powerful weapon in his hands. You won't be getting it off him easily."

His counterpart nodded absently. It was clear he hadn't fully absorbed Harry's words. He was staring reverently at the Resurrection Stone. A second wave of sputtering sizzles shook the school, accompanied by an electric light show lighting up the sky. The two dashed to the window to find Death Eaters spilling past the wards and up the grassy banks like some blackened flood.

"Merlin, that was fast," his counterpart breathed.

Voldemort was hovering above his Death Eaters as they broke past the wards with shouts of triumph. He was grinning monstrously, and draped leisurely over his shoulders like some perverse shawl was Nagini. Harry swore in disbelief. This had to be some trick, some mistake, some rouse, but there was no denying it. Voldemort had brought his last link to immortality.

A spark of morbid excitement flooded his veins. "Find your sister and get out of here," Harry ordered, making for the door.

"Where are you going?"

He didn't respond. He didn't need his counterpart following him into the Chamber of Secrets. He wasted no time in opening the Chamber and clambering down into the sewerage pipes. As he traversed the labyrinth in an eerie silence, doubt began to set in.

Nagini was bait. She had to be. Voldemort would not risk bringing her here if she wasn't. She had to be a trap. A trap for him to fall into and become ensnared by the Dark Lord all over again.

But he couldn't not go after her. This might be his one chance. Would he really be able to do this? He'd been writhing beneath Voldemort's Cruciatus Curse barely two days ago.

But what choice did he have?

I have no choice, he told himself. He gripped his wand tighter. He would do whatever it took. He ripped a fang from the Basilisk's rotting corpse with a wet crunch, coving his mouth from the stench. He felt the ground shudder. Bits of debris fell ominously from the marble walls. He needed to hurry.

By the time he got back to the steps out the front of the Entrance, the school was in a state of chaos. The air was practically buzzing from the magical energy of curses whizzing left and right. Death Eaters far outnumbered what was left of the occupants of Hogwarts, but he supposed that was a good thing. It meant most of Hogwarts had been Portkeyed to safety. And those left behind weren't fighting alone, however. Their numbers were bolstered by Hogwarts' statues and suits of armour, brought magically to life and fighting valiantly for the freedom of their home.

His attention was brought from the fighting knights to Daphne standing at the bottom of the steps. Armed to the teeth, she was decked out in what he could only assume was the entire catalogue of her father's weapons collection. There was even a gun holstered at her hip. She was frozen on the spot, staring unseeingly at the battle before her.

"Daphne?"

She stared, unseeing, at the battle-scene before her. "I can do it," she said, though her voice was barely above a whisper. Harry was suddenly sorry he'd made fun of her. This was clearly much more than an aversion to blood.

"You don't have to fight."

She didn't reply. Harry hesitated. He didn't know how to help her, and he really didn't want to be worrying about protecting her when he was trying to destroy a dark lord. She was going to get herself killed just standing here.

A flash of red caught his eye. Holly came barrelling out of the castle and past them with her wand raised and a war-cry on her lips. Harry's stomach dropped.

"HOLLY!" he cried, but she either didn't hear him or didn't care.

A masked Death Eater turned to her hungrily. To her credit, she did block his first two curses, but the moment she dropped her shield to retaliate he had her pinned in an Incarcerous Curse.

Harry's world went red. He didn't realise he'd been moving until he was upon them with the Cruciatus Curse spilling from his lips. The Death Eater, impervious to Harry's descent, had no opportunity to defend himself before Harry had lifted him off his feet, where he writhed in the air like a drowning man, thrashing and howling, and then crumpled to the ground.

"Get back inside," he snarled at Holly.

"I want to fight!"

Her face was set with a determination that reminded him of Lily. But she was thirteen. That fierce look had all the impact of a stuffed teddy bear trying to be menacing. This was all his fault. He was supposed to get her evacuated, but Voldemort had distracted him. He turned to Daphne. She'd come running too, and now her eyes were trained on the catatonic Death Eater.

"Daphne, Holly's in danger. Please, get her to safety."

Daphne nodded. She seized Holly's arm with white knuckles and tugged her, protesting, back to the castle. Harry ached to go with them, but he had to find Nagini. He had to end this.

Voldemort was setting the Greenhouses on fire, the curses coming in staccato bursts from his wand. Nagini circled feverishly by his feet. She reared up to stare right at Harry. She opened her mouth in a vicious hiss and Voldemort turned to lock eyes with him as well. He smirked, his mouth moving in a manner than could only by Parceltongue. Nagini dipped back to the ground and darted toward him.

It was to be a show-down, then. So be it.

A curse whizzed dangerously close to his left ear. Draco Malfoy stepped in front of him with a wolfish expression and hunger in his eyes. He was covered in grit and his usually immaculate hair was in such a state that Harry almost didn't recognise him.

"What happened to you?" Harry asked disdainfully. He cast a wary glance at the rapidly approaching python, but Malfoy was impervious to Nagini's advance.

He bristled and hissed, "You happened to me. You stole that blasted Diary, and I paid for it. Now I'm going to make you pay for it. Crucio!"

Harry lunged out of the curse's path and blasted Malfoy ten metres off his feet. He didn't have time for this. There was a serpent on her way to kill him. Malfoy landed harshly on the ground. Nagini slithered past his groaning form before rising up with her tail flicking and her head twitching from side to side. She hissed at Harry, opening her pink mouth disconcertingly wide and showing off a pair of fangs glistening with poison.

He shot a blasting curse at her. She easily darted out of its path, quicker than lightning. She hissed again. He couldn't tell if she was warning him or goading him. She certainly wasn't speaking Parceltongue.

She coiled around herself, crouching low like a cat preparing to pounce. He dug the fang out of his pocket. The moment she saw it she lunged – too quick to react – and her jaw locked onto his arm, teeth sinking into his flesh sickeningly. He staggered back and cried out, thrashing his arm wildly. Curses spilled from his lips in a garbled panic, but if she felt their effects, she didn't show it.

At last she let go and Harry stumbled backward as she retreated. He fumbled to pick up the fang. His forearm was throbbing and oozing blood. He couldn't tell if it was poison or adrenaline that was making his mind reel dizzily. Nagini had coiled around herself once more, quivering and hissing, tongue flicking as though she could taste the blood now dripping from Harry's arm.

He clenched his fist around the fang. "Come on then," he growled, raising it in preparation.

Before he could prepare, before he could react, before he could think her fangs were sinking into his shoulder. He fell back from the sheer force of her strike and she immediately retreated, dexterously avoiding his mad stabbings with the fang.

She hissed once more, then twisted around and left him there on the ground, winded and wheezing. He angrily sent a Protego at her, followed by a Bombarda, and a Confringo and a Bat-Boogey Hex. All of them found their mark, but they just glanced off her scales. It occurred to Harry that Voldemort must have put some protective curse on her. He swore and slumped back with his wounds throbbing angrily. Colourful lights winked at him and fizzled across his vision. He shook his head the try and clear the wooziness from his head, but that just made the world begin spinning and flashing like some nightmarish merry-go-round.

His eyes followed the witches and wizards battling around him. He felt strangely detached from everything happening around him. The shouts and crashes felt muted in his ears. The spells and those casting them had the strange, evanescent quality of dreams. Everyone seemed to be fighting in slow motion, and he couldn't figure out how that would be helpful.

The Greenhouses were a spectacle of an inferno. Heavy black smoke billowed upward like a heavy blanket enveloping them and little glowing embers wafted over the breeze, falling from the sky. It was oddly beautiful. Transfixing. He was touched by the inexplicable beauty of Hogwarts on fire.

He caught sight of James and Lily over by the Whomping Willow. They were fighting side-by-side. No, it was more than that… they were fighting in tandem, spinning around each other, firing off curses and defending each other in perfect unity, as though they had been born to fight as one. They built each other up. Their love was their strength, where it had always been Harry's weakness.

James is going to die.

The thought came to him again. He couldn't explain where it came from, but he believed it to a fault. Somehow, sometime, destiny would come knocking. Death would come knocking, just like it always did.

He couldn't allow it. Not again. He couldn't let Voldemort do to this world what he had done to Harry's. His father would not be killed in his own home without even a wand in his hand. His mother would not die begging for Harry's life.

Amortentia be damned! He may be a monster with a soul mangled and a heart torn loose, but he still had enough essence inside him to recognise love. He loved his parents, damn it. He had to protect them, any way he could. They would do the same for him. They had done the same for him.

Lily's hair flailed about her as she darted this way and that. He felt as though he was seeing her for the first time. He'd spent so long stuck in his own head, with his own demons, that he'd barely stopped to appreciate the fact that this was his mother in the flesh, with blood pounding through her veins and eyes flashing with life.

He pictured his real mother in her grave an entire world away. She'd died to protect him. She paid the final price for the slim hope that it would mean he would live. But it had worked. Her sacrifice had changed everything. Wasn't it only fair that he gave up something of himself – everything of himself – for her in return?

He staggered to his feet with renewed vigour, Nagini forgotten. He turned to where Voldemort had been, only to find that Voldemort was already upon him, watching him with a subtle smirk. Harry had a feeling Voldemort had been watching him all along. Nagini slithered about his feet. Harry stood a little taller and tried not to sway on the spot, glaring at Voldemort.

"You were a fool to ever try, Potter," Voldemort sneered as Harry struggled to stay on his feet. He raised his wand. "Now, be a good little soldier and accept your corporeal damnation."

Everything inside him told him to fight, to run, to do something, but Nagini was still alive. He was running out of options, but there was still one way. He couldn't kill Voldemort. Perhaps he never could, but he could still stop Voldemort from hurting the people he loved.

He threw the fang and his wand to the ground.

"Have at me."

He was okay with this. He'd be ripped from his body, cursed to incorporeal damnation. He was fine with that. Lily's sacrifice had protected him against Voldemort once, so now his sacrifice would do that same. He would make sure Voldemort could never hurt any of them ever again.

A wand was suddenly pressed against his neck from behind. Malfoy had sneaked up on him.

"I've got him, my Lord! I've got the Champion of Worlds!" he cried breathlessly, wrapping his arm around Harry's neck.

Harry felt a wave of exasperation at Malfoy's antics, but let Malfoy tackle him anyway. He only had eyes for Voldemort, who was smirking at Malfoy's sordid attempt to get back into the Dark Lord's good favour.

Voldemort levelled his wand right between Harry eyes, and Harry noted absently that his wand wasn't the Elder Wand.

"Avada kedavra!"

Harry flinched away from the green jet of light. His scar flared hot. He spotted Lily weaving her way across the battlefield. Her head turned as if sensing his eyes on her, and they found each other's gazes for a single instant that could have contained all of eternity.

• − ○ ◊ AU Harry ◊ ○ − •

(Going back in time a tiny bit)

Harry crouched apprehensively beneath his Invisibility Cloak watching Lord Voldemort set the Greenhouses on fire with Elder Wand. It sputtered with fire, visibly vibrating in the Dark Lord's hand. Voldemort appeared to be getting irritated. The Elder Wand clearly hadn't been performing as it should be. It gave Harry a satisfying sense of vindication.

Voldemort ended the curse and glared down at the Elder Wand. He sneered, and snapped it in two. Harry's breath caught. He flinched as the wood splintered neatly in two, heart falling. Voldemort threw the pieces to the side and withdrew another wand, marching off with renewed resolve. He didn't notice the wand shards knit themselves back together in the grass, but Harry did. He crept forward, hardly daring to breathe, and snatched it up. He glanced around in paranoia, but no one was paying him any attention. No one realised that the Master of Death had just entered their midst.

Exhilaration coursed through him. He'd done it! Master of Death! Friend of Thestrals! This was the destiny his entire life had been leading up to. He was a warrior now. A hero. He felt powerful. He felt godly! He felt…

Exactly the same.

He released his breath, feeling foolish. There was no magical awakening. No insane burst of godly powers. It was just him and his stupid self, holding these ancient mythical relics.

He sighed.

He surveyed the battle scene with vague thoughts of finding a Death Eater to test out the Deathstick on, when he found Malfoy holding his counterpart, who was staring at Voldemort with a far too calm expression on his face, his arm and shoulder slick with blood and two empty hands.

What the hell are you doing?

He took two urgent steps toward them, then stopped uncertainly. His counterpart had to have a plan. He always had a plan. He didn't want to ruin that. Whatever happened, his counterpart had a horcrux. He'd be okay.

Merlin, how Harry envied him.

He never had to fumble about to find his purpose. While Harry was selfishly trying to become the most powerful wizard alive, his counterpart was facing down Voldemort, fulfilling his destiny, becoming the saviour Harry had always dreamt of…

And being hit in the chest by the Killing Curse.

Harry felt strangely rooted to the spot as he watched Voldemort's curse sail through the air. His counterpart just stared it down as though the sheer force of his glare would be enough to stop the Unforgiveable. It burst against his chest. Malfoy stepped back and his counterpart's knees buckled, head jerking back before crumpling to the ground. Voldemort spared barely a moment to sneer down at his comatose form before turning on his heel and resuming his tirade upon Hogwarts.

Harry frowned at his counterpart, feeling as though his brain was buffering. His counterpart had a horcrux. Why had he fallen down? He waited for his counterpart to get up.

Why didn't he get up?

James and Lily were tearing across the lawn, both in the throes of a mad kind of fury. James tore after Voldemort with an animalistic roar while Lily turned on Draco with all the blazing madness of a bear.

That was when it occurred to Harry that his counterpart might actually be dead.

His heart was suddenly in his throat. "HARRY!" he screamed his own name, and felt as though he, too, had died.

He ran to his counterpart's side and knelt beside him. His murky eyes were open, staring unseeingly up at the sky. The sight made him sick to his stomach. How are you dead? Why are you dead!? You're not supposed to be dead! He noticed his counterpart's wand and the basilisk lying in the grass. Why had he just thrown them away? What was he thinking? Why had he just given up? He seized the front of his counterpart's robes and shook them in a senseless attempt to wake him up.

"You idiot! What the hell have you done? I thought you had a horcrux, I thought you had a plan!"

He'd just stood there in all his jealousy and let his counterpart get murdered. What was wrong with him? Why hadn't he done anything? He pounded on his counterpart's chest in anger.

"Get up! Get up you asshole!"

The git hadn't even done what he'd been summoned here to do! Voldemort was still alive, and here Harry was, the Master of Death and completely powerless.

He'd be damned if he let his counterpart die for a world he had no reason to care about. What was the point of being Master of Death if he couldn't bring one measly git back from the dead? He pounded his chest harder.

"Wake – up – you–" he broke off, eyes widening, as he noticed something truly strange.

• − ○ ◊ Lily ◊ ○ − •

"You – killed – my – son!" Lily cried, casting curse after curse and advancing on Draco with every word.

Draco smirked like the smug little snot-nosed cretin he was. He blocked each of her curses, retreating at her advance. "You should be thankful," he goaded. "He had the honour of dying by the Dark Lord's hand. That's more than a filthy Mudblood like you will get."

"Come a little closer and I'll show you what a Mudblood can do," Lily hissed. She advanced on him again with a flurry of curses and struck him with a Stinging Hex.

Draco gasped, face reddening. He straightened and raised his wand to retaliate, only to be pushed aside by Severus. He and Lucius moved protectively in front of Draco.

Severus sneered down his hooked nose at Lily. "Now, now, Draco, try to be sympathetic. Mrs Potter has just watched one of her unruly offspring die, and will soon be watching the rest of her friends and family meet the same fate."

"Is this really what this has all come to, Severus?" Lily asked. "Have you strayed so far down this path that you are willing to murder me for your master?"

Severus pierced her with his black keys, expression forever unreadable. "There would be room in our ranks for a witch like you."

Lily shook her head in exasperation. "No, Severus. You chose your side. I chose mine."

"Well, you chose wrong, Mudblood!" Draco burst out, advancing on her.

"Run along, Draco," Severus snapped, pulling Draco back.

"No, no, Severus," Lucius drawled. "Let him have her. It's time my son became a man. Salazar knows he's in dire need of some redemption." Draco cast his eyes to the ground in shame as his father pinned him with a glare.

Lily couldn't take any more of their bickering. She sprang forward, curses slipping off her tongue. She would show them what a Mudblood was capable of. She would avenge her son.