Chapter 82: Harry and the End
Harry blinked. He couldn't see well; it was dark but for the lingering light of the flames beneath the massive cauldron, and he had somehow lost his glasses. He hadn't needed the glasses in the in-between with Teddy and his parents.
He needed them here.
That perpetual inconvenience, more than anything else, was what convinced him that he was home. Or, if not home, at least in Albania with his professor and the man who had murdered his parents.
The ropes that had bound him to the tree seemed to have vanished; he was now lying in a crumpled heap on the ground.
"Take his body, Severus," said the cold, high voice Harry knew belonged to Voldemort. "We will need to preserve it. We will show all who need to see that the Boy Who Lived lives no longer."
"Yes, my lord," said Snape. Harry sensed more than saw Snape drawing nearer. He felt Snape's hand on the back of his neck and knew that he must remain still, must pretend to be dead. It went against his every instinct; for most of five years, he had found himself in conflict with Snape. Snape had glared at him with utmost loathing the first time they'd seen one another and had never missed an opportunity to humiliate Harry ever since. Not on the first day of class when he'd asked Harry questions no Muggle-raised child could possibly have been expected to answer. Not that very term when he'd read the Daily Prophet article about Sirius to the class.
We were friends, Lily had said. I loved so very much about him. His intelligence. His creativity. His sense of humor.
Harry heard on a regular basis that he had his mother's eyes. Now he tried with all his might to see through them, to be sure that he was doing the right thing by not punching Snape in his overlarge nose and fleeing…
"I underestimated you, Severus," said Voldemort. His tone wasn't precisely casual; Harry doubted that Voldemort ever did anything casually. Still, Harry sensed a layer of contentment in Voldemort that he somehow knew was unusual.
"Many people underestimate me, my lord."
There was that horrible, high laugh once more. "Including Albus Dumbledore."
"Including Albus Dumbledore." Snape's long fingers seized the back of Harry's robe and hauled him upright. Harry let himself continue to slump as if dead.
"You truly have no feeling for the boy, have you?"
"If the boy were alive, he would be the first to tell you that my only feelings for him were hate and loathing. He was as arrogant and insufferable as his father." Harry could feel that Snape's wand was soft in his right hand. He was ready to strike, Harry realized— and Harry knew how quickly Snape could strike.
"But his mother," said Voldemort. "You'd have done anything for Lily."
"For Lily," Snape repeated, and his wand flashed a lightening bolt. "Avada Kedavra."
And Voldemort fell down dead with Lily's name ringing in his ears.
Snape paused only for a moment before shaking Harry rather roughly. "Cease playing dead. You look more ridiculous than usual."
Harry straightened up and enjoyed the feeling of the forest floor beneath his trainers. Snape, meanwhile, let go of him and knelt by Voldemort's side. "Is he dead?" Harry asked.
He whirled about and directed his familiar glower. "Tell me, Potter, what does Avada Kedavra do?"
"It doesn't seem to do much of anything to me," said Harry.
For a fraction of a second, Harry thought that Snape might kill him, too, and leave him dead beside Voldemort.
For a fraction of a second, Harry also thought that Snape might laugh, and that Harry might die of shock if he saw such a thing.
What happened was even stranger. "I suppose it was a reasonable question coming from you," said Snape. "Yes, Harry, he's dead."
What was more difficult to believe? That Snape had acknowledged that Harry's initial question had been reasonable even if his followup had been deliberately cheeky? Or that Snape had just called him Harry?
Harry drew closer and squinted at the mess on the ground. The frail, thin body was undeniably lifeless. It was decaying already, as if it had lain forgotten on the forest floor for months. Snape conjured a rubbish bin from the air and casually levitated the corpse inside.
His sense of humor, Lily had said. Harry supposed that he could see it.
Snape cast a wordless spell that made the giant cauldron retreat to its hiding place in what Harry thought must be some sort of cabin. Next he extinguished the flames. They were now surrounded by a thick, velvet darkness broken only by the light of Snape's wand.
"Cast lumos," Snape ordered Harry. "I trust that Professor Flitwick managed to drum that spell into your skull at some point in the last five years?"
"I don't have my wand," said Harry. "Nor my glasses— when the spell hit me—"
With a wordless, dismissive flick of his wrist, Snape summoned both Harry's wand and his glasses. Harry wasn't certain which he was more relieved to have back in his hands. He wasted no time in lighting his wand and placing the glasses on his face.
"What now?" Harry asked.
"We return to our Portkey. We will bring the body."
"But the cauldron and everything else?"
"The cottage is invisible to most eyes. I shall return at a later date. I imagine that the Headmaster will wish to inspect it for himself. But for now, I must return you to the school before you find a way to cause more trouble."
Harry didn't think he had caused any trouble lately, but he was anxious to return to school and, especially, Sirius. So he hurried along beside Snape as they retraced their steps through the forest clearing to the place where the Portkey had first deposited them.
As if it had only just occurred to him that perhaps he should do so, Snape asked whether Harry was all right.
"Yeah," said Harry. "I think so." He couldn't quite describe exactly how he felt. He only knew that he felt ordinary, and yet not. He didn't know whether his body had been affected at all; he did know that his mind was full. "How long was I on the ground after the curse hit me and before he told you to take my body?"
"A second or two. No more." Snape turned sharply toward him. "I suppose you're going to tell me that it seemed like more to you? That you… experienced something, in the nature of what Lupin described?"
Lupin had obviously been right about almost everything, and since they had all benefitted Harry didn't entirely understand why Snape was so upset about it. "My mum said that she hopes you make the most of the freedom to live a life that isn't dominated by Voldemort."
"Do not say his name!" Snape's features contorted in rage. "And do not tell stories about people you know nothing about!" Snape waved his wand, and Dumbledore's plastic toy boat flew into his hand. He waved his wand once more, murmuring an enchantment under his breath, before holding the boat out so that Harry could touch it.
Then the three of them— Snape and Harry and the remains of what had once been Lord Voldemort— landed on the floor of Dumbledore's office.
Harry hit the floor hard. His first thought was that he didn't mind; if he had somehow been destined to fall while traveling by Portkey today, he was glad that it happened while he was in Dumbledore's office and not while he was in the forest.
He didn't have time for a second thought before Sirius pulled him from the floor and into a hard embrace. Sirius was shaking dreadfully and murmuring a string of expletives and endearments in Harry's ear.
Harry wanted to say that everything was all right— because everything really, truly was all right, perhaps for the first time in his life— but he found that he didn't have the words. He supposed it didn't matter. Sirius wouldn't have heard him anyway.
Sirius kept one hand clenched firmly around Harry's wrist as he approached the bin and inspected its contents. "Did you watch him die?" he asked Harry.
"Yes. It was Avada Kedavra."
"Can't really see it on his face," Sirius mused as if he were looking at a preserved artifact in the Quidditch Museum. "Usually with Avada Kedavra, you get a frozen surprised expression. Even if you knew it was coming. Even with your mum, and if anyone ever knew it was coming—"
"Shut your mouth, Black!" Snape had his wand in his hand and he looked far angrier than he had ever looked in Voldemort's presence. "Your godson told you what he saw."
"I don't doubt him," said Sirius. He didn't let go of Harry's wrist. He didn't reach for his wand. "He hit you with the curse, Harry?"
Harry nodded. "The Horcrux is gone."
"Perhaps Harry and Severus should begin the story at the beginning," said Dumbledore gently.
It didn't seem that there was much of a story when Dumbledore put it that way. They'd taken the Portkey to Albania. Snape had brewed the potion and resurrected Voldemort. Voldemort had tried to kill Harry. For the second time, it hadn't worked. Snape had killed Voldemort. They had returned.
"Harry— forgive me, but I must ask— did you experience anything after the curse hit you and before Professor Snape eliminate Lord Voldemort?"
"Yes," said Harry shortly. He wasn't ready to talk about his parents. He certainly couldn't talk about Teddy. "It was— it was a bit like what Lupin said. I was in a place that looked like King's Cross Station, and someone asked whether I was ready to move on, and I said I wasn't, and then I was back in the forest like nothing had happened."
Dumbledore looked like he was about to ask more questions, but Sirius interrupted. "If you want further details, Dumbledore, it doesn't have to be now. He's had a long day. Let him have a sleep."
Harry's body was vibrating with a strange energy. He couldn't remember a time he'd felt less like sleeping, but he was grateful for Sirius' interruption. "Yeah, let's go home," he said to Sirius.
The house in Hogsmeade had never really felt like home, but suddenly it did. He and Sirius would be there, and Voldemort would not.
"I shall want to speak to you when classes resume," Dumbledore told Harry. Harry nodded.
Sirius looked over his shoulder at Snape as they left. "Congratulations," he told Snape. "Must have been an amazing bit of Occulmency."
Snape, looking stunned, gave a curt nod as Dumbledore called his wishes for pleasant dreams.
The door closed behind Harry and Sirius. They scrambled down the revolving staircase, which didn't seem to revolve quite quickly enough.
"I'm grateful to Severus Snape for your life," said Sirius as they reached the corridor and strode quickly toward the front door of the castle. "But I'll never forgive him for passing along that prophecy about you."
"People aren't always simple and easy," said Harry, trying out Lily's words to see how they felt in his mouth. They felt true. He liked them.
"No." Sirius had a faraway look in his eyes. Harry didn't like it. He wanted Sirius to be here with him.
"Can I ask a question?"
"Always." Sirius' penetrating gaze was on Harry again.
"Did my family's money really come from hair potion?"
Sirius barked out a laugh. Whatever he might have expected Harry to ask, it hadn't had anything to do with hair tonic. "Yes. You didn't know that?"
Harry shook his head.
"Of course, the irony of it is that it wouldn't work on your hair."
"My hair is perfect the way it is," said Harry, trying out James' words now.
Sirius stopped abruptly and gripped Harry by the shoulders. "Your dad… your dad used to say that when I teased him about Sleekeazy's."
"I know," said Harry, even though he hadn't exactly known.
"I know that you didn't tell Dumbledore everything you saw, and you needn't tell me either, if it's not my business but—"
"I saw my mum and dad," said Harry before Sirius could ask. "Dad says you should throw a party and and enjoy yourself next Halloween."
To Harry's horror, Sirius' eyes filled with tears. Sirius had barely let go of Harry since Harry had landed in Dumbledore's office, and now his hands tightened on Harry's shoulders so that Harry could not avoid seeing the fresh pain on his face. "That was meant to be a happy thing," said Harry awkwardly.
"I know that." Sirius didn't sound as if he knew it at all. "Did James say anything else?"
"To take care of Lupin."
"And to take care of you?" Sirius' voice broke.
"I reckon that was implied."
"Tomorrow— there's nothing stopping us now— tomorrow I'll get the paperwork to assert guardianship formally. Assuming that's what you want."
"It is," said Harry, who couldn't think of anything better.
They had reached the house that was suddenly a home. Harry laughed when the door opened to reveal boxes upon boxes of Sticky Trainers, Fanged Flyers, Box O'Rockets, and Electric Shock Shakes. Had it only been that evening when Sirius and Mrs. Weasley had argued about Sirius' silent backing of the twins' business? It seemed unimportant now.
"Watch your step," said Sirius. "Tonks was here this afternoon and I thought she was going to break every love potion in the place. It would have been awkward on several levels." Harry could tell that Sirius was forcing a lightness he didn't feel as he moved from room to room, looking for signs of traps or intruders. He found nothing. Soon they were both in Harry's bedroom staring at each other. Harry had no idea how to begin to say goodnight. He was both exhausted and vibrating with nervous energy.
"I know that I haven't always been the best godfather to you," said Sirius at last.
"That isn't true!" Harry protested.
"It is. I'll try to do better when I'm your formal guardian, but I can't promise you anything. Those years I missed with you were years I missed learning things I might never learn now."
Harry remembered the painful jealousy he'd felt in the in-between when he'd talked to Teddy about godfathers. "I reckon that when Tonks and Lupin have a baby, you'll be the godfather."
"It's been discussed." Of course it had.
"That makes me jealous. Not because you'll do everything right with your next godchild, although you probably will, but because he or she will always know you, and I didn't. These last few years— having you around— it's been—"
He didn't know what else to say. He didn't know whether he should have said anything at all. He didn't think he would have said anything if his body hadn't been quite so tired and his brain hadn't been spinning quite so fast.
Sirius sank down onto Harry's bed, which was one of the few surfaces in the house that wasn't covered with the Weasley twins' products. "If you don't want me to be the godfather, I won't."
"What?" Harry hadn't expected that.
"There is nothing in the world that's more important to me than you. Nothing. If you don't want to share, you don't have to share."
"But there's no one in the world Lupin trusts anything like as much as you, and you're Tonks' cousin, too."
"Tonks' crazy friends can fight it out to decide who gets to be godmother. If they want a godfather as well, I'm sure Kingsley would be honored. Or Mad-Eye. Or perhaps— you."
Harry shook his head as he realized that he'd never wanted Sirius all to himself at all. He'd only wanted to hear that he could have had him if he'd needed him. "It should be you. You can be godfather enough for the both of us."
"We don't even know whether there's ever going to be a child." Sirius looked almost amused. "We can discuss it when that looks more like a possibility."
"You said Tonks has friends who would be the baby's godmother?"
"You haven't met Tulip and Penny? I think you'd like them."
Whether he would like Tonks' friends wasn't foremost on Harry's mind at the moment. "Did I have a godmother?" No one had ever mentioned one, but then no one had mentioned Sirius for the first thirteen years of Harry's life.
"No. The ceremony was just the four of us in the church. Your parents were already mostly in hiding."
"Didn't my mum have friends? Lupin said she did."
"Certainly she did. She was very popular. But you try to limit attendance at secret ceremonies in the middle of the war." Sirius tucked his long hair behind his ear. "We never talked about this, but I think it might have made her sad to have a godmother for you if that godmother couldn't be your Aunt Petunia. They were almost completely estranged by the time your mum died, but they were very close when they were younger and sometimes it's difficult to let go of that. My cousin Andromeda loves Tonks more than anyone else in the world. Naturally. She knows that Bellatrix Lestrange would have murdered Tonks in about a second if she'd had half a chance. She's not at all angry with me for killing Bella first."
"I know," said Harry. "I read the article about your penetrating grey eyes and abundant dark hair."
"I put up with that idiocy because I thought it would help Remus and you know it."
Harry shrugged.
"Anna was honest in that article. She doesn't mourn who Bella was. She mourns who Bella could have been. It's a bit less dramatic with your mum, but I think a part of her always wished that Petunia had been willing to accept her."
"Aunt Petunia is going to be thrilled when she finds out that I won't be visiting her anymore."
"Well, she's not happier about that than I am." Sirius grinned at Harry.
Harry smiled back tiredly. "What would you have done if it had been you?"
"If what had been me?"
"If someone told you that you had to take in your brother's child after he died?"
"I like to think I would have done better than Petunia did." Sirius stiffened. "I need to get whatever's left of Regulus' body out of that lake. Now that we know there isn't going to be a second Voldemort war, perhaps we can lay some of the ghosts of the last one to rest."
That sounded wonderful to Harry. "I want to help. All summer, that's what I want to do. It'll take a while to clear the Inferi. We should probably get rid of them, anyway, even if we don't have to do it to find Regulus. We can let the people whose bodies turned into Inferi rest, too, even if we don't know who they were."
"Very well," said Sirius. "That's our plan for the summer. In the meantime, you need some rest."
Harry was bone-weary, but he knew that sleep was out of the question. His mind was too full of Lily and James and Teddy and Lupin and Sirius and Regulus and Snape and Voldemort. Sometimes when he blinked, he saw the faces of his parents beaming at him as if he were the most wonderful thing they had ever seen. Sometimes when he blinked, he saw Voldemort's thin form stepping out of the cauldron, ready to murder Harry on his way to ruling the wizarding world once more.
"Everything all right physically?" asked Sirius, who was watching Harry closely. "Does anything hurt? Are you hungry?"
The meal he'd eaten at the Weasleys' was somehow still lodged in his stomach, and a quick scan of his body revealed that nothing hurt. "I'm fine."
Sirius waved his wand and summoned a book of crossword puzzles. "Try this."
Harry knew that Sirius used crossword puzzles to relax his mind when he couldn't sleep, but Harry couldn't imagine that working for him. He wouldn't know any of the answers and staring at the blank grid wouldn't do anything to stop the images arising before his eyes. Voldemort raising his wand. Lily and James waiting to embrace him.
"No?" asked Sirius, even though Harry hadn't said anything. "Then there's only one option left."
"What's that?"
"You'll have to catch up on your studying. You didn't prepare for the OWLs properly because you thought that you might die. Now you find yourself alive, and the OWLs don't care whether you defeated the Dark Lord. Get into bed, and I'll join you in a moment."
Harry did as he was told, primarily because he was curious about what Sirius meant to do. There was no way that Sirius really expected him to study in bed.
It turned out that Sirius really expected Harry to study in bed.
"I liked Transfiguration best when I was your age," said Sirius as he settled into a chair in the corner of Harry's bedroom. "But I don't recall precisely what was on the OWL and I don't know how much they've changed the curriculum in the last twenty years. But Astronomy hasn't changed much, and as that was drilled into me before I ever started at Hogwarts, I've never forgotten it. We've talked too much about my family tonight already, so I don't think we'll revise about the stars. That leaves the moons." His grin was almost gloating and his eyes glittered in the dark. "What's a moon, Harry?"
"Something that naturally orbits a planet or an asteroid." Even first years who weren't very good at Astronomy knew that.
"How many moons does Mercury have?"
"None."
"Venus?"
"None."
"Earth?"
"One."
"Mars?"
"Two."
"What are they called, and why?"
"Phobos and Deimos. Mars is named after the god of war, so Phobos means fear and Deimos means dread." Harry wasn't at all sure that this was taking his mind off of the day's experiences.
"What's unusual about Phobos' orbit?"
"It orbits Mars more closely than any other moon orbits any other planet, and the orbit spirals inward so that eventually it will crash into Mars."
"How many moons does Jupiter have?"
Harry flinched. The moons of Jupiter and Saturn were impossible to keep straight, and no sane person would feel the need to memorize them anyway. "Fifty-six named moons."
"Name them."
"Io. Europa. Callisto. Ganymede. Dia. Elara. Hegemone. Kore. Atlas—"
"Atlas belongs to Saturn."
"I could start making things up and you would never know."
"Ah, but I would."
"Fine, Sirius. Let's hear you name all fifty-six moons." He made himself sound doubtful, but he knew as well as he knew his own name that Sirius would be able to do it. Sirius had told him more than once that the Black family had prided itself on its knowledge of astronomy.
He could feel Sirius' smirk in the darkness. "Adrastea, Aitne, Amalthea, Ananke, Aoede, Arche, Autonoe, Callirrhoe, Callisto, Carme, Carpo, Chaldene, Cyllene, Dia, Eirene, Elara, Erinome, Ersa, Euanthe, Eukelade, Eupheme, Euporie, Europa, Eurydome, Ganymede, Harpalyke, Hegemone, Helike, Hermippe, Herse, Himalia, Io, Iocaste, Isonoe, Kale, Kallichore, Kalyke, Kore, Leda, Lysithea, Megaclite, Metis, Mneme, Orthosie, Pandia, Pasiphae, Pasithee, Philophrosyne, Praxidike, Sinope, Sponde, Taygete, Thebe, Thelxinoe, Themisto, and Thyone."
The rise and fall of Sirius' voice as he recited the names with utter confidence made Harry feel confident, too. Not necessarily confident that he was going to make a decent showing on his Astronomy OWL, but confident that at least he and Sirius would make it through the rest of the night.
"Do it again."
"Adrastea, Aitne, Amalthea, Ananke, Aoede, Arche, Autonoe, Callirrhoe, Callisto, Carme, Carpo, Chaldene, Cyllene, Dia, Eirene, Elara, Erinome, Ersa, Euanthe, Eukelade, Eupheme, Euporie, Europa, Eurydome, Ganymede, Harpalyke, Hegemone, Helike, Hermippe, Herse, Himalia, Io, Iocaste, Isonoe, Kale, Kallichore, Kalyke, Kore, Leda, Lysithea, Megaclite, Metis, Mneme, Orthosie, Pandia, Pasiphae, Pasithee, Philophrosyne, Praxidike, Sinope, Sponde, Taygete, Thebe, Thelxinoe, Themisto, and Thyone."
All at once, Harry was half asleep, counting moons the way he'd heard of Muggles counting sheep.
He didn't ask Sirius to start again, but Sirius did, speaking more slowly as if reciting the world's oddest, dullest lullaby. "Adrastea, Aitne, Amalthea, Ananke, Aoede, Arche, Autonoe, Callirrhoe, Callisto, Carme, Carpo, Chaldene, Cyllene, Dia, Eirene, Elara, Erinome…"
"Sirius?"
"Go to sleep, Harry."
"Could all of those moons make a werewolf turn?"
"No one knows. I suggested once that Remus offer himself up to the Muggle astronauts for experimentation, but he said something very rude in response."
"Do you think he can survive in Azkaban? My mum said he was too close to the veil."
"Remus is strong. Much stronger than he looks. Much stronger than he acts. He's transformed without help many times, and there were many times when it looked like he wouldn't make it and he did."
That was almost exactly what James had said, but Harry wasn't certain that Sirius believed his own words any more than Harry believed them.
"Ersa," Sirius resumed softly as if he hadn't been interrupted. "Euanthe, Eukelade, Eupheme, Euporie, Europa, Eurydome, Ganymede, Harpalyke, Hegemone, Helike, Hermippe, Herse, Himalia, Io, Iocaste, Isonoe, Kale, Kallichore, Kalyke, Kore, Leda, Lysithea, Megaclite, Metis, Mneme, Orthosie, Pandia, Pasiphae, Pasithee, Philophrosyne, Praxidike, Sinope, Sponde, Taygete, Thebe, Thelxinoe…"
Harry fell asleep, and he didn't dream of Voldemort.
To be continued.
Author's Note: Oh, were you going to tell me that some of those moons hadn't been discovered when Harry was in school, let alone when Sirius was in school? Well, it turns out that the wizards knew about them before Muggle science caught up. Because, magic.
Recommendation:
Snape, Head of Hufflepuff by Sheankelor. It is story number 11062798 on this site.
Summary: Why would Albus ask Severus to be the Head of Hufflepuff? Why should Severus accept? How would a Severus succeed in working with this house?
This fic centers around an idea that never would have occurred to me, and I like it for that alone. I also like the adorable cameos by eleven-year-old Tonks.