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Chapter 46
The Battle of Hogwarts
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Content warning: blood, violence.
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VOLDEMORT STOOD WITH Nagini around his shoulders at the steps of the Castle, leering down at a boy standing before him. "If that is your choice, Longbottom," he breathed, "we revert to the original plan. On your head be it."

Voldemort's wand struck out towards the school and Marina knew without seeing that he'd summoned the Hogwarts Sorting Hat. She glanced up at Tom to find him still pale and tense, his lips pressed in a firm line and his hair stuck to his forehead. "We have to get to Nagini," she murmured.

He nodded, eyes fixed on Voldemort as he taunted Neville. "Getting close to him won't be easy," he said, jaw tense. "He'll know about my betrayal by now."

"He can't kill you," Marina frowned, "it would only be hurting himself."

"He can do a lot without killing me," Tom said darkly.

The crowd suddenly screamed and Marina looked around in alarm to find Neville standing with the hat aflame on his head, saw people edging forward to try to help only to be met with an impenetrable line of Death Eaters with their wands drawn forcing them back –

But something was happening.

Marina looked down, frowning. The rubble strewn across the steps was trembling, shivering and shifting as the very ground beneath them began to shake, and over the screams of the crowd there was an almighty, thunderous roar in the distance.

It was getting louder.

Up the hill towards the castle charged a crowd unlike anything Marina had ever seen.

Creatures of every form imaginable ran as one; they were spearheaded by galloping centaurs with bows drawn taut and aimed directly at the Death Eaters, and behind them Marina saw grey-skinned selkies with seal-skins draped around their shoulders wielding tridents and blades of serrated bone, she saw goblins with gleaming daggers and swords bearing their sharp, needle teeth, she saw what must be dwarves with braided beards and heavy war-hammers, a swarm of tiny beings with bright red hair and backwards-facing feet clutching spears and feathered shields, and above them all flew Veela and Harpies with their talons brandished, screaming in wrath.

And still more came.

Behind the creatures was a wave of witches and wizards united in a single, wordless cry of battle, the rainbow of robes revealing the diversity of their origins – the pale blue silk of Beauxbatons, the blood red of Durmstrang, Mahoutokoro with their robes folded across their chest, Koldovstoretz with their thick fur trims, Castelobruxo, Ilvermorny, Uagadou –

Marina suddenly remembered what Ollivander had said of Harry and the others in Muriel's house. "He travelled far," she whispered, watching as the army swarmed up the hill and around chunks of stone the size of houses scattered across the grass. All at once it became painfully obvious what Harry had been doing for the past year. He'd united them all against Voldemort, convinced witch, wizard, creature and being to put aside all else and fight together.

Harry's army had finally arrived.

Chaos erupted. Giants three stories tall rounded the Castle drawing back their mammoth clubs with hollow roars, swinging them into the oncoming army and sending bodies flying, Death Eaters swivelled around and let loose a storm of curses so bright that Marina had to turn away from the burning lights, spears streaked through the sky, arrows whistled to a sick thud when they met their target, and the crowd on the steps of Hogwarts bellowed as they charged forward as one towards the distracted Death Eaters.

Voldemort's face was twisted in fury and hatred as he wheeled around deflecting spear, arrow, and curse alike in a ferocious flurry, and Marina watched wide-eyed as Neville wrestled the Sorting Hat from his head and from it drew a shining sword with a silver-wrought handle that glittered with rubies –

A searing white curse suddenly streaked past her cheek so close that she felt her skin blister, and Tom sharply tugged her closer. "Stay near me," he shouted over the roaring crowd.

But Marina was staring in horror at Voldemort who had turned to the school, whose red eyes had fallen upon the two of them left on the stone steps, whose melted face had twisted in hatred at the sight of Tom, at her held in his arms. Voldemort's wand trained on them and Tom swiftly turned her behind him before stepping forward and lifting his wand to deflect a sickly yellow curse that shot their way. Voldemort sent another, and another, rapid and deadly, and too late did Marina realise that it was a distraction.

Nagini was streaking across the ground towards her moving impossibly quickly for her size, weaving effortlessly through the stampeding battle with her flat, slitted eyes fixed on Marina. No paltry Parseltongue would do anything for her now.

"Tom!" Marina shouted, stepping back in terror.

Tom glanced at her and caught sight of the monstrous snake cresting the bottom of the steps. "Confrigo," he said sharply, but the spell bounced off Nagini's scales harmlessly and Voldemort took advantage of his distraction to send forth a swarm of razor sharp, bright white darts that Tom only just managed to block, stumbling back. "Expulso!" he shouted at Nagini – but again the curse ricocheted away.

Marina frantically looked around for something, anything to help her, but there was nothing. Nagini let out a blood-curdling hiss and Marina looked back just in time to see jaws yawning open to reveal vicious fangs, a forked tongue, and an anaemic pink glottis, falling back in terror as the thick, muscular body of the snake struck through the air –

Tom's arm shot out in front of her as he slid to a halt between her and the snake, and Nagini's jaws closed on his forearm, her long fangs sinking straight through to his bone.

"TOM!" Marina screamed as he dropped to his knees and canted forward, just barely catching himself with his other palm and Nagini's body thrashed and writhed, her mouth locked on his forearm as Tom choked in pain.

But Voldemort was screaming too, a wordless shriek of fury because a figure had suddenly appeared beside them and Marina looked up just in time to see Neville with the Sword of Gryffindor lifted high above his head, his face caked in dirt and blood and sweat, his mouth twisted in concentration and strain – and then as if swinging an axe, he brought the blade down upon on Nagini's neck.

Blind and deaf to the battle around them, Marina scrambled forward and fell to her knees in front of Tom as Neville kicked Nagini's body aside and rounded on a nearby Death Eater, sword aloft as he charged forward with a frenzied bellow. Marina seized the snake's jaws and painstakingly pried them apart, grimacing as Tom let out a moan of pain as the fangs slowly slid from his flesh, and Marina could barely look at him for the blood that was once again streaming from his nose, the agony on his face where he was hunched forward, his fingers trembling where they lay limply on the stone before him.

"Tom," she breathed as she tossed Nagini's head aside and reached for him, grasping at his shoulders desperately. "Tom!"

But he didn't respond, his eyes shut and flickering like he was fevered as he hunched over his bitten arm, his other hand holding it in trembling fingers. He'd gone so pale that terror coursed through her and she desperately looked around again – but no one was paying them any attention. Voldemort had disappeared and the battle raged on as if they weren't even there. She caught glimpses of giants with Harpies swarming around their faces and clawing at their eyes, their thunderous howls of pain so loud that they shook Marina's chest and made the rubble shift, the ground roiling as they blindly stomped down upon the hordes at their feet. She saw Death Eaters in brutal combat with groups of ashen-faced Professors and students alike, dwarves hacking at the legs of Acromantula with huge axes, a group of students from Mahoutokoro forcing back the legion of gliding dementors with a bounding, luminous guard of Patronuses.

No one was going to help.

Marina looked back at Tom, heart racing as she grit her teeth and glanced back up the stairs towards the school. If she didn't do something, no one would. "Come on then," she said with false conviction, grabbing his wand from where it had fallen from his fingers and shoving it into her pocket. "We've got to get you inside."

She slid her arm under Tom's and tried to force him to stand but he only moaned in pain again, his head falling forward and his skin once more slick with a sickly sweat.

"Come on!" Marina repeated desperately – but her voice trembled and broke. She frowned hard, pressing her lips together hard as she steeled herself against the quivering feeling in her chest. "Get up, Tom," she commanded angrily, "come on!"

Slowly she managed to stand, only just managing to keep Tom upright as he slumped heavily against her. "Let's go," she breathed, fixing her gaze on the doors to the school. One of them had been blown off its hinges and was swinging loosely next to the corpse of a huge Acromantula on its back with six remaining legs curled into its segmented stomach.

The first step nearly brought them tumbling to the ground, the strain of lifting Tom up the stair nearly collapsing Marina's thighs – but she did not fall. Jaw tight and refusing to look away from the doors in front of her, Marina took the next step, and then the next, her legs burning by the time they finally, finally reached the top of the stairs.

"Nearly there," she told him firmly, not daring to look at his face – her shoulder was wet with his blood and he wasn't stepping with her at all anymore, his feet dragging and his head hanging limply as she heaved him through the doors. "Come on, nearly there!"

Inside the Castle the battle continued, tiny House-elves brandishing knives and screaming in fury, Death Eaters duelling Hogwarts students, the briefest recognition as she glanced someone who must be Flitwick – and that must be Professor Sprout – and Slughorn –

Pomfrey was in the corner of the Great Hall leaning over a young girl who was frozen solid in a body-bind so firm that not even her clothes were moving, and Marina's arms trembled with the promise of relief as she hauled Tom around in her direction.

"Pomfrey!" she bellowed when they were close enough to be heard.

The matron looked up and went white at the sight of them stumbling towards her. "What happened to him?" she cried in alarm as Marina finally crumpled in exhaustion in front of her.

"Nagini bit him," she gasped, "and he healed another Horcrux –"

"A what?" Pomfrey demanded as she seized Tom's shoulders, pulling him from Marina and pointing her wand at his face.

"His soul!" Marina said frantically. "It's his soul!"

Pomfrey's face went tight and she started casting spells so quickly that her wand seemed to glow ceaselessly.

Marina coughed hard as she collapsed to the side, exhausted. She'd made it. She'd gotten him to her, but the shouts and screams from around her were so loud, the blasts and the cries of pain, the ground trembling beneath her, everything was too much –

And then without a single second of warning, the Great Hall exploded.

Stone bricks showered the room over screams of alarm and panic, and Pomfrey seized her, pulling her down with her as Marina frantically tried to shield her head, rubble crashing around them as dust engulfed the air. Something monstrously huge had erupted through the far wall and surged into the Hall with a shrieking, skin-scrawling roar that made Marina's blood run cold because she recognised that sound, the dry sound of scales sliding on rock –

Voldemort's cold, high laugh echoed around the room as the basilisk struck out, seizing three people between its jaws and throwing them screaming across the Hall, its burning yellow eyes collapsing those who looked up around at the creature, dead before they hit the ground.

"What is that?" Pomfrey gasped, lifting her head.

"No!" Marina shouted, grabbing her shoulder and pulling her back down. "Don't look! It's a basilisk!"

The basilisk shrieked again and Marina shivered involuntarily – it sounded like metal tearing. The Castle rumbled as the snake struck again, its huge jaws closing around a centaur bellowing in terror.

Marina looked down at Tom, utterly still, skin pale and blood-smeared, his head falling to the side where he lay and his dark hair in tangles. The only person in the world who might stand a chance at stopping the basilisk and he was lying unconscious before her.

"Can you heal him?" she shouted at Pomfrey over the chaos behind them – stone shattered as the basilisk's tail crashed into a wall, people wailing in fear and pain as they were flung through the air, the horrible thuds and sudden silence as they slammed into the ground and against the walls. "He might be able to stop it!"

Pomfrey nodded in determination and leaned over him again, and Marina chanced a glance behind her, eyes trained carefully on the floor. The basilisk was reared up by the far wall where the Slytherin table lay in splintered ruins, Voldemort stood beneath it casting curses at anyone nearby. There was a strange symmetry to the way they both moved, striking out suddenly and viciously, whipping around to each opponent, deadly speed and exact precision.

"This is not good," Pomfrey said sharply, drawing Marina's attention.

"What? What's wrong? Won't he wake up?" Marina demanded at once, looking quickly at Tom. His skin was sallow and feverish, his eyelids shadowed as if bruised; he looked like he was dying.

"It's the venom!" Pomfrey shouted as the basilisk roared again, tipping a phial of something between Tom's still lips. "The bite will not heal! If I wake him he will only be in pain!"

Fear cloyed in Marina as she saw the basilisk's tail swat a Veela from the air, slamming her screaming into the wall. Tom wouldn't wake, and nothing anyone was doing was slowing the basilisk down, people falling dead on the spot as they were caught in its lethal gaze and it went on and on, the battle growing frantic and desperate –

"VOLATILIS LUTUM!"

Marina's head whipped around to see Ginny with her wand pointed at the basilisk's head, her expression fierce as she stared safely at the scales of its tail. The basilisk shrieked and reared back, its head swinging violently as the huge, winged forms of pale bats clawing their way from its nose and swarmed around it, screeching and calling in shrill shrieks. They clawed at its face, its scales, its eyes, and blood splattered across the wall beside Marina as the basilisk's head swung in a huge arch, screaming.

It had been blinded.

Voldemort's fury was drowned out by the roar of the crowd as they realised the shift in the tide, and Ginny charged forward with Hermione and a girl that must be Luna, wands aloft. The basilisk tried to strike out at them, just barely missing them as its nose buried instead in the flagstone floor, fracturing beneath the impact.

"NEVILLE!" Ginny bellowed. "THE SWORD!"

Neville wheeled around from behind her where he'd been swinging at the legs of an Acromantula, took one look at the snake's head buried in the floor and threw Ginny the gleaming silver sword, its ruby hilt anchoring it downwards as it arched perfectly upright through the air. Ginny seized it and wheeled around, drawing it back without hesitation and drove it directly into the basilisk's red, weeping eye-socket.

With a shriek that made Marina clamp her hands over her ears in pain, the basilisk reared back, twitching and writing in the air violently, and then with a thud that send bricks tumbling to the ground from the shattered hole in the wall behind it, the monstrous snake fell to the floor, dead. Ginny stood over it, blood dripping off her silver blade, splattered up her arm and across her face, glaring down at it as her chest heaved with hard breaths, her mouth a hard line.

Any elation was immediately cut short as Marina saw Bellatrix round on Ginny over the sounds of her master screaming in fury, her beautiful face wrought with hatred as she lifted her wand and a killing curse made Ginny duck. Luna and Hermione quickly joined her, but Marina could see the struggle in their faces as the battle resumed as furiously as before.

She wheeled around back to Tom, still unconscious and unmoving on the floor, her hands going to his face as she tilted him towards her. "Tom," she said breathlessly. "Tom!"

"The bite will not heal," Pomfrey said sharply, still working at a blistering pace. "None of my spells are working."

Marina blinked, her eyes returning to Tom's pale, blood-smeared face. "He knows a spell," she whispered.

"What?"

"He knows a spell!" she shouted, gesturing at him. "He made it up – some spell that heals bites, he used it on me! Maybe it'll work on –!"

Pomfrey's wand went to Tom's chest without hesitation. "Expergo Maxima."

Tom's eyes flew open and he sat up with a ragged breath like someone had seized him by the collar and yanked him upright.

"Tom, heal the bite," Marina commanded, forcing his wand into his unaffected hand.

"Wh – what –" he choked, looking around.

"Tom!" she said loudly, grabbing his shoulder. His wide eyes fell upon her. "You need to heal your arm!"

Tom looked down and seemed to notice his torn, blood-soaked robes for the first time, staring in horror at his arm cradled in his lap. His lips went tight again, and he pointed his wand at the two weeping holes peeking through the tears in his sleeve. "Ostanie sana," he said quietly.

The holes glistened and then closed before their very eyes.

"Amazing," Pomfrey murmured, staring at where the wound had been. "How did –"

"I'll explain it later," Tom interrupted succinctly, "Marina – where is he? Where's Voldemort?"

"He's –"

"AVADA KEDAVRA!"

Tom seized Marina's shoulders and yanked her towards him, the killing curse hitting the exact spot she'd been kneeling beside him mere milliseconds prior. Marina glanced around in terror to find Yaxley striding towards her, his face crumpled in fury, his wand pointed directly at her.

"CRUCIO!"

Tom and Marina lurched to the side to avoid the curse, and Marina realised all at once that Yaxley wasn't paying the slightest attention to Tom, his resentment crystallised on her. She pushed at Tom's arms, trying to get him to let her go – but he only held her tighter.

"What are you doing?" he demanded quickly.

"He's after me!" Marina shouted, looking around to see Yaxley drawing his wand back to strike again. "Tom – let me go –"

"SECULUS!"

Tom's panicked eyes were wrenched from Marina's face as his wand cut through the air just in time to deflect the curse, only for him to immediately fall back onto his forearms from the effort, panting heavily as blood oozed from his nose.

"You've taken on two Horcruxes in less than an hour!" Marina said frantically, scrambling to her feet, finally free. "Stay down!"

"Marina!" Tom gasped, looking up at her as he grimaced in pain, swaying as he tried to reach for her. "No! Stay close to –"

But she'd already turned to Yaxley, quickly ducking under the curse soaring towards her, heart beating rapidly.

She was ready.

Yaxley's expression flickered with surprise as Marina stepped quickly towards him, determined and angry, but he lifted his wand once more and a searing red curse streaking through the air towards her. Marina ducked to the side without slowing down like she was dodging a punch, but Yaxley had already sent a sweeping wave of flames her way. Marina's heart caught in her throat but then she felt a glowing warmth on her skin beneath her shirt, the Wardore letting the flames glance off her harmlessly. Yaxley looked confused for the briefest second before his face crumpled into hatred, and his curses started flying so quickly that Marina could barely duck them, feeling some land with dull thuds against her skin, the Wardore burning almost painfully hot against her skin as she pushed forward relentlessly, as Yaxley tried to curse her back, until finally –

The Wardore exploded beneath her shirt but it didn't matter because she closed the final distance between them and seized his forearm in her hand.

Marina lifted her leg swiftly and swung hard into his knee joint, immediately pulling back and slamming the edge of her foot into his stomach as she pulled hard on his forearm to draw him even more into the impact. He crumpled forward but she just stepped in closer, swinging her whole body around to smash her elbow into his face, pulling it back and jamming it in again hard, and then again. Bleeding heavily, Yaxley stumbled backwards, his mouth oozing red as he tried to train his wand on her again. "AVADA –"

Marina's hand shot out and she punched him viciously in the throat. He choked on his own curse and stumbled back again, bending double.

"Filth, you called me," Marina breathed, following him. He glanced up at her and she swiftly lifted her leg again, driving her hip forward as she kicking him hard in the face. Yaxley canted backwards, holding his jaw in dazed shock as he stared up at her with wide eyes. "A parasite, am I?" she whispered.

She seized his head in her hands and yanked it forward, slamming her knee into his nose and feeling it break with a sickening thrill of satisfaction. Marina kicked him hard in the chest and Yaxley fell backwards, blood streaming from his broken face as he struggled to look up at her. His wand was still in his hand and he desperately pointed it at her.

Marina's other leg swung around so fast that the moment her foot slammed into his hand, Yaxley's wand went flying.

There was fear in his eyes when he looked up at her next.

"Clearly," Marina quoted icily, standing above him, "having a wand has instilled you with a false sense of importance." When she stepped closer Yaxley tried to shuffle back, and another thrill shot through her. "This must be rectified," she whispered.

She kicked him so hard in the face with the flat of her foot that he was unconscious before his head smacked the ground, his face broken and bloodied, and he moved no more.

Breathing heavily, skin electrified and drunk on adrenaline, Marina turned back to Tom.

He was exactly where she'd left him, propped up on his forearms by the wall, staring at her blankly. She approached him quickly, suddenly very aware that with the Wardore gone she was vulnerable to any curse or hex that might whizz by, and when she came to a stop before him, he just looked up at her for a moment.

"You know," Tom said evenly, eyes dropping to Yaxley's crumpled, broken form behind her, "I do forget that you can do that."

Marina smirked and held out her hand. Tom took it and she pulled him to his feet, frowning when he stumbled slightly. "Are you alright?" she asked slowly, scrutinising him.

"I'm not sure," he muttered distractedly, eyes flickering as he swayed where he stood. "I – I don't feel…" One of Tom's hands had come up to his head like he was trying to physically hold back the dizziness.

But a scream unlike anything Marina had ever heard wrought the air and they both wheeled around to see Bellatrix falling backwards, Mrs Weasley's face ferocious with her wand still outstretched, and Voldemort looked on with incomparable wrath, his own wand wheeling around –

"PROTEGO!"

And suddenly, just like that, there he was.

Standing in the middle of the hall as the Shield Charm cleft Voldemort's curse in two was a teenage boy with a mess of black hair and circular glasses that made Marina's heart lurch with some mix of recognition, nostalgia, disbelief, and awe.

Across his forehead, even from a distance, she could see a scar shaped like a lightning bolt.

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A/N: The penultimate chapter...
We're nearly there folks...
Also, catch me frantically googling if snakes even have snot mid-way through writing this chapter in a mad panic to make sure that Ginny's curse would actually work on the fucking basilisk (they do, I'm off the hook).
And hey if anyone wants to get on my dick about Dumbledore knowingly leaving a basilisk under the school when he technically had Tom who could open the Chamber and kill the thing, listen... I think both of us know that that's something Dumbledore would do. That mf hired a Death Eater, a quack, a government shill, and literal Voldemort on the back of a dude's head in the space of five years, as well as running a blood-sport death tournament for children, keeping a three-headed monster dog in the school without telling any of the parents, and deadass not even sending people home the moment he knew that the Chamber of Secrets was opened again even tho the last time a kid literally died.
Also it made for a cool scene in the final battle so… handle it 😎.
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