I beg of you, Break me!
Under this weight, unmake me!
And in your embrace, take me!
Please, give me a reason…
And don't tell me if it hurts...
Augustus Rookwood was running for his life. Down the deserted cobblestone streets of Diagon Alley and around every corner he could find. His legs burned as he hastened up a flight of stairs and turned yet another corner. Now, finally, in Knockturnalley, he had almost reached his goal: the Raven's Wing.
The lanterns the lined the alley, sparse as they were, were dark. Their light was snuffed out and offered no guidance in the gloom of this moonless night. Rookwood hobbled past dark windows and closed doors and knew he would not find aid from the residents.
They all knew what was hunting him.
A lampost up ahead suddenly lit up, and Rookwood halted his painful strides immediately.
"Oh, Rookwood!" His name rang down the empty street, sickly sweet and sending his heart into a frenzy. "Wait up! We've got something for you!"
"Stay back!" he yelled, pointing his wand at the brightly shining light of the lamp.
His reductor curse struck the lamp, and the light fizzled out, hiding him once again from the sight of his pursuers. With a grunt, Rookwood began running again, past the destroyed lamp.
"Oh, how rude!" one of his pursuers exclaimed. "Harry! He snuffed out the light!"
"I can see that."
Rookwood froze; the voice came from up ahead. They had him cornered.
"Why are they always running?" the voice from behind asked. Rookwood heard the crack of heels against the stone draw closer.
"I don't think they get how stupid it is, Daph." A shadow appeared on the street in front of him. "They should know; we always catch them."
Rookwood felt his resolve falter. Before him stood the cloaked form of Harry Potter, hunter of his brothers and sisters in arms. A madman. A monster.
Naked fear gripped his heart. "Stay back!" he yelled fearfully and raised his wand, shaking with fright. "Stay back, you monster!"
"Monster?" the voice from behind him wondered, sounding thoughtful. "Hm, that sounds so mean."
"Put the knives away, Daphne," Potter said and drew closer without so much as producing a sound. "He's not worth sullying your steel."
"But Harry!" Rookwood flinched. The voice of Daphne Greengrass, the once-heir to the Dark Lord's name, was not a step behind him. "Whenever will I get to use them if not now?"
And suddenly, his shoulder erupted into agony. Rookwood screamed, and then he didn't. He fell to his knees and found Potter's wand pointing in his face. They had silenced him.
"Daphne, dear," Potter said, not even looking at him. "You got blood all over your sleeve!"
"That's fine." Greengrass laughed, and Rookwood heard the same cruel edge in it that the Dark Lord always had. "I'm sure the stains will wash out easily."
Rookwood groaned mutedly and attempted to lift his wand. But he found his arm was numb. The blade buried deep in his shoulder had paralyzed his entire left side. But despite the lack of pain, he felt his whole body being wrenched to the left as Greengrass tore the knife from his shoulder. Rookwood hit the ground and was unable to keep his head from cracking against the cobblestone.
Potter's foot came down on his hand, the one still loosely grasping his wand, and crushed both under his heel. Head spinning and with the barest hint of fascination, Rookwood watched the wand snap, and his fingers bend unnaturally, and yet he couldn't feel any of it.
"End of the road, Rookwood." Potter's voice was distant. The poison on Greengrass' knife. Rookwood knew it was killing him. Distilled basilisk poison was what she used, he'd heard.
The Carrows had died like this. Rookwood thought back to the scene he had come across and had to wonder if anyone would recognize him once they were done with him. He had barely been able to tell Amycus from Alecto by their respective wand lodged in their hearts. The Dark Lord had been so very angry.
Oh, how Rookwood wished his Lord had killed him back then for his folly, then Potter wouldn't have found him.
"Say, did you bring the spoon?" Greengrass asked Potter. Rookwood couldn't hear Potter's answer; his words reached Rookwood as though he were underwater. The poison first robbed him of his hearing and began to darken his vision.
Blearily, he watched Potter step away, and suddenly Greengrass was kneeling in front of him. She looked just like he remembered her, the same she had looked when the Dark Lord attempted to groom her into his heir.
Her dark eyes stared down at him without remorse. She spoke, but he couldn't hear. Whatever she had said, her lips pulled into a cruel, yet almost sad, smile.
Potter hovered behind her, those hard, green eyes staring down at him with disdain and pity. Rookwood didn't understand why there would be pity, but when Greengrass pulled a spoon from within her robes, he knew and resigned himself to his painful death.
Halloween '99 was perhaps a rather fitting day for his demise. Lucius Malfoy sat in his parlour and waited. Narcissa was gone. She had betrayed him, Lucius knew. The fire in the hearth had died down to mere ambers, and the dim light let long shadows dance on the walls.
Lucius hardly flinched when his wards alerted him to a breach. For hours now, he had expected it. He attempted to relax his hands onto the armrests of his chair and waited. A great boom rocked the manor, and the chandelier overhead swayed precariously.
"This is it," he said into the empty room, speaking to the wavering shadows. "The day I die for my Lord."
"That's awfully depressing." This time, Lucius jumped in surprise. Potter had appeared in the doorway without making a sound. "I don't think your death will do Tom any good."
Lucius composed himself and said as calmly as he could: "My death throes will not reveal my Lord's whereabouts to you."
Surprisingly, Potter agreed. "No, it won't," he said. "But your corpse surely will."
Lucius scoffed and went to get up out of his chair. But a shadow to his immediate right suddenly moved, and pain flared to life in his hand. Lucious barely managed to hold back a scream and had to realize that a knife had pierced the back of his hand and pinned it to the chair. Almost immediately after that, the skin around the blade began to blacken.
Daphne Greengrass stepped out of the shadows into the firelight. The soft smile upon her face frightened him beyond words. She was indeed the one the Dark Lord had chosen to be his heir.
"Lucius," she said, greeting him with a mocking bow. "It is so good to see you again."
Only grunting ever so often, Lucius remained as quiet as he could as the poison seared his veins and turned his blood into liquid fire.
"I don't think he agrees with you," Potter said. He stalked through the room like a shadow, not making a sound. "Not that it matters. Do what you need to do, my love."
Lucius scoffed. "You have betrayed the Dark Lord," he hissed through gritted teeth. "Don't think you will get away unscathed!"
Greengrass threw her head back and laughed so loudly and cruelly; Lucius shivered at the memory of Bellatrix's laugh that was so very similar.
"Unscathed?" she asked and laughed again, quietly and cruelly. "Yes, you are right. It's impossible."
The sudden admission surprised Lucius. "Then you understand that-"
Without warning, Greengrass slapped him across the face with such force, Lucius' vision blurred for a moment. Then, he raised his stinging face defiantly to her once more.
"I am already marked," Greengrass said, her face suddenly impassive. Her voice was sad. "By you, too." Her dark eyes narrowed. "I've come to return the favour."
And before Lucius could think of a way to delay her further, Greengrass buried another knife in his gut. He let out a scream that was silenced within the second.
Silently gasping for air, Lucius was forced to stare into Greengrass' unfeeling eyes. "You are going to die," she said simply. "Here and now."
Lucius tried to spit the blood that was welling up in his throat into Greengrass' face, but his entire body locked up and would not move.
"No, you won't." Pottered hovered over his shoulder, just out of sight. "You've forfeited your life when you accepted the mark."
"When you laid your hands on me," Daphne added, and her lips pulled into a cruel smile. She held a third knife up for him to see.
Lucius recognized it as one of Bella's own. A long and wicked blade, curved and serrated to such an extent, it might as well have been a bone saw.
"I sharpened it a bit," Greengrass said, turning it over as if to show him. "I'm sure you'll notice the difference."
And then she stabbed it into his thigh. Unable to move, Lucius fought against his restraints with laboured breaths.
Greengrass pulled the blade from his flesh almost immediately, splattering blood across her cloak and his carpet as the serrated edge bit as much out of his flesh as it could.
"Hurts, doesn't it?" Greengrass asked. "Don't worry; a knife this sharp doesn't leave scars if you stitch it up."
Lucius knew what she spoke of. He remembered. Back in those days, Bellatrix had been in charge of disciplining Greengrass. Both of the sisters. The younger sister never lasted long, but Daphne never knew when just to stay down.
Bellatrix always had too much fun with her, and the knives obviously left an impression. But, apparently, no scars.
"He won't have to worry about scars," Potter was saying, but the voice sounded distorted.
The poison was taking effect. A small mercy, to be sure, but also a clear sign that he was about to die.
Greengrass abruptly raised her knife and brought it close to his unblinking eye. "Ah, I forget," she said. "Shall we then? We don't need him alive, after all."
"Go ahead," Potter said.
Past the knife's edge, Lucious saw Greengrass smile softly at Potter. He had never seen such an expression on her before.
Then, despite the numbing effect of the poison, he felt something slide across his throat. For a moment, his vision tilted massively to the side and then the dark claimed him once and for all.
Eighteen years ago, Peter Pettigrew had sworn his eternal allegiance to the Dark Lord by betraying his friends' trust. It was, therefore, somewhat ironic that those he called allies—for he had no more friends—would betray him to Potter.
The irony was not lost to him. There was no escape now. He was trapped in McNair Manor, and he would die here. McNair himself was probably already dead, likely strung up by his intestines as they had done with Yaxley and Lestrange—Rabastan, Bellatrix was still with the Dark Lord.
Peter thought he should have stayed at the Dark Lord's side as well. He was his most loyal follower, after all! But now, he was about to die. And it terrified him.
Unless, of course, he could sneak out of the manor. A rat was hard to spot after all. So he ran, though the dark and quiet manor halls, he ran and tumbled down the stairs and encountered none of his fellow Death Eaters.
Peter ran and ran, but the stairs never seemed to end. On and on, he tumbled down the stairs, faster and faster until his tiny paws could no longer keep up, and Peter began hurtling down. He squeaked and wailed pathetically as he bounced off the marble steps until finally, dizzy and in pain, he hit the carpet at the foot of the staircase.
He drew himself up, observing his surroundings with frightened eyes, and he had to realize that he could see nothing at all. Beyond the carpet he was quivering on, he could see no walls, doors, and windows. Not even the staircase he had just fallen down was still in sight.
A cruel laugh echoed through the dark.
"Oh, look at the rat! It's so small!"
The voice was female, and Peter had no trouble identifying it despite the fact that he'd never heard the girl laugh before. He remembered the voice because he had listened to her scream and cry for years.
Daphne Greengrass stepped into his field of vision, right in front of him. There was blood on her clothes and a knife in her hand. Blood dripped off the sharp edge and soaked into the carpet before him. The stench of death had him quiver in fear.
She stared down at him with those same empty eyes he had gotten to know while the Dark Lord had resided at Greengrass manor, but suddenly her lips pulled into an almost innocent smile. Her eyes, however, gained an edge that Peter had previously only seen in Bellatrix's eyes.
Madness.
"Can I dissect it?" she asked with something akin to childish glee in her voice.
Peter squealed pathetically and attempted to back away, but a voice he knew all too well froze him in place.
"You can." Harry Potter, son of James and Lily Potter, appeared next to Greengrass.
It had been years since Peter had last laid eyes upon Harry. Years that had not been kind to the boy. His green eyes were dull and pale, a mere shadow of the bright emerald green he had once inherited from his mother. Dark rings lined them and stood out starkly against his pale, sallow skin.
Harry's lips pulled into a smile as well. Mercifully, there was no gleam of the horrible madness in his eyes when he did. But he stared down at Peter with pity.
"Good day, Peter," Harry greeted. "It has been years. You look terrible."
Knowing there was no way to run, Peter let himself return to his human form, immediately grovelling at Harry's feet. Perhaps there was a chance that—
Harry's foot collided sharply with his head. Peter hit the carpet with a grunt, immediately raising his hands defensively.
"P-Please!" he stammered. "I'm—"
But before he could plead for his life, Greengrass silenced him.
"Quiet!" she hissed, pointing her bloody knife at him. "QUIET!"
Harry put a hand on her shoulder and pulled her back into a one-armed embrace. "It's alright," he said to Greengrass, who never took her murderous eyes off of him. A wave of Harry's arm lifted the spell, but Peter held his tongue.
Harry smiled, almost seeming amused as his eyes crinkled ever so slightly. "Oh, you seem to be learning. So? Speak, then. What do you think will get you out of this situation?"
"Nothing!" Greengrass hissed venomously. "Kill him! He deserved it!"
Harry leaned his head against Greengrass', who immediately returned the gesture, closing her eyes. The hostility left her body almost immediately. Harry held her against his shoulder when next he spoke. "You do deserve death," he said simply. "But killing you would be a mercy." A smile, small and cruel, frightened Peter like nothing he knew before. "We have something better for you…."
Bellatrix angrily stalked down the rows and rows of beds, filled with sick and diseased Death Eaters. A plague had been released upon them, and Bellatrix was certain who was to blame for it.
"Where is Pettigrew!" Bellatrix seethed. "Find him! Find him and bring him to me!"
Those of the underlings that were still able to move fled the room in search of the rat. The moment the last had left and the door fell shut, Bellatrix bowed under an onslaught of coughs. She spat a wad of blood onto the ground and growled. The rat was going to pay for this.
Bellatrix hastened out of the room in which the sick had been confined. She set out to find her Lord, who had yet to be informed of her findings. After all, who but a rat would spread the Black Death like that? She stepped into the hallway only to find the remaining of her underlings dead on the floor.
Her wand was in her hand a moment too late. A flash of red and Bellatrix was stunned before she could lash out at the shadow that stood over the dead followers of the Dark Lord. As her consciousness faded, the last thing she saw was the dark green eyes of Harry Potter and the hateful stare of her favourite toy.
Bellatrix regained consciousness and found herself trapped under a full body bind. Curiously enough, it allowed her to move her eyes and eyelids. But, unable to turn her head, all she could do was stare at one of the many chandeliers that hung about the Manor.
"Awake, are we?"
Potter's voice came from her left, and Bellatrix strained to turn her head but ultimately failed even to twitch.
"She is, she is!" The voice of Daphne Greengrass came from her right, full of excitement. "Can we start?"
Potter chuckled. "If you so desire, my dear. Go ahead."
Daphne's face appeared over her, blonde hair hanging into Bellatrix's eyes. This was no longer the girl she had been ordered to train. There was hate in her eyes instead of the resignation Bellatrix had known for so long.
Her heart skipped a few beats. Her student had finally grown up! She wished to laugh but couldn't. Her eyes, however, must've conveyed her glee.
"Look," Daphne whispered softly. "She's so happy to see me again."
Potter appeared at the edge of her field of vision. He handed a knife—one of her knives—to Daphne. "Then undo her glee, my love, like she undid you."
Daphne's smile was brilliant, and her eyes bright. With a reverent slowness, she took the knife into her hand and let it hover over Bellatrix's heart. "I will," she whispered, and Bellatrix felt the blade break the skin over her heart. "So… very… slowly."
Bellatrix, in this very moment, knew she could not escape. Her Lord was not here; her underlings were dead and diseased. So she laid her eyes upon the one thing she had genuinely created in her life, this girl that broke and broke and still didn't fall apart.
When the knife buried itself in her beating heart, Bellatrix gazed upon Daphne with satisfaction.
She had succeeded in her task and died with no regrets.
The Dark Lord Voldemort, sovereign over all of Magical Britain, was angry. He was losing his throne to two teenagers. To that accursed Potter boy and his selected heir. He knew he should have killed both when he had the chance.
A pity. The Greengrass girl had shown such promise. Her aptitude for the dark magicks and the blood of Slytherin would have been an impossibly valuable asset. That Potter would get to her was not something he had foreseen.
Or that the two of them would commence a murder spree against his followers.
Many dozen were dead, and it had all started with Severus Snape, his spy at Hogwarts castle. There hadn't been a body to show for when Potter left the school. The entire office had been burned with fiendfyre, magic so dark he had never thought Potter to be capable of it.
Then he came for Malfoy manor. Draco disappeared without a trace; aside from a massive bloodstain of such magnitude, no human could have survived losing as much. Voldemort had found traces of a curse there, one of his personal favourites that Bella had taught to Greengrass.
And Daphne, his protege, his chosen progeny, had vanished too.
It had been two years since that day, and the Dark Lord now knew that neither Snape nor Draco were dead.
Traitors, both of them.
Long had he tortured Lucius for this folly, for letting his son be corrupted by the simple-minded and those of feeble blood. Lucius, however, was dead, too.
His followers were dwindling, his hold on his empire was slipping, and the Dark Lord could not grasp why. Those two were mere children; Potter was just a foolish half-blood!
And yet...
He awaited them—those mongrels. Lord Voldemort awaited them and would end them once and for all!
In the Ministry, deep underground where the Unspeakables would do his bidding, he waited. In a room previously used to banish dark artefacts into, with a ceiling of unassailable height where he had erected a throne of old, dark stone taken from Azkaban itself.
On his throne, he awaited them, dozens of followers disillusioned all around the darkness. The single light source of his throne room illuminated him and only him. Right across from his throne, the massive doors were the only entrance—and the only exit.
Potter and Greengrass would come, and Lord Voldemort would smite them. Destroy them. Cruelly and viciously, once and for all.
The chambers shook, and Voldemort knew they had come for him.
He heard the struggle of his underlings outside, felt the countless wards and traps activate and shatter all within the span of a second and before he could rise out of his throne, the doors were blown wide open.
And Voldemort paused.
"Dumbledore?" he asked incredulously. "Why are you not dead?!"
Albus Dumbledore, his most aggrieved enemy, had seemingly returned from the dead. Two years ago, the old man had gone to search the Riddle family home and was struck by the decay of a curse Voldemort had placed there.
And, supposedly, he had died not long thereafter. Voldemort had gone and seen the body himself, had seen the withered corpse wilt under the might of his curse when he had conquered Hogwarts Castle.
But this man, standing there in his throne room, was undoubtedly Albus Dumbledore. And in his hands was the wand that Voldemort had been denied.
The Elder Wand.
Albus raised his left hand and showed Voldemort the ring on his finger. "Your time has come," he said. "And this will be your last day among the living."
Voldemort roared in rage. The stone of his throne shivered as he unleashed a torrent of dark magic. The tidal wave of foul magic washed through the air between him and Dumbledore and annihilated all things it touched.
His followers, still in disguise, perished without even a chance to scream.
The dark spell crushed Dumbledore with its might, letting even the flagstone decay in its wake. With an ear-shattering screech, Voldemort's magic wrought destruction and twisted even the essence of the very air in the room, turning it stale dead.
When the deed was done, Voldemort drew himself up to his full height. "Where are you, Potter! Show yourself!"
"He's not here!" a voice called from the dark. It was Daphne's. "And neither is Dumbledore, but I'm sure you knew that!"
Seething, the Dark Lord unleashed a wave of white-hot fire, bathing his throne room and the defiled bodies of his followers in a horrible light. But nowhere in his throne room could he see Daphne Greengrass.
"Show yourself!" he roared. "You, who's betrayed my trust! You, who could have become the greatest witch ever to live! And you threw it all away, for the Potter boy!?"
Daphne's laugh echoed off the naked walls, but it didn't give away her position. The Dark Lord stepped forward and raised his wand into the dark.
"Hiding, are you?" he mockingly asked her laughter. "Like you did all those times when your lessons broke you?" Her laugh cut off abruptly, and the Dark Lord grinned with satisfaction. "You ran from the power I offered you, from the glory of being my heir!" He shook his head remorsefully. "And now you hide again, in the dark where no one would find you."
The Dark Lord smiled wickedly. "No one but me, of course. I'm sure you remember! But, ah, how you screamed! You tasted my cruciatus for the first time!"
He waited for a beat, for a reaction, but there was none. So, finally, the Dark Lord stepped down the few steps of his raised throne to the edge of the light. "Come, return to my side, and I might be lenient!"
Again, there was no answer. The Dark Lord strained his eyes to peer into the dark but, from one wall to the other; he could see nothing beyond the crumpled and malformed outlines of his dead minions. He dispelled all the magicks before him with a wave of his wand, disguised as a grand and welcoming gesture.
Nothing.
With his arms spread wide, he said: "Come, Daphne, my child! Did you not wish to be powerful? Did you not wish to be rid of your weakness?"
And again, he was met with silence. The Dark Lord's patient was growing thin, and he had to wonder if this had been an illusion again and grew angry at the prospect of being fooled not once but twice.
But then, Daphne's voice rang out again. From right behind him.
"Weakness?" she asked.
The Dark Lord spun around and levelled his wand at Daphne, who was lounging in his throne, almost casually. The blade of one of Bellatrix's knives glinted in the light as she spun it in her fingers. It was crusted with dried blood.
She smiled at him in a way that was strongly reminiscent of Bella. "I'm not weak," she declared simply. "It is you, who is weak, Thomas."
"His name is Tom." Potter stepped out from behind the throne to put a hand on Greengrass' shoulder. "Just Tom. Simple, just like his father's."
Seeing his two greatest adversaries before him, defiling his throne no less, threw the Dark Lord into a towering rage, and he made to spit venom at them but found he couldn't. Instead, he unwillingly coughed up blood. It splattered onto the ground before him, almost black in colour.
The Dark Lord stared at his blood in shock. He hadn't bled in decades!
In disbelief, he raised his eyes to Potter and Greengrass once more. And what he saw let his cold heart tremble.
There, dangling from Potter's free hand, was the locket. Slytherin's locket. His locket. And there, where once the emblem of Salazar Slytherin had proudly been displayed, was a gaping hole, oozing something dark and viscous onto the floor.
"No!" The gasp of disbelief escaped him before he could reign himself in. The ring, the amulet! They were destroyed!
"Yes!" Greengrass laughed in childish exuberance. "Look at it, Tim! Look at it! And tell me: What do you feel?" She smiled at him, a toothy smile, spread too wide about her face. "Are you… afraid?"
The Dark Lord was not granted the time to compose himself nor to respond with all the rage that welled up in him, for when he opened his mouth to curse them, a knife buried itself in his heart. Surprised, he stared down at the blade that emerged from his chest. His body immediately lost all his strength, and he fell to his knees.
"He is dying," a voice spoke from behind and none other than Draco Malfoy stepped in front of him.
The Dark Lord stared up at the boy, puzzled. Never would he have thought that the Malfoy boy would have the spine to attack him.
"Malfoy!" he spat, accompanied by more blood that welled up in his mouth.
Draco Malfoy sneered down at him. "For years have I wanted to do that!"
Greengrass snickered from his throne and rose, plucking yet another knife from somewhere on her person. "Oh, Draco!" she said as though she were speaking to a witless child. "That won't kill him! Not yet, at least! Isn't that right, Terry?"
Potter shook his head. "Now you are overdoing it."
Greengrass shrugged. "He has never bothered to learn my name either. Well then!" She approached him with confident steps and pulled a second knife from the dark of her robe. "Shall we have our fun before he expires? Snape will not be dallying for much longer, I dare say!"
"Snape," the Dark Lord gasped as his body trembled under the strain of his Horcruxes, confining his soul into his dying body.
"Is names all your state leaves you capable of?" Greengrass asked mockingly. "Why, I had expected more from our Lord and emperor of all of Magical Britain! But, I must say, I'm disappointed!"
Fury fueled his actions. "Silence, wench!" Voldemort swiped his wand at Greengrass and Malfoy with a vicious gesture, but nothing happened.
Potter chuckled as he too stepped up to his kneeling form. "Ah, you must've seen Pettigrew. Smelly little ingrate, but rather useful."
"As a Trojan Horse perhaps," Malfoy said, lips curling in disgust. His grey eyes observed the Dark Lord with as much pity as there was hate. "And it worked all too well…"
"Where is dear Peter, I wonder?" Greengrass asked, looking about the room.
The Dark Lord did not follow their words anymore. He stared at his wand, now useless to him—his magic, taken from him through cowardice. The Dark Lord reached for the dagger lodged in his back and removed it despite the serrated edge. It fell to the cold stone floor with a hollow clang.
"You," he muttered, "What have you done!?" His voice regained its strength as the fires of rage in his black heart welled up once more. "What have you done to me?!"
Greengrass looked down on him with a bored expression. "Hey, what is this? I thought he would be weeping like a child?"
"All in due time, my dear." Potter knelt right in front of the Dark Lord and stared into his eyes. "We've poisoned you," he said. "Simple as that. And, of course, we also poisoned you little soul anchors or whatever they are called. Since you killed Slughorn, we never quite figured out what they were, but it's easy enough to figure out what they do." He smiled. "And what we can do to them."
"Pieces of your soul! How crude!" Daphne chided. "One would think the Dark Lord had the wits about him to at least come up with something intricate!"
"Like clones and vessels," Potter agreed.
"Or simple possession," Draco offered.
"Or—"
"Silence!" the Dark Lord roared, cutting off Greengrass before she could mock him further. Then, a mighty upheaval of his magic pushed the three back and allowed the Dark Lord to gather enough strength to rise to his feet. "You imbeciles will never understand the might of Lord Vol—!"
"Oh, do shut up," Potter said.
And as though his words were a powerful curse, the Dark Lord's body was seized by immense pain, and it brought him to his knees once more.
"Hm, seems to me that Severus is no longer in the mood for waiting," Malfoy said. He approached the Dark Lord and pointed his wand at him. "So, can we wrap this up?"
"But I didn't even get to play with him!" Greengrass protested, and her words conjured the image of Bellatrix into the Dark Lord's mind.
"Don't lower yourself, my love." Potter reached out and took the knife from her hands. "Kill, as we must, but don't lose the last of the humanity they have left you with that I have come to love."
"Oh, Harry!"
"Ugh." Malfoy groaned contemptuously. "At times like this, I would prefer being dead."
"That can still be arranged, you traitorous brat!" the Dark Lord snarled. "You will perish under my heel as all the others before you have!"
"Mm." Malfoy nodded, not impressed in the slightest. "Sure. Tell me when you can lift your heel high enough to stomp something."
The Dark Lord snarled at him, but his body weakened further so that he couldn't muster a single curse. Instead, another wave of soul-shattering agony flooded him, and it brought him entirely to the floor. His head struck the dark stone of the throneroom and almost robbed him of his consciousness.
"Hm, Snape really is going at it," Greengrass observed. "Was that the last of them?"
"Is sure looks like it," Draco said.
Too weak to raise his eyes from their feet, the Dark Lord scoured his body for the last dredges of his magic to conjure forth one final Killing Curse. But before he could end those insufferable miscreants, another wave of agony broke his concentration, so intense this time that his whole body was forced through uncontrollable spasms and he found himself staring into the single light overhead.
"That was the last one." Potter's voice was distant and faint. "Now, only he remains. Who wants the honour?"
Voldemort couldn't believe it. He didn't want to, but he could feel it deep down in his wretched soul: All of his Horcruxes were gone. His immortality was no more. And for the first time in decades, since he had witnessed the frailty of life in the cave between Kingsdown and Dover, he felt fear. He remembered how the life started fading from Amy Benson's eyes as she bled unto the cold stone when his fascination turned into a realization: He could die just as quickly.
"Ah!" Greengrass leaned over him, smiling widely. The madness shone in her eyes like embers in the dark. "Can you smell it? Can you?"
"Enlighten us." Malfoy didn't approach, but Voldemort could still hear him, however faintly the words reached his fading senses.
"Fear." Greengrass purred the word like a proud mother. "He's afraid."
She moved so very slowly, this girl he had wanted to spread terror in his stead, and the cold steel felt warm against his throat, but the horror it wrought in his heart was a tempest of fire. The Dark Lord stared at the light overhead as his lifeblood began to spill. His blood was cold on his skin, as were the fingers of death reaching for him.
He imagined this was what Amy Benson must've felt like. But there was no great wizard nearby to stitch him up, to make him forget, and put him back into a cold bed.
But the Dark Lord did not want to die.
And so, his final thoughts were wasted in futility, just as he had done with the rest of his miserable life.
"Can I ever go back to being normal?"
Harry smiled at her, with this effortless grace he had shown ever since they first met. Ever since she had begged him to end her life.
"No," he said simply.
"Is that bad?" she asked.
He shook his head and took her hand. "No." He pried the knife from her stiff fingers and placed it on the table, heedless of the black blood soaking into the tablecloth.
Daphne felt her heart ache, felt the knives break her skin, and all the solace she could find was within Harry's reach, for he was the only one who could-
"I will not," he said, as though he had read her mind. "You will stay by my side. I need you; you know that."
A hollow laugh escaped Daphne. "You don't need me. Not like I need you."
"I do," he insisted and took her other hand as well.
Harry reached into her cloak and withdrew the wicked blade that had caused her so much pain. He held it up in front of her face. She could see his dark eyes take in the weathered yet razor-sharp edge. Daphne's heartbeat quickened as he ran his finger over the blade. Then, transfixed, she watched a drop of his blood run down the edge and over the hilt. She caught it before it would fall.
His blood was warm. "Don't," Daphne whispered. She couldn't stand watching him bleed.
"You would do the same," he told her and put this knife away as well. He pulled yet another from her cloak and put it to the others without a word. When he reached for the final one, she stopped him.
"This one," she murmured. "I need this one."
He stepped closer and put his hand on the blade's hilt. But instead of taking it away, Harry enveloped her in his warm arms and pulled her close.
"I know," he said.
Daphne's voice quivered. "But I need you more, so if you must—"
"I know," he said softly this time. Then he leaned heavily into the embrace. "But don't forget that I need you just as badly."
"You're still missing them."
He nodded. "I do. And you still miss her."
She felt her throat tighten. "I do," she whispered hoarsely. Tears blurred her vision, only briefly, before she blinked them away. "I miss her so much!"
"I know."
Daphne laughed weakly. "You always know."
Harry pulled back and offered a wry smile. "Of course I do. I love you, after all."
The knife still rested at her waist, the very one that had taken her sister's life. Daphne pressed her fingers into the cold metal until it drew blood.
"I don't know how you do it," she said, staunching the bleeding in her closed fist.
Harry took her uninjured hand and led her to the door. "You just make it too easy," he said with a smile.
It made her laugh. "That's a lie!"
He put his hand on the doorknob and paused. Then, turning to face her, he whispered, "I know," before opening the door.
Daphne closed it behind them, leaving the last drops of her blood on the doorknob she would ever spill in Malfoy manor.
And no one ever heard of them again.
discord dot gg/pKSdvJQvhU