A/N: Okay, a little pre-final chapters note. I went back as far as Chapter 8 (Belladonna Bloom) and did a thorough edit. If you're really ambitious, or you felt you were losing the story around those chapters, you can go back and restart from there. No plot points were changed, only writing/character thoughts. It might flow better if you started there, but, hey. I completely rewrote Chapters Ten and Eleven, and, again, no major plot changes. A few major structural changes, and a HUGE and I think effective change in character thoughts and responses. New chapters are Twelve and Thirteen.
I will go ahead and say that I think these are a big improvement, but, of course, I'm still obsessing over them. At some point, however, you have to let it go. My beta-reader and my bf assure me that they're good, effective, etc., so…we'll see.
I'll leave you to decide. More notes at the end. Good luck!
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Chapter Ten: Bleeding Heart
She stretched her hands out into the morning mists now thick like bleached cotton candy. Her heart thundered, mixing up all the sounds that echoed around her—indistinct growls, heavy breaths, distant screams.
Vague forms shifted beyond the wall of white, but she could make out nothing distinctly. Barely breathing and with small steps forward, she reached her fingers out to decipher what lay ahead.
The castle was behind her now, the only form mighty enough to pierce the roof of mist. She turned to glance at it again, reassured to find it still there, outlined against the dawning sky. She turned away, swallowing mouthfuls of thick, sweat-drenched fog.
"Severus!"
She hadn't seen him since the battle began, and that had been several hours now. She hadn't seen anything yet—just blinding fog that sat bitter on her tongue and heavy on her back.
"Severus!"
Her hand struck something solid, and she groped it, swallowing another wisp of fog. It was cold, metal, tall. She looked up and, through the mist above her, could barely make out the round circle marking the top of the Quidditch goal post.
There was another gray shape in the distance, silhouetted dim and ghostly. She moved forward, reaching out, trying not to trip over a deep nick in the dew-covered grass of the Quidditch pitch. Her heart continued its chaotic beat, and she whispered again, hoarse. "Severus?"
Her hands met another something. It was cold, yet this time, soft. It squished beneath her fingers, damp and downy. She looked up, and the mist seemed to clear, revealing a mound of faded colors looming above her.
She gasped, tumbling back.
Corpses. At least a hundred. All students, wearing their school scarves, eyes glassy, color faded from their stone-gray skin. Their lips were damp with dew, giving the illusion of ghostly life.
Atop the pile, one corpse stood out, stripped naked and caked with the dry brown of blood. From the mutilation of the genitals and the overwhelming smell of semen, she guessed the figure had been brutally raped as well as beaten. The heart, torn from a ragged hole in the limp figure's chest, had been stuffed, a black mass, between the corpse's blue-gray lips.
She stared back into its eyes, green and glassy—her own.
"Lili!"
Snape's long-fingered hand was closed over her shoulder, shaking her awake.
It took a moment to separate his dark, flashing eyes from the blackness of sleep. The wide, dead green of her own gaze faded into the small, dark glittering of his, and a deep relief shook her. She breathed in sharply, sitting up from her slumped position against the tapestried wall. "Severus." She didn't try to hide the relief in her voice.
He paused several beats, perhaps considering the strange, soft look in her face, before gesturing to the window stiffly. "They're coming. They'll be on the grounds any moment now. Just got the spark-signal from the gates."
Her moment of relief shattered, Lili realized that she was not on the other side of her nightmare but merely reliving it. She looked out the window to see the sun beginning to peek over the horizon, veiled in an eerie, thick fog. Through it, barely visible, a dark block slid forth, gliding towards the roots of the castle like an army of ghosts.
She had to work hard to convince herself she was no longer dreaming.
Snape's eyes shifted over her heavily, and they both stood, taking as many potions as possible in hand and preparing to meet whatever might await them outside the castle gates.
And so it begins. She still felt light, as if walking through the haziness of a dream.
Only the sound of Snape's boots clicking loud down the stairs, pounding as hard as her heart, convinced her this was unutterably real.
"Attention, Hogwartssss."
The clicking stopped, the hissing words making a throat of the tall, cold tower. The entire castle froze, under the spell of that voice that boomed through the stairwell, clashing violently up the spiraling stone.
"The time of Lord Voldemort has begun anew."
Snape lifted his eyes as if, somehow, the voice fell like a god's from above.
"As you're no doubt aware, my forces outmuch your puny numbers at least four to one: --Lord Voldemort will triumph…" She felt the voice rather than heard it, each word pressing down like a boot on her neck.
"Send out Dumbledore and the two traitors and no one else need be harmed. If you do not, I will destroy Hogwartsss and all those who resissst..."
The stairwell fell silent. A hundred dead and glassy eyes stared out at her from another world.
She suddenly wondered if she could manage to stand without the solid stone.
"Come on. We've got to find Dumbledore." The clicking resumed, harsh, resolute staccato.
Snape was dashing now, Lili pushing to stay at his heels. She tried to remember the words spoken before her nightmare, groping for some small shred of hope to calm the tossing in her chest. Had he said he loved her too? She strained to remember, fumbling across the uneven stone steps that led down the to entrance hall.
She dwelt among the untrodden ways. And he'd laid his hands on hers…
There'd been stars. And he'd smiled. Is anything impossible…
She fumbled down the uneven steps into the entrance hall, squeezing the cool metal of the ring and chanting those words to herself, a desperate mantra. Shan gao shui chang…
"Albus, you can't for a second believe—"
Professors McGonagall, Lupin and Trelawney were all circled about Dumbledore, watching the old man intently. Lupin's thin arms gathered in front of him, his sunken eyes flashing.
Dumbledore lifted a hand, and Lupin was quiet. He turned to look at Snape and Lili with still, blue eyes. "Severus. Miss Lee."
Breathing heavily, Snape stepped forward. "Headmaster, we're ready."
Lili's blood froze, and a lick of fear whipped up from her carefully constructed calm. He meant to walk out, alone, and give himself up. And what was more, he assumed she was ready to do the same. Is he crazy?
He looked, however, anything but crazy. His eyes were calm, his face so utterly composed, Lili was reminded briefly of the stony mask he wore in his classes. She tried to wrap herself in the thick skin she'd worn so often over the last two years—the one he had helped her fashion. But somehow, trembling, it no longer fit; it could no longer cover the genuine fear shaking her every breath.
"I'm afraid you two will not be joining me."
Snape sunk back slightly, brow lined. "Headmaster, we m—"
"No, Severus." His voice, though rasping, stopped Snape's words in midair. "I will be going out alone. Hogwarts needs your protection." His gaze sunk to Lili. "Both of you."
"You shouldn't even be going! Without you, Albus, Hogwarts is lost!"
Dumbledore's warm smile seemed weighed down with sorrow. "My dear Minerva. Hogwarts will never be lost as long as there are those who would give their lives for good: not today, not tomorrow." He clapped Severus lightly on the shoulder and turned, placing a withered hand on the door knob. Lili expected Snape to say something, to try and stop him, but Snape merely remained silent, breaths quiet and deep.
The eerie morning light dripped in through the open door, and, in it, Dumbledore suddenly seemed very old and very frail.
He turned and looked at them all with a lined smile.
"Albus, please take something. A potion, a wand, anything." Lupin held out one of his exploding elixirs desperately.
Dumbledore shook his head and turned away again, moving slowly into the morning air. "No, Remus. A brave, loving heart is the only truly powerful weapon in this war…"
They followed him out the doors, watching him walk slowly away, disappearing, at last, behind a curtain of fog.
In the silence, only crickets screeched, loud and grating.
The morning seemed to have swallowed him up. Snape's breathing grew more shallow, and McGonagall kept squinting, trying to see through the white veil.
Lili swallowed a mouthful of the thick air, and her stomach turned, remembering her dream.
"Professor Trelawney?" she whispered, afraid to speak too loudly and shatter the delicate silence.
The thin woman's head barely turned.
"Do dreams mean anything…important?" She could see the mound of young corpses on the Quidditch field, gray-skinned, still, as if the battle was already lost.
"Of course they do." Trelawney, too, whispered, watery gaze riveted on the distant fog. "They are the window to the psychic parts of the soul. They can tell us our fears, our passions, our future…"
Lili shut her eyes, swallowing hard.
"Why? Have you…seen something?"
But Lili didn't respond. Couldn't. The whispers merely drifted away, absorbing into the gray air.
And suddenly silence split at the seams, rent by a high, cruel laugh. The screech both snaked beneath her skin and echoed up to the sky, rolling with the distant thunder.
Snape was holding his breath, and Lili could feel his almost undetectable trembling beside her.
"Hogwartsss….fools, fools. I told you Dumbledore and the two traitors…"
It was the same horrible voice, shaking the very foundations of the castle.
Lili swallowed and glanced around her, afraid the stones might come tumbling
down. She was surprised to see a small crowd now gathered around the doors and
in the entrance hall, mostly students, some crying, some looking too dumbstruck
for tears.
"Some of you were foolish enough to think that hooked-nose old Muggle-lover could stand against me, my army, my power."
Another booming, cruel cackle.
"Well, let Lord Voldemort's might be revealed today. Dumbledore is dead!"
No sooner had the words sunk into her numbed mind, than something came flying through the air, landing, heavy and limp at their feet.
McGongall's hand shot up to cover her gasp. Trelawney let out a fierce, heart-rending cry.
Lili could hear Snape's dry swallow as he stepped forward and bent down, shakily, on one knee.
The Headmaster's blue eyes stared, unblinking, back at them. The crickets' screeching suddenly seemed to become wails of sorrow.
Lupin took Dumbledore's limp wrist in his hand, eyes flitting back and forth frantically.
"Albus…" Snape whispered, examining the Headmaster's body carefully for any signs of struggle. There were none. "Albus…"
Lupin set Dumbledore's heavy hand on the grass. They stared at if for what seemed a creaking eternity as if expecting some magic to force life back into the gnarled, stiff digits.
It was a long moment before Lupin managed to stand. "He's—dead."
The words elicited a hundred whispers and sobs from the students behind her. Lili trembled, staring into the stiff, open blue eyes, wondering how…
"He—he can't be," she mumbled, stepping behind Snape and looking down at the still, dead body of her one-time Headmaster—
"He can't be dead. They said—they said he was the only one—that could—" She crushed the remaining words between her teeth.
And the next thing she knew, Snape's arm was around her, his fingers touching her hair lightly, body leaning numb against her. His eyes, like hers, welled with a distant acknowledgment of sorrow, but there seemed to be no room in the world for tears.
If anyone was surprised or scandalized to see this embrace, she didn't care to notice. She had grown suddenly very tired and very, very unwilling to be anywhere but there, leaning against Snape's gaunt form.
She laid her face against the folds of his heavy cloaks, feeling him warm under her. She could hear the beating of his heart ragged in her ear.
Without you, Albus, Hogwarts is lost…
She dared another glance down at Dumbledore's composed, dead eyes.
It's over. Hogwarts is lost…
Snape's arm squeezed tighter around her, and she could hear emotion stifled in his stomach, pushed down into a churning sea just like hers.
"I trussst you all now realize the futility of resisting my power."
Lili could barely lift her head to listen to the booming voice resume.
"I am coming to get the two traitors and any who ssstand in the way of myself or my army will be killed." He let the words stab through the air a moment, allowing his voice to roll through the fog like a rush of punching wind. "Any ssstudents who rise up and join my forces, will be spared. And any ssstudent that brings me the two spiesss, Severus Snape and Elizabeth Lee, will be rewarded with glory beyond his wildest dreams…"
Lili felt Snape's grip on her loosen, his face going very white.
She knew the fear that must be gripping him. Plenty of students at Hogwarts might prove more than willing to turn Snape over: tortured Hufflepuffs, persecuted Gryffindors, even some politically savvy Slytherins.
Both of them turned to meet the eyes of the students assembled behind them, nervous and questioning.
"Those who do not aid us will die. None will be spared the pain, the agony…"
Not a single person stirred. Hufflepuff, Ravenclaw, Gryffindor, Slytherin—all remained rooted in place.
Finally, they know...
She squeezed Snape's arm, feeling him exhale heavily.
Finally they knew what Snape had never allowed them, even for a moment, to suspect. They knew what kind of a man their greasy, cruel Potions Master was, and, more importantly, they knew what he had risked for them.
Several Gryffindor prefects met Snape's eyes, examined him closely, then nodded, resolute, admiring.
She met those eyes, and the stone in her heart crumbled. Blood rushed hot through her skin, and, as she felt her muscles loosen in relief, she knew there was still hope.
These small nods seemed, for a long moment, to mute the booming, god-like voice that insisted on their doom. Something had changed.
For the first time in a very long while, she felt strong. She was on the right side. Everyone knew now. She wasn't the Queen of Slytherin, the Death Eater. The veil lifted, and she was herself again, the real Lili who had so long been hidden away, starved almost till death.
But she was still alive, and so was Snape.
And, suddenly, that felt worth fighting for.
"Alright, everyone, we don't have any time to spare. Dumbledore stalled them for a while, but our reinforcements will still take a while coming." Lupin's voice struck her back from her thoughts, strong for his thin, pale frame. He cut through the mass of students, asking for volunteers to go out with him.
Every student raised their hand. Lili's heart swelled anew to see every Slytherin student eager to fight.
"We'll advance in a tight ring away from the castle," Lupin said, handing out several of his potions. "Remember, we want to keep them away as long as possible. When the reinforcements from the Ministry arrive, they'll attack and we'll have their army trapped between us."
Groups of students, wide-eyed and shaking, began to scatter, disappearing into the fog. Though the teachers who led them stepped forward like soldiers, their eyes betrayed their doubts.
Lili pulled her wand from her robes, squeezing it. Her palms had sweat profusely, and the wood felt smooth against her heated fingers.
"Lili."
She turned. Snape's eyes were glowing with the same strength she had found. It made him seem, for a deep, yawning moment, incredibly beautiful.
"Here," he whispered, taking her hand and laying something small and cold in it.
She opened her palm to see a small, heart-shaped crystal.
"It's called a Bleeding Heart," he explained, pulling an identical object from the inside breast pocket of his robes. "It's a less conspicuous way of calling for help than red sparks. If you're in trouble, just move the crystal here." He moved the object over his chest as he said it, and both crystals began to glow a vivid, blood red. "The beating of your heart will make both our crystals glow, and I'll find you as quickly as I can."
She nodded, placing the Bleeding Heart in her breast pocket and refusing the grim thoughts rising to the surface of her mind. "And I'll find you."
The rest of the teachers and students had scattered, and Lili knew, heart aching, what she had to do.
She wanted to kiss him. She wanted to wrap up in his arms again and tell him how scared she was…
But his eyes glowed back at her, reminding her of the stakes.
This was the crossroads. If they were to try this love, it had to be a love of each other, not some concoction of masks and marks. If they were to be in love, they had to earn their freedom from this shadow: whether here or in the next world.
"Lili," his voice rasped, replacing his own bleeding heart and grasping her eyes with his. "If we survive…"
She smiled. It was a surreal feeling to smile, but even the heavy fog couldn't dampen his words.
If we survive…
Is anything impossible?
Riveted on that thought—that small shred of unguaranteed hope—she found the strength to turn, grip her wand tighter, and walk on into the fog.
Snape's thin figure disappeared behind her.
Disappeared.
Perhaps forever…
She swallowed, taking several deep breaths and holding her wand out before her.
No. No. You heard what Dumbledore said…
Hogwarts will never be lost as long as there are those who will give their lives for good: not today, not tomorrow…
The thought rose, morose and unbidden. Dumbledore, for all his goodness, was lying dead in the dew.
Dead in the dew.
It was a fate she would, more than likely share.
But for once, it would be her decision. For once, she would decide her own fate.
She didn't have much more time to think, her ears suddenly reverberating with a throaty, bestial growl.
It was behind her, and she turned, searching for the source. Nothing but the sound and the thick white fog seemed to pursue her, and she tried shooting several petrifying charms into the distance behind her.
She could hear heavy steps now, growl fiercer. Though she could see nothing through the ghostly fog, the tramping of grass seemed almost on her heels.
Heart beginning to shiver, veins tingling with the first gasps of adrenaline, she pushed her feet into a run.
The thick mist made running dangerous, and she waved her arms in front of her, trying to get some idea of where she could be. A tree smacked against her outstretched hand, and she drew it in, black blood trickling and pooling in the crook of her elbow, framing the vivid, burning Dark Mark.
She tried to look behind herself, still running, yet saw nothing but endless white, its growl pursuing her. She attempted several more curses over her shoulder, but her pursuer continued unabated, splashing in pools of rain.
Another tree, this time shooting its root at her ankle, told her she must be on the outskirts of the Forbidden Forest. She slowed, trying to avoid the thickening brush, falling, stumbling, all the time trying any number of spells to immobilize—or at the least reveal—whoever or whatever was chasing her.
The shadowy trees suddenly gave way to a clearing, and Lili was sure she could hear the beating of her adrenaline-gorged heart echo through the hollow. The sound of crashing brush surrounded her, and suddenly she was unsure whether the growling was still behind her or--
From somewhere to her left, a giant, gray werewolf slammed her body into the ground with a thud and a snap.
My wand. Oh God. My wand.
But, just past the werewolf's matted fur, she could see her wand, snapped completely in two.
The wolf's thick haunches held her legs to the wet earth, his claws digging into the thin skin of her arms.
Concentrate, Lili. Bumozhang. Concentrate.
But her heart fluttered too fiercely, and, suddenly, a horrible pain razed through her left shoulder, the beast's solid teeth piercing her flesh and ripping, violently, in a surge of blood and torn cloth.
She tried to move the Bleeding Heart to her chest but was unsure of her grip through the flames of pain wringing her free left arm.
"Severus!" She gasped, trying to free her right arm or her legs. The animal's weight held her firmly to the earth.
Teeth scratched into her bone, and blackness began to envelop her eyes.
"Sev—er—us—" She gurgled, feeling a thick copper erupt in her mouth. She
coughed, pain searing, body sodden with sweat, mist and blood.
It's over. Dead in the dew.
"Sev—er—"
Blackness began to dissolve the white fog. She blinked between the pain and the dark. Black and white danced around her, mingling into gray. She made one final attempt to move the Bleeding Heart. She could no longer feel her left arm to assure herself of success.
And suddenly the black and white world lit up with a blast of green light, and the huge beast fell to her side, limp.
For a moment, she could barely comprehend it, but, slowly, trembling, she took another full breath, swallowing a bitter mouthful of blood.
One breath. Then another. Another.
She watched the limp figure for several seconds, sure it was dead before managing, shakily, to prop her good arm under herself.
She blinked away the swooning blackness tearing at her, willing her eyes to focus on the figure looming just behind a sheet of fog.
"Severus?"
Through the silence now as suffocating as the white fog, she heard the sharp intake of breath and the loose rustling of thick, velvet robes. "No."
She wiped the sweat and tears from her eyes. Her throat went dry.
"Draco?"
He was standing several feet away, wand pointed straight between her eyes. She tried to stand but fumbled and fell back on her lame left arm. She swallowed, and tried again, making it too her knees.
She looked up the length of Draco's wand.
"You—you killed the werewolf."
Watching her through steel-gray eyes, Draco didn't respond. She barely recognized him, white morning fog surrounding him like a shroud.
Taking a deep breath, she pushed herself up again, rising shakily to her feet, left arm cradled loosely in her right. "Thank you."
A flash flicked through those steel eyes, and Draco struck out, fast and violent as a serpent. "Don't thank me, traitor," he spat, wrenching her left arm behind her brutally. "Don't thank me."
Pain cleaved her left side, and the blackness once more threatened.
"I have every intention of taking you to the Dark Lord," he said, grinding the tip of his wand into her back and moving his mouth next to her ear so she could feel every word he spoke. "He has something very special planned for you…"
Lili's nightmare clawed through her mind, and she could see herself, atop a gray heap in the center of the Quidditch pitch, heart stuffed, bleeding, in her mouth.
She swallowed another mouthful of coppery blood.
Dead in the dew.
In the end, perhaps, that was her fate.
In her breast pocket, the Bleeding Heart flashed a deep, blood red.
