Neither can Live While the Other Survives …

Chapter Four: Farcically Heroic

Summary: Either must die at the hands of the other, for neither can live while the other survives … the Prophecy is about to be fulfilled …who will die at the other's hand? Can Harry say everything he wants to say before it's too late?  Harry must vanquish the Dark Lord, or the Dark Lord will vanquish him …

Disclaimer: I own this plot as no one but JK herself knows how it will end. Oh, there goes an iceberg.

Sunny Chika: Ye! Savvy! Here it is! Glad you like it. Lol.

Marauder3Moony: Oh, but that would take all the fun away from it! Lol, only joking. I think there needs to be an element of violence in the story to show how brutal and violent life can be; I think JK is luring everyone into thinking it will all end happily … conspiracy? Hmm.

Sakura Sayoran: I'm sorry I killed Parvati; these things happen!

Anne Phoenix: Whoa, your review surprised me somewhat, but not in a bad way. I think. I was worried that I was moving too slow. Obviously not! I'll try and slow it down a bit, I'm not really in any hurry; I'm trying to write exactly what I think will happen in the final chapter, so I can't change much to suit people, but I will slow it down a bit if you want. Thanks for the review, constructive criticism is so often abused, but your review made sense.

Mystikalolo: Losing my touch? Now I'm insulted! Only joking. You want Cliffies? Oh, girl, I'll give you Cliffies. Hermione is featured more in this one; she was being independent in the last chapter, as I think Ron is depicted as a little less able to think quickly, but make of it what you will. Don't worry, fourth instalment here!

HoshiHikari4ever: Hmm, I'm open to requests … but I wasn't going to do that! I can't kill everyone! Not if I didn't want to be killed by everyone else! Lol, does that even make sense?

Templa Otmena: Yo Lou, er yeah, I have seen Once Upon a Time in Mexico … ahem. Three times. Ahem. Never mind about that. Despite gouging out Johnny's eyes, he still managed to look fine. Anyway, back to Harry. Here you are!

Jenzi: Hey babe, that's OK, you're always using my account. Like I didn't know. Lol, thanks for the review.

Lady Rebecca: Oh no, no tears yet! Save them until later! Lol.

AN: Hi all, I finished The Good New Days! *Sobs pathetically*. Anyway, this is now my new obsession, so updates will come a little quicker hopefully … that is if my goddamn psychology teacher gives me a break. Anyway … hmm. Now whom shall I kill? Only kidding. I already know.

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          "Ah, now this wasn't supposed to happen, you know," said Bellatrix, her voice quaking with excitement and suppressed humour. "You're supposed to be left well alone."

          Harry stared at her, saying nothing. She had just murdered one of his friends … another one …

          "You are to be left to the Dark Lord …"

          "You mean what's-his-name? Er, Voldemort, is it?" said Ron.

Bellatrix hissed as though she had been burned.

Harry was amazed; Ron had never before said or heard his name without wincing or uttering some exclamation. But now he spoke it, as though it were something he had been saying since the age of two.

          "It's very rude to interrupt somebody's conversation, you know," she said in a singsong voice. "Ah, but you're a different story. I can play with you."

          Harry balled his fists. "You play with him, you play with me. Your old mate won't be too happy about that, will he?"

          Bellatrix narrowed her eyes, still a trace of a smirk on her pale and pointed face. "Oh, little Potter. It's a shame you grew up so fast, we could have played some fun little games … now you're all big and … well, farcically heroic. "

She was twiddling her wand between her fingers, as though longing to smash open both their skulls with it.

          "Why don't you crawl back down that slimy hole you came from?" said Ron through gritted teeth.

Harry disagreed privately; he wanted to end this now.

          "I'm afraid I can't do that, little red-head. I am the most favourable Death Eater, I am the most powerful next to the Darkness himself, I have powers that you can only hope to dream of, I could blast you into Hell where you stand. I can –"

          " – Yes, but can you spin a plate on the tip of your wand?" came a voice behind her.

          Bellatrix spun on the spot, her face bloodless, and came face to face with Hermione. "Because that is something only the nastiest witches can master." She had a cut on her cheek and fairly visible bruising under her left eye, but she was standing with such stature, such power, that Harry actually saw Bellatrix tense, and take a step backwards.

          "The comic girlfriend arrives," she breathed, sounding a little taken aback. She turned back to Harry and Ron. "So … all here, are we? All ready to avenge my dear cousin? Merlin, Black wasn't that much of a –"

          "You do not get to say his name," said Harry, his voice shaking.

          "Ooh, touchy."

          "I think you're a little outnumbered, Lestrange," said Ron evenly.

Bellatrix uttered a little laugh. "Outnumbered? Ha! Do you really think that I couldn't kill each one of you where you stand before you drew breath?"

The Trio exchanged deliberately confused looks. "Well, yeah."

Bellatrix raised her wand … and Harry, Ron and Hermione bellowed their spells.

"MAXUMUM STUPEFY!" Harry and Ron yelled simultaneously, whilst Hermione's perfectly aimed Reducto Curse had hit Bellatrix squarely in the face. She produced an expression of pure shock, similar to the one Sirius wore before she had murdered him, and fell with a sudden thud onto the wooden floor. The spells had jurisdictionally done their damage; their coupled effect had provided an incredibly strong force. Her eyes were wide and staring, her pale face contorted in fear and horribly mangled from where Hermione's curse had hit her there. She was dead.

          "Come on," said Hermione briskly, deliberately not looking at Bellatrix at their feet.  "We can't stand still for long!"

*()*

          And then Harry saw them; not two or three, but at least twelve giants surged into the Entrance Hall, one after the other, through the walls. Even if he had been blind, he would have known they were there. The sound of the walls cracking and bricks flying everywhere was enough to deafen. Harry watched, with some horror, as they were all inside, the other Death Eaters performing charms to seal the walls up again, the Giants knowing no more magic than they did Scrabble.

They were massive; the largest ones around twenty-five feet high, and had a greenish brown mouldy skin colour, thick enough to insulate an elephant. Their feet were as large as dinner plates, their yellow teeth like broken bricks and they stared down at the chaos underneath them with a feral glint in their squinty black eyes. Harry thought that Hagrid, whom was battling with a troll only a few feet away from him, looked positively small next to them. Both Ron and Harry were watching with horror as twice a giant tried to knock Ginny off her feet, who was sprinting in the opposite direction. She was forced to roll on both occasions, and narrowly avoided huge fists.

          "Oh – my goodness," breathed Hermione next to him. Neville was clambering up from the floor, his face white as he avoided stepping on the motionless Bellatrix just behind them.

          "We're done for!" yelped Neville.

          Ron looked as though he deeply agreed with this view but appeared too sick to speak. Harry shook his head.

          "No. They are."

*()*

          At first, it did not seem that way. The giants began to first swing their arms around, hitting as many Death Eaters in the beginning as they were the others, but eventually they seemed to get the hang of it; Death Eaters soon performed Unsmashable Bubbles around themselves to prevent them from being squashed, whereas this type of Dark Shield did not come so naturally to Dumbledore's army. The others were not so lucky.

Harry watched, breathing very fast, as Professor Snape was knocked off his feet and sailed fifty feet into the air before coming back down again and landing with a sickening crack under the marble staircase, unmoving.

Hermione screamed.

          He was not the only one; soon, numerous bodies were being flung through the air, the bodies of very small people, which Harry had a terrifying feeling were children. More often than not, he was right. More screams mirroring Hermione punctured the atmosphere, terrified yells of pain, fearing death.

          Harry whirled around for Dumbledore, so he could tell him that their side was becoming dangerously low, so that Dumbledore could tell him what to do, but Dumbledore was battling with almost more than he could handle; three trolls had seemed to have decided that he was their target. Hoping, praying that Dumbledore would be all right, Harry knew there was only one thing for it … he would have to do something himself …

          "EXPECTO PATRONUM!"

*()*

          Mundungeous and Mad Eye Moody seemed to have reached an understanding that now was no time to keep arguing with each other, but both were standing more stiffly than everyone else, this was funny considering that everyone else was also feeling the most tense as they had ever done in their life.

Lupin sighed slightly, exhaling shakily, trying to calm himself. He could hear the crashes, he could hear the screams, he knew that people he knew and cared for were dying … and suddenly he experienced an odd feeling … it was as though adrenalin was rushing to his head, he knew something was about to happen.

"Stand back from the door," he said quietly. Everyone looked at him strangely.

"Remus, what –"

"Stand back now!"

And as he said it, a blinding silver shining stag burst through the door, and cantered the full length of the room. It pawed the ground nervously, and then galloped back out into the corridor before it vanished.

Lupin looked quickly around, his face grey. "That's Harry's signal! Let's go!"

And then burst out, one after the other, to the aid of their friends.

*()*

          With one final strike of his wand involving a spell that he had not had to use for over fifty years, Dumbledore straightened up, straight and proud as he watched the last troll fall to the ground. He glanced around him, feeling slightly sick. Children were littered all over the floor, some unconscious, some with bad injuries, some unmistakably dead. Some of these students he knew personally … Ernie Macmillan, Hannah Hufflepuff and Hannah Abbot were all stone cold, unconscious … there was hope for them yet, but for some, there was none. Never to move again was Parvati Patil … Susan Bones … and was that Fred Weasley? Dumbledore couldn't tell from the way he was laying, but his eyes filled with tears and a knot tightened in his stomach, like a fist, anger at how cruel and unnecessary all this was.

          "You see, Dumbledore?" came a voice to his left. It was one of the Death Eaters, Dolohov, under protection from his Unsmashable Bubble, but perfectly audible. "No matter how hard you try to prevent it, we will always win."

          Dumbledore did not look at the Death Eater. "Once again, as before, you labour under the delusion that good people are simply too good to fight back. What you see now, is evidence that your theory is void."

          Dolohov laughed harshly. "What I see, Dumbledore, are dead bodies! Of children! The Dark Lord is unmerciful, true, but it is you who is killing innocent people!" He laughed again.

          "They would rather fight and die then stay alive and lose. That, Antonin, is what distinguishes us so greatly from you."

          Dumbledore raised his wand. Dolohov began to laugh again.

          "Oh, come now, Dumbledore, are you blind in your old age? Do you see this Charm here? Well, it –"

          Dumbledore made no effort to lower his wand, but instead shot an orange and purple jet of light at the Bubble, which smashed instantly, taking Dolohov with it. As he did this, the sound of thundering feet was audible from above, and as he looked up, he saw the entire Order of the Phoenix coming to their rescue. In spite of all that was going on around him, Dumbledore smiled with pride.

*()*

          Harry felt like the lead that had settled in his stomach lessened slightly as he saw the Order charge to their rescue. Lupin was in the lead, followed closely by Mad Eye and Tonks, with Kingsley and Mundungeous Fletcher in line behind the elder Weasleys and many others. They began doing what the others couldn't or didn't have time to. Spells were used against the Giants who, eventually, pulled back slightly.  

          "MAXIMUM REDUCTO!"

A simple Reducto spell would not have penetrated the Giant's skin, so it was necessary to back it up with sufficient power. Soon, the others got the idea and followed the Order's lead. Lupin, after sending a well-aimed skin-cursing hex at a particularly large Giant, flew to Dumbledore's side.

          "Everything OK?" he said breathlessly.

          Dumbledore looked grave. "We have lost many, Remus," he said.

          Lupin looked around, and saw with his own eyes many of the dead that papered the marble floor, like puppets with their strings cut. Lupin shook his head. "We knew this would happen, Albus. We knew there would be casualties."

          Dumbledore had a look in his eyes that told Remus that this was clearly not the point.  

          "Where's Voldemort?" he asked quickly. "Where's Harry?" he added, looking around as though he imagined to see the two of them duelling as he said this.

          "I believe it is as we expected," said Dumbledore, ducking another red coloured curse. "He will not come back until he is certain he will get what he wants."

          "He can't even fight his own battles," said Lupin bitterly.

          "Oh no," said Dumbledore. "Quite the contrary. It is a tactic of his. He will come when he sees fit and kill whomever is left, then take complete power, and what he wants."

          Lupin frowned. "Harry?" he asked.

Dumbledore nodded.

*()*

          Draco Malfoy stood, reluctantly in front of his father, who, as it seemed, had only just caught sight of him.

          "So this is where you've been hiding your worthless skin, is it?" he said disdainfully through his black mask. "Hiding out in the Muggle loving fool's castle?"

          Something seemed to stir in Draco's body, something he had not felt since deciding which side he would be fighting on. It was a sense of what was right, and a sense that he would not back down. Not this time. How dare Lucius try and intimidate him when it was him who was wearing the cloak and an ugly scar on his arm?

          "I'm not hiding," he said.

          Lucius Malfoy's eyes narrowed. "Well you should have been, boy," he said. "You should never have crawled out of that hole you retreated to when you had a sudden conscience attack."

          "It wasn't a conscience attack, father. It was something else. It was common sense."

          Malfoy spat onto the ground. "That's what I think of your common sense."

          Draco stirred slightly. His father had always scared him, but now, standing there, he saw him for what he really was. Pathetic.

          "Now. Am I really going to have to kill you?" Malfoy uttered.

          Draco lifted an eyebrow. "You would kill your own son?" he asked quietly.

          Malfoy guffawed. "Ha! You are no son of mine! Your mother and I disowned you the moment you spat on us."

"Don't bring her into this!" Draco shouted. "You twisted her mind, you took away who she was!"

"After everything we've done for you, after everything we ever said, you had the nerve to –"

          "You didn't ask me to murder innocent people, you told me! You were going to make me do something that I didn't want to do. I didn't want to join forced with a sadistic wizard who burns his mark into people's arms! I didn't want to wear a cloak to hide my face because I was ashamed about what I was doing. Because that's what this is all about, isn't it? You're ashamed!"

          Malfoy wore an expression of pure hatred. Slowly he lifted his wand.

          "AVADA KEDAV –"

          But Draco was too quick for him. "STUPEFY!"

          Lucius Malfoy was blasted off his feet and fell to the ground with a thud, his mask sliding off his face. Draco stared down at the broken form of his father, shaking. He had done it, he had stood up to him, and he had won. He was almost sick with pride for himself, for his mother … the first thing he would do when this was over, if this were over, he would go back home and look after his mother. Gone where the days when they were ruled by him. Draco thought that nothing could ruin this feeling, but something did. Something brought him completely out of his reverie.

          Voldemort was back.

AN: Well there we go. Fourth instalment complete. PLEEEEEEEEEEEEEEAAAAAAAASSSSSSEEEEEE review!!!!!!