Chapter 3: Trauma and Death

Disclaimer: Since the boys are locked in the closet, I can safely state that they are under my control, but… #cries hysterically# I still don't own them! … #grins evilly# But they are still locked in my closet…

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A/N: I am an American writer and 16 years old. Sorry if my dialect isn't correct.

Also, school just started for me and I am probably not going to be able to update very often, but I will try my hardest. I am going to write the chapters extra long for you all though!

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Note:

This story won't be very many chapters… It is on purpose. The real storyline kinda starts with the 'Sequel'… actually… I don't know if I should call it the sequel or not… cuz this is the prequel… so… umm… hmm…

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#blah, blah, blah# -speech in Parseltongue

Blah blah blah -spell, accented word, or writtenletter

>>November 1, 2005 >>

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'Damnit… I thought the bloody git had left.' Harry cursed again and stunned the woman that had spotted him, just as he was hit by the Cruciatus Curse from behind. The world exploded in pain, his scar adding to the agony. He somehow heard a low, raspy, hissing laugh from somewhere behind him through the screams issuing from his mouth. Voldemort lifted the curse so that Harry would stop screaming and could hear him.

"You should have just surrendered. It wouldn't have been less painful, but at least it would have been quicker…" Harry heard Malfoy scream again as he himself panted and twitched from the still existent pain.

"Bastard… leave Malfoy… out… of it," Harry strained out. Voldemort chuckled.

"I can't just let the little blood traitor go just… like… that…" He accentuated each word, ticking his long, sickly pale finger side to side when he said the last three words. "Not to mention… if I stopped him now, Lucius might be… disappointed…" Harry went cold, his eyes widening. He knew that Draco (1) had hesitated killing Dumbledore, but he wasn't aware of how far Draco's punishments had gone.

Harry then realized the implications of what Draco had said previously. 'Waited six months? He stayed with them after he was… tortured!' Harry resolved himself to get the whole truth from the young Malfoy as soon as the battle was over. Then his stomach clenched. He might not live through it…

Harry tried to grip his wand and fight back, but for some reason his limbs wouldn't respond. Harry focused. 'If I could just disarm him.' Amazingly, Harry saw Voldemort's wand go flying through the air. Harry felt a soft probing thought in his mind, but he pushed it aside unconsciously. Harry used the bought time to roll away from him and tried to hit him with the Sectumsempra spell. Voldemort waved his hand and his wand returned to it and he managed to block the spell at the same time.

Then Harry saw Draco Malfoy run by, his father and another Death Eater chasing after him with multitudes of spells, and Harry realized that it must have been him that had disarmed Voldemort.

'Why can't He just die already… I doubt that running Him over with a bloody train would even kill Him," Harry thought, dodging his counter spell. Voldemort threw a couple more spells his way but Harry managed to dodge them barely. Harry rolled again as a blinding light of white flew just over his back. Harry felt the repercussions of the spell across his back and landed heavily, his back burning almost unbearably. He rolled over to dodge another, but that just worsened the pain. Harry bit back a yell, his back burning horribly from whatever Voldemort had tried to hit him with. He quickly rolled over again and got to his feet, ducking behind a tree.

"I told you once to die on your feet, fighting like a real man… You don't want to beg now, Harry Potter… do you?" Harry jerked around to the other side of the tree when he heard Voldemort use the white whip spell again. Unfortunately, it wrapped around the tree, pinning Harry to it. Harry could feel the whip burning into his flesh as he screamed in torment. It was all he could do not to pass out right then. He could feel his consciousness slipping away, but his fear kept his mind straight. Suddenly he felt the whip fall away and he fell to his knees and then forward onto the ground. He lay there for a minute, catching his breath, his eyes scrunched up, trying not to clutch his burning stomach. A large explosion erupted behind Harry, where Voldemort was. Harry closed his eyes when the dust from the blast reached him and then tried to quickly scramble onto his feet.

He stumbled as he came up but caught himself on someone that was standing near him. Draco Malfoy held him steady, his eyes searching the dust storm for Voldemort's black form. Harry, as quick as he could, untangled his arms from Draco's and searched also. A sharp movement caught both of their attentions and both of them, at the exact same time, cast different spells. Draco cast the killing curse while Harry yelled "Sectumsempra." Malfoy looked a bit unsettled by the spell Harry used and vice versa, but as the dust cleared, they saw that they hadn't seen one shadow, but two. Crabbe and Nott lay on the ground. Harry's spell had caught Nott directly in the face, so Harry could see little bits of his face and brain littering the ground around the two bodies.

'I think I'm gonna be sick…' Harry's eyes were wide and his face extremely pale, but he still kept his head; they still didn't know where Voldemort was. Harry swallowed the bit of bile that threatened to come up. 'I've never had to actually kill someone before…' Harry suddenly felt a prickly feeling on the back of his neck so he dived to the ground and took Malfoy with him. 'Might as well help him since he's all I have,' Harry figured. Harry landed directly on top of Malfoy and then rolled off once he was sure the spell from Voldemort was past. He pointed his wand at Harry and did another silent spell. To Harry's amazement, Draco blocked the spell for both of them, muttering something about it not changing anything. Harry tried to rein his anger towards Voldemort away from Draco, but it was starting to spill over.

"You're still being a damn prat… now shut the bloody hell up… Waddiwassi…" Harry yelled, half glaring at Draco. He said the spell while pointing his wand at a bush with large, sharp thorns on them. All of the thorns suddenly leaped off the bush and shot at Voldemort with the force of a bullet. Voldemort shielded himself against all of them unfortunately. Wormtail got hit with the lot of them, so he had a bunch of angry red puncture wounds from the large thorns on both of his forearms. Then suddenly, Belatrix appeared almost out of nowhere and blasted Draco with the Reductor Curse.

'Why didn't she just kill…' Harry almost swore. They weren't dead yet because Voldemort must still want to use Harry for something. They had been missing with the death spells on purpose. Harry whipped his head around to see if Malfoy was alright, but that precious time that he looked away was just enough for Voldemort to hit him with another curse. Harry flew backwards from the white whip and landed almost right next to Malfoy, who was getting up off the ground. Harry groaned, but didn't try to get up. He coughed and could feel a bit of bloody saliva run down his chin. The whip had caught him right in the gut again, but this time, it had stuck slightly instead of just flicking him immediately backwards. Harry distantly heard Malfoy yelling for him to get up. His eyes flickered open just as Voldemort strode into his range of vision. He heard the whip hit his body again, but he was almost numb to it already. Almost. Harry cringed into a tight ball as the whip repeatedly hit him. Over and over and over.

After a while, Harry didn't know how long, he just lay there instead of cringing. It hurt. Merlin it hurt. Harry didn't even bother to try to close his eyes in anticipation of the next blow. It was over. He had lost. He wasn't strong enough. It was his fault that those people had died for a lost cause. It was his fault that everyone else would soon die; starting with Malfoy. It was his fault that he couldn't stand against the pain. It was his fault that he let the pain overcome him.

Harry heard all of those thoughts flicker lethargically one by one through his mind. Unconsciously, he stood up, his face not betraying the pain any longer. He hazily saw the elder Malfoy, standing over his unconscious son, watching him in surprise and quite possibly fear. He felt him own hand grip his wand even tighter. He looked at the scene, feeling distant, like he was watching a Muggle film reel, like he had no control over what his own person was doing. He even only distantly felt the pure, unadorned rage that built up inside him, almost reaching a breaking point before he let it out all in one curse. He vaguely saw the blinding green light reach towards Voldemort and then Voldemort start to fall to the ground. But his body never hit the ground. It glowed a brilliant green, the color of the AK curse. Harry numbly looked down at his own body and realized that he was glowing, too. Then, the world slammed back into place. He was momentarily blinded by the light, but he felt a horrible stinging pain from his scar.

Holding his throbbing scar, Harry fought to see Voldemort. Abruptly, it stopped hurting. Harry rubbed his hand over it, but he couldn't figure out exactly where it was. Harry rubbed in a bit of a larger area, trying to find it. It was gone. Rapidly, the light disappeared, and Harry blinked to get the dots dancing in his vision to go away. He looked around wildly, but the only thing he could see where Voldemort's body was, was a large pile of ash.

Harry heard at least five or six sudden bangs in the air as just that many Death Eaters, the only ones that could, Disapparated because their master was dead. The only one left in the graveyard was the young Malfoy. Harry dropped like a rock once the light was completely gone, the pain from the multiple burns all over mostly his back and stomach making standing pretty much impossible. Harry turned his head slightly to try to keep his eye on Malfoy, but that sent shooting pains up his neck. He bit back a yell and relaxed his neck muscles, hoping it would keep them from hurting. Unfortunately the neck muscles seemed to be practically torn out from all the abuse they, and the rest of Harry, had gone through. Harry hissed as his neck muscles started to cramp. He tried to relax and doze, to regain his strength. For about an hour or two, he slept on. At least until he noticed a large shadow fall across his body.

Lucius Malfoy was standing over him, his eyes wild. He snatched Harry's wand from his hand and chucked it over his shoulder.

"Crucio," Harry heard him strain through his teeth. Harry's eyes contracted from the sudden, worsened pain. The power of the curse showed just how angry Malfoy was. He writhed on the ground, unable to even gasp for air because of the intense pain of the curse. Lucius Malfoy just stood there, his hair in disarray, half of it pulled from the tie he used, dirt and sweat streaking his cold face. Harry's vision blurred, but he could still see Malfoy sneer at him, rage seething from every motion he made.

"You'll regret killing the Dark Lord, Potter," he spat scornfully. "Oh yes, you'll regret it immensely." He laughed insanely. "And so will your friends, when we personally deliver your tortured body." Harry's eyes snapped open, his pupils dilated in fury. Mistaking the look in Harry's eyes for fear, Lucius laughed again. "Oh don't worry, Potter. We'll give them the same as you. I'll just be sorry that you won't be around to see them in their finest hour."

Harry fought through the darkness that threatened to take over his mind, his eyes power being fed by Malfoy's words. He searched for one word that would help him. He didn't even care that his wand was laying about a hundred feet away, near that bodies of Crabbe and Nott. He didn't care that he was still under the Cruciatus Curse. He forced out the first offensive spell that came to mind. "Sectumsempra!"

Malfoy's face only had enough time to register shock before he staggered backward. Bloody gashes had appeared across his chest and face. He staggered again before he fell backwards and the Curse on Harry lifted. Harry just lay there, gasping and choking, trying to reclaim the oxygen that he had been unable to get only moments before. His body twitched and jerked, after effects of Curse. The sudden silence in the bloody and scorched clearing was deafening in Harry's ears. He lay there, waiting for his breathing to stabilize. He opened his eyes a slit and realized for the first time that the sun had been up for quite some time. It looked to be about 7:30am. He had fought the Death Eaters for about 8 hours straight… and lived. Harry leaned his head down again and sighed deeply. It was all over. He hadn't failed everyone… And he was still alive…

Harry heard a stone being kicked a few feet away, so he jerked his head towards the sound to his left, attempting to ignore his complaining neck muscles, and absently called out to his wand. Harry almost took his eyes off the dark form that had been making its way over to Lucius Malfoy's motionless body when he felt his wand in his hand suddenly. Draco Malfoy, favoring his right shoulder, stopped when he realized that Harry was alive. Still twitching slightly, Harry attempted to roll over to his stomach so that he might try to stand, but even that movement made him cry out in pain. Draco made to take a step towards him, but Harry flashed a glare at him so he stayed where he was. Harry pushed himself up on his hands and knees, gasping from the pain.

"Don't you… bloody… come near me…" Harry tried to snap. He could feel blood dripping down his back and down his head, matting his already sweat plastered hair.

'Damn him… father… he killed him…' Harry jerked his head back in surprise. He had been looking the young Malfoy directly in the eye and had… heard his thoughts! He was sure Malfoy's lips hadn't moved in the least.

'But I'm not a Legilimens! I can barely bloody do Occlumency!' Harry swallowed, half because of disbelief, half from pain when he tried to stand for the first time. He didn't make it up, so instead he sat back against a small headstone, one that had partially destroyed in the fight. He regarded Malfoy suspiciously but Malfoy answered what he thought was Harry's question before Harry could say anything.

"Cool it, Potter. I don't care if you still don't trust me…" He pointed at Lucius. "I just want you to hurry up and kill him." He spoke with such vehemence that that Harry's eyes widened slightly. He was about to try to use the Legilimency again, but he was looking at the elder Malfoy instead of at Harry.

'But what were the thoughts just now… it sounded like he was pissed that I might have killed his father, but now he is saying that he wants his father dead… not to mention what I heard from Voldemort… he said Draco was punished for his weakness. And his father tortured him during the battle mercilessly! Why would he want his father to live?'

"Why the sudden change of sides, Malfoy? Did you finally realize that being Voldemort's dog wasn't all it was cut out to be?" Harry spoke calmly enough, but he wasn't about to let his guard down. Malfoy finally looked back at him, his trademark sneer plastered on his face, masking his emotions. But through the eye contact, Harry could feel the anger and pain.

"Why do you suddenly care? Saint Potter. Always playing his role as the Savior of the Wizarding world… Now, I'll bet your fans are going to-"

"Malfoy," Harry hissed angrily, interrupting the rant, "Will you drop your damn schoolboy grudge for two bloody seconds and send up a damn flare…" Harry's voice trailed off at the end as he clutched his aching stomach. Now that he was staying still, the burns were being subjected to the sun through the torn shreds of his overly large shirt and they were stinging horribly. He was pretty confident that Malfoy was no longer a Death Eater, but he didn't want to take any chances. To Harry's surprise, Malfoy didn't argue, he just sighed.

"What color?" he asked dully.

"Blue."

Harry looked over to the right, checking on the senior Malfoy. His stomach dropped horribly fast. He wasn't there.

"Fuck!" He cursed loudly.

Malfoy looked towards where Harry was looking and his face paled considerably. "He must have Disapparated…" Harry shook his head.

"No… we would have heard it…"

Harry froze. A wand was being jabbed into his back and he felt an arm snake its way around his neck after snatching his wand from him. Draco stared back at Harry and his father.

"Stupid, boys. Very stupid. Draco… I thought I had taught you better… Tsk, tsk, tsk." Lucius removed his own wand from Harry's back and pointed it at his son while still pointing Harry's wand at Harry's throat.

"Avada Kedavra," Lucius shouted, throwing the curse at his son first. Draco managed to just barely duck and in the process he shot a huge ball of blue sparks hundreds of feet into the air. Then he aimed a disarming spell at them. Harry's wand flew out of Lucius's hand, but he had deflected the spell partially, so his own wand stayed in his hand.

Lucius tried then to Disapparate, but Harry jabbed him in the gut as hard as he possibly could with his elbow. Movement caught Harry's eye. Another Death Eater, the one that Harry had put the Levicorpus spell on earlier, was advancing on them. She hit Draco with a binding spell.

Harry didn't even bother to dive for his wand and just yelled "Reducto." A loud bang issued out of nowhere, when it should have come from his wand, and the woman flew backwards and slammed into a thick tree trunk.

'Now or never… too many of the Death Eaters have already escaped…'

He saw Lucius towering over his still bound son. 'No… not yet' Harry thought, but the spell had already been cast. Harry leapt to his feet and magically untied Draco just as he managed to intercept the Avada Kedavra spell the only way he knew how. Harry, feeling distinctly numb, watched the young Malfoy's eyes widen to an impossibly large size as he watched Harry fall. Draco scrambled to Harry's side, mouth opened in a silent scream of horror.

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Miles away,a long trilling note issued from Dumbledore's faithful pet and companion, Fawkes. Dumbledore looked at him curiously. Usually, only if the owner of the phoenix died, would the bird give it's mourning call. Fawkes had returned to his side seconds after Dumbledore had shown himself to be alive. The bird was quite remarkable. Strangely enough, the bird had only obeyed or even helped one person other than himself without him telling Fawkes to. Harry Potter, also, was the only one, other than Dumbledore himself, that had ever had the privilege to be healed by his tears of healing. Actually Harry had been healed quite a few times by them. Even people that had known the phoenix for decades were not given some of the privileges that Harry was given by Fawkes.

Fawkes flew out the window, letting everyone know its torment by its sorrowful lament. He could hear a few people outside pointing out the bird to others, wondering why he was so upset. A sudden scraping sound let Dumbledore know that someone was coming up the spiral staircase to his study. All at once, Professors Hagrid, McGonagall, and Snape burst through the doorway, all very alarmed.

"What, may I ask, is troubling all of you this early?" Dumbledore inquired, his eyes looking strangely dull. He had a bad feeling that something was amiss and that Fawkes had merely picked up on it before anyone else.

"W-we though', Dumbledore sir… that y' were… Well yeh see… th' last time anyone 'eard that bird make tha' kinda ruckus was when we though' y' were dead… and… err…" Hagrid stuttered, trying to phrase it exactly right, but Dumbledore understood just perfectly.

"As you can see I am quite alright… However… I think that Fawkes knows something that we don't…" he adds sadly, his jaw clenched in worry. Silence filled the room until the clock behind Dumbledore's desk chimed half past seven. The silence lengthened in the cool morning air as they listened to Fawkes for another minute or two. A loud blast echoed throughout the room, disturbing the unearthly silence and a letter appeared on Dumbledore's desk.

Just as he was reaching for the letter, an area in the middle of the room shimmered and then the haggard forms of Hermione Granger and Ronald Weasley appeared. Hermione looked around wildly, like she had been watching something just as the portkey was activated. Dumbledore's breath caught in his throat when he caught her gaze. Her eyes filled up with tears.

"H-he… he's there all alone! Y-you h-have to help him!" Immediately, his eyes darted to the piece of parchment clutched in his hand. He unfolded it hurriedly and read the inside.

Dumbledore,

If you ever want to see the redhead and the Mudblood again, you will send Harry Potter, alone, via the Triwizard Cup portkey that will activate as the clock strikes 11 o'clock P.M. on this, the 31st of October. We will exchange their safety for his lone arrival.

-Lord Voldemort-

From the corner of his eye, he saw Professor McGonagall edge closer. Dumbledore wordlessly handed her the note and then rubbed his temples with his long fingers on his left hand, his right still being withered and unusable. He heard her gasp, so he slowly looked up; the normal twinkle in his eyes seemed like a distant, happy memory. Her face was now pale and her hand trembled as she prepared to read the paper out loud, but something on the back caught Dumbledore's eye. He caught her hand to hold the paper still and saw the note scribbled on the back.

Professor Dumbledore,

I will send up a blue flare when everything is over. The spell I will have sent Ron and Hermione back with, if all went well, was for the same time as this note to appear. The portkey was cloaked so the spell (which would automatically send them and this note to your office should I die) would not give you the location of where the exchange was so you wouldn't join the battle and needlessly risk lives. I will, at very least, destroy the snake Nagini, the second to last of Voldemort's Horcruxes.

I'm sorry. I know you will all miss me and are probably very angry with me right now, but I must do this. I love you all.

-Harry

Dumbledore sighed and sadly lowered his eyes, but then quickly jerked his head up again.

He suddenly stood up and rushed over to an old writing desk. It was a beautiful dark mahogany color with a filing place and three drawers underneath that; a glass door on the left and a large surface area on top. Much of it was cluttered, but the drawers must have been magically expanded, because Dumbledore levitated many large boxes out of the bottom drawer before he found the one he was looking for.

After checking the label, he opened the box and pulled out a few rolled up pieces of parchment, what looked like maps. He kept checking the contents and then discarding them one after another. He was about to discard another, but he stopped and opened it again. He smiled tightly, but then hurried back to his desk and opened it to it's full length; just bigger than the desk. He silently spelled it to stay flat and then scanned it for a tell-tale spot of bright blue.

'Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. No-' "There!" He exclaimed out loud. McGonagall and Hagrid gathered near him, attempting to see what he was pointing his finger at. He moved his finger so that it wasn't directly on top of the place on the map. Minerva looked at him quizzically, but then comprehension dawned on her face and she looked back at the map excitedly. If the blue flare was Harry's doing, then that meant he was alive and that he won.

But something was still nagging at the back of Dumbledore's mind. If Fawkes had known about Voldemort's death, his song wouldn't have been as desolate and haunting as it was; it would have been joyful. And there was one more thing. Harry had said that the note would manifest itself at an appointed time. Why would he have set it to a few minutes after 7:30 AM? Dumbledore sighed, causing Hermione, who had been undoubtedly been watching him, to start slightly.

"What is it, sir?" she asked, as though afraid of the answer. Dumbledore shook his head slightly.

"We mustn't get our hopes up that he is perfectly alright. You all know that right?" he asked, looking pointedly at the two youths sitting in front of him. He could see Ron swallow slightly, but both nodded.

"He just has to be alright… He's beaten You- err… V-Voldemort every time in the past, why shouldn't he beat him to a pulp this time?" Ron nearly whispered, his freckles standing out on his pale face. He looked distinctly green, but he was also very determined.

"Alright… Everyone, no not you Severus, you are still wounded. Everyone, touch the map and we will go." Dumbledore cleared his throat and then activated the locater spell on the map. In a blink of an eye, they were all standing in the middle of the graveyard. Dozens on motionless bodies were laying on the ground, none of them moving. Dumbledore could identify almost all of the bodies nearest to him and too many of them were men and women that worked at the Ministry. He spied Draco Malfoy sitting upright, shaking slightly, his head buried in his knees. It sounded like he was muttering curses at some invisible foe.

Draco finally looked up. From what Dumbledore could see, he had either been crying for a while or was at leastnear to. His eyes were red, but his injuries were quite more extensive. He had bruises already forming on most of the skin that could be seen, cuts being almost as frequent, and the whole extent of the damage was not within eyesight. Draco looked like he was twitching slightly, possibly an after effect of either the Cruciatus Curse or even from sheer exhaustion or possibly both.

"He… he's dead"

It wasn't the state of Draco that disturbed Dumbledore, it was the look in his eyes. Something had happened to traumatize him this badly.

"Who? Who is dead? He Who Must Not Be Named?" McGonagall asked sharply. Draco's body shuddered with every breath he took. He muttered a quick "not who I was talking about" and then bent over his knees again, his head held in one hand.

Dumbledore scanned the ground near Draco and his breath caught in his throat. Harry, his clothes torn to shreds and soaked with blood, was laying motionless on the ground on the other side of Draco. Harry's blood streaked skin was too pale, a sickly ashen color. He heard Hermione sob and then wrap her arms around Ron's neck. Harry Potter, the Boy Who Lived, the Savior of the Wizarding world, was dead.

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(This is not the end…) Continued in "Death is Never Clearly Defined" (title subject to change)

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Acknowledgements:

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To: themaraudersaremine Thank you so much for reviewing! #grabs keyboard back# Well you did say… #looks up what exactly you said# (and I quote…) "…whatever comes to hand including the keyboard…" HA! Can't take it back now!

To: Anonymous: jessy: Does it look like I'm ending it last chapter? … wait… I confuzzled myself…Anyway… I could never do that to my Draco. Actually I'm ending it this chapter… teehee… Yeah… I'm evil…Thanks for reviewing!

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Notes:

(1): Sorry I keep calling Draco Malfoy by his first name (even though it is through Harry's POV) but I figured it would be confusing to call both of them Malfoy…

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NEW IDEAS ARE WELCOME!