Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter nor anything otherwise related. I do, however, make claim on NM Harry's personality as well as those of all the other canon characters and my original chars.
Time passes like a flash.
One minute it's there,
then gone in the aftermath.
People you love die,
but their memory lives on;
Until it seems
that they live again.
"Remembrance" by Anastasia Snape-Vickers, in memoriam of Severus Jardin Snape (2001-2156)
Chapter 5
Live Again
"So we meet again."
"Indeed," growled Harry as he and the Dark Lord circled one another. Around them, Dark Wizards and those members of the resistance fought and died but they paid no heed to them. All they cared about was each other.
The Dark Lord smirked beneath a mask he wore and said, "I've been wanting to have an all-out battle with you ever since I heard the rumors that you'd returned. You were the most powerful wizard in your generation, you know."
Harry just glowered at the man and growled, "Then let's fight. And without any of your lackey's getting in the way or you running this time."
"Are you certain you want to fight when I hold the soul of your beloved somewhere within my body?" sneered the Dark Lord. He flicked his wrist to snap his wand into his hand as he added, "If I die, her soul will cease to exist."
Part of Harry cried out in bloodthirsty rage at that and he barely held himself back from leaping at the Dark Lord. His entire body quivered with the urge to bridge the gap between them and he wanted nothing more then than to rip out the man's throat.
The Dark Lord smirked and whispered, "You want to kill me, don't you?"
Harry sneered at that.
"A lot of people want to kill you. But I get the honor."
"Humphf. A bit arrogant, aren't we?"
"Not arrogant," replied Harry with a smirk. He reached back behind his shoulder and drew Ardwynhén from her sheath, the old wound she'd made aching slightly. The blade flared to life and he leveled it at the Dark Lord, glaring at him through the emerald flames.
"I really am going to enjoy killing you."
The easy stance the Dark Lord had been maintaining faded and he flicked his wand sharply. Fire erupted around it and he twirled the sword the flames had formed into around his wand before pointing it at Harry.
"Let us dance then, Lord Snape."
Harry smirked and purred, "S'what I've been wanting all along." He then charged at the Dark Lord, Ardwynhén ringing out her cry for blood as he swung her to impact the fire sword.
The two fires blazed around each other as the real blade and the false one struck each other. Orange and emerald light lit the scarred face of Harry on one side, his black-flooded eyes practically reflecting it, and the masked visage of the Dark Lord on the other side. Blue eyes glinted from behind the mask before the two men shoved themselves away from each other.
The Dark Lord's sword flashed and he shouted out a spell in a language Harry didn't recognize. A golden circlet of light appeared at the end of his wand, which looked very odd as that placed the disc in the center of the swords 'blade'. Moments later it whirred and shot into the air, making a direct line towards Harry.
He sidestepped the circlet then spun as it came back around, this time using Ardwynhén to deflect it. It whirred angrily away then came back like an angry hornet. But Harry was ready for it.
He stepped backwards, narrowly avoiding a Petrificus Totalus at the same time, and used Ardwynhén like a baseball bat. The spinning circlet shot towards the Dark Lord and dissipated as he waved his wand-sword at it.
"Impressive," commented the Dark Lord before he aimed another unknown spell at Harry, followed swiftly by a Cruciatus Curse.
Harry threw up a shield with a thought then fell to one knee as the Cruciatus struck him. Using Ardwynhén like a crutch to regain his feet, he growled, "Not yet."
The masked man snorted and leapt forward, wand-sword flashing. It clashed with Ardwynhén again and the Snape heirloom hummed angrily in response, it's emerald flames licking at the orange one's. Harry then stopped pushing back against the wand-sword and fell onto his back. As he did this, his right foot lashed out and slammed heel-first into the Dark Lord's knee. Cartilage crunched in response and he went down with a dismayed cry.
Harry rolled to his feet and switched Ardwynhén to his left hand as he pulled back his right arm. His sleeve shifted slightly and the Elven runes on his forearm glowed momentarily before fire blazed forth at his command. It surrounded his arm and hand as a flaming gauntlet for a brief moment and he grinned menacingly down at the Dark Lord, who scrambled backwards in surprise.
"What in Merlin's name!"
"Oh," said Harry, all-black eyes glinting. "Was this never mentioned in the accounts? Stupid historians. Always getting things wrong!"
On the last word he lunged forward with his right hand outstretched, a feral snarl twisting his lips. The Dark Lord's sword whipped up and he grabbed it in his hand, the flames of both combining briefly before those Harry had created overwhelmed the wand-sword. His flames swept down the length of the sword and consumed the Dark Lord's wand before spreading to his robes and cloak.
The man staggered back, shouting out water spells as he beat at the flames. Harry smirked and shook his head before he stretched out his flaming hand and twisted. The flames consuming the Dark Lord's robes blazed hotter and the man collapsed in a screaming heap.
Harry smirked and took a few steps forward, looming over the writhing heap of flames.
"And here I thought this would be a difficult fight. Now…"
He bent down and thrust his right arm into the flames, his hand grasping the now severely burnt throat of the Dark Lord. The mask had been melded into his face because of the heat of the flames and the Dark Lord screamed in pain as Harry jerked him up onto his knees.
"…where is my wife's soul?" growled Harry. "Tell me where it is and I may just consider giving you a pleasant death."
The masked man continued to scream and Harry sighed before allowing the flames to fade away except for a few lines that flickered along the edge of the robes. His hand and forearm continued to blaze but did not burn the Dark Lord's already scorched body.
"Now speak."
Pain-filled and half-crazed blue eyes looked up into black and the Dark Lord hissed through what remained of his mask, "Go to Hell, you monster."
"You first," snarled Harry even as he felt a dagger hidden on the masked man's person slide into his stomach. It cut through his flesh easily because of the heated metal of the blade and bits of the blade sloughed off as it entered his body. As pain flooded his senses, Harry let fire consume the Dark Lord again.
He then tossed Ardwynhén aside, the flames around her blade winking off as she landed point first in the ground some seven feet away. Then he shouted a spell he remembered creating with Niamh so long ago and thrust his left hand into the Dark Lord's chest, his fingers latching onto the small sphere he found near the man's heart. Pulling his hand back out, he looked at the sphere for a moment, the face inside looking sadly at him as he stared at it.
"I'll see you soon," he whispered. Then he clenched his fist about the sphere and snarled something in Elven, the words harsh and strange because of his pain.
The sphere shattered with a sound like a cannon going off and anyone still living on the battlefield looked up as a white light exploded from within.
Niamh's soul burst free from the sphere's confines and Harry smiled before he tilted his head back, eyes sliding closed.
"HARRY!" shouted a bloodstained Adam as the flames that had enveloped the Dark Lord swept in a circle around the dark wizard and the corpse. It then rose up in a wall before anyone could get past it and he saw Harry within it for a brief moment before the fire gushed inward and enveloped his body.
What surprised anyone on the field was that he never even screamed as he died his third – and final – death.
- - -
"We should've stopped him," mumbled Adam as he, Anna, Jonathan Snape, his cousin Samuel, and Kai Longbottom gathered solemnly around Harry's body. All traces of the Dark Lord's were gone with the exception of a curled up piece of metal that they could only assume was his mask. "There had to've been some way…"
"I c-could've s-s-saved him," sniffed Anna. She then wiped her eyes with her sleeve and shook her head, muttering, "H-he didn't w-w-want me to c-cry over him."
Samuel looked down at her then wrapped an arm about her thin shoulders, tugging the young Healer against his side. She clung to him then and turned her face to sob quietly into his side. After her parents and twin's deaths, Harry had practically become a second father to her and to lose him after so little time was a crushing blow.
"He didn't want to be saved," muttered Kai. He then saw Ardwynhén in the ground nearby and nudged a solemn looking Jonathan in the ribs. The brown-haired man looked up to glare at him then followed his cousin's finger as he pointed out the sword.
Adam noticed as well and looked at the sword for a long moment before he said, "It's yours by right, John. What with you being the Snape Heir and all."
Jonathan frowned then walked slowly over to the sword, gingerly reaching out a hand towards its hilt. The emerald cat's-eye flashed briefly then the blade blazed to life as he jerked the sword out of the earth. He looked at it briefly then at Harry's corpse, blue eyes filling with sad shadows.
"What do we do now?" he asked. "With his body? I mean, we can't really bury it again, can we?"
"No," said a voice from behind him and they all turned to find Etienne limping towards them. He looked down at the body of his half-nephew for a long moment before he whistled sharply.
The Darcorn appeared out of thin air, causing everyone but Etienne to jump. Anna was the first to make a move towards the creature and earned a gentle nibble of her fingers because of it.
"He will take the body," said Etienne, gesturing at the Darcorn. "History only needs one body."
"Where will he take it?" asked Adam as the silver-haired wizard lifted the blackened corpse off the ground and onto the Darcorn's back. Etienne patted the unicorn's shoulder before he replied and murmured, "Be gentle, old friend."
The Darcorn nudged the old wizard with his head in response then turned and trotted into a glowing archway that appeared and disappeared in a matter of moments. Etienne then turned and answered Adam's question.
"To the Elven plane. There the Tethdaìr will give him what he deserved by their standards."
"And what's that?" asked Kai.
Etienne smiled and replied, "A warrior's funeral, my boy."
"Oh."
They stood in silence for a few moments then Anna mumbled, "What do we do now?"
Samuel looked down at her then at Etienne, Adam, Kai, and Jonathan in turn. His gaze lingered longest on the last, through whom the Snape Line would hopefully grow and flourish on into the ages after them.
He then smiled and said, "We live, Anna. We live."
Author's NoteAnd there is the end of the Not Myself saga's sequels. Stay tuned for the AU's and such!