IMPORTANT (ESPECIALLY THE DISCLAIMER!)
A/N: Well folks this is the end, the last chapter of this bumpy road I name with intense pride Loyalty.
Before I start gushing my thanks to so and so I would like to say this is my first ever-novel length piece of writing. Now that I am finished I feel a mixture of remorse and relief and I hope you do too (not the relief part). However I have a feeling there will be a second instalment to this woeful tale so keep checking my profile for it.
Now onto some thanks. The first person I have to thank is the exceptional author 'marcus aure1ius' without whom this story wouldn't be here. I once asked him/her (sorry I really need to research this better) to read over my terrible first draft of Loyalty and tell me what I was doing wrong and he/she did. Without that this story would still be an eight chaptered Mary Sue freak show.
I would also like to thank all my lovely reviewers especially seirra and the dead addict who have continuously supported me throughout this story. And everyone else who was kind enough to leave me a review before or after this is being written. The one thing I ask is that if you are reading this please leave a review if you haven't already.
Disclaimer: The song is called The End by The Doors and the Definition of loyalty is of The parts in italics in Spike's P.O.V are variations of a speech Dwight makes in Sin City. The parts not in italics are what I made up and put in there even if it's in the middle of a sentence. I most certainly cannot claim ownership for those or anything else.
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Chapter Forty-One; An end can ever end until you forget it completely.
Loy·al·ty
n. pl. loy·al·ties
The state or quality of being loyal.
A feeling or attitude of devoted attachment and affection. Often used in the plural: My loyalties lie with my family
Harry and Draco crept through the unsettled hallways, teaming with DeathEaters and members of the Order of the Phoenix accompanied by few brave staff and student (mainly members of the D.A) who dared join the fight. As the two boys fled down the empty second floor corridor banished in the stream of red moonlight gushing out of an open window, the steady thump of rain and pops of guns echoing around the dense darkness lit by fragments of red. Harry bumped strait into a tall looming figure with dark brown hair.
The two shadows of men stumbled squinting at each other to see whom they had rammed into. Harry looked up to the other boy to see it had been Aiden whom he had bashed.
"Harry oh Jesus!" Aiden said apologetically. His wand was aloft and a look of dread was evident in his dark eyes.
"Are you alone?" Harry asked briskly.
"No I'm with Vanessa, Conroy, Faye and…"
"HARRY!" The unsaid person shrieked appearing from behind a concealed door. Harry barley had time to register who had spoken before two long arms where being draped around his neck and a small body was being pressed firmly against his.
"Woa!" Harry said pushing the person away a little so he could see their face. It was Hermione her hair bushy as always and her cheeks flushed she stepped back.
"Oh god Harry we...we…we thought you were dead!" She murmured.
"Where's Ron?" Harry said quickly.
"I'm right here mate," Ron replied coming from the same door Hermione had and encircling his arms around her waist. Harry stared at his two best friends and Aiden, feeling at a complete lose for what to tell them, how could he explain what had just transpired in the last four or five hours without making matters even worse.
"What are you guys doing out here?" Harry finally said lamely.
"Could say the same to you mate," Aiden replied agitatedly.
"We got woken up by McGonagall," Ron said, "she said that we were under attack and needed people to help desperately. Pretty much the whole dorm volunteered so we got led out here, to this. We've been fighting ever since."
Harry shut his eyes and internal scream threatening to brake from his lips. This was his fight! No one else should have to be involved they didn't deserve hid fait.
"Oh god Harry I don't think I've ever seen any thing like what's here tonight, they…they want to eat and rip and tear us apart!" Hermione cried.
"I know Herm I know," Harry replied. "Aiden go find your friends and try and find Ginny I think she's in the grounds," Harry ordered the taller boy.
"Yeah ok, um good luck guys," Aiden said before disappearing the way he had come.
The trio stood in silence for a few seconds until Ron's eyes narrowed, "What's he doing here?" The red head asked, angrily pointing at Malfoy who had stayed silent for the whole seven minutes.
"Guys he's taking me to Voldemort…" Harry said blankly.
"He's what!" Hermione shrieked.
"Mate you can't trust him, listen if we just go find Dumbledore and…um" Ron said before he saw the look on Harry's face.
"Dumbledore's dead, now if you don't mind I have an evil Lord to kill," Harry said chocking on his tears. Ron and Hermione stared at Harry in uncomprehending silence for a full five minutes, tears slowly inching down Hermione's face. Rons own was slack his eyes dull, his mouth open.
"We're coming with you," Hermione whispered. Ron nodded his face set.
"NO! No you are not! This is my fucking fight and I'll do it on my own!" Harry yelled.
"On your own with Malfoy? No mate it's us three till the end if that git wants to come along for the ride then so be it but we're your friends, friends help each other and your gonna need a bloody lot of help," Ron stated firmly.
Harry could feel tears again but he didn't let them fall. Instead he shook his head and gestured for them to follow him.
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Spike's P.O.V
The dead rain is spitting down on us with a vengeance even I find hard to understand. All above us is the sky, the haunted sky, swirling in a misty red light of screaming fury. Below us it's mayhem, Willow's managed to get everyone cut loose of their bonds and their all fighting tooth and nail with any hell beast that crosses their path.
The weight of the bullets strapped across by chest feels comforting and the unfamiliar feel of the rifle in my hands shooting bullets Pell Nell makes hunting seem like an amateurs kill.
The beast at my side is shouting and laughing with the pure hateful bloodthirsty joy of the slaughter and so am I. Lola turns to me her face mad with lust for the fire, she crashes her lips against mine so hard I think we'll melt together like fire and ice. My hot tongue, thrusting uncertainly into the misty cave of her warm little mouth, crawling up the walls and slipping easily down her throat. Her white top fringed with silk is already splattered with blood and she rubs it against me leaving the imprint of her kill on my black top, her fire joined to me until I release her. There's no place in the world for this kind of fire, my warrior woman, my little dolly girl, fire of my loins, bloody sin of a child whose name rolled of my tongue to dance the night in two steps countered by three, will always be mine…and never.
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Faith pulled her dagger out of the Chimera she had been fighting, the steel sliding out of his belly like butter. The dark haired slayer pinched her nose at the foul stench of the part ox, part wolf and part bird demon. All around screams could be heard the battle had been going for less than an hour but she was all reading becoming weary.
Dawn stepped out from behind Faith to look at its dead body her nose crinkling. "Uh thanks Faith I really should go find a weapon," she said sheepishly.
"No problem," Faith said breathing heavily. "Duck!" She suddenly screamed as a vampire soured over them only to land next to them and turn into dust.
"Here Dawn catch!" Xander shouted, throwing a stray gun to her. He himself swung his axe round so it connected with a Death Eaters skull, making a loud thump.
"Thanks!" Dawn shouted back before being pulled back into the fight by a vampire that Willow staked on her way to help Giles with a Lamia demon.
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Harry, Draco, Ron and Hermione reached the entrance hall without further incident. After almost being spotted by Bellatrix Lestrange when Ron tripped over the dead body of a first year, Hermione performed an enlarging spell on Harry's invisibility cloak so it would fit all four of them underneath.
They now stood breathing heavily in the midst of a fight between Snape and Mad eye Moody. Luna Lovegood was just centimetres away from them trying to pull Neville's unconscious body to safety.
"Harry can't we just help her?" Hermione pleaded.
"No. We've gotta get to You know Who without being spotted otherwise we're fucking dead, we have a chance if he don't know we're coming," Draco explained gritting his teeth. Hermione whimpered as Luna tripped up grazing her elbow.
"Right Malfoy where did you say Voldemort was again?" Harry asked.
"He's in Hagrids cabin which is right at the other side of the grounds so be ready to run, and don't be afraid to kill if someone gets in your way," Draco replied.
"Got it," the trio said in unison.
"Ok on the count of three we leave Harry with the invisibility cloak, seeing as he needs it the most and we run," Hermione said, everyone nodded their consent. "Ok one…two…THREE!" The four students broke free of each other and pelted out of the entrance hall, into the mayhem outside.
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Buffy swiped the rain out of her eyes as she ran through a thicket of brawling bodies. Her heart was hammering, her adrenalin was pumping and there was already blood on her sward. In her minds eye she was already mapping out how to get across the grounds to the castle where she new the main fight must be happening. Just as she was about to run from her exposed place by a large tree, she felt a sweaty hand dragging her to the floor and behind it.
Caught unawares the blond slayer yelped and rolled headlong into a firm and oddly familiar body.
"What the fuck!" She shouted angrily, wiping a little mud from her prized weapon.
"Buffy?" Said an astonished voice from above her. Buffy looked up to be met by the green-eyed gaze of Charlie Weasely. The two magically enhanced humans stared at each other for what seemed like an eternity of bewilderment.
"Ay Charlie who've you got there?" Asked a woman with brightly pink hair and a crinkled nose.
For a moment it seemed as if Charlie could only emit strange little gasps before he finally managed to gain control of his voice box, "Th…this is um Buffy."
"Oh this is Buffy," the woman said her eyes narrowing.
"Listen before you go all commanding chief on me and start assuming stuff I think I should tell you that we're on the same side. None of these girls here work for Voldemort…as far as I know," Buffy finished her speech with an after thought.
"I'm really not one to go assuming things but I believe what I've been told and that's that you lot are evil but seeing as I don't see any evil sprouting out of yah all here and there I'm prepared to work with you, we need as much help on this as we can get," the woman smiled brightly, "and on that happy note hi my name's Tonks!" She said sticking her hand out as she did her hair changed to a sludgy brown colour and then back. Buffy blinked and putting it down to a trick of the light shook her hand.
"So how many of there are you?" Buffy asked.
Tonks shifted into a squatting position racking her hands through the wet muddy ground before answering. "Including the students and teachers helping I'd say around one hundered but I don't know how many are down by now. But just us as in the Order that's forty."
"Oh so where's everyone else?" Buffy asked then mentally kicking herself for such a stupid question, but neither of them seemed to find it foolish.
"Out fighting," Charlie shrugged gesturing behind the tree to the mass of writhing bodies.
"Right so why are we here again? Not that I don't like a good old tree sit in," the blond asked agitatedly.
"We're waiting for our moment to run across and head into the castle there are people there who need protection," Charlie answered.
"This is one fight isn't it," Buffy said her voice wavering a little.
"You aint seen nothing yet," Tonks started again squishing her fingers into the soil agitatedly, "Have you ever heard of a Jikininki Buffy?" She shook her head.
"They'll come out once the fight is over. The Jikininki are man-eating ghosts. They are the spirits of greedy people who are cursed after death to seek out and eat human corpses. They do this at night, scavenging for newly dead bodies and food offerings left for the dead. They are said to look like decomposing cadavers they have glowing eyes and gnarled claws for hands. Supposedly any living person who sees them is immediately frozen in fear," Charlie said in a darkly ominous voice.
Buffy felt herself shudder at the mere description on them, "If…if we killed Voldemort then would they stay away, ye know leave their jollies for another…war?"
"Probably," Tonks shrugged.
"If only we new where is was…" Buffy whispered longingly.
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Harry was running faster than he ever had, dodging demons that sent chills through his spine, girls wielding deadly weapons and even familiar faces of Death Eaters wrestling with members of the Order.
He finally found himself standing at the entrance to Hagrid's cabin. Everything was quite at this end of the grounds. The sounds of the battle muffled by the heavy pelting noise of rain hitting trees, ground, wood and man. Everyone normally thinks that the bad guy is where the noise horror and bloodshed is but Harry new better. He was where everything was still, quite, expecting. The noise stops where the last trees end lingering in the branches, mist and cobwebs coating them, the red blood of an early sunrise almost launching over the horizon then stomped by an enemy's heavy black boot.
Voldemort would only reside in this quite place, silently observing the mayhem he created as he waited with an unquenchable impatience for what was to come.
Harry softly let the invisibility cloak fall from his shoulders to pool around his ankles. As he scooped it up he looked to his side to see Draco, Hermione and Ron standing waiting for him to speak.
"I guess this is it then," Harry said, "You guys can still turn back if you have doubts."
"No we're staying right here," Hermione said firmly as she clutched onto Rons arm.
"You ready Potter?" Draco asked putting his hand against the door. Harry looked up to the sky quickly thinking it might be the last time he ever saw it. As his heart (now beating faster than a book in a heavy wind) plummeted into his stomach, Harry nodded. Malfoy pushed open the door with a not very stealthy bang so they could see what lay waiting for them.
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At first it seemed as if the little hut was empty, but once the four students had walked through the arching doorway letting the door slam behind them, they could see a faint phantom of a man with his back to them.
"Hahaha," the man hissed out a wheezing laugh, "so Draco you've bought me back, Potter, Granger and Weasely, how delightful."
Draco grimaced and crossing his fingers under his robe he said, "Yes milord I only serve you, the Dumbledore fool is dead as well."
"Lovely but right now I'm more concerned about this lot…PETRIFICUS TOTALUS!" Voldemort suddenly shouted as he whipped around. The trio expected the attack and immediately ducked the rays of magic emanating from the half mans wand.
Voldemort laughed cruelly, "It's funny. This is exactly how my fight with your parents started Harry, however they made the foolish mistake of actually believing they would beat me and save you. I guess neither of those assumptions were correct!"
"Maybe the first one…but you'll never kill me, EXPELLIARMUS!" Harry shouted the disarming spell at exactly the same moment Ron and Hermione did, making Voldemort fly into the opposite wall and his wand skid across to land by Harry's feet who pocketed it.
"Maybe your not as clever as you thought Voldemort because you see these two wands," Harry picked up both wands and brandished them in front of the evil wizard, "they're twins my wand and yours are brothers. I wonder what would happen if I cast a spell with them both FLAGRATE!" Immediately a roaring explosion of fire appeared from both wands causing the whole cabin to light up like a red bonfire. Harry laughed as he looked at the display of Voldemorts cloak catching on fire.
"FOOL! Do you really think I need a wand to cast spells?" Voldemort rose from the ground smirking, he muttered a couple indistinguishable words and the fire turned to ice. Beautiful sweeping cavities of ice that seemed to crackle in mid air although they were still. "I have been wondering what exactly the purpose of your friends being here is, diffindo!" He hissed.
Harry's head whipped around when he heard a shriek and a cry of pain from the other side of the room, Rons fore are was split down to his elbow blood gushing out over the wooden ground. Hermione was furiously trying to stem the flow with little success.
"You bastard!" Harry whispered turning back to face his nemeses.
"Only on a Thursday. Crucio!" Harry immediately felt the splitting pain writhing around his body blinding his vision and turning his knees to jelly so he collapsed, falling in a ball. He could faintly here someone screaming and realized it was himself.
"You see Harry, you can never beat me, you will always be at my mercy," Voldemort whispered as he muttered a few more indistinguishable words making Harry's nose bleed, the worm substance soaking his robes.
"No…No…NO…NO!" Harry chanted getting steadily louder. When he opened his eyes Voldemort was standing over him smiling. Harry gradually started to rise to his feet, swiping blood from his face as he did, "I'll never be at you mercy because fighting you is easier than fighting my aunt Marge…so why would I nee mercy from your ugly face!"
Voldemorts face slowly turned from smirking glory to rage but before he could answer Hermione, Draco and a staggering Ron shouted Locomotor Immobulus making Voldemort travel to the other side of the room his body locked together. Once he was there Draco flicked his wand and a heavy axe appeared in Harry's hands.
The boy who lived looked down at the green encrusted axe and started to make his way over to the completely still wizard.
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The whole of the grounds was overwhelmed with dread and fear. The sky, still pelting down deadly bullets of rain, was the color of blood instead of the deep black of night. By the time Buffy, Tonks and Charlie managed to reach the main doors the grass was covered in veils of white mist, icy wind descending from the clouds to earth and conjugating obnoxiously in formations around their feet. The weather was a far cry from how it had been merely five hours or so ago, Buffy still remembered how hot it had been when she had emerged from the underground pit, her skin soaked with sweat within seconds. Now she was soaked in not only sweat but also blood, rain and mud.
"Come on," Charlie said as he made a move to push open the doors, suddenly all the screams and clatters of various weapons turned into a deadly silence shrouding the whole of the castle. Buffy turned around to see that all the demons, vampires and other worldly creatures had vanished the only people left where the Wizards, Death Eaters, Slayers and Scoobies.
"What the fuck?" Buffy asked mystified.
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Willow stumbled as the vampire she had been about to stake disappeared before her very eyes, beside her Spike and Angel fell on top of each other when the Dementor that they had almost beaten also vanished.
Besides the obvious confusion now spread around the grounds every single person seemed to on queue look towards Hagrid's cabin, it was as if their was this invisible pull in the air that forced each persons eyes to connect with the now slowly opening door.
Once the gap that formed in-between the two arches was a sizable enough to fit a man through nothing happened. A gush of cold icy black wind flew from within leaving it's tracks of ice on the lawn to disappear into the dawn. A line of white sunlight grazing the mountain heads, slowly drying out the rain that now only drizzled from heavens gates.
Just as everyone was starting to doubt that anything would happen a staggering shadow appeared from within. The shadow walked forwards onto the lawn breathing heavily, as he looked up everyone could see that the shadow was Harry.
This is the end
Beautiful friend
This is the end
My only friend, the end
Of our elaborate plans, the end
Of everything that stands, the end
No safety or surprise, the end
I'll never look into your eyes...again
The boy staggered on shaky feet and as if with incredible effort he lifted up his heavy burden, Voldemorts head. Almost as quickly as he lifted it he dropped it back down with a resounding thump it hit the floor, rolling away from the now crying boy, leaving a trail of blood in it's wake.
Can you picture what will be?
So limitless and free
Desperately in need...of some...stranger's hand
In a...desperate land
Lost in a Roman...wilderness of pain
And all the children are insane
All the children are insane
Waiting for the summer rain, yeah
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And just like that the final battle had been one, the end accomplished. So did any of our heroes ever find Loyalty and trust in each other? Only time can tell. As wizards, Slayers and their friends tried to build a new world together and pick up the shattered remains of their last one. Their lives now intertwining to form one, these people formed a silent agreement, life would never be the same but they would pull through it together, Loyalty would finally be achieved.