Disclaimer: I own neither Harry Potter nor Katekyo Hitman Reborn and I don't earn any money with this story.
Author's note: Hi everyone, sorry for disappearing off the edge of the world for a while. I had to deal with some RL stuff.
Rating: M
Warning: Character Death, Violence
Beta'd by the lovely NonchalantxFish, thank you very much :)
Harry watched with clenched teeth as Voldemort dropped the broken Spidbot to the ground and crushed its sorry remains with the heel of his boot. The fight was imminent and the brunet had to somehow lead it away from his friend to keep him safe. Without a wand and after just being cured from the Draught of Living Death, Blaise was in no state to duel anyone, let alone a few dozen Death Eaters and various beings.
"Try to get over to Spanner," the brunet whispered, as he carefully helped Blaise to his feet. Then he readied his wand.
"You knew we were spying on you. Your little trip to this location was a trap you set for us," Shamal reasoned, hands stuffed into the pockets of his coats. To an outsider it might look nonchalant, but Harry knew he'd be ready to fight in a split-second.
"Indeed, Muggle. Now you're far away from your little safe houses and Order members. I'll squash you like your little spy toy," Voldemort promised with a smirk. It was still a bit surprising that he didn't have fangs to top off his snake-like appearance.
"And you were still not very optimistic of your win, were you? Bringing your whole army to get rid of a few people," Harry mocked with an answering smirk, causing more than just Voldemort to snarl at him.
"I'll be the one laughing at the end of this, Potter. I think a slow and very painful death will befit you best. But before I take care of you, I'll finish off your people - one by one, so you can give each of their deaths your complete attention," Voldemort promised.
The smirk stayed on Harry's lips by determination alone, because there was no way in hell that he'd show the dark wizard in front of him how much his words affected him. The fingers around his wand tightened their grip, though, and had the teen decided to look down, he'd have noticed how white his knuckles had turned, not to mention the slight tremor to his hand. They weren't ready for this, not really. The Horcrux around Blaise's neck still existed. They'd have to get rid of it first, before confronting Voldemort, but Lord Snake-Face wouldn't just stand by, while they destroyed the last of his failsafes.
"Harry." Said wizard felt a hand wrap around his trembling one, making him glance down. What he saw, however, made his blood freeze. Blaise was looking up at him with tears in his eyes, though his expression was resolute. "Harry, finish him off once and for all, okay? I know you can do it," his friend implored with a sad smile. "Good luck and… good bye ."
"No!" Harry reached out with his free hand, but wasn't fast enough to stop Blaise from yanking the cursed chain over his head and letting go. The Horcrux fell to the ground with an ominous clatter.
A split-second later, Blaise's skin cracked open along the main arteries, painting his tattered clothes and the ground red within seconds. Harry barely noticed the warm blood splattering his own face and neck as he sank to the ground, his best friend's lifeless body in his arms.
"No, you idiot. This isn't time to become self-sacrificing," They had had a plan, damn it! One that involved pushing Blaise closer to death than even the Draught of Living Death was able to, in order to temporarily negate the effects of the curse. They'd have destroyed the Horcrux with a dagger made of goblin silver and tipped in basilisk poison, and resuscitated Blaise when they were done.
It was too late now, though. Blaise was dead and they- What was that?
Harry's gaze had wandered to his friend's face and the wound close to his temple, which he hadn't noticed before. It was much too big to have been caused by the curse, but then what- Gasping, the Sky turned towards Reborn, who was approaching him, gun with an attached silencer still in hand.
"You… you shot him…," Harry uttered surprised. He watched in wide-eyed shock as Blaise's chest cracked open completely and an almost naked version of his best friend emerged like a snake shedding its skin. A purple flame was flickering on his forehead – Cloud Flames. Blaise ran off into the crowd of enemies, who'd been ordered down by Voldemort until then, in order to relish in Harry Potter's misery.
Said wizard was fighting with swallowing down the lump that had formed in his throat. "And it worked…"
They'd briefly discussed the pros and cons of using the Dying-Will-bullet as a possible solution, but had ultimately dismissed the idea for a process they had more control over.
Harry dragged Reborn into a short hug and whispered a 'thank you' into his ear, before running after his friend, who'd made himself the primary target for their enemies.
As soon as Spanner had recovered from the shock caused by Voldemort's appearance, he'd started tapping away on his pad to activating the emergency alarm on everyone's beepers. They'd expected an attack like this sooner or later and had prepared in advance accordingly. All of their allies had received a portkey to this location just in case, though whether they wanted to participate in the (hopefully) last battle against Voldemort or not was up to each individual. Spanner certainly hoped a lot of people decided to show up, otherwise they'd be screwed.
Hearing his brother's desperate shout, the blond snapped his head up just in time to see Harry and Blaise sink to the ground, the latter drenched in blood. His fingers clenched around the pad in his hands. He didn't care about Blaise all that much, but Harry- Seeing him unhappy in any way was probably Spanner's biggest weakness.
Then, suddenly, Blaise's unexpected and frankly gross rebirth took place. Spanner watched all hell break loose on the enemy side as his brother's friend, clad only in a pair of pants, dashed into the crowd and literally sent people flying by punching or kicking them.
"Spanner! Don't forget to pull up your shield," Shamal called in his direction, before joining the fight.
The blond jerked his gaze away from the pandemonium and erected the Lightning shield he'd mastered a few months ago around himself. It was resistant against most physical, magical and Flame attacks, making it possible for the blond to concentrate on other things without paying too much attention to his surroundings.
Finally he pulled half a dozen drones out of a charmed bag he'd brought, each of them heavily armed with various projectiles.
It was time to kick some Death Eater arse.
Reborn watched Harry's back until the wizard had recklessly disappeared behind enemy lines. By now he understood very well, why the brunet's Guardians had the urge to put a leash on him. Still, Reborn was glad that he'd been able to change magazines quick enough to hit Zabini with a Dying-Will bullet and, of course, that the bullet had worked as intended.
Would Harry have been even more motivated to kill Voldemort if his friend had died? Would he have drowned in despair? As the future Vongola Don, the former option was the more preferable one, but at this stage Reborn wasn't sure how the Sky would've reacted.
The hitman also wondered whether or not Harry had noticed his attempt of reaching Harmony with Reborn, while he'd hugged him. He hadn't tried to force the bond on him or begged him to accept. It had rather felt like a spur of the moment kind of thing triggered by gratefulness, which Reborn had rejected at once. Over the years many Skies had tried to lure him in. Some had come closer than others, but ultimately all of them had failed. First of all, Reborn wanted a Sky with backbone, but had no plans to become the Sun of someone who only saw him as a trophy or a tool, no matter how proud the hitman was of his titles. He also wanted to be... wooed . While Harry might tick the first two boxes, he'd failed to tick the last one and as long as that was the case, Reborn wouldn't even consider making him his Sky.
While their reinforcements popped into existence around him, Reborn caught the silver dagger Snape was throwing in his direction. He watched long enough to see the wizard turn back to Bellatrix and cutting her throat with a precise severing spell, before Reborn directed his attention to the Horcrux still lying in the puddle of Blaise's blood. He plunged the dagger into the cup, but neither black smoke, nor an unholy shriek was forthcoming.
The battle was in full swing and Harry had long since lost sight of Blaise amidst the chaos. The last time he'd seen his friend, though, the Dying-Will mode had stopped working and Blaise, clad in a robe, had been successfully battling a bunch of Death Eaters with a wand he'd gotten Merlin knows where. Harry hadn't been able to help him, caught up in a three-way battle himself, which had led him even deeper into the battlefield.
A pained cry close-by almost made Harry glance away from his own fight, which could've been a death sentence. He incapacitated his opponents with a few more spells and finally had the chance to check who'd been the one crying out. It turned out to be one of the Weasley twins, fighting together as usual, though which one in particular was hard to say. Both were in trouble. Fred, bleeding profusely from his left eye, was struggling against two werewolves, a woman and a man, who'd managed the same half-shifted form as Fenrir Greyback. Meanwhile, said Alpha was burying his fangs into George's shoulder.
When Harry attempted to run over to help, new opponents came swarming in, blocking his way to the twins. The brunet cursed, then mentally thanked his brother as the group was hit by several projectiles, which gave off high-voltage electro shocks by the looks of it. Harry jumped over the twitching bodies and sent a Bombarda at one of the weres attacking Fred. The she-wolf was blasted away, giving the red-head enough time to defeat the opponent in front of him.
"Just in time, Potter," Fenrir slurred around his bloodied fangs. By now he'd released George, who crumpled to the ground with a pained groan and an expression of barely-concealed horror. He was probably fearing that he'd been infected with lycanthropy. Being bitten by a shifted werewolf on a non-full moon day was unprecedented, after all. "I will-"
Fortunately, Harry'd never come to know what the alpha had planned for him, because in the next moment, Fenrir was choking on his own blood. Harry stared at the scalpel sticking out of the beast's neck and followed the trajectory back to Shamal, who was already busy with new opponents.
After giving Fenrir the finishing blow, Harry turned back to the twins. Both were looking worse for wear, but attempted to smile at him anyway.
"Don't worry about us, Harry," Fred started, wiping some of the blood off his face with the sleeve of his robe, before directing a healing spell at his brother's shoulder. The bite wound didn't close completely, but stopped bleeding at least.
"There's enough time for that later. I'll live-" George continued, getting back to his feet and picking up his wand that had fallen to the ground. Then he returned Fred's favour by trying to heal his brother's still bleeding eye as much as possible.
"And I'll look very dashing with an eye-patch."
"But you should-", Harry started to protest, but was stopped by a finger against his lips. Actually, it were two fingers.
"You can worry about us later, Harrykins."
"After we've won against all the Death Eaters still running around."
"And against V."
Both twins nodded.
It was a hard pill to swallow, but the red-heads were right. They all had to continue fighting, if they wanted to have a shot at ending (and surviving) this battle.
"I'll catch up to you later. You better survive!" Harry squeezed both their shoulders and ran off to find Voldemort to finish this madness once and for all.
That baby is a monster , Draco thought as he appeared in Malfoy Manor, now void of Death Eaters and Snatchers. But then again he can't be a normal baby, otherwise he wouldn't have got inside the manor and killed some of the Dark Lord's best men. He raised his wand towards his cheek and knit the skin there back together with an Episkey. The baby had dared to give him orders (The nerve!) and when Draco hadn't complied with them at once, the little demon had stared him right in the eye, while shooting some kind of projectile into the ground with a Muggle object. Seconds later the projectile had resurfaced on Draco's side of the wards, grazed his face and left behind a shallow cut.
The blond shuddered.
Those dark eyes hadn't quite reflected the Dark Lord's cruel insanity, but the danger and promise of death in them had been plain as day.
Draco hoped the house-elves'd be successful, because otherwise his life'd probably be forfeit.
Harry found Voldemort at the other side of the battle field, idly watching the proceedings without participating himself, the coward. Gritting his teeth, the Sky Apparated right in front of him.
He took advantage of Voldemort's brief surprise to fire a barrage of spells at the dark wizard. Only the Diffindo connected, before the Dark Lord got with the program. It didn't take long for Harry to take notice of the decades of knowledge and experience the other man had on him. While he barely evaded and blocked Voldemort's curses, his own were swatted away like annoying flies.
Where is that damn brat? Severus growled mentally, running around the battle field, evading attacks whenever possible and hexing opponents when it was not. He'd been at it since Harry had recklessly breached the enemy ranks, while following Blaise.
"Sectum Sempra! Sectum se- urg..." Severus sped up. That had been his Sky's voice and it hadn't sounded like he was faring all that well.
He quickly bypassed the group of Order members battling a troll and came to a dead stop upon seeing the situation the cause of most of his headaches had landed himself in. Harry was bound by at least three different constrictor snakes and thus unable to defend himself against any attack and of course he'd chosen Voldemort as his opponent. Severus should've known that his Sky would run right to their main enemy. Sometimes he honestly wondered how the teen had been sorted into Slytherin.
"Did you really think you could beat me, Potter?" Voldemort mocked with a smirk. "You can't even win against me in a duel, but assuming you could and had what it takes to kill me, I wouldn't stay dead . I knew that sooner or later I'd get the chance to lure you into a trap with your friend's help. The Horcrux around Zabini's neck? It was a fake . The real one is still out there. And now, Potter, Avada Ked -"
While his heart was desperately trying to beat out of his chest, Severus sent an Avada Kedavra at Voldemort, hoping it would reach his former master, before he finished the incantation of his own Killing Curse. Should he have tried to put an obstruction in front of Harry instead? Oh Merlin, what if he'd been too late?
A sudden explosion next to Harry forced Severus' gaze away from the tip of Voldemort's wand and to the fountain of fire, dirt and dust. A beam of green light cut through it a split-second later. Hovering a few feet away was one of Spanner's drones.
He didn't wait for the dust to settle, before he ran towards the spot of the explosion, chanting Harry's name in his head all the while. The pressure must have sent the teen flying, because he was lying a few feet away from his former position, when Severus finally found him. The skin of Harry's face and neck was riddled with burns, even charred in some places and cut open in others. The rest of his body looked to be in slightly better condition. The snakes who'd been wrapped around him must have worked as a shield. None of them had survived in any case.
The Cloud knelt down next to the person, who'd long since become more to him than Potter's wretched offspring or his best friend's little boy. He ran a diagnostic spell and breathed in relief, when he saw that while Harry was pretty bashed up, he was not in mortal peril. Severus was treating some of the worst injuries, when his Sky woke up.
"Sev, what hap-...?" The words were slurred, but then all of a sudden Harry struggled to sit up, his eyes blown wide with panic. "Voldemort!"
"I..." Severus started, while trying to push the teen back onto the ground, and frowned. What had happened to the dark wizard? He couldn't believe he'd forgotten about him. In his defense, he'd been a little bit out of his mind with worry. Severus turned around and eyed the spot where the Dark Lord had stood previously and needed a moment to process the picture of a corpse staring at the sky with empty eyes. "I killed him…"
"That's... No !" Harry, wild eyed and still struggling, gripped the front of Severus robes. "The... the Cup was a fake . We still have to destroy the real one and now Voldemort's soul is out there and-"
"It's not," a new voice interrupted. Severus looked up to see Reborn, who, contrary to all of them, barely had a scratch on him. He was hitching a ride on Shamal's shoulder and holding Hufflepuff's Cup in one deceptively small hand. "I noticed that the Cup didn't react the same as the other Horcruxes, when I tried to destroy it and convinced that blond wizard boy to look for another one in Malfoy Manor. I figured Voldemort would keep it close when he used the other one as a decoy," the hitman explained, smiling smugly.
Harry uttered a deeply relieved sigh and sank back to the ground, staring at the sky. When he started to laugh, more hysterically than amused, they let him.
"Harry!" Severus turned to the newcomer, Spanner this time. The blond boy ran up to his brother and desperately threw his arms around him. "You're… you're alive. I'm so sorry! I saw V try to use the Killing Curse on you and… and you couldn't move and I wanted to help you, so I f-fired off one of the explosive projectiles. It was only meant to hit close enough to push you out of the way, but-"
Harry rubbed one hand over Spanner's back soothingly, while whispering words that were too quiet for Severus to hear. Instead of even trying, he inspected the object the blond was clutching in one hand. It was a wand and looked disturbingly similar. After a moment, it clicked.
"Why do you have Hermione's wand?"