Chapter XIV
The Close
Disclaimer: We're too close to the end for the unprotected sex of the last chapter to become a plot point, but allow me to take this disclaimer to make a very obvious, very after-school-special-esque statement:
Unless you are actively trying to make a little witch or wizard, always use contraceptive spells.
Author's Note: I'm glad to see that the Wormtail scene was received so positively; and to think it almost made it to the cutting room floor! I'd never planned on it, the exchange just popped into my head while I was laying in bed one night, and wouldn't leave me alone. I was worried that it might not feel that relevant to the ongoing plot of the story, but I figure my Harry would take his Master of Death duties seriously and 'pay it forward' one last time before rejoining the Whole, and it makes part two of this chapter a heck of a lot better, in my humble opinion.
For the record, Wormtail's death wasn't suicide; he only chose to step back onto the right path knowing full well what the consequences of that decision would be, and was strangled to death by the silver hand for failing to carrying out his master's will, just as in Deathly Hallows. I think it's a bit more poignant, this way, but YMMV.
The end is drawing ever closer, friends. I'm writing the final chapter now, and it should be up either tomorrow or the day after that. With luck, the epilogue will be posted on July 7th, exactly one month to the day since Time is the Fire began; it seems fitting, somehow.
Happy Fourth of July to my American readers! To my readers across the rest of the world... enjoy the chapter? Also, is YMMV actually YKmMV in countries using the metric system?
Soundtrack Note: Hedwig's Theme, from the Sorcerer's Stone soundtrack, and Dark Mark from the Goblet of Fire soundtrack.
"Death cannot stop true love, all it can do is delay it for a while."
-The Dread Pirate Roberts
Fred Weasley was dead.
She had only felt this feeling once before. Being tortured at the hands of Bellatrix Lestrange… being buried alive beneath cursed, burning gold in a Gringott's bank vault… screaming, as she clung desperately the neck of a dragon, as they blasted through a wall and tore across the sky… nearly being incinerated by Crabbe's Fiendfyre as it raced after them, hungry for human flesh…
None of that even came close to the fact that Fred Weasley was dead. None of that even came close to the fact that when she looked down at his body, his all-to-pale face still crinkled in laughter, all she could see was him…
All she could see was Harry, half vanished beneath his Invisibility Cloak, crumbled on the floor before her, as if only asleep. Asleep, but for the fact that he stared at her with the same glassy eyes she saw now looking down at Fred… asleep, but for the fact that he had thrown himself before the Killing Curse, saving her life at the cost of her own.
But Harry was not dead, he was standing at her side, holding her hand in his own, and that was what made no sense to her. She had seen him, seen him die, and yet he stood at her side, holding her hand as she stared down in shock at the Weasley brothers, shaking their brother violently, trying to rouse him.
She was in shock, she knew, and everything happened in snippets, and then she'd find herself running or hiding somewhere; there came screams, and later she'd remember that hers had been one of them, as the giant Acromantula forced itself through the hole in the wall… screams, and then flashes of red spell-light and they were dragging Fred's body to safety…
Ron wanted blood, and so did she, so did Harry… and she was crying, they were all crying, but she knew they had to carry on, had to finish it, had to destroy the snake… it was the only Horcrux left, the hardest one to kill, for Voldemort would be watching over it himself…
They ran, Death Eaters hot on their tail, and she pointed her wand at the staircase and shouted "Glisseo!", and the stairs they stood upon were transfigured into a chute and they slid down a breakneck speed, curses zipping just inches over their heads…
They shot out through the concealing tapestry on the other side, hitting the far wall, and crumbled on top of the others she thrust her wand backwards and snapped out "Duro!" just as the Death Eaters came around the bend in the slide…
There came two loud, sickening crunches, and then they were picking themselves up and double checking that nothing was broken, Ron and Harry staring open-mouthed at the now rock-solid tapestry, an awed look upon both their faces…
But there was no time to contemplate the Death Eaters' demise. They had to get to the snake, had to rush past the duels, had to dodge wrestling giants and Fenrir Greyback, because stopping for even a moment meant they'd never get there…
They'd never get there, because the sight of Fred's dead body, the sight of Harry's dead body, would come rushing back with a vengeance and she would sink to the floor and sob and never get up again…
The heavy wooden doors of the castle burst open, and in poured horde after horde of the giant spiders, screams filling the air as they lunged for student and Death Eater alike…
Something huge and burly shoved them to the side, and she could hear Harry roar, "HAGRID, NO!", but it was too late, the half-giant had thundered past them down the stairs, brandishing his flowery pink umbrella.
"Don't hurt 'em, don't hurt 'em!" he yelled.
Harry sprinted out from beneath the cloak, running after the groundskeeper, but he was too late: Hagrid vanished amongst the spiders, and with a great scurrying, a foul swarming movement, they retreated under the onslaught of spells, Hagrid buried in their midst.
"HAGRID!" screamed Harry.
"HARRY!" screamed Hermione, but she didn't think he could hear her. He was sprinting down the front steps into the dark grounds, and the spiders were swarming away with their prey. An enormous arm briefly emerged from the midst of a spider swarm, but as he made to run for it a giant foot swung down and brought him tumbling to the ground with the force of its impact.
A giant.
"RUN!" roared Harry as she caught up to him, Ron trailing close behind; he seized her by the hand tore down the steps, dragging him after her towards the grounds, away from Grawp and the titanic foe he'd thrown himself at.
A chill overwhelmed her, the sounds of the battle dimming and becoming unimportant, and she knew that any second now she would be back in Malfoy Manor, standing over him and those horrible, glassy eyes… and she would be lost for all time…
"Come on, Harry!" she managed to force out. "Patronuses, Harry, come on!"
He looked at her dully, and already she could see that he was back in that cellar, listening to her screaming at the top of her lungs…
"HARRY, COME ON!" she shrieked.
A hundred dementors pressed towards them across the grounds, draining the air of all hope, all decency, leaving only polluted desolation in their wake…
Ron's silver terrier burst into the air, only to flicker and vanish; her own otter Patronus twisted in mid-air and faded; and Harry's hands only trembled, incapable of sending forth Prongs… and then it was deathly silent, and she was staring down the wand of Belatrix Lestrange, who was sneering, "I'll do you one better, Potter! I'll release her from suffering entirely! She'll never feel pain again, isn't that what you wanted?"
There came a flash of light, but it was bright silver, not emerald green, and then she was standing on the Hogwarts ground again, a hare, boar and fox streaking past overhead.
The dementors fell back before the creatures' approach. Three more people had arrived out of the darkness to stand beside them, their wands outstretched, continuing to cast their Patronuses: Luna, Ernie, and Seamus.
"That's right," said Luna encouragingly, as if they were back in the Room of Requirement and this was simply spell practice for the D.A. "That's right, Harry… come on, think of something happy…"
"Something happy?" he said, his voice crackeing.
"We're all still here," Luna whispered, "we're still fighting. Come on, now…"
Hermione seized him by the arm, spun him around, and planted her lips on his with a searing intensity. "Yours," she whispered in his ear when the kiss broke. "Only yours." He stared at her wildly for a second before whipping back around and jamming out his wand forcefully.
"EXPECTO PATRONUM!" he roared, and the light was blinding, absolutely blinding, as Prongs rocketed forth, head lowered for the charge, and the dementors weren't driven back so much as they were set adrift in the wave after wave of silver light that emanated from Harry's Patronus. Hermione knew that dementors could not be destroyed, that they simply had no physical form to wipe out, but drifting harmlessly, ripped and shredded as they were in Prong's light, she knew that these at least would cause no one else any harm this night.
Then they were running again, more giants crashing across the grounds, and they'd made it to the Whomping Willow, bent over double, so out of breath she could not speak. Harry and Ron were looking around wildly, trying to find a way to get to the knot and immobilize the tree, keep it from pummeling them as they made their way to the secret passage beneath its roots.
There was no time for any of this. "Wingardium Leviosa!" she wheezed, wand thrust outwards, and a twig zipped off the ground and struck the precise point it needed to. The writhing tree fell eerily still, its arms frozen in place harmlessly.
"Perfect!" panted Ron.
And time skipped ahead again and she found herself hiding in the passageway, just outside the Shrieking Shack, hidden beneath the cloak, the three friends eavesdropping on Lord Voldemort, and his most loyal, most able servant.
"Let me find the boy. Let me bring you Potter. I know I can find him, my Lord. Please," pleaded the voice of Severus Snape.
"I have a problem, Severus," said Voldemort softly.
"My Lord?" said Snape.
Voldemort raised the Elder Wand, holding it as delicately and precisely as a conductor's baton.
"Why doesn't it work for me, Severus?"
"My—my Lord?" said Snape blankly. "I do not understand. You—you have performed extraordinary magic with that wand."
"No," said Voldemort. "I have performed my usual magic. I am extraordinary, but this wand... no. It has not revealed the wonders it has promised. I feel no difference between this wand and the one I procured from Ollivander all those years ago."
"I have thought long and hard, Severus… Do you know why I have called you back from the battle?"
"No, my Lord, but I beg you will let me return. Let me find Potter."
Why was Snape so fixated on finding Harry? Did he truly hate him that much? No… that desperate tenor was not the Potion Master's familiar sneer of contempt…
"You sound like Lucius. Neither of you understands Potter as I do. He does not need finding. Potter will come to me. I know his weakness, you see, his one great flaw. He will hate watching the others struck down around him, knowing that it is for him that it happens. He will want to stop it at any cost. He will come."
That was true, she thought. But it was no weakness, no flaw.
It was the reason she'd fallen in love with him, all those nights ago, when he'd sent her back through a wall of purple flames, determined to see her to safety before he went on ahead to risk his life protecting the Stone…
Tears began to fall down her cheeks.
"I sought a third wand, Severus," continued Voldemort. "The Elder Wand, the Wand of Destiny, the Deathstick. I took it from its previous master. I took it from the grave of Albus Dumbledore."
Harry stiffened beside her, and she saw that he'd bitten down hard on his knuckles, trying to keep from crying out. She knew, all of a sudden, that he was not just eavesdropping on Voldemort. A part of him, the part that was connected to him through that lightning-shaped scar… a part of him was Voldemort, at that moment, and the expression on his face flickered between Harry's own horror at what was about to come next and Voldemort's simmering, seething rage…
She took his hand in hers, forcing his fingers apart so she could fit her own between them. She squeezed, tightly, giving him an anchor, something to hang on to, something to come back to, and his eyes flickered over to her in gratitude.
"My Lord—let me go to the boy—" pleaded Snape again.
And she recognized the tone. And it went through her like a cold chill, the knowledge, because she knew in that very instant just who Snape was, who he had always been, though he might have pretended otherwise.
She knew that were it her out there, standing before Lord Voldemort, she too would plead for Harry's life with the same exact desperate voice…
"All this long night, when I am on the brink of victory, I have sat here," said Voldemort, his voice barely louder than a whisper, "wondering, wondering, why the Elder Wand refuses to be what it ought to be, refuses to perform as legend says it must perform for its rightful owner… and I think I have the answer."
Snape did not speak.
"Perhaps you already know it? You are a clever man, after all, Severus. You have been a good and faithful servant, and I regret what must happen."
"My Lord—"
"The Elder Wand cannot serve me properly, Severus, because I am not its true master. The Elder Wand belongs to the wizard who killed its last owner. You killed Albus Dumbledore. While you live, Severus, the Elder Wand cannot be truly mine."
"My Lord!" Snape protested, raising his wand.
"It cannot be any other way," said Voldemort. "I must master the wand, Severus. Master the wand, and I master Potter at last."
And Severus Snape died. Not right away, of course. He emitted a terrible scream, as the fangs of Nagini sank into his neck, and he fell to the floor, leaking blood everywhere, his eyes widening in mortal agony and fear.
"I regret it," said Voldemort coldly, and he swept from the room without a backward glance, taking the snake with him.
In an instant Harry was standing over the man, who gargled sickly as his eyes focused on the boy.
Snape seized him by the robes and pulled him close, and Ron started and drew his wand. She seized the redhead's wrist and stayed his hand. She knew now who Severus Snape really was, though she did not yet know why.
A terrible rasping, gurgling noise issued from Snape's throat. "Take... it… Take... it…"
It poured out of him slowly, in startling contrast to the blood; cool gaseous silver flowing over hot, liquid scarlet. Harry gaped at the man, but she knew that this was the answer, the answer to all of their questions, to all of their confusion. She conjured a glass flask, and pressed it into his shaking hands wordlessly.
Touching the tip of his wand to the silvery substance, he collected it in the flask. When it was finished, Snape looked drained, empty.
"Look… at… me…" he whispered, and slackened his grip on Harry's robes.
And then, gazing into Harry's eyes, he died.
Hermione knew that when her time came, she wanted to be gazing into those eyes, too.
A voice sounded, Voldemort's voice, and their heads whipped around, but it did not come from within the shack. The Dark Lord was elsewhere, now, and had amplified his voice so that it could be heard all across Hogsmeade and the school grounds.
"You have fought valiantly. Lord Voldemort knows how to value bravery. Yet you have sustained heavy losses. If you continue to resist me, you will all die, one by one. I do not wish this to happen. Every drop of magical blood spilled is a loss and a waste. Lord Voldemort is merciful. I command my forces to retreat immediately. You have one hour. Dispose of your dead with dignity. Treat your injured.
"I speak now, Harry Potter, directly to you. You have permitted your friends to die for you rather than face me yourself. I shall wait for one hour in the Forbidden Forest. If, at the end of that hour, you have not come to me, have not given yourself up, then battle recommences. This time, I shall enter the fray myself, Harry Potter, and I shall find you, and I shall punish every last man, woman, and child who has tried to conceal you from me. One hour."
"Don't listen to him," said Ron.
"It'll be all right," said Hermione wildly. "Let's—let's get back to the castle, if he's gone to the forest we'll need to think of a new plan—"
But no plan would bring back the dead. No plan would return Fred to them, return Snape. She mourned for them, yes, even Snape, though she could not yet understand how the man who had murdered Dumbledore, the man who had hated Harry with such a passion, could have spoken of him in his final moments with such love, such quiet desperation.
Somehow, they found themselves on the path leading to the castle. They stumbled up the steps and passed through its broken and battered doors. There was not a soul in sight; not a sound could be heard, neither the whistling of hexes nor the clattering of running footsteps. The battle had well and truly ceased.
And in one hour, it would all begin anew.
And this time, none of them would survive. They would all be wiped from the face of the Earth, and Voldemort would claim the castle for himself. It would all be over.
They had to kill the damned snake.
"Where is everybody?" she whispered, unnerved. Voldemort had threatened to kill everyone still standing against him in order to rattle Harry. Surely that threat was only possible if there were still survivors hiding in the castle, right?
Ron led the way to the Great Hall. They stopped in the doorway.
The House tables were gone and the room was crowded. The survivors stood in groups, their arms around each other's necks.
The injured were being treated upon the raised platform by Madam Pomfrey and a group of helpers. Firenze was amongst the injured; his flank poured blood and he shook where he lay, unable to stand. The dead lay in a row in the middle of the Hall. They could not see Fred's body, because his family surrounded him. George was kneeling at his head; Mrs. Weasley was lying across Fred's chest, her body shaking, Mr. Weasley stroking her hair while tears cascaded down his cheeks.
Beside Fred lay Remus and Tonks, pale and still and peaceful-looking, apparently asleep beneath the dark, enchanted ceiling.
She began to weep.
So much death.
Ginny caught her eye, the girl's face swollen and blotchy, and she threw her arms around her, the redhead bawling into her shoulder, while she whispered futile, meaningless words of comfort into the girl's hair, trying desperately to stay her own tears.
Ron had shuffled forward to join Bill, Fleur, and Percy, who flung an arm around his shoulders. Together, the Weasley sons sobbed.
They could not have all died in vain. She wouldn't allow it. The thought was like poison to her; she needed to come up with a plan, needed to figure out a way to destroy the final Horcrux, to kill Nagini, to make Voldemort mortal once more…
Arm still around Ginny, the two made their way closer to the family. She needed to speak to Harry, needed to decide their next move… if only they still had the Sword of Gryffindor…
She looked around, and felt her entire body seize up in sheer, unadulterated fear.
Harry was nowhere to be seen.
She had been so stupid!
"Harry!" she screamed as she hurried towards the doors of the hall, where she'd last seen him. "HARRY!"
It had been such an obvious mistake. Never, never take your eyes off of him, not for one second, not when you knew he was being tempted to go off alone and get himself killed.
One hour.
Voldemort had given him one hour to turn himself over. One hour for him to show himself, or the Dark Lord would slaughter every man, woman and child who'd dared remain at Hogwarts.
Of course he'd go off to meet his challenge.
Stupid, stupid, stupid.
Her head swung around, wildly, desperately, but she saw no sign of him.
She was going to burn that invisibility cloak in Fiendfyre when she got her hands on him.
She took off, running down the corridor, towards the stairs, the icy cold hand of panic seizing her heart within its iron grip, clenching and unclenching rapidly until her heartbeat was pounding in her ears.
He'd already died for her, once, back at Malfoy Manor. She didn't yet understand it, couldn't fathom how it had happened, how he'd managed to somehow survive with no recollection whatsoever of what he had done, but she did know one thing.
She would not let him die again.
"Does it make a difference, being Muggle-born?"
Snape hesitated. His black eyes, eager in the greenish gloom, moved over the pale face, the dark red hair.
"No," he said. "It doesn't make any difference."
…
"I wish… I wish I were dead…."
"And what use would that be to anyone?" said Dumbledore coldly. "If you loved Lily Evans, if you truly loved her, then your way forward is clear."
"What—what do you mean?"
"You know how and why she died. Make sure it was not in vain. Help me protect Lily's son."
There was a long pause, and slowly Snape regained control of himself, mastered his own breathing. At last he said, "Very well. Very well. But never—never tell, Dumbledore! This must be between us! Swear it! I cannot bear… especially Potter's son… I want your word!"
"My word, Severus, that I shall never reveal the best of you?"
Dumbledore sighed, looking down into Snape's ferocious, anguished face. "If you insist…"
…
"Well?" murmured Dumbledore.
"Karkaroff 's Mark is becoming darker too. He is panicking, he fears retribution; you know how much help he gave the Ministry after the Dark Lord fell." Snape looked sideways at Dumbledore's crooked-nosed profile. "Karkaroff intends to flee if the Mark burns."
"Does he?" said Dumbledore softly, as Fleur Delacour and Roger Davies came giggling in from the grounds. "And are you tempted to join him?"
"No," said Snape, his black eyes on Fleur's and Roger's retreating figures. "I am not such a coward."
"No," agreed Dumbledore. "You are a braver man by far than Igor Karkaroff. You know, I sometimes think we Sort too soon…"
He walked away, leaving Snape looking stricken…
…
"So the boy… the boy must die?" asked Snape quite calmly.
"And Voldemort himself must do it, Severus. That is essential." Dumbledore's voice was hard and firm, the familiar twinkle notably absent from his pale blue eyes.
Another long silence. Then Snape said, "I thought… all these years… that we were protecting him for her. For Lily."
"We have protected him because it has been essential to teach him, to raise him, to let him try his strength," said Dumbledore, his eyes still tight shut. "Meanwhile, the connection between them grows ever stronger, a parasitic growth: Sometimes I have thought he suspects it himself. If I know him, he will have arranged matters so that when he does set out to meet his death, it will truly mean the end of Voldemort."
Dumbledore opened his eyes. Snape looked horrified.
"You have used me."
"Meaning?"
"I have spied for you and lied for you, put myself in mortal danger for you. Everything was supposed to be to keep Lily Potter's son safe. Now you tell me you have been raising him like a pig for slaughter—"
"But this is touching, Severus," said Dumbledore seriously. "Have you grown to care for the boy, after all?"
"For him?" shouted Snape. "Expecto Patronum!"
From the tip of his wand burst the silver doe: She landed on the office floor, bounded once across the office, and soared out of the window. Dumbledore watched her fly away, and as her silvery glow faded he turned back to Snape, and his eyes were full of tears.
"After all this time?"
"Always," snapped Snape.
…
Harry stumbled back from Dumbledore's Pensieve, a sick taste in his mouth. At last he knew the truth.
He knew now the significance of Snape's dying words to him.
"Look… at… me…"
He was the spitting image of his father, he'd been told a thousand times, all except for his eyes…
Snape had wanted the last thing he saw before he died to be Lily Evans' eyes.
Tears began to fill those eyes, now, and he willed himself not to cry. He knew he would have done the same, had Hermione chosen Ron, instead of him… he would have given everything, risked everything to protect her… and had he failed, he would endure it all over again, if only to protect her son…
The tears began sliding freely down his cheeks, and he choked back a sob.
His heart was pounding fiercely in his chest. How strange that in his dread of death, it pumped all the harder, valiantly keeping him alive. But it would have to stop, and soon. Its beats were numbered. How many would there be time for, as he rose and walked through the castle for the last time, out into the grounds and into the forest?
He was the final Horcrux.
How long had the old headmaster known? Since the beginning, of course.
"You can speak Parseltongue, Harry," he had told him so calmly, all those many years ago, "because Lord Voldemort—who is the last remaining descendant of Salazar Slytherin—can speak Parseltongue. Unless I'm much mistaken, he transferred some of his own powers to you the night he gave you that scar. Not something he intended to do, I'm sure…"
What a stroke of good luck for the old man, that he had been sorted into Gryffindor! How fortuitous for his many plans, that the boy was of such a noble and self-sacrificing temperament, that he would not allow anyone else to die for him, once he had learned the truth. How neat, how elegant, not to waste any more lives, but to give the most dangerous task to the boy who had already been marked for slaughter, and whose death would not be a calamity, but another blow against Voldemort.
Like rain on a cold window, these thoughts pattered against the hard surface of the incontrovertible truth, which was that he must die. I must die. It must end. Drying his tears on his sleeve, he walked across the darkened study, strangely numb to it all.
He'd been a fool. A fool, to believe he'd be allowed a long and happy life with her. A fool, to think that he might one day marry her, that they would have children and a home and everything he'd ever wanted, to think that the universe would allow him so much, when it had always denied him before.
He'd never been intended to survive past this night.
It hit him like a physical blow, going down the stairs, and he swayed and reached out for the wall to steady himself. His breath began coming in quick pants, and he knew he was on the verge of hyperventilating.
He thought of her, arms wrapping around Ginny in the Great Hall, both girls sobbing, and he realized that that was the last time he would ever see her. He could not go back to her now, knowing that he was destined to die within the hour. He could not bear it, to see it in her face as she learned the truth, to listen to her angry denials, to see the tears in her eyes as she realized he was serious… to hit her with a Stunning Spell, when she refused to let him leave the hall, for he knew full well that that is what it would take to stop her, if he were so foolish as to tell her the truth…
He knew he was being hypocritical. He knew that he was brushing aside her need for him, a need as intense as his own need for her. He knew that if their places were switched, if he had to be the one left behind, while she went off to her death...
If it were her, if he'd ever had to watch her die...
He didn't know what he would do. But nothing on this Earth, nothing in all of heaven and all of hell would stop him from preventing that from ever happening to her.
He felt his resolve crumbling, felt his need for her, his love for her, tearing him in two… he wanted to stay, needed to stay, needed to be with her…
He thought of what Voldemort would do to her if he failed to stop him once and for all, and he hardened like cold steel. If his death could prevent her from coming to harm…
Well, there simply wasn't any other choice, was there?
He liked to think that he would do it anyway, if it weren't for her, liked to think that he'd still be willing to sacrifice himself to save his friends, to save his home (Hogwarts was the only place that had ever been a true home to him, apart from being in her arms), but the truth was… he wasn't sure. All he knew was that as long as Voldemort lived, she was in danger, and that he had the chance to stop it. Simple as that.
But the snake still lived…
Harry pulled the Invisibility Cloak over himself and descended through the floors, at last walking down the marble staircase into the entrance hall. Perhaps some tiny part of him hoped to be sensed, to be seen, to be stopped, but the Cloak was, as ever, impenetrable, perfect. Hallowed.
He had no doubt now that he was wearing the cloak of Ignotus Peverell, and it allowed him to reach the front doors easily.
Then Neville nearly walked into him. He was one half of a pair that was carrying a body in from the grounds. Harry glanced down and felt another dull blow to his stomach: Colin Creevey, though underage, must have sneaked back just as Malfoy, Crabbe, and Goyle had done. He was tiny in death.
"You know what? I can manage him alone, Neville," said Oliver Wood, and he heaved Colin over his shoulder in a fireman's lift and carried him into the Great Hall.
Neville leaned against the door frame for a moment and wiped his forehead with the back of his hand. He looked like an old man.
"Neville."
The boy whipped around at his head around, startled.
"Blimey, Harry, you nearly gave me heart failure!"
Harry had pulled off the cloak: The idea had come to him out of nowhere, born out of a desire to make absolutely sure.
"Where are you going, alone?" Neville asked suspiciously.
"It's all part of the plan," said Harry. "There's something I've got to do. Listen—Neville—"
"Harry!" Neville looked suddenly scared. "Harry, you're not thinking of handing yourself over?"
"No," Harry lied easily. "'Course not… this is something else. But I might be out of sight for a while. You know Voldemort's snake, Neville? He's got a huge snake… Calls it Nagini…"
"I've heard, yeah… What about it?"
"It's got to be killed. Ron and Hermione know that, but just in case they—"
The awfulness of that possibility smothered him for a moment, made it impossible to keep talking. But he pulled himself together again: This was crucial, he must be like Dumbledore, keep a cool head, make sure there were backups, others to carry on. Dumbledore had died knowing that three people still knew about the Horcruxes; now Neville would take Harry's place: There would still be three in the secret.
"Just in case they're—busy—and you get the chance—"
"Kill the snake?"
"Kill the snake," Harry repeated.
"All right, Harry. You're okay, are you?"
"I'm fine. Thanks, Neville."
But Neville seized his wrist as Harry made to move on.
"We're all going to keep fighting, Harry. You know that?"
"Yeah, I —"
The suffocating feeling extinguished the end of the sentence; he could not go on. Neville did not seem to find it strange. He patted Harry on the shoulder, released him, and walked away to look for more bodies.
Eyes filling with tears, he pulled the Cloak over him again and set out once more. He passed through the familiar front doors of Hogwarts one last time, hurrying quickly past Ginny as she attended to an injured girl.
He was grateful it was not Hermione. Surely then all would be lost.
He kept walking until he reached the edge of the forest, a sudden thought slicing through the chill of the dementors and stopping him from moving any further ahead.
Voldemort had the Elder Wand, and he had the Cloak.
What of the Stone?
The Snitch. His nerveless fingers fumbled for a moment with the pouch at his neck and he pulled it out.
I open at the close.
It was all so obvious, in hindsight. Everything in his life had been leading up to this one moment.
His last moment.
He pressed the golden metal to his lips and whispered, "I am about to die."
The metal shell broke open. He lowered his shaking hand, raised Draco's wand beneath the Cloak, and murmured, "Lumos."
The black stone with its jagged crack running down the center sat in the two halves of the Snitch. The Resurrection Stone had cracked down the vertical line representing the Elder Wand. The triangle and circle representing the Cloak and the stone were still discernible.
And again Harry understood without having to think. It did not matter about bringing them back, for he was about to join them. He was not really fetching them: They were fetching him.
He closed his eyes and turned the stone over in his hand three times.
When he open them once more, they stood before him, all five of them, smiling. Neither flesh nor spirit, but something in between; something fleeting made to carry on existing, against its very nature.
Before him stood his father. It was like looking in a mirror. Like looking in a mirror again, he thought; his father looked exactly as he had when he'd seen them all those years ago, when he's stumbled upon the Mirror of Erised on Christmas night… maybe a little younger, actually, but that was because in the Mirror he had seen his parents as they would appear had they lived an extra eleven years.
He wondered then what he might see in the Mirror were he to look in it right now, and the answer came to him so forcefully he marveled that he'd even had to ask the question.
He would see her, of course. Both of them, together. Older, with their arms around each other, their children in the background rolling their eyes at them as they leaned in for a kiss. He would see the life he had wanted for them, were he to have lived past this night. It was the only thing he truly desired, and he had desired it from the moment he'd kissed her for the first time, even before he'd realized she felt the same way.
Sirius gave him a roguish grin, and seeing his godfather again affected Harry in a way that even meeting his father for only the second time ever did not. Both he and Lupin looked younger than he'd remembered ever seeing them; both looked completely at ease and glad to see him. Seeing Lupin again caused his eyes to begin stinging; it had been only minutes ago that he'd seen the Marauder's corpse in the Great Hall.
Lily's smile was widest of all. She pushed her long hair back as she drew close to him, and her green eyes, so like his, searched his face hungrily, as though she would never be able to look at him enough.
"You've been so brave."
He could not speak. His eyes feasted on her, and he thought that he would like to stand and look at her forever, and that would be enough.
At the edge of his vision lay the fifth visitor, his feet shuffling the dirt shyly. Harry broke his gaze from his mother and stared at him, astounded.
It was Peter Pettigrew, and he was looking at him with undisguised admiration and delight.
"You are nearly there," said James. "Very close. We are… so proud of you."
"Does it hurt?"
The childish question had fallen from Harry's lips before he could stop it.
"Dying? Not at all," said Sirius. "Quicker and easier than falling asleep."
"And he will want it to be quick. He wants it over," said Lupin.
"He isn't like you," Peter told him with a smile. "He is still afraid."
"What—" Harry began, staring at the shade of the man responsible for his parents' deaths, unable to understand.
"What's Wormtail doing here?" Sirius asked dryly. "I suppose we've got you to blame for that one, kid," he said with a roll of his eyes, but his tone was light, teasing.
"He did the right thing, in the end," James said. "He faced it like a man. That's what counts."
"I didn't want you to die," Harry said. These words came without his volition. "Any of you. I'm sorry—"
He addressed Lupin more than any of them, beseeching him.
"— right after you'd had your son… Remus, I'm sorry—"
"I am sorry too," said Lupin. "Sorry I will never know him… but he will know why I died and I hope he will understand. I was trying to make a world in which he could live a happier life."
"You will know him, Remus, someday. And he still has you to look after him, Harry," said Pettigrew. "You'll be loads better at godfathering than this lump," he said, jerking his thumb at Sirius. His hands were flesh, or at least as close to it as a shade could come—there was no silver, no missing fingers. He was whole again.
"And whose fault was it that I spent all those years in Azkaban?" retorted Sirius.
Pettigrew had the decency to blush. Lupin just shook his head, a wry smile gracing his features.
All had been forgiven. The thought cheered Harry immensely; if someone such as Pettigrew could be forgiven for his sins, surely he would be, too. Perhaps, wherever, whatever came after, he would be absolved of his mistakes, reunited with his loved ones, as the Marauders had been.
Perhaps he would see her again, one day.
A chilly breeze that seemed to emanate from the heart of the forest lifted the hair at Harry's brow. He knew that they would not tell him to go, that it would have to be his decision.
"You'll stay with me?"
"Until the very end," said James.
"The Marauders ride again," said Peter, his smile beatific.
"They won't be able to see you?" asked Harry.
"We are part of you," said Sirius. "Invisible to anyone else."
Harry looked at his mother.
"Stay close to me," he said quietly.
They set off. He led the way, and they trailed after him in silence. They were there, though, and that was what mattered. They lent him their strength, gave him their silent support, their well wishes, and it spurred him on. Gave him what he needed to see it through.
He was grateful to Dumbledore in that instant. Whatever else the man had robbed him of, he had bequeathed the Stone to him. He had not made him go to his death alone.
Ahead there were two Death Eaters, out looking for him. They would never find him; he wore the Cloak of Invisibility, the third Deathly Hallow, and the dead were his only companions. He trailed after them, though, following them as they led him deeper and deeper through the wood, towards the heart of the forest. Towards the heart of it all.
He glanced sideways, and his mother smiled at him, and his father nodded encouragement.
Flickering light came from up ahead, and he recognized the clearing Voldemort had gathered his forces in. It had been Aragog's, the colony in which his children had tried to devour him and Ron in their second year.
Now an even fouler monster had taken up residence.
"No sign of him, my Lord," said Dolohov, one of the two Harry had been following.
Voldemort's expression did not change. The red eyes seemed to burn in the firelight. Slowly he drew the Elder Wand between his long fingers.
"My Lord—"
Bellatrix had spoken: She sat closest to Voldemort, disheveled, her face a little bloody but otherwise unharmed.
Voldemort raised his hand to silence her, and she did not speak another word, but eyed him in worshipful fascination.
"I thought he would come," said Voldemort in his high, clear voice, his eyes on the leaping flames. "I expected him to come."
Nobody spoke. They seemed as scared as Harry, whose heart was now throwing itself against his ribs as though determined to escape the body he was about to cast aside. His hands were sweating as he pulled off the Invisibility Cloak and stuffed it beneath his robes, with his wand. He did not want to be tempted to fight.
He gave his companions one last look, one last smile.
"I know you will believe this the most coming from me," Pettigrew told him softly. "You really do have nothing to fear."
He nodded his thanks, and turned his eyes back to the fire.
"I was, it seems… mistaken," said Voldemort.
"You weren't."
Harry said it as loudly as he could, with all the force he could muster: He did not want to sound afraid. The Resurrection Stone slipped from between his numb fingers, and out of the corner of his eyes he saw his parents, Sirius, Lupin and Pettigrew vanish as he stepped forward into the firelight. At that moment he felt that nobody mattered but Voldemort. It was just the two of them.
"Harry Potter," said Voldemort very softly. His voice might have been part of the spitting fire. "The Boy Who Lived."
Goodbye, Hermione. I love you. Always, and forever.
He only wished he'd gotten the chance to say the words to her one last time.
There was a flash of green light, and then silence and the void.
