Castling

And so, my fellow Americans: ask not what your country can do for you - ask what you can do for your country."

Inaugural Address by John F. Kennedy - January 20th 1961

When the Death Eaters ended their spells, when Voldemort lifted the Silencio from Potter, Weasley was once again unconscious from the pain. Granger was still crying quietly. And memory-Potter's face was ashen, only his lips blood-red from where he'd bitten through them in wild abandon.

"Don't," he said slowly, painfully. "No more of this. Stop this now, Tom."

Voldemort laughed, lazily, mockingly.

"Or what?" He asked delightedly. "How would you threaten me? Would you break those chains and fight me, Harry? How will you protect your friends, oh Chosen One?"

Memory-Potter didn't answer. There wasn't a thing he could say.

"I'm sorry," he whispered after a long moment of silence. For the first time since they had been brought here, he was addressing his friends. "I'm so, so sorry. If there was anything I could…"

And Granger, sobbing, panicked Granger lifted her head and met his eyes. She even managed a smile, Snape saw with rising respect. She was stronger than he'd realized.

"It's all right, Harry," Granger whispered through blood and tears. "You can do it. We know you can. All you need is your friends by your side, and then nothing can stop you. Professor Dumbledore said so, too."

Snape felt his heart freeze to ice at her words. His head whipped towards Potter-the-man, who was leaning against one of the columns, barely upright and barely aware.

"What do you mean, Dumbledore said so," memory-Potter whispered, his lips so swollen that they could barely form the words. "What's Dumbledore got do with this?"

Hermione Granger was crying quietly now, her eyes straying towards the prone form of Ronald Weasley.

"He said so when he brought us the portkey," she whispered. "Yesterday. When he came for us and told us that he knew where you were. And he said…" She took a deep, shuddering breath, and Snape felt a shivering echo inside himself, rising to the surface, demanding that it wasn't true, it couldn't be true, that even Dumbledore would never…

"He said that you could defeat Voldemort. You only needed the love and support of your friends, because love is your true weapon. It's the power he knows not, Harry! I know you can keep us all safe, and Professor Dumbledore knows it, too! That's why he told us to come here!"

"He…told you…" Potter-the-boy whispered, horror spreading on his face.

"Not in so many words," Granger admitted, even now a stickler for details. "Remember third year? When he said to use a time turner? It was like that, and I'm sure I haven't gotten him wrong. You can do it! I believe in you!"

Potter-the-boy hung his head. His shoulders began to shake. Snape whipped out his wand, prepared for the Fading to begin - utterly sure that this had to be the thing that did it, because even he, a bystander, felt cracked in the middle - when a strange, harsh sound reached his ears, and he strode over to the boy, crouching down in front of him to see his face.

Potter was laughing.

He was laughing violently, painfully, the spasms of chuckles rippling across a face and body that had long ago turned into an open wound. It must hurt to laugh with lips like that, Snape thought absently, but still he laughed.

And finally, he raised his head to the aghast face of Hermione Granger.

"So that's his master plan?" He choked, and there was more than a little madness in his eyes. "Sending you here? So that I can break my chains and stand tall like a hero? Merlin, Tom was right all along! He is crazy."

Snape could hear Granger's shocked intake of breath and her scandalized 'Harry', but all his being was concentrated on Potter. Surely, this was the moment of fracturing? The realization that his mentor, the one parental figure Potter still had in his life, had betrayed him this way?

(And Snape found he couldn't think about it, simply couldn't fathom the consequences of this knowledge for himself, for although his opinion of Dumbledore had changed drastically these past weeks, even the thought of this betrayal threatened to sent him over the edge and he simply hadn't the time to think about it now, he couldn't.)

But still, no Fading.

Only a small boy, thin with hunger and bloodied with torture, laughing and crying and laughing about the joke his life had turned out to be.

"Dumbledore was wrong, Hermione," Potter finally choked. "I have nothing left, no strength, no magic, and especially no love. I'm just broken, nothing else."

"Don't say that, Harry," Granger whispered. "Don't give up on yourself like that. I know the past weeks must have been terrible, but…"

"On the contrary, mudblood," another voice cut in, a smooth, evil voice, filled with amusement. Voldemort might have given up on Potter, but now that he had a new audience to play to, now that fear was again besieging his prisoner, the unnatural delight was strong in the Dark Lord's face. How it had to delight him, this ultimate proof that his adversary was as false as he had always made him out to be. "Little Harry has found that he likes our games just a bit too much, don't you, my boy? I doubt that he'll ever want to leave again. I doubt that he even wants to protect you and that useless muggle lover you've brought with you. Isn't that right, Potter?"

The fury on Potter's face surprised even Voldemort.

"Do you really think that matters to me now?" he shouted at the Dark Lord, his voice breaking and grating but strong with his anger. "The truth doesn't matter. I don't matter! I'll do anything if you let them go, I'll be obedient, I'll submit to you, just please, please let them go!"

Granger jerked in her chains. Snape wasn't sure how she could have missed it before, the fact that her friend was truly powerless, that he had nothing left to give. But she saw it now. She realized her mistake. Perhaps she realized how foolish she and Weasley and been, trusting in fairy tales and the strength of their love where only power could ever matter.

Snape saw the moment of understanding on her face. He saw the knowledge of her own death settle into her eyes and prepare a feast there.

Still, she did not break, and Snape found his admiration for her courage rise to another level. She had not survived what Potter had survived. She was what euphemists called an innocent bystander. And still she didn't despair.

"I believe in you, Harry," she whispered. "And even if you're right and you can't do it, it's better to be here, at your side."

"No!" Harry shook his head wildly. "Don't say that, Hermione, don't even think that! You need to get out of here, you need to survive this! I can't let you die, too…"

His head whipped over to Voldemort, the fury in his eyes replaced by raw need now.

"What do you want me to do?" He asked, pleaded. "Do you want me to beg? Lick your feet? I'll do it! Untie me and I'll crawl to you on my belly, I'll be your good boy, I'll do everything you say! Just let them go!"

Voldemort's face was ablaze with delight.

"I thought you were done playing, Potter?" He asked, almost coyly. "Make up your mind, will you?"

Perhaps Voldemort expected Potter to despair, perhaps he wanted to push him into submission, but memory-Potter, honest in his desperation, only one need remaining, Potter screamed at the man that had cost him everything, screamed at the monster his fate had chained him to.

Potter screamed a question.

"What do you want from me?"

Before the words had echoed through the room, before the Death Eaters could react to Potter's lack of respect, Voldemort was up and away from his throne, stalking towards Potter, his black robes billowing out behind him, until they were very close to each other, face to face, green eyes to red.

"I want to break you," Voldemort hissed, and Snape couldn't tell anymore what was snake language and what human tongue, what was their own private hell and what shared for the world to see. Voldemort himself didn't care anymore in his savage greed. "I want to rip to pieces everything you held dear and make you watch. I want to burn your world down and grind the ashes under my heel. I want you to see your friends die and stand by helplessly and know that their blood is on your hands."

Potter's mouth opened in a silent, desperate moan, and Voldemort's forked tongue flicked out, whipped at the air, as if tasting the breath from his lungs, licking up his agony.

"You did this," the Dark Lord whispered, the words a caress as much as an accusation. "You caused this. They could have been happy, normal children growing up to a peaceful life, but you dragged them into your darkness and your filth, and now they're dying because of you, because you're not strong enough to stop it, because you're a failure over and over again, a pathetic, snivelling little thing that thought it could stand up to its betters. How does it feel to see them suffer, Potter? How does it feel to know that it is all your fault, that you failed and will always fail?"

Potter turned his head, trying to avoid the red eyes of his enemy, but Voldemort gripped his face hard, red marks blossoming under his claws, gripped his cheeks and forced him to meet his eyes, his wide, sharp grin, before forcing his head to the other side, where his friends hung in iron chains.

"Look at their faces – they understand what you are, now. They see you for who you truly are, and in their last moments they will curse your name. How does that feel? How do you think…"

Memory-Potter's breath was shallow, panicked, just as shallow as his present-day counterpart's, and Snape thought that this had to be it, the moment when Potter realized that despite all he'd done, all he'd sacrificed, he'd not even managed to protect his friends from the manipulation that had destroyed his own life.

But before things could come to a head, before Voldemort could yet again grind down Potter's strength, undo the transformation he himself had wrought unwittingly, before Potter's loved ones could become his downfall, Weasley did the unthinkable.

He interrupted the Dark Lord.

Lips bloody, eyes swollen, body broken, he opened his mouth, and out poured not the senseless bellow of anger and jealousy Snape had been so used to hear from him. Out came words worthy of a Gryffindor.

"Don't listen to him, Harry!" Weasley croaked, and not a hint in his face betrayed who the 'him' he contradicted was. As if he was talking about a schoolboy, not the most powerful wizard on earth. "We'll always be your friends, and we forgive you, even though there's nothing to forgive. We love you, mate. We forgive you."

Voldemort snarled in anger and frustration, for even though Potter's eyes filled with helpless tears at his friend's words, even though he tried to shake his head in refusal of them, his eyes cleared. He stepped away from the brink. The moment of balance passed.

"How dare you," Voldemort hissed, in his anger forgetting that Weasley had not been worthy of his notice a minute ago. "How dare you? I will have you suffer for this, blood-traitor! I will have you scream yourself to death!"

But still Weasley's eyes were on Potter, and still his words were only for his friend. Even when curses rocked his body, even when Granger screamed in fear for him, Potter was the only one he saw.

"It's alright, mate," he whispered, his voice almost gone from the screaming. "I get it. This is like a chess game, and sometimes a pawn needs to be sacrificed for the game to be won. It's alright. I believe in you, yeah? Just… just don't let anything happen to Hermione…"

"No," Potter whispered back, shouted, screamed. "No, Ron, you're wrong, you're not a pawn, please Ron, no, no…"

But there was no hope left in his voice.

Ronald Weasley died choking on his own blood, his screams a gurgling, shrill counterpoint to the stillness of Harry Potter, who hung in his chains limply, just as if his legs had been broken for good.