Heroes

"Unhappy the land that needs a hero." Bertolt Brecht, The life of Galileo Galilei

In many ways, Ronald Weasley's death was the opposite of Potter's long, drawn-out Fading. Screaming defiance till the last moment, he nevertheless went quickly and with little fight, while Potter clung to life with the quiet endurance he'd learned over many painful years. Weasley's death was loud and angry and bloody, but the emptiness it left was only in the eyes of his two friends, and Voldemort waved it away as easily as he banished his corpse to the other end of the room, where it wouldn't be seen.

It was a strange thing about the Dark Lord - as eager as he was to wound and inflict pain, as nervously did he shun the dead bodies that resulted. Another day, his Potter might have commented on that fact, using it to show Snape some universal truth about human life and the importance of accepting death.

Another day, Snape would have sneered the lecture away, belittled Saint Potter and refused to think about it - at least in any way Potter could possibly notice.

Today, they both kept their silence. Today, Snape would have given much to hear Saint Potter preach.

But the younger one was crying silently, hunched over as far as his chains would allow, hiding from his friends and his failure to protect them. The older Potter was staring into the distance, his red-rimmed eyes sightless, so still that only the quick flutter of his pulse convinced Snape that he was yet alive.

Snape remembered the resilience this man had shown to the other horrors of his past.

He remembered Potter's openness, his embarrassment and joy and self-deprecating humour. He remembered Potter's expression when he had met Snape's eyes in the darkness of his cupboard, and had leaned forward with honest regret, and asked what he wanted him to do, whether he wanted him to sob into Snape's robes and relive his childhood traumas.

Accept the things fate dealt us, he'd told Snape. Develop ways to cope and move on. It had sounded infuriatingly simplistic back then, before Snape had learned what he knew today. Before he'd understood.

Snape remembered, and he deeply regretted that it had come to this. He finally understood why Potter might have preferred death to reliving these memories. He wondered, for one, short moment, if it wouldn't have been better to remain silent and never mention the possibility of a treatment.

He felt that anything might be easier to bear than to witness this destruction once more.

Then Hermione Granger opened her mouth to speak, and once again Snape found himself in the irritating position of being surprised by Gryffindors.

"You can kill us," the girl said, enunciating as clearly as if she sat in a classroom, even though her body trembled with fear and pain. "But you can never stop the truth, V… Voldemort. Harry is better than a hundred of you, and so w…was Ron."

Her face twisted at Weasley's name, grief overwhelming her for a moment, but then she pressed her lips together, and raised her chin stubbornly, and continued with a courage Snape had – until this moment – thought unique to Harry Potter.

"And no matter who you kill, or how powerful you'll get, you'll only ever be a half-blood with a father who didn't want him and a mother who died in the workhouse. You'll only ever be an evil, inhuman, cowardly snake! And you can silence me, but you can't silence the facts!"

Lifting her chin even further, Granger met the Dark Lord's red glare without flinching.

There was something like triumph in her eyes.

Memory-Potter's face filled with horror at her audacity. Voldemort's lips twisted in anger. But Snape couldn't help but stare at the girl with something worryingly close to awe.

Her own words had just sentenced her to a quick, brutal killing – he could see that she was aware of it, just as much as Potter-the-boy was. But Snape could see more than just that in her face, more than the certainty of her death, could see that her words had been more than defiance screamed into the void, more than just one brave last stand before the inevitable fall.

No, Granger was far more aware of the currents between the Dark Lord and Potter, of the many ways Voldemort might use her to hurt her last, best friend. She was aware that she would die, and that the manner of her death might shatter Potter for good.

And in the face of this knowledge, she had made a choice. Had played the one ace yet up her sleeve, had bargained on the assumption that her knowledge was too dangerous to Voldemort, that he wouldn't risk it spreading among his followers. She had executed a plan that forced the Dark Lord to kill her quickly, without taking his time, without hurting Potter more than was inevitable. Had executed it perfectly.

For even as Voldemort was regarding her with fury, the Death Eaters flanking his throne shifted uneasily. They hadn't unmasked themselves, but Snape could nevertheless see the way their eyes darted from the girl to their Lord and back.

Voldemort's face twisted. Just for a heartbeat, and then perfect control slid back over his features, hiding his thoughts, but that heartbeat was sufficient for Snape to realize that Granger had played the Dark Lord and won.

And Granger saw it, too. Up her chin went, and her eyes glittered with defiance.

"Will you silencio me now to hide the truth?" she demanded – demanded! As if the Dark Lord was a third year who hadn't done his homework on time! "I'm not afraid of you, Tom Riddle, I'm…"

One swish of Voldemort's wand silenced her, a second had her doubling up in pain, but despite the tears that ran down her cheeks, her face remained defiant. She would not let him triumph.

Snape turned towards Potter-the-man, his Potter, to share his astonishment and respect, for once not even considering to hide his true feelings. He had underestimated her, had underestimated all three of them, and he was ready to admit it.

But Potter was still staring ahead dumbly, lost in a world of his own making. Snape hadn't the heart to rouse him from it. So he turned his eyes back to the scene of this memory, bracing himself to witness the events about to unfold, the death of a girl he had only come to respect in the moments before her unmaking.

Suddenly, her pain seemed a terrible thing to see, not insignificant at all.

"I weary of this, Potter," Voldemort now said, his voice sharp and lazy and cruel. "Your friends are as tedious as you have been. I had considered keeping her alive a bit, use her as my puppet, perhaps, but I tire of the lying mudblood. Shall we finish her?"

"No," memory-Potter's hoarse voice pleaded. Either the boy hadn't understood his friend's plan, or it simply didn't matter to him. "Please don't… I… I know things that might be valuable to you! I could go back and spy on the Order for you, anything, just please, please let her go…"

The Dark Lord's high, eerie laughter washed over the cold stones of his throne room, over the crying Potter, his silenced friend.

"My useless plaything, offering itself to me," Voldemort mused, and if there was regret in his eyes, longing for what might have been, he hid it deeply. "A broken toy, asking not to be discarded. Would you serve me then, Harry? With all your heart? Crawl on your belly and kiss my feet?"

"Yes," there was no hesitation in Potter. "Yes. Anything. Anything…"

Snape had to avert his eyes from Potter's desperate eagerness.

Voldemort pursed his lips in playful consideration.

"Such loyalty," he said. "Such devotion. Wasted on a mudblood. You disappoint me, Harry. Truly. I thought you had the makings of a great wizard, but clearly you're no better than the other fools the old man has gathered around him. A pity."

He paused, his head cocked mockingly, listening to Potter's pleas with the grandeur of a prince. Then his face abruptly cleared.

"Say goodbye to your mudblood, Potter. Tell her how sorry you are. Explain why you failed to save her."

The Dark Lord let his eyes fall from the boy he had marked as his equal. He turned his attention to the girl beside him. He raised his wand.

Potter-the-boy froze.

Even much, much later, after Snape's mind had spent hours lingering on that moment, twisting and turning it, examining it from every angle, he would still lack any understanding of what went through the boy's head in that heartbeat – whether Potter knew what he was doing, whether he was harbouring a desperate plan, or whether it was sheer instinct that took over as he saw the words of the Killing Curse form on Voldemort's lips.

Snape would never know.

But the moment kept replaying in his mind, over and over with a crystal clarity that wouldn't stale with passing time. It would stay with him forever.

How Voldemort smiled coldly. How his mouth opened, how his wand rose.

And how Harry Potter's useless pleas ceased. How he half-twisted around to the iron pole he'd been shackled to, his chains clanging, keeping him from his friend.

Barely able to stand. Hands useless. Lips bleeding. But still his eyes were clear and his voice was commanding when he spoke a single word: "Open."

The chains fell from him. They clattered to the ground, their noise drowning Voldemort's Avada Kedavra.

The sound would be strangely muted in Snape's memory, muffled, and over time, noise and colour and stench would melt together, facets of that single moment, forever looped.

Harry Potter, barely able to stand, free for the first time in months.

Turning.

Throwing himself in front of Hermione Granger.

Taking the curse meant for her.

Straight to his forehead.

Granger's scream of denial mingled with Voldemort's furious bellow, but even that first, breathless, unbelievable time, when everything moved too fast to really be seen, leaving Snape dizzy, even then Snape's attention was fixed on nothing but the green jet of light, hitting Potter with the force of lightning, throwing him backwards.

But not sinking into his skin as it was supposed to.

Not vanishing, but rather gathering, increasing in light and intensity, until it shone upon Potter's forehead like a star, impossibly bright.

Then rebounding.

It spread across Voldemort's body like wildfire, licking at his feet and hands, his throat and heart, and then the Dark Lord's roar turned to shock, to fear.

To horror.

Light burst from his skin, poisonous grey light, engulfing the two guards that stood close to them, swallowing them whole. Spreading through the hall, pulsing, and for a moment it seemed as if it would reach for Potter and his friend as well, before it was suddenly sucked back to its centre, folding in on itself.

For one breath, Voldemort stood perfectly still.

There was nothing but fear in his eyes, the desperate, all-encompassing fear of a small boy facing the cruelty of the world for the first time.

Then his body toppled to the ground. Lifeless. An empty shell of meat and bones.

In the silence that followed, anything seemed possible.

Snape didn't dare turn around to his Potter. He didn't dare breathe. He knew that Potter had survived this – his very presence in this memory was proof of it. But in that moment, Snape just couldn't believe it.

Then memory-Potter groaned. Pitifully and pathetically, and not at all how a hero was supposed to sound, but it seemed enough for Granger, who gasped in relief.

"Harry!" she shouted rather shrilly. "Get up, Harry! You have to get up now!"

This, Snape thought dazedly, was a slightly ungrateful reaction to someone who'd been willing to sacrifice his life for her. Potter clearly thought so, too. He only groaned again, not moving an inch.

"Get up this instant, Harry Potter!" Granger sounded surprisingly bossy, considering that she'd almost been killed a few moments ago. "You're not done yet! There's a spell you have to do, right now, 'cause if you don't he'll just resurrect himself again, like before!"

Snape stared at the girl, then whirled around to his Potter for confirmation.

The man was still watching something only he could see, was still crying, almost absently, but he must have noticed Snape moving and was aware enough to react. He slowly nodded.

"Yes," he said tonelessly. "That was Hermione. I wouldn't have had the slightest idea what to do. As I said. My friends were always the best part of me."

Unable to formulate an adequate response to that, not after what he'd witnessed, Snape just nodded silently in turn. And as he watched Potter-the-boy pick himself up slowly, rolling to his knees, then standing carefully, hands clutching a column, just like he'd stood up in the bathtub after his last attack, days ago and a lifetime later, another piece of the puzzle clicked into place.

Snape had always wondered about this part, mistrusted the explanation Albus and the Order had come up with. To think that Potter, a mediocre student at best, had somehow gotten his hands on an ancient soul-destroying curse and managed to remember it in the nick of time to finish the Dark Lord off for good - it had always been too good to be true.

And now he knew.

"Did she learn of it by herself?" he asked quietly, not sure if he wanted the answer. "Or did Albus…"

His Potter shrugged.

"I never found out. But there are other ways than simply telling, especially for the Headmaster. Exclusive passes for the Restricted Section, hints, books scattered about, pages mysteriously marked…"

Again, Snape felt bile rise in his throat, and again he shoved the feeling of betrayal and all its consequences to the back of his mind. Later. Later.

Instead he watched, bearing witness, committing the events to memory. Because it was the only thing he could do, and because these children, these Gryffindors, deserved someone to see what they did, and to remember it.

"You have to take his wand, Harry," Granger said in a high, nervous voice. Blood was trickling down her face from a wound in her cheek, and she rubbed her face impatiently against her chained arms to get rid of it. "Quickly! There's bound to be more guards around, and we need to get this done before anybody comes!"

Potter was more stumbling than walking, but he obeyed, perhaps only by force of habit. His hands were shaking wildly, but they touched Voldemort's corpse without hesitation, searched the folds of his black robes like timid mice scrabbling for bounty. His fingers found the Dark Lord's wand, closed around it.

When its tip lightened up, just for a heartbeat, to show that the wand accepted its new master, something like regret darted across Potter-the-boy's face.

"Oh, Tom," he whispered. Nothing more.

He repeated the Latin incantation Granger dictated slowly, word by word, and his hands were surprisingly steady as he traced a horizontal figure eight, symbol of eternity, with the wand of his mortal enemy.

He did not even hesitate when she told him to cut his hand. But perhaps after all he'd been through in this room, it would have been laughable for him to shy away from such a small pain.

His face did not change as he let his blood drip down on the face of Tom Riddle, former Dark Lord. There was no triumph in his eyes.

But there was also no sorrow.

"That should bind him," Granger whispered. It was clear that she, despite their situation and the past hours, was aware of the enormity of this moment. "I think you've done it right. Now you need to burn the corpse."

At this, Potter-the-boy flinched, reminded perhaps of the last Death Eater he had burnt. But he did not hesitate.

"Incendio," he said, and the wand obeyed its new master like a faithful dog.

Snape expected lights, sounds, the spirit of Voldemort rising from the fire, something.

Anything.

But nothing happened. Nothing but a stick-thin boy, standing over the burning body of his tormentor, and a bleeding girl, watching him as she stood chained to a pole.

It was appallingly anticlimactic.