Running on Adrenaline – One-Shot (I DO NOT OWN HARRY POTTER OR ANY AFFILIATED JKR THINGS)
"They say when you look back,
it forever destroys your resolve to keep walking on."
-Unknown
When you drive a person to the brink of death and push them even a little further than that, they are fueled by one thing. An innermost desire to live. That uncaged animal within us all that allows us to have the ability to gnaw off our own arms to survive. It drives us on evermore, never failing until every bone in your body rattles and shakes with the slightest of winds. Until the binding chains of life that are impaled through your skin rip through and allow you to run free. Only then, do you find peace.
Harry had been running for days. Everything had fallen apart. Ron, Hermione, Neville… even the seemingly invulnerable Weaselly twins were gone. All gone. He hadn't understood. It was supposed to work! To save them! But he was wrong. It only made it worse.
Only now that his world had been destroyed and a new one had begun did he realize his mistake. He shouldn't have trusted. He shouldn't have gotten close to the people he had cared about. Had he listened to his instincts and distanced himself from those he loved instead of keeping cooped up in a warm castle, growing fat on love and affection then perhaps they would still be here. But the world no longer worked like that. He was a child that had grown up much too fast.
Here he was, walking aimlessly through an ancient forest in the middle of nowhere, the only light being the faint glow of his Lumos charm which was held limply in his hand. There was no longer anywhere to go. He had reached the end of the line. His clock was on the last rotation, and soon it would be his turn to meet the reaper. In his left hand, he held the golden snitched that was gifted to him what seemed like years ago. His invisibility cloak had been draped over him in the bone biting chill of late November.
The trees groaned with the wind, matching the somber mood. With every step, there was a loud crunch of frozen leaves under his boot. His muscles were strained so bad that he had trouble walking straight without collapsing. His bones rattled from the beating done to them over the past few days with his random Death Eater encounters. He continued walking through the random groves of trees until he found a clearing where he sat on a log for a quick break.
There was a snap behind him, immediately perking him up. Another snap and then another. He was surrounded. Harry tried disaparating but it was for naught. As soon as he twisted to go he fell flat on his face. Cold laughter made him freeze on the ground. He had been caught behind anti-apparition wards.
The sickly pale face and bleeding red eyes of Lord Voldemort emerged from the shadows of the magnificent oak trees around him. Harry simply glanced up without much of a reaction. He had known and accepted the fact that he was to die. The rage that had torn at him for so long had finally subsided into a lesser, but more painful emotion. Sadness. The pit in his chest that used to be a raging inferno now was only a heavy lump that only added to the weight already put on him by the world. He was ready.
Voldemort had disarmed and bound him before he could blink. This time there was no escape.
"So willing… So brave, Potter." Voldemort said softly. There was a maniacal giggle in the crowd of Death Eaters that were slowly creating a circle around him. Voldemort silenced it with a casual flick of his wand. "Only I am to speak", he commanded. Immediately the murmuring that had filled the clearing subsided.
"Oh, how the mighty have fallen", Voldemort near whispered. "And to think, you were my greatest threat. Perhaps it is wiser to leave you here, festering in your anguish" Harry stayed silent. Voldemort slowly started circling him, the pale moonlight casting eerie shadows unto his face.
"If anything, this whole ordeal has made me realize something very important, young Potter. It's that no matter what, the light always dies in the darkness." And with that last sentence, he spoke two words that made Harry snap up, for they weren't the two he expected.
"Bring her" Voldemort commanded. With those words, two Death Eaters peeled off of the group and walked several paces back.
They came back with a small form pinned between them, not that it was making much of a fuss. The silvery blond hair and slightly out of focus eyes weren't what alerted him to her presence, it was the aura of chaos that always followed her. The deep-rooted madness that was inherent in the young Lovegood's eyes.
"Hello Harry," Luna said cheerfully, acting as if the thirty Death Eaters and the Dark Lord weren't spread around her. He would have smiled at her antics if he weren't in his present situation. Instead, he frowned a little more 'what was she doing here?"
"Luna" he breathed out. The first words that he had spoken in days. "What are you doing here? How did they capture you"? His voice was steadily rising with a certain bit of panic in the pitch. 'Not another one', he thought. He couldn't handle seeing another one die.
"It's ok Harry. There's nothing you could have done" she said, with a sad smile on her face. Luna was the purest person he had ever met. It would break him to see her light fade. "There's only one thing you can do for us, Harry. You must use the weapon we talked about last week in the broom closet. It is the only way". His mind raced back to that eventful night. A lot more had happened in that closet than just discussion of obscure magics.
'No' he thought, there was no way he would stoop down to that level. To use dark magic. "I can't Luna. I'd become just like him."
"No Harry, you could never be like him. He will forever be lost to his own self-hatred at the fact that he could never comprehend love. The sleepless nights he spent as a child staring up at a dark orphanage ceiling without even an inkling of love. His parent's died cowards, never caring for the mistake they had made. He is nothing but a disgusting abomination born of love potions". With that Luna closed her eyes, resigned to the inevitable death that her words had provoked.
The dark lord struck out with uncontrolled anger, and a thin line of blood showed through Luna's blindingly white blouse.
"NO" Harry Screamed.
"Nagini" Voldemort cooed, a wicked grin on his inhuman face, "Feast".
Harry watched, secure in the snakelike bindings that were wrapped around him as the massive snake devoured Luna. He couldn't look away as the jaw unhinged and in an impossible display of flexibility, it consumed his love in one gulp.
A cold feeling spread through Harry's chest as Voldemort laughed a cruel laugh. A thousand thoughts ran through his head at that moment and only one stuck. Revenge. There had to be death. The sins of this monster would be washed away with the death of everybody in the clearing. He channeled all of his focus into the wand in Voldemort's hand. The familiar wand that had once belonged to a certain headmaster. Harry had pieced it together. It was loyal to him. HE had disarmed Draco in the astronomy tower, who had disarmed Dumbledore. In fact, his own wand had been steadily failing him as the bond weakened every day in favor of the Deathstick. He willed it towards himself and was surprised when it came flying towards him.
Voldemort's eyes widened as the slim piece of wood flew unexpectedly out of hands, and directly into his enemy's. At that moment there was a shockwave that knocked everyone off their feet. Voldemort recovered first, his old wand which had been hidden in his left robe sleeve was already in his hand and alert.
When the dust cleared there was an unmoving body lying in the middle of the clearing. Potter's body. Voldemort grinned. "Snape!", He called out.
A robed figure from the back of the crowd approached him slowly. "Milord", he questioned.
"Go, Severus. Check if the boy is dead". Snape grimaced. There were tears slowly running down his cheeks, not that the dark lord could see them, being obscured by his mask.
"Yes, Milord", he managed to choke out. He slowly walked to the body, all the while cursing himself for his weakness. He had hated Potter. Hadn't he? No, he decided. He hadn't hated Potter, but rather he hated the idea of him. The look of him. He knew, deep down inside of his soul, that Harry Potter was the best mixture of the Potters that could have ever come out of the pair. Harry had Lily's fiery temper and beautiful eyes, as well as her cunning and cleverness. From James, he had inherited the marauder's only good qualities. The ability to be brave even in the face of death, and an inherent kindness that was only ever shown to those he loved.
He kneeled upon reaching the body, stretching his pale fingers to the boy's neck. His eyes suddenly widened. There was a pulse. "Run Snape. If you want to live then for the love of god, Run." The boy whispered. The ex-potions master's eyes widened. Why would Potter spare him? All he had ever caused him was hate.
"Well?" Bellatrix demanded, "Is he dead?"
"Yes", Snape drawled out. "The boy who lived… is dead".
Bellatrix let out an insane laugh, which was followed by cheering. The death eaters laughed and howled with excitement, and in the chaos, Snape silently slipped away from the crowd undetected.
Harry lay there in the slick grass that was coated in dew from the cool night. He stayed limp as he heard snape walk away from him. He stayed limp as the death eaters celebrated his death, and he didn't flinch when he was hit by curse after curse from the death eaters, likely attempting to desecrate his body. He felt nothing however, the spells seemingly didn't affect him. It was as if they simply dissolved against his skin. Harry felt a sudden shift and the curses stopped.
Harry felt a pulse in his left hand. His eyes glanced to his limp hand, to find that the snitch that had been in his hands moments ago was blown to pieces, replaced by a smooth rock pulsating with power, and coated in blood. He looked around and realized that the dark wizards weren't moving. They seemed to be frozen in time.
Six noticeable figures appeared around Harry, startling him something fierce. They were completely transparent and in a relaxed stance. The figures of Harry's parents, Sirius, Luna, Hermione, and Ron had surrounded him.
"You can do this, Harry" James whispered. "You're so close, my son."
Harry got to his feet and started slowly moving towards his mother. "Mum?" he asked with a lump in his throat. He reached out to try to touch her outstretched hand but found that his hand simply went through. She was an apparition.
Lilly's face crumpled when her son's hand went through hers, denying her the touch she had been waiting for for so long. "We are so proud of you, my love" she uttered. "You'll be with us soon enough."
Harry turned to Sirius. "Does it hurt?" He asked, "Dying?"
"Quicker than falling asleep" Sirius said brokenly.
He then turned to Luna, Hermione, and Ron. "I never wanted any of you to die for me. You were supposed to live god-damn it!".
"You can't stop change, Harry," Luna said brightly. "No better than you can stop the sun from setting".
"It's not as bad as you'd think, you know." Herminie said, "They have every book ever created up there." Harry smiled. Only Herminie.
"I'll be whooping you in wizarding chess as soon as you get up there with us of course", Ron said, a grin on his face. "You wouldn't believe the food that the afterlife has to offer."
"You must use the spell, my dear." Lilly said, causing the mood to shift immediately, "It is the only way to destroy not only Voldemort, but the snake Horcrux, and the one inside your head."
Harry nodded and grimaced slightly. "You'll all stay with me, right?"
"Until the end," his father replied.
"And He won't be able to see you?" Harry asked, "Voldemort, I mean"
"No, my son," Lilly replied. Without missing a beat, James walked up to Harry and pointed to his heart. "We're here, you see."
Harry nodded, tears streaming down his face. "Ok," he said. "I'm ready".
And with that time unfroze, and Harry felt the power of Death course through him.
The excited crowd was brought silent by movement in the center of the clearing. One of the more forgettable death eaters' eyes widened in shock. "Potter!", he shrieked. In that moment a flicker of surprise shone through the red eyes of the devil himself. Snape had lied.
Harry Potter rose from his spot on the ground, like a Phoenix rising from the ashes, and he started giggling. It went from giggling to laughter, and from laughter to a heaving that churned the Death Eater's stomachs. Nothing good would come from the young Potter.
"YOU TOOK EVERYTHING FROM ME" Harry screamed. His vocal cords were still rough from disuse, so it came out much scarier than he had intended.
The entire crowd heard voices coming from the young Potter. Only those who had witnessed the Veil of Death in the D.O.M. had experienced anything like it. Whispers of their victims filled their ears, screams of the tormented. "Bow to our master", the disembodied voices repeated, over and over. A feeling of utter despair, far worse than the cold touch of a dementor. The incredibly off-putting feeling of Death fell over the clearing, which was slowly starting to lighten from the sunrise on the west.
Bright transparent symbols started to be drawn in all the air all around the boy. Symbols of a wand encapsulated inside a triangle, which was surrounded by a circle. The symbols had slightly lit up the clearing with their eerie glow. It was then that Voldemort understood. The snitch that was once clasped in the boy's left hand had been blown to shreds, leaving a bloody rock encased in his hand. The flowing and silvery cloak that rested on the boy's cloak fluttered, almost as if there was a light breeze blowing through the clearing. Finally, in the boy's right hand he held a wand. Said wand was vibrating with unrestrained power that only bode badly for the dark wizards.
"For neither can live while the other survives" Harry said, almost lovingly. "What a joke".
"Lower the Anti Apparition wards!" One Death Eater screamed.
Harry simply rose his wand and blasted raw power into the sky. It connected with an invisible barrier and reinforced the ward that the dark wizards were trying so hard to bring down. They quivered before the sight that beheld them. Harry Potter was standing there, eyes blazing killing curse green.
"You know Voldemort" Harry whispered, barely audible to the crowd, "If there's one thing I've learned throughout this whole ordeal, it's that you were always the weak one. You always have been. Your fear of death secured your life for a short time, but even the strongest of wizards all meet the same, cold grave. Although I'd wager a bet that your grave will be hot, firey, and very, very painful. Only when you can accept death as an ally, can you truly become it's equal."
And with that Harry Leveled his wand at the front of the crowd. Over thirty killing curses were thrown at him, but it was too late. Harry had already begun the words to the darkest, most foul, most beautiful magic to ever grace the earth. "Ignis Tartari, Fiendfyre". Small tendrils of fire escaped Harry's wand, immediately spreading around him and consuming the Killing Curses.
"You see Voldemort, when the world is tainted with evil, sometimes the only remedy is to reduce all of creation to ash." And with those words, the fire coalesced into a massive, beautiful stag made up of unholy hellfire.
The fire consumed all.
END
A/N Please Review and let me know what you thought.