ONE MAN'S FATE (R) BY IAMSHADOW
Title: One Man's Fate
Author: iamshadow
Ship: Gen
Word Count: 3,099
Rating: R
Warnings: Character deaths (canon and possibly non-canon). Grief. Angst. Violence and gore. AU.
Summary: The Battle of Hogwarts, remixed.
A/N: Because canon is just too fucking cruel.
I can't help feeling this is a bit rougher than my usual work, so if subtle changes occur over the next day or two, that's why. If you notice anything glaringly obvious that needs fixing, let me know in the comments.
This story contains dialogue and situations originally created by and belonging by copyright to JK Rowling. Some lines of dialogue are taken and used verbatim from Chapter Thirty One (The Battle of Hogwarts), Chapter Thirty Two (The Elder Wand), Chapter Thirty Three (The Prince's Tale) and Chapter Thirty Four (The Forest Again) of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows (p. 512-531, 555-559 of the Bloomsbury hardcover edition). However, the arrangement and descriptive passages surrounding any copyrighted dialogue, and any additional dialogue not contained in JK Rowling's work, is my own.
Indivisible By Two Fics HERE
The world exploded into light and sound and things that pummelled him with fists and slashed him with knives. When Harry finally came to rest, his ears still rung with the din of it, his face was wet with blood, and someone close by was making terrible, frantic cries of denial and grief.
“No - no - no! No! Fred! No!” Percy wailed over the body of his brother, who was never so terribly still, ever, even in sleep.
“Get down!” Harry screamed, as another flurry of spells sped through the wall, which was now open to the air outside like a gaping wound. He, Ron and Hermione hit the floor in a tangle of limbs as the beams of light flew over their heads. “Percy, come on, we’ve got to move!”
Percy refused, holding tight to his fallen brother even when Ron tried to drag him away. “Percy!” Ron sobbed. “Percy, you can’t do anything for him! We’re going to -”
Acromantulas began climbing into the castle. Ron and Harry fired off spells in tandem, holding the gigantic creatures at bay, before another wave of curses began shooting their way.
“Let’s move - NOW!” Harry shouted, shoving Hermione and Ron forward. He was crouching down to lift Fred when he stopped, suddenly struck by a thought. “Help me - help me move him. Quickly! There might still be time.”
While Ron and Hermione covered them, Percy helped Harry carry Fred’s body.
“In here!” Harry shouted. They manoeuvred into an empty classroom and Hermione Sealed the door with a hasty Colloportus. While Harry unbuttoned Fred’s shirt, he tried not to look at his face; at those eyes, fixed and glassy, like Cedric’s, three years earlier.
But unlike Cedric, Fred hadn’t been hit by an Unforgivable Curse.
Harry was vaguely aware of Ron and Percy watching him blankly, of the pounding on the Sealed door by the enemies without who were attempting to gain entrance.
“Harry,” Hermione asked tentatively as he felt for a pulse. “What are you doing?”
“Something,” he said, as he predictably failed to find one. “Anything. I’m not letting him go without a fight.”
“Do you even know how -” she began.
“Either help me or stand guard,” he snapped, knowing that the truth - that he had seen something once on television while the Dursleys were out that had given him a rough idea of the mechanics involved - would be unlikely to inspire confidence.
Hermione tugged Ron aside to help her lay more enchantments on the door. Harry placed the lower heel of his interlaced hands on Fred’s sternum and looked up at Percy, who was watching expectantly.
“I need your help,” Harry said, hoping his voice was steady and even. “I’m going to be massaging his heart, moving his blood. I need you to breathe for him. Pinch his nose, and blow into his mouth. Two quick breaths before I start, then once after every fifteenth compression. Understand?”
Percy nodded and moved closer to Fred’s head, pinching his brother’s nose closed, then at Harry’s nod, opened his Fred’s mouth and puffed air into his lungs. With a deep breath of his own, Harry leaned forward and began rhythmically pumping Fred’s chest.
After only a couple of minutes, Harry was gasping with the effort. He was coated in a sheen of sweat, and a steady drip of blood from his scalp laceration was streaking his arms and Fred’s torso with red.
“Come on, you bastard!” he growled through gritted teeth, even as he mentally kept up the count, one-and-two-and-three-and-four-and-five.
“Harry,” he heard Ron say in a broken voice from somewhere behind him. “Harry...he’s...it’s not working.”
“I won’t let you!” Harry shouted at Fred. His count had changed, somehow. Though aloud he was still grunting numbers, internally he heard names. Cedric, Sirius, Dumbledore, Mad Eye, Dobby...
He was aware that his arms and back were screaming at him for him to cease. Percy hesitated, before blowing another breath into Fred’s gaping mouth. In frustration, Harry stopped the compressions and slammed a closed fist with all his strength into Fred’s breastbone. And again. And again.
Harry was raising his fist for a fourth time, and in his peripheral vision could see Ron moving to catch his arm, when Fred twitched, inhaled a huge, gasping breath, and began to cough violently. “You fucking bastard, George,” he croaked between spasms, looking directly at Percy. “That was not Firewhiskey! I’m going to give you leprosy and make your bits fall off. Where’s m’ bloody wand?”
Harry collapsed back onto his heels in shock and exhaustion. He heard Hermione give a little cry. Ron dropped to his knees beside Fred, as though he were a puppet whose strings had been cut, and Percy burst into tears.
Fred looked perplexed and irritated by his older brother’s hysterics. “For Merlin’s sake! I won’t actually do it, you big girl. I just need to get this Leadlegs Jinx off. Not unless you want me to crawl to the bar for the next round.” He patted the floor around him. “Where is it? I know I had it, just now...”
Harry thought, through the fog of realisation that it had actually worked, that Fred’s wand was likely buried under the wall that had killed him, however briefly.
“Can you not feel your legs at all?” Hermione asked sharply.
Fred snorted. “Course not! They’re all heavy and numb. That’s why I’ve gotta find my wand.” He leered at Hermione. “Can’t buy you a drink otherwise, can I, sweetheart?” Fred planted his hands on the floor, as if he was making to sit up.
“No, don’t move,” Hermione said quickly. “Is this it?” She held out her own wand, point first.
Fred sank back down again and smiled, dashingly. “You’re an angel, you are,” he said, raising a hand to take it off her.
“Petrificus Totalus!” Hermione snapped. Fred went as stiff as a board. “I’m sorry,” she said with genuine regret.
“What was that for?” Ron shouted angrily.
“He’s not just concussed and talking nonsense. He’s hurt his spine, Ron,” Hermione murmured. “If he moves again - if we move him again - it could kill him.”
“Oh,” Ron said softly, looking down at his brother, who was again far too still, but this time was breathing, and from the look in his eyes, quite pissed off. “What do we do?”
“Someone will have to stay with him,” Hermione said. “He can’t defend himself, and if his heart stops again...”
“I’ll stay,” Percy immediately offered. “I think I could do that stuff on my own if...if he needed it. And I can defend myself,” he raised his chin a little, with evident pride.
“Good,” Hermione said. “We have to go. We have to find the snake.”
Ron looked reluctant, glancing down at his immobile brother, but didn’t argue.
Hermione swiftly turned to Harry, when she saw that Ron wasn’t going to cause a fuss at leaving his brothers to their own devices. “You need to find out where Voldemort is, Harry, because he’ll have the snake with him, won’t he? Do it, Harry - look inside him!”
Harry closed his eyes and reached for the connection within himself. He was alone, in a dusty, decaying room; the snake, Nagini, coiling in midair in a sparkling, magical enclosure. When he glanced out an unboarded window, he could see the lights of the castle and hear the faint sounds of battle.
“He’s in the Shrieking Shack,” Harry said when he opened his eyes, knowing he was correct. “He’s got Nagini with him, and as far as I could see, he’s on his own.”
“Voldemort’s sitting in the Shrieking Shack?” Hermione asked, incredulously. “He’s not - he’s not even fighting?”
“No. He’s just...sitting there,” Harry said, confused.
“Maybe he’s waiting for you to come to him?” Ron suggested, his forehead furrowed in a calculating frown.
“Right,” Harry said fumbling for his Invisibility Cloak. “You two stay here. I’ll be back as soon as I -”
A brief argument ensued, in which Harry insisted it was easier if he went alone, Ron insisted, with a chess player’s logic, that Harry was too valuable whereas he was disposable, and Hermione insisted they were both self-sacrificing idiots, and that all three of them would be going.
“How are we going to get out of here?” Ron asked, after Hermione had browbeaten them into agreeing with her plan. He was staring at the heavily reinforced door, listening to the roar and crash of ongoing fighting. “How do we know we’re not just going to let a bunch of them in to kill us?”
“There are Charms to make the wall transparent so we could see out,” Hermione admitted, “but they’d be able to see in as well.”
“Would this help?” Percy asked, holding up a flesh coloured string.
“What are you doing with an Extendable Ear?” Ron asked, incredulously.
“I turned out his pockets, just now, in case he had something useful,” Percy admitted, looking slightly guilty.
Glancing at Fred’s incensed expression, Harry was sure the injured Weasley thought he’d been attacked and mugged in an elaborate setup, and was plotting revenge even through his heavy concussion. Percy was likely very lucky that Fred couldn’t do anything but glare.
Using the Extendable Ear, they timed their exit as neatly as they could, quickly slipping out during a moment when the corridor was mostly empty. Percy immediately shut the door behind them, barricading himself and Fred inside as best he could. Checking once more that they were concealed as well as possible, the three of them set off.
The first thing they discovered was the grisly remains of two Death Eaters. The scent of blood was heavy in the air, and Harry heard Ron gag. He felt rather green himself. Hermione laid a gentle hand on each of them.
“Don’t look,” she said, in a slightly tremulous voice. “Just...just walk around.”
It was a harder task than it sounded. The bodies were sort of...spread out. Harry couldn’t help but glance down once or twice. The men looked as though they’d been trampled by a herd of animals; that is, if animals had square hooves. Their heads were completely crushed, faces beyond recognition. The right foot of one corpse twitched every now and then, reflexively.
A severely damaged student desk lay on the ground nearby, creaking woodenly in obvious distress.
“Reparo,” Hermione said softly, and the shattered leg reformed and reattached itself. The desk righted itself neatly, and trotted down the corridor towards the din of battle. It escaped none of the three that the legs of the desk were liberally spattered with crimson.
“I carved ‘Chudley Rules’ on a desk in History of Magic, once,” Ron whispered, clearly terrified. “Do you think it...knows?”
Hermione tutted, but tried to reassure him. “They’ve most likely been enchanted to defend the castle and its rightful inhabitants. They’re not sentient enough to pursue personal vendettas.” Ron let out an audible sigh of relief. “Still, you ought to be ashamed of yourself,” Hermione admonished, disapprovingly.
They moved on; their temporary distraction making way for urgency. A fierce confrontation was taking place ahead. Dean was battling desperately against Dolohov, his lips drawn back in a snarl of exertion. He was standing over Parvati Patil, who was bleeding heavily and clearly unable to stand but still attempting to defend Dean from other attackers, though her spells were weak and her aim poor.
The floor was wickedly slippery and slick with blood and what appeared to be juice from the Snargaluff pods that were scattered everywhere like confetti. They passed a gibbering Draco Malfoy with barely a glance. He was tucked into an alcove, knees drawn up to his chest, a wand in his hand and a dead Death Eater at his feet.
“I’m on your side,” he was insisting in a broken voice, over and over, to the body or to the empty air, it wasn’t clear which.
The Entrance Hall was mainly empty of combatants, though obviously a vicious battle had taken place only a short time beforehand. The massive doors were ajar, and the floor was littered with glass and emeralds. Bodies lay all around with no segregation. Lavender Brown, her shoulder bloody and mauled, lay side-by-side with Fenrir Greyback, whose skull was dented and embedded with thick shards of glass.
Outside, it was eerily still and cold, though they could hear the distant sounds of the roars of giants. Harry felt the familiar feelings of despair, of hopelessness, creeping over him, and his skin prickled with gooseflesh. “Your wands, now!” he said.
Though countless others were dead and dying, Harry reached inside himself and drew on the thread of hope spun only a short time before. Fred is ALIVE, Harry thought, the knowledge filling him with a warm glow. I brought him back. His stag Patronus shot from his wand, vibrant and powerful, keeping the Dementors at bay. It was joined by Ron’s terrier, burning so brightly it pulsed, and Hermione’s otter, which flickered like a guttering candle, then held firm.
They ran as fast as they could to the Whomping Willow, disguise and stealth abandoned in favour of speed. The open grounds of the castle were pitted with craters and scattered with corpses and chunks of debris. Harry turned his ankles painfully, more than once, but they couldn’t afford to slow down. Not when the final Horcrux was so close, when the battle was so desperate.
Hermione and Ron had a brief, out-of-breath argument over methods to stop the tree’s flailing branches, and then they were down there, in the tunnel leading to the place where Voldemort lay in wait.
“Maybe you should go back,” Harry murmured. “Maybe this is another trap...y’know, like...like before.” He didn’t - couldn’t - go into more detail about the past, for the sake of his own resolve. “Maybe he’s waiting up there with a bunch of Death Eaters for me to turn up.”
“If you think we’re leaving you to go in there alone, you’re barking mad,” Ron said stubbornly.
“We’re doing this together,” Hermione agreed.
The passage was narrow and claustrophobic, seeming much smaller than when they were thirteen. Harry felt that they must have descended into the very bowels of the earth, before they drew close to the end. The pain in his head was throbbing steadily, anger flowing back along the connection. They were almost at the top when he felt a sudden surge of rage, and had to clutch at Ron for balance.
“Harry?” Ron asked, worriedly.
Harry shook his head, wordlessly, and allowed his eyes to sink closed. In his mind’s eye, the room at the Shrieking Shack appeared.
Severus Snape stood in the centre of the room, his face frozen and pale.
“You have been a good and faithful servant, Severus, and I regret what must happen,” Voldemort said.
“My Lord -” Snape began.
“The Elder Wand cannot serve me properly, Severus, because I am not its true master,” Voldemort continued. “The Elder Wand belongs to the wizard who killed its last owner. You killed Albus Dumbledore. While you live, Severus, the Elder Wand cannot truly be mine.”
Harry felt a sickening jolt, realising what he was about to witness.
“My Lord!” Snape cried.
“It cannot be any other way. I must master the wand, Severus. Master the wand, and I master Potter at last.”
Voldemort raised his wand, and Harry flinched, bracing himself for the brilliant flash of green. It never came. Instead, he watched with horror as Nagini was ordered to kill.
“I regret it,” Voldemort said, his tone completely devoid of feeling, as Snape lay bleeding his life out on the floor. He walked away.
“Hurry!” Harry snapped, running for the end of the tunnel, drawing his wand and levitating the crate aside that was blocking the hole.
Then he stood, looking down at Snape, as the man gasped and struggled against the inevitable. He knelt by his enemy’s side, his emotions indescribable, and collected the memories that leaked from him like blood.
“Look...at...me...” Snape breathed. Without knowing why Snape would want him to, and without knowing why he complied, Harry watched the light leave Severus Snape’s eyes.
***
Walking into the Forest after watching Snape’s memories, Harry dwelt for a moment on the dead, laid out in silent, accusatory rows. Remus and Tonks had lain side-by-side, never again to hold their baby son. Colin Creevey had been a mere armful for Oliver Wood to carry. Harry knew he would join them soon, in death.
But even as the Dementors closed in around him, his thoughts kept being drawn back to the Weasleys. They had stood in a group in a corner of the Great Hall, clustered around Fred so tightly that Harry could hardly see him. Mrs Weasley had been standing, crying, in her husband’s arms. Hermione had taken it upon herself to comfort Ginny, and Ron had walked straight up to Percy and hugged him, not letting go for a long moment. And George...
George had been lying on the floor, parallel to his twin, his forehead pressed to Fred’s. Tears flowed down his cheeks, and Harry could see his shoulders shaking with the force of his sobs. Fred was flat on his back, immobilised from the armpits down by a shimmering, pale blue field, but the confusion brought on by the concussion seemed to have been alleviated. Fred had one arm curled around his twin’s back, the hand of the other woven in the hair at the nape of his neck, and was murmuring continuously to him, in a voice pitched for George’s ear only. Every now and then Fred cracked a smile, or George bit his lip and nodded at something Fred had said. They were damaged, both of them, but they were together, and that was as it should be.
Harry had slipped away before they saw him, up to Dumbledore’s office. He was glad of that, now. They all had each other, and would help each other through, no matter what happened.
Harry understood the balance of things. He had snatched Fred from the jaws of death, and now he went to meet his own end. It seemed almost right, in a way, that the events put into motion when he was just a toddler should come full circle. That he should stand before his nemesis, as defenceless as that baby, and embrace what his foe most feared.
Harry took another determined step forward, and pressed the cold metal orb against his lips.
“I am about to die,” he breathed, accepting his fate.
***
Author's Afterword
CPR is a skill everyone should learn. Until the ambulance or the person with a defibrillator arrives, you are keeping that person's blood circulating, keeping their chances of survival at their highest, helping to prevent brain damage if they are brought back.
For timeline pickers, yes, the rhythm Harry uses is the current ratio (30:2), not the one used in 1998, but in this case I felt the up to date information was more important.
And there have been cases of people using CPR effectively after only having seen it on television. Take eleven year old Lachlan Nally, for example, who revived his father after a car accident on a remote road in South Australia then ran three kilometres down the road, at night, barefoot, to the nearest town for help.
WWW Run To You ->
Author: iamshadow
Ship: Gen
Word Count: 3,099
Rating: R
Warnings: Character deaths (canon and possibly non-canon). Grief. Angst. Violence and gore. AU.
Summary: The Battle of Hogwarts, remixed.
A/N: Because canon is just too fucking cruel.
I can't help feeling this is a bit rougher than my usual work, so if subtle changes occur over the next day or two, that's why. If you notice anything glaringly obvious that needs fixing, let me know in the comments.
This story contains dialogue and situations originally created by and belonging by copyright to JK Rowling. Some lines of dialogue are taken and used verbatim from Chapter Thirty One (The Battle of Hogwarts), Chapter Thirty Two (The Elder Wand), Chapter Thirty Three (The Prince's Tale) and Chapter Thirty Four (The Forest Again) of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows (p. 512-531, 555-559 of the Bloomsbury hardcover edition). However, the arrangement and descriptive passages surrounding any copyrighted dialogue, and any additional dialogue not contained in JK Rowling's work, is my own.
Indivisible By Two Fics HERE
The world exploded into light and sound and things that pummelled him with fists and slashed him with knives. When Harry finally came to rest, his ears still rung with the din of it, his face was wet with blood, and someone close by was making terrible, frantic cries of denial and grief.
“No - no - no! No! Fred! No!” Percy wailed over the body of his brother, who was never so terribly still, ever, even in sleep.
“Get down!” Harry screamed, as another flurry of spells sped through the wall, which was now open to the air outside like a gaping wound. He, Ron and Hermione hit the floor in a tangle of limbs as the beams of light flew over their heads. “Percy, come on, we’ve got to move!”
Percy refused, holding tight to his fallen brother even when Ron tried to drag him away. “Percy!” Ron sobbed. “Percy, you can’t do anything for him! We’re going to -”
Acromantulas began climbing into the castle. Ron and Harry fired off spells in tandem, holding the gigantic creatures at bay, before another wave of curses began shooting their way.
“Let’s move - NOW!” Harry shouted, shoving Hermione and Ron forward. He was crouching down to lift Fred when he stopped, suddenly struck by a thought. “Help me - help me move him. Quickly! There might still be time.”
While Ron and Hermione covered them, Percy helped Harry carry Fred’s body.
“In here!” Harry shouted. They manoeuvred into an empty classroom and Hermione Sealed the door with a hasty Colloportus. While Harry unbuttoned Fred’s shirt, he tried not to look at his face; at those eyes, fixed and glassy, like Cedric’s, three years earlier.
But unlike Cedric, Fred hadn’t been hit by an Unforgivable Curse.
Harry was vaguely aware of Ron and Percy watching him blankly, of the pounding on the Sealed door by the enemies without who were attempting to gain entrance.
“Harry,” Hermione asked tentatively as he felt for a pulse. “What are you doing?”
“Something,” he said, as he predictably failed to find one. “Anything. I’m not letting him go without a fight.”
“Do you even know how -” she began.
“Either help me or stand guard,” he snapped, knowing that the truth - that he had seen something once on television while the Dursleys were out that had given him a rough idea of the mechanics involved - would be unlikely to inspire confidence.
Hermione tugged Ron aside to help her lay more enchantments on the door. Harry placed the lower heel of his interlaced hands on Fred’s sternum and looked up at Percy, who was watching expectantly.
“I need your help,” Harry said, hoping his voice was steady and even. “I’m going to be massaging his heart, moving his blood. I need you to breathe for him. Pinch his nose, and blow into his mouth. Two quick breaths before I start, then once after every fifteenth compression. Understand?”
Percy nodded and moved closer to Fred’s head, pinching his brother’s nose closed, then at Harry’s nod, opened his Fred’s mouth and puffed air into his lungs. With a deep breath of his own, Harry leaned forward and began rhythmically pumping Fred’s chest.
After only a couple of minutes, Harry was gasping with the effort. He was coated in a sheen of sweat, and a steady drip of blood from his scalp laceration was streaking his arms and Fred’s torso with red.
“Come on, you bastard!” he growled through gritted teeth, even as he mentally kept up the count, one-and-two-and-three-and-four-and-five.
“Harry,” he heard Ron say in a broken voice from somewhere behind him. “Harry...he’s...it’s not working.”
“I won’t let you!” Harry shouted at Fred. His count had changed, somehow. Though aloud he was still grunting numbers, internally he heard names. Cedric, Sirius, Dumbledore, Mad Eye, Dobby...
He was aware that his arms and back were screaming at him for him to cease. Percy hesitated, before blowing another breath into Fred’s gaping mouth. In frustration, Harry stopped the compressions and slammed a closed fist with all his strength into Fred’s breastbone. And again. And again.
Harry was raising his fist for a fourth time, and in his peripheral vision could see Ron moving to catch his arm, when Fred twitched, inhaled a huge, gasping breath, and began to cough violently. “You fucking bastard, George,” he croaked between spasms, looking directly at Percy. “That was not Firewhiskey! I’m going to give you leprosy and make your bits fall off. Where’s m’ bloody wand?”
Harry collapsed back onto his heels in shock and exhaustion. He heard Hermione give a little cry. Ron dropped to his knees beside Fred, as though he were a puppet whose strings had been cut, and Percy burst into tears.
Fred looked perplexed and irritated by his older brother’s hysterics. “For Merlin’s sake! I won’t actually do it, you big girl. I just need to get this Leadlegs Jinx off. Not unless you want me to crawl to the bar for the next round.” He patted the floor around him. “Where is it? I know I had it, just now...”
Harry thought, through the fog of realisation that it had actually worked, that Fred’s wand was likely buried under the wall that had killed him, however briefly.
“Can you not feel your legs at all?” Hermione asked sharply.
Fred snorted. “Course not! They’re all heavy and numb. That’s why I’ve gotta find my wand.” He leered at Hermione. “Can’t buy you a drink otherwise, can I, sweetheart?” Fred planted his hands on the floor, as if he was making to sit up.
“No, don’t move,” Hermione said quickly. “Is this it?” She held out her own wand, point first.
Fred sank back down again and smiled, dashingly. “You’re an angel, you are,” he said, raising a hand to take it off her.
“Petrificus Totalus!” Hermione snapped. Fred went as stiff as a board. “I’m sorry,” she said with genuine regret.
“What was that for?” Ron shouted angrily.
“He’s not just concussed and talking nonsense. He’s hurt his spine, Ron,” Hermione murmured. “If he moves again - if we move him again - it could kill him.”
“Oh,” Ron said softly, looking down at his brother, who was again far too still, but this time was breathing, and from the look in his eyes, quite pissed off. “What do we do?”
“Someone will have to stay with him,” Hermione said. “He can’t defend himself, and if his heart stops again...”
“I’ll stay,” Percy immediately offered. “I think I could do that stuff on my own if...if he needed it. And I can defend myself,” he raised his chin a little, with evident pride.
“Good,” Hermione said. “We have to go. We have to find the snake.”
Ron looked reluctant, glancing down at his immobile brother, but didn’t argue.
Hermione swiftly turned to Harry, when she saw that Ron wasn’t going to cause a fuss at leaving his brothers to their own devices. “You need to find out where Voldemort is, Harry, because he’ll have the snake with him, won’t he? Do it, Harry - look inside him!”
Harry closed his eyes and reached for the connection within himself. He was alone, in a dusty, decaying room; the snake, Nagini, coiling in midair in a sparkling, magical enclosure. When he glanced out an unboarded window, he could see the lights of the castle and hear the faint sounds of battle.
“He’s in the Shrieking Shack,” Harry said when he opened his eyes, knowing he was correct. “He’s got Nagini with him, and as far as I could see, he’s on his own.”
“Voldemort’s sitting in the Shrieking Shack?” Hermione asked, incredulously. “He’s not - he’s not even fighting?”
“No. He’s just...sitting there,” Harry said, confused.
“Maybe he’s waiting for you to come to him?” Ron suggested, his forehead furrowed in a calculating frown.
“Right,” Harry said fumbling for his Invisibility Cloak. “You two stay here. I’ll be back as soon as I -”
A brief argument ensued, in which Harry insisted it was easier if he went alone, Ron insisted, with a chess player’s logic, that Harry was too valuable whereas he was disposable, and Hermione insisted they were both self-sacrificing idiots, and that all three of them would be going.
“How are we going to get out of here?” Ron asked, after Hermione had browbeaten them into agreeing with her plan. He was staring at the heavily reinforced door, listening to the roar and crash of ongoing fighting. “How do we know we’re not just going to let a bunch of them in to kill us?”
“There are Charms to make the wall transparent so we could see out,” Hermione admitted, “but they’d be able to see in as well.”
“Would this help?” Percy asked, holding up a flesh coloured string.
“What are you doing with an Extendable Ear?” Ron asked, incredulously.
“I turned out his pockets, just now, in case he had something useful,” Percy admitted, looking slightly guilty.
Glancing at Fred’s incensed expression, Harry was sure the injured Weasley thought he’d been attacked and mugged in an elaborate setup, and was plotting revenge even through his heavy concussion. Percy was likely very lucky that Fred couldn’t do anything but glare.
Using the Extendable Ear, they timed their exit as neatly as they could, quickly slipping out during a moment when the corridor was mostly empty. Percy immediately shut the door behind them, barricading himself and Fred inside as best he could. Checking once more that they were concealed as well as possible, the three of them set off.
The first thing they discovered was the grisly remains of two Death Eaters. The scent of blood was heavy in the air, and Harry heard Ron gag. He felt rather green himself. Hermione laid a gentle hand on each of them.
“Don’t look,” she said, in a slightly tremulous voice. “Just...just walk around.”
It was a harder task than it sounded. The bodies were sort of...spread out. Harry couldn’t help but glance down once or twice. The men looked as though they’d been trampled by a herd of animals; that is, if animals had square hooves. Their heads were completely crushed, faces beyond recognition. The right foot of one corpse twitched every now and then, reflexively.
A severely damaged student desk lay on the ground nearby, creaking woodenly in obvious distress.
“Reparo,” Hermione said softly, and the shattered leg reformed and reattached itself. The desk righted itself neatly, and trotted down the corridor towards the din of battle. It escaped none of the three that the legs of the desk were liberally spattered with crimson.
“I carved ‘Chudley Rules’ on a desk in History of Magic, once,” Ron whispered, clearly terrified. “Do you think it...knows?”
Hermione tutted, but tried to reassure him. “They’ve most likely been enchanted to defend the castle and its rightful inhabitants. They’re not sentient enough to pursue personal vendettas.” Ron let out an audible sigh of relief. “Still, you ought to be ashamed of yourself,” Hermione admonished, disapprovingly.
They moved on; their temporary distraction making way for urgency. A fierce confrontation was taking place ahead. Dean was battling desperately against Dolohov, his lips drawn back in a snarl of exertion. He was standing over Parvati Patil, who was bleeding heavily and clearly unable to stand but still attempting to defend Dean from other attackers, though her spells were weak and her aim poor.
The floor was wickedly slippery and slick with blood and what appeared to be juice from the Snargaluff pods that were scattered everywhere like confetti. They passed a gibbering Draco Malfoy with barely a glance. He was tucked into an alcove, knees drawn up to his chest, a wand in his hand and a dead Death Eater at his feet.
“I’m on your side,” he was insisting in a broken voice, over and over, to the body or to the empty air, it wasn’t clear which.
The Entrance Hall was mainly empty of combatants, though obviously a vicious battle had taken place only a short time beforehand. The massive doors were ajar, and the floor was littered with glass and emeralds. Bodies lay all around with no segregation. Lavender Brown, her shoulder bloody and mauled, lay side-by-side with Fenrir Greyback, whose skull was dented and embedded with thick shards of glass.
Outside, it was eerily still and cold, though they could hear the distant sounds of the roars of giants. Harry felt the familiar feelings of despair, of hopelessness, creeping over him, and his skin prickled with gooseflesh. “Your wands, now!” he said.
Though countless others were dead and dying, Harry reached inside himself and drew on the thread of hope spun only a short time before. Fred is ALIVE, Harry thought, the knowledge filling him with a warm glow. I brought him back. His stag Patronus shot from his wand, vibrant and powerful, keeping the Dementors at bay. It was joined by Ron’s terrier, burning so brightly it pulsed, and Hermione’s otter, which flickered like a guttering candle, then held firm.
They ran as fast as they could to the Whomping Willow, disguise and stealth abandoned in favour of speed. The open grounds of the castle were pitted with craters and scattered with corpses and chunks of debris. Harry turned his ankles painfully, more than once, but they couldn’t afford to slow down. Not when the final Horcrux was so close, when the battle was so desperate.
Hermione and Ron had a brief, out-of-breath argument over methods to stop the tree’s flailing branches, and then they were down there, in the tunnel leading to the place where Voldemort lay in wait.
“Maybe you should go back,” Harry murmured. “Maybe this is another trap...y’know, like...like before.” He didn’t - couldn’t - go into more detail about the past, for the sake of his own resolve. “Maybe he’s waiting up there with a bunch of Death Eaters for me to turn up.”
“If you think we’re leaving you to go in there alone, you’re barking mad,” Ron said stubbornly.
“We’re doing this together,” Hermione agreed.
The passage was narrow and claustrophobic, seeming much smaller than when they were thirteen. Harry felt that they must have descended into the very bowels of the earth, before they drew close to the end. The pain in his head was throbbing steadily, anger flowing back along the connection. They were almost at the top when he felt a sudden surge of rage, and had to clutch at Ron for balance.
“Harry?” Ron asked, worriedly.
Harry shook his head, wordlessly, and allowed his eyes to sink closed. In his mind’s eye, the room at the Shrieking Shack appeared.
Severus Snape stood in the centre of the room, his face frozen and pale.
“You have been a good and faithful servant, Severus, and I regret what must happen,” Voldemort said.
“My Lord -” Snape began.
“The Elder Wand cannot serve me properly, Severus, because I am not its true master,” Voldemort continued. “The Elder Wand belongs to the wizard who killed its last owner. You killed Albus Dumbledore. While you live, Severus, the Elder Wand cannot truly be mine.”
Harry felt a sickening jolt, realising what he was about to witness.
“My Lord!” Snape cried.
“It cannot be any other way. I must master the wand, Severus. Master the wand, and I master Potter at last.”
Voldemort raised his wand, and Harry flinched, bracing himself for the brilliant flash of green. It never came. Instead, he watched with horror as Nagini was ordered to kill.
“I regret it,” Voldemort said, his tone completely devoid of feeling, as Snape lay bleeding his life out on the floor. He walked away.
“Hurry!” Harry snapped, running for the end of the tunnel, drawing his wand and levitating the crate aside that was blocking the hole.
Then he stood, looking down at Snape, as the man gasped and struggled against the inevitable. He knelt by his enemy’s side, his emotions indescribable, and collected the memories that leaked from him like blood.
“Look...at...me...” Snape breathed. Without knowing why Snape would want him to, and without knowing why he complied, Harry watched the light leave Severus Snape’s eyes.
***
Walking into the Forest after watching Snape’s memories, Harry dwelt for a moment on the dead, laid out in silent, accusatory rows. Remus and Tonks had lain side-by-side, never again to hold their baby son. Colin Creevey had been a mere armful for Oliver Wood to carry. Harry knew he would join them soon, in death.
But even as the Dementors closed in around him, his thoughts kept being drawn back to the Weasleys. They had stood in a group in a corner of the Great Hall, clustered around Fred so tightly that Harry could hardly see him. Mrs Weasley had been standing, crying, in her husband’s arms. Hermione had taken it upon herself to comfort Ginny, and Ron had walked straight up to Percy and hugged him, not letting go for a long moment. And George...
George had been lying on the floor, parallel to his twin, his forehead pressed to Fred’s. Tears flowed down his cheeks, and Harry could see his shoulders shaking with the force of his sobs. Fred was flat on his back, immobilised from the armpits down by a shimmering, pale blue field, but the confusion brought on by the concussion seemed to have been alleviated. Fred had one arm curled around his twin’s back, the hand of the other woven in the hair at the nape of his neck, and was murmuring continuously to him, in a voice pitched for George’s ear only. Every now and then Fred cracked a smile, or George bit his lip and nodded at something Fred had said. They were damaged, both of them, but they were together, and that was as it should be.
Harry had slipped away before they saw him, up to Dumbledore’s office. He was glad of that, now. They all had each other, and would help each other through, no matter what happened.
Harry understood the balance of things. He had snatched Fred from the jaws of death, and now he went to meet his own end. It seemed almost right, in a way, that the events put into motion when he was just a toddler should come full circle. That he should stand before his nemesis, as defenceless as that baby, and embrace what his foe most feared.
Harry took another determined step forward, and pressed the cold metal orb against his lips.
“I am about to die,” he breathed, accepting his fate.
***
Author's Afterword
CPR is a skill everyone should learn. Until the ambulance or the person with a defibrillator arrives, you are keeping that person's blood circulating, keeping their chances of survival at their highest, helping to prevent brain damage if they are brought back.
For timeline pickers, yes, the rhythm Harry uses is the current ratio (30:2), not the one used in 1998, but in this case I felt the up to date information was more important.
And there have been cases of people using CPR effectively after only having seen it on television. Take eleven year old Lachlan Nally, for example, who revived his father after a car accident on a remote road in South Australia then ran three kilometres down the road, at night, barefoot, to the nearest town for help.
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