Chapter 17
"Stop you're crying!" The Death Eater in charge for forcing Hagrid on whipped the half-giant again. Ever since they had forced the beast to carry the dead Potter twins, it had blubbered and wailed.
Hagrid tried to quiet himself. The whip bit through his coat, slicing through his layers and his skin. But he couldn't. Harry, who Hagrid had introduced to magic, and Rebecca, who had helped him unimaginably through the years, were dead. Their bodies were heavy as a thousand stones in his arms, his grief weighing them down even more.
Hagrid's feet plodded on, through the forest where he had been taken to the bridge that would take Voldemort and his troops to the courtyard outside the Great Hall. There were fresh footsteps in the mud, but the Death Eaters paid them no attention. As far as they were concerned, the battle was over.
The four who had watched Hagrid pick Harry and Rebecca up from the ground, who had seen how limp their bodies were without life, had returned to the Great Hall minutes before Voldemort had mobilised. The three fifth years waved away Ron and Hermione, and left Draco to describe what they had seen.
Neville listened carefully, brushing the Sorting Hat off as he joined those still strong enough to stand, meeting the arriving forces in the courtyard. He limped, but couldn't consider remaining with the injured. He could still move, and that was all he needed.
The castle lay in ruins. Walls had crumbled and smoke still rose from the ashes. Hogwarts was in pieces.
Ginny was the first Weasley to stand from Fred's side, and the first to exit the hall. Molly and Arthur, and a stream of Weasleys with one notable face missing, followed her. "W-who are they?" Ginny demanded. "Who is that Hagrid's carrying?!"
Students and staff members filled the courtyard. Those who realised where Harry and Rebecca had gone, what had happened, let their tears fall freely.
Voldemort raised his hands up, gesturing to his still-strong numbers. He grinned as he addressed the feeble resistance. "Harry and Rebecca Potter are dead!"
Ginny lunged forward, shouting and fighting against the hands that held her back. Harry and Rebecca...dead? Her screams bounced off the stones until Voldemort waved his wand and silenced her. The emptiness of loss reverberated through the growing crowd.
Ron and Hermione stared emotionless. Though they had had the barest of warnings, the time to prepare themselves, seeing Harry and Rebecca in Hagrid's arms broke something in both of them. Draco, near them, tightened his hold on his wand. Their deaths would not be for nothing.
"Stupid girl!" Voldemort spat his words towards Ginny. "Did you really think they would beat me? Lord Voldemort?" He walked forward and pointed at himself with the Elder Wand, once again speaking to all present. "From this day forth, your faith rests in me!" Voldemort marched back to the front of his Death Eaters, laughing. "The Potters are dead!"
George narrowed his eyes. He had been consumed by murderous rage, first his twin, now Rebecca and Harry. He didn't plan on living through the day, he would die fighting. His eyes hadn't left Hagrid and he had seen--he thought he had seen--Rebecca's fist clench when Voldemort called them the Potters. But it wasn't possible.
"Now..." Voldemort tapped his wand to his other hand. "Now is the time to declare yourselves. Come forward and join us!"
Bellatrix stepped forward to watch the assimilation of the resistance to their forces. "Join us, or die." She smiled maliciously at the prospect of killing all those who refused.
No one moved.
Nigel, Yara, and Louis had each other's hands by their sides, and they held them tighter. Draco caught sight of the look Louis was giving Voldemort, he had received the same look years before.
Arthur kept his hand on Ginny's arm, keeping her from launching an attack that very second. He had already lost two children, he could not lose another.
The remaining fighters of the D.A. stood behind Dean and Seamus, all knowing that they would die before joining that which had killed so many of their school. Of their world.
"Draco!" Lucius hissed, pointing to the ground next to him and beckoning his son like a dog. "Come!"
Narcissa repeated the command when Draco failed to move, but she expected nothing. "Draco, come to us." He had made his decision the day he had left the Manor with the traitors.
Draco stood his ground, and bowed his head. "You're both mad." A hysterical laugh escaped him, and Louis released Nigel's hand to take Draco's wrist. The touch brought Draco back to himself, turning his gaze from his parents to Voldemort himself. "I will not join you as long as I live. Never again."
"Your disobedience will not last long, rest assured of that." Voldemort enunciated the threat carefully.
Neville limped forward, the Sorting Hat still in his hand.
Voldemort pursed his lips. "I must say, I'd hoped for better." The Death Eaters laughed. "Who might you be, young man?"
Neville cocked his head, standing his ground as every eye landed on him. "Neville Longbottom."
Bellatrix's laugh sounded out over the rest. The sight of the son of her greatest triumph joining them was the sweetest revenge she had ever tasted.
"I'm sure we can find a place for you in our ranks." Voldemort promised, turning to search out a Death Eater to assign to him.
"I'd like to say something." Neville interrupted.
Voldemort's hand fell from where he was going to beckon forward one of his men, his fist falling at his side. "I'm sure we'd all be fascinated to hear what you have to say."
Neville stared at Voldemort, not looking away as he began to speak. "It doesn't matter that they're gone."
"Stand down, mate!" Seamus shouted.
Neville turned so that his words were directed at Seamus before sounding out over the courtyard. "People die every day! Friends, family. Yeah, we lost Harry. Yeah, we lost Rebecca. But we still have them!" He spoke through the lump forming in his throat. "We still have Fred. And Remus. And Sirius. And Colin. And everyone else. We have all of them. They didn't die in vain."
Neville had turned as he spoke, turned to his classmates, to his army. They stared up at him, seeing how he was holding Gryffindor's ideals to his heart through his words. Neville turned back to Voldemort. Neville shouted to be heard over Voldemort's laugh. "But you will. And that's a promise." He reached into the hat and pulled out the shining pummel of the Sword of Gryffindor. "This is not over!"
Rebecca and Harry jumped, landing on the ground in front of Hagrid who raised his hands and knocked the Death Eaters around them to the ground in his surprise and shock.
The crowd gasped as Harry and Rebecca moved, rolling away and raising their wands. Harry aimed his at Nagini and sent a plume of fire at the snake. Rebecca levelled hers with Voldemort. "Now, I thought we said not to fuck it up, Tom?"
Voldemort roared and sent a great ball of fire at them. Rebecca jumped over the wall Harry did just as the flames threatened to singe them. George and Cedric ran forward, along with the others in the courtyard, to join the fight beginning again. They were outnumbered, by a lot. But they were reinvigorated by Harry and Rebecca's inexplicable return.
Bellatrix screeched from her perch on the rock she stood on, shouting for the Death Eaters at the rear to stand their ground. Death Eaters disapparated in droves, leaving the army behind Voldemort weaker and weaker, though still larger than the students who fought on.
Rebecca and Harry worked their way to the doors of the Great Hall.
Kingsley stood point in the centre of the courtyard. The cut across his forehead had crusted over in dried blood. Sirius and Remus had pushed him out from under the falling rubble that had taken the pairs lives, and he would lay his life down for their loss to be avenged if the opportunity arose.
Harry grinned as Ron and Hermione intercepted them. "We can get him in the castle."
"But we can't kill him until the snake's dead." Rebecca finished, sending up a shield behind Ron as a stun nearly sent him flying.
"I can't believe you two." Hermione breathed, grabbing their faces before they turned to run back into the castle. "I-"
"I didn't believe it for a second." Ron finished, turning back to the courtyard and lying through his teeth. "Now go!"
Harry and Rebecca tore into the castle, ducking under spells and weaving their way through the ensuing battle the best they could. Wherever they passed, the students of Hogwarts fought with renewed vigour, renewed strength gained just from the sight of their resurrected comrades.
The corridor they were steered to as Cho raised stones into a wall to keep a charging Death Eater from them, was filled with smoke and dust so thickly the only air was near the ground. Harry and Rebecca crouch and crept down it slowly, listening for any sound that would betray Voldemort's location. They had run into the castle to keep him from inflicting widespread damage to those left fighting on their side, now they had to face him alone.
Rebecca crouched down next to the wall at the top of the stairs, slow footsteps climbing towards them. She held her hand out for Harry to wait and jumped out on her own, sending a spell that Voldemort waved away easily. "Stupefy!"
Voldemort sent a barrage of spells back, each blocked by her as Harry waited behind teh wall with a basilisk fang in hand.
Rebecca's eyes widened as Voldemort apparated behind her, his wand poised to strike. Harry jumped forward and met the stream of his spell with a curse of his own.
Harry and Rebecca exchanged the fang and put their backs together. Nagini slithered up the stairs where Voldemort had come from, her tongue sniffing the air.
They pushed against each other, brother and sister, as Harry was pushed away from Voldemort by the strength of his spell and Rebecca tried to wait for Nagini to lunge before attacking with the fang.
The meeting point of their spells grew too close for comfort. Harry redirected it to the ceiling and brought down a massive chunk of stone onto the point where Voldemort had been before he apparated once more. He watched Nagini prepare herself from the stairs leading to the corridor to the right.
Nagini let out a violent hiss as Rebecca held the fang up like a knife, stepping closer to the snake. Harry caught sight of Voldemort preparing to send a spell at Rebecca and reacted the best way he could think too: he threw himself at Rebecca.
The Potter twins rolled down the stairs, striking the bannister and fallen stones on their way and falling off the shattered edge to the second flight of stairs metres below.
The spell Voldemort had sent intending for Rebecca showered them with dust and shards of debris at them. Rebecca tried to reach for the basilisk fang out of her reach, nearing it as Voldemort raised his wand to attack again.
Nigel sprinted down the hall, gingerly holding the shimmering black nugget in his hand. He threw it at his feet as he reached Harry and Rebecca, helping them to their feet in the pitch black shadows he had created.
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In the darkness, Nagini slithered forward and awaited the next command from her master. Voldemort abandoned her momentarily, taking the shadow-form Death Eaters could apparate in. He soared down the hall Harry and Rebecca had disappeared down, leaving his snake to fend for herself.
Nagini recoiled as her body was struck by a stone.
Hermione raised another fist-sized rock and sent it flying at the snake's head.
Nagini reared back and began to study her new target.
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Rebecca led Harry through the aid of Nigel's distraction, insisting that the fifth year return to the bulk of the fighting. She maneuvered through the rubble swiftly, disappearing through holes in the walls Harry didn't notice until he was crawling through them after her.
Once out in another long corridor, they sprinted towards one of the classrooms. With the obstacle course still set up from whatever lecture had been taking place, there were enough places to take cover when Voldemort reached them.
And it didn't take him long.
Harry and Rebecca skidded to a stop on the suspended bridge in the classroom as Voldemort solidified at the opposite side. "Expelliarmus!" Harry shouted, engaging Voldemort and leaving Rebecca to find them a way out.
Voldemort redirected the curse to the chains holding the bridge up, sending them tumbling to the floor.
Rebecca's wand fell out of her hand, clattering away.
Tendrils of Voldemort's robes reached out from him and wrapped themselves around Rebecca's ankles as she tried to crawl after her wand. Harry was already suspended by his throat in the air. She dug her hands into the grooves of the stone floor, throwing herself forward to get to her wand.
She couldn't reach.
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The Great Hall was filled with flashes of light and shouting of curses.
Louis faced a Death Eater on his own, retaliating and responding to every attack strong enough to take the upper hand quickly.
Draco ran around the room, helping wherever he could. The Death Eaters largely left him alone, all too afraid of Lucius and Narcissa's rage if they were the one responsible for taking him down.
Bellatrix stood in front of Luna and Ginny, both girls engaged in fierce battle with Draco's aunt. Curses rebounded around them, a wide circle of clearance given to them by those nearby. George and Cedric were leading waves of those too injured to fight on to safety. George defended the children with his life, Cedric triaged the beaten and bloodied to last long enough to get to Madam Pomfrey.
With Rebecca returned, George's desire had shifted. He would not die in this battle. He could not leave her when they would share their grief. George could not knowingly add to the pain of losing Fred. But he could save as many lives as he could. He could lessen the grief of others.
Crystal balls sailed across the room. Professor Trelawney had summoned her entire collection and was tossing them into the air to launch them like a tennis serve. There was a growing correlation between unconscious Death Eater on the ground and the proximity of a bloodied crystal ball.
Bellatrix got through Luna's defenses and sent her to the ground. Luna cried out as the curse riddled her with electric shocks. Ginny stepped forward, putting herself between Bellatrix and Luna, holding her wand higher.
"What? You want to end up like your brother?" Bellatrix cackled. "Seen 'em lying over there, didn't I?"
Ginny sent a burst of flame out of her wand, forcing Bellatrix back a step.
"I see. Little girl wants to play. Let's play then."
Molly walked behind Ginny and pushed her daughter's arm down, raising her wand at the woman who dared speak of her son. Who dared laugh at their loss. "Not today, you bitch."
Curses flew once again, every single one of Bellatrix's the familiar green of the killing curse. Molly returned and blocked with the expertise of grief having sharpened her reactions like a knife to a whetstone.
Arthur shook his head as Charlie moved to join his mother's fight. "She doesn't need our help." Bill watched on, his wand twitching at his side. Bellatrix seemed to have the upper hand.
Just as Bill and Charlie were going to intervene, Molly hit Bellatrix in the chest with a burst of blue.
Bellatrix looked up a moment before her shock froze and her body turned to ice. The momentum of Molly's spell sent Bellatrix sliding back into the wall. Her frozen body shattered into icy shards.
Molly crouched next to Luna, bringing her wand to the cut down the girl's face and healing it the best she could after such extensive casting. "Are you alright, dear?"
"Better now." Luna answered, standing up and joining them all as they turned back to the fight.
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Ron's foot hit a stone on the stair behind Nagini, causing the snake to turn on him quickly. Hermione's distraction so that he could get nearer and strike had failed. He tried to backtrack and stumbled.
Nagini hissed and sensed victory. She slithered up the stairs to where Ron had fallen backwards. The fang he had held rolled out of his hand and down the stairs behind the snake.
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The robes around Rebecca's neck tightened. Black spots had begun to speckle her vision when she found what she was looking for in her pocket. A small metal ball rolled as soon as it hit the ground, transforming into two birds. They opened their metallic beaks and chomped down on Voldemort's toes hard enough to draw blood.
A shout escaped him and his spell was loosened enough that Rebecca was able to pull herself free from the robes. Enraged by her antics, Voldemort grabbed her and slapped her across the face hard enough for her mouth to fill with blood.
Harry fell to his knees and picked Rebecca's wand up off the floor, drawing Voldemort's attention before throwing it to her. They acted in sync, in unison. They cast counterspells, jinxes, curses, all while revolving around the posts of the classroom.
Harry stepped back off the raised platform they were on and plunged his foot into the nothingness between the boards. His spells were halted as he caught himself with a hanging chain.
Voldemort reached down and picked him up by the throat, slamming him into the brick wall so hard his head bounced back and he saw stars.
Rebecca jumped on Voldemort's back and wrapped an arm around his neck, forcing him to let go of Harry to free himself from her chokehold.
Voldemort stumbled backwards, throwing himself into the wall so that Rebecca struck first. Her grip failed and her vision darkened a moment. Harry's voice startled her back to consciousness.
"It's true!" Harry shouted. Standing and holding his hand up to keep Voldemort from raising his wand at Rebecca. "When you told Professor Snape that wand was failing you. It's true."
Voldemort left Rebecca on her knees, marching towards Harry with a glare that would leave most men trembling where they stood. "I killed Severus Snape, the wand obeys me now!"
"That wand will always fail you!" Harry said.
Rebecca was back on her feet, her wand in hand. She knew what Harry was doing, why he had let Voldemort back him up to the shattered window.
"What if the wand never belonged to Snape?" Rebecca queried. Voldemort's attention was divided between the two of them. "What if it's allegiance was always to someone else?"
Voldemort bared his teeth at Rebecca, swinging back to Harry and forcing him back another half-step. Harry's heels were no longer in the castle. "After I kill you, again, I'm going to-"
Rebecca never knew what it was that he was going to say because Harry nodded. He nonverbally gave her the go-ahead, knowing she wouldn't hesitate to do what he had set up for them. Rebecca ran forward and tackled both Harry and Voldemort out into the open air.
As they raced towards the ground, Harry and Rebecca landed any blow they could on him. Voldemort sucked them all into his shadowy apparation form, taking control of their fall while he flew them through bits of roof and wreckage.
Harry freed his arm from Voldemort's grip and managed to land a blow on his face. Neither Harry nor Rebecca were strangers to violent encounters with schoolyard bullies, and that's all that Tom was. A bully who had gone unchecked for too long.
Voldemort threw them from him. Harry and Rebecca tumbled onto the ground at one end of the courtyard while Voldemort solidified at the other end. Rebecca brushed the gravel away from her eyes and pushed herself forward, picking her wand up from where it had landed and facing Voldemort.
Tom let out an animalistic roar, green light pouring forth from the wand that held no allegiance to him.
Harry and Rebecca stood at each other's sides, meeting the emerald stream with two of glowing red.
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Nagini's tongue darted out of her tongue as she grew closer to Ron, tasting the fear that washed off him.
Hermione had created enough distraction to get to his side, but the snake was too smart for her to hope, to dream, of getting close enough to kill it with the basilisk fang she had.
Ron and Hermione ran. Their hands intertwined between them in what could be their last moments together, their last moments alive, and they ran. Down the stairs, down the corridors, away from the serpent's maw that nipped at their heels.
When the rubble ahead grew too tall to climb over, Ron threw Hermione in front of him and tried to cast a fireball to get the snake away from them. The flames curled around the snake, not harming Tom Riddle's final horcrux. Ron let his wand fall to his side and bent over Hermione, shielding her the best he could.
Neville soared through the air like a man possessed. He let out a war-cry and swung the Sword of Gryffindor through the air as if he done so every day of his life. The blade whistled through the air before it sank into, and then through, the neck of the snake.
Tom Riddle was mortal once more.
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The battle between Harry and Rebecca and Voldemort paused as they all felt the final loss. The final barrier between Voldemort and death fade away. Where before they had felt the pain of the loss as if it were part of them, never knowing that it had been, now Harry and Rebecca merely recognised the loss.
Rebecca stepped forward and reignited their spells. She took another step towards Voldemort, ignoring the bolts of power ricocheting out from the point where their spells met.
Harry followed her, one step behind. The convergence of the spells wavered between them, inching towards Harry and Rebecca only once before slowly forced towards Voldemort. Finally, it moved the last distance and struck the Elder Wand.
The Elder Wand soared through the air and landed in Rebecca's outstretched hand.
Tom hit the floor on his knees, his hands gripping at his throat. He jerked, struggling to breath.
The horcruxes had been all that were keeping Death from taking him for so long. Without them, his body began to fail.
Harry's wand fell to his side as the evil in front of him convulsed and fell to the ground, still.
Voldemort's body didn't move again.
Harry and Rebecca stared at it, waiting. The wand in Rebecca's hand hummed with power that washed through her.
"I didn't get to tell him why the wand would fail him." Harry wasn't able to tear his eyes away from the body.
"Tell him now then." Rebecca answered, also frozen. "You'll regret it if you don't."
"Draco gave me his wand in Malfoy Manor." Harry said quietly, not needing to let his voice carry. "His wand changed to me then, he surrendered it to me and I gave it back to him."
The words caught in Harry's throat, the weight of what was finished beginning to push on him. Rebecca took over, knowing that once they had their closure, the destruction behind them had to be acknowledged. The loss waiting for them had to be recognised. "And then he trusted it to me. Draco gave me his wand to do as I saw fit with it." She paused. "Draco owned it from when he disarmed Dumbledore the night he died, I own it because he gave it to me."
Footsteps approached from behind them. "And I may have more to give." Draco spoke. He had an idea and three voices who agreed with him close by. Nigel, Louis, and Yara had at first thought Draco had hit his head or been stunned. But when they listened to him, they began to understand. "We have a theory."
Rebecca listened to what they described and couldn't follow. "You want me to...what?"
"Take them." Nigel answered, pressing the stone Louis had picked up from the Forbidden Forest into her hand. "It's worth a shot, at least."
Rebecca held the Resurrection Stone in her palm, not ignorant to the fact that her eyes immediately went to her ring finger--to where her ring should have been had she not returned it to Fred and taken his with her. If this didn't work...she couldn't think about it. Not yet. Not without trying.
"And what does it mean to be Master of Death?" She whispered, not taking the Invisibility Cloak yet. "How will I know if I do this right?"
Draco twisted the cloak between his hands, nodding. "You'll figure it out. I know you will." He draped it around her neck, a strip of her turning invisible.
The effect was instantaneous. Rebecca held the Deathly Hallows and her soul ignited. Her whole body felt as her hands did when she brought something back from the beyond. It was agony, yet miraculous. She opened her eyes as she came to terms with the magnitudes of power coursing through hers.
Harry's stare was frozen. The flames licking around the edges of smouldering wreckage were frozen. The words on Draco's mouth frozen. The world had frozen still.
And a woman appeared at the entrance to the courtyard.
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