Chapter 1
So this was it. The seconds Harry stood there numbly over the Pensieve seemed to fold over themselves, lasting hours between every breath he took, and years before he finally dragged his eyes up. He saw his hands pull away from the bowl and noticed that they weren’t shaking. His feet were heavy but his body and his head felt light. The first step away from the Pensieve was like moving under water. The desperation, grief and rage that had consumed him for so many months on the run was in a place he couldn’t reach anymore.
Even the memories pulled to the surface by Harry standing where Dumbledore had stood, and where he’d been murdered, left him empty. He could remember the old man sitting there behind his desk loaded with books and candy, smiling with his half-moon glasses down at him in the first year. The conversations and warm tea might as well have happened between any two strangers in the world. The only thing that was real was the resolve in his eyes when the old headmaster told Snape that the boy he’d been protecting would have to die.
The word Horcrux was familiar to him. It’d been a constant refrain in their conversations, a worry on the back of their minds, a prayer in their darkest hours to find just one more. The horcruxes they had already hunted down were somewhere between object and unnatural life. They twisted the people around them to convince them that they were valuable or sapped their will to live. They had a subtle connection and powerful resemblance to the Dark Lord. Whether the horcruxes willed it or not, people fought and schemed and died around them and for them.
He’d been so stupid not to see it before. He should have realized it when he’d attacked Arthur Weasley in the body of a snake or when the fits of rage came on or when people started fighting and dying around him.
Underneath the almost paralyzing shock of realizing the truth, Harry knew what he had to do. He couldn’t keep living and put anyone else in jeopardy. It’d have to be done right away. He wondered if the Headmaster had planned for it to go like that, to prevent Harry from having any second thoughts-- but even he couldn’t see into the future that well.
There was nothing left for Harry to do now but to turn himself in. It was convenient, in a way, that by doing it now he could buy his friends some time to regroup and knock off another one of Voldemort’s horcruxes.
Scattered amongst rubble and dust, there was the looking glass Dumbledore had kept on his desk, with a large crack running through its once pristine surface. His face in the broken glass was extremely pale. He wondered when Dumbledore had first seen Tom Riddle’s eyes looking back at him. Harry looked down at his hand. The creases of his fingers were caked in dirt and his palm was bloody. It looked like the hand of any normal person. But Tom Riddle had once looked normal, too. He curled his fingers into his raw palm until it burned, disgusted.
Time surged around him again and he was suddenly moving down the stairs of Hogwarts great halls, away from the Pensieve and the old Headmaster’s office, under the light and familiar weight of his father’s cloak.
Hogwarts was eerie in the dark. Students left behind to fight were busy regrouping, and the once bustling hallways were full only of rubble, dust and broken glass. Old statues and coats of armor that he knew so well had gotten up from where they had stood for centuries to join in the fighting, and Harry had to double back once because the halls had become so unfamiliar. He only saw a few bodies left out in the cold, near to where he knew death eaters had gotten in to fight. Their robes marked them as students. If he could get into the woods in time, not only might Voldemort be distracted enough to let members of the Order escape, he might also be in a good enough mood to let the rest of the students pass by unharmed. And Harry would be dead.
At the bottom of the long stairway Harry went down, Dean Thomas and Neville Longbottom carried a body reverently between them. Dean was in bad shape, with cuts down his neck, soot and dirt sullying his neat appearance, but Neville looked worse. Half of his face was covered in blood.
“I’ll take him the rest of the way,” Dean said. “He doesn’t weigh much.”
“I’ll grab another.” Neville’s voice was hoarse and deep, like a man’s instead of a boy’s. Harry waited until Dean had passed before he took off his cloak and made Neville jump and whip out his wand. Harry was impressed by his classmate’s fast response time.
“Blimey, Harry. You nearly gave me a heart attack!”
He knew Neville, knew he was as committed to the cause as any of them were, and since he wouldn’t make it, and maybe… maybe Hermoine and Ron wouldn’t either, someone else had to know. Backup plans and more backup plans and secrets. That’s how Dumbledore and Snape had lived and how they’d helped him survive so long.
He couldn’t let Neville catch onto the numb calm that had taken him, so he spoke as evenly and firmly as he could. “Neville, do you know the snake that You-Know-Who keeps with him all the time? Nagini?”
“Yeah, the huge one, course I do.”
“We have to kill the snake tonight.” He said. His words were coming out flat and robotic. “Spread the word to whoever you think can manage it. The snake has to die before Voldemort.”
Neville blinked. “The snake?”
“Yeah, kill the snake,” Harry repeated. He moved to put the cloak back on but Neville moved, quicker than Harry thought he was able to and held the arm that had the cloak. His eyes on Harry were bold in a way Harry had never really seen before, and very, very suspicious. Harry tugged his arm, but he didn’t loosen his grip.
“Harry, where are you going?”
Now Harry felt an edge of impatience. “Nowhere, Neville. I’ve got to-- I’ve got to find Ron and Hermoine.”
“They’re in the Great Hall. I’ll go back with you.”
“No!” Harry said, then rallied. “Look, Neville, I’m not… I’m not going to turn myself in. There’s just something I need to do. But it’s really important and I’ve got to do it alone.” It sounded lame, even to him. He tugged his arm back again, to no avail. When had Neville gotten so fit? His voice was firm and impatient. “Neville, I’m serious. I’ve got a job to do, and everything rests on this. Okay? Everything. I’ve got to do it. If you try to stop me, I’ll hex you.”
Neville hesitated, looking at Harry closely. “Right.” He said, and let go. “I think I know what you mean, Harry.”
“Thank you--” Neville was a split second faster than Harry at pulling out his wand and shouting--
“Stupify!”
With a keen knowledge that he’d been bested by one of the worst in their year at Defense Against the Dark Arts, Harry seethed as Neville bent down to pick him up off the floor. This couldn’t last. There was a job to do, a plan to execute. But when had any of their plans gone right? There would be a way to get out of this, and then he’d go to the Dark Forest and do the last job Dumbledore had assigned him. Neville lifted Harry the same way Dean Thomas had carried the body of the young student, and carried him in the opposite direction of the Dark Forest.
He was going to throttle Neville the first chance he got.
The barrier in his mind that wasn’t processing his death was starting to break, starting with imagining seeing Ron and Hermione again. What would he say to them, his last words to them? The last words they’d ever remember of him… He didn’t want to think about death, or who he was leaving behind. He didn’t want to have to anticipate it. Walking past Hogwarts that was filled with rubble and dust and the dead bodies of students, he’d known what he was fighting for. He'd known it was all worth it, that he was saving as many as he could, the only way he could. He’d chosen to take the fight to where bystanders wouldn’t get hurt. He’d done that.
Waiting wouldn’t change anything. He still had to die.
“Look, I’m sorry.” The timid boy Harry had once known didn’t sound apologetic at all. “I know you three have your secrets and your plans, but I’m not going to let you go off alone, especially if you’re stupid enough to believe Voldemort would really spare us all after we defied him just because you turned yourself in. And you won’t win in a duel with him either, frankly. Maybe I don’t know what you three have been doing in the last six months, but I’d bet anything Ron and Hermione were with you. And you wouldn’t be alive today without me either,” Neville said firmly, even though he was trembling. “I’m not going to let you die today, if I can help it.”
If he wasn’t petrified, Harry would still be mute.
Neville hauled him a short distance with his wand out before he got to the Great Hall. Now it was empty of all tables, empty of the illusion of a sky above, and full of dead bodies. Neville raised a hand as he came in with Harry slung over his shoulder. Harry heard someone shout.
“Neville!”
“I found Harry,” Neville said wearily, slipping him off his shoulder to lay him on the ground. “Trying to slip off by himself.”
“Harry!” Hermione shouted, coming out of the crowd. Her hands were bloody and scraped when she grabbed him and pulled him into a stiff hug. It was hard to tell on her face whether her relief that he was safe or anger that he’d gone to walk willingly into Voldemort’s grasp would win out.
She whacked him on the side of the head.
“You idiot! We’ve all been waiting for you. No,” she said savagely to Neville, who was raising his wand. “Don’t let him up, he’ll try to turn himself in again, I know he will.”
Harry fumed rebelliously on the floor. Didn’t they understand that he was willing to lay down his life for them? If he could even buy them a few moments to regroup, knowing what he knew about how his life would have to end anyway, it would be worth it. Ron pushed his way through the crowd, but Harry spotted him long before he saw Harry. His eyes were red and soft with relief when he finally looked at Harry.
Behind him, a similarly bright red head was bent down over someone else. He almost thought it couldn’t have been Fred or George, because he had never seen either of them sit so still or look so pale. Then he saw the small, pale figure that one of the twins was crouched over, and it hit him in the stomach like a punch. Which of the twins was it?
“No, let him up.” Ron’s voice was soft. “We need to decide what our next move is now that we have him.” Hermione went over to him. Neville performed the anticurse and Harry looked at Ron but didn’t know what to say. Ron’s face was tight and blank and he didn’t react when Hermione touched him gently on the arm. He wanted to ask if it was Fred or George who’d been hit, but another part of him really didn’t want to know.
“Fred got hit,” Hermione said quietly.
Harry said nothing, not sure whether he should ask Ron if he was alright, which he obviously wasn’t, or where Ginny was, which he desperately wanted to know.
Harry was spared from having to decide by a new group that swept into the Great Hall with a familiar, stern old face in the lead. McGonagal was first in, with her wand held high outstretched and ready to fight any unfortunate death eaters that might show up in her path, and with her a group of students, from Harry’s year and younger, Gryffindor, Ravenclaw, Hufflepuff and even Slytherin.
Among them was Ginny, looking breathless and dirty and beautiful. Harry caught her eye right away and she drew close to him, with Luna, Seamus, Percy and other members of Dumbledore’s army right behind her. It hurt to see her after so long apart. He smiled at her, but it felt stiff and painful, until she barrelled into him crushing the air out of him in a hug. Then it felt fine.
“We’ve cleared the castle,” The professor announced to the room, which drew the Order members over. “There are no students left. Flitwick will be joining us shortly once he’s done dealing with the defenses.”
“Will we be able to escape with the children?” Kingsley asked.
McGonagall nodded. “Better to send them home and claim they were uninvolved. The school hasn’t been safe for a while.”
“What will we do when we leave?” It was Lavender Brown.
“Lay low,” Kingsley said. “If you can. If not, you’ll come with us, and we’ll find a safe place for you. Can they do it in time?”
“We’ll just have to hope so. As soon as it’s lifted, all students and staff capable of Side-Along Apparition will take the younger students as close to home as possible, the rest of us will go on the run.” McGonagall raised up her chin, and it was hard for Harry to imagine the put-together and stern teacher living like they had for months.
Kingsley appraised her, and said respectfully. “The Order would be happy to have the assistance of any of the staff of Hogwarts. Or it’s students.” He looked appreciatively at Neville and Ginny. And then turned to Harry. “Dumbledore entrusted you with a plan.” The room went quiet. They had all waited to hear what it was and wanted desperately for it to be good.
Could he tell them it involved him dying?
“We’re getting close.” Harry said. “Really close.” Was there any point in hiding it? He hesitated, but it would be easier if it was out in the open. “Voldemort keeps a snake with him. Nagini. It needs to die before we can move forward. That’s what we’ll be doing next, but it’ll be protected. Voldemort won’t let it out of his sight.” This last part he said to Hermione, who nodded firmly, looking relieved to have the next step ahead of her. Ron wasn’t listening.
“We’ll come up with a plan. We’ve come this far.”
The short Professor Flitwick burst into the room, face ruddy with exertion, followed by Professor Sprout and a lean professor Harry didn’t know, the Runes professor. “We’ve done it. It’s ready-- we already tested it.”
“Will they know?” Kingsley asked urgently.
“With all the magic in the air… they shouldn’t.” Flitwick said breathlessly.
“Well done,” McGonagall said. “Everyone, grab a partner, Apparate to King’s Cross Station and wait for instructions. Professors… come back as many times as you have to, to bring home the deceased.”
“Harry.” Hermoine said, touching his arm lightly. “We’ll go to one of our hideouts?”
There weren’t many places left for them to go, and he didn’t know what exactly their next move would be once they got there, but it seemed as good a next step as any. At the campsite, they could plot their next move to kill the snake and then you, a little voice whispered in his head.
There was no time to go into the dark forest now, he would be doing no one any favors by dying at this exact moment. He could fight on a little longer, kill the snake and when the time came… he knew what he’d have to do. It was fine.
“We’re coming with you.” Ginny had been looking over to where her brother lay, but now she looked at the three of them with an expression tinged with anger.
“No.” Harry didn’t have to reject her. It was Ron. “You aren’t.”
“Ron,” She said, as though an explosion was building up. She was so pretty and sure of herself that Harry would have crumbled right away if she had turned her bright eyes on him, but it was not him that she had to contend with. Because George had come up behind her, leaving the body of his twin behind, and put a hand on her shoulder.
“We’ve got to go home,” he said softly.
Just like that, all of it drained out of her.
“We’ll take him home to Mum and Dad.” George had never seemed so serious or responsible. It was jarring to see him like that. “They’ll need to see us.”
“I’ll be okay,” Ron was saying, sounding so sure of himself he hardly sounded like the boy Harry had known his whole life. “Tell Mum and Dad I’ve got to go, but I’ll be alright.” He nodded at George, who was not crying, but looked the worse for it.
“Stay safe.” Ginny said to all of them.
“Stay safe.” Harry said back, lamely, instead of what he wanted to say, but Ginny’s smile to him was bright and fierce, like she knew what he wanted to say anyway, and she and her brother apparted away.
“Harry,” It was Kingsley’s deep voice that carried over the Great Hall as teachers grabbed as many students as they could and disappeared into the air with sounds like gunshots going off. “You won’t come with us? We could assist you at the Order.”
“No,” Harry said at once. He wasn’t sure why he was so adamant but it felt important that it be just him, Hermione and Ron. “Dumbledore had a plan for us to follow, and I think it’s best if we stay apart. If any of us are compromised, we all know what the next step is.”
“Nagini,” Kingsley said, and Harry nodded. He observed him steadily, and seemed satisfied by what he saw. “There’s sense in that. I’d still like a way to contact you, if need be.” He pressed something small into Harry’s hand, and he was surprised to see it was a mirror, not unlike the one Sirius had given him, but pocket-sized.
“Potter.” Professor McGonagall strode close to him after she returned from her last Apparition, with the last of the students passed over. Her bright blue eyes were sharp and attentive to him. “If you ever need any help.” She handed him a small, leather bound book. “This is how you get in contact with me. I would be happy to be of assistance, in any way I could.” She looked at him over her glasses with her piercing blue eyes, seeing straight through him. “Please, don’t do anything foolish. Or self-sacrificing.”
“We won’t let him.” Hermione said, as Harry flushed sheepishly.
“Good luck. Kingsley.” She nodded sharply at the other member of the Order, and didn’t seem to need to explain where she was going, because a moment after she disappeared, Kingsley did too.
With her other hand, Hermione intertwined her fingers with Ron. “Ready?” She asked him the question softly, looking into his eyes, and Ron hesitated a second, looking back to the empty space where he had last seen his brother and sister, then he nodded.
The Great Hall was empty when their three forms vanished, as empty as the rest of Hogwarts, which now lay defenseless and open to attack. The charms that had once enchanted a night sky onto the ceiling now were frozen and uncertain, as the castle itself seemed to sense it was being abandoned and left for dead.
No one seemed to remember that in one of the highest towers, forgotten, there was one person who had been left behind.
Long, spider-like fingers were moving over a dark ebony wand, stroking it and moving it in smooth circles as though practicing the motion of a complex spell, leaving a trail of magic in the air. The wand warmed wherever his cold fingers touched it, magic rising to the surface eagerly, but there was nothing Voldemort wanted it to do besides murder. When the boy stepped through the forest to his death, it’d be this wand, the best wand in history, to do the deed. Magic dragged in the air as tense and thick as silence in the cold winter air.
A cold excitement was coiled in the Dark Lord’s core. He had killed wizards of incredible skill, built up alliances with all kinds of beasts and half-breeds, orchestrated a coup of the Ministry of Magic that had seen every department fall within a matter of days. His followers grew in strength and number every day and in his hand was a wand so infamously powerful it was said to put a stop to the cold, oblivious figure of death. Above him, like a living, moving, menacing crown, Nagini circled in her cage over her master, eager with the scent of magic in the air. No, he was not afraid of Harry Potter, the silly little enigma of a boy who had evaded and defied him so efficiently throughout the years, a boy who had not yet graduated from Hogwarts. Without Dumbledore at his back, he was confident he could kill the boy, and kill him easily.
But it was not that boy that gave him pause, that made him strain with tension as he searched for the sight of him. The prophecy...
His cold red eyes, slitted with the rage and the excitement of prospective murder, seemed to penetrate the darkness around the woods. Lucius Malfoy was a still, chalk white figure in the light of the fire. Bellatrix was his contrast in black pacing with her eyes eagerly searching the forest. Other figures moved in and out of the firelight.
He had to kill the boy to put to rest any doubts about his reign and put to the grave Albus Dumbledore’s last hope. He’d kill him quickly, to keep it simple.
Mentally, he had been keeping track of the time since he had made the boy his invitation, and he knew that the time for the boy to appear was coming to an end. The boy would have to appear in the dark mist of the forest soon, if he wanted any of the little traitors and mudbloods in the school to be spared. The Dark Lord did not cease turning the Elder Wand over in his hand, making calculations in his head.
Once he killed the boy, he’d keep the body, of course. It would have to be paraded around the halls of the Ministry to remind his new subjects that their chosen one was nothing more than a doll propped up by Dumbledore. Once Harry was dead and his head hanging over the visitor’s entrance to the Great Hall of the Ministry, Voldemort was confident that the rest of the Order would not hold out much longer, and it pleased him to think he was so close to one of his goals.
Time passed.
Silence, except for the crackling of the fire, as his followers waited for his reaction. Their faces were lit up only by the fire in the dark, easily divided up into a group who looked on fearfully and the other excitedly. If Harry didn’t show up, there would be bloodshed. Those of his most loyal and eager followers would have the chance to showcase their capabilities and his fearful and weak followers would have a chance to prove themselves. There would be opportunities of violence for all, as the bodies of students who stayed to defy him were numerous and trapped in the old school, waiting to be torn apart by his army.
It didn’t matter in the least to him that his enemies were children. He’d meant it when he’d said none would be spared.
Voldemort looked up at the sky, waiting a few moments more, as though Harry’s voice would spill over the quiet, even minutes after the deadline had passed. He would have welcomed the boy a few minutes late, for the pleasure of striking him down, but it seemed the boy was determined to deny him any satisfaction. Cold rage, so familiar to him, was rising.
“I thought he would come.” Voldemort said, feeling an edge of disappointment. He had. He’d thought he’d understood the boy, his desire to protect his friends. Was it cowardice or cunning that he hadn’t come? He would have to factor it into his next calculation. His pale face slit into a vicious smile. “So much for Gryffindor bravery.” Some of his followers chortled.
Did the boy think he was bluffing? He would slaughter every child that remained behind, make the boy watch as his friends died. He felt his followers bloodlust, and let it feed his own. Yes, he’d be in the battle tonight, gracing his followers with his presence and his enemies with death at the wand of a greater wizard. Nagini stirred angrily in her cage, feeding off of his emotions.
“It seems as though we have a battle to finish,” Voldemort said. “I expect you’ll give all of our students a thorough lesson. There will be no need to take prisoners.”
Bellatrix threw back her head to let out a ectatic and gleeful laugh. Greyback howled. The giants moved, pushing trees to the side as they did, and wizards donned their cloaks and masks. They disappeared, one by one, to the outer reaches of the castle, where the shield had already fallen. Voldemort joined them slowly, methodically.
Had the boy been able to find his diadem?
It shouldn’t have been possible. Not even Dumbledore knew where it would be, and the boy had had only a brief evening. He might attempt to come back, but by then Voldemort would have moved it. Nagini lingered over him as Voldemort moved over the pine needle floor in his bare feet, careless to how his followers ran ahead of him. He would keep her close, yes, very close, it was essential not to risk her, not to expose her.
Yaxley Apparted near his Lord, wetting his lip nervously. “My Lord, when the castle’s defenses fell… they all escaped….”
For a moment, Voldemort didn’t act at all. His gaze was fixed to the horizon. Then his wand lashed out and cut a spray of Yaxley’s blood into the air.
There was not long that they could evade him, not with the full force of his followers and the Ministry behind him, no way to hide who had been there and who was a threat to him now. Someone would have to suffer for the Dark Lord’s disappointment tonight.
Nagini opened her mouth wide enough to fit a man’s head and hissed.
It was exactly the kind of place they had always hidden out before, like they never left and the battle of Hogwarts and the destruction of the diadem had never happened. The mountainside was bleak and empty except for a seemingly endless expanse of pine trees and a cool wind that gently rattled pine needles over their head. The three of them stood in the dark with their lit wands raised with light, making sure they were alone, and then Harry joined Hermione in setting up their defensive spells, so that Ron could have a moment to collect himself as he set up their camp.
It would be a cold night, maybe colder than the three of them had endured in the woods so far. They hadn’t eaten since Hogsmeade, or slept for longer than that, but he knew tonight that wouldn’t matter. None of them were in the mood to complain.
Ron’s voice, when he spoke, was soft and hoarse. His eyes were red. “I can’t believe Fred was really....” Harry could only see his broad back, as he was knelt down over their fire. He looked up, but his eyes weren’t really on them. “I mean, maybe he wasn’t,” he allowed hope to enter his voice, and it twisted Harry’s stomach. “No one really saw him get hit, maybe there’s something Mum and Dad can do, or they can take him to Mungo’s…” he trailed off.
Hermione’s voice was high. “I… I saw him…” She placed her head in her hands, and wouldn’t finish saying it, even though Ron was now looking at her. Harry looked away from both of them, unable to bear their grief.
It was hard to think about Fred. Every time he did he thought about how much time they had spent together, almost every memory of Hogwarts and the burrow had the twins in it somewhere. The twins had handed him the Marauder’s map, taught Harry how to play Quidditch, believed him when no one else at school had, and he thought of them a lot like he did Ron and Hermione. That wrecked him, but the thought of Ron’s grief, or Mr. and Mrs. Weasley’s grief killed him, and he couldn’t stand to look at them.
Thankfully, it was Hermione who Ron needed, and Hermione who stepped up. She held him tightly as Harry took the first shift, but none of them slept.
Ron and Hermione fit together so comfortably that it made him burn quietly for the comfort and warmth of holding Ginny, but he didn’t resent them for it, and the three of them faced the fire quietly in the cold night air.
Hermione wasn’t silent for long. When she spoke, she sounded like she was trying to look on the bright side of things. “After tonight we only have one horcrux left.”
“And it only cost us a few soldiers,” Ron said harshly, bitterly, but deflated just as quickly.
“Snape’s dead, too.” Harry took a deep breath, wondering where he could start to explain what he had discovered about Snape. Ron made a scoffing noise. Any revelations about Snape would soon lead to revelations about him. Harry’s stomach dropped because the conclusion of that revelation was that he, Harry would have to...
“We’ve only got one horcrux left,” Ron repeated what Hermione said, as if just realizing the significance of it. “One left and then we can go after Voldemort himself.” He looked at Hermione whose expression was tight but hopeful.
“Yeah, we’re really close. Right, Harry?” They looked at him expectantly but Harry wasn’t looking at them. He was rubbing his forehead, which was starting to tingle.
“Yeah, right.” He said absently. He wasn’t sure whether to tell them what he had learned; he wished Dumbledore had left some instruction on that, as he had left a plan for everything else. Would it be kinder to leave them in the dark about the fate that awaited Harry until it happened or would it be cruel if just Harry disappeared to die without any explanation? He rubbed his forehead.
“What are you seeing?” Ron asked eagerly.
Harry hadn’t been seeing or feeling anything-- or at least, he didn’t think he was. It was hard to tell still, sometimes, what emotions were his and which were the Dark Lord’s, but then he could feel a rising wave of fear and anger, growing steadily more intense, and knew it wasn’t his.
“Nothing yet,” Harry said. “Usual stuff. He’s angry and afraid.”
Harry gasped and pressed a hand to his forehead as pain erupted much more intense than it had before. In the pain Harry’s attention slid away from his friends and the cold mountainside. His eyes were still open and seeing, but overlaying the mountain was another scene that he knew he was catching just a glimpse of without the Dark Lord’s permission. The rubble and dust that he had moved through less than an hour ago on his way to sacrifice himself flashed through his mind, quickly, as though someone was moving rapidly, taking it all in. A Death Eater, terrified, appeared in front of him.
Yes, they had fooled him, everyone was out in time. All he had to contend with now was the Dark Lord’s anger radiating through Harry’s scar.
“He’s going to go after the students who fought back.” Harry said in a croak. He didn’t know how exactly he knew that, if the Dark Lord had said it or thought it, or if he just understood the vengeful and slightly petty nature of his enemy. “He’ll be looking for them.”
“He won’t catch any of them,” Ron said viciously. “Not before we get to him. And now all the Hogwarts teachers and the Order of the Phoenix know to go after the snake, too—” He was still talking with Hermione clutching his arm, but again, Harry was distracted.
Harry knew that the first thing Voldemort would do would be to check—
“He doesn’t think we managed to destroy the diadem.” Harry reported softly. “He’s going to be furious.” Furious and afraid. Afraid of Harry and his own mortality. Like a wild animal backed into a corner, he would be vicious. Harry could only pray to the Hogwarts teachers, the students and the Order members could disappear as well tonight as they thought they could.
“The bastard.” Ron seethed. “I want to be there when we get to him.”
Harry looked at Ron, and wondered if he would be angry if he found out his brother’s murderer had a piece of his soul lurking like a parasite in Harry’s soul. If he could hate Harry.
“Ron, Hermione—” Harry was only able to get out their names before he heard Voldemort scream. Hundreds of miles away and yet it was like he was right next to him. Waves of pain washed over him through his scar as Voldemort found the room of requirement dead. Quite dead. A burnt and open door to a room that would not appear, disappear, transform itself to human desire any longer, burnt out from the inside and wide open to expose the nothingness inside. He knew the diadem was gone, knew that the battle had been lost, and he was furious.
Harry didn’t know how long he lay there clutching his scar and trying to keep quiet with Ron and Hermione looking anxiously after him as Voldemort swept dangerously through the hallways looking for anything to maim and kill.
“He knows we got the diadem.” Harry said, as the pain finally lessened. “He’s afraid and he’s angry.”
“Good.” Hermione said decisively. “It’s all easy from here on out.” Ron took her hand and squeezed. She looked at him, comforting and brave. “We’ll do it together.”
The words went straight to Harry’s core.
He couldn’t keep it from them. This was their quest as much as it was theirs. Hermione had erased her parents’ memory and she would be killed for her blood status if they failed. Ron had lost a brother and could never go back. They had been with him from the very beginning. It hurt a little to think about, but if he thought way back, there had hardly been a bit of trouble that he had gotten into without both of them. Ever since his first day on the way to Hogwarts when he had just so happened to sit next to a messy redheaded boy and a frizzy-haired, mousy girl.
His voice came out stiff and strange. “I have to tell you two something. About when Snape died. I found him while he was still breathing and he gave me some of his memories to put into the pensieve.” He swallowed. “Dumbledore left me one last message in them.” He had to trust them. He didn’t keep secrets, not like that, not anymore. If they hated him… maybe it’d make it easier, later. To Ron and Hermione’s rapt attention, he described it for them, scene by scene, building up to the moment that was the worst, that made the least sense. When he described that part, he looked down at the wand he held in his hand, turned it over and over again, not unlike how Voldemort had his own wand earlier in the night.
But their reactions were not what he had expected.
“You?” Hermione said, outraged but it was on his behalf. And she was shaking her head firmly, not believing it. “A horcrux? Harry, you must have misheard them. You can’t make a human a horcrux, humans have their own souls, horcruxes have to be put into inanimate objects, all the books on horcruxes said so...”
Ron was as unconvinced as Hermione, and he put forward his own argument. “And we’d know if you were a horcrux, wouldn’t we? I mean that locket we had…” Ron shuddered. “I mean, it just felt evil, didn’t it, right from the very start? And that diary that possessed Ginny… I mean, I lived in a dorm with you for six years, you’d think I’d know if you were evil!”
“It makes sense, really.” Harry said hotly, taken aback by how adamantly they refused to believe it. “I mean, we’ve always wondered what my connection with Voldemort was. Why else would I be able to speak Parseltongue? Or be able to see what he sees and feels? I could always sense when another Horcrux was nearby because, well…” Harry reached into his bag, and pulled out his damaged wand which he had kept close, despite the way it was bent. “When I was eleven, Olivander told me my wand was the twin of Voldemort’s wand. They’ve got the same phoenix core. I thought it was just because of…” He didn’t know what he had thought before, how he had explained away all the unusual connections that he now saw were obviously signs of something deeply ominous going on.
“But that’s impossible,” Hermione said again, crinkling her brow. “There are complex magical laws surrounding the soul. You can’t make a human a… It’s never been done.”
“Well, maybe Voldemort was the first to do it!” Harry said, his temper rising. He closed his eyes. He wanted to shout and rage all of a sudden. It didn’t make sense to be that angry at Ron and Hermione that he wanted to reach across and throttle them. It didn’t make sense . Just like that, Harry was able to sort his anger away and maintain his composure. It was Voldemort’s emotions, then, that he was feeling, not his own anger. He continued in a slightly numb voice. “No one’s ever made seven before either. And anyway, Dumbledore thinks he made me one by mistake. He doesn’t know what I am, that’s why… that’s why he’s been trying to kill me all this time.”
“I don’t understand,” Hermione was saying, as Ron stood up to pace. “Why wouldn’t Dumbledore do something if he knew? There’s got to be some way to get rid of a horcrux, if anyone was able to get it out, he would be able to, especially if he knew all this time…”
“There is no way to get rid of a horcrux,” Harry said calmly although underneath his stomach was clenched. “We found that out ourselves. You’ve got to destroy it, destroy it completely.”
Hermione looked shocked, as though she had not thought about that, about what that meant. Ron did not look up from where he paced. He was wringing his hands so tightly that they were as white as his face.
“What was it that Snape said,” Ron demanded. “In the last memory. Dumbledore was going to sacrifice you. Snape was upset that Dumbledore meant for you to...”
Harry looked down. He didn’t want to say it, so he beat around it. “Well, it does clear up one thing. Snape was never working for Voldemort, he was always acting on Dumbledore’s orders, just like he always said he was. Dumbledore knew he was going to die that night on the astrology tower, he knew he didn’t have much time before the curse killed him, so he had it all planned out with Snape, cause he knew what was coming.”
“So he… he meant for you to do the same?” Ron was staring at him. Harry couldn’t make out his expression and it scared him.
“There’s no reason to think Harry has to die because of this,” Hermione protested in a high, thin voice. “If You-Know-Who could drink unicorn blood to make himself whole there’s gotta be some way, some spell or potion…” She pulled books out of her bag, riffled through them and set them down as Ron continued to pace and Harry played with the wand.
“This whole thing was Dumbledore’s plan, then?” Ron’s voice was loud, startling on the cold mountainside. “Brilliant of him, wasn’t it?” His pale face had turned bright red from the whipping wind, as red as his hair, but his lips were pale and tight. Ron said hotly, “I always said Dumbledore didn’t have any idea, didn’t have any plan. I mean, us, hiding away in some mountain trying to figure out how to take on the most powerful wizard in the world. It’s ridiculous.”
“He was right, wasn’t he.” It wasn’t that he wasn’t angry at the old Headmaster, for keeping it from him and knowing what he would have to face. His feelings towards the Headmaster at the moment were a jumbled up twist in his stomach. He didn’t want to look at it or think about it, but it didn’t feel right to hear doubts about Dumbledore’s intentions coming from someone else. “We’re close. Closer than I thought we’d be able to get, we’ve only got the snake, Voldemort and...”
“Well, hang Dumbledore!” Ron shouted. “He obviously didn’t know what he was doing!” He kicked at a log in the fire and sent it across the campsite. Hermione was gazing at him with tears in his eyes, and it was only after Harry saw her tears that he saw large, angry teardrops on Ron’s windswept checks.
“I don’t know, I don’t know if he really meant for me to...” Harry said, because seeing them both like that punched him in the stomach. The calm bravery that had overtaken him in Dumbledore’s office was fading away with doubt and the desire to comfort his friends. He wanted to cry himself. He had always wished, but especially now, that this was not his responsibility or his fate. He wanted to be somewhere warm and pleasant, with the people he cared about, not fighting a war that he was destined to lose.
Harry put a hand on his head. His scar was starting to burn again. “Hold on, something’s going on.”
They both froze and stared at him. He realized it was the first time they understood what it was that was happening when he got a vision from Voldemort, and why. The pain increased, and he put a hand over his mouth to stop himself from making a noise. Voldemort was done tormenting his allies who had displeased him.
Harry closed his eyes, willing his mind to go blank and to absorb the sights and sounds of Hogwarts, which were coming through in jagged pieces of knowledge that Harry was not sure how he knew.
The Dark Lord had sent out his followers to bring back someone he could torture. His fury was a deep hunger that making Lucius Malfoy shake with fear and cursing his weakest followers could not satisfy. He wanted to hang the runaways bodies from the ceilings like bloody chandeliers for defying him. He wanted to make the members of the Order of the Phoenix humiliated and insane from anguish and shame before he ended them. He wanted to make Hogwarts’ children into mincemeat and have it served back to their parents.
He told his death eaters to find anyone they could. He didn’t expect them to, incompetent as they were. They swept over the school eagerly, and he was glad to have a moment away from them, with only Nagini by his side. The snake was as furious as he was, and her amber eyes hunted the corridors of the school from her cage as her master stalked alone through the halls.
He couldn’t manage his anger for long. The boy had managed to escape, yet again. Worse, Ravenclaw’s diadem was gone. Somehow, the boy had found the room Voldemort had thought was hidden away from even the most clever teachers. And it evoked worse fears in him, for if the boy had really managed to find the diadem…
The moving staircase wanted to defy him and not allow him into the headmaster’s office, but there was very little he couldn’t do, not with the Elder wand in his hand, and him the greatest wizard of his time. Ridiculous, the thought that a boy like Harry Potter could be the end of him. All his life he had worked towards a vision of the future that was just within reach.
Immortality and the bowed heads of the rest of the magical world. He was the descendant of Salazar Slytherin, who was destined to weed out the dirty, inferior influence of muggles and their creeping advance of impure blood. He would have the chance to gather more knowledge than any wizard ever had, and expand his influence beyond Britain… if he could kill one infuriatingly slippery and troublesome teenage boy.
In the once neat and sterile atmosphere Snape had created out of Dumbledore’s warm, eclectic office, Voldemort stood alone and brooded.
He had wanted to feel some sense of what had happened when Dumbledore had died, to bask in the thought of the old man slumping down stupidly at the hands of who he had thought was his loyal follower, but all trace of the old man had been wiped out by Snape. The pleasure of that victory was denied to him, and he couldn’t help but feel like the old man was defying him, even in death.
He dragged a finger over the rubble and dust covered desk with its carefully stacked paperwork disdainfully. Snape had been strictly well-organized when he was alive so it was no surprise he had fashioned the office after himself. His servant, who had died not hours before, had left traces of his presence all over the office, from the books on the dark arts that Voldemort recognized on the shelves to the small, ripped picture of a beautiful red-headed woman, who smiled up from her small frame. It was disturbingly clean.
Except for the Pensieve, which was awake and alive. It had not been put away as it should have been, which seemed very unlike Severus Snape.
It was curiosity and Voldemort’s natural suspicion that brought him over to the Pensieve. He saw the newest, most vibrant memory at the surface, swirling around with grayish silver light. He did not have to put his head in, it was enough to drag a finger through the gleaming silver light for the memories to reveal themselves.
And oh, did the memories ever reveal themselves.
Severus and Lily, and ah, yes, how could he forget that pretty young witch that had knelt over her son, begging him not to hurt the child... it was her in the picture on Snape’s desk, it was her that featured again and again in Snape’s memory. She was pretty in all of Snape’s memories, her bright green eyes kept the poor old fool mooning over her all throughout his miserable life… Voldemort had always felt that his servant, no matter how useful he was, was worthy of suspicion. He was an accomplished master of occlumency and as such capable of complex deception. Still, the Dark Lord had never been able to imagine what motivation the man would have to defy him , risking his life and all his work. Defying him, all for a pair of bright green eyes... Yes, that milky white face and long ginger hair might be reason enough for a sentimental little half-blood like Snape to defy him… as the memories played out the Dark Lord’s suspicions grew until his rage erupted. Snape was kneeling before Dumbledore, kneeling and begging for help, for the little mudblood’s life, betraying his master. He had killed the dirty, slimy and weak little traitor just hours ago, he wished he had taken his time, he would have made the traitor suffer for working for Harry Potter all this time. Severus’s grief, the protection he had formed around the boy, the silver doe and his continued betrayal of his old master... Dumbledore’s plan to have his own life taken...
Then Dumbledore was looking coolly over his desk at the shocked and horrified Potion Master in the silvery memory with the cool and solemn air he had always taken with Tom Riddle at school.
“So, the boy must die?” Severus Snape asked, his voice quite level.
“And Voldemort must do it himself, Severus. That is essential.”
A heavy silence hung in the air. “I thought… all these years… that we were protecting him for her. For Lily.”
Dumbledore closed his eyes tightly. “We have protected him because it has been essential to teach him, to raise him, to let him try his strengths. Meanwhile, the connection between them grows ever stronger, a parasitic growth. Sometimes, I have thought Harry suspects it himself. If I know him, he will have arranged matters so that when he does set out to meet his death, it will truly mean the end of Voldemort.”
Voldemort pulled out of the Pensieve, although still staring into its silvery light. In the Dark Lord’s sharp mind, things were coming together faster and more neatly than they ever had before. It was Dumbledore’s face that stayed in the forefront of his mind. The old man’s long, silver bearded face was cool and intelligent, with his clear blue eyes as profound and knowing as they had been when they had first met. Yes, Dumbledore, his enemy, his real enemy, even in death had put plans in place to destroy him. Voldemort stepped back from the Pensieve.
The Dark wizard was exceptionally still and quiet.
Snape had been the one to report back to him the prophecy of his greatest enemy, but it had been Albus Dumbledore that he was spying on, who had allowed Snape to bring him back the news. Wormtail had come to him with the information of where the Potters were, but had Dumbledore had his fingers in that, too? If it was true, and the child had taken on part of his soul when Voldemort had failed to kill him, then Dumbledore would have been smart to kill the boy himself… ah, but it was not the old man’s style to do the dirty work himself. “Voldemort must do it himself. That is essential.” How clever, to set him up for his own death.
Yes, it was the old man’s style. No doubt it would have pleased Dumbledore that Voldemort would be the one to cause his own death. Like a punishment for a naughty child, who could be expected to make enough mistakes not to bother stopping him.
But Potter? A horcrux of his?
He swelled with rage whenever he thought of the teenager who had the arrogance to try and defy him, but he had superior control over his emotions, and if he set aside his resentment and contempt of the boy, he could see clearly how the boy might be an unknowing carrier of a piece of his soul. It would explain the inexplicable way the boy had peered into his head and spied on the Dark Lord’s thoughts, the way he had been able to stand up to the Dark Lord in a duel, and why their wands would not fatally harm each other. Disgusting, to think a part of his soul was in such an unworthy vessel, but not impossible.
His magic, seething until now, lashed out viciously at his surroundings, melting the Headmaster’s office into unrecognizable dust. Furniture and old paperwork singed with hot energy and dissolved, leaving only the walls themselves.
Yes, the old man would find it a very tidy solution to have Voldemort’s own soul go up against him and be destroyed, he had no doubt the sly old man had it in him to set his golden champion up to die for the cause. Dumbledore had been an exceptional wizard, almost as exceptional as Voldemort, and in their years pitted against each other they had both sacrificed pawn pieces.
“My Lord.” Avery was quivering at the entrance to the Headmaster's office, standing outside the circle of wreckage made out of all of the old man’s portraits and books. He was not looking at his lord. “We have good-- good news. One straggler was left behind: a Hogwarts teacher.”
Voldemort let his gaze rest intensely on his follower who had come back with such pitiful good news. Avery shuddered.
“And the other teachers?” Voldemort asked his disciple softly. “Have you managed to catch any of the other school teachers? Have you managed to find out where the school children went yet?” He took a threatening step towards Avery, his wand out. “Is this the only news you bring me, Avery?”
“My Lord, I--” His hands were in the air now, pleading for his master’s forgiveness, but Voldemort looked through him.
“Send the teacher in.” Voldemort said softly. There was no reason to torture Avery. He knew what level of skill he could expect from each of his followers, and could not reasonably expect a mediocre wizard like Avery to perform any complex task. Far better to exercise the ideas he had for torturing the members of the Order on someone he could break completely.
Avery pulled the door open, revealing two bull headed cronies with a thin and weeping witch in their arms. The snatchers threw down the woman with relish, as she was the only target they had for their frustration, and the woman cried as she hit the ground. She was a pitiful sight for a teacher, her nose and eyes streaming with tears, her face red and smelling heavily of whiskey. She wore a tattered old robe in such disrepair she could have been mistaken for a muggle tramp. She looked familiar, very familiar, for the Dark Lord had seen her in Severus Snape’s memories just moments before.
“Says her name is Trelawney,” Avery announced