Chapter Twenty-Four
The world had ended so why had the battle not ceased, the castle fallen silent in horror, and every combatant laid down their arms? Harry’s mind was in free fall, spinning out of control, unable to grasp the impossibility, because Fred Weasley could not be dead, the evidence of all his sense must be lying—
And then a body fell past the hole blown into the side of the school, and curses flew at them from the darkness, hitting the wall above their heads.
“Get down!” Harry shouted as more curses flew through the night. Harry and Ron grabbed Hermione and pulled her to the floor, but Percy lay across Fred’s body, shielding it from further harm, and when Harry shouted, “Percy, come on, we’ve got to move!” Percy shook his head.
“Percy!”
Harry saw tear tracks streaking the grime coating Ron’s face as he seized his older brother’s shoulders and pulled, but Percy would not budge.
“Percy, you can’t do anything for him! We’re going to—”
Hermione screamed and Harry, turning, did not need to ask why. A monstrous spider the size of a small car was trying to climb through the huge hole in the wall.
Ron and Harry shouted together, their spells collided and the monster was blown backward, its legs jerking horribly, and vanished into the darkness.
“It brought friends!” Harry called to the others, glancing over the edge of the castle through the hole in the wall the curses had blasted—more giant spiders were climbing the side of the building, liberated from the Forbidden Forest by the Death Eaters.
Harry fired more Stunning Spells down at them and they rolled back down the building and out of sight. Then more curses came soaring over Harry’s head, so close he felt the force of them blow his hair.
“Let’s move, NOW!”
Pushing Hermione ahead of him with Ron, Harry stooped to seize Fred’s body by the armpits. Percy, realizing what Harry was trying to, stopping clinging to the body and helped. Together, crouching low to avoid the curses flying at them from the grounds, they hauled Fred out of the way.
“Here,” Harry said, and they placed Fred in a niche where a suit of armor had stood before. Harry could not bear to look at the body any longer than he had to…and after making sure the body was well hidden, he took off after Ron and Hermione.
Draco and Goyle had vanished, but at the end of the corridor, which was now full of dust and falling masonry, glass long gone from the windows, he saw many people running backward and forward, whether friends or foes, Harry could not tell. Rounding the corner, Percy let out a roar, “ROCKWOOD!” and he sprinted off in the direction of a tall man, who was pursuing a couple of students.
“Harry, in here!” Hermione screamed.
She had pulled Ron behind a tapestry and they seemed to be wrestling together. Hermione was trying to restrain Ron, to stop him running after Percy.
“Listen to me, Ron—LISTEN, RON!”
“I wanna help—I wanna kill Death Eaters—”
Ron’s face was contored, smeared with dust and smoke, and he was shaking with rage and grief.
“Ron, we’re the only ones who can end it! Please, Ron, we need the snake, we’ve got to kill the snake!”
But Harry knew how Ron felt. He wanted to find the other Weasley’s, find Sirius and Remus, and make sure that they—and oh, Ginny—were not…but he couldn’t permit the idea to form in his head…
Hermione shook Ron by the shoulders, “We will fight! We’ll have to, to reach the snake! We’re the only ones who can end it!” Hermione was crying too, and she wiped her face on her torn and singed sleeve as she spoke, and took great heaving breaths to calm herself.
Hermione turned to Harry, “We need to find out where Voldemort is, because he’ll have the snake with him! Do it, Harry—look inside him!”
He closed his eyes on her command and at once he was standing in the middle of a desolate and heartbreakingly familiar room.
There were peeling paper on the walls, and long jagged claw-marks. The windows were all boarded up except for one, and the sounds of the assault on the castle were muted and distant.
He was rolling his wand between his fingers, watching it, his thoughts on the room in the castle, the secret room only he had ever found…he was confident the boy would not find the diadem…
“My Lord,” A desperate voice said. He turned.
Lucius Malfoy was sitting in the darkest corner, ragged and still bearing the marks of the punishment he had received after the boy’s last escape, “My Lord…please…my son…”
But he wasn’t listening. He was looking once more at the wand in his fingers. It troubled him…
“Go and fetch Snape.”
“Snape, m-my Lord?”
“Snape. Now. I need him. Go.”
Frightened, stumbling a little through the gloom, Lucius left the room. Voldemort continued to stand there, twirling the wand between his fingers, staring at it.
“It is the only way, Nagini,” he whispered, and there behind him was the great, thick snake—suspended in mid-air, twisting gracefully within the enchanted protected space he had made for her.
With a gasp, Harry pulled back and opened his eyes. At the same moment, his ears were assaulted with the screeches and cries, the smashes and bangs of battle.
“He’s in the Shrieking Shack. The snake’s with him, it’s got some sort of magical protection around it. He’s just Lucius Malfoy to find Snape.”
“Voldemort’s in the Shrieking Shack?!” Hermione cried, “He’s not even fighting?”
“Look, you two stay here, I’ll go under the Cloak and I’ll be back as soon as I—”
“No,” Hermione said, “it makes more sense if I take the Cloak—”
But before Hermione could continue the tapestry at the top of the staircase on which they stood was ripped open.
“POTTER!” Two masked Death Eaters stood there but before their wands were fully raised, Hermione shouted, “Glisseo!”
The stairs beneath their feet turned into a chute and she, Harry, and Ron hurtled down it. They shot through the concealing tapestry and spun onto the floor, hitting the opposite wall.
“Duro!” Hermione cried and there were two loud sickening crunches as the tapestry turned to stone and the Death Eaters pursuing them crumpled against it.
“Get back!” Ron shouted and he, Harry, and Hermione flattened themselves against a door as a heard of desks thundered past, shepherded by a sprinting Professor McGonagall. She appeared not to notice them. As she turned the corner, they heard her scream, “CHARGE!”
Harry hastily threw the Cloak over all three of them and they ran down the next staircase, finding themselves in a corridor full of duelers.
Dean was face-to-face with Dolohov, Parvati with Travers. Harry, Ron, and Hermione pelted on, heads down, through the midst of fighters. Yaxley was in combat with Flitwick, a masked Death Eater was dueling Kingsley right beside him. Students ran in every direction, some carrying or dragging injured friends. Neville was brandishing armfuls of Venomous Tantacula, which looped itself around the nearest Death Eater and began reeling him in.
Harry, Ron, and Hermione sped down the marble staircase, reaching the entrance hall just as two bodies fell from the balcony overhead.
As the figures reached the ground, a grey blur streaked across the entrance hall, bowing over the body of the one who had fallen.
Harry stumbled, and as Lavender Brown groaned upon the stone floor, Harry watched in horror as Greyback ripped into Lavender’s throat. His fatal bite silenced her, and she went still at once.
It was Hermione who shrieked, “NO!” and she ran forward, raising her wand, and Greyback lifted his head from the unmoving body of Lavender, his face wet with crimson blood.
Greyback smiled, and through the rivers of red, his yellow, elongated canines gleamed.
Hermione’s curse was met with a wall of black magic.
It had erupted out of Greyback without warning.
In her shock, Hermione faltered and gaped; the swirling maw of the cloud of black magic reached her and she went completely rigid within it.
“I learnt a few new tricks, girlie,” Greyback snarled but just as Ron and Harry ran forward, Greyback lunged, and reached her.
His magic enveloped his looming figure, but was transparent enough for Ron and Harry to see Greyback grab Hermione, to see him pin her arms at her sides—his touch seemed to shock Hermione through even the mysterious Dark power of his magic, and she began to thrash.
Hermione screamed—terror tearing itself out of her vocal cords—and Greyback snarled, “Feisty, little bitch!” Greyback’s head darted downward toward Hermione’s exposed throat as Hermione screamed—
Ron yelled, “STUPE—!”
There was another explosion. Wholly different from the one before.
An explosion of howling wind and electricity rent the air and suddenly the entrance hall was emblazoned with the scorching light of the golden and grey storm of magic. The swirling vortex met Greyback’s black cloud with such power that Greyback was blown backward, slamming into the wall.
Harry and Ron’s mouths dropped open.
Remus Lupin had Apparated into the center of the entrance hall.
The tremendous golden-grey tempest that had barreled itself into Greyback and his black magic had cocooned Hermione; it had shielded her.
Hermione whirled around and ran without any hesitation—she pelted toward Remus and slammed into his chest with a whimper.
Remus did not stagger as she collided into him, his magic so vividly scorching and swirling in the air around them.
So swift Harry barely registered it, Remus wrapped one arm around Hermione and spun her behind him. Lithely, he side-stepped, coming to stand between Hermione and Greyback, one arm lifted and extended, the sleeve of his brown jumper hiding Hermione’s face.
The monster clambered to his feet. Greyback spat and his black magic massed—and then struck.
The two magical forces met one another with no sound, but with such terrible force that it sent chills down Harry’s spine. As Remus’ golden-grey magical vortex met Greyback’s yawning black cloud, the stone ceiling of the entrance hall trembled and groaned.
Harry and Ron had almost reached Remus and Hermione now, but were brought to halt as Remus’ magic burned so blazingly that their eyes watered. Harry fought to keep his wand raised…
Harry dared to look at Remus’ face, and there, he saw was something that he had never seen before.
Harry had seen Remus upset and distraught…he had seen the yellow flash in his eyes of the wolf in anger and fear and protection…but Harry had never seen the true depths of Remus’ capacity for anger until this moment.
The look on Remus Lupin’s face would have sent giants to their knees, begging for mercy.
Remus was furious.
He stood unflinching as a mountain. Remus did not shake nor tremble, but prowling energy pounded out of his body into the air like waves upon cliffs. He was glowing like a torch—so blazingly that it brought water to Harry’s eyes. And on his face was an expression of pure, unbidden fury.
Enraged, Remus’ eyes were more yellow than brown, so blazing they burned like twin flames. The scars and lines upon his face were warped with wrath, his jaw clenched and flexed as taught as a beartrap.
“Look at you,” Fenrir Greyback crooned, his voice was amplified as if by the black magic shielding him, “I knew you had it in you, Lupin. My prodigal son.”
The golden-grey storm around Remus somehow burned still greater—the entire entrance hall was bathed in it, except for Greyback’s corner, which was nearly wholly black, revealing nothing except Greyback himself, obscuring Lavender’s corpse behind him.
“I made you,” Greyback growled, a bone-chillingly shocking smile spreading across his blood-laden lips.
When Remus spoke, his voice was sharp as steel with untampered rage, “NO.”
And then, Remus cocked his head. It was a simple, clean gesture, but it alone made Harry falter and gasp.
There was a groaning, foreboding crack.
Greyback’s eyes darted upwards at the ceiling of the entrance hall, and so did Harry’s. Enormous jagged cracks had appeared all along the stone in the ceiling above the spot where Greyback stood, and then there was another explosion.
An explosion of light.
It was like the moment a nuclear bomb detonates in the far distance—when the sight of it is visible but before the sound had yet reached their ears. It was mute and instantaneous.
Remus’ magic overpowered Greyback’s own, and the black cloud vaporized as sound returned with an avalanche of stones. The ceiling rained down in a torrent of colossal boulders and Fenrir Greyback was buried beneath the boulders, and was no more.
Harry’s eyes could see properly again, the chills left him at once, for Remus’ magic had vanished from the air as well, returning back within him.
And he was no longer glowing. He was just a man, a tall, lanky man in a brown jumper with worn trousers and scuffed brown loafers.
Oh, but that wasn’t entirely true, now was it? Remus had never been merely a man.
Remus’ body gave an odd jolt, and immediately he turned back to look at Hermione.
“Are—are you alright, Hermione?” Remus said, taking a step back away from her.
Remus’ rage seemed to have been tampered along with his magic; quelled by his final defeat of Fenrir Greyback. His eyes were fully brown with flecks of green, and they were wide in his face.
Harry’s brow furrowed as he took in Remus’ new expression. He looked shocked—and weary and…fearful.
Remus took another step away from Hermione and raised his hands up in a show of surrender, “I…I’m safe…I just…”
I’m safe.
Oh…Remus.
Harry’s already aching heart felt like it had just been pricked open still further; it was like someone was digging a finger in his fresh wound.
Hermione stared up at Remus, and she was not trembling in the slightest. She took a step forward and reached out her arm. Remus balked as Hermione placed a soft hand on his chest, right above his heart, and said, “Good.”
Remus took another step back and bowed his head, inhaling sharply, and looked away. He was looking over to the pile of stones that buried the monster beneath them…
Ron had reached Hermione and extended his arms. She went to him, and Ron pulled her into a desperate embrace, and babbled, “Merlin, Hermione!”
Hermione hugged Ron tightly back, murmuring, “I’m okay…”
Suddenly, Remus’ head snapped up toward the marble stair case. His face was so pale, nearly white, and he stammered with wide eyes, “I…I…”
Harry whirled around to see Sirius Black, standing at the bottom of the marble staircase, his wand gripped in his right hand. His eyes were locked on Remus’ face.
Remus took another step back, his hands, still raised up in surrender, were shaking now.
“Tell me,” Sirius said, his voice was loud over the noise still clamoring from the floors above, “Who it was that made you.”
Remus opened his mouth but no words came out. He took another step back.
“Remus.”
Sirius was imploring. The urgency and plea in his voice seemed to bring Remus back to himself. He met Sirius’ gaze and squared his shoulders, clenching his long, scarred hands into fists at his sides.
“I made me,” Remus said, “and you. You made me. You and James and Lily and Harry and Teddy.”
“And what else?” Sirius said.
There was the sound of glass shattering overhead, and Harry, Ron, and Hermione glanced upward, wands raised again. Harry realized that they were the line of defense in this moment. This was too important to Sirius and Remus. Sirius needed to get Remus to come to terms with killing Greyback, and Harry, Ron, and Hermione must shield them until it was done. Harry would put his own quest on hold—for these precious moments.
Anything, he had told his guardians.
Harry would do anything for them. He would do this, and then continue his mission. He would see it all done.
“Come on, darling!” Sirius insisted, nearly begging, “I can’t say it for you!”
A beat passed.
Remus murmured, so faintly Harry scarcely heard him, “I am deserving.”
And then Remus straightened to his full height, and he shouted out as if to the star-strewn heavens visible through the ceiling above, “I—am—deserving!”
Sirius was moving a second later; he became a blur of streaking locks of black hair. Sirius collided with Remus and threw his arms around him.
In one lithe movement, Remus grabbed Sirius’ face by both hands and their lips met in a desperately fierce kiss—so impassioned and fervent that, for a single moment, it made Harry feel as if the battle beyond the entrance hall had paused.
Their kiss was bold and brazen and devout; the meeting of their lips was a form of worship. Sirius gripped Remus’ shoulders so tightly his hands were like vices and Remus’s hold on Sirius’ face was so strong that Harry felt that nothing—not even a Killing Curse—would have broken them apart.
As if on cue to Harry’s thoughts, there were louder shouts and screams from the floors above and jets of red and green light flashed overhead.
Remus released his hold on Sirius’ face and stepped back, breathless. Sirius stumbled a bit and Remus lightly grabbed his elbow, righting him.
Sirius still just stared up at Remus and Remus let out a small sound, like a prayer, and he bent down and stole one more kiss before reaching for Sirius’ hand, turning them back to face the others.
And just like that, the brief interlude was broken, because the front doors burst open.
Gigantic spiders forced their way into the entrance hall just as Hagrid came thundering down the stairs, brandishing his pink umbrella and roaring, “Don’ hurt ‘em, don’ hurt ‘em!”
"RUN!” Sirius yelled but Harry couldn’t move.
“HAGRID, NO!”
But Hagrid had reached the spiders and vanished among them, buried among their mist.
From the floors above, the jets of red and green light were now beginning to rain downward and Harry stole one fleeting look back as Sirius and Remus released their held hands and sprinted up the stairs, back into the fray with the Death Eaters.
“HAGRID!”
Harry, Ron, and Hermione ran down the front steps into the dark grounds, and the spiders were swarming away with their prey, and Harry could see nothing of Hagrid at all.
“HAGRID!”
Harry’s way was impeded by a giant foot, which swung down out of the darkness and made the ground on which he stood shudder. Harry looked up—a giant stood before him, twenty feet high, its head hidden in shadow. With one brutal, fluid movement, it smashed a massive fist through an upper window of the castle and glass rained down on Harry, forcing him back under the shelter of the doorway.
Hermione screamed but still, she raised her wand. Ron grabbed her wrist, “Don’t!” He yelled over the noise, “Stun him and he’ll crush half the castle!”
“HAGGER?”
Grawp came lurching around the corner of the castle and only now did Harry full appreciate that Grawp was an undersized giant. The gargantuan creature trying to crush people on the upper floors looked around and let out a roar. The stone steps trembled as he stomped toward Grawp, and they launched themselves at each other with the savagery of lions.
“RUN!” Harry cried. The night was full of hideous yells and blows as the giants wrestled, and Harry seized Hermione’s hand and tore down the steps of the grounds, Ron running right behind them. Harry had not lost hope of finding and saving Hagrid; he ran so fast that they were halfway toward the forest before they were brought up short again.
The air around them was frozen.
Harry’s breath caught and solidified in his chest. Shapes moved out in the darkness, swirling figures of concentrated blackness, moving in a great wave toward the castle, their faces hooded and their breaths rattling…
Ron and Hermione closed in beside him as the sounds of fighting behind them grew muted, deadened, because a silence only Dementors could bring was falling thickly through the night…
“Come on, Harry!” Hermione shouted, “Patronuses, Harry, come on!”
Harry saw Ron’s silver terrier burst into the air, flicker feebly, and expire; he saw Hermione’s otter twist in mid-air and fade; and his own wand trembled in his hand…
And then a silver hare, a boar, and a fox soared past Harry, Ron, and Hermione’s heads—the Dementors fell back before the creatures’ approach. Three more people had arrived out of the darkness to stand beside them, their wands outrstretched: Luna, Ernie, and Seamus.
“That’s right,” Luna said, “That’s right, Harry…come on, think of something happy…we’re all still here, we’re still fighting, come on, now…”
And Harry thought first of Remus—of his first one-on-one lesson with Professor Lupin, learning how to cast a Patronus. He thought of the fact that Sirius and Remus were still alive, and that the D.A. were at his side—and with the greatest effort it had ever cost him, the stag burst forth from Harry’s wand. It cantered forward and now the Dementors scattered in earnest, and immediately the night was mild again, but the sounds of the surrounding battle were loud in his ears.
“Can’t thank you enough,” Ron said shakily, turning to Luna, Ernie, and Seamus, “you just saved—”
With a roar and an earth-shaking tremor, another giant came lurching out of the darkness, brandishing a club taller than any of them.
“RUN!” Harry shouted again and the others scattered. Ron and Hermione stayed following Harry while the others vanished back into the battle.
“The Whomping Willow!” Harry cried, “Go!”
Recalling the boxes and shelves inside his mind, Harry packed away his thoughts of Fred and Hagrid, and his terror for Sirius, Remus, and Ginny—and the rest of the Weasley’s—into the back of his mind. It must all wait, because they had to run, they had to reach the snake and Voldemort, because they had to end it…
Harry sprinted, ignoring the jets of light flying in the darkness all around him, and the sound of the lake crashing like the sea, and the creaking of the Forbidden Forest though the night was windless; through the grounds that seemed themselves to have risen in rebellion, he ran faster than he had ever moved in his life, and it was he who slammed into the great tree first, the Willow that protected the secret at its roots with the same whip-like, slashing branches as it had always shielded Remus when the Full Moon rose…
Panting and gasping, Harry slowed down and skirting the Willow’s swiping branches, peering through the darkness toward the thick trunk, trying to see the single knot in the bark of tree and selfishly wishing he had asked Remus and Sirius abandon the battle to help them…
Ron and Hermione had caught up.
“How—how’re we going to get in?” Ron panted, “Crookshanks—”
“Crookshanks?” Hermione wheezed, “Are you a Wizard or what?”
“Oh—right—yeah!”
Ron directed his wand at a twig in the ground said, “Wingardium Leviosa!” The twig flew up into the air and then zoomed directly at the trunk through the Willow’s swaying branches. It jabbed at a place near the roots and at once, the withering tree stood still.
“Perfect!” Hermione panted.
Harry wriggled into the earthy passage hidden in the tree’s roots. The tunnel was low-ceilinged and Harry had enough fear to clear his mind enough to wander how Remus had managed, tall as he was as a teenage schoolboy…with his freshly-healing wounds the morning after…
Harry went first, wand illuminated, expecting at any moment to meet barriers, but none came. They moved in silence and at last the tunnel began to slope upward and Harry turned, throwing the Cloak over himself and whispered, “Nox.”
Harry pressed on ahead, and then he heard voices coming from the room directly above them, only slightly muffled by the fact that the opening at the end of the tunnel was blocked by an old crate. Hardly daring to breathe, Harry edged right up to the opening and peered through a tiny gap left between the crate and the wall.
The room beyond was dimly lit, but he could see Nagini, swirling and coiling like a serpent underwater, safe in her enchanted, starry sphere, which floated unsupported in mid-air. Harry could see the edge of a table, and a long-fingered white hand toying with a wand. Then Snape spoke, and Harry’s heart lurched. Snape was inches from where Harry crouched, hidden.
“…my Lord, their resistance is crumbling—”
“—and it is doing so without your help,” Voldemort said in his high, cold voice, “Skilled Wizard though you are, Severus, I do not think you will make much difference now. We are almost there…almost.”
“Let me find the boy. Let me bring you Potter. I know I can find him my Lord.”
Snape strode past the gap, and Harry drew back a little, keeping his eyes fixed upon Nagini, wondering whether there was a spell that might penetrate the protection around her…
Voldemort stood up, and Harry could see him now. The red eyes, the flattened, serpentine face, the pallor of him gleaming slightly in the near darkness.
“I have a problem, Severus,” Voldemort said softly.
“My Lord?”
Voldemort raised the Elder Wand, “Why doesn’t it work for me, Severus?”
“My Lord?” Snape said blankly, “I do not understand. You have performed extraordinary magic with that wand.”
“No,” Voldemort said, “I have performed my usual magic. I am extraordinary, but this wand…no. It has not revealed the wonders it has promised. I feel no difference between this wand and the one I procured from Ollivander all those years ago.”
Snape did not speak.
Voldemort started to move around the room, “I have thought long and hard, Severus…Do you know why I have called you back from the battle?”
And for a moment, Harry saw Snape’s profile. His eyes were fixed upon the coiling snake in its enchanted cage.
“No, my Lord, but I beg you let me return. Let me find Potter.”
“Potter will come to me,” Voldemort said, “I know his weakness, his one great flaw. He will hate watching others struck down around him, knowing it is for him that it happens. He will want to stop it at any cost. He will come.”
“But my Lord, he might be killed accidentally by one other than yourself—”
“My instructions have been perfectly clear. Capture Potter, kill his friends—the more, the better—but do not kill him. But it is you that I wished to speak, Severus, not Harry Potter. You have been valuable to me, very valuable.”
“My Lord knows that I seek only to serve him. But—let me go and find the boy, my Lord. Let me bring him to you. I know I can—”
“I have told you no!” Voldemort said and Harry caught the sharp glint of red in his eyes as he turned again, “My concern at the moment, Severus, is what will happen when I finally meet the boy!”
“My Lord, there can be no question, surely…?”
“But there is a question, Severus. There is.”
Voldemort halted and Harry could see him plainly again as he slid the Elder Wand through his white fingers, staring at Snape, “Ollivander told me under torture of the twin cores. Of my wand of yew and Potter’s. Ollivander told me to take another’s wand. So I sought the Elder Wand—the greatest wand of all. I took it from its previous master. I took it from the grave of Albus Dumbledore.”
And now, Snape looked at Voldemort.
His face was a Death mask—exactly like the face of Regulus Black which Harry had seen in Sirius’ memory in the Pensieve. It made Harry’s heart stammer; his blood run icy cold.
Snape’s face was marble white and so still that when he spoke, it was a shock to see that anyone lived behind the blank eyes.
“My Lord, let me go to the boy—”
“All this long night, when I am on the brink of victory, I have sat here,” Voldemort said, his voice barely more than a whisper, “wondering why the Elder Wand refuses to be what it ought to be, refuses to perform as legend says it must perform for its rightful owner…and I think I have the answer.”
Snape did not speak.
“Perhaps you already know it? You are a clever man, after all, Severus. You have been a good and faithful servant, and I regret must happen.”
“My Lord—”
“The Elder Wand cannot serve me, properly, Severus, because I am not its true master. The Elder Wand belongs to the one who killed its last owner. You killed Albus Dumbledore. While you live, Severus, the Elder Wand cannot be truly mine. Master the wand, and I master Potter at last.”
And Voldemort swiped the air with the Elder Wand, and the snake’s cage was rolling in the air, and before Snape could do anything more than yell, it had encased him, head and shoulders, and Voldemort spoke in Parseltongue, “Kill.”
There was a terrible scream. Harry saw Snape’s eyes widen as the snake’s fangs pierced his neck, as he failed to push the enchanted cage off of himself, as his knees gave way and he fell to the floor.
“I regret it,” Voldemort said coldly.
He turned away; there was no sadness in him, no remorse. It was time to leave this shack and take charge, with a wand that would now do his full bidding. He pointed it at the starry cage holding the snake, drifted it upward, off Snape, who fell sideways to the floors, blood gushing from the wounds in his neck.
Voldemort swept from the room without a backward glance, and the great serpent floated after him in its huge, protective sphere.
Back in the tunnel and his own mind, Harry opened his eyes.
“Harry!” Hermione breathed behind him, but he had already pointed his wand at the crate blocking his view. It lifted an inch off the floor and drifted sideways silently. As quietly as he could, Harry stepped into the room.
He did not know why he was doing it, why he was approaching the dying man. He did not know what he felt when he saw Snape’s white face, and the fingers trying to staunch the bloody wound at his neck. Harry took off the Invisibility Cloak and looked down upon the man he hated, whose widening black eyes found Harry as he tried to speak.
Harry bent over him and said, “Looks like you found your end in the Shrieking Shack after all.”
Snape seized the front of Harry’s jacket and pulled him close. A terrible rasping, gurgling noise issued from Snape’s throat, “Take...it…take…it…”
Something more than blood was leaking from Snape. Silvery blue, neither gas nor liquid, it gushed from his mouth and his ears and his eyes, and Harry knew what it was, but did not know what to do—
A flask, conjured from thin air, was thrust into his shaking hands by Hermione. Harry lifted the silvery substance into it with his wand. When the flask was full to the brim, and Snape looked as if there was no blood left within him, his grip on Harry’s jacket slackened.
“Look…at…me…” Severus Snape whispered.
The green eyes found the black.
After a heartbeat, something in the depths of the dark pair seemed to vanish, leaving them fixed, blank and empty. The hand holding Harry thudded to the floor, and Snape moved no more.