The Final Battle
It was quite mesmerizing to see the grace and control with which Severus Snape conducted himself under the most horrendous of circumstances. Before Sirius’s very eyes, he had transformed into a completely different person, assuming the crucial role that he had been coerced into playing since he was twenty years old. While Sirius concentrated his gaze on the beautiful way that Severus’s mended cloak swept across the grass, collecting the morning dew, Severus walked with confidence over to the gate to allow Voldemort and his companions admittance into the Hogwarts’ grounds. It was costing Sirius everything that he had to remain hidden and inactive underneath the Invisibility Cloak, meanwhile Severus kept his wand pointed almost lazily behind him at Harry and managed to look completely indifferent to their son’s impending death.
“I apprehended Potter trying to sneak in mere minutes ago,” Severus lied in an impressively calm and even voice, as Nagini floated directly by him in her protective orb. “I haven’t done anything other than hold him here. I knew to leave him for you.”
“Excellent, Severus,” Voldemort’s red eyes glinted in the dawn’s early light as he stared at Harry, while Sirius tightened his grip on the Sword of Gryffindor and felt its blade sink into the soft earth a bit more. His stomach was spasming with revulsion and he didn’t know how he could possibly stay still and continue suppressing his protective instincts. Sucking in his breath as James’ resurrected form crouched down in the grass beside him for support.
“Hold tight,” his beloved friend urged him, as Voldemort finally turned away from Harry to feast his eyes upon the scant followers that he had brought with him to bear witness.
“Do you see now how a faithful servant gives what is due to his master?” he asked them coldly, as Bellatrix bowed her head contritely and a shiver spread through the air amongst the rest of them.
Unlike her usual haughty self, Bellatrix currently was giving off an air of desperation as she stared worshipfully up at Voldemort despite the marks of torture that she bore on her face and arms. She had presumably suffered punishment for owning the vault at Gringotts that the Horcrux had been stolen from, though it didn’t appear to have diminished her fanaticism in the least. She still seemed starved for the acknowledgement that the Dark Lord gave to Severus, while Wormtail and all three of the Malfoys looked as though this was the last place they wanted to be.
“My Lord knows that I desire only your approval,” Severus said modestly, while Draco stared at him in blatantly obvious confusion. Clearly never having expected Severus to actually hand over Harry Potter, even if this was also the man he’d witnessed kill Albus Dumbledore.
“I know that,” Voldemort’s lipless mouth curved in a smile, as his white bony hand clenched around Severus’s wrist for just a moment as he passed him.
Sirius felt a rush of hot anger swell inside him but was amazed at Severus’s ability to not recoil from such touch. He was magnificent, suppressing all the hurt that Sirius knew to be surely plaguing Severus’s heart as much as his own right now. He had never seen Severus this way before. Despite recognizing all too often the exhaustion in his eyes and even helping to heal his injuries on occasion, it was something altogether different to see Severus playing the part of faithful Death Eater right now and understanding exactly how much it cost him.
“My detection spells alerted me to an intruder at the gate,” Severus told Voldemort, a satisfied smile playing across his lips, as though Harry’s capture was exactly what he desired. His ability to act and control the scene was something nobody else could possibly have done this well. Lying to Voldemort’s face and getting away with it again and again. “I believe Potter was hoping to speak with Dumbledore’s portrait.”
“He’s a good one, isn’t he?” James whispered to Sirius, with a regretful note in his voice.
"I love him, James," said Sirius, speaking so quietly that he barely heard his own voice.
"I know you do," James murmured, "It will be alright, I promise. Today won't be the end of anything - except for Voldemort."
Sirius's eyes remained focused on Severus and filled with tears. His clammy hands shook on the hilt of the sword but he was grateful that James was seeing what he saw and acknowledged it. He was just thankful now that they had had one another for this short time that they had joined together for Harry. He wished so much that their happy life together hadn’t been so brief and hard won. Now that they both understood and respected one another, and more, so much more. Because Harry had deserved the absolute best they could give, and Harry had inspired that absolute best out of both of them. Just like Harry now was invoking the best from the world. Willing to lay down his life for the cause that they all believed in.
“And what message did Dumbledore’s puppet wish to deliver?” Voldemort asked.
He was eyeing Harry like prey while he paced back and forth in front of him, but Harry didn’t even blink as he glared back. Standing tall on his wobbling knees, with his mother directly beside him for support, and matching contemptuous looks on both his and Lily’s faces. Sirius could barely breathe as he turned his gaze from Severus to Harry and watched on, feeling a surge of overwhelming pride in Harry’s courage and endurance despite what had to be. Sirius hadn’t reached that level of acceptance in himself yet, as his insides burned with longing to throw himself in front of his son like a human shield the way Lily had done, but knowing that he couldn’t.
“I give you the boy who has survived by accident and because Dumbledore was pulling the strings!” Voldemort announced to his followers, motioning to Harry with the wand that he had taken from Lucius Malfoy in a gesture veiled with intended humiliation, but also because he believed that he needed to kill Harry with a wand that did not share a matching twin core.
‘But now there’s no Dumbledore to save him or mother to die for him,” Voldemort continued, as Lily’s form, which was only visible to Harry, Sirius, and Severus, moved instinctively closer to her child. While Draco Malfoy stared directly into the sun and his parents both looked straight ahead with dazed eyes.
“Harry’s so strong, he’s not showing fear,” James murmured to Sirius, who was trembling underneath the Invisibility Cloak with a voracious need to move and stop what was about to happen. James kept him grounded, firmly reminding him that, “This will be over soon and no matter what, all of us with always have each other. The person I feel most sorry for is Peter.”
Having completely ignored their old friend’s presence until now, Sirius glanced over at Wormtail and understood for the first time why James might have some sympathy for the man who had sold him out to Voldemort. James was proving that death was not the worst thing that could happen to someone. Being a traitorous coward in this lifetime and the next was far worse than moving on too soon. For that reason, it was more enviable to be Harry. Unbowed and strengthened by a goodness of virtue and love to sustain you along your eternal journey. Peter no longer had any of that. Peter had nobody.
"James..." Sirius breathed. His best friend, his first love. He had never admitted that to James before and understood now that he didn't have to - James knew. He could see his heart and every broken, complicated bit of it. James could see what he'd done to step up and be a father on earth that Harry needed and just how much it was destroying him to remain still while Harry fulfilled this final plan with the highest cost.
“Easy, Padfoot - don’t give yourself away,” James cautioned, standing up to go rejoin his son as the warm breeze became non-existent and nature’s music ceased its song, as though in predetermined mourning with time coming to a resounding halt. “Focus on the snake. Remember that this is just goodbye for a short while. I'll see you again and I'll always love you.”
He gave Sirius one final smile as Voldemort raised his wand high in the air. James had barely made it back to Harry’s side in time - him and Lily squeezing close to Harry like two pillars of support, while Severus watched on with blank eyes that perfectly masked his agony from the side of the Death Eaters. All of Voldemort’s present supporters looked uncertain, with the exception of Bellatrix, whose breasts heaved with excitement in anticipation of the bright green light that suddenly cast through the air. Sirius was struck spontaneously deaf in his distress so that he never actually heard the incantation cried, but saw Harry’s legs give out while the Resurrection Stone slipped from his hand, vanishing James and Lily instantly, though their work there was done.
“Master!” Bellatrix screamed, her voice the first thing to reach Sirius’s ears and pull him back to present as he forced himself to look away from Harry’s lifeless body on the ground.
He noted how Bellatrix had dropped to her knees next to Voldemort, who appeared to have collapsed after casting the killing curse. Was he also dead? Sirius didn’t see how that could be. His breath hitching in his chest as he saw the Malfoys backing away from Voldemort looking frightened, while Wormtail seemed grotesquely spellbound.
Severus had taken a few steps towards Harry before stopping, now looking around the air in every which way. Sirius realized a fraction of a second later that Severus was searching for him. That it was his time to move, though Harry had gone, and it seemed like nothing else should matter right now. But James’s words flooded back with an urgency that compelled Sirius to move faster than he ever had before.
“No!” Bellatrix cried, though she was already too late when the Invisibility Cloak slipped off of Sirius and he sliced Nagini’s head off with a single swipe of the sword. The protective orb she’d been encased in was no match for the blade strengthened with Basilisk Venom. Black smoke and a haunting echo wailed through the sky as Dumbledore’s assumption was proven correct, that the snake had been a Horcrux and now no longer was.
“AVADA KEDAVRA!”
It was a moment before Sirius realized that he was still alive, for he thought that he shouldn’t be. He’d seen Bellatrix raise her wand to him, there hadn’t been time to reach for his own, but Severus had reacted instinctively and far more quickly than her. So that the curse never left her lips, before she was hit square in the chest by a green flash of light that matched what had taken out Harry. Bellatrix landed down beside Voldemort in the grass and her wand slipped out of her fingers.
“Severus!” Narcissa moaned, bending over at the waist and cupping her hands over her mouth while she stared helplessly at her dead sister.
Though Severus paid her no mind, his wand still held out and pointed at Lucius now. “Examine him! Lucius, hurry! Hurry! Tell me if he’s dead!”
Confusion and something close to fear was on Lucius’s face as he stepped towards the still unmoving form of Lord Voldemort. Obeying the orders from a man who had just revealed himself to be a traitor to their side, killing one of their own without a blink of hesitation in exchange for the life of someone who ought to be his enemy. Yet Severus had done so much for the Malfoy family that none of them seemed ready to turn on him so explicitly, no matter what they thought right now.
“My wand….” Lucius gulped, picking up the broken splinter remnants of his confiscated wand. It had apparently been blasted apart by the full force of Voldemort’s killing curse. Though it made no sense and there was no time for a closer examination, when Sirius became aware of a terrible rasping sound behind him. The examination of Lord Voldemort was postponed.
“No, No, Stop!” Sirius cried, but Wormtail’s silver hand would not obey his command. Severus had not been the only person to involuntarily react at the reality of Sirius’s life being endangered.
A half-ward movement was all that it took. A flick of his hand towards his wand, like he might have wanted to defend his old friend, but then reconsidered. The damage had been done by his first impulse - Peter had shown a morsel of mercy to the enemy. So that the replacement hand of Lord Voldemort’s own cruel design had turned on him with intent to kill.
“Help me!” Sirius begged, trying without success to pry Wormtail’s hand from his throat. Nobody deserved to die in such a way. Not even the former friend who had told Voldemort where the Potters were hiding. “Severus".
“There’s nothing to be done,” Severus said, arriving at Sirius’s side but not moving towards Wormtail, who suffocated before them, growing bluer in the face until there was no longer any life left in him.
“Severus - “ Sirius said again, distressingly he lowered Wormtail’s body onto the ground and thought about how he had wanted to kill him for betraying the Potters, but hadn't been able to stand idly by right now and watch him die without trying to help. It said more about Sirius’s growth than it did about Peter, as Sirius looked to Severus with worn and pleading eyes. Wanting to say so much, before a blood curdling scream shook them and he forgot all else.
“Avada Kedavra!” Sirius roared without hesitation, fueled by an explosion of hatred that riled him more dangerous than he’d ever been before. He’d turned around to aim a killing curse directly at Voldemort, who had woken from his unconscious state to discover Bellatrix and Nagini dead beside him, with Wormtail in the beyond. Lucius’s wand was shattered and the circumstances seemed suspect, though there was no time to contemplate. There was only reaction.
“NAAAAAAAH!” Voldemort cried, back on his feet with his arms spread wide. Sirius’s curse was blasted back so that it ricocheted all around them like green flashing stars. Severus, Sirius, and all three of the Malfoys ducked to avoid being struck.
“Kill him! Kill him!” Voldemort shrieked at Severus, his murderous eyes transfixed on Sirius as he summoned Bellatrix’s wand up into his hand.
Though Severus raised his wand, it was to shoot a curse directly at his master. Freeing himself from the bounds that had restricted him for his whole adult life in a single shot. It made Voldemort snarl, no time to reckon with how or why his favourite servant, murderer of Dumbledore, captor of Potter, would switch only now. It was only abundantly clear that he had. Sirius and Severus both threw all their will and prodigious skill into the magic they cast at him, while the Malfoys rushed out of harm's way, and Harry’s body was ignored.
“Severus!” Voldemort exhaled, turning his wand above his head to create a funnel of fire that he shot spiraling at the man he’d thought was his.
“Protego!” Narcissa cried over her shoulder, her shield spell blocking Severus from the flames before she kept running, dodging Voldemort’s curse as she rushed past the gate and disapparated from the scene with Lucius and Draco. Escaping the battle and preserving their family. They would not fight for Voldemort, but they would not fight against him either.
“You’re a fool,” Severus said coldly, deflecting a killing curse off that shot instead at a tree that split apart and sent sparks of flames up from Voldemort’s fire when it landed. “Everything you really think was your idea, was Dumbledore’s grand plan that you fell for!”
“Your Horcruxes are all gone!” Sirius added angrily, turning his wand and lashing out with all that he had. “Severus was never yours! He played you!”
Together they dodged in and out, around Voldemort, but unable to finish him. Their spells diverted, with their shields providing only seconds of relief. As the battle continued without an end in sight, but for the dread of fatigue and the greater chance for a fatal mistake. With nobody coming, it was only them two. They would die here together, for that had been understood, but before that they’d finish him - the Dark Lord who had stolen everything good in their lives and wrecked what could have been.
“AVADA KEDAVRA!” they shouted together, just as Voldemort cried the same. The spells collided in the air, a three-point glow of green with a fatal promise. The line pulled at Sirius and twisted, pleading with him to break the connection, as Sirius held on with everything that he had and trusted Severus to do just the same. With his eyes squeezed shut in concentration and the full course of their magic combined and expressed as one unity for the same purpose. They just needed to hold on longer than Voldemort - that’s all they had to do.
“EXPELLIARMUS!”
Without warning they both were pulled forward. Sirius’s knees slammed into the ground and his eyes flew open just in time to see that his curse, combined with Severus’s, had pierced through the air like arrows at Voldemort, who’d been disarmed of his wand and could not prevent it from happening. The Dark Lord was struck aglow with a bright green light that marked death - he fell back and moved no more. Without a vessel to preserve his soul, which was damned beyond help imaginable. He was gone. It had happened.
“Harry!” Severus gasped, down beside Sirius, they stared at the figure standing away from them. Neither could dare to believe what they were seeing, watching Harry walk towards Voldemort’s body with the captured wand in his hand. Miraculously alive, even though it did not make sense and there was so much to question.
If it was real and where to go from here if it was? Everyone speechless and all three of them alive. As Harry turned away from the corpse of Lord Voldemort and confirmed to Severus and Sirius both that he was truly there in full physical form. Having intended to die and that being what mattered. Met by Dumbledore who had told him to come back. They couldn’t have finished Voldemort without him, and Harry couldn’t have done it without them either. Because being part of a family meant never having to fight your battles alone. All three of them were at the end, but it was also the beginning.