[ Hogwarts is unrecognizable. Its grand courtyards and elegant halls are littered with rubble and the dead of both sides, but Harry doesn't have the heart to consider who has suffered more losses as he pushes onward. It doesn't matter: a single fallen ally is one too many, and everywhere he passes seems to be another recognized face.
He wants to scream, retaliate the violence a hundredfold. It shouldn't be like this. He'd never, ever intended for anyone else to die for him.
There's been no great moment of realization. It's been building for months, or more realistically, for years. Even at eleven he had recognized the connection binding him to Voldemort, and every year since has piled more indisputable evidence at his feet. Though he's yet to admit it out loud, Harry has had a name for what he is for a while.
The blackened diadem marks the sixth Horcrux gone. Only he and the snake remain.
The snake that never leaves her Master's side.
He squares his shoulders and forces his numb legs to keep moving, deafening himself to the echoes of shouts from above. Dust and rubble rain down as another explosion rocks the west tower, but he seeks the shortest path possible to the forbidden forest, staggering on until the ground resettles beneath his feet; every minute wasted means more names are added to his list. Once out in the fresh air he spares the castle's silhouette a briefly nostalgic last look, and he almost misses that there are two sets of footprints marking a path through the fresh rubble and dust. But he's inherited a good share of the paranoid hyper-vigilance of a man Alastor Moody could only aspire to match.
With nothing more than a twitch of his wand, the hood of the invisibility cloak is whipped up and off his father's head. Though he's sorely tempted, Harry doesn't follow up with a stunning spell – they never land anyway.
It'd been foolish to think he'd manage to sneak off completely unnoticed, but he had hoped to avoid this confrontation especially. His frown deepens, then fades to resigned acceptance. ]
When I loaned you that cloak, I didn't mean for you to use it on me.
( He hadn't heard it himself — the Dark Lord's voice, reaching out into the minds of students and faculty alike. His mind's been in a permanent state of occlusion for longer than he can remember, leaving him free from the projection. It doesn't matter. The whispers break out among a few dozen preteens, and he gets the gist of the message.
As sure as the boy is his son, he knows Harry will follow the bloody command, too. The castle is in chaos, the wounded need help, and there are likely more urgent places that could use his hands. Bugger them all. He beats Harry to the treeline.
He's known. For a while. Railed against it, furious at everyone and everything. Furious at the Headmaster for having the audacity to keep it to himself for so long, furious at the Dark Lord for making it so, furious at himself for not having found a real solution for it yet, furious now at his son for this choice he's making now.
It has always been easier to feel angry than to admit the other emotions — it's true for both of them.
The cloak whips off. If Severus is surprised, there is no indication of it on his blood-spattered face. He looks nearly composed, save for the way that his robes are torn in places Harry can't yet see, the way castle dust clings to his skin, the way the knuckles of his wand hand barely protruding from the invisible-nothing of the cloak, are battered and raw as though he'd scrapped with someone the muggle way not very many hours ago.
Well, composed is perhaps the wrong word. He looks livd, in that dangerous, icy kind that perhaps his son's developed some immunity to in the last couple of years. )
And I never meant for you to make stupid, suicidal decisions, but here we are.
( Anger is a thin, cracking veneer for something far simpler. The truth is, he is experiencing the very, very desperate feeling of a parent being absolutely terrified of losing his son. Harry will likely have seen it in Molly or Arthur Weasley today. )
[ He faces that icy anger head-on, grimly unrepentant. ]
Here we are.
[ He is afraid, too. Every beat of his heart is precious, every breath of air one closer to the last he'll ever take, and it's never been more unfair to be Harry Potter. It's probably never been more unfair to be Severus Snape, either.
One more little thing shared between them. Harry tallies it with all the rest, and there are so many now that he's lost hope of ever counting them in the time he has left.
The tip of Draco's hawthorn wand droops, and then he lowers it completely. Another few steps bring him to the treeline, which is a less daunting task with something other than his death to approach. ]
There's no more putting it off, dad. It's got to end, and it's got to be me.
( He's always been a practical man, known to nearly everyone for being unsentimental, brutally willing to accept sacrifices in the name of the plan. Except, that isn't quite the whole truth of it. Only one other person alive right now knows it. Unsentimental, except for when he is — and then he is, fiercely. He changed sides for it. Fought a war for it. Protected a child he thought he'd hate for it. He burned down everything when she was threatened. Rethought his beliefs, upended reality as he knew it for the chance at keeping her alive.
What he felt then, he feels again now for the young man before him, fresh and enormous.
Were it anyone else standing here, now... Were it anyone else but his son, he'd be pragmatic about this.
It's got to end, and it's got to be me.
He knows. On some level, much as he's been refusing to acknowledge it, he does know. This is the only way. This is the only way the war ends. The only way for there to be any chance to put the Dark Lord into the ground for real.
Is he selfish enough to steal his son away, when keeping him means forfeiting the rest of the world? Yes, he thinks a part of him very well might be. The two of them could leave, abandon the war, abandon both sides, leave everyone else to their fate and hide. He could manage it, keeping them hidden, probably for decades.
Harry lowers his wand. A reluctant moment later, Severus lowers his own as well, and feels something crush him as he does. It's a piercing, rending resignation. It shines in his eyes like wet glass.
He's many things, but he's never been a coward. Even when perhaps it would have been more sensible, he's never been known to run. He won't be starting now. And, in the end, while Harry may be his child, he isn't actually a child. Not anymore. It isn't a boy that stands before him, and this is not Severus's choice to make on his behalf.
There's only one thing for it, then. He has absolutely no intention of walking away from this forest without his son walking with him. He never expected to survive this war anyway. So be it.
He breaks the silence finally, his voice gone quiet and thick, hoarse in places, raking against his raw throat. )
I am so very proud of you, and- though it's... incredibly unfair, how little time we were given... I'm so grateful to have had you as mine. I'm sorry I missed the beginning. I will not miss the end.
[ He can tell just from his face that Severus has grown thinner and more severe in the months they've been apart. The hollows of cheeks, the sharp line of his jaw, how the only color in his face is the rust of drying blood; he never had learned how to take care of himself.
It would be hypocritical to point out. Harry should make a joke instead. Gallows humor has carried them through some awful times, though he's at a loss for how to make light of this. A floating head and a dead man walk into a dark forest…
When the silence is finally broken, he is glad glad he didn't try.
Proud of you makes his hands clench into fists, and the rest just winds him tighter and tighter until he trembles. Though Severus makes both grand and thoughtful gestures, he is not a man of soft words or shows of emotion. To hear them now hurts in the best and most terrible way imaginable. To see a sheen in his dark eyes draws a sting to bright green. ]
I know.
[ After everything, there's no doubting one of his Severus Snape's vows.
There's going to be no reasoning with this man; no convincing him to stay behind to finish what Harry cannot.His chest feels as if it's constricting, squeezing around his heart like a vice, though it carries on thundering along in its valiant and futile effort to keep him alive. He suddenly closes the narrow gap between them, grabbing on, blindly laying his hands against his father's arms before hooking them around to tug him in. A tear cuts through the grime on his cheek when Harry shuts his eyes, but as he clings he pushes down the regret and fear, clearing it and everything else away, just like he'd been taught. ]
I love you too.
[ It's all he says for what feels like too much and no time at all. A hundred too-fast heartbeats, more than he can afford and not nearly enough. When he pulls back, it's piece by piece. His arms loosen, then his hands come to Severus' upper arms once more, bracing. He pulls back an inch at a time, still clutching his wand as one hand falls away. The other continues to hold on with aching tightness, putting off what has to happen for a second longer.
Harry tips his chin up and flicks his wrist, casting his final spell with look of gentle remorse, both their faces illuminated by the bright white light of a wordless petrificus totalus. ]
( It's a testament to how well they've come to really know one another, that Harry answers I love you too. An expression flickers across his features, a fleeting hint of ache so strong it escapes the lifelong practice of schooling himself.
His son reaches for him and he reaches back, his arms winding properly around Harry's shoulders. The hand not sporting his wand clasps the back of his head, and the irrational, fuzzy part of himself in the back of his mind notes that he feels taller now than he'd been the last time Severus had seen him. As though he needed the reminder that he'd missed more time. As though he needs the reminder that he won't be seeing where he finally levels off.
Oh, hell.
He hangs on too tightly for a little too long, his fingers buried in dark hair, his cheekbone against his son's temple, his own eyes squeezed shut and brow screwed up as he wars within himself to maintain control. He will not break now. He doesn't have to hold it together for much longer, he can manage what little time he has left. He can let it all hit when- wherever comes after.
He's compromised, and reluctant to let go, and so absorbed within this internal battle not to lose himself to the tide that he doesn't so much as suspect what's coming.
Until he means to reach out and clasp Harry's forearm, and finds that he cannot move. Any confusion he might have felt is answered instantly with that look of regret on the boy's face.
No. No, no, no, no-
He is still selfish, and while he might not have been ready to take his son and leave, he'd fully intended to just bloody die himself before he had so much as a chance to experience the grief. It was the smarter, easier way — to be, in the words of John Lennon, popped off by some loony — rather than having to survive loss like the last one he'd felt. A proper Slytherin way to go, probably. Choosing assisted suicide over emotional devastation.
Foolish, infuriating nightmare of a child-
Wild, desperate panic promptly sets in when that plan goes immediately to shit. But he cannot move, or speak, or snarl at his son the way he very, very much wants to. He also cannot hold back the first streak of a tear that tracks down his frozen face.
...please, don't.
He won't be able to cope with this one.
In a flare of raging, stubborn fury, he focuses the overwhelming torrent and his energy and every scrap of magic he's got into breaking through the bind. By the time Harry leaves to enter the forest proper, he'll have managed all of three fingers. )
[ The arm in his grip goes stiff, and so does the rest; his father would have toppled backwards had Harry not held on. He clumsily takes hold of a rigid shoulder as well, bracing while he speaks in a hushed, apologetic tone – as if that would be possible to soothe and comfort either of them in this moment. ]
This isn't your fault. This is on me, it's what I want, and I'm sorry if you can't understand, but… I'm not going to let him take anything else from me.
[ Dark, furious eyes pierce him with a look of betrayal and unmistakable terror as he gently lowers a stiffened body to the forest floor, tucking it safely behind a knot of tree roots. Harry busies his trembling hands by tugging the cloak into place, hiding torn trousers and bloodied knuckles. Finally, with a lingering look at his father's accusing gaze, Harry sweeps his knuckles across his temple, wiping away the tear track. ]
Meeting you was the best part.
Please don't follow.
[ He lets that pass for goodbye, pulling the cloak over Severus's face.
An immeasurable time after the shadows between the trees have swallowed him from sight, the binding hex gives way. When Harry next opens his eyes, it's to see James Potter waiting for him at the edge of an empty boarding platform. ]
just slapping u with novels left and right i am so sorry
( I'm not going to let him take anything else from me; how many times in their lives have they been of the same mind? Far, far more than either of them would have been willing to acknowledge only a few years ago. Far more than they could possibly count now. If he weren't so utterly lacerated in his heart right now, in his core, he might've laughed. They had the same bloody plan, only his son beat him to it.
A finger twitches as he's lowered to the moss and root of the ground, and he thinks, oh, I'm going to follow you so I can strangle you first myself, never mind the Dark Lord- because it's easier to feel rage than terror and desperation.
He has not been so helpless in... longer than he can remember. Not even at the feet of Voldemort, writhing under his curse has Severus felt so powerless as he does now.
He occludes, because he has no other choice. Determined to break the bind himself, channeling everything he has into it, unable to cast, unable to speak any incantation. Perhaps if Harry weren't as strong as he is, if his magic weren't so fueled by love, and if the love he channeled into that spell hadn't been so staggeringly plentiful, he'd have had a shot.
He knows he doesn't break the bind, because the whole thing drops abruptly and he'd only made it up to one wrist the moment prior. His heart sinks, but his brain refuses to acknowledge the obvious reason why. In an instant, he's on his feet and bolting into the forest.
He is, of course, far too late.
Both his son and Voldemort are on the ground, though he doesn't have eyes for the latter. His inner circle hovers around him, panicked and too preoccupied to pay attention to the slumped body of the boy, nor the man emerging from the shadows just beyond him. Nobody stops him. Only Hagrid is looking to Harry, and Hagrid's gone stone-silent, speechless. Severus doesn't see him, either.
Only his son, crumpled and unmoving, limbs at a twisted and haphazard angle, jaw slack.
The world grows quite dim, his vision vignettes at the edges. He staggers, the grace leaving his limbs, and he hits his knees a foot from the child. His mind has gone blank, his thoughts distant and surreal, a degree disassociated, like they belong to someone else. He can hear his own heartbeat.
He has felt this, once before. Sworn himself to somebody, once before. Arrived minutes too late, once before. Perhaps he is a curse. Perhaps he's tainted. Perhaps it is his own personal karma that he's bound to fail anyone he chooses as his own to protect. Maybe he damned his own son by making the choice. He is a failure, and this is his fault, he knows this as a simple fact the way he knows the sky is blue and snow is cold. He can't feel anything about that just yet, because there isn't enough room.
As though under water, he can hear somebody grating out a jagged, my son- my son-, and this is hardly the first time he's heard it in his career as a Death Eater. Very often, he'd been the cause. It does not yet register that this time, it's coming from him.
Between one blurry, blacked-out moment and the next, he's gathered the boy into his arms. Has pulled him against his chest, limp and unresponsive, clinging and rocking mindlessly. His emotions escape him; no mastery of Occlumency is enough to push them down. He is broken in a way Voldemort himself has never gotten to see, not under hours of torture, not after the lives of his own friends and associates were snuffed in front of him. He is weeping, and perhaps the shock of that gesture coming from Severus Snape of all people is what makes the Death Eaters steady their hands when they notice him — just the sheer bizarre novelty of the sight.
Eventually, the Dark Lord recovers and stands on his own, staring down at the unexpected sight before him. Seeing his once most trusted spy utterly devastated on his knees seems to be confirmation enough that the boy is well and truly dead.
"Well... this is certainly a surprise. Oh, Severus... you do know how to keep secrets, don't you?" The Dark Lord purrs gently, thrumming with satisfaction, with his victory. Severus does not so much as lift his eyes from his child to acknowledge it. "You'll make a fine finale to the demonstration, I think. A lesson, for any who may still feel... reluctant, after seeing the body of their symbol lifeless in defeat. A reminder of the consequences for betraying our own kind."
"Should I bring him, my lord?" One of the Death Eaters asks, making a move toward them. )
Don't touch him, ( Severus snarls venomously, reeling the boy in tighter, teeth bared like a mad dog and enough bloody murder in his eyes to set someone on fire.
"Severus will carry the boy. Come, my children. It is time to show the world our ending, and our beginning."
A half-dozen wands train on him. Voldemort displays class and patience as Severus slowly shifts his hold, reeling to his feet, carrying his son's body — undoubtedly with some mindless, subconscious assistance from his magic more so than with any real strength he might have remaining after this.
He is cold; equal parts empty and overflowing with despair. He's a broken thing.
I will kill the snake, and then I'll kill Him, and then I'll kill every last one of them with my own hands until they put my body in the fucking ground. )
[ "Harry," greets James, kind brown eyes warm as he invites his namesake closer with an impatient gesture. He is not as tall as he has always seemed in the photographs, but shorter, like him, and when James holds out his arm it fits around Harry's shoulders quite well. The weight of it is as real as the ground beneath their feet and the light pouring down from the glass ceiling above.
"You wonderful boy. Well?" he prompts, though with the satisfied air of someone who knows the good news already.
Harry likes him instantly and immensely. ]
Mischief managed.
[ James hauls him in like Sirius always has: with a laugh, like they're the best of friends, giving him a friendly shake and a slap on the back. It doesn't hurt like it should – he's been blasted back against two stone walls today, not to mention hexed and cursed and murdered – so Harry feels a thrum of worry when he realizes all his aches and scuffs are gone. He isn't even wearing his glasses.
But James is beaming when he pulls back, proud and adoring. It's the disarming sort of expression that makes him want to forget his troubles and grin back. They walk a ways. With every step Harry feels a little lighter, a little more distant from something he's carried so long it feels strange to be without. He looks back once but is urged forward, leaving the dark stain well behind.
"Nothing you need to worry about anymore," James reassures him.
Harry has the distinct impression that all this is a dream or a hallucination, the synapses of his brain firing off their final impulses as his body lays cooling on the forest floor, but when he asks if he's dead the other man shakes his head and begins to explain.
He tells Harry that it's a choice. That he can stay here at King's Cross and they'll board the train when it comes together… or that he can return later, after he's wrapped up a few loose ends.
"We can take the next one instead," he says lightly. "It's no rush. There's always another train." ]
[ —The first breath he takes hurts. The entirety of his chest feels bruised and tender where the killing curse had struck, and Harry clings to that pain, using it as a focus. He is alive. He is exhausted, battered, nearly broken, but so very, very alive, and every beat of his heart within the aching cage of his ribs feels like gift.
He keeps his body lax and his eyes shut, letting someone else gently gather and lift him. Harry's grateful not to be uncomfortably sprawled on the cold, damp forest floor any longer; coming to terms with his continued existence requires all his focus, and he's not sure he'd have managed to find his feet on his own.
The short march out of the forest is accompanied by the occasional hiccuping sob from Hagrid, but otherwise it is excited, jeering celebrations that trail behind them like a procession. It takes too long to realize the shoulder his head is propped against belongs to his father. He is very tense, very quiet. His eyes open up to narrow slits, and Harry swears he catches Narcissa Malfoy glancing their way but it doesn't matter, it's now or never.
They've stopped at the treeline. Voldemort speaks, every word magically projected into the minds of his followers and foes alike. Harry hears it too, but for the first time it's not accompanied with a searing pain in his scar.
He uses Voldemort's grandstanding as a distraction. Eyes barely open, lips barely moving, Harry digs a sharp elbow into Severus's torso. ]
( In a grand display of fatherhood that demonstrates he's almost certainly a worse one than James Potter, he nearly drops his son onto the ground in his surprise. He doesn't, of course, but there's a precarious moment where his knees nearly buckle as he walks, and his gait wavers — just the once. It's only that he's ill-equipped to handle the flood of feeling that rolls through his entire body, a current of it, static and painful and alarming — like electricity, like he's been struck by lightning or stuck a fork in a light socket.
He is, however, still a spy. Still Severus Snape, at the end of the day, and so he falls into his role immediately. Does not so much as glance down at the boy, his expression clouding over to something ever so slightly more blank, his footsteps rhythmic again.
But he holds the boy more tightly, fingertips digging in until they're nearly bruising.
Perhaps he should ask the Dark Lord how he's doing that nifty projecting thing before they kill him, just so he'll know how to do it himself in the future during moments like this — because he's trying very, very hard to do it himself, now, to Harry in his arms: I'm going to absolutely murder you, you unbelievable idiot. James Potter would've probably had something more comforting to say at a time like this.
But he cannot let the relief hit him yet. This is not over. Death is still only one too-slow reaction away.
He nods. Just once, barely perceptible. He's ready, and waiting for the cue. )
[ Harry doesn't need comforting right now; he needs composed, coldly calculating, and ready to murder. No one besides Severus could have fit the role. Somehow, between his friends and his father, he can trust that the final horcrux will be handled.
While better minds solve the real problem, all Harry has to do is what he's best at: distract and improvise. He hasn't come up with a better plan before he's carried to the castle doors, nor by the time Voldemort's summed his friends and family, flaunting his corpse.
"Harry Potter is dead. It is over. Bring him here, Severus. Set him at my feet, where he belongs."
Oh, fuck that, Harry thinks, and tips himself out of his father's bruising grip. He lands on his feet, which are much steadier than they had been on the long walk to the forest.
More gratifying than the gasps of the Death Eaters is the sudden overlapping cracks as the most cowardly disapparate… and the only thing more satisfying than that is the look on Voldemort's flat, lipless face, which is for a moment contorted with shocked terror.
For the first time Harry throws the first spell, ricocheting an explosive charm off the magic protecting Nagini into the remaining Death Eaters. The Dark Lord is successfully baited into a frenzied retaliation. Curse after curse is deflected or absorbed by Harry's shields, but dark magic is flung recklessly, with Voldemort showing no regard for the way his followers are caught in the castback. More flee.
Harry is all too aware of his own people throwing themselves into the fray, and he tries to compensate. Not a single one of his training duels with Severus could have prepared him for such an onslaught. He staggers, straightens, and as if already tasting blood on the air, Voldemort's red tongue touches the air. The elder wand lifts, and Draco's hawthorn wand rises to match.
Neither of them see how it happens, but Harry can tell the moment the snake dies. Fresh fear warps that hideous smile into a wrathful grimace, and this time Voldemort staggers, his focus split. ]
you're perfect and i was vibing exactly the same pace
( While Harry hasn't come up with a better plan than distract and improvise, Severus has come up with approximately thirty, all selectively discarded in rapid-fire. Frankly, it isn't much more useful than not having a plan at all. He's rewriting his strategy for the thirty-first time when Voldemort says set him at my feet, where he belongs.
In tandem, father and son have exactly the same thought: oh, fuck that.
Harry hits his feet. Severus has his wand in his hand — none of the Death Eaters thought to take it from him, too caught up in their lord's hubris, or perhaps too bewildered by Potter actually being dead. Or, maybe, it was the display of raw emotion that made them all distinctly uncomfortable enough to distract them. Whatever the case, he's fired off two hexes before half of the remaining troops have even wrapped their head around things.
He's quick, disappearing behind columns and reappearing behind in the throng of bodies before curses can land, flicking a few away with well-timed shields. He doesn't stop to duel any of them proper. He has only one goal — that hissing menace slithering through the crowd. He fires off a sectumsempra at her, but it rebounds. Everything rebounds. He is, for one delirious second, considering the merits of blasting Fiendfyre into a populated courtyard, when he hears a voice from behind him.
"Professor Snape!" He barely manages to look 'round. It's Longbottom, bolstered by newfound confidence he must've started gathering in last year's Potions classes, no longer bullied or belittled by a teacher who had no reason to keep the pretense. Encouraged, gently, to apply his Herbology expertise to the subject. And then, Merlin above and good god help his sanity, the boy pulls the bloody sword out of a hat. And throws it to him.
He catches it, and does not have time to deliriously respond fifty points to Gryffindor, though his sharp tongue is tempted. He barely has time to spin it before the snake is, for the second time in his life, lashing out to end him.
He beheads it in one stroke.
He's always hated that fucking snake.
Somewhere across the courtyard, a flood of gasps. Not over Nagini. Not over the hilarity of the head of Slytherin house wielding the bloody sword of Gryffindor, probably tainting the thing with his unworthiness. They gasp because the Dark Lord staggers, his wand flung from his hand, and it becomes suddenly abudantly clear: he has lost. )
[ In that split second of distraction, he casts. Magic erupts from the end of his wand, a wordless stream of raw power that Voldemort matches. Red light meets green, arcing, sparking.
Harry has no idea what it means to be uninhibited by the parasitic connection that has tied him to his mother's murderer all his life, to not have his strength siphoned off and turned against him. Harry wields it well. He pours from that fount of power, and Voldemort's strength falters, fails.
The curse rebounds. The elder wand spins through the air, eagerly coming to rest against its proper master's palm. Harry doesn't hear the gasps. He doesn't feel the eyes of their audience.
"Mercy," Voldemort gasps. He's been forced to his knees, inhuman features tipped up to Harry, who is the only one standing close enough to hear him beg. Likewise, Harry speaks to him alone. ]
There's nothing I can do for you, Tom.
[ Unflinching, unsympathetic, Harry watches as the magic intended for him dries Voldemort's pale hand into a dark husk, just like Dumbledore's cursed arm. Decay spreads beneath black robes, shrinking the thing within them. The rot inches up a long, pale neck, hollows out thin cheeks and deep eye sockets, and before Harry can so much as blink, Voldemort's corpse slumps over and hits the rubble-strewn ground, shattering with a puff of dust.
More panic, more cracks of disapparation, but Harry doesn't react. He takes a halting step closer to the pathetic pile of bones and dust, needing to be sure. ]
( Voldemort is dead. He is ashes. He is less than nothing. What once was him begins to be carried away with the breeze. It's the ultimate insult on top of the ultimate injury — everything that had been him is now insignificant and immaterial.
Severus drops the sword. It clatters to the ground. Somewhere across the courtyard, Minerva glances to him and nods, only the once. He feels absolutely mad when he nods back.
There are several cracks and pops as cowards disapparate. A few don't. A few sob, or scream, or throw themselves forward intent to finish what their Lord could not — Severus is not the only one to raise a wand, though perhaps the spells he fires are the most ruthlessly lethal, eviscerating the fools who dare try for it while Harry's attention is on the dust of the man who ruined his life. It doesn't last very long. What few Death Eaters remain are overwhelmed and dragged away.
The injured are carried inside. Students and Order members and teachers alike begin to slump, or laugh or cry, or kiss, or embrace. Couples hold their lovers. Parents hold their children.
Severus slowly walks to his son across the courtyard, and steadies a hand on his shoulder.
And absolutely tears him a new one. )
You moronic, suicidal, reckless, insouciant child! What the absolute bloody fuck did you think you were doing?! Incapacitating me- offering yourself up- you- I should carry you up the astronomy tower and throw you off myself! You were dead! Do you hear me?! Dead! You're grounded for a decade, you're not leaving your bloody room until after your children graduate, I swear to every God mankind has ever known-
[ He curls his fist around the pair of wands in his hands, inflicting further indignity on Voldemort's corpse by using the toe of his filthy shoe to cautiously prod at the robes. What must be bones crumble at the barest pressure, making his stomach turn. Already the faintest breeze is scattering dust, and Harry has no desire to send more of it billowing up into the air for anyone to breathe in, so he stops.
It's hard to be sure. The physical body may be gone, but that's no guarantee. Should he burn the robes, scatter the dust? What if they'd missed something? What if there was some dormant, unknown piece of Tom Riddle's soul still out there, waiting to ruin his life all over again? Harry hasn't felt anything from his scar since waking up in his sobbing father's arms, so he doesn't even have the old connection to call on. He rubs his knuckles over his forehead hard, as if to summon the old ache back, but his head only hurts in the mundane way.
A hand grabs his shoulder. Wide, dark eyes fill his field of vision, piercing into Harry, who does nothing at all to defend himself.
The rant washes over him, not a word of it penetrating the sensation of relief so strong it feels like a head-rush; like flying full tilt at the ground and leveling out just in time to feel the grass against his toes.
For the first time in so, so long, he is deeply glad to be alive.
Severus has earned himself two hugs today. Harry grasps his father by the side of his neck with a scuffed, dirty hand, giving him a shake before unceremoniously yanking him into an undignified hug, tight enough to squeeze the air out of them both. ]
You mean old bastard. You have no idea... [ Harry makes a very Snape-ish sound, a huff that is almost a laugh. ] This is exactly what I came back for.
[ That probably doesn't make much sense outside the context of his own head, but he says it with a lot of feeling, which ought to count for something. ]
( As it turns out, it only took about seven years for Harry Potter to figure out how to head off a furious tirade from Severus Snape. It's obnoxiously effective — his voice dies in his throat around the time that hand touches down at his neck. The energy of it remains, swirling in his chest, demanding outlet, until his son flings arms around him, killing the fire stone dead in one bone-rattling gust of an exhale.
His eyes squeeze shut, and he hangs on fiercely, the fingers of one hand tangled in tousled black hair while the other fists into the fabric of his son's shirt.
Only now does the relief finally set in, flooding through him so densely he nearly staggers under the weight of it. It's unprecedented, the swell of belated fear and affection and loss and recovery all hitting at once now that the fight is over. Now that the war is over. Only now can he trust it to be true — his son is alive. They both are.
At length, hoarsely, emphatically, he rasps; )
Never do that again.
( Any of it. All of it. As if there'll ever be an occasion — Merlin help them, let this be the end of it, he's too old now. He's done. He's retired. This is it, this is the moment, he's officially decided it. He's retired.
— and also, very, very serious about the grounding. He doesn't give a toss if Harry Potter is of age, or the savior of the wizarding world. He is so very, very grounded. )
[ No promises, Harry thinks but doesn't say. He readily lies, digging his chin into a bony shoulder to better feel the icy, wrathful terror drain out of the other man when he nods.
He'll have plenty of arguments for his grounding and their mutual retirement later – Severus isn't even forty yet, and Harry's only ever been good at thwarting dark wizards, so what the hell are they supposed to fill their next sixty years together with? Best to leave that concern for his future self to figure out.
Present Harry clings until, by some silent, mutual agreement not to let each other make a public scene, they eventually untangle. There are a lot of desperate embraces being exchanged, a lot of people in the throes of celebration and terrible loss, which means that Harry and Severus have not raised as many eyebrows as they might have otherwise.
Hagrid shows no such discretion. His heavy footsteps boom closer, making the scattered rubble rattle as he comes bearing down on father and son. If Severus isn't quick enough to move he'll be grabbed as well, and once Hagrid's got one of those tree trunks he calls arms around someone, it's no easy feat to escape. Harry beats awkwardly at his back while the half-giant weeps, eventually convincing him to let go, but by then Hermione and Ron have come staggering across the courtyard as well, trailed closely by Sirius. They stand a few yards back, waiting.
His eyes go to the pile of rags again, staring hard at what remains of the dust. They move over to Severus.
There are a hundred other people that Harry needs to check on inside, living and dead. Facing them will be harder than anything else. ]
( Harry's right, he's not quite forty yet — meaning he's still just adept enough to duck the massive arm that means to corral him into an undignified, likely moist embrace. He's perfectly content to let the half-giant squeeze his son nearly to death from a spectator's seat instead of on stage with him, thank you very much.
He allows others to take his place. The dog, Weasley, Granger, a few other tearful follow-ups. When the embracing is all well and done, though, he settles a proprietary arm over the boy's shoulders to lead him inside, reluctant to let him stray for any length of time just yet.
Sirius speaks up innocently as they wander in, "I say, Severus. Was that the sword of Gryffindor you were cuddling up to?" )
Bugger off, Black.
( It is, perhaps, the most companionable exchange the pair of them have ever had in their lives. )
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no subject
He wants to scream, retaliate the violence a hundredfold. It shouldn't be like this. He'd never, ever intended for anyone else to die for him.
There's been no great moment of realization. It's been building for months, or more realistically, for years. Even at eleven he had recognized the connection binding him to Voldemort, and every year since has piled more indisputable evidence at his feet. Though he's yet to admit it out loud, Harry has had a name for what he is for a while.
The blackened diadem marks the sixth Horcrux gone. Only he and the snake remain.
The snake that never leaves her Master's side.
He squares his shoulders and forces his numb legs to keep moving, deafening himself to the echoes of shouts from above. Dust and rubble rain down as another explosion rocks the west tower, but he seeks the shortest path possible to the forbidden forest, staggering on until the ground resettles beneath his feet; every minute wasted means more names are added to his list. Once out in the fresh air he spares the castle's silhouette a briefly nostalgic last look, and he almost misses that there are two sets of footprints marking a path through the fresh rubble and dust. But he's inherited a good share of the paranoid hyper-vigilance of a man Alastor Moody could only aspire to match.
With nothing more than a twitch of his wand, the hood of the invisibility cloak is whipped up and off his father's head. Though he's sorely tempted, Harry doesn't follow up with a stunning spell – they never land anyway.
It'd been foolish to think he'd manage to sneak off completely unnoticed, but he had hoped to avoid this confrontation especially. His frown deepens, then fades to resigned acceptance. ]
When I loaned you that cloak, I didn't mean for you to use it on me.
no subject
As sure as the boy is his son, he knows Harry will follow the bloody command, too. The castle is in chaos, the wounded need help, and there are likely more urgent places that could use his hands. Bugger them all. He beats Harry to the treeline.
He's known. For a while. Railed against it, furious at everyone and everything. Furious at the Headmaster for having the audacity to keep it to himself for so long, furious at the Dark Lord for making it so, furious at himself for not having found a real solution for it yet, furious now at his son for this choice he's making now.
It has always been easier to feel angry than to admit the other emotions — it's true for both of them.
The cloak whips off. If Severus is surprised, there is no indication of it on his blood-spattered face. He looks nearly composed, save for the way that his robes are torn in places Harry can't yet see, the way castle dust clings to his skin, the way the knuckles of his wand hand barely protruding from the invisible-nothing of the cloak, are battered and raw as though he'd scrapped with someone the muggle way not very many hours ago.
Well, composed is perhaps the wrong word. He looks livd, in that dangerous, icy kind that perhaps his son's developed some immunity to in the last couple of years. )
And I never meant for you to make stupid, suicidal decisions, but here we are.
( Anger is a thin, cracking veneer for something far simpler. The truth is, he is experiencing the very, very desperate feeling of a parent being absolutely terrified of losing his son. Harry will likely have seen it in Molly or Arthur Weasley today. )
no subject
Here we are.
[ He is afraid, too. Every beat of his heart is precious, every breath of air one closer to the last he'll ever take, and it's never been more unfair to be Harry Potter. It's probably never been more unfair to be Severus Snape, either.
One more little thing shared between them. Harry tallies it with all the rest, and there are so many now that he's lost hope of ever counting them in the time he has left.
The tip of Draco's hawthorn wand droops, and then he lowers it completely. Another few steps bring him to the treeline, which is a less daunting task with something other than his death to approach. ]
There's no more putting it off, dad. It's got to end, and it's got to be me.
no subject
What he felt then, he feels again now for the young man before him, fresh and enormous.
Were it anyone else standing here, now... Were it anyone else but his son, he'd be pragmatic about this.
It's got to end, and it's got to be me.
He knows. On some level, much as he's been refusing to acknowledge it, he does know. This is the only way. This is the only way the war ends. The only way for there to be any chance to put the Dark Lord into the ground for real.
Is he selfish enough to steal his son away, when keeping him means forfeiting the rest of the world? Yes, he thinks a part of him very well might be. The two of them could leave, abandon the war, abandon both sides, leave everyone else to their fate and hide. He could manage it, keeping them hidden, probably for decades.
Harry lowers his wand. A reluctant moment later, Severus lowers his own as well, and feels something crush him as he does. It's a piercing, rending resignation. It shines in his eyes like wet glass.
He's many things, but he's never been a coward. Even when perhaps it would have been more sensible, he's never been known to run. He won't be starting now. And, in the end, while Harry may be his child, he isn't actually a child. Not anymore. It isn't a boy that stands before him, and this is not Severus's choice to make on his behalf.
There's only one thing for it, then. He has absolutely no intention of walking away from this forest without his son walking with him. He never expected to survive this war anyway. So be it.
He breaks the silence finally, his voice gone quiet and thick, hoarse in places, raking against his raw throat. )
I am so very proud of you, and- though it's... incredibly unfair, how little time we were given... I'm so grateful to have had you as mine. I'm sorry I missed the beginning. I will not miss the end.
( You will not be alone. )
no subject
It would be hypocritical to point out. Harry should make a joke instead. Gallows humor has carried them through some awful times, though he's at a loss for how to make light of this. A floating head and a dead man walk into a dark forest…
When the silence is finally broken, he is glad glad he didn't try.
Proud of you makes his hands clench into fists, and the rest just winds him tighter and tighter until he trembles. Though Severus makes both grand and thoughtful gestures, he is not a man of soft words or shows of emotion. To hear them now hurts in the best and most terrible way imaginable. To see a sheen in his dark eyes draws a sting to bright green. ]
I know.
[ After everything, there's no doubting one of his Severus Snape's vows.
There's going to be no reasoning with this man; no convincing him to stay behind to finish what Harry cannot.His chest feels as if it's constricting, squeezing around his heart like a vice, though it carries on thundering along in its valiant and futile effort to keep him alive. He suddenly closes the narrow gap between them, grabbing on, blindly laying his hands against his father's arms before hooking them around to tug him in. A tear cuts through the grime on his cheek when Harry shuts his eyes, but as he clings he pushes down the regret and fear, clearing it and everything else away, just like he'd been taught. ]
I love you too.
[ It's all he says for what feels like too much and no time at all. A hundred too-fast heartbeats, more than he can afford and not nearly enough. When he pulls back, it's piece by piece. His arms loosen, then his hands come to Severus' upper arms once more, bracing. He pulls back an inch at a time, still clutching his wand as one hand falls away. The other continues to hold on with aching tightness, putting off what has to happen for a second longer.
Harry tips his chin up and flicks his wrist, casting his final spell with look of gentle remorse, both their faces illuminated by the bright white light of a wordless petrificus totalus. ]
no subject
His son reaches for him and he reaches back, his arms winding properly around Harry's shoulders. The hand not sporting his wand clasps the back of his head, and the irrational, fuzzy part of himself in the back of his mind notes that he feels taller now than he'd been the last time Severus had seen him. As though he needed the reminder that he'd missed more time. As though he needs the reminder that he won't be seeing where he finally levels off.
Oh, hell.
He hangs on too tightly for a little too long, his fingers buried in dark hair, his cheekbone against his son's temple, his own eyes squeezed shut and brow screwed up as he wars within himself to maintain control. He will not break now. He doesn't have to hold it together for much longer, he can manage what little time he has left. He can let it all hit when- wherever comes after.
He's compromised, and reluctant to let go, and so absorbed within this internal battle not to lose himself to the tide that he doesn't so much as suspect what's coming.
Until he means to reach out and clasp Harry's forearm, and finds that he cannot move. Any confusion he might have felt is answered instantly with that look of regret on the boy's face.
No. No, no, no, no-
He is still selfish, and while he might not have been ready to take his son and leave, he'd fully intended to just bloody die himself before he had so much as a chance to experience the grief. It was the smarter, easier way — to be, in the words of John Lennon, popped off by some loony — rather than having to survive loss like the last one he'd felt. A proper Slytherin way to go, probably. Choosing assisted suicide over emotional devastation.
Foolish, infuriating nightmare of a child-
Wild, desperate panic promptly sets in when that plan goes immediately to shit. But he cannot move, or speak, or snarl at his son the way he very, very much wants to. He also cannot hold back the first streak of a tear that tracks down his frozen face.
...please, don't.
He won't be able to cope with this one.
In a flare of raging, stubborn fury, he focuses the overwhelming torrent and his energy and every scrap of magic he's got into breaking through the bind. By the time Harry leaves to enter the forest proper, he'll have managed all of three fingers. )
no subject
This isn't your fault. This is on me, it's what I want, and I'm sorry if you can't understand, but… I'm not going to let him take anything else from me.
[ Dark, furious eyes pierce him with a look of betrayal and unmistakable terror as he gently lowers a stiffened body to the forest floor, tucking it safely behind a knot of tree roots. Harry busies his trembling hands by tugging the cloak into place, hiding torn trousers and bloodied knuckles. Finally, with a lingering look at his father's accusing gaze, Harry sweeps his knuckles across his temple, wiping away the tear track. ]
Meeting you was the best part.
Please don't follow.
[ He lets that pass for goodbye, pulling the cloak over Severus's face.
An immeasurable time after the shadows between the trees have swallowed him from sight, the binding hex gives way. When Harry next opens his eyes, it's to see James Potter waiting for him at the edge of an empty boarding platform. ]
just slapping u with novels left and right i am so sorry
A finger twitches as he's lowered to the moss and root of the ground, and he thinks, oh, I'm going to follow you so I can strangle you first myself, never mind the Dark Lord- because it's easier to feel rage than terror and desperation.
He has not been so helpless in... longer than he can remember. Not even at the feet of Voldemort, writhing under his curse has Severus felt so powerless as he does now.
He occludes, because he has no other choice. Determined to break the bind himself, channeling everything he has into it, unable to cast, unable to speak any incantation. Perhaps if Harry weren't as strong as he is, if his magic weren't so fueled by love, and if the love he channeled into that spell hadn't been so staggeringly plentiful, he'd have had a shot.
He knows he doesn't break the bind, because the whole thing drops abruptly and he'd only made it up to one wrist the moment prior. His heart sinks, but his brain refuses to acknowledge the obvious reason why. In an instant, he's on his feet and bolting into the forest.
He is, of course, far too late.
Both his son and Voldemort are on the ground, though he doesn't have eyes for the latter. His inner circle hovers around him, panicked and too preoccupied to pay attention to the slumped body of the boy, nor the man emerging from the shadows just beyond him. Nobody stops him. Only Hagrid is looking to Harry, and Hagrid's gone stone-silent, speechless. Severus doesn't see him, either.
Only his son, crumpled and unmoving, limbs at a twisted and haphazard angle, jaw slack.
The world grows quite dim, his vision vignettes at the edges. He staggers, the grace leaving his limbs, and he hits his knees a foot from the child. His mind has gone blank, his thoughts distant and surreal, a degree disassociated, like they belong to someone else. He can hear his own heartbeat.
He has felt this, once before.
Sworn himself to somebody, once before.
Arrived minutes too late, once before.
Perhaps he is a curse. Perhaps he's tainted. Perhaps it is his own personal karma that he's bound to fail anyone he chooses as his own to protect. Maybe he damned his own son by making the choice. He is a failure, and this is his fault, he knows this as a simple fact the way he knows the sky is blue and snow is cold. He can't feel anything about that just yet, because there isn't enough room.
As though under water, he can hear somebody grating out a jagged, my son- my son-, and this is hardly the first time he's heard it in his career as a Death Eater. Very often, he'd been the cause. It does not yet register that this time, it's coming from him.
Between one blurry, blacked-out moment and the next, he's gathered the boy into his arms. Has pulled him against his chest, limp and unresponsive, clinging and rocking mindlessly. His emotions escape him; no mastery of Occlumency is enough to push them down. He is broken in a way Voldemort himself has never gotten to see, not under hours of torture, not after the lives of his own friends and associates were snuffed in front of him. He is weeping, and perhaps the shock of that gesture coming from Severus Snape of all people is what makes the Death Eaters steady their hands when they notice him — just the sheer bizarre novelty of the sight.
Eventually, the Dark Lord recovers and stands on his own, staring down at the unexpected sight before him. Seeing his once most trusted spy utterly devastated on his knees seems to be confirmation enough that the boy is well and truly dead.
"Well... this is certainly a surprise. Oh, Severus... you do know how to keep secrets, don't you?" The Dark Lord purrs gently, thrumming with satisfaction, with his victory. Severus does not so much as lift his eyes from his child to acknowledge it. "You'll make a fine finale to the demonstration, I think. A lesson, for any who may still feel... reluctant, after seeing the body of their symbol lifeless in defeat. A reminder of the consequences for betraying our own kind."
"Should I bring him, my lord?" One of the Death Eaters asks, making a move toward them. )
Don't touch him, ( Severus snarls venomously, reeling the boy in tighter, teeth bared like a mad dog and enough bloody murder in his eyes to set someone on fire.
"Severus will carry the boy. Come, my children. It is time to show the world our ending, and our beginning."
A half-dozen wands train on him. Voldemort displays class and patience as Severus slowly shifts his hold, reeling to his feet, carrying his son's body — undoubtedly with some mindless, subconscious assistance from his magic more so than with any real strength he might have remaining after this.
He is cold; equal parts empty and overflowing with despair. He's a broken thing.
I will kill the snake, and then I'll kill Him, and then I'll kill every last one of them with my own hands until they put my body in the fucking ground. )
u started it (1/2)
"You wonderful boy. Well?" he prompts, though with the satisfied air of someone who knows the good news already.
Harry likes him instantly and immensely. ]
Mischief managed.
[ James hauls him in like Sirius always has: with a laugh, like they're the best of friends, giving him a friendly shake and a slap on the back. It doesn't hurt like it should – he's been blasted back against two stone walls today, not to mention hexed and cursed and murdered – so Harry feels a thrum of worry when he realizes all his aches and scuffs are gone. He isn't even wearing his glasses.
But James is beaming when he pulls back, proud and adoring. It's the disarming sort of expression that makes him want to forget his troubles and grin back. They walk a ways. With every step Harry feels a little lighter, a little more distant from something he's carried so long it feels strange to be without. He looks back once but is urged forward, leaving the dark stain well behind.
"Nothing you need to worry about anymore," James reassures him.
Harry has the distinct impression that all this is a dream or a hallucination, the synapses of his brain firing off their final impulses as his body lays cooling on the forest floor, but when he asks if he's dead the other man shakes his head and begins to explain.
He tells Harry that it's a choice. That he can stay here at King's Cross and they'll board the train when it comes together… or that he can return later, after he's wrapped up a few loose ends.
"We can take the next one instead," he says lightly. "It's no rush. There's always another train." ]
(2/2)
He keeps his body lax and his eyes shut, letting someone else gently gather and lift him. Harry's grateful not to be uncomfortably sprawled on the cold, damp forest floor any longer; coming to terms with his continued existence requires all his focus, and he's not sure he'd have managed to find his feet on his own.
The short march out of the forest is accompanied by the occasional hiccuping sob from Hagrid, but otherwise it is excited, jeering celebrations that trail behind them like a procession. It takes too long to realize the shoulder his head is propped against belongs to his father. He is very tense, very quiet. His eyes open up to narrow slits, and Harry swears he catches Narcissa Malfoy glancing their way but it doesn't matter, it's now or never.
They've stopped at the treeline. Voldemort speaks, every word magically projected into the minds of his followers and foes alike. Harry hears it too, but for the first time it's not accompanied with a searing pain in his scar.
He uses Voldemort's grandstanding as a distraction. Eyes barely open, lips barely moving, Harry digs a sharp elbow into Severus's torso. ]
You handle the snake.
no subject
He is, however, still a spy. Still Severus Snape, at the end of the day, and so he falls into his role immediately. Does not so much as glance down at the boy, his expression clouding over to something ever so slightly more blank, his footsteps rhythmic again.
But he holds the boy more tightly, fingertips digging in until they're nearly bruising.
Perhaps he should ask the Dark Lord how he's doing that nifty projecting thing before they kill him, just so he'll know how to do it himself in the future during moments like this — because he's trying very, very hard to do it himself, now, to Harry in his arms: I'm going to absolutely murder you, you unbelievable idiot. James Potter would've probably had something more comforting to say at a time like this.
But he cannot let the relief hit him yet. This is not over. Death is still only one too-slow reaction away.
He nods. Just once, barely perceptible. He's ready, and waiting for the cue. )
lmk if i'm bulldozing through too fast???
While better minds solve the real problem, all Harry has to do is what he's best at: distract and improvise. He hasn't come up with a better plan before he's carried to the castle doors, nor by the time Voldemort's summed his friends and family, flaunting his corpse.
"Harry Potter is dead. It is over. Bring him here, Severus. Set him at my feet, where he belongs."
Oh, fuck that, Harry thinks, and tips himself out of his father's bruising grip. He lands on his feet, which are much steadier than they had been on the long walk to the forest.
More gratifying than the gasps of the Death Eaters is the sudden overlapping cracks as the most cowardly disapparate… and the only thing more satisfying than that is the look on Voldemort's flat, lipless face, which is for a moment contorted with shocked terror.
For the first time Harry throws the first spell, ricocheting an explosive charm off the magic protecting Nagini into the remaining Death Eaters. The Dark Lord is successfully baited into a frenzied retaliation. Curse after curse is deflected or absorbed by Harry's shields, but dark magic is flung recklessly, with Voldemort showing no regard for the way his followers are caught in the castback. More flee.
Harry is all too aware of his own people throwing themselves into the fray, and he tries to compensate. Not a single one of his training duels with Severus could have prepared him for such an onslaught. He staggers, straightens, and as if already tasting blood on the air, Voldemort's red tongue touches the air. The elder wand lifts, and Draco's hawthorn wand rises to match.
Neither of them see how it happens, but Harry can tell the moment the snake dies. Fresh fear warps that hideous smile into a wrathful grimace, and this time Voldemort staggers, his focus split. ]
you're perfect and i was vibing exactly the same pace
In tandem, father and son have exactly the same thought: oh, fuck that.
Harry hits his feet. Severus has his wand in his hand — none of the Death Eaters thought to take it from him, too caught up in their lord's hubris, or perhaps too bewildered by Potter actually being dead. Or, maybe, it was the display of raw emotion that made them all distinctly uncomfortable enough to distract them. Whatever the case, he's fired off two hexes before half of the remaining troops have even wrapped their head around things.
He's quick, disappearing behind columns and reappearing behind in the throng of bodies before curses can land, flicking a few away with well-timed shields. He doesn't stop to duel any of them proper. He has only one goal — that hissing menace slithering through the crowd. He fires off a sectumsempra at her, but it rebounds. Everything rebounds. He is, for one delirious second, considering the merits of blasting Fiendfyre into a populated courtyard, when he hears a voice from behind him.
"Professor Snape!" He barely manages to look 'round. It's Longbottom, bolstered by newfound confidence he must've started gathering in last year's Potions classes, no longer bullied or belittled by a teacher who had no reason to keep the pretense. Encouraged, gently, to apply his Herbology expertise to the subject. And then, Merlin above and good god help his sanity, the boy pulls the bloody sword out of a hat. And throws it to him.
He catches it, and does not have time to deliriously respond fifty points to Gryffindor, though his sharp tongue is tempted. He barely has time to spin it before the snake is, for the second time in his life, lashing out to end him.
He beheads it in one stroke.
He's always hated that fucking snake.
Somewhere across the courtyard, a flood of gasps. Not over Nagini. Not over the hilarity of the head of Slytherin house wielding the bloody sword of Gryffindor, probably tainting the thing with his unworthiness. They gasp because the Dark Lord staggers, his wand flung from his hand, and it becomes suddenly abudantly clear: he has lost. )
no subject
Harry has no idea what it means to be uninhibited by the parasitic connection that has tied him to his mother's murderer all his life, to not have his strength siphoned off and turned against him. Harry wields it well. He pours from that fount of power, and Voldemort's strength falters, fails.
The curse rebounds. The elder wand spins through the air, eagerly coming to rest against its proper master's palm. Harry doesn't hear the gasps. He doesn't feel the eyes of their audience.
"Mercy," Voldemort gasps. He's been forced to his knees, inhuman features tipped up to Harry, who is the only one standing close enough to hear him beg. Likewise, Harry speaks to him alone. ]
There's nothing I can do for you, Tom.
[ Unflinching, unsympathetic, Harry watches as the magic intended for him dries Voldemort's pale hand into a dark husk, just like Dumbledore's cursed arm. Decay spreads beneath black robes, shrinking the thing within them. The rot inches up a long, pale neck, hollows out thin cheeks and deep eye sockets, and before Harry can so much as blink, Voldemort's corpse slumps over and hits the rubble-strewn ground, shattering with a puff of dust.
More panic, more cracks of disapparation, but Harry doesn't react. He takes a halting step closer to the pathetic pile of bones and dust, needing to be sure. ]
no subject
Severus drops the sword. It clatters to the ground. Somewhere across the courtyard, Minerva glances to him and nods, only the once. He feels absolutely mad when he nods back.
There are several cracks and pops as cowards disapparate. A few don't. A few sob, or scream, or throw themselves forward intent to finish what their Lord could not — Severus is not the only one to raise a wand, though perhaps the spells he fires are the most ruthlessly lethal, eviscerating the fools who dare try for it while Harry's attention is on the dust of the man who ruined his life. It doesn't last very long. What few Death Eaters remain are overwhelmed and dragged away.
The injured are carried inside. Students and Order members and teachers alike begin to slump, or laugh or cry, or kiss, or embrace. Couples hold their lovers. Parents hold their children.
Severus slowly walks to his son across the courtyard, and steadies a hand on his shoulder.
And absolutely tears him a new one. )
You moronic, suicidal, reckless, insouciant child! What the absolute bloody fuck did you think you were doing?! Incapacitating me- offering yourself up- you- I should carry you up the astronomy tower and throw you off myself! You were dead! Do you hear me?! Dead! You're grounded for a decade, you're not leaving your bloody room until after your children graduate, I swear to every God mankind has ever known-
no subject
It's hard to be sure. The physical body may be gone, but that's no guarantee. Should he burn the robes, scatter the dust? What if they'd missed something? What if there was some dormant, unknown piece of Tom Riddle's soul still out there, waiting to ruin his life all over again? Harry hasn't felt anything from his scar since waking up in his sobbing father's arms, so he doesn't even have the old connection to call on. He rubs his knuckles over his forehead hard, as if to summon the old ache back, but his head only hurts in the mundane way.
A hand grabs his shoulder. Wide, dark eyes fill his field of vision, piercing into Harry, who does nothing at all to defend himself.
The rant washes over him, not a word of it penetrating the sensation of relief so strong it feels like a head-rush; like flying full tilt at the ground and leveling out just in time to feel the grass against his toes.
For the first time in so, so long, he is deeply glad to be alive.
Severus has earned himself two hugs today. Harry grasps his father by the side of his neck with a scuffed, dirty hand, giving him a shake before unceremoniously yanking him into an undignified hug, tight enough to squeeze the air out of them both. ]
You mean old bastard. You have no idea... [ Harry makes a very Snape-ish sound, a huff that is almost a laugh. ] This is exactly what I came back for.
[ That probably doesn't make much sense outside the context of his own head, but he says it with a lot of feeling, which ought to count for something. ]
Had to be us. Always had to be us.
no subject
His eyes squeeze shut, and he hangs on fiercely, the fingers of one hand tangled in tousled black hair while the other fists into the fabric of his son's shirt.
Only now does the relief finally set in, flooding through him so densely he nearly staggers under the weight of it. It's unprecedented, the swell of belated fear and affection and loss and recovery all hitting at once now that the fight is over. Now that the war is over. Only now can he trust it to be true — his son is alive. They both are.
At length, hoarsely, emphatically, he rasps; )
Never do that again.
( Any of it. All of it. As if there'll ever be an occasion — Merlin help them, let this be the end of it, he's too old now. He's done. He's retired. This is it, this is the moment, he's officially decided it. He's retired.
— and also, very, very serious about the grounding. He doesn't give a toss if Harry Potter is of age, or the savior of the wizarding world. He is so very, very grounded. )
no subject
He'll have plenty of arguments for his grounding and their mutual retirement later – Severus isn't even forty yet, and Harry's only ever been good at thwarting dark wizards, so what the hell are they supposed to fill their next sixty years together with? Best to leave that concern for his future self to figure out.
Present Harry clings until, by some silent, mutual agreement not to let each other make a public scene, they eventually untangle. There are a lot of desperate embraces being exchanged, a lot of people in the throes of celebration and terrible loss, which means that Harry and Severus have not raised as many eyebrows as they might have otherwise.
Hagrid shows no such discretion. His heavy footsteps boom closer, making the scattered rubble rattle as he comes bearing down on father and son. If Severus isn't quick enough to move he'll be grabbed as well, and once Hagrid's got one of those tree trunks he calls arms around someone, it's no easy feat to escape. Harry beats awkwardly at his back while the half-giant weeps, eventually convincing him to let go, but by then Hermione and Ron have come staggering across the courtyard as well, trailed closely by Sirius. They stand a few yards back, waiting.
His eyes go to the pile of rags again, staring hard at what remains of the dust. They move over to Severus.
There are a hundred other people that Harry needs to check on inside, living and dead. Facing them will be harder than anything else. ]
Coming, dad?
fade to black?? sobs deeply
He allows others to take his place. The dog, Weasley, Granger, a few other tearful follow-ups. When the embracing is all well and done, though, he settles a proprietary arm over the boy's shoulders to lead him inside, reluctant to let him stray for any length of time just yet.
Sirius speaks up innocently as they wander in, "I say, Severus. Was that the sword of Gryffindor you were cuddling up to?" )
Bugger off, Black.
( It is, perhaps, the most companionable exchange the pair of them have ever had in their lives. )