[ —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. )
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
(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. )