[ 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}
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. )