Another Story

Chapter Nineteen

In which there is more fighting

Alastor Moody had lost sight of the young Aurors who had accompanied him to Hogwarts for the battle and the rest of those assigned to the Dark Forest, except for a few older Ravenclaw students who were dealing with a trio of werewolves. Moody was battling a Death Eater himself at the bottom of the steps leading to the doors of Hogwarts.

He had had suspicions about high ranking officials in the Ministry of Magic for some time and suspected that at that very moment he was fighting none other than Edmund Nott from the Transportation office. Alastor could not wait until the battle was over, until he could see the faces of these accursed Dark Wizards and know them for who they really were. But Nott was a slippery one and knew what he was doing better than his comrades had during the first reign of Voldemort.

At the same time that Moody managed to slip a curse past the defenses of his opponent, he heard a small sound behind him. In the brief instant of triumph, his vigilance had slipped. Alastor turned with his wand raised to see a werewolf with a jagged blade leaping toward him. The man would have easily skewered him with the knife, but his eyes suddenly rolled back and he fell heavily to the earth with a strangled sigh, the weapon falling dully from his nerveless fingers. He had been hit from behind with a stunner in the very nick of time.

Alastor looked toward where the spell had come from: the great stone stairs of the castle. He could not hide his surprise when he realized who had just saved his life.

Severus Snape was standing on the stairs with his wand half-raised and a robe billowing about his shoulders. By the aging Auror's estimation, Snape looked as though he might collapse at any moment. He was as pale as death and noticeably trembling. He had the look of one who had experienced extreme magical torture, something that Moody recognized quite easily.

Snape awkwardly made his way down the stairs toward the former Auror. His tread was still very unsteady, but he struggled not to appear so weak nor so dizzy as he felt. He hated the way Moody was looking at him, a mixture of surprise, pity, and almost critical assessment. He had used the first spell that had come to mind on the werewolf that had crept up behind Moody. It was more a matter of instinct, a reflex, than a conscious decision.

"Snape," Alastor acknowledged in a rough growl, reaching a hand out to steady him.

When Snape had turned against his master during the previous conflict, Moody had warned Dumbledore not to trust him, that a true Dark Wizard could not change his ways any more than a leopard could change its spots. Dumbledore had noted his advice and sheltered Snape from prosecution nevertheless. For that moment on the battlefield, Moody was privately very glad that the headmaster had done so.

"Moody," he replied with a slight nod. It was difficult to speak, so much so that he had barely ever managed the single spell word that had dispatched the werewolf.

"You shouldn't be out here after what happened," said Alastor, glancing around to be certain that they were safe for the moment.

"Doesn't matter," mumbled Severus.

"I dare say it does to some people," growled Moody as Snape's eyes roamed over the grounds.

"I need ... to find her."

"Easy, laddie, who do you need to find?" he questioned. Severus shuddered against the cold and the constant drizzling ran falling around them. "Here, let's get you sorted out," said Moody, reaching to button his robes.

"Hermione ... Granger," Snape answered as the ex-Auror made quick work of the buttons. "Thank you," he said softly.

"Granger, eh? She went off to fight the dementors with McGonagall and Miss Weasley," Moody answered with a thin smile. Alastor could spot a man in love as well as anyone. "But you would be better served going back inside than trying to find her out here," he added.

"Where is she?" Severus asked, transfixing Moody with a piercing and serious gaze.

"Round by the greenhouses unless I am much mistaken," he replied.

Snape nodded brusquely and began walking away from Alastor. His steps were ungainly, but he was clearly determined. The ex-Auror suddenly found himself wondering if Albus had not been right all along about the younger wizard.

"Damn shame if he gets himself killed now," growled Moody before returning to the fray.

~

The next thing Hermione knew she was dodging the giant's weapon while something small and gray darted past her and to her lasting amazement scrambled up the club as though it were a ramp. It was Professor McGonagall in Animagus form! Hermione rolled away from the instrument of destruction as impacted with the turf with a colossal thud, which had caused her to duck with so great enthusiasm that she had ended up on the ground. Hermione could not imagine what her professor was attempting, though it was certainly very daring.

Then a bellow of intense pain rang through the air and Hermione knew. Professor McGonagall had gone for the creature's eyes with her claws in an attempt to blind the giant, which would give them a better chance of defeating the massive being.

Hermione watched in horror as he caught hold of Minerva and flung her away with startling speed and a giant's strength. In the rain and darkness she could not see where the professor had landed or if she had landed on her feet. She gulped as she looked up at the giant, which was rubbing furiously at his bleeding eyes. Professor McGonagall had done a job on them.

For a moment Hermione considered running. But there was the question of her head of house ... If she were injured, Hermione could not leave her. She kept one eye on the giant and began looking around frantically for McGonagall. Nothing. Then the giant lifted his club again and began making slow arcs with it as though seeking something.

"Me," Hermione realized, moving quickly out of the way.

She could tell that by the way the giant lifted his head that he could hear her. She was breathing very rapidly, very loudly by her own estimation.

The giant took a wild swing and missed her. It was a close enough call to make her scramble. Giants were not a clever race, but they were certainly fearsome warriors and capable killers. A leer lit his blood splattered face. She knew that he had an even better idea as to the location of his quarry. He raised his club and took another mighty swing at her. But there was something the giant didn't count on: the castle battlement just to his right. The gigantic iron-shod club nicked a rampart than ran between the North and West Towers, taking with it several large hunks of stone.

Hermione looked up just in time to see the tremendous amount of debris hurtling to earth and directly toward her. Out of the corner of her eye she saw something black racing past the blinded giant. Time itself seemed to stand still as she recognized the robe-clad form. Her jaw dropped as she saw both horror and resolve in those familiar ebony eyes. He dove for her with a single-minded determination, tossing her to the ground beneath him and shielding her with his body.

"Severus," she breathed just before the world around them went completely dark.

~

Ginny was gasping for breath by the time she reached the front of the school. Her eyes darted over the grounds, looking for anyone capable of fending off a giant. She glimpsed Percy far away through the crowd. Too far, she decided, looking around wildly for someone who would help her. There was a cluster of Hufflepuff fifth years who had surrounded a very fierce looking man in shabby robes who reminded her a bit of Remus. They were busy. Then she spied one of the young Aurors who had come to the school. She began jogging toward him, wincing at the mild stitch in her side.

Then she heard someone crying out a spell over the chaos and noise of the battlefield. Barely an instant later there was a loud, rumbling sound all around the other nearby combatants and Ginny that was nearly deafening. It was a blasting curse, and a strong one, if she was any judge of such things.

Ginny felt herself being lifted into the air with the power of the blast and closed her eyes, waiting for the impact that was certain to follow ...

~

Minerva picked herself up shakily from the ground and watched the giant stump away from the pile of rubble, smashing blindly into a greenhouse as he left, satisfied that his enemies were no more. Pain shot through her wand arm as she transformed. She could not take her eyes from the heap of fractured stone beneath which one of her students and, unless her eyes were playing tricks on her, one of her colleagues were buried. Her wand fell from her fingertips. She could not hold it. Her ribs ached as she drew a gasping breath. Tears came to her eyes.

"So senseless ..." she murmured, dragging herself to her feet and taking her wand in her other hand. "She could have run ..." Minerva thought.

Upon reaching the rubble, ancient stonework dislodged by the club of a giant, she collapsed to her knees.

"Wingardium Leviosa!" she said, pointing her wand toward the debris and hoping that she could manage something, even using the wrong arm.

The stones trembled, but remained decidedly where they were. Again and again Minerva tried the spell, but it was no use. She laid her wand aside and began to attempt to move the rubble by hand. It was hardly any better, but she could not go for help, and judging by the blasting curses that she could hear on the other side of the castle, it was not all that probable that anyone could be spared. She thought of Ginny for a moment and wondered how she was getting along in her quest for reinforcements.

"Better than we have fared here, I hope," thought Minerva, continuing to sift through the rubble.

~

Remus Lupin looked down at his right leg and winced. He was rather certain that it was broken. He touched his foot lightly to the ground and felt a jolt of pain and grimaced. Such a silly idea, bone-breaking curses. Remus looked at the dead werewolf lying on the grass in front of him and sighed. She was rather pretty. She had been rather pretty, he amended mentally, and willing to fight to the death. It had been no use trying to reason with her. But he had tried. The attempt had earned him a fractured leg and a few scratches across the face.

"Ferula," he said, binding up his leg with a soft sigh. No use going to the hospital wing in the middle of the battle. Not for this.

He took that moment of relative calm as an opportunity to survey the battlefield. It was littered with bodies already. Nothing could be done about that. They would pick up the pieces later. Remus looked for Ginny, but the only redhead he saw was Bill Weasley, whose long, damp hair was clinging to his face as he wrapped magical cords around a black robed figure at his feet.

Then Remus realized that there was no sign of Harry, Ron, or Professor Dumbledore. He felt unnaturally cold for a moment. If something had happened to them, it was almost certainly all over. His eyes drifted over what was left of the castle gates toward a shimmering golden light in the air outside the grounds a few meters or so. Remus could not make out quite what it was. He clenched his wand in a white-knuckled grip and began ambling toward the gate.

Part of the professor, as he crossed the lawn as quickly as he could, longed to join the fray again, but he knew that much of their fate rested upon whether or not Voldemort himself was defeated, presumably by Harry, who had been groomed for the task. That thought carried him all the way to broken gate of the school before he was forced to pause again.

And when Remus looked up the road that led toward Hogsmeade, he was almost certain that his eyes were playing tricks on him. There was an enormous glittering dome in middle of the path. He squinted as he noticed a pair of wands, one of which looked very much like Harry's, spinning at the apex of the dome. Harry had explained, he recalled, what had happened after the third task of the Triwizard Tournament, but he could not fathom what those wands were doing up there.

Remus could not see into the globe of light, but he could see two figures silhouetted against it, both tall and rather thin: Albus Dumbledore and Ron Weasley. That meant that Harry and Voldemort were inside the dome, fighting it out for the fate of wizarding kind. And Remus wasn't certain who would have the advantage in such a contest.

As he pulled himself up the path toward Dumbledore and Weasley, the former turned and gave him a grim smile.

"I suppose you know what is happening here," said the headmaster.

"Harry?" he questioned, nodding toward the magical enclosure.

"Yes," answered Dumbledore. "In the end, I suppose, it is rather fitting that they do this without an audience, though I would have given anything for Harry not to be alone."

"So would I," said Ron softly.

Remus squeezed his shoulder and said, "All of us would."

~

And at that particular moment, Harry would have welcomed assistance from just about anyone. His first instinct when battling the Dark Lord had been to attempt to disarm him. To his amazement, it had worked after a fashion, but since they had both cast Expelliarmus, they had both lost their wands due to the Priori Incantatum effect. The wands had spun a golden light, a cage of sorts, around them and then shot into the air where they continued to spin crazily at the top of the dome. That left Harry to face Voldemort without magical aid.

"Wandless magic, wandless magic," Harry thought as they circled one another like wild animals ready to leap upon their prey, though to be fair Harry was rather certain that he was the prey and Voldemort was the hunter, "I wish I had had the headmaster explain how that works a bit more clearly."

Voldemort lunged toward him with fire in his shining red eyes, but Harry skipped out of reach. He was more than fifty years younger and physically fit. Harry was making a mental list of his strengths and weaknesses while attempting to focus on his foe. Maybe try a few spells? But without a wand ... Even Voldemort was not trying to use magic ... yet. That was not a good sign. Something important was tugging at the back of Harry's mind, but he couldn't quite remember what.

"Well, Potter, are we going to fight, you and I, or are you going to dance?" asked Voldemort as Harry dodged out of his grasp a second time.

He could move like a serpent, but Harry was hoping that he didn't have the stamina for a long fight. Of course, he wasn't certain that he necessarily did either.

"Not going to avenge your parents?" taunted Voldemort.

Harry remained silent as they continued to circle. Using them to make him angry, to make him lose control and do something stupid, would not work anymore. Sirius and Remus had seen to that.

"Who else have I killed that mattered to you?"

"My godfather," Harry spat, already thinking of the only real guardian, the only one that had ever really cared about him.

"Sirius Black, wasn't it? Oh, no, that was Pettigrew. An equitable trade, I suppose. A rat for a dog," said Voldemort. "One of my followers told me that Black screamed just like a little girl when Pettigrew's curse took effect," he added smugly.

Harry could feel the anger building and hoped that through some blind chance it would be enough to cause him to do something, preferably something useful. Sirius had been dead for a little more than a year. In less stressful moments Harry could say exactly how many days it had been since he had lost his godfather.

Pettigrew was already dead when Harry had reached the spot where Sirius had caught up with him. But Sirius was still very much alive and afflicted with a curse that was slowly killing him. Harry had not known the counter-curse. Or maybe there was none. Sirius was pale and obviously in pain, and he was trying desperately not to show it, to put on a bold face for Harry.

He had tried to cast Mobilicorpus on his godfather to take him to the hospital wing, but Sirius had demanded that Harry put him down. His voice was still strong and firm, still the voice of the man who had risked so much to be there for Harry.

"I don't want to spend my last moments with you like that," said Sirius.

Nothing had prepared Harry for that moment. Not Cedric Diggory's death. Not anything from fifth year, though that had been a terrible year. He had believed that when the war was over ... when Sirius' name was cleared ... that they would be able to live together in peace for a while at least. That he would have a family of his own. Peter Pettigrew had robbed him of another family. It didn't matter one whit that he was dead too.

Harry had gathered Sirius in his arms. The older wizard had smiled. It was uncanny. So much pain, his impending death, and he could still manage a smile. It had been a long while since Harry had cried, but at that moment, he couldn't help it.

"Sirius ... tell me what to do!" he had sniffed, wanting to do something, anything to save his godfather.

"Live, Harry. Survive this war. And live," Sirius had told him. Simple words.

At that particular moment, feeling the anger beginning to consume him as he stared down the man responsible for so much pain and death, Harry found it difficult to remember those words and to keep his cool.

"Well, Potter?" sneered Voldemort, slowly his steps slightly.

"You can't possibly win," said Harry.

"Oh, can't I?" questioned the Dark Lord before leaping into the air, like a snake coiling and then striking.

Harry stumbled backwards in surprise and found himself suddenly pinned to the ground by his adversary an instant later. Voldemort's hands were suddenly around his throat. There was a look of triumph and cruel joy in his eyes as he crackled almost shrilly. Harry struggled, trying to loosen or pry away the hands that were squeezing the life out of him at a rapid pace. But the Dark Lord's hands were like bands of iron.

Then he felt something hard against his side beneath his robes. His heart began beating even more wildly as he realized that it was the sword of Godric Gryffindor, forgotten in the heat of battle. Harry seized the hilt through the robes and with all the strength that remained in him, levered the point upward and gave it a good solid push.

Voldemort's eyes widened. Harry could feel his throttling fingers lose their strength and gave another thrust with his blade. Something warm was running down the sword. Harry could feel it on his robes and the hand that gripped the sword. It was blood and a lot of it. Voldemort's mouth moved silently. His red eyes grew foggy as though a thin, murky film had passed over them. The creature that had once been Tom Riddle made a soft gurgling sound and collapsed. He coughed once, expelling a small amount of blood, and did not move again. He was dead.

Harry pushed Voldemort away with an overwhelming feeling of revulsion that was followed by a rush of intense relief. Pulling the sword from within his slightly torn robes, he looked at the blood stained blade for a moment before wiping it on his robes and thrusting it into the ground. It was really over. The worst of it at least was finally done.

The two wands fell to the ground. Harry stooped and retrieved the one belonging to him, glad to have it back in his hand. The golden dome disintegrated around him, revealing Professors Dumbledore and Lupin and Ron. They all had their wands ready in their hands, just in case. Harry looked at them and shook his head before pointing toward the crumpled form of Lord Voldemort.

"He's dead!" he told them.

"Well done, Harry," said Dumbledore.

"I knew you could do it, mate," Ron told him with a smile.

Remus simply nodded, but there was a very proud look on his face that Harry could not miss.

"What now?" questioned Harry, looking to Professor Dumbledore and then at the body.

"That must be disposed of. It would not do if it fell into the wrong hands. We have all seen enough of him, I believe, and by no means should his followers be permitted to claim the corpse," said Dumbledore.

"Yes, sir," nodded Harry in agreement.

He looked down at his bloodstained school robes and removed them. His shirt and pants beneath were virtually unstained. He tossed the garment onto Voldemort. Harry then lifted Voldemort's wand from the ground and gave it to Dumbledore, who calmly snapped it in half before throwing it on the growing pile.

Their next course of action was determined by an unspoken decision. Words were not necessary. They simply knew what should be done.

"Incendio!" they said with a single voice, each pointing his wand at the dead Dark Lord.

The flames were high and hot, lighting up the night sky with some measure of brilliance. Harry looked into the eyes of his friends and professors as they watched Voldemort burn to nothing, naught but a pile of ashes that would be scattered upon the wind in the morning. The light rain sizzled quietly among the flames, but could not quench them. That was the end of Lord Voldemort.

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