The Last Marauder

The Unforgivables

Harry knew that his plan had hardly any chance to be successful, but at least he had to try. If he would die, he would die fighting.

With the quick movements of a seeker he pulled out Sirius' wand, rose to his feet, pointed the wand at Wormtail and for the first time in his life cast and Unforgivable Curse.

"Crucio"

Wormtail immediately fell to his knees and started screaming. Voldemort spun around in surprise, obviously unharmed by the curse. Thousand thoughts shot through Harry's head. It did not work! Why? It should be working, shouldn't it? Maybe he didn't focus enough.

Harry tried to summon all his anger, all his hatred, everything he had felt that night in the Shrieking Shack when he still had thought that Sirius had betrayed his parents. He had wanted to kill his godfather that day and he wanted to kill Wormtail now.

He remembered what Sirius had told him that afternoon.

The day of his parent's wedding. How happy they had been. Had Wormtail already known then that he would deliver them to death? Had he planned it already by the time he had embraced his mother and told her how beautiful she looked? By the time he had congratulated his father for finding the perfect match?

The day of his birth. Wormtail had been there when his father had held him for the first time. He had seen his pride, his love for his son. Had he already planned to betray his family then, had he known that James would not see his son grow up? That Harry was not supposed to grow up at all?

Tears dwelled into Harry's eyes but he could make out the blurred shape of Voldemort sinking to his knees. He couldn't hear Wormtail's screams anymore, all he heard was his own blood pounding through his body in the frantic rhythm of his heartbeat.

He thought about Remus.

Wormtail must have known that Voldemort intended to kill him. He must have known what this had to mean to Sirius. Harry remembered the days after Remus' death, he remembered how Sirius had felt. How he had cried, how he had accused himself, how he had given up all hope.

Harry realized that he was close to killing Wormtail. He didn't know for how long he had cast the spell but Wormtail was lying on the floor and didn't move anymore. He was still breathing however.

And suddenly he knew what to do. He removed the curse from Wormtail and turned around towards Voldemort. The bond between them obviously worked both ways for the Dark Lord was lying on the floor, breathing heavily. Out of the corner of his eye he saw hooded figures running towards them from the Manor.

He quickly glanced at his godfather who stared at him with a mixture of disbelief, shock and pride in his eyes.

"Sirius, run!"

Harry took a deep breath. He had already cast one Unforgivable, he had to finish this. Pointing his wand at Voldemort he yelled the words that had ended the life of his parents, the words that had been meant to kill himself fifteen years ago.

"Avada Kedavra"

A flash of green light shot out of his wand and threw Harry back against the wall. He must have been unconscious for some moments for the first thing he saw was an empty space where Voldemort was supposed to be. The Dark Lord had vanished. He was not dead, Harry was sure about that, but he was not here anymore, at least not at the moment.

He heard screams from the direction of the Manor, somebody yelled curses, but Harry was too exhausted to engage himself in the fight. Somebody shouted "Stupefy!"

And again, everything went black.

When Sirius woke up again he was lying next to the wall in the yard where Voldemort had been only moments before. He remembered dimly that Harry had taken his wand and then he had cast Cruciatus on Wormtail. Sirius shook his head.

At first it had not made sense to him and he wanted to make Harry stop but then he had realized that Harry did exactly the same thing that had been done to him during the Death Eater attacks. He must have guessed that cursing Voldemort directly might have no effect at all, that the Dark Lord was too strong for this. But cursing him this way had worked.

And then Harry had removed the spell, had told Sirius to run and had cast the Killing Curse on Voldemort. He remembered. There had been a high scream, as if caused by pain, and then Voldemort had been gone.

Sirius got to his feet. The Death Eaters had stunned him but they must have forgotten him in the heat of the moment. However, Harry was gone as well and Sirius was more than only sure where they had brought him to.

He thought for some moments whether he should go and alert Dumbledore but then decided against it. It might cost precious time.

He searched the grounds and found his wand lying on the floor where Harry had stood before. He must have dropped it after casting the curse.

Sirius picked it up and apparated as close to Malfoy Manor as possible.