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traintracksTitle: Daylight – Part Five of Six
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traintracks777 / traintracks
Part Four: On DW | On LJ
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“Run!” MacGonagall shouted, and the students who had crowded the entryway door scampered back inside at her bidding. The dragon came down fast, folding back its massive wings in a dive, and Harry watched it open its jaws, the fire in its throat rolling over its tongue.
Hagrid, probably assuming she’d follow him back into the school, let go of Hermione, and Harry watched her run toward, rather than away from, the streams of billowing fire and smoke. Toward Ron. Or rather where Ron had been last. Now there was only black smoke and robes on fire and screaming.
Harry was torn between following – either to stop her or to help her, he wasn’t even sure – or fighting this new threat. He drew his wand and craned his neck. He was about to strike with an ice spell when he saw it – the light of the wand, tiny over the dragon’s back. And in that small blue light… Except that it couldn’t be. It absolutely couldn’t be.
But it bloody was.
Sirius.
It was Sirius.
Riding the dragon.
Sirius was up there – he had returned – somehow he’d known – and he was riding a dragon.
Harry watched, dumbstruck, as his lover hauled back on great silver chains, and the dragon lifted its bulky head, stretching its neck, angling up the side of the school. Harry felt the hot rush of air as it flew past and then up into the clouds of mist and smoke, getting smaller and smaller. It turned, spreading wide wings, and it arced, diving toward the courtyard once more, its great mouth opening, the span of the jaws unthinkable, and Harry could only duck behind a fallen statue as fire scorched the earth before him, this time in controlled balls, each one spit at the fleeing Death Eaters, rolling boulders of flame.
When it had passed yet again and was soaring up into the sky, Harry made a run for it. He covered his face with his arm to keep out the smoke, and he yelled over his elbow, “Hermione!” and then, “Ron!” He lit up the courtyard with his wand, chaos all around: burning Death Eaters, the stench horrific, swirling robes, strikes of lightning. “Ron! Herm—”
“HARRY!” Ron shouted, and there he was, face dirty with soot, red head like a beckon, his arm thrown around Hermione’s shoulders as she led him, coughing, back toward the school. Ron was beaming. “Did you see? Did you see him, Harry? Sirius! It’s Sirius! On the dragon, mate!” He was far too gleeful for the situation, and poor Hermione’s face was haggard with terror and effort.
“Get back inside!” Harry shouted.
He let them pass, and he couldn’t help but watch the dragon beat its wings against the smoke, dispersing the swirling cloud, Sirius not even visible now. But there. He was there. He had come.
Harry scoured the ground then, squinting against the sting. The courtyard was deserted – no sign of Voldemort. Yet Harry could still feel that presence. His scar ached terribly, and he resisted the urge to rub at it. As he watched the skies, Death Eaters on brooms took off after the dragon, and for a split second all Harry could do was hold his breath as the spells flew through the air and the fireballs were launched in retaliation. Then, out of the western sky, its cry even deeper, more frightening, a second dragon soared into the scene, singeing two Death Eaters, setting their brooms on fire and sending them plummeting to the ground. Harry tried to see who was riding this one but couldn’t. He heard his name called urgently from inside, Hermione’s broken voice, and Harry turned, taking the steps two at a time, running through the smoldering doorway only to stop short.
Dumbledore was in the middle of the entry hall, students and teachers alike crowded behind him near the door. He was facing the staircase, and on the next landing up stood Voldemort – with Severus Snape.
Harry made to curse them both, but without so much as turning an eye on him, Dumbledore gestured, and suddenly Harry was paralyzed. He could only move his eyes, and he cast his gaze around only to find that everyone else seemed frozen in position as well, unable to fight or flee, unable to do more than breathe and listen and fear and wait. Hermione must have just got her call to him out before Dumbledore could stop her. Now they all watched, helpless, to see what would happen.
Voldemort spoke, and what he said shocked Harry to his core. “As you no doubt know by now, Albus, your trusted potions master here has made The Unbreakable Vow, and that Vow is to kill you. Or rather…was it to help Draco and kill Dumbledore only if he failed – do I have that right, Severus?” Voldemort cast his gaze to Snape, behind him and to his left.
Snape gave the slightest nod. “Yes, Lord.”
Voldemort chuckled. “It seems you have so very many people under your school’s roof who wish to kill you, Albus; I don’t know how you’ve stayed alive so long.” He sighed. “And it shall be your choice how to die: you can die by Severus’s hand and save his life…or you can damn him and take your chances with me.” Voldemort pretended to give this choice thought, stroking his chin with too-long fingers. “Now, the choice seems clear to me. If you go with the second one, you have a fighting chance against me – I’ll fight fair and not disarm you, because, after all, where’s the fun in that? Snape will die, of course, but you’ll have the chance to fight for your own life. The first choice is really quite dismal, don’t you think? Snape lives, you don’t, end of story. What kind of choice is that, hmm?”
Harry watched Snape swallow, his eyes never leaving Dumbledore, Dumbledore’s never leaving him. Harry was surprised – that Dumbldore didn’t seem concerned with Voldemort himself; it was Snape he communed with silently; it was Snape who was the recipient of what, from where Harry was standing off to Dumbledore’s right, appeared to be…
Pity.
Sadness.
Even…compassion?
No. Worse. Gratitude.
Dumbledore was grateful to Severus Snape.
And that’s when Harry realized: Dumbledore intended to let Snape die.
All sorts of competing feelings struck Harry, then. As much as he despised Snape, had always suspected if not known he had long since thrown in with Voldemort, it seemed wrong not to try to save him. Even though Snape had, just tonight, tried to assassinate Dumbledore.
Perhaps that was Dumbledore’s thinking – that in choosing to fight Voldemort, he was also choosing to try to help Snape. And yet Harry knew enough from his classes and from Hermione’s quizzing that the Unbreakable Vow was just that. It could not be countered. There was no known cure. If Dumbledore chose to fight Voldemort, Snape would surely die.
But what choice did Dumbledore have? How could anyone choose to die to save the life of a traitor? Of someone who had betrayed them?
The Unbreakable Vow. Snape had taken the Unbreakable Vow. Those words tumbled through Harry’s mind, his thoughts seeming to come even faster now that he was unable to do more than blink. Snape had vowed to kill Dumbledore.
No.
No, that wasn’t quite right. He had vowed to kill Dumbeldore if Draco failed. Harry watched Dumbledore’s face – the soft lines, the lack of any real fear. He looked to Snape, his face carefully blank except for… God, was that…? Was that a tear at the corner of his eye?
Had Snape only done it to save Draco? Was that what this was? He remembered the stricken look on Snape’s face as Harry had thrown his own protection spell on Dumbledore. It hadn’t been anger or hate or repulsion he’d seen. It had been something else. It had been pain. And then how he had thrown himself to the ground beside Draco after he’d inadvertently cursed him…
Oh God, Harry thought. He’d had it all wrong. He’d been so very wrong. Dumbledore wasn’t going to let Snape die. He was going to die in his stead, at his hand, and that’s why he’d paralyzed them all – so that they’d have no choice but to let it happen!
Harry wished for Sirius then. He wished for Sirius with all his might. It was all he could do.
And even that was for naught. He watched as Dumbledore carefully withdrew his wand and cast it to the floor in front of him. He watched a man step out of the shadows at the foot of the stairs – the man Harry knew to be the werewolf, Fenrir Greyback. He watched as this man accoied Dumbledore’s wand and then stood there staring at him as if he’d much rather take a bite out of Dumbledore himself than let either the Dark Lord or Severus Snape kill him.
“Very well,” Voldemort smiled. Then he bowed his head in a parody of honor.
And Severus Snape called down from the landing, his voice booming against what was left of the stone walls, “AVADA KEDAVRA!”
Dumbledore was struck down, his body crumpling to the floor like any ordinary person, useless and frail. Harry felt the paralyzing spell evaporate from his body. He didn’t have time to feel anything else – not guilt, not shame, not the enormous grief this loss would become. All Harry saw was Voldemort’s hand going for his wand. It all happened so very fast. MacGonagall had fallen to Dumbledore’s side. Hagrid was attempting to corral the students out the door. Harry was only just reaching for his wand as Voldemort shouted the curse.
Or tried to. From high above, somewhere Harry couldn’t see, a voice echoed down, “SILENCIO!” and all that escaped Voldemort’s lips was half of the killing curse. Harry wasn’t even sure if he was the target. Later he could process that it had been Draco. Later he could maybe understand. But at the moment, all hell broke loose, and it was all Harry could do to fight.
Greyback transformed, a terrifying exponential multiplication of bristles, muscle, fangs. He lunged at Harry, and Harry cursed and hexed him, fighting him back only for most of his attempts to be nullified by the werewolf’s superior skills. Hagrid was ushering the others out into the courtyard as quickly as he could, and Harry only hoped that he could hold Greyback off until most of them had cleared.
He could scarcely allow half a second to look for Voldemort, but when he did it was to find him in a fierce battle with MacGonagall. Harry knew that the only reason she could even hope to match him was Draco’s silencing hex. Snape had disappeared.
The werewolf was stalking him, and Harry held his wand like a sword, his other arm out for balance, his legs bent, ready to spring, to sacrifice himself if need be. He felt the space open up at his back as the younger students ran outside. He felt Hermione and Ron flank him then, wands drawn.
“Cruciatus!” Ron yelled, and Greyback dodged. He then charged Harry, and Harry ducked, feeling the bristles of fur scrape his back as the creature leapt over him.
The three of them spun and ran outside, and Hermione shouted, “Homorphous!” but missed, and the werewolf turned to them once more, spittle dripping from its exposed teeth. Harry raised his wand, but before he could call the curse, something large and fast hit Greyback from the side. It rolled Greyback to the ground, snarling and biting, and Harry realized that it was Remus Lupin.
Harry was ready to run back inside to help MacGonagall when he heard his name called from the sky above, “HARRY! CATCH!”
Harry looked up to see the first dragon making a pass over the courtyard, Sirius leaning out over the side. He dropped a small object. Harry thought to call out, “Accio…uh, falling…thing,” unable to tell what it was. To his shock, it worked, and a golden cup fell straight into his waiting hands.
“What is it?” Hermione asked, breathless.
Sirius’ voice filtered down to them even as the dragon flew off into the distance to ready for a new pass, “IT’S A HORCRUUUUX!”
“Brilliant!” Ron exclaimed.
The three of them dashed back inside. MacGonagall was on the ground, throwing fire at Voldemort as fast as she could. It would push him back one step, but then he’d gain two on her. She was scrambling backward on one hand, her legs getting caught up in her robes.
“Accio sword!” Harry called frantically. He held his hand out, his lips compressed in concentration, daring to hope…
It seemed to take forever. Ron and Hermione began throwing spells to help MacGonagall. “Come on. Come on!” Harry called. And then there it was! Falling, flying from Gryffindor tower, into his hand, shining from some interior light, some force its own, breaking the darkness, slicing through it as it flew. Harry took the hilt in his hand.
“Tom!” Harry shouted as loud as he could.
Voldemort turned with a wicked sneer.
Harry threw the cup into the air and then sliced at it midair with the sword as though he were a Beater after a Bludger. The metal split as easy as bread, but it made an earsplitting high-pitched sound, almost animal, that had Ron and Hermione covering their ears. Harry winced but watched Voldemort as the piece of his soul died. He fell to his knees, wand dropped, both hands clutching the sides of his head, screaming silently in agony.
Harry saw Neville helping MacGonagall to her feet, pulling her away and to safety, and in the next moment, before he could decide what to do, he saw Severus Snape standing above Voldemort halfway up the next staircase. Draco was half behind him, quivering and very pale, obviously still badly shaken from the effects of the Cruciatus. Voldemort saw neither of them. He just screamed and screamed, the effects of the hex wearing off suddenly, his horrible voice echoing painfully off the crumbling walls.
On Snape’s face was a dark look of pain and loss. And determination. He was utter determination. Harry watched, and while Voldemort writhed on the landing, Snape extended his arm, his wand, high over his head and then brought it down with force. Hot white energy shot from his wand, piercing Voldemort in the back. He arched, his ugly mouth a rictus of pain. He shook and seized, and just when he looked finished, he gasped out one breathless word: “Nagini!”
She came from above, her descent silent, the switch and slide of her body almost hypnotic. Ron was the one who called out first, “Behind you!” But Draco turned too late, only to be knocked to the side by the power of her whipping tail. It sent him over the banister and crashing to the ground below.
“Draco!” MacGonagall called. “Let me go, Neville; I must help him.” Neville helped her limp across the entry hall to his side. Harry saw Snape turn, unable to get his wand up in time. Harry raised his. But by the time he had thrown the curse, she had struck, fast and horrible, biting into Snape’s arm and then his neck.
Ron and Harry hit the snake with everything they had, and while they did, Hermione threw every healing spell and charm she knew at Snape who now lay immobile on the hard stone. The great snake took the spells, whipping this way and that, but then continued to slither down to where its master lay, and the moment his hand touched her skin, they were both gone, Disapparated.
“Go to Draco,” Harry told Hermione, his voice trembling with shock and adrenaline.
She nodded, eyes wide, mouth closed and mute, but she ran to where MacGonagall and Neville already tended to Draco who still had not moved.
Ron followed Harry up the stairs to Snape’s side.
“Blimey,” Ron breathed out in response to seeing him. He stopped short, but Harry skidded to his side on his knees. Snape was making a sickening gurgling sound, shallow in his throat. Blood seeped from his neck in time with his pulse. Harry whipped off his own robe, bunched it up, and then pressed it to the wound. The bite in his arm was ugly but maybe not fatal. Harry didn’t know. He didn’t know what the poison could do and how fast.
“Get Pomfrey!” he yelled to Ron.
“What if she’s not there?”
“Then find her wherever she IS!”
“Christ…” Ron gasped, eyes still glued to a twitching Snape.
“GO!” Harry shouted at him, and Ron finally took off up the stairs. Harry cursed when at first he stumbled in his hurry.
“Hold on, Professor Snape. Please hold on,” Harry murmured, feeling less than ineffectual. God, the blood was everywhere!
Snape began to shiver. His eyes rolled in his head for a moment, but then, as if by only the temerity of his will, his tepid gaze met Harry’s. “You—” he began, haltingly, the word rasping out from between nearly blue lips. “You…have your mother’s…eyes,” he said.
Harry felt the words in his gut, twisting them, hurting in a way he couldn’t quite comprehend. The depth of his emotion for this person – so sudden and after so many years spent in hatred of him – nearly overwhelmed him. Harry shook Snape, blinking away the tears. “Stay with me,” he pleaded. “I’m sorry… God, I’m sorry… Stay with me.”
Harry felt the footsteps pounding the stone of the stairs, but he was afraid if he took his eyes from Snape’s face that he’d be lost.
“Bloody hell,” came that voice – the very one he’d yearned to hear for the last two months.
Harry didn’t dare to remove his hands from Snape’s wound. He felt the relief crash through him even as he couldn’t even look at the other man. Sirius came to kneel on the other side of Snape. “Severus. Severus!” Sirius shouted.
Harry chanced just one look up into his face. The side of his neck was badly burned, and there was blood encrusting the front of his shirt. His hair was a wild tangled mess. He was beautiful. Perfect and beautiful. Harry looked back down to where Snape’s head lolled.
“Fucking answer me, Snape!” Sirius shouted again. “You’re potions master. I know you know how to fix this, goddamn you! Tell me!” And he shook Snape again. “Severus, you horse’s arse, fucking fix this!!!”
Then, as if she’d Apparated there, Hermione was standing beside them and she said, “I think I know. Um, I think it would be… Bollocks!” she shouted, stamping her feet. Then, “Dittany! Dittany’s what I used on you, Harry! Accio, Dittany!” she shouted triumphantly.
The bottle flew into her hand so hard she grimaced.
“Give it to me,” Sirius demanded, and Hermione handed it over. “How much?” he asked.
“It’s a bad bite,” she said, biting her own lip.
“Half that bottle to be safe,” called Madam Pomfrey from the landing above.
“Brilliant, Ron!” Harry called.
Sirius leaned over Snape and then frowned. “He’s unconscious. Merlin, he might already be—” He felt for the pulse on the other side of Snape’s neck.
“N-nooo!” came an anguished cry behind them. Harry turned to see Draco standing there, hanging off the stairway banister as though he had not the strength to hold himself up. Neville showed up behind him and, to Harry’s surprise, helped the other boy to limp over to Snape’s side, a haggard and injured MacGonagall following slowly. Harry moved back out of the way just in time for Draco to fall to his knees there, taking Snape by the shoulders and rocking rhythmically. “Severus,” he cried. “Don’t leave me. Don’t leave me!” and there was something in the crack of his voice that told Harry everything – that mirrored his own feelings for Sirius. That recalled his own experience with the Veil.
Draco pulled his wand and started conjuring charms and spells alike in the hope of reviving the man. Harry looked to Sirius. He was sitting back on his heels, one hand over his mouth; he didn’t look hopeful. Neither did MacGonagall or Hermione or Ron or Pomfrey. Neville was actually crying.
“Severus… Severus…” Draco whispered in despair.
It was then that Snape’s eyelashes fluttered. He parted his lips, licked them, and said, “Professor…Snape, Mr. Malfoy.”
Draco’s head snapped up, and in that same moment, everyone else burst back into action.
“Open your mouth,” Sirius said, bringing the bottle to his lips and tilting it.
MacGonagall knelt beside him. “Not too fast. Easy.”
Neville patted Draco’s shoulder.
Harry saw Ron reach out and take Hermione’s hand.
Snape sipped at the bottle. He took a deep, shuddering breath. “Dittany…” he said. “Who…?”
Harry spoke up. “Hermione. And Madam Pomfrey. And Sirius, too.”
Snape accepted another draught of the stuff and he managed to say, “Fifty…points…to…everybody,” before he passed out cold.
…
They got Snape up to the infirmary, but almost as soon as Sirius had helped get him settled, he took Harry by the wrist, their first touch after weeks of absence, practical and perfunctory…and glorious, and he said, “I have to get back to Remus.”
Harry nodded. “Will he be all right?”
Sirius squeezed his wrist. “Some bad cuts. Charlie’s seeing to him. But I need to get down there.”
“Yeah, go,” Harry said, suddenly registering that Charlie Wesley must have been the second dragon-rider. Their gazes touched in that instant, potent, and then Sirius was gone again, back down the stairs, and Harry turned to see Draco in a chair beside Professor Snape who was alive, breathing, and deeply asleep. Pomfrey rushed about; she had almost twenty others crammed into the space needing care, mostly students, but Harry noticed Professor Flitwick in the corner, his right eye bandaged.
Hermione said, “I’ll stay here with Neville. I think we can help her the best.” She looked at Ron.
“I’ll go with Harry.” He looked shocked. “Where are we going?”
Harry swallowed. He tried to gather his waning wits. “To find any others who might need help,” he said, only in the moment of hearing it come out of his mouth realizing that it was the right thing to do.
Ron nodded. “Right.”
They found a majority of the students in and around Hagrid’s with the large man fussing over them like a mother hen. “I’ve got this bunch,” he assured Harry. “They’re all right, they are.”
“Thank you, Hagrid,” Harry said, and then he and Ron went in search of others.
They passed Trelawney, Sinistra, Sprout, and Luna Lovegood who had set up an impromptu triage area, tending to the less serious cases that couldn’t fit in the infirmary. Harry nodded to them and continued on. They rounded up the wounded, a good quarter of the student population by Harry’s count. He counted them lucky. He and Ron worked to get the bad ones to Pomfrey and the less-bad ones to the triage and the ones who were just lost, hiding, and scared to Hagrid.
Exhausted, sore, and emotionally raw, Harry dragged himself back into the entry hall. There, on the floor, were MacGonagall and the rest of the teachers as well as Cho and several other of the unharmed students all gathered around Dumbledore’s body. MacGonagall was giving orders for him to be moved and cared for. She stood, wiping her eyes with the back of her hand quickly. “Filch, Cuthbert, please see that his remains are given the proper respect. We’ll have a service tomorrow or the next day, I don’t know. Uh, Charity? Rolanda? Irma and Septima? We need to get out to the grounds and put up protections right away, before dawn. So follow me, if you would, please?” Harry watched the tears drop heavy down her face again. All of his resentment and anger at her melted away.
“Professor MacGonagall?” he said as she passed.
She stopped. “Yes, Harry?” Her eyes were red and swollen, and yet she held back her grief with practiced solemnity.
“How can we help?”
Her lip trembled. “My dear boy…” She put a wavering hand on his shoulder. “I would be most grateful…” She stopped, unable to continue lest her control slip completely away.
“Ron?” Harry said. “Can you help Cho wrangle the kids back to the towers? Boys all in one, and girls in another.” he said. “No divisions by house, all right? You stay with the boys and keep everyone calm and ask Cho—”
“I’m here. I’ll do it,” Cho said.
“Thank you,” Harry told her. “Thank you, Ron.”
“Whatever I can do,” Ron said, and then he and Cho went to round up the children.
When he turned back to her, Professor MacGonagall wore a look of pride and…shame.
“Professor, may I help you and the others with the shielding? I think I can work a fair protection spell.”
She smiled tremulously at him. “Better than fair, Mr. Potter.”
They worked straight through till dawn, and if Harry had thought he was exhausted before, he hadn’t truly known how far his body and mind would go. He trudged into the school, every protection spell they could conjure secure around the rubble. The sun was peeking through the mountain valleys, not yet striking the surface of the lake. Harry pulled himself up the stairs, unsure where he was even going, only knowing he couldn’t last but a few more moments and he’d certainly just pass out wherever he landed.
“Harry.” The voice was soft and gentle.
Harry lifted his eyes to see him standing there at the next landing. He held out his hand, a sad smile hovering on his lips. Harry felt the emotion almost overtake him. But he took a deep breath, hauled his body up the next four steps, and then took Sirius’ outstretched hand.
They walked slowly to the Ravenclaw tower stairs and then climbed. Harry remembered the first time they had done this, hand-in-hand. Everything now was changed. Hogwarts was nearly leveled, Dumbledore was dead, Snape was…a hero? Harry still didn’t know what was true. But he didn’t have the energy to try to care. He was even too tired to cry.
Sirius magicked open the door to his old room – it wasn’t unscathed. He went about fixing the cracks in the walls and the broken window while Harry did a cleansing spell and lit a fire in the hearth.
When they turned back to each other, there was a moment when neither one seemed willing to traverse the space between them. Then Harry let out all his breath, walked into Sirius’ arms, into his embrace, and felt the relief sigh through his body like water. He pressed his cheek to Sirius’ chest and listened to his heart, and Sirius’ arms wrapped so tightly around him it almost hurt. Sirius swayed with him there. He smelled like smoke and fire and iron and, of all things, butterscotch candy.
“How’s Remus?” Harry asked, still pressed as close to Sirius as he could get.
“He’ll make it. Greyback is dead.”
“Good,” Harry said. “No more talking then.”
Sirius pulled back and took Harry’s face in his hands. “Whatever my love needs.”
“I said no more talking,” Harry repeated, though he was too exhausted to smile and most of him didn’t feel like it anyway.
Sirius leaned down to kiss him. Their lips opened to it, their tongues tentative. The fire crackled, and they kissed for several minutes. Harry’s knees threatened to go out from under him, and they pulled back, beginning to undress. The fire came back into Harry’s body seeing Sirius’ chest, the map of tattoos over his skin that always made Harry a bit faint with wanting him, his wiry muscles flexing as he undressed, the trail of hair leading into trousers Sirius was already unfastening. Harry stripped off his clothes, getting down to the rings. Sirius took off everything but the bracelet. They fell on each other once more – open-mouthed, devouring kisses; pelvises thrusting together; little moans of desperate pleasure escaping into the night.
They crawled into the bed, still kissing, and Harry wanted him – he wanted him so badly – but the feel of the soft bed under his weary body, the warmth of the fire and the sheets, the horrors he’d witnessed today – everything conspired to hold him somewhere between ardor and sleep, barely hanging on. They were lying on their sides, facing one another, pulsing their hips together until Harry’s slowed to a stop.
“Sirius…”
“No talking. Remember?”
Harry nodded. He closed his eyes. Sirius dragged him close, rested their foreheads together, stilled his own hips. Their cocks, still more than half-hard, lay against one another. Harry sighed at the dual pleasures of his lover’s warm erection and his lover’s warm bed.
The last thing Harry remembered was Sirius’ hand stroking repeatedly through his hair.
…
The clean up was arduous, even using magic, and MacGonagall wasn’t often available since she was overseeing preparations for Dumbledore’s funeral. That left the majority of the heavy magical lifting to a handful of teachers and Harry. Hermione and Ron were splitting their time between helping the wounded and helping MacGonagall. Sirius stayed in the infirmary all morning and afternoon, tending to Remus and Snape. Harry wasn’t sure why he’d taken to caring for Snape. During Sirius’ tenure at Hogwarts, Harry hadn’t seen them say three words to each other. All Harry knew was that Sirius considered it his duty, and he seemed not to resent that.
As Harry worked, rebuilding walls and securing the front gates, he kept thinking about the morning, waking up to the sight of Sirius having his tea and staring out the window. Harry had blinked, unsure if what he saw was real. He’d never woken in Sirius’ room, in his bed before; he’d only dreamed it, fantasized it. But he knew the rest was real – the death and destruction. He knew that Dumbledore was gone.
Harry magicked an iron bar straight from being coiled nearly into a knot. It didn’t take a tremendous amount of mental effort. Once he set the spell, he just had to make sure the metal didn’t overheat. He couldn’t help remembering how he woke.
Harry had stretched his naked body, watching the morning light play the planes of Sirius’ troubled face. He had gotten out of bed and walked over, sinking to his knees in front of him, spreading Sirius’ thighs. Their eyes had met. Harry had slid his hands up and down his lover’s thighs and watched his face soften. Harry remembered Sirius’ sigh as Harry had taken his cock out and slipped it into his mouth. The soft groan. The head dropped back. The hand in his hair. The taste of him, musky-hot. His name from Sirius’ lips, “Oh, Harry…”
And then how Sirius had breathed, “Come here…” and how Harry had straddled him in the chair, how quickly Sirius had entered him, how easily they found a rhythm, how the light felt on his face as he rode the thick cock and Sirius pulled him down, how they breathed against one another’s ears. How first Harry came and then Sirius, how the ferocity had surprised them both.
Harry welded the bar to the gate, finishing his work and wiping his brow. He looked around self-consciously to see if anyone might have caught his wayward thoughts. And then he stopped himself. He stopped himself cold. As he looked at the mended face of the school, the way everyone was working together to put it and themselves and each other back together again – the way Luna’s hand found Professor Sprout’s shoulder, comforting her, the way the second years saw after the first years, the Gryffindors after the Hufflepuffs…
Draco Malfoy helping Neville Longbottom lift and secure a beam…
Harry’s guilt faded away. There was nothing wayward about Sirius. That love was the only way either one of them would get through all this. The only way any of them would make it was together. And he and Sirius were together. There was no, and had never been, any shame in that. Harry knew now that they wouldn’t be parted again. He knew it so simply and effortlessly – it was just part of his destiny.
The lump grew in Harry’s throat when he thought about what would come next. Dumbledore’s funeral, yes, but especially after that. He stowed his wand and went in search of some kind of light lunch he could force down. Preferably alone. He needed the time to think.
…
The funeral was the next day, and it was beautiful. MacGonagall had put all of her soul into it and a great deal of magic. She got the cherry blossoms to bloom early; she said they were his favorite. Hermione sat on one side of Harry, Ron on her other side, their fingers intertwined, and Sirius on the other side of Harry, his arm wrapped around the back of Harry’s chair. Remus Lupin, patched up but still healing, sat on Sirius’ other side. It seemed like a strange time to be grateful, with Dumbledore gone, but Harry couldn’t seem to help it. He had everyone he’d ever loved best in his life by his side. The day was bright and warm. The smoke had moved away on the breeze, and wisps of white clouds had taken its place.
Hermione was crying quietly beside him. It was his instinct to reach out to her, but before he could, Ron’s arm came around her back and she rested her head on his shoulder. Ron met his eyes over her head and gave a sad and proud little smile. Harry blinked. They were all growing up. They were all shifting, their priorities gaining clarity. Harry felt a sharp pang about where his own priorities were taking him.
The service began, and several students stood to speak about their headmaster. Harry listened solemnly, his hands clasped in his lap. Hagrid simply wept at the lectern and had to be led away by MacGonagall. Trelawney spoke about how Dumbledore had saved her life. Everyone had good and true things to say. Harry grieved, but he held it together.
Until the thick black robes swished up the aisle between the seats, a slower, more laborious gait than ever Harry had seen from him, and a paler than usual Severus Snape took to the lectern.
He didn’t speak for a long while, and Harry wondered if maybe he’d changed his mind. Everyone seemed to be holding their breath, including Harry. His expression was that of a person haunted, his mouth a thin grey line.
Then he spoke, slowly and haltingly. “I would have done anything for Albus Dumbledore.” He looked at no one, over their heads, as he spoke. “I regret that I… I wish…” His strong voice died down, and Harry felt something tighten in his chest. The flash of agony was so acute, the tears so sudden, that Harry almost felt crazy. Hermione lifted her head from Ron’s shoulder. She looked at him, her own tears falling, and she took Harry’s hand, squeezing tightly.
Snape found his voice again. “He was a kind and decent man. More than I ever could be.” Then, “It should have been me.” And with that, he stepped down, his face set, his stride that of a man trying desperately to escape. Harry felt him pass and closed his eyes.
“I need a moment,” he told Hermione. When he looked at Sirius, he got a nod and a warm hand rubbing his back.
Harry stood and followed in Snape’s wake. He caught up with him around a corner, and found him leaned up against a particularly stalwart oak tree that had survived the battle without losing a single branch. Harry stopped, and Snape’s gaze snapped up to his, narrowing.
“Professor…” Harry began.
Snape just looked at him, his sad eyes blinking. Harry didn’t have any notion of what to say. Thank you? I’m sorry? Everything felt like a useless platitude. What he really wished to say to this man, there weren’t words for.
“You were in love with my mother,” Harry blurted, having had no intention of saying such a thing.
Snape blinked, taken aback.
“I’m sorry. It’s really none of my business. I just…”
“No,” Snape said. Then, more quietly, “Yes.”
Harry nodded. It explained a great deal. He swallowed. “What you did…”
“I do not wish to speak of it,” Snape said tightly.
Harry nodded again. “I just…” None of his thoughts would settle. Nothing he could think to say worked. He went for the only thing he could think of that made any sense inside him. “I understand. I wish I didn’t. But I do.”
It was what Harry would have wanted to hear. It was what Harry had longed for all his life. To be seen. To be understood.
The Boy Who Lived.
The Man Who Sacrificed It All.
They looked at each other, and then Harry backed away. He turned, and he headed back to his room in Gryffindor tower. It was a child’s room, once safe and sheltering. Harry was a man now, and staying could no longer keep him safe; it could only confine him. With a sense of conviction, he began to pack.
…
He packed light and was toting his one bag to Sirius’ room to meet him there when Ron and Hermione stopped him coming out of the Gryffindor portrait.
“I told you,” Hermione said gravely, cutting her gaze to Ron.
Ron gulped. “Were you even going to say good-bye, mate?”
“Of course,” Harry said. “I just…”
“You just what?” Ron took a step toward him, disengaging from Hermione’s side. “You just thought, hey, I’ll take off and fight Voldemort alone when I’ve got perfectly good friends willing to come along and fight alongside me?”
“Come along?” Harry said, aghast. “You must be joking! You both have families – people who love you, cook for you, expect you home for holiday. You both have—”
“Nothing if Voldemort wins this war,” Hermione finished. “That’s how he’ll win, Harry; by good people sitting by and doing nothing, pretending it’s not happening. After what happened the other night, after the funeral we all went to today, how can any of us pretend we’re not part of this ever again?”
Harry stared at them, stunned. “I can’t… I can’t be responsible if either one of you came to harm, I just couldn’t ever forgive—”
“What a load of bollocks, man! Do you believe this, Hermione? I mean, get off your egotistical horse, why don’t you? Stop being a martyr, and face facts, Harry! Hermione and I are responsible for our own lives, and if we do this and we die by Voldemort’s hand, it’ll be his fault, not yours. Get over yourself!”
Harry couldn’t help it; he laughed. “Merlin, Ron,” he said. “Way to skewer and roast me.”
“You deserve it, you ponce. ‘Your responsibility’. It’s bloody insulting.”
Hermione cracked a smile. “He’s right,” she said. She took Ron’s hand again. Then she took Harry’s. “It’s not your choice, Harry. I mean, you can try to give us the slip, but between the two of us, we’ll find you. Whether you like it or not.”
Harry licked his lips, the thought of having his friends with him in this was both terrifying and an utter relief. “I’d like it,” he said. He let out a deep breath. “I’d like it loads.”
Hermione smiled all the brighter and so did Ron. “So it’s settled then,” Ron said. “The Three Musketeers!”
“Four,” Harry corrected him.
“Sirius?” Ron asked.
Harry nodded.
“Brilliant,” Ron beamed. Then, realizing, maybe, that it was all happening, he sobered. “When?”
“A few days. I assume you’ll want to tell your families?”
“Well, mine, yeah,” Ron said, looking at Hermione with concern.
She swallowed. “Sure. A few days. That will give me some time to…” Her eyes clouded over with tears. “Say my good-byes.”
Harry nodded. “Sirius and I are leaving tomorrow for Grimmauld Place. I say we meet up in three days at your folks’, Ron.”
“Right,” Ron said.
“Right,” Hermione agreed, softer.
Harry just blinked at them. Then he pulled Hermione to him and held her. He breathed in the spicy scent of her hair. He reached out and pulled Ron into the embrace, too. “Thank you,” he said. “Thank you both.”
They pulled back, and Hermione said, “Thank you, Harry.”
Then they turned to enter Gryffindor tower for the evening while Harry made his way down the hall toward Ravenclaw and the man that was waiting for him.
…
It was a cold morning. He and Sirius had dressed in near silence. Harry donned a thick grey wool jumper over a white t-shirt and jeans. Sirius looked at him bemusedly for a moment and then said, “You look like a Muggle, Harry Potter. A very attractive Muggle.”
Harry smirked at him and then finished his packing. When they were both ready, Sirius stopped at the door and snuffed the lights. He looked down at Harry. “Are you ready to do this, love?”
“As long as you’re with me,” Harry said, and they shared a lingering kiss.
To Harry’s surprise, it wasn’t just Ron and Hermione waiting for them in the courtyard. It was…everyone.
Sirius walked up to Remus right away and clapped him on the shoulder. Remus winced, and Sirius grimaced, apologizing. Then he said, “Three days.”
“Moody’s coming tonight. He’s going to take me in his side-car,” Remus explained. “He’s afraid I’ll fall off my broom or get banged up in the Floo or something.”
“The way that bloke drives, I’d be more afraid of the side-car,” Sirius said. “Be safe, dear friend.”
Remus looked at Harry. “You as well,” he said to both of them.
They made the rounds, saying good-byes. Harry hugged Hagrid and felt the man shaking with his sobs. “I’ll be back,” Harry felt the need to say, even though he had no idea if that was so. Hagrid just nodded, rubbed his eyes, and moved on to Ron and Hermione.
Charlie Weasley appeared before him, his left arm in a sling. Harry smiled and hugged him. Charlie pounded him on the back until Harry thought he might bruise. He remembered what Ron had told him – “gay as a box of birds”. He’d never have known. Charlie leaned back and smiled at him, shaking his hand forcefully. “Good to see you, Potter.”
“Thanks for the dragon help,” Harry said, shaking back. “What happened to them, by the way?”
“Oh well, they’re in the forest for now. The one Sirius was on we rescued from Gringotts, can you believe that? She’s coming with Fidgett – uh, that’s the other one – and me back to the east. She’ll be free and amongst her own again,” he finished.
“Brilliant,” Harry said. He cast a look at Sirius, clearing intending to get the Gringotts rescue story out of him at his earliest convenience.
Sirius just shrugged and then shook Charlie’s hand, too.
Harry was hugging Cho when he felt a tap at his shoulder. It was Professor MacGonagall. She looked as though she’d aged ten more years since the day before. “Professor,” he said.
“Minerva,” she corrected. “Since you are no longer a student at this school, Mr. Potter.” Then she grabbed him hard and hugged him. “I failed you,” she whispered into his ear.
“No,” he answered softly, realizing in that very moment that he had yet to really forgive her, even in his own heart. “No,” he repeated. “I’m right where I’m supposed to be. And so are you.” He pulled back. “You’re Head Mistress now, right?”
She nodded, choked up.
“He would have wanted that,” Harry told her.
“He would have wanted you to stay,” she replied.
“He’d have been wrong.”
“Perhaps, Harry….”
He hugged her one more time and then turned to go.
There were two people left barring his way. Severus Snape and Draco Malfoy.
“Professor Snape,” Harry said warily.
“I will no longer to be teaching at this school,” Snape intoned, as always sounding vaguely disgusted with the state of the world.
Sirius spoke up, “Where are you going?”
“Now that Voldemort is undoubtedly aware of my allegiances, I’ll have to go into hiding for the time being.”
The notion was obviously repugnant to him, and Harry cast a glance Draco’s way to see his chin lift, his eyes hard, maybe daring them to call his mentor a coward. Harry intended to do nothing of the sort. “Where can you hide that he won’t detect you?”
“We’ll go east first, into the mountains. I have a place there under heavy magical protections. Forgive me for not elaborating.”
Harry didn’t miss that Snape spoke of himself and Draco both.
“Mr. Malfoy and I will gather resources to mount a rescue mission,” he said then.
“Your parents,” Harry said, his eyes on Draco again.
Draco nodded, swallowing. “They want out.”
“And Miss Parkinson,” Snape added. “She’s been under His thrall for months now. She fled with him three nights ago. It won’t be easy to extract her, but… Well, it simply must be done.”
Sirius reached his hand out for Snape’s. “Any Order resources you need,” he said. “They’re yours, Severus.”
Snape took Sirius’ hand as though it were a thing covered in filth, but he shook it. “Obliged,” he drawled, but Harry heard something of humility and actual gratitude in it. He turned to Harry, his face utterly unreadable. He looked Harry up and down assessingly. Then he said, “I hope you intend to make your mother proud, Mr. Potter.”
Harry breathed deeply. “I do,” he said.
Snape nodded. He shook Harry’s hand hard, and Harry was surprised at how warm his white skin was. Snape fairly ripped his hand free then. “Draco,” he said, intending to go.
“Wait,” Draco said. He stepped forward, first toward Sirius. “Thank you, Sir,” he said, “for the chance to train under you.”
Sirius smiled. “It was my pleasure, Draco. I heard about your silencing hex, by the way. Most excellent work.” Sirius’ tone wasn’t light; rather it was exceptionally honoring.
Draco actually blushed. Then he turned to Harry. He held his hand out uncertainly, blinking.
Harry took it, and they shook. In a moment of either weakness or strength, Harry was completely unsure, he pulled Draco into an awkward hug. He pounded his back and felt Draco pound his. Both boys stepped back and away, looking down. Draco cleared his throat. “I’m ready,” he said to Snape.
Without anything further, Snape took the boy’s arm, and they Disapparated.
Ron’s murmur came from behind Harry, “I didn’t get a hug.”
“Shh,” Hermione chided.
No one now stood between Sirius and Harry and the open gate to the school. Harry turned and looked at his friends. “So, you’re taking your brooms and flying alongside Moody and Lupin, then?” Harry asked, even though they’d been over the plan multiple times.
“Beats the train and Dad being late to the station,” Ron said.
“That it does,” Harry agreed, even though he didn’t. He fought the sad and frightening realization that they’d never board that Hogwarts train again. They’d never do anything so easy and natural and child-like and safe. Not ever again.
He hugged his friends who wished them well. He looked past them and waved to everyone one last time. There was a chorus of melancholy “Bye Harrys” and “Good Luck, Mr. Black,” and the like.
Then Harry looked at Sirius. He took his lover’s arm. Sirius smiled down at him, and Harry looked into his eyes.
And with a crack, they were gone.
END PART FIVE
Continue to Part Six – Epilogue On DW | On LJ
Author:
traintracks777 / traintracks Part Four: On DW | On LJ
“Run!” MacGonagall shouted, and the students who had crowded the entryway door scampered back inside at her bidding. The dragon came down fast, folding back its massive wings in a dive, and Harry watched it open its jaws, the fire in its throat rolling over its tongue.
Hagrid, probably assuming she’d follow him back into the school, let go of Hermione, and Harry watched her run toward, rather than away from, the streams of billowing fire and smoke. Toward Ron. Or rather where Ron had been last. Now there was only black smoke and robes on fire and screaming.
Harry was torn between following – either to stop her or to help her, he wasn’t even sure – or fighting this new threat. He drew his wand and craned his neck. He was about to strike with an ice spell when he saw it – the light of the wand, tiny over the dragon’s back. And in that small blue light… Except that it couldn’t be. It absolutely couldn’t be.
But it bloody was.
Sirius.
It was Sirius.
Riding the dragon.
Sirius was up there – he had returned – somehow he’d known – and he was riding a dragon.
Harry watched, dumbstruck, as his lover hauled back on great silver chains, and the dragon lifted its bulky head, stretching its neck, angling up the side of the school. Harry felt the hot rush of air as it flew past and then up into the clouds of mist and smoke, getting smaller and smaller. It turned, spreading wide wings, and it arced, diving toward the courtyard once more, its great mouth opening, the span of the jaws unthinkable, and Harry could only duck behind a fallen statue as fire scorched the earth before him, this time in controlled balls, each one spit at the fleeing Death Eaters, rolling boulders of flame.
When it had passed yet again and was soaring up into the sky, Harry made a run for it. He covered his face with his arm to keep out the smoke, and he yelled over his elbow, “Hermione!” and then, “Ron!” He lit up the courtyard with his wand, chaos all around: burning Death Eaters, the stench horrific, swirling robes, strikes of lightning. “Ron! Herm—”
“HARRY!” Ron shouted, and there he was, face dirty with soot, red head like a beckon, his arm thrown around Hermione’s shoulders as she led him, coughing, back toward the school. Ron was beaming. “Did you see? Did you see him, Harry? Sirius! It’s Sirius! On the dragon, mate!” He was far too gleeful for the situation, and poor Hermione’s face was haggard with terror and effort.
“Get back inside!” Harry shouted.
He let them pass, and he couldn’t help but watch the dragon beat its wings against the smoke, dispersing the swirling cloud, Sirius not even visible now. But there. He was there. He had come.
Harry scoured the ground then, squinting against the sting. The courtyard was deserted – no sign of Voldemort. Yet Harry could still feel that presence. His scar ached terribly, and he resisted the urge to rub at it. As he watched the skies, Death Eaters on brooms took off after the dragon, and for a split second all Harry could do was hold his breath as the spells flew through the air and the fireballs were launched in retaliation. Then, out of the western sky, its cry even deeper, more frightening, a second dragon soared into the scene, singeing two Death Eaters, setting their brooms on fire and sending them plummeting to the ground. Harry tried to see who was riding this one but couldn’t. He heard his name called urgently from inside, Hermione’s broken voice, and Harry turned, taking the steps two at a time, running through the smoldering doorway only to stop short.
Dumbledore was in the middle of the entry hall, students and teachers alike crowded behind him near the door. He was facing the staircase, and on the next landing up stood Voldemort – with Severus Snape.
Harry made to curse them both, but without so much as turning an eye on him, Dumbledore gestured, and suddenly Harry was paralyzed. He could only move his eyes, and he cast his gaze around only to find that everyone else seemed frozen in position as well, unable to fight or flee, unable to do more than breathe and listen and fear and wait. Hermione must have just got her call to him out before Dumbledore could stop her. Now they all watched, helpless, to see what would happen.
Voldemort spoke, and what he said shocked Harry to his core. “As you no doubt know by now, Albus, your trusted potions master here has made The Unbreakable Vow, and that Vow is to kill you. Or rather…was it to help Draco and kill Dumbledore only if he failed – do I have that right, Severus?” Voldemort cast his gaze to Snape, behind him and to his left.
Snape gave the slightest nod. “Yes, Lord.”
Voldemort chuckled. “It seems you have so very many people under your school’s roof who wish to kill you, Albus; I don’t know how you’ve stayed alive so long.” He sighed. “And it shall be your choice how to die: you can die by Severus’s hand and save his life…or you can damn him and take your chances with me.” Voldemort pretended to give this choice thought, stroking his chin with too-long fingers. “Now, the choice seems clear to me. If you go with the second one, you have a fighting chance against me – I’ll fight fair and not disarm you, because, after all, where’s the fun in that? Snape will die, of course, but you’ll have the chance to fight for your own life. The first choice is really quite dismal, don’t you think? Snape lives, you don’t, end of story. What kind of choice is that, hmm?”
Harry watched Snape swallow, his eyes never leaving Dumbledore, Dumbledore’s never leaving him. Harry was surprised – that Dumbldore didn’t seem concerned with Voldemort himself; it was Snape he communed with silently; it was Snape who was the recipient of what, from where Harry was standing off to Dumbledore’s right, appeared to be…
Pity.
Sadness.
Even…compassion?
No. Worse. Gratitude.
Dumbledore was grateful to Severus Snape.
And that’s when Harry realized: Dumbledore intended to let Snape die.
All sorts of competing feelings struck Harry, then. As much as he despised Snape, had always suspected if not known he had long since thrown in with Voldemort, it seemed wrong not to try to save him. Even though Snape had, just tonight, tried to assassinate Dumbledore.
Perhaps that was Dumbledore’s thinking – that in choosing to fight Voldemort, he was also choosing to try to help Snape. And yet Harry knew enough from his classes and from Hermione’s quizzing that the Unbreakable Vow was just that. It could not be countered. There was no known cure. If Dumbledore chose to fight Voldemort, Snape would surely die.
But what choice did Dumbledore have? How could anyone choose to die to save the life of a traitor? Of someone who had betrayed them?
The Unbreakable Vow. Snape had taken the Unbreakable Vow. Those words tumbled through Harry’s mind, his thoughts seeming to come even faster now that he was unable to do more than blink. Snape had vowed to kill Dumbledore.
No.
No, that wasn’t quite right. He had vowed to kill Dumbeldore if Draco failed. Harry watched Dumbledore’s face – the soft lines, the lack of any real fear. He looked to Snape, his face carefully blank except for… God, was that…? Was that a tear at the corner of his eye?
Had Snape only done it to save Draco? Was that what this was? He remembered the stricken look on Snape’s face as Harry had thrown his own protection spell on Dumbledore. It hadn’t been anger or hate or repulsion he’d seen. It had been something else. It had been pain. And then how he had thrown himself to the ground beside Draco after he’d inadvertently cursed him…
Oh God, Harry thought. He’d had it all wrong. He’d been so very wrong. Dumbledore wasn’t going to let Snape die. He was going to die in his stead, at his hand, and that’s why he’d paralyzed them all – so that they’d have no choice but to let it happen!
Harry wished for Sirius then. He wished for Sirius with all his might. It was all he could do.
And even that was for naught. He watched as Dumbledore carefully withdrew his wand and cast it to the floor in front of him. He watched a man step out of the shadows at the foot of the stairs – the man Harry knew to be the werewolf, Fenrir Greyback. He watched as this man accoied Dumbledore’s wand and then stood there staring at him as if he’d much rather take a bite out of Dumbledore himself than let either the Dark Lord or Severus Snape kill him.
“Very well,” Voldemort smiled. Then he bowed his head in a parody of honor.
And Severus Snape called down from the landing, his voice booming against what was left of the stone walls, “AVADA KEDAVRA!”
Dumbledore was struck down, his body crumpling to the floor like any ordinary person, useless and frail. Harry felt the paralyzing spell evaporate from his body. He didn’t have time to feel anything else – not guilt, not shame, not the enormous grief this loss would become. All Harry saw was Voldemort’s hand going for his wand. It all happened so very fast. MacGonagall had fallen to Dumbledore’s side. Hagrid was attempting to corral the students out the door. Harry was only just reaching for his wand as Voldemort shouted the curse.
Or tried to. From high above, somewhere Harry couldn’t see, a voice echoed down, “SILENCIO!” and all that escaped Voldemort’s lips was half of the killing curse. Harry wasn’t even sure if he was the target. Later he could process that it had been Draco. Later he could maybe understand. But at the moment, all hell broke loose, and it was all Harry could do to fight.
Greyback transformed, a terrifying exponential multiplication of bristles, muscle, fangs. He lunged at Harry, and Harry cursed and hexed him, fighting him back only for most of his attempts to be nullified by the werewolf’s superior skills. Hagrid was ushering the others out into the courtyard as quickly as he could, and Harry only hoped that he could hold Greyback off until most of them had cleared.
He could scarcely allow half a second to look for Voldemort, but when he did it was to find him in a fierce battle with MacGonagall. Harry knew that the only reason she could even hope to match him was Draco’s silencing hex. Snape had disappeared.
The werewolf was stalking him, and Harry held his wand like a sword, his other arm out for balance, his legs bent, ready to spring, to sacrifice himself if need be. He felt the space open up at his back as the younger students ran outside. He felt Hermione and Ron flank him then, wands drawn.
“Cruciatus!” Ron yelled, and Greyback dodged. He then charged Harry, and Harry ducked, feeling the bristles of fur scrape his back as the creature leapt over him.
The three of them spun and ran outside, and Hermione shouted, “Homorphous!” but missed, and the werewolf turned to them once more, spittle dripping from its exposed teeth. Harry raised his wand, but before he could call the curse, something large and fast hit Greyback from the side. It rolled Greyback to the ground, snarling and biting, and Harry realized that it was Remus Lupin.
Harry was ready to run back inside to help MacGonagall when he heard his name called from the sky above, “HARRY! CATCH!”
Harry looked up to see the first dragon making a pass over the courtyard, Sirius leaning out over the side. He dropped a small object. Harry thought to call out, “Accio…uh, falling…thing,” unable to tell what it was. To his shock, it worked, and a golden cup fell straight into his waiting hands.
“What is it?” Hermione asked, breathless.
Sirius’ voice filtered down to them even as the dragon flew off into the distance to ready for a new pass, “IT’S A HORCRUUUUX!”
“Brilliant!” Ron exclaimed.
The three of them dashed back inside. MacGonagall was on the ground, throwing fire at Voldemort as fast as she could. It would push him back one step, but then he’d gain two on her. She was scrambling backward on one hand, her legs getting caught up in her robes.
“Accio sword!” Harry called frantically. He held his hand out, his lips compressed in concentration, daring to hope…
It seemed to take forever. Ron and Hermione began throwing spells to help MacGonagall. “Come on. Come on!” Harry called. And then there it was! Falling, flying from Gryffindor tower, into his hand, shining from some interior light, some force its own, breaking the darkness, slicing through it as it flew. Harry took the hilt in his hand.
“Tom!” Harry shouted as loud as he could.
Voldemort turned with a wicked sneer.
Harry threw the cup into the air and then sliced at it midair with the sword as though he were a Beater after a Bludger. The metal split as easy as bread, but it made an earsplitting high-pitched sound, almost animal, that had Ron and Hermione covering their ears. Harry winced but watched Voldemort as the piece of his soul died. He fell to his knees, wand dropped, both hands clutching the sides of his head, screaming silently in agony.
Harry saw Neville helping MacGonagall to her feet, pulling her away and to safety, and in the next moment, before he could decide what to do, he saw Severus Snape standing above Voldemort halfway up the next staircase. Draco was half behind him, quivering and very pale, obviously still badly shaken from the effects of the Cruciatus. Voldemort saw neither of them. He just screamed and screamed, the effects of the hex wearing off suddenly, his horrible voice echoing painfully off the crumbling walls.
On Snape’s face was a dark look of pain and loss. And determination. He was utter determination. Harry watched, and while Voldemort writhed on the landing, Snape extended his arm, his wand, high over his head and then brought it down with force. Hot white energy shot from his wand, piercing Voldemort in the back. He arched, his ugly mouth a rictus of pain. He shook and seized, and just when he looked finished, he gasped out one breathless word: “Nagini!”
She came from above, her descent silent, the switch and slide of her body almost hypnotic. Ron was the one who called out first, “Behind you!” But Draco turned too late, only to be knocked to the side by the power of her whipping tail. It sent him over the banister and crashing to the ground below.
“Draco!” MacGonagall called. “Let me go, Neville; I must help him.” Neville helped her limp across the entry hall to his side. Harry saw Snape turn, unable to get his wand up in time. Harry raised his. But by the time he had thrown the curse, she had struck, fast and horrible, biting into Snape’s arm and then his neck.
Ron and Harry hit the snake with everything they had, and while they did, Hermione threw every healing spell and charm she knew at Snape who now lay immobile on the hard stone. The great snake took the spells, whipping this way and that, but then continued to slither down to where its master lay, and the moment his hand touched her skin, they were both gone, Disapparated.
“Go to Draco,” Harry told Hermione, his voice trembling with shock and adrenaline.
She nodded, eyes wide, mouth closed and mute, but she ran to where MacGonagall and Neville already tended to Draco who still had not moved.
Ron followed Harry up the stairs to Snape’s side.
“Blimey,” Ron breathed out in response to seeing him. He stopped short, but Harry skidded to his side on his knees. Snape was making a sickening gurgling sound, shallow in his throat. Blood seeped from his neck in time with his pulse. Harry whipped off his own robe, bunched it up, and then pressed it to the wound. The bite in his arm was ugly but maybe not fatal. Harry didn’t know. He didn’t know what the poison could do and how fast.
“Get Pomfrey!” he yelled to Ron.
“What if she’s not there?”
“Then find her wherever she IS!”
“Christ…” Ron gasped, eyes still glued to a twitching Snape.
“GO!” Harry shouted at him, and Ron finally took off up the stairs. Harry cursed when at first he stumbled in his hurry.
“Hold on, Professor Snape. Please hold on,” Harry murmured, feeling less than ineffectual. God, the blood was everywhere!
Snape began to shiver. His eyes rolled in his head for a moment, but then, as if by only the temerity of his will, his tepid gaze met Harry’s. “You—” he began, haltingly, the word rasping out from between nearly blue lips. “You…have your mother’s…eyes,” he said.
Harry felt the words in his gut, twisting them, hurting in a way he couldn’t quite comprehend. The depth of his emotion for this person – so sudden and after so many years spent in hatred of him – nearly overwhelmed him. Harry shook Snape, blinking away the tears. “Stay with me,” he pleaded. “I’m sorry… God, I’m sorry… Stay with me.”
Harry felt the footsteps pounding the stone of the stairs, but he was afraid if he took his eyes from Snape’s face that he’d be lost.
“Bloody hell,” came that voice – the very one he’d yearned to hear for the last two months.
Harry didn’t dare to remove his hands from Snape’s wound. He felt the relief crash through him even as he couldn’t even look at the other man. Sirius came to kneel on the other side of Snape. “Severus. Severus!” Sirius shouted.
Harry chanced just one look up into his face. The side of his neck was badly burned, and there was blood encrusting the front of his shirt. His hair was a wild tangled mess. He was beautiful. Perfect and beautiful. Harry looked back down to where Snape’s head lolled.
“Fucking answer me, Snape!” Sirius shouted again. “You’re potions master. I know you know how to fix this, goddamn you! Tell me!” And he shook Snape again. “Severus, you horse’s arse, fucking fix this!!!”
Then, as if she’d Apparated there, Hermione was standing beside them and she said, “I think I know. Um, I think it would be… Bollocks!” she shouted, stamping her feet. Then, “Dittany! Dittany’s what I used on you, Harry! Accio, Dittany!” she shouted triumphantly.
The bottle flew into her hand so hard she grimaced.
“Give it to me,” Sirius demanded, and Hermione handed it over. “How much?” he asked.
“It’s a bad bite,” she said, biting her own lip.
“Half that bottle to be safe,” called Madam Pomfrey from the landing above.
“Brilliant, Ron!” Harry called.
Sirius leaned over Snape and then frowned. “He’s unconscious. Merlin, he might already be—” He felt for the pulse on the other side of Snape’s neck.
“N-nooo!” came an anguished cry behind them. Harry turned to see Draco standing there, hanging off the stairway banister as though he had not the strength to hold himself up. Neville showed up behind him and, to Harry’s surprise, helped the other boy to limp over to Snape’s side, a haggard and injured MacGonagall following slowly. Harry moved back out of the way just in time for Draco to fall to his knees there, taking Snape by the shoulders and rocking rhythmically. “Severus,” he cried. “Don’t leave me. Don’t leave me!” and there was something in the crack of his voice that told Harry everything – that mirrored his own feelings for Sirius. That recalled his own experience with the Veil.
Draco pulled his wand and started conjuring charms and spells alike in the hope of reviving the man. Harry looked to Sirius. He was sitting back on his heels, one hand over his mouth; he didn’t look hopeful. Neither did MacGonagall or Hermione or Ron or Pomfrey. Neville was actually crying.
“Severus… Severus…” Draco whispered in despair.
It was then that Snape’s eyelashes fluttered. He parted his lips, licked them, and said, “Professor…Snape, Mr. Malfoy.”
Draco’s head snapped up, and in that same moment, everyone else burst back into action.
“Open your mouth,” Sirius said, bringing the bottle to his lips and tilting it.
MacGonagall knelt beside him. “Not too fast. Easy.”
Neville patted Draco’s shoulder.
Harry saw Ron reach out and take Hermione’s hand.
Snape sipped at the bottle. He took a deep, shuddering breath. “Dittany…” he said. “Who…?”
Harry spoke up. “Hermione. And Madam Pomfrey. And Sirius, too.”
Snape accepted another draught of the stuff and he managed to say, “Fifty…points…to…everybody,” before he passed out cold.
…
They got Snape up to the infirmary, but almost as soon as Sirius had helped get him settled, he took Harry by the wrist, their first touch after weeks of absence, practical and perfunctory…and glorious, and he said, “I have to get back to Remus.”
Harry nodded. “Will he be all right?”
Sirius squeezed his wrist. “Some bad cuts. Charlie’s seeing to him. But I need to get down there.”
“Yeah, go,” Harry said, suddenly registering that Charlie Wesley must have been the second dragon-rider. Their gazes touched in that instant, potent, and then Sirius was gone again, back down the stairs, and Harry turned to see Draco in a chair beside Professor Snape who was alive, breathing, and deeply asleep. Pomfrey rushed about; she had almost twenty others crammed into the space needing care, mostly students, but Harry noticed Professor Flitwick in the corner, his right eye bandaged.
Hermione said, “I’ll stay here with Neville. I think we can help her the best.” She looked at Ron.
“I’ll go with Harry.” He looked shocked. “Where are we going?”
Harry swallowed. He tried to gather his waning wits. “To find any others who might need help,” he said, only in the moment of hearing it come out of his mouth realizing that it was the right thing to do.
Ron nodded. “Right.”
They found a majority of the students in and around Hagrid’s with the large man fussing over them like a mother hen. “I’ve got this bunch,” he assured Harry. “They’re all right, they are.”
“Thank you, Hagrid,” Harry said, and then he and Ron went in search of others.
They passed Trelawney, Sinistra, Sprout, and Luna Lovegood who had set up an impromptu triage area, tending to the less serious cases that couldn’t fit in the infirmary. Harry nodded to them and continued on. They rounded up the wounded, a good quarter of the student population by Harry’s count. He counted them lucky. He and Ron worked to get the bad ones to Pomfrey and the less-bad ones to the triage and the ones who were just lost, hiding, and scared to Hagrid.
Exhausted, sore, and emotionally raw, Harry dragged himself back into the entry hall. There, on the floor, were MacGonagall and the rest of the teachers as well as Cho and several other of the unharmed students all gathered around Dumbledore’s body. MacGonagall was giving orders for him to be moved and cared for. She stood, wiping her eyes with the back of her hand quickly. “Filch, Cuthbert, please see that his remains are given the proper respect. We’ll have a service tomorrow or the next day, I don’t know. Uh, Charity? Rolanda? Irma and Septima? We need to get out to the grounds and put up protections right away, before dawn. So follow me, if you would, please?” Harry watched the tears drop heavy down her face again. All of his resentment and anger at her melted away.
“Professor MacGonagall?” he said as she passed.
She stopped. “Yes, Harry?” Her eyes were red and swollen, and yet she held back her grief with practiced solemnity.
“How can we help?”
Her lip trembled. “My dear boy…” She put a wavering hand on his shoulder. “I would be most grateful…” She stopped, unable to continue lest her control slip completely away.
“Ron?” Harry said. “Can you help Cho wrangle the kids back to the towers? Boys all in one, and girls in another.” he said. “No divisions by house, all right? You stay with the boys and keep everyone calm and ask Cho—”
“I’m here. I’ll do it,” Cho said.
“Thank you,” Harry told her. “Thank you, Ron.”
“Whatever I can do,” Ron said, and then he and Cho went to round up the children.
When he turned back to her, Professor MacGonagall wore a look of pride and…shame.
“Professor, may I help you and the others with the shielding? I think I can work a fair protection spell.”
She smiled tremulously at him. “Better than fair, Mr. Potter.”
They worked straight through till dawn, and if Harry had thought he was exhausted before, he hadn’t truly known how far his body and mind would go. He trudged into the school, every protection spell they could conjure secure around the rubble. The sun was peeking through the mountain valleys, not yet striking the surface of the lake. Harry pulled himself up the stairs, unsure where he was even going, only knowing he couldn’t last but a few more moments and he’d certainly just pass out wherever he landed.
“Harry.” The voice was soft and gentle.
Harry lifted his eyes to see him standing there at the next landing. He held out his hand, a sad smile hovering on his lips. Harry felt the emotion almost overtake him. But he took a deep breath, hauled his body up the next four steps, and then took Sirius’ outstretched hand.
They walked slowly to the Ravenclaw tower stairs and then climbed. Harry remembered the first time they had done this, hand-in-hand. Everything now was changed. Hogwarts was nearly leveled, Dumbledore was dead, Snape was…a hero? Harry still didn’t know what was true. But he didn’t have the energy to try to care. He was even too tired to cry.
Sirius magicked open the door to his old room – it wasn’t unscathed. He went about fixing the cracks in the walls and the broken window while Harry did a cleansing spell and lit a fire in the hearth.
When they turned back to each other, there was a moment when neither one seemed willing to traverse the space between them. Then Harry let out all his breath, walked into Sirius’ arms, into his embrace, and felt the relief sigh through his body like water. He pressed his cheek to Sirius’ chest and listened to his heart, and Sirius’ arms wrapped so tightly around him it almost hurt. Sirius swayed with him there. He smelled like smoke and fire and iron and, of all things, butterscotch candy.
“How’s Remus?” Harry asked, still pressed as close to Sirius as he could get.
“He’ll make it. Greyback is dead.”
“Good,” Harry said. “No more talking then.”
Sirius pulled back and took Harry’s face in his hands. “Whatever my love needs.”
“I said no more talking,” Harry repeated, though he was too exhausted to smile and most of him didn’t feel like it anyway.
Sirius leaned down to kiss him. Their lips opened to it, their tongues tentative. The fire crackled, and they kissed for several minutes. Harry’s knees threatened to go out from under him, and they pulled back, beginning to undress. The fire came back into Harry’s body seeing Sirius’ chest, the map of tattoos over his skin that always made Harry a bit faint with wanting him, his wiry muscles flexing as he undressed, the trail of hair leading into trousers Sirius was already unfastening. Harry stripped off his clothes, getting down to the rings. Sirius took off everything but the bracelet. They fell on each other once more – open-mouthed, devouring kisses; pelvises thrusting together; little moans of desperate pleasure escaping into the night.
They crawled into the bed, still kissing, and Harry wanted him – he wanted him so badly – but the feel of the soft bed under his weary body, the warmth of the fire and the sheets, the horrors he’d witnessed today – everything conspired to hold him somewhere between ardor and sleep, barely hanging on. They were lying on their sides, facing one another, pulsing their hips together until Harry’s slowed to a stop.
“Sirius…”
“No talking. Remember?”
Harry nodded. He closed his eyes. Sirius dragged him close, rested their foreheads together, stilled his own hips. Their cocks, still more than half-hard, lay against one another. Harry sighed at the dual pleasures of his lover’s warm erection and his lover’s warm bed.
The last thing Harry remembered was Sirius’ hand stroking repeatedly through his hair.
…
The clean up was arduous, even using magic, and MacGonagall wasn’t often available since she was overseeing preparations for Dumbledore’s funeral. That left the majority of the heavy magical lifting to a handful of teachers and Harry. Hermione and Ron were splitting their time between helping the wounded and helping MacGonagall. Sirius stayed in the infirmary all morning and afternoon, tending to Remus and Snape. Harry wasn’t sure why he’d taken to caring for Snape. During Sirius’ tenure at Hogwarts, Harry hadn’t seen them say three words to each other. All Harry knew was that Sirius considered it his duty, and he seemed not to resent that.
As Harry worked, rebuilding walls and securing the front gates, he kept thinking about the morning, waking up to the sight of Sirius having his tea and staring out the window. Harry had blinked, unsure if what he saw was real. He’d never woken in Sirius’ room, in his bed before; he’d only dreamed it, fantasized it. But he knew the rest was real – the death and destruction. He knew that Dumbledore was gone.
Harry magicked an iron bar straight from being coiled nearly into a knot. It didn’t take a tremendous amount of mental effort. Once he set the spell, he just had to make sure the metal didn’t overheat. He couldn’t help remembering how he woke.
Harry had stretched his naked body, watching the morning light play the planes of Sirius’ troubled face. He had gotten out of bed and walked over, sinking to his knees in front of him, spreading Sirius’ thighs. Their eyes had met. Harry had slid his hands up and down his lover’s thighs and watched his face soften. Harry remembered Sirius’ sigh as Harry had taken his cock out and slipped it into his mouth. The soft groan. The head dropped back. The hand in his hair. The taste of him, musky-hot. His name from Sirius’ lips, “Oh, Harry…”
And then how Sirius had breathed, “Come here…” and how Harry had straddled him in the chair, how quickly Sirius had entered him, how easily they found a rhythm, how the light felt on his face as he rode the thick cock and Sirius pulled him down, how they breathed against one another’s ears. How first Harry came and then Sirius, how the ferocity had surprised them both.
Harry welded the bar to the gate, finishing his work and wiping his brow. He looked around self-consciously to see if anyone might have caught his wayward thoughts. And then he stopped himself. He stopped himself cold. As he looked at the mended face of the school, the way everyone was working together to put it and themselves and each other back together again – the way Luna’s hand found Professor Sprout’s shoulder, comforting her, the way the second years saw after the first years, the Gryffindors after the Hufflepuffs…
Draco Malfoy helping Neville Longbottom lift and secure a beam…
Harry’s guilt faded away. There was nothing wayward about Sirius. That love was the only way either one of them would get through all this. The only way any of them would make it was together. And he and Sirius were together. There was no, and had never been, any shame in that. Harry knew now that they wouldn’t be parted again. He knew it so simply and effortlessly – it was just part of his destiny.
The lump grew in Harry’s throat when he thought about what would come next. Dumbledore’s funeral, yes, but especially after that. He stowed his wand and went in search of some kind of light lunch he could force down. Preferably alone. He needed the time to think.
…
The funeral was the next day, and it was beautiful. MacGonagall had put all of her soul into it and a great deal of magic. She got the cherry blossoms to bloom early; she said they were his favorite. Hermione sat on one side of Harry, Ron on her other side, their fingers intertwined, and Sirius on the other side of Harry, his arm wrapped around the back of Harry’s chair. Remus Lupin, patched up but still healing, sat on Sirius’ other side. It seemed like a strange time to be grateful, with Dumbledore gone, but Harry couldn’t seem to help it. He had everyone he’d ever loved best in his life by his side. The day was bright and warm. The smoke had moved away on the breeze, and wisps of white clouds had taken its place.
Hermione was crying quietly beside him. It was his instinct to reach out to her, but before he could, Ron’s arm came around her back and she rested her head on his shoulder. Ron met his eyes over her head and gave a sad and proud little smile. Harry blinked. They were all growing up. They were all shifting, their priorities gaining clarity. Harry felt a sharp pang about where his own priorities were taking him.
The service began, and several students stood to speak about their headmaster. Harry listened solemnly, his hands clasped in his lap. Hagrid simply wept at the lectern and had to be led away by MacGonagall. Trelawney spoke about how Dumbledore had saved her life. Everyone had good and true things to say. Harry grieved, but he held it together.
Until the thick black robes swished up the aisle between the seats, a slower, more laborious gait than ever Harry had seen from him, and a paler than usual Severus Snape took to the lectern.
He didn’t speak for a long while, and Harry wondered if maybe he’d changed his mind. Everyone seemed to be holding their breath, including Harry. His expression was that of a person haunted, his mouth a thin grey line.
Then he spoke, slowly and haltingly. “I would have done anything for Albus Dumbledore.” He looked at no one, over their heads, as he spoke. “I regret that I… I wish…” His strong voice died down, and Harry felt something tighten in his chest. The flash of agony was so acute, the tears so sudden, that Harry almost felt crazy. Hermione lifted her head from Ron’s shoulder. She looked at him, her own tears falling, and she took Harry’s hand, squeezing tightly.
Snape found his voice again. “He was a kind and decent man. More than I ever could be.” Then, “It should have been me.” And with that, he stepped down, his face set, his stride that of a man trying desperately to escape. Harry felt him pass and closed his eyes.
“I need a moment,” he told Hermione. When he looked at Sirius, he got a nod and a warm hand rubbing his back.
Harry stood and followed in Snape’s wake. He caught up with him around a corner, and found him leaned up against a particularly stalwart oak tree that had survived the battle without losing a single branch. Harry stopped, and Snape’s gaze snapped up to his, narrowing.
“Professor…” Harry began.
Snape just looked at him, his sad eyes blinking. Harry didn’t have any notion of what to say. Thank you? I’m sorry? Everything felt like a useless platitude. What he really wished to say to this man, there weren’t words for.
“You were in love with my mother,” Harry blurted, having had no intention of saying such a thing.
Snape blinked, taken aback.
“I’m sorry. It’s really none of my business. I just…”
“No,” Snape said. Then, more quietly, “Yes.”
Harry nodded. It explained a great deal. He swallowed. “What you did…”
“I do not wish to speak of it,” Snape said tightly.
Harry nodded again. “I just…” None of his thoughts would settle. Nothing he could think to say worked. He went for the only thing he could think of that made any sense inside him. “I understand. I wish I didn’t. But I do.”
It was what Harry would have wanted to hear. It was what Harry had longed for all his life. To be seen. To be understood.
The Boy Who Lived.
The Man Who Sacrificed It All.
They looked at each other, and then Harry backed away. He turned, and he headed back to his room in Gryffindor tower. It was a child’s room, once safe and sheltering. Harry was a man now, and staying could no longer keep him safe; it could only confine him. With a sense of conviction, he began to pack.
…
He packed light and was toting his one bag to Sirius’ room to meet him there when Ron and Hermione stopped him coming out of the Gryffindor portrait.
“I told you,” Hermione said gravely, cutting her gaze to Ron.
Ron gulped. “Were you even going to say good-bye, mate?”
“Of course,” Harry said. “I just…”
“You just what?” Ron took a step toward him, disengaging from Hermione’s side. “You just thought, hey, I’ll take off and fight Voldemort alone when I’ve got perfectly good friends willing to come along and fight alongside me?”
“Come along?” Harry said, aghast. “You must be joking! You both have families – people who love you, cook for you, expect you home for holiday. You both have—”
“Nothing if Voldemort wins this war,” Hermione finished. “That’s how he’ll win, Harry; by good people sitting by and doing nothing, pretending it’s not happening. After what happened the other night, after the funeral we all went to today, how can any of us pretend we’re not part of this ever again?”
Harry stared at them, stunned. “I can’t… I can’t be responsible if either one of you came to harm, I just couldn’t ever forgive—”
“What a load of bollocks, man! Do you believe this, Hermione? I mean, get off your egotistical horse, why don’t you? Stop being a martyr, and face facts, Harry! Hermione and I are responsible for our own lives, and if we do this and we die by Voldemort’s hand, it’ll be his fault, not yours. Get over yourself!”
Harry couldn’t help it; he laughed. “Merlin, Ron,” he said. “Way to skewer and roast me.”
“You deserve it, you ponce. ‘Your responsibility’. It’s bloody insulting.”
Hermione cracked a smile. “He’s right,” she said. She took Ron’s hand again. Then she took Harry’s. “It’s not your choice, Harry. I mean, you can try to give us the slip, but between the two of us, we’ll find you. Whether you like it or not.”
Harry licked his lips, the thought of having his friends with him in this was both terrifying and an utter relief. “I’d like it,” he said. He let out a deep breath. “I’d like it loads.”
Hermione smiled all the brighter and so did Ron. “So it’s settled then,” Ron said. “The Three Musketeers!”
“Four,” Harry corrected him.
“Sirius?” Ron asked.
Harry nodded.
“Brilliant,” Ron beamed. Then, realizing, maybe, that it was all happening, he sobered. “When?”
“A few days. I assume you’ll want to tell your families?”
“Well, mine, yeah,” Ron said, looking at Hermione with concern.
She swallowed. “Sure. A few days. That will give me some time to…” Her eyes clouded over with tears. “Say my good-byes.”
Harry nodded. “Sirius and I are leaving tomorrow for Grimmauld Place. I say we meet up in three days at your folks’, Ron.”
“Right,” Ron said.
“Right,” Hermione agreed, softer.
Harry just blinked at them. Then he pulled Hermione to him and held her. He breathed in the spicy scent of her hair. He reached out and pulled Ron into the embrace, too. “Thank you,” he said. “Thank you both.”
They pulled back, and Hermione said, “Thank you, Harry.”
Then they turned to enter Gryffindor tower for the evening while Harry made his way down the hall toward Ravenclaw and the man that was waiting for him.
…
It was a cold morning. He and Sirius had dressed in near silence. Harry donned a thick grey wool jumper over a white t-shirt and jeans. Sirius looked at him bemusedly for a moment and then said, “You look like a Muggle, Harry Potter. A very attractive Muggle.”
Harry smirked at him and then finished his packing. When they were both ready, Sirius stopped at the door and snuffed the lights. He looked down at Harry. “Are you ready to do this, love?”
“As long as you’re with me,” Harry said, and they shared a lingering kiss.
To Harry’s surprise, it wasn’t just Ron and Hermione waiting for them in the courtyard. It was…everyone.
Sirius walked up to Remus right away and clapped him on the shoulder. Remus winced, and Sirius grimaced, apologizing. Then he said, “Three days.”
“Moody’s coming tonight. He’s going to take me in his side-car,” Remus explained. “He’s afraid I’ll fall off my broom or get banged up in the Floo or something.”
“The way that bloke drives, I’d be more afraid of the side-car,” Sirius said. “Be safe, dear friend.”
Remus looked at Harry. “You as well,” he said to both of them.
They made the rounds, saying good-byes. Harry hugged Hagrid and felt the man shaking with his sobs. “I’ll be back,” Harry felt the need to say, even though he had no idea if that was so. Hagrid just nodded, rubbed his eyes, and moved on to Ron and Hermione.
Charlie Weasley appeared before him, his left arm in a sling. Harry smiled and hugged him. Charlie pounded him on the back until Harry thought he might bruise. He remembered what Ron had told him – “gay as a box of birds”. He’d never have known. Charlie leaned back and smiled at him, shaking his hand forcefully. “Good to see you, Potter.”
“Thanks for the dragon help,” Harry said, shaking back. “What happened to them, by the way?”
“Oh well, they’re in the forest for now. The one Sirius was on we rescued from Gringotts, can you believe that? She’s coming with Fidgett – uh, that’s the other one – and me back to the east. She’ll be free and amongst her own again,” he finished.
“Brilliant,” Harry said. He cast a look at Sirius, clearing intending to get the Gringotts rescue story out of him at his earliest convenience.
Sirius just shrugged and then shook Charlie’s hand, too.
Harry was hugging Cho when he felt a tap at his shoulder. It was Professor MacGonagall. She looked as though she’d aged ten more years since the day before. “Professor,” he said.
“Minerva,” she corrected. “Since you are no longer a student at this school, Mr. Potter.” Then she grabbed him hard and hugged him. “I failed you,” she whispered into his ear.
“No,” he answered softly, realizing in that very moment that he had yet to really forgive her, even in his own heart. “No,” he repeated. “I’m right where I’m supposed to be. And so are you.” He pulled back. “You’re Head Mistress now, right?”
She nodded, choked up.
“He would have wanted that,” Harry told her.
“He would have wanted you to stay,” she replied.
“He’d have been wrong.”
“Perhaps, Harry….”
He hugged her one more time and then turned to go.
There were two people left barring his way. Severus Snape and Draco Malfoy.
“Professor Snape,” Harry said warily.
“I will no longer to be teaching at this school,” Snape intoned, as always sounding vaguely disgusted with the state of the world.
Sirius spoke up, “Where are you going?”
“Now that Voldemort is undoubtedly aware of my allegiances, I’ll have to go into hiding for the time being.”
The notion was obviously repugnant to him, and Harry cast a glance Draco’s way to see his chin lift, his eyes hard, maybe daring them to call his mentor a coward. Harry intended to do nothing of the sort. “Where can you hide that he won’t detect you?”
“We’ll go east first, into the mountains. I have a place there under heavy magical protections. Forgive me for not elaborating.”
Harry didn’t miss that Snape spoke of himself and Draco both.
“Mr. Malfoy and I will gather resources to mount a rescue mission,” he said then.
“Your parents,” Harry said, his eyes on Draco again.
Draco nodded, swallowing. “They want out.”
“And Miss Parkinson,” Snape added. “She’s been under His thrall for months now. She fled with him three nights ago. It won’t be easy to extract her, but… Well, it simply must be done.”
Sirius reached his hand out for Snape’s. “Any Order resources you need,” he said. “They’re yours, Severus.”
Snape took Sirius’ hand as though it were a thing covered in filth, but he shook it. “Obliged,” he drawled, but Harry heard something of humility and actual gratitude in it. He turned to Harry, his face utterly unreadable. He looked Harry up and down assessingly. Then he said, “I hope you intend to make your mother proud, Mr. Potter.”
Harry breathed deeply. “I do,” he said.
Snape nodded. He shook Harry’s hand hard, and Harry was surprised at how warm his white skin was. Snape fairly ripped his hand free then. “Draco,” he said, intending to go.
“Wait,” Draco said. He stepped forward, first toward Sirius. “Thank you, Sir,” he said, “for the chance to train under you.”
Sirius smiled. “It was my pleasure, Draco. I heard about your silencing hex, by the way. Most excellent work.” Sirius’ tone wasn’t light; rather it was exceptionally honoring.
Draco actually blushed. Then he turned to Harry. He held his hand out uncertainly, blinking.
Harry took it, and they shook. In a moment of either weakness or strength, Harry was completely unsure, he pulled Draco into an awkward hug. He pounded his back and felt Draco pound his. Both boys stepped back and away, looking down. Draco cleared his throat. “I’m ready,” he said to Snape.
Without anything further, Snape took the boy’s arm, and they Disapparated.
Ron’s murmur came from behind Harry, “I didn’t get a hug.”
“Shh,” Hermione chided.
No one now stood between Sirius and Harry and the open gate to the school. Harry turned and looked at his friends. “So, you’re taking your brooms and flying alongside Moody and Lupin, then?” Harry asked, even though they’d been over the plan multiple times.
“Beats the train and Dad being late to the station,” Ron said.
“That it does,” Harry agreed, even though he didn’t. He fought the sad and frightening realization that they’d never board that Hogwarts train again. They’d never do anything so easy and natural and child-like and safe. Not ever again.
He hugged his friends who wished them well. He looked past them and waved to everyone one last time. There was a chorus of melancholy “Bye Harrys” and “Good Luck, Mr. Black,” and the like.
Then Harry looked at Sirius. He took his lover’s arm. Sirius smiled down at him, and Harry looked into his eyes.
And with a crack, they were gone.
Continue to Part Six – Epilogue On DW | On LJ
