On a Night Like This

Disclaimer: everything belongs to JKR, I am making no money



Chapter Fifteen: I Want To Die A Beautiful Death




Voldemort had elected not to begin his grand final battle with an eloquent speech or otherwise impressive distinction. He simply looked around and checked to see if all the Deatheaters had made it then started firing off hexes. He killed a new professor first as she leaned over to refill her punch. Some would say that it was cowardly, but he didn’t intend to leave anyone alive to say it.

Shockingly to the Order the student body realized almost immediately what was going on and took sides, fighting ferociously. It was almost like they had been hibernating, reserving energy for just this occasion. Almost all the students sided with the Order. More Slytherins went with Voldemort than any other house but the ones who did not were notable and surprising. Blaise Zabini, Pansy Parkinson and their whole group were vital to the Order. Their most valuable Slytherins were still pretending to be Deatheaters.

No one had noticed that several Deatheaters were only using non-lethal hexes. Snape had taken out a few of his own when no one was looking. Bella had done the best; her wandless magic meant that it was not obvious where the curse came from. Draco stuck close by his father, they both protected each other.

Voldemort was hanging back, waiting for Harry Potter. He didn’t wish to waste his strength. He knew he was barely even an adult but the boy did have strength, as much as it galled him to admit it. Potter had foiled him thus far, after all.

He was quite pleased, surveying the bloody students and bodies that littered the grassy ground. In his mind he did a double take, his eyes shooting back to the bodies on the ground. It could not be, he told himself. Those obviously dead bodies on the floor were ten to one Deatheaters. He did not have many human emotions left but he could feel the hints of rising panic.

Snape ran past Avery, who was dripping blood from what had to be cuts covering nearly his entire body. Harry winked at him as he passed; Severus surmised that he had been utilizing his very own sectumsempra spell. He knew that he had talent for making spells but sometimes he wished that they were a little nicer. They would not be as useful here, he reminded himself.

Hermione and Sirius were doing admirably. Together they took out more than their fair share of Deatheaters with Sirius going back and forth from dog to human. There were few casualties for the Light so far. The new professor and two aurors that had been friends with Tonks had been killed and Tonks herself had lost two fingers to an ill-aimed curse.

Upon hearing her scream Lupin had killed the Deatheater that sent the curse and those around him. Afterward Tonks had laughed weakly at him and showed him that it was only two fingers on her left hand. She told him she was right handed anyway.

Neville had surprised them all by calmly killing Bellatrix. She had attempted to cast the cruciatus on him but he cut her off with the killing curse, shocking those around him. Afterward he promptly fainted. Lavender Brown hurried to tend to him; they had grown close over the summer.

There were only a handful of Deatheaters left including those that were not actually fighting on their side.

Voldemort was growing angrier by the second. His Deatheaters were falling quickly to the Order and to children! This was not going at all how he imagined. He was reassured to see that his most valuable servants were still alive and fighting.

His daughter and her husband and the Malfoys were still there for him. They were his most faithful followers. He had no idea what he would do without them. For a moment he wondered where wormtail was. Not that he cared, the man was useless. Thinking back he decided Bella had killed him. She had always hated the man.

For a moment he thought about how his life would be had his wife never been killed. The whole world would be different because of her life. This brought new fire to him. Muggles and muggle-borns were the cause of this.

“Halt!” he cried out over the dim of battle. Everyone froze with surprise and then remained still when they recognized him. People slowly and nearly imperceptibly shifted so that sides were clearly visible.

He stood in front of the remaining Deatheaters with Bella at his right hand and Severus at his left. “You have done much better than I imagined and for that I applaud you. But I assure you that it is useless, you cannot prevail. I would suggest that you join me rather than suffer a painful death by my hand.”

He looked at them all and was rewarded with stony silence and not a single movement. He smiled at them, baring his pointed teeth. “I see that you have chosen death. I am sorry then that you will not join me in living. You may think that it will be an easy victory for you from here on. Do not let our apparently diminished numbers fool you.”

Harry looked at him suspiciously. There were no more Deatheaters, they had all come to fight in the battle. What could he mean? Suddenly he saw and understood. In the wizarding world there are more than just men.

Dementors swept behind him, flanking the Deatheaters and causing a few students to faint. Some Deatheater gave a dry chuckle at this. Harry was not worried; he and Remus had worked over the summer to find a way to kill them. Remus had been skeptical about its use but Harry’s fear of them pushed them on. Seeing their spectral forms he was glad that he did.

Suddenly there was a flap of wings. A huge creature descended from the sky and settled to the ground behind Voldemort. A giant slid off the side and walked unevenly over to Voldermort. The creature had what looked like a thick hide and very large menacing teeth.

They hadn’t been too worried about the dementors but a giant and this hungry-looking thing were another matter.

Voldemort started the fighting again with a killing curse that Harry sadly noted was received by Professor Sprout. He had always liked her but there was no time now to mourn. He and Remus got to work on the dementors. The spell required that someone else hold them back with a patronus while a second person cast the spell to kill them. Everyone paired off so they could accomplish it.

Hagrid was doing well with the giant. He was not that much smaller and Minerva had given him a new wand, saying that all was forgiven. This gave him a large advantage over the giant, who was becoming more and more slow to recover from each successive hit.

Hermione had a large Deatheater under the Cruciatus curse when the winged creature swept down and grabbed Sirius’s dog form in its large claws. Before she even had a chance to scream he was dropped as the creature gave a horrible wail.

A smallish dragon had taken a sizable chunk out of its neck, causing it to drip what appeared to be black blood all over those on the ground. Ron looked at the dragon with wonder. His brothers were not handy to ask but he was sure he had never seen on like it.

It looked to be a cross between a Welsh green and a Hungarian Horntail. He saw his sister casting a patronus at a dementor and quickly came to her aid and killing it. As long as it was fighting on their side he could give a fuck what kind of dragon it was.

Soon there was only Voldemort left.

The Order surrounded him, still trusting the two Malfoys and Snape beside him. He tried not to think about where his daughter might be. He doubted he could ever forgive himself if she died at the hands of these mudbloods and muggle-lovers.

They simply stood there in a loose circle around him. He was confused for a moment and then he saw the dragon flying toward them. It landed and lumbered up, the circle opened to admit it. There was a slight gasp as it slowly changed into a small woman in Deatheater robes.

Hermione’s breath caught for a minute, Bella had been right, she was impressed. Only an incredibly powerful wizard had the animagus form of a dragon. It had only happened a few times in history.

Bella stood in front of Voldemort. He looked at her, shocked. “I’m sorry, father.” His expression turned from one of shock to a twisted scowl as he saw Snape and the Malfoys step away from him to join the light. He stood alone.

She turned and walked back to stand with Minerva. “They’ll never forgive you,” he said harshly, stopping her. “You have done too much. They’ll send you to Azkaban.”

She continued on and he heard her say softly, “You know Azkaban could never hold me.”

He was still in a state of shock when he heard Harry say the words avada kedavra.

The dark lord was dead.



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Please review! This is the end; there will probably be an epilogue to tie up the loose ends. I want to die a beautiful death is an everclear song. Hopefully this end was satisfying; I tend to like to leave things unfinished. Ironic because as a reader I hate that! So I had to work a little to finish it. Oh and if you look at this wallpaper, that is how I imagined Bella. They have great wallpaper, I have the “I heart deatheaters” one!
http://www.sherbet-lemon.net/wallpapers/hp_bellatrix.jpg