In Need

A/N - *WARNING!!!!* This chapter contains extreme violence, gore, and character death. Do not read it if this will bother you!!!

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Severus Snape apparated into the forest clearing and looked around. His black hooded robes swept through the dried leaves and debris on the ground, and his silvery mask glinted reflections from the firelight and movement around him. At this point in his life the mask did little except disguise his identity for a moment until he took his place in the circle - he had deceived them for so long now that even as the moment approached for his years of treachery to be revealed, his face under the mask would have given nothing away.


It was a dark and overcast night, and most of the ambient light came from the eerie glow of the fire. The circle was forming as the other death eaters arrived one by one, and the giants rumbled impatiently among themselves off to the side. One by one everyone silently drifted into place, and as he stepped into his place in the circle, Severus wondered how long it would be before the Order’s resistance started to show up.


The muggles who had been captured for the evening’s entertainment were stripped and chained to a tree near the eerie magnesium flickering of the bonfire. They struggled helplessly against their bonds and pleaded for rescue in voices that sounded like they didn’t really expect any to be had.


At that moment, clusters of the Order of the Phoenix began to arrive in rapid succession, capped off by the arrival of the elder Weasley boys and the dragons. Megan’s face was set and grim as she moved briskly through the ranks, nodding as they each moved quickly into place. Seeing the last of the groups arrive, she held up her hand to a tree branch, beckoning it toward her. As it bent down low enough for her to reach, she hoisted herself up and stood on it, one hand grasping the next highest branch and the other holding her wand at the ready. She willed the branch back up, riding it into the treetops and looking at the unfolding scene below.


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Voldemort, upon realizing what was happening, stood in the middle of the circle and hissed in a raspy voice that crackled venomously. “I do not know what has happened except that I have been betrayed. It is no matter. The traitor will be discovered, and my loyal followers will merely have their reward earlier than planned. If Potter comes for me tonight, Potter will die tonight, and I will claim as my most trusted companion whoever aids me in his demise.”


Lucius Malfoy unmasked himself and looked through narrowed eyes at Megan, and then looked in cold disbelief at Severus. Spotting Arthur Weasley leading a small group of Ministry aurors into the clearing, Lucius spoke briefly to Voldemort and dparaparated.


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A group of six aurors hurried into place, to form a wide circle around Voldemort and began a containment spell to prevent him from leaving. In the past two years, whenever the Order had come close to finding Voldemort, he had escaped to the safety of his hiding place and had continued to gain strength. The council had taken care to choose spells that would keep the entire Voldemort present to prevent a recurrence of his quasi-death that happened seventeen years ago in his encounter with the infant Harry Potter. None of them wanted to ever have to worry about Voldemort again, so their goal was to prevent his body - and anything else that might remain upon his death - from leaving.


~~**~~

A perfect copy of Harry Potter, flanked by Ron Weasley and Neville Longbottom, moved steadily toward Voldemort. Neville’s heart pounded as he took step after step, his determination creating a well of courage within himself that carried him forward. One of the death eaters surrounding Voldemort leapt at them, and Neville took him down with a powerful stunning spell. He and Ron felt a jolt of shock as the body fell to the ground and the mask rolled away to revealir cir classmate Goyle. Ron’s quickly appraised the pattern of movement in front of them and determined the best way to continue, steering them neatly past several potential obstacles. In a matter of minutes, they stood a stone’s throw awrom rom a furiously struggling Voldemort, who was surrounded by a crowd of death eaters. The solid wall of robed figures stood with their backs toward Voldemort so that they could face outward to foil any threat that dared approach.


As he struggled to break free from the containment spells, Voldemort spied Harry Potter creeping steadily toward him between two other boys and froze in concentration as he looked at him. A large and sinister smile slowly spread across his terrible face. “Oh, this is rich,” he hissed, giving a short laugh like a brittle cough. “They sent an imposter?”


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The giants, restless from several weeks of being forced to stay still, were roused by the fray and stomped heavily toward the members of the Order, tearing down swaths of trees in their wake. They squashed the sparser trees in the clearing like so many tall weeds, the wood screeching and snapping deafeningly as it gave way around them.


In the flickering glow of the firelight, Charlie watched the advancing throng of giants. He squared his jaw and readied the commands to put the dragons into action. He held them back for the moment, and drops of sweat beaded up on his forehead as he waited next to their furnace-like bodies. His sleeves were rolled up, revealing solid forearms that were covered in the faint pink scars of old burn marks. Hagrid was next to Charlie, holding his ground and glaring at the kin who had rejected both him and his brother. His tangle of wiry black hair was matted down with perspiration, and his hands clenched into enormous fists as he watched the advancing destruction.


~~**~~

Severus, in the meantime, had made a hasty break from the circle once his identity had been revealed. Draco took off his mask and gave Snape a look of true shock and bewilderment. “What is this? What are you doing?” Draco demanded imperiously.


“I will do this, for starters,” saevereverus. “Totalus Petrificus.”


As Drdropdropped to the ground, Severus moved stealthily into the trees. In a moment he felt his hearing stop - it was expected, and he started to count off the time until it returned, but it was also an uncomfortable sensation and made him feel more vulnerable than he would prefer on a battlefield. Preferring to stay off to the side until his hearing returned, Severus made use of the time by eliminating some of the giants.


Although Dumbledore had strongly disapproved it, Severus Snape had always been an avid student of the dark arts. He was appreciative of such knowledge in this circumstance, though, and took full advantage of the skills that he normally needed to keep hidden. He drew invisible garrotes around the necks of several giants who had begun to tramp uncomfortably close to where a pocket of the aurors magically holding Voldemort were concealed.

The garroted giascrascrabbled at their necks, fighting for air and fighting to pull the invisible cords away. Their eyes bulged and their enormous gray faces began to turn purple as they quickly suffocated. With morbid patience, Snape held the invisible cords fast until well after the unlucky giants had fallen, assuring that they would not get up again.


~~**~~

Waiting in the tree, Megan lost her hearing. It was the signal from Dumble tha that she had been waiting for. She reached into the pouch around her neck and pulled out two mandrake shoots. Holding one in each hand, she willed them to grow, and felt the gnarly roots expanding in her hands. She watched their little mouths moving in what were probably piercing shrieks capable of knocking out a human adult, and would momentarily be fatal sms. ms. When they were big enough, she took aim and heaved them down into the crowd of death eaters that surrounded Voldemort.


The crowd of death eaters crumpled to the ground, killed instantly by the piercing and deadly screams of the agitated roots throwto tto their midst. Megan hustled to destroy the mandrakes before everyone’s hearing came back at the appointed time, running along the tree branches that she moved into place as a path overhead. She spotted the squirming roots on the ground by Voldemort’s feet and raised her wand to kill them, but Voldemort beat her to it and crushed them under his feet.


While she hadn’t expected him to be killed by the mandrakes, it was nonetheless unsettling to her to see that the deadly screams hadn’t affected him at all. All of the old hatred and dread of him gnawed at her insides upon seeing him. Suddenly, Ron, Neville, and Tonks-as-Harry came into her view as they crept forward to face Voldemort already, and she hastily turned around to see if Harry was in the air yet.


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Hermione apparated to the bound figure at the edge of the clearing, and her face twisted up in disgust upon recognizing it as Draco Malfoy. “I can’t believe that even now he gives you special treatment,” she said, guessing instantly that Snape had been the one to set him so neatly aside.


Draco couldn’t move and was barely even aware of what was happening, but he was nevertheless quite certain that Hermione Granger was standing above him and had just trod on his hand. She peered into his face with a nastier look than usual and took hold of his shoulders. He struggled to gather his will to break out of the spell and get away from her filthy mudblood hands, but Snape’s spell held him fast.


Grudgingly, Hermione apparated away to the holding tank with Draco. She would just as soon have left him there so he could finally get what was coming to him and so that they could finally be rid of him, but even for as terrible as he was, she was not. She dropped him off safely and popped back to the battlefield to take the next ones away.


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The giants stomped forward through the trees and were now close enough to engage. Charlie shouted a command, and the long necks of the dragons craned around as they spewed out jets of fire at the giants. Three of them were mortally wounded with the first blast, and Charlie gave a shout of grim triumph. Hagrid watched grimly and did his part to hold them steady, his enormous arms straining to hold the chains that were keeping the dragons in place, taking advantage of the rapport that he had managed to establish with the beasts. Bill Weasley and two aurors were also helping with commands and spells to keep the dragons from crashing forward into the battle, and they were grateful that Hagrid’s hours of babying them made their work easier to do.


~~**~~

Hermione apparated to the tree near the bonfire and quickly opened the shackles holding the muggle victims. She spoke quiet and soothing words to them as she hastily freed them, and apparated away with them to the medic center. She returned to the battlefield and as people fell - whether from injury or spell-binding - she apparated next to them and took them away to either the medic center or the holding tank guarded by aurors. She cringed as the dragons roared above her and felt the heat of the distant tongues of fire that they spewed out once more.


The giants roared in anger as more fell under the blasts of heat from the dragons. From her spot on the battlefield, Hermione not in in horror that they were retreating to create a wider perimeter, and two flanks of them lumbered forward out of the range of the dragons on each side. Suddenly, the air was filled with sizzling flashes of lighted arrows. The ground rumbled under the beating hooves as the centaurs charged forward and sent a volley of fiery arrows flying into the necks and eyes of the advancing giants.


A brown dappled centaur named Mercury took a giant down, but miscalculated the direction it would fall. With a stagger punctuated by the groaning wood of the trees it pulled down on its way, the giant collapsed and its arm landed on Mercury, breaking his back with a sickening sound. The centaur shrieked a terrible scream of anguish, flailing his legs in spasms before finally becoming still.


With the centaurs covering the far edge and the dragons confronting the giants in the center as Charlie began a slow advance with them, they seemed to be well covered. One giant, however, had sneaked around to the other side and was trying to make it behind Charlie’s group. Charlie swore as he saw what was happening, his jaw setting in concern. If he turned even one of the dragons around to torch the giant behind them, it would leave their position too unprotected against the rest who were approaching from the other side. “Hagrid!” he shouted. “I need you!”


Dropping the chains to the ground, Hagrid spun around to see that the approaching giant was almost on top of them and had ripped out a tree that he was now swinging furiously. Hagrid ducked as the tree swept around and lunged toward the giant’s knees. The giant stumbled backward and Hagrid took advantage of the opening and pounded its abdomen as hard as he could. The giant roared furiously and grabbed for Hagrid and missed.

Hagrid saw three centaurs running at him with their bows drawn, and in his moment of distraction the giant struck a blow to his back that sent him flying to the ground, knocking the wind out of him. The centaurs let their arrows fly, hitting the giant in its face and neck. Hagrid staggered to his feet and grabbed a large thick branch and hit it as hard as he could across the giant’s chest. The branch broke in two, and the giant staggered backward once more, and grabbed at the trees to steady itself. In doing so, a sizeable branch came off in its hand, which it thrust into Hagrid before it fell to the ground.


Bill Weasley ran to Hagrid, who had fallen on the ground with a pained look on his face, and shouted for Hermione. “Hagrid, hang on,” he said softly.


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With a sneer, Voldemort swept the heap of robed bodies away from his feet and immediately disregarded them. These appallingly weak followers that he had - the followers who were supposed to be united with him in his quest to ultimately defy death in the gain of ultimate power - had fallen down dead upon hearing the cries of the mandrake root. Weakness such as this would not be tolerated when he defe thi this pathetic rabble and walked freely once more.


He stared at the group of three young people approaching him. The slit pupils in his yellow-green snakelike eyes flickered as he let them come closer. Ron, Neville, and Tonks watched him warily as they drew their wands and got close enough to have him in range. Tonks flung a spell toward Voldemort to wound him and he winced angrily. Disregarding the smoking slash across his face with which she had just taken out one of his eyes, he reached his arm out in a beckoning gesture, and Tonks, who was still morphed to look like Harry, came skidding forward across the floor of the clearing and fell to her knees at his feet.


At that moment, four more death eaters who had seen the collapse of those around Voldemort were now rushing to his side, but Ron and Neville were doing their best to hold them back. Two of the death eaters were working furiously to nullify the holding spells that were pinning Voldemort in place, and Ron was doing his best to deflect their efforts. They had managed to kill two of the aurors who were doing the containment spell, but two more had immediately taken over at entirely different locations, in addition to the four that still remained from the original group. The death eaters hoped that if they couldn’t effectively reach the source of the spell, they at least might be able to destabilize it enough for Voldemort to wiggle free.


~~**~~


Tonks scrambled to her feet and looked defiantly at Voldemort. “I have no time to waste with games like this,” he rasped, looking at Tonks and tracing a finger over her perfect replica of Harry’s scar. “It is the foolishness of the traitors of the great families, such as yourself, that have made this struggle drawn out *so* much longer than it has *needed* to be! You have wasted my time and you have diluted the greatness of all true wizards by allowing the disgusting practice of protecting the mudbloods. Isn’t it ironic that this clever little effort of yours shall prove so fruitless and yet cost you everything?”


He spoke the words of the killing curse, and Tonks crumpled to the ground with a dazed and empty expression on her face that even in her death looked like Harry.


~~**~~

Lucius Malfoy returned with a group of seven from the Ministry of Magic. Percy Weasley was one of them, and he looked around in amazement. “What is this?” he demanded. “What is happening here?”


Arthur Weasley’s head whipped around. “Percy? Percy get out of here now! I don’t know what Malfoy has told you, but you are not ready for this.”


Percy glared at Lucius Malfoy and said, “I demand to know what it happening here. This is *not* what we authorized for negotiations with the giants. And what do you mean by pulling us here to a forest in the middle of the night for a confrontation? This should all be led led through the proper channels, after all, and - ”


Rolling his eyes, Lucius Malfoy said, “Will you please be quiet?” He put an arm around Percy’s neck and held his wand to Percy’s temple. “Well, Arthur, what will it be?”


Arthur Weasley’s heart broke as he looked at his bewildered and struggling son held in Malfoy’s deadly grasp. “What is it that you want, Malfoy?”


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Ron felt a pang of horror as he saw Tonks collapse, and he mightily resisted the urge to look up to the sky to see if their distraction had at least been enough to let the real Harry get into the air unnoticed. Although he knew that there was nothing he could do at this point to help her, he wanted to get her away from there.

He was given no time for any further thought about it, though, as the urgency of the battle demanded his full attention. He was doing his best to hold back the death eaters that were trying to weaken the containment around Voldemort. He and Neville had moved so that they were almost back to back, but Ron jumped aside suddenly as he felt Neville falling against him.


Neville’s body and brain were suddenly wracked with an unimaginable yet familiar pain that flowed through him like a high-voltage current. The word that began his agony was such an ordinary part of his life that if there had been any part of him that could disengage from the pain, he might have reflected on the meaning of his once again being held down by the cruciatus curse.

It burned through him, surpassing even the memory of how it had felt before, and it triggered a fear that only made him weaker against it. His limbs trembled beyond his control and a scream ripped from his throat, as images of his mother and his father living the same horror flashed through his mind. This is what they had felt. This is how they had fallen. This was to be his fate too.

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Viktor gave Harry a silent nod as they circled high above the trees. Fred and George moved into place beside them, and the four surveyed the unfolding scene below and located the best area to begin the series of spells that Harry had rehearsed so often that he could (and often did) say them in his sleep. Voldemort was now standing alone in what had been the circle of death eaters, although it looked like more were trying to approach him. Viktor dropped lower and disabled one of the death eaters who was moving closer to Voldemort, leaving Ron with one less to face.


“They’re in the sky!” shouted one of the hooded figures below, spotting them and gesturing up toward the group of fliers. “Potter is above the trees on a broomstick!”


Instantly, a cluster of death eaters formed below them and took advantage of the openings that the giants created as they crashed through the trees. They fired dark spells at the young men, which George and Fred moved rapidly to deflect while Harry evaded them and tried to make his way closer to Voldemort. Unfortunately, Voldemort was standing in the clearest part of the clearing - there were no trees at all where he had been pinned down. In order to get close to him, Harry had to leave whatever safety the cover of the trees offered to him.


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Megan moved through the trees to the edge of the clearing until she was a few yards behind Voldemort, and then dropped to the ground. The aurors had done what they were supposed to upon arrival and pinned Voldemort securely in place, but the lack of cover where he was being held made it much riskier for Harry to attempt his approach.

Megan saw Harry circling and looking for a better approach, and she scrambled to make more cover for him. Megan closed her eyes in concentration and plunged her fists into the ground, spread her fingers out once they were in the earth, and screamed out with her mind’s voice for the trees to grow.


Around her, the smaller trees began to reach upward, and their branches began to spread out over the clearing. One of the death eaters from the group who had been trying to reach Voldemort broke off from them and tried to find what was happening. Bellatrix Lestrange saw Megan and hurried quietly toward her.


Megan felt the energy draining out of her as the trees creaked upward and outward. She urged them on with everything she had, mentally pleading with them to hurry. Suddenly, she felt her head yanked backward, as someone grabbed her hair and used it to force her face upward toward the manic sneer that was looking down at her.


“Such a pretty little dolly our Severus found himself to play with. I don’t think he’d mind sharing his toys with his old friends, now, do you?”


~~**~~

The trees stopped growing. While Harry was grateful that the clearing had been covered considerably more than it had been, he wondered why Megan had stopped when there were still enough places where the remaining death eaters could stand to have an unobstructed view of the fliers above.


Fred watched as Viktor came back into formation after taking out another death eater and moved in front of him to rebound anything that came toward them. On the other side, George circled below Harry, keeping pace with him and rebounding a succession of spells that flickered angrily through the night. As fast as he was, though, one made it through the barrage.

He wasn’t able to catch it with his wand, so he spun neatly upside down on his broom to block it physically, catching it with his foot, reasoning that it was the thing he needed least while flying, even if it did injure him. He was instantly paralyzed and sailed numbly through the air from high above to land on the ground with a thud.


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Ginny worked rapidly at the medic center, and once again wiped her eyes, which were puffy and red from crying, onto her sleeve. While helping to tend wounds as Madam Pomfrey had instructed her, she had seen an alarming number of the Order being brought in for treatment. She had not been prepared, though, for what it was like to see the body of Tonks brought in.


Molly Weasley, who had been whipping clean sheets into place on the cots as soon as they were vacant, and levitating bundles of supplies to the healers, heard Ginny’s scream and ran over to comfort her, holding the sobbing young woman in her arms as she felt her own tears falling. They kept moving after a moment, though, driven by the needs of the people who still needed medical attention. Ginny worked with trembling hands as she tended Hagrid and the healer worked to pull the enormous stick out that was pushed into his abdomen. She held one of his hands in both of hers, worrying as she noticed how cold his had grown.


“Miss Weasley! Over here!” shouted an auror who brought in a quivering and unconscious young man. “We aren’t sure what they hit him with, and he’s had a bad fall besides. He’s one of ‘em guarding Potter.” And then he apparated back to the battle.


Ginny’s eyes were wide as she levitated him onto a cot, and her stomach twisted coldly. “George? George, can you hear me? Mum! Mum - come quickly!”


Dread filled their hearts as they looked at George - normally so fearless and now so helpless and hurting. When the medic finished examining him, they immediately transported him to St. Mungo’s.


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Severus saw Voldemort and the death eaters near him that were engaged with Ron and Neville. spedsped silently and almost invisibly through the trees to their position and took down the death eater that Ron had been struggling with. Ron gave a quick nod to him and turned to stun several of the death eaters who were firing against Harry and Viktor.


In the meantime, Lupin, who had been engaged with a group that were now being taken into custody by the aurors, ran to Neville’s side as he twitched on the ground, helpless against the agony of the cruciatus curse. “Remember who you are, Neville,” Lupin shouted as he charged forward and threw a curse at the death eater holding Neville down.


Neville lay on his back and shakily watched Lupin take on the death eater. He dragged himself to his hands and knees, the fear now replaced by anger. He was still far to weak to stand, but he found his wand and pointed it. From the depths of all the pain that he had ever felt, and from the depths of the lifetime of guilt and sorrow that he had felt for his parents, a hatred was born. For the first time in his life, he truly wanted to cause pain to something, and he lifted his wand with a shaky arm and pointed it. “Cruciatus!” he said from a parched throat.


The death eater that Lupin had distracted, got a terrible look on his face and fell to his knees, groaning in agony as Neville held him under the spell. As the man screamed, Neville felt a rush of vengeance course through him, which was interrupted by Lupin’s saying, “Enough, Neville. Stop! Remember who you are, boy.”


After hesitating, Neville finally released the man from his curse and bound him, finally collapsing in exhaustion.


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Harry gritted his teeth and nudged his broom faster. His scar throbbed with ribbons of pain, and his wand was not reacting the way it usually did. Its twin was Voldemort’s wand, and it was allowing Voldemort to block and parry spells that should have dealt a great deal of damage to him. On top of that, with Fred doing the work of two people now, more spells were coming through that Harry had to dodge as he rushed onward. The only way that Harry was going to be able to succeed was to use the one clear advantage that he had: mobility.


He moved like a blur through the air and swept down past Voldemort, tagging him with a terrible blow. Voldemort screamed in anger and frustration, and threw a spell back that missed Harry entirely. Harry spiraled up and out of sight, took a lap around the clearing, and circled back to dive at Voldemort once more. He was now seriously weakened, and Dumbledore, who had been surrounding Harry with protective spells, signaled the aurors to hold especially tightly onto Voldemort, in case part of him were to escape the death that was hopefully near.


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Megan found herself facing Bellatrix Lestrange and unable to reach her wand. Because her concentration was broken when she was working the earth magic, the ground around her hands had lost its viscosity and was now regular earth with her fists firmly embedded into it.


“This will be fun,” grinned Lestrange, and licked from the base of Megan’s neck up to her cheekbone. She whispered into Megan’s ear, “You know, there was only so long that a goody-goody like you could hold his attention anyway. Or maybe in his old age he’s wearing out - you should have *seen* the things he always used to like.”


Megan’s stomach turned with disgust, and she spat in Lestrange’s face. The crazy grin was immediately placed by wrath. “You will wish you hadn’t done that,” she said, and cracked her forehead against Megan’s face.


Beneath her, Megan struggled to release her hands but could gain neither the concentration to pull them out the way they went in, nor the leverage to just yank them out the hard way. Her nose was bleeding down over her face, and she spat out the blood that had collected in her mouth. They struggled for a few minutes before Megan managed to scissor her legs out so they were in front of her.

She kicked Bellatrix’ wand out of her hand, grateful for at least that brief opening. While Bellatrix was scrambling around cursing and searching through the debris on the forest floor for her wand, Megan forced herself to focus and freed her hands. She pushed Lestrange to the ground and pinned the struggling woman down with her foot and bound her.


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“Father?” said Percy in a frightened voice. “I don’t understand what’s happening. Is this a confrontation against the Ministry?”


“In a manner of speaking, son, but not in the way that yolievlieved it to be. There are parts of it which are allied with Voldemort.”


“Voldemort? But that was just a rumor to give hype to Harry! Voldemort is dead, and if all of this is still about him, then you are making a serious mistake.”


Ignoring him, Arthur Weasley looked in Lucius Malfoy’s eyes and said, “I asked you what you want, Malfoy.”


Malfoy, who was still holding Percy around the neck, had his wand pointed to Percy’s temple. He smiled cruelly and said, “Give me the traitor. I want Severus Snape.”


“I don’t think so, Malfoy. And I would take care with your demands if I were you. Mine is not the only son in custody right now.”


“You call that a threat?” sneered Malfoy. “You will give me Snape, and when this is all finished I will go myself to release Draco.”


Arthur tried to keep his expression neutral as he watched Ron and Lupin coming up behind Malfoy. Lucius Malfoy, though, sensed the change, and turned quickly to see them. He saw Severus Snape farther up the slope behind them, and his eyes lit up. “Never mind,” he said, and said the killing curse. As Percy fell to the ground dead, Malfoy apparated away to the bottom of the slope and ducked under an invisibility cloak. Snape was going to pay.


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Bellatrix Lestrange lay bound at Megan’s feet and Hermione apparated over to take her away. Megan did a quick scan of the clearing to see where she was needed. She saw Severus at the top of the slope fending off the remaining death eaters. He was guarding the fliers and held away the attacks that the death eaters persistently sent toward them, and fierce spells flew from his wand faster than she could track them. She noticed a shimmering patch on the forest floor that was creeping slowly toward Severus. He was too occupied to call it to his attention, so Megan darted up the hill to investigate. She had only taken a few steps when she saw the face and arms of Lucius Malfoy appear from under what she realized was an invisibility cloak.

She willed her legs uselessly to move her faster as she scrambled upward, and then oft thumping caught her attention. Firenze came cantering up the hill and reached his hand down, indicating with a nod for her to mount him, the second time in his life that he had made a concession to the taboo of allowing a human to ride on his back.

Using his hand for leverage, she swung onto him, grateful to be moving more quickly toward her mark. In horror, she saw Malfoy take a small red object out of his pocket and aim it at Severus, and felt sick as she recognized it as an encapsulated spell. Unlike most wand magic, encapsulated spells were physical and could not be magically blocked or countered. Firenze sped forward, bringing her into range to bind Malfoy, but just as she raised her wand to do it, Malfoy’s arm flipped and the spell flew toward Severus unchecked.


Firenze felt Megan shift her weight on his back and spring from him before he could catch her. She landed on her feet in front of Malfoy with her wand drawn, and in that split second happened a lifetime.


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Severus held back the barrage sufficiently enough for Harry to make several more dives toward Voldemort, who was now on his knees and screaming at Harry. Harry moved through the sky like a blur, dodging the few curses that made it through the lines of defense. Fred and Viktor flew in perfect formation around him, and took their own dives to throw devastating spells at the remaining death eaters clustered below.


Harry saw his moment open up before him. Diving into a feint, he was on Voldemort in a flash, and spoke the words of the spell that he had practiced so long. With an acrid stench, Voldemort began to writhe and burn. Far from feeling the elation he had expected, after so many years of anticipation, Harry felt only shock, numbness, and a sudden vague awareness of the rest of the battle slowly winding down around them. He could only stare blankly as Dumbledore and the aurors rushed to the site where the cinder that was Voldemort lay.


Dumbledore closed his eyes, felt the shift in magic, and let out a breath that released decades of apprehension. It was finally done. The damage had yet to be tallied, but Harry Potter had fulfilled the prophesy and had defeated Voldemort.


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When she landed in front of Malfoy, Megan cast a binding spell holding Malfoy fast - but the deadly spell had already left his hand. Megan saw it coming and braced herself to defend against it. She expected it to be bad, but reasoned that defending against it would be easier for her since she saw it coming than it would be for Severus who it would catch off guard if she let it get through to him - besides the crucial work that he was doing to defend Harry, there was also no way that she was going to let anything happen to him. The death eaters were taking nothing else from her.


During the split second that her feet hit the ground and her binding spell hit Malfoy, the small red encapsulated spell landed against Megan and tore through her like an explosion. She looked down in mute shock as her sternum split with a sickening crack, and her ribcage ripped open. Her heart flew out of her now-gaping chest and her blood sprayed out onto the ground in an explosion of liquid red.


As she collapsed to her knees in agony and her breath left her, her last thoughts swirled into blackness. She dropped out of sight into the ground.


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Severus watched stonily as Harry and his air support landed, relieved that the deed was finally done and that Potter had ged ged to do it. Everyone looked at each other in the dazed silence that followed the clash and the victory, and it seemed to be too big for words at the moment. It all needed to sink in before they could properly react to it, and they tried to collect their thoughts and figure out what to do next. Everyone, though, was glad it was finally over.


Hermione’s voice pierced through the air just a moment later. “MEGAN!” she screamed in shrill horror.


His blood turning to ice in his veins, Severus spun around to see Hermione kneeling in a pool of blood and retching, and Lucius Malfoy lying on the ground, bound and still. Severus was there in an instant, an ominous feeling creeping in over him. “What happened?” he demanded, roughly picking Hermione up off the ground to face him.


She shakily met Severus’ black glare and began to cry. “Malfoy killed her! He... he threw a curse that... that… took her heart out...” she sobbed, full of horror. The sorrows of the day had been too much for her to bear, and she collapsed into tears. She cringed in pain under the viselike grip of Severus’ fingers digging mercilessly into her shoulders.


“If you do not begin to make sense IMMEDIATELY, Granger,” he snarled fiercely, shaking her hard, “you will be sorry for it! Now, WHERE *IS* SHE?”


Trembling violently, Hermione wailed, “She fell through the ground - she just sank right into it!”


Dumbledore hurried over and carefully and firmly extracted Hermione from Snape’s iron grasp. She sank to the ground and Viktor rushed forward to put his arms around her. As groups rounded up the last of the casualties and apparated them to the medic station or the holding tank, Dumbledore looked gravely at the ground where Megan had fallen, feeling an awful wrenching in his heart. He cast a transparency spell over the forest floor, and it was as though they were suddenly peering down through murky water. Megan had sunk about fifty feet down through the earth and was now suspended face-down with her arms and legs twisted into seemingly impossible angles.


Harry stared for a moment, and then made a hasty consultation with Dumbledore.


Severus, frantic to understand what was happening, turned to Hermione once more and plunged into her mind. Hermione shrieked in pain, feeling Snape’s persistence within her as he roughly searched for information. He found her memory of Megan’s fall and grabbed at it.


Through Hermione’s eyes, Severus watched Megan leap off the centaur’s back and then all that followed. He fell to his knees as he watched her heart explode from her chest, his own heart feeliike ike an icy razor had slashed it in half. He allowed Dumbledore to once again extract him from Hermione and tell Viktor to take her away to receive her own treatment.


Severus vaguely heard Dumbledore saying something to him that sounded like a far-away chatter which didn’t quite register in Severus’ horror-stricken mind. He nodded numbly at Dumbledore to make the chattering stop, and Dumbledore apparated away with Harry Potter.


Severus felt like his world was spiraling away under his feet, but forced himself to remain intact for the moment and ennervated Malfoy. He grabbed Lucius, picked him up by the neck with one hand, and held him suspended so that their faces were level, Malfoy’s feet dangling off the ground. Severus raged at him, feeling like he was going mad. “WHAT HAVE YOU *DONE*?”


“This is even better than I had hoped!” said Lucius, studying Severus and smiling coldly in satisfaction. “I intended to rip out *your* heart for your betrayal, you vile and worthless shit - but your lady took it upon herself to stand in for you. I think that is just perfectly beautiful, don\'t you? You balked our rise to power, so now I condemn you to the precious mediocrity for which you fought so bravely.


You clearly didn’t care about your own life to have committed such treachery, but I thought that at least I could take your life from you as painfully as possible... but it is much better this way. I have taken the only thing that you ever loved. Do whatever you want to now, because nothing you can do will bring her back. You have tasted something precious that you will never have again, so say farewell to your bride, Severus, and live knowing that no one else in their right mind will have you!”


With an anguished roar, Severus slammed Lucius to the ground. He closed his eyes tightly, grabbed his head, and tried to think, his breath now wild and out of control. He was not able to even conceive that Megan could be dead - it just could not be. As he moved his boot to Lucius’ throat to crush it, several aurors quickly came over and took Malfoy into custody and apparated away with him, Malfoy’s cruel laughter echoing in his wake.

~~**~~


By this point, a team of aurors were now the only ones in the clearing besides Severus. As he stood alone on the bloody patch of grounhey hey made their way through the forest looking for stragglers that might have gotten away. He fell once more to his knees, his heart shattered, and he covered his face as he sank helplessly into an exquisite sensation of pain unlike anything he had ever imagined possible. It was the pain of loss that was beyond words, beyond anything he could grasp in his thoughts, and it took his senses away. Everything was beyond his awareness except the fact that the vessel of his hope, his desire, and what happiness he had, was shattered and spilled here on the ground. “Houldould you have done such a thing?” he asked wretchedly.


Hermione’s memory of Megan’s violent death haunted him mercilessly as he struggled to recall any memory of her besides the last one. He closed his eyes and thought of her face and her touch, her voice and her warmth, now lost to him forever. He clutched desperately at the ground, blood and dirt covering his fingers in a morbid grime, and said in a broken voice that sounded far away to him, “Megan… Whad yod you think I was going to do without you?”


It was too much. There was no way he could live with this. He didn’t care what anyone would think of him for doing what he was about to do - he had fulfilled his obligations to everyone that he owed any to, and that was the extent of the hold that anyone else had on him.


He took out his wand and pointed it at himself, uttering the killing curse.


“Avada…”


~~**~~