Needfire

Disclaimer: See chapter 1.


touch me,
before we perish
...
the air
darkens and is alive--


--from \"XLVIII come a little further--why be afraid--\"

-- e.e.cummings


Chapter 36 - War


The castle\'s residents were taking the noon meal in the Great Hall. The week before, Dumbledore had finally allowed Snape to take his meals with the rest of the population of the castle, provided he made no effort to see or otherwise disturb Hermione, recently returned from St. Mungo\'s in time for her NEWTs. Snape was careful to do nothing more than look, checking her hands and arms from a distance. Apart from her new thinness and somewhat dark circles beneath her eyes, Hermione looked much as she had at Angharad\'s cottage.

Snape reflexively gripped the edge of the table as everything around him seemed to shudder. The castle shifted on its bedrock, all of the wooden beams in the Great Hall groaning at once in a shriek of ripping wood. He realized with something of a shock that he had just witnessed the collapse of Hogwarts\' legendary wards.

The Great Hall abruptly filled with ghosts. Peeves rocketed from side to side, wailing \"They have come! Flee, flee!\" Portraits on the walls keened nervously and ran from painting to painting, whispering tensely, seeking better hiding places in other pictures.

The Bloody Baron appeared behind Dumbledore, whose palms flattened on the table. Nearly Headless Nick arrived a moment later. Other ghosts spurted into the enormous room, drifting like anxious smoke about the walls and ceiling. Hagrid got clumsily to his feet, nearly overturning the Head Table. His wildly hairy head roved from side to side as he sought the source of the problem.

Snape also rose; his eyes found a group of three at the Gryffindor table. Three, always three: Potter, Granger, and Weasley, young warriors now, taut, tense, frightened. Hermione and her bookends, thought Snape. Potter and his guards. Weasley and his two loves. Snape was already running towards the Head Table as Dumbledore got to his feet and thundered, \"SILENCE! \"

As he passed the Slytherin table, Snape\'s hand snagged Malfoy and snatched him up out of his seat by his collar. \"You must be with them.\"

Oddly, Malfoy only nodded, lips tight.

Snape kept running. \"You know where to go,\" he ordered as he passed Hermione. \"Take them with you.\"

\"But you -- Snape, what about you?\" She was up now and hurrying down the aisle, pacing him between Gryffindor and Ravenclaw.

\"I...I go to be with Minerva and Flitwick,\" he replied, with no real idea of how he could help, a wizard without magic. \"I will come when I can. I will bring him if I can. Be ready.\" He tossed the words over his shoulder at her, but did not stop.

\"Impedimenta!\" cried Hermione, wand out, pointing at him. There was a collective gasp from the students around them. Most of them had no idea the Death Eaters were upon them; all they knew was that Hermione Granger had hexed a former teacher -- her former lover, at that -- and the castle seemed to be trembling in its foundations. The air was thick with fear and barely-contained curiosity.

Snape sprawled in the aisle between Slytherin and Ravenclaw. An instant later, Hermione stood on the table above him. Inhaling deeply, she released the hex and commanded him to be still. In her eyes was that strange, distant look she got when she warded him before Voldemort\'s summonings. And there, tumbled like a discarded toy, Snape knew a moment of perfect clarity: a moment where he heard her voice murmuring the ancient spell of protection; felt her touch though she touched him not; sensed her magic coiling about him like the sweet fog of incense burned in the Circle; felt the absoluteness of her power and the monstrous hugeness of her love for him. He met her eyes for the space of a long breath, and then with a swirl of her wild hair, she was leaping down the table back toward Potter and Weasley, dancing between the platters and jugs and cutlery before she jumped to the bench, and then to the floor, to have her hands taken by her bookends and run for the doors of the Hall.

\"Harry!\" croaked Dumbledore; but Potter did not stop. Snape skidded against the Head Table.

\"They go to do your dirty work, old man,\" said Snape. \"As do I. I will stand with Minerva, or Flitwick, or both.\"

Dumbledore\'s troubled blue eyes turned to him. \"I fear for you this day, my boy.\"

\"Too late for that,\" he answered bitterly.

But Dumbledore was already turning away. \"Rubeus -- get the children to the dungeons. You know the secret way...take them to Hogsmeade underground. Get them away.\"

\"But -- Perfesser Dumbledore --\" the giant protested. \"I should be with you --\"

\"No. Go! Filius, go with him. Minerva, Severus -- with me. Poppy, Vector, Sybil, Pomona -- the dormitory towers, check them all, get the children down to the dungeons. Argus -- the classrooms and baths -- no child can be left behind. Filius, wait for them there, then you and Argus take the rear. Professors Vector and Sprout...when the last child has gone, destroy the tunnel entrance. And then, my dears, I\'m afraid you\'ll both be needed wherever the fighting is. Poppy, Sybil -- the infirmary, please.\" Dumbledore looked sad, and weary, and yet strong. Snape realized the planning for this moment had been fine-tuned for years. Snape was strangely ready to be a part of it, magic or no magic, as long as it came to an end.

Students were already leaving the Hall -- Snape recognized many of them as the children of Death Eaters, and some of the rest as members of Dumbledore\'s Army. He groped for his wand, intending to slam the Hall doors shut to keep the students together, and remembered his disability afresh. These little lapses would get him killed, he knew. One moment of expecting and not finding the power he needed...that would be all it required for Voldemort or his minions to bring him down, despite Hermione\'s warding, which he could feel around him like a suit of cotton wool armor.

Flitwick paused before following Hagrid. He fished in the pockets of his robe, finally dragging out one of his numberless swizzle sticks, and tossing it to Snape. \"Your new wand, Potions Master.\"

\"It will do me no good, Filius,\" said Snape. He and Minerva prepared to follow Dumbledore.

Flitwick\'s eyes were hard. \"Not everyone knows what\'s become of your magic. You\'ve been a successful actor for many years. Act again, Snape. Wave that stick like it means something.\"

Snape looked down at him, the little man no one took seriously, and tucked the swizzle into his wand pocket. He nodded. \"I will put it to good use.\"

\"And if you get close enough, it might yet serve to gouge an eye or two.\" And with wink he was away, bouncing behind Hagrid, who was shepherding students out of the Hall.

The teachers scattered to their tasks. Those who had not been assigned a specific duty gathered at the head table, faces tense, wands at the ready, waiting for Dumbledore to lead them. His voice was grave and solemn when at last he spoke.

\"Today, my beloved friends and colleagues, we go to make an end of Voldemort. Pray it will be swift. Know that death awaits us beyond these stone walls; meet it with mercy, if you can; meet it with death in equal measure if you cannot.\" His lips hardened in their nest of curly white beard. \"Know that there will be no mercy for you at their hands. Be bold. Be strong. In your love for each other is your greatness and your strength.\" His eyes traveled the group and came to rest at last on Snape. \"Be the Light in the Dark, one final time.\"

The old man\'s words were like a lance to Snape\'s heart, but he bowed his head nonetheless.

\"Here are your commanders,\" Dumbledore continued. Gone was the softness and reverence in his voice; instead, the huskiness of age lay over an edge of steel. \"All the spirits in this hall, save Peeves -- follow the Baron and Nearly Headless Nick, and guard the castle entrances. Peeves, you are to stop any who make it past your peers. Do as you will; I give you free rein.\" With a delighted hoot, Peeves swooped away and shot through the stone wall.

Dumbledore turned to look at a portrait behind him, where Phineas Nigellus had relocated from his normal place in the Headmaster\'s office. \"Phineas. Notify the Order and the Ministry of Magic. We need help, and we need it now.\" With a stern nod, the gaunt man\'s image vanished from the frame.

Dumbledore marked a third of the group with a wave of his wand. \"You are with Madam Hooch. Engage the Death Eaters directly; your stand will be the Quidditch field.\"

Dumbledore indicated a second group. \"You are with me. We will guard the castle from without, hold off the enemy until the children are safely away. Then we will fight wherever we are needed.\"

And at last Dumbledore came forward to touch Snape and Minerva on their shoulders. \"The remaining third -- you are with Minerva and Severus. Show her the way, Severus. Minerva, be his shield, be his wand. Go, and find the Dark Lord, and do what you must to end him.\" Minerva gave a great shudder, though she was silent and controlled.

\"To your tasks, go!\" Headmaster Dumbledore raised his wand. A jet of bright light spiraled from its tip over his listeners\' heads. Snape closed his eyes a moment as a strange sensation of blessedness washed over him, then he opened them again to watch the first two groups Disapparating -- with the wards gone, there was no longer a hindrance.

\"To the front gates!\" cried Snape.

~*~

Snape and Minerva\'s little band of teachers and support staff stood between the two stone posts of the front gate.

\"Why here?\" asked Minerva, looking at Snape.

\"He\'ll want to make a dramatic entrance,\" said Snape. \"Where better, than to march right in? Of course, I\'ve been wrong before.\"

They heard panting behind them. Minerva and several others whirled, and Snape heard Minerva gasp. \"Children, go back to the castle at once! You are to go underground to Hogsmeade!\"

\"We won\'t,\" said Lavender Brown sternly. \"We are part of the DA...we have trained, and we\'re ready.\" Other classmates nodded.

\"I\'ll find Ron, if I cannot stand with you,\" stated Ginny Weasley, looking firmly at her Head of House.

\"You\'re a pack of foolhardy, stupidly brave Gryffindors and Hufflepuff hangers-on!\" hissed Snape, turning round. \"Merlin save us from you. If you think this will be simple work -- think again. You may die here today, and you may have to kill. Are you prepared for that?\" He glared at them. Several of the DA members blanched, but none of them lowered their wands or backed down.

Ginny\'s pale face pinkened. \"I want to fight,\" she said clearly, to Snape. \"Weasleys know what\'s right. Luna, Cho and Anthony took their team to the Quidditch pitch. The rest are guarding the castle with the Headmaster.\"

Seamus Finnigan and Dean Thomas stood shoulder to shoulder. \"We fight here, whether you like it or not,\" said Finnigan.

\"Merlin,\" muttered Snape, returning his attention to the road. \"Stand with a teacher. Stay back until you know which end of your wands to point. And no foolish Gryffindor grandstanding. Remember your curses, your hexes. Your charms. Your shield charms, especially.\"

\"Something\'s coming,\" said Minerva tensely. Her wand lifted to indicate a shimmer growing just beyond the gate.

\"Where?\" demanded Snape. He couldn\'t see what she was seeing. He drew Flitwick\'s swizzle stick, though it would have no effect except perhaps to demoralize an enemy or two that hadn\'t heard about the loss of his magic. He could feel only a vast chasm where his magic should be. Voldemort, you bastard, he thought. Come where I can see you. Let me lead you to your doom.

\"Just -- there!\" shrieked Neville Longbottom.

And suddenly the Death Eaters were among them.

The pops! of Apparition seemed to happen everywhere. Bolts of Stupefy and Impedimenta began to fly from Snape\'s and Minerva\'s warriors. But the Death Eaters were not bound by their consciences, and the brutal spells smacked harshly against shields and wards. Snape knew from experience that such defenses would quickly wear thin. He heard a shriek and felt someone grabbing his robe from behind. He snatched behind him and jerked forward, threatening with his swizzle before he saw it was Longbottom. \"Remember your Stupefy,\" he whispered fiercely to the sandy-haired boy, who was pale and sweating. \"You know I cannot protect you.\"

\"I will protect you, s-sir,\" stammered Longbottom.

\"Gryffindors,\" muttered Snape, releasing him. It was all he could do not to laugh in bitter resignation. Had Longbottom been wielding a cauldron filled with a typical troubled Longbottom potion, Snape might have felt more confident that the Death Eaters should fear the boy.

Their little group was surrounded. They backed into a tight circle, with the students on the inside ring, except for Neville, who slid out and stood in front of Snape, wand at the ready, its wood darkened from the sweat on his palm.

\"Stupefy!\" shouted Snape, pointing his swizzle. A bare instant behind him Minerva shot the same spell to the place Snape indicated. They moved forward, Snape with his hand on Neville\'s shoulder to propel him along. \"Shield yourself, boy,\" he hissed. \"I can\'t feel your shield.\"

\"Protego,\" said Longbottom. As they neared a Death Eater, clad in black with a silver mask, Snape felt the boy begin to tremble.

\"Get behind me. I am warded; it may be enough.\"

\"No!\" shrieked Longbottom. His wand was waving wildly, and Snape realized it was a cheering charm that Neville scribed in the air -- one of the first charms a Hogwarts student learned. He groaned, about to drag the boy to the ground when the Death Eater in front of them faltered, long enough for Minerva to cast Petrificus and have it hit. When the Death Eater fell, his mask skittered away across the gravel of the drive, and Snape saw a terrible rictus smile on his face. Goyle. Happy at last? Snape\'s hand clenched on Longbottom\'s shoulder and he whispered, hurriedly. \"Again, boy -- it worked. He couldn\'t speak his incantation!\"

Longbottom gasped a breathless, frightened laugh. The three of them managed to bring down two more Death Eaters -- McNair, and perhaps one of the Lestrange relatives -- before Snape realized they were getting too far from their group. Spells were thick in the air; he could feel them striking and thinning the warding Hermione had placed upon him. Eventually, he knew, it would fail. Already he could smell the sulfurous odor of Dark incantations wafting through the perforations in the wards. A well-placed spell could be his undoing.

He risked a look back over his shoulder. His band of brave souls had pinched themselves tighter. Too tight. He shouted at them to separate, not to make such an easy target, and turned to run toward them, instruct them...

...and found his path blocked by none other than Lord Voldemort, with Lucius at his side.

\"There you are, traitor,\" spat Voldemort. \"What, not dead yet?\"

Behind Snape, Longbottom moaned. Minerva moved to stand shoulder to shoulder with Snape. He could feel her trembling, and slid his arm around her. He raised his swizzle and aimed it straight between Voldemort\'s eyes. \"As you see,\" said Snape, leaning a bit heavily on Minerva to feign weakness. \"Not dead yet.\" He was ready to clutch at her so she could Disapparate them to the Circle when the time came.

Voldemort laughed at the gaudy blue and silver glass rod in Snape\'s hand. \"Your new wand?\" he asked. \"A fitting choice, squib.\" His gaze slid to Minerva, who stiffened. Her wand arm was raised and curved over her head, ready to make a direct shot, or to deflect. Voldemort\'s lips curled in a sneer. \"I see you need women to work your magic for you now.\"

Snape tightened his arm about Minerva\'s waist, feeling her shoulder nudge harder into him, her hand slipping behind him to grip tightly at his belt through his robes. She was telling him without words that she awaited his signal.

\"Minerva has been helpful,\" he said to Voldemort and Lucius. \"My little group took down three of your Death Eaters. Though -- my lord -- I see you have waited until we are tired before you arrived yourself.\"

\"I see no reason for you to have tired so quickly, traitor. You cannot fight.\" His lipless mouth opened in a smile. \"Crucio.\"

The spell sizzled and sparked against Hermione\'s warding, but beyond weakening the wards, had no ill effects. With a vile and three-cornered smile copied from Minerva, Snape replied, \"Can I not? Tell me, Riddle, what use have you made of my magic?\"

The wizard\'s red eyes slitted. \"I\'ll hex your disrespectful tongue, Snape. I should have known a wizard such as Flamel would never invent an effective Dark spell. Your magic bled away immediately.\"

\"You wasted my skills, my magic?\" Snape sneered. \"It would have been better to kill me.\" Inwardly he railed at the injustice; to have his magic taken, and not used -- it was as if his lifeblood had been poured on the ground, less valuable than oak water spilled for the new moon.

\"Ah, but this way I forced Dumbledore to expose his spy. Perhaps I will kill you now, though.\" That blackened yew wand began to lift again.

Snape spoke very softly, gesturing to Lucius. \"Why is your guard not watching your back?\"

It was enough. Voldemort\'s head whipped about on his thin neck, and he saw Snape\'s ploy, for there was no one behind him. But that second\'s distraction was all Snape needed, and he hissed to Minerva, \"Now! To the Circle!\" just loud enough for Voldemort to hear as his face swiveled back.

Minerva Disapparated them only milliseconds before the blast of Voldemort\'s wand created a crater in the grass where they had stood.

~*~

\"Snape!\" Hermione\'s voice throbbed with a thrilling undertone that was nearly his undoing. She ran to him, her hands patting him, seeking wounds. \"My wards are holding -- weakened, but holding,\" she breathed. \"And the battle?\"

Snape pushed her aside, longing to take her in his arms and whisper to her to Disapparate them to Angharad\'s cottage. Let the others fight this war: he was done. \"We have only seconds. Voldemort follows, for I have angered him. Ready yourselves. Potter, Weasley -- over there, behind that secondary altar. Minerva -- shelter behind something if you can, though once the vortex rises you\'ll be forced into or out of the circle. Malfoy, hide where you can, though it would be best if you leave now. Your father is coming for you. You\'ll be safe with him.\"

\"I\'m not leaving Harry,\" said Draco.

Snape blinked, but could not spend the time required to persuade him otherwise. \"Very well. Hermione -- your sickle.\" He was pleased to see she had already prepared an offering -- a large one -- for the Needfire to consume. It was mostly wood and would be long-lasting; the tips of larch boughs; birch bark and twigs, and, astonishingly, mistletoe. \"Well done,\" he said to her. Her anxious expression vanished for the briefest of seconds behind a dazzling smile. \"Begin,\" he said to her. \"I\'ll supply the blood.\"

He stood, waiting, Hermione\'s sickle clutched in his right hand, Flitwick\'s swizzle stowed in his wand pocket. His gaze traveled over the girl in front of him as she hastily saluted first the sun, and then welcomed the moon. His eyes came to rest on a small, sharp white stone lying on the ground. A shard lay next to it, clearly chipped from it, and abruptly Snape was taken by a memory, the chill wind of a superstitious thrill: his own words.

Severus: \"At Samhain, many villages built their own bonfire for the celebration. Those villagers who participated would choose a stone, one they would recognize later, and give it to the fire. And afterwards, legend tells us that when the fire was burned out, the villager whose stone was different, or misplaced, or cracked, for example, would be the next one taken in the Spring rite, to shed blood, to make the land fertile.\"

Hermione: \"A gruesome lottery.\"

\"Yes. Nonetheless, I thought we might each place a stone into the Needfire, by way of honoring tradition, though neither of us will be slaughtered come Spring.\"

It was spring, and now Snape waited for the Dark Lord to come into his Circle. He held no illusions and no hope. Voldemort would slaughter him for his impertinence this time.

Voldemort and Lucius appeared in the stone avenue leading to the Circle. Snape heard Weasley\'s soft, low gasp of, \"Merlin! \" and something that sounded like a growl from Potter, almost a chant, repeated over and over. \"This ends today,\" said Lily\'s boy. \"It is that simple.\"

\"Hurry,\" said Snape to Hermione. He nicked his thumb with the blade. Voldemort was striding energetically toward the Circle. Yes. Come into my Circle.

\"East, into the first of the Night,\" cried Hermione, watching as a single drop of Snape\'s blood fell into the heap of branches, needles, and white berries that was the offering. Her eyes flicked up to see Voldemort almost inside, Lucius lagging a few paces behind.

\"Faster,\" said Snape. He could almost smell her terror. Determination was stamped across her face, even as she clenched her fists to keep from crying out as Weasley had done.

\"West, into the last of the Light.\" Another drop. He could hear the tension mounting in her voice.

\"South, into the warm Spark.\" Another.

\"North, into the chill Dark.\" And the last.

And at last, Voldemort stepped into the Circle. His loyal followers began to appear at a little distance, popping one by one into view, summoned to his side by their Dark Marks.

\"Call it, Hermione. Call it now,\" gasped Snape. He still held the sickle, and prayed that if his death was to come this beautiful spring afternoon, it would wait just a few more seconds.

Hermione lifted her head and called down the Needfire, and as she did so, Snape gashed the sickle over his inner arm and released a salty red tide: a flood of his life\'s fluid, over the stone. Blood enough to splash; blood enough to trickle into the channels cut into the altar\'s edges to conduct the offering around the entire border. Hermione gasped, \"No! Snape, no!\"

The vortex rose, suddenly and harshly, glittering with a silver light Snape had never seen before. Minerva, too close to the outer edge of the Stone near which she was sheltering, was suddenly thrust outside the Circle, where she stumbled and fell from the force. Lucius, not understanding the Circle and its power, simply walked forward into the sparkling annulus, and was thrown violently, landing many feet back on the avenue. He groaned, turned on his side, and lay still. Draco, seeing his father injured, emerged from his hiding place in reaction.

\"Father!\"

His cry attracted the red eyes of Voldemort, who, glancing about him, realized he was alone.

\"Yes,\" hissed Snape. \"Yes, Riddle -- you are alone here, with us.\"

Voldemort waved his wand in a complex pattern, creating a strong shield. \"Lucius,\" he called. \"To me. Bring the others!\"

\"They can\'t come in,\" said Potter, rising.

\"And you can\'t get out,\" finished Weasley, rising as well. Two wands were leveled at Voldemort, who began to laugh.

\"How entertaining. You needn\'t think that three children and a squib will end this,\" sneered Voldemort.

\"Four children,\" corrected Malfoy, moving to stand by Potter.

Voldemort began moving slowly toward a gap between two Stones. \"Don\'t be stupid, Malfoy,\" he hissed. \"Stand by me as your father would and I will reward you. Stand with these fools and you will die, for I will kill you myself.\" While everyone\'s attention was fixed on Potter, Malfoy and Voldemort, Snape scanned the Circle. The twinkling extended into the dome of force above them, a white magic much like the dome that had protected the castle not long ago. Voldemort stretched a thin hand behind him to touch the Stones.

\"That\'s enough blood,\" whispered Hermione, coming around the altar.

\"The more blood, the stronger the force,\" Snape murmured back, never taking his eyes off the Dark Lord, whose fingers twitched back from the whirlpool\'s edge. Good! Very good!

\"I need to close that gash,\" she insisted, \"but to do that I must unward you...only for a moment, Snape --\"

\"Not now.\" He spared her a glance; she had paled, and was staring at the pulsing of the blood, running from his arm down his fingers, to drip thickly onto the altar. The Needfire glowed a dark, rich blue; deeper than he had ever seen it. An unearthly blue that hurt his eyes. He knew how the sight of her own blood had affected him as she lay unconscious in their bed in the cottage, and could only guess at her horror now.

Suddenly Voldemort levitated above them, seeking to fly over the edge of the Stones and out of the Circle. Potter and Weasley, standing tight together, fired bolts of Stupefy into the arching ceiling of the Circle, striking Voldemort\'s shield, and having no impact. The serpent wizard laughed.

\"Do what you think you can, fools!\" he cried. \"For I will destroy --\" and suddenly he rose no further. It was the feathered cape again, rising, circling, but trapped.

Snape knew, as the red eyes turned toward him in astonished fury, that his time was at an end. Voldemort knew who was responsible for building this trap and luring him inside. The scorched wand, the wand that had swallowed his own magic, turned upon him from above and the battle began in earnest. Blasts of Unforgivables and twisted hexes shot from the top of the Circle. Snape heard all four students crying their Protegos and dodging the blasts. Hermione stood in front of him, one hand on her wand pointing to the sky, and the other groping behind her for his shoulder, to force him down behind her own shield magic. Snape felt light-headed and complied, kneeling for the moment, until he could think of what more he might do. He used the sickle to slash at the hem of his robe and tear free a strip of cloth. Hermione was right; he had bled enough. Much more, and he would be of no use to the four students. Using his teeth and his right hand, he bound up his deep cut.

Potter and Weasley began streaming sinking spells at the Dark Lord, who gradually dropped from the top of the dome until his feet were on the ground again. Malfoy had moved to stand close by, and was providing additional Protego.

\"What goes up, must come down,\" sneered Weasley, his shield magic glowing in front of him.

\"You will be first to die,\" hissed Voldemort, shooting a ferocious Avada Kedavra at the panting, red-headed giant.

\"NO!\" shrieked Hermione, and Snape stared as a strong blast of wandless magic struck Weasley and shoved him from the path of the unblockable curse. Abandoning Snape with a fearful backward look, Hermione went to join the young men in the battle.

\"Merlin! \" cursed Snape, his heart breaking as he watched her sprint into the thick of the fray. More than anything else, he wanted his magic. He wanted these children to live past this day. He tied off his bandage tightly, and went to the edge of the Circle. He could feel, with all the Dark Magic tangling around him, that Hermione\'s wards around him were thinning quickly. He circled the Stones until he could see Minerva, lying apparently senseless outside the Circle where its power had flung her. Ringing the Circle itself were a number of masked Death Eaters, some he recognized from their height and stances, many he did not. A few were launching spells toward the Circle, vainly trying to break through the wall of force. A few of the teachers and DA members had discovered something amiss at the Circle, and were engaging the Death Eaters in brief skirmishes.

Snape heard a tremendous rumbling, and turned in time to see the Divination tower, almost a mile to the north, slide to earth with a noise like an avalanche. He spared a thought for the others, fighting at its base or from its tower windows. Doubtless, more dead.

Hogwarts castle was falling to the Dark.

Voldemort saw it too; and his triumphant laugh was nearly palpable. He redoubled his efforts with the four students, easily turning back their spells and beginning to break through their shield magic with well-placed curses. As he advanced, the four retreated slowly toward the altar. Various Unforgivables struck them glancing blows. Soon Hermione had changed wand hands, favoring a swelling elbow, and Weasley began to limp. Potter\'s scar was throbbing and reddened, with livid white flesh around it, making the scar itself appear to glow like a traffic light, pulsing with the combined fury of Potter and Voldemort. Snape moved back toward the altar behind them. Potter was hurling curses alternately with his wand and his outstretched, wandless left hand, and Snape could only wonder at the determined skill of the three. Where had they learned such magic?

\"Spread out, spread out!\" he cried. \"Force him to defend against multiple targets!\"

Voldemort snarled, aiming a brutal and fearsome Avada Kedavra at Snape, who sprawled behind the altar stone to let it take the force of the blow. The Needfire flickered and dimmed but held, and he swore, scrambling away. At all costs, the Needfire must continue to burn.

\"Ah,\" hissed Voldemort. \"I begin to see how you built this cage, Snape. That fire is the source. Very well. I will quench it.\" And he pointed his wand at the altar, preparing a new spell.

\"No,\" said Draco, moving to place himself in front of the altar. \"You will not!\"

\"I have not killed you before now for your father\'s sake,\" said Voldemort. \"But that mercy is at an end, boy.\" And before Snape, scrambling on all fours over the grass of the Circle, could reach Malfoy to knock him aside, Voldemort\'s Killing Curse had struck him. In the briefest of moments, Malfoy\'s astonished face turned to Potter, and then Malfoy fell across Snape.

Dead.

Voldemort\'s lipless mouth sneered in pleasure. \"My first kill of the day,\" he sighed on a long exhalation. \"Like wine.\"

Potter made an incoherent noise of grief, a howl that became a name, droning discordantly in Snape\'s head like the wail of bagpipes played out of tune. \"Noooooooo... Draco!\" Potter lunged at Voldemort, who managed to blast a spell past Potter\'s shield, knocking his legs out from under him so that Potter, too, fell across Snape and Draco\'s lifeless body. Potter\'s wand skittered over the altar, perilously close to the Needfire. Potter groped for it, unseeing, not finding it; he could only focus on Draco\'s clear, grey eyes, open to the late afternoon sky. Spell after spell followed from Voldemort, splattering against the students\' shield magic, as Potter, entranced by his sudden tragedy, fumbled.

\"Harry!\" shrieked Hermione. \"Get up!\"

\"Oy!\" yelled Weasley, then spat out a Confundus that even Snape, without his magic, felt baffled by as it rebounded off Voldemort\'s own shield magic. Blinking to clear his brain, he looked back at Potter.

This close, Snape could see the grief and rage that was nearly splitting the young wizard in two. Potter\'s magic was flaring hugely, unfocused and astounding. Snape could feel hatred, HATRED, and love, enormous love, pouring from Harry, burning Harry, consuming him as the Needfire consumed its offerings. But more than anything, power, uncontrolled and undirected. Dumbledore\'s sword, he thought. More like Dumbledore\'s sledge hammer.

Voldemort approached closer, sending a blasting spell towards Hermione and Weasley, standing tight together in front of him, trying desperately to guard those on the ground. Weasley was knocked aside to the left, and Hermione to the right. Snape saw her land against one of the Stones, her snarl of hair lifting wildly in the force of the vortex, but she lay still and her eyes were closed.

\"Get up,\" snarled Snape at Potter. \"Your wand! Fight or you will die!\"

The Dark Lord loomed over them, his teeth showing in his lipless smile. He looked ravenous, hungry for the lives of the two that sprawled below him. \"Expelliarmus! \" he hissed, and Potter\'s wand shot away, bursting into flame. \"Now,\" he said, still smiling. \"Now, Potter.\" He drew back his arm, the black wand following the motions of Potter\'s head like a cobra watching the charmer\'s flute, and prepared his Killing Curse yet again.

There was a sudden movement above Snape -- Potter, shifting position -- and then Snape felt Hermione\'s sickle snatched from his hand. There was a confusing sweep and arc of motion, the glitter of the sickle, dimmed with Snape\'s own blood. But the sickle was larger than Snape had ever seen it, flaming and flaring, singing high and sweet like lightning just before it meets its target.

A blinding flash filled the dome. Snape heard a shriek, unearthly, like that of rending trees and earth. His vision filled with Potter, Potter rising, Potter slashing, Potter screaming in rage, his magic funneled into a single cry: \"Draco! \"

That lightning-bright blade moved and Voldemort\'s belly opened to the spring sky and a gout of blood fountained over Snape and Potter and the altar, and the Needfire flared and flamed upward as Voldemort fell, astonished and terrible, across the altar, a violent sacrifice. And with a sob, Potter lifted his hand again, and Voldemort\'s head thudded from its neck, his red eyes looking into Snape\'s own.

Snape felt the change instantly. So much blood, evil blood, all at once on the altar of the Circle. The whirling and humming became a pulsing throb, a vile heartbeat, slow at first, but gaining speed like a manic metronome. He could feel every beat in his Dark Mark, and knew from the way Potter clapped his palm to his forehead, that the beat was echoing in the boy\'s scar.

\"Get away from it, get away!\" cried Snape, pushing Draco\'s body off him and scrabbling toward Hermione. \"It will destroy itself rather than be contaminated by such as that!\" How he knew this, he could not tell. He was shouting at Potter above the noise of the Circle, the fearsome wind that swirled and spun and howled like a cyclone.

Potter stood staring, astonished, surprised, disbelieving -- at Voldemort -- dead? Snape realized the boy could not believe that the evil wizard had stopped, had been ended, by the horrific blows from the golden sickle, transfigured by the tide of grief.

Snape\'s hands groped for Hermione and pulled her into his arms, his back to the altar, his face turned toward it for he could not look away from the horror that was Voldemort, arching and writhing in the torrent of the Needfire. He could feel her breathing in his arms and knew the sharpness of regret -- she would not survive -- and yet, the wonder of love, and at last, a sort of twisted peace.

\"We will be killed,\" he gasped.

\"Not this day,\" cried Potter harshly, dragging Draco\'s body with him and helping Weasley behind the secondary altar. \"Not this day!\" he repeated, with certainty.

The pace of the throbbing increased until it was almost a steady roar, a frenetic drumbeat. Snape stretched Hermione on the ground and covered her body with his to shield her from whatever he could. As he did so, she began to stir, to open her eyes and stare up at him, her face nicked with cuts and curse-wounds.

\"Am I dead? What\'s that awful noise?\"

\"Not dead,\" he gasped, but he had never been so glad to hear a voice in his life. \"Merlin -- Hermione! Potter\'s done it, but our Circle will explode...\" And then he stopped speaking, for once again Hermione was chanting her ancient warding spell, this time warding them both, and as she finished she drew his head down to hers, to bind him to her with a breathless kiss, mouth on mouth. Around them the Circle blew outward from the Stones and upward from the altar, destroying the last of the Dark Lord and Snape\'s ring of force. The clenched fist of mingled magic, harsh Darkness and dazzling Light, crashed over them like a wall falling, and Snape knew nothing more.

~*~

Much later, in the makeshift Infirmary that had been the Great Hall of Hogwarts castle, open to the starry night where the wall with the Divination Tower had once stood, Snape allowed Poppy to heal his gashed forearm and the various other bruises and wounds on his body. Hermione, Potter, and Weasley huddled in their usual place at the long Gryffindor table, but they were not speaking; their heads were close together in their gathering of grief and desperate search for comfort.

The three had survived the destruction of the Circle, as had Snape, though they were not unscathed. All of them were bandaged and under observation; Potter\'s scar, like Snape\'s Dark Mark, had burst wide open when Voldemort\'s corpse was destroyed in the altar blast. Hermione had a concussion. Weasley\'s leg would never be the same; his thigh muscle had been strangely altered by Voldemort\'s cursing, and Poppy could not heal it. He would be sent to St. Mungo\'s soon.

Lucius was nowhere to be found. Minerva was in severe condition, injured twice by the Circle, first as it had forced her out, and then as one of the large Stones shattered and rained upon her when the Circle exploded. Yet, though the Stone had injured her, it had protected her from the worst of the blast. She had been taken to St. Mungo\'s. Most of the Death Eaters that had gathered around the edge of the Circle were dead, destroyed by shrapnel from the Stones.

Flitwick, Hagrid and Filch had come limping back up from the tunnel to Hogsmeade. At the other end, they had met a contingent of Death Eaters who apparently knew of the escape route. They had sent the children back through the tunnel to the castle in the end, and together with Hagrid\'s and Filch\'s muscle and Flitwick\'s charms, had managed to unblock the end and bring the children back. A few had been lost to the Death Eaters, and still others, children of Death Eaters themselves, had slipped away in the fray and the darkness of the tunnel.

Longbottom had risen from the blast-crater of Voldemort\'s hex like something horrific climbing out of a grave, bloody and damaged, but alive.

Trelawney was dead, killed when her tower collapsed, for she had been in her chamber seeking to scry the future and the end of the War.

Seamus Finnigan, Remus Lupin and Professor Vector, who had been standing back-to-back with Dumbledore when the Tower collapsed, were killed, along with Hogwarts\' Headmaster. A group of Death Eaters, routed by Madam Hooch\'s brave warriors at the Quidditch pitch, had formed a tight knot just out of sight of Dumbledore\'s small faction. They used their wand-blasts to vaporize the underpinnings of the Divination tower and drop the entire thing on Dumbledore and his fighters. Other Order of the Phoenix members were wounded, but seemed largely intact.

The Ministry people had arrived too late to be of much use, which, as Snape said bitterly and succinctly when Poppy mentioned it, was nothing new. Poppy put them all to work in the Hogwarts environs, carrying in the dead and the wounded, and having them work small healing spells, since the fighters were too exhausted.

Presently, Hermione got up from the table and came to sit next to Snape on the bench where he hunched over Flitwick\'s chipped swizzle stick, turning it in his fingers. She put her small, square, scraped and cut hand on his thigh and he heard her sigh when his own hand clasped hers tightly to lace their fingers.

\"It\'s over,\" she said finally, after sitting in silence for some time.

\"Yes.\"

\"Harry is devastated. Draco is gone.\"

\"A lot of us are gone,\" Snape said. He was surprised by how Dumbledore\'s death seemed to tear at his soul, even through the joy of knowing Minerva and Flitwick were alive.

\"Harry really loved him, you know.\"

\"I know,\" said Snape heavily. \"We wicked Slytherins, Malfoy and I, and our Gryffindor loves.\" He clutched her hand tightly; too tightly, he knew, he could feel her bones protesting; but she said nothing and only pressed her side closer to his own.

\"Harry\'s wand was destroyed in the blast.\"

Snape handed over the swizzle. \"He may have mine. Much good may it do him,\" he said bitterly.

Hermione tucked the swizzle in her wand pocket with the smallest of smiles. \"I\'m sure he\'ll be grateful.\" There was a long pause, then she spoke again. \"I have a question to ask you, Snape.\"

\"I still love you, if that\'s what you want to know.\" His voice was quiet and ragged.

She laughed a little strangely, a little breathlessly. \"Not exactly what I was going to ask, yet -- that\'s good to know.\"

\"Then...what?\"

\"What will you do, now?\"

\"I will go back to Angharad\'s cottage. There is a life for me there, I think.\"

\"Snape.\" Her free hand moved to cup his chin and turn his face to hers. \"Answer me this: is it time?\"

He closed his wild grey eyes to the searching glow in her dark brown ones. Is it time? Angharad, Minerva, Lily -- is it time? Can I ask this girl to be with me always? So young, Snape...so young.

And in his rational mind, despite all they had been through together, he knew the answer was no. They both had to heal, first. His heart knotted inside him.

She leaned forward and kissed his mouth. Snape, his lashes fluttering in the flood of emotion, felt his lips part with a gasping, terrible hunger, and pressed his hand over hers where it touched his face. In a moment she was drawing away. His eyes opened and stared into hers; he fell into their black rose centers, never to be free.

\"No,\" he said, softly.

\"I think I knew that, too,\" she whispered. Her hand trembled against his face. \"But I\'ll see you again, Snape. I remember our agreement. I\'ll see the world. I\'ll try new things.\"

\"You\'ll love other men.\" He saw her eyes brim with tears that she did not allow to fall, and he dreamed there; he drowned there. Her mouth tightened; the edges of her teeth worried her lower lip, and then she rose abruptly, releasing his hand.

\"We\'ll see,\" she said, and walked away, not looking back, to become one of the trio again. Snape bowed his head. In those brown eyes lived all the magic he would ever need, and he had sent it away.