HP/LOTM: Visionary - 389

Chapter 389: The Chase, Battle’s End

"Petrificus Totalus!" Harry’s spell felled Yaxley in the corridor of the Astronomy Tower. White flame flared across Yaxley’s body as the power of love inside Harry mingled with the Order force Aiden had once branded into the Death Eater during the Department of Mysteries battle.

Yaxley’s scream knifed down the stone passage. Harry did not spare him a glance. He vaulted over the fallen man and went after Snape.

Below, the Order of the Phoenix and the D.A. saw Snape emerge with Draco and, for a heartbeat, thought he had stopped the Death Eaters. Then more of them flooded in, and the fighting exploded again.

"It is finished. We go now!" Snape barked.

Because he had just killed Dumbledore, the Death Eaters knew he would soon be the Dark Lord’s new favorite. Fenrir Greyback, desperate to prove himself after losing both hands and staring down a fall from favor, lunged at Harry with snapping jaws. Sweat and blood stench washed over Harry as he flung a hasty Reducto that blasted Fenrir across the hall and through several tables and chairs.

Harry turned and saw Ginny dodging Amycus Carrow’s Cruciatus Curse. "Impedimenta!" Harry cried, sprinted through the gap the jinx tore open, and rammed Amycus into a wall. He wheeled and snapped "Expelliarmus!" at Thorfinn Rowle as the man raised his wand to wreak more havoc. The power of love surged again and seared Rowle’s nerves. With a strangled grunt, Rowle stumbled back and fled.

Gold flame burned in Harry’s eyes; he was furious, but love held him back from tumbling into darkness. From the moment he entered the fray to the Death Eaters’ retreat, he had flattened three of the most dangerous among them. Those around him hardly recognized the once-shy boy.

But Harry was not done. He tore after the fleeing Death Eaters.

Their plan was to reach the Forbidden Forest, slip beyond Hogwarts’s wards, and Disapparate. In the trees, Harry used "Impedimenta!" again and shoulder-checked the Carrow siblings. Hagrid, seeing Death Eaters crash through the treeline, charged in to help—only to be hurled aside by Bellatrix’s Cruciatus, writhing on the ground in agony.

At last, Harry caught Snape. From twenty yards away, he hurled "Stupefy!" The red jet flashed inches over Snape’s head and went wide.

"Move!" Snape snapped at Draco over his shoulder.

"Fight back, Snape! He trusted you. Fight back, you coward, fight back!" Harry’s hoarse shout rang through the Forest.

They faced each other across the gap, both of them raising their wands. Spells volleyed and cracked the night. Harry was still too young. Spellcraft, experience, even the very organs his magic had begun to reshape—all lagged behind Snape’s. Aiden and Dumbledore had paved his road, but turning potential into power still took time.

Even with that strange power burning in him, Harry could only just keep pace. Experience is told in every feint and angle. Snape’s last "Impedimenta!" took his legs out and slammed him into the earth.

"Crucio!" Bellatrix shrieked, adding her curse onto Harry.

"No," Snape snapped, catching her wrist. "The boy belongs to the Dark Lord."

Bellatrix lowered her wand with a sulky look and stalked away.

Snape strode to Harry. Gritting his teeth through the pain of the curse, Harry dragged his wand up. "Sectum—"

Snape flicked, and Harry’s wand flew from his grasp.

"You dare use my own spells against me?" Snape loomed. "I invented them—I, the Half-Blood Prince. You would turn my magic on me, like your filthy father..."

Harry glared up at him, hatred burning. "Then kill me," he panted, throwing his life to the wind. "Kill me like you killed him, coward!"

"Do not—" Snape shook, his face spasming with a mad fury. "Call me a COWARD!"

He slashed the air. White lashes cracked down, flaying the night itself. With Dumbledore dead, the weight of opposing Voldemort had dropped full on Harry—and still he was reckless, still arrogant. It drove Snape, who had torn his soul into jagged shards, to crawl beneath the Dark Lord’s nose, half mad with urgency.

Buckbeak burst down through the trees and raked Snape with iron talons. Snape broke and ran, vanishing into the Forest. A heartbeat later, the night popped with Disapparition.

After a long moment, Hagrid staggered over and hauled Harry to his feet. Together they doused the flames at his hut with "Aguamenti."

"What happened?" Hagrid asked.

"Dumbledore… Snape killed him," Harry said, head bowed.

"Ah, c’mon, that’s not funny," Hagrid tried to laugh it off. But when they pushed through the crowd at the castle and saw the Headmaster’s body sprawled on the stone, limbs crooked and still, the laughter died.

Harry quietly set Dumbledore’s glasses straight and wiped the blood from his mouth. Tears blurred his vision. The Headmaster’s death carved a wound across his heart. He could not shake the belief that Dumbledore had died to protect him.

Ginny eased him to his feet and brought him to the hospital wing, where the injured lay in rows of white sheets.

"Snape. He betrayed us," Harry said, and told them what had happened on the tower. Some tried, at first, not to believe him. But the fact on the stones outside gave them no room to argue.

Mr. and Mrs. Weasley arrived with Fleur. Bill had been gashed by Fenrir. Luckily, the werewolf had been in human form and had not infected him. But Bill’s handsome face was scored by claw marks, lending him a new, feral cast.

"Oh, my Bill… he was going to be married," Molly wept.

"Was going to?" Fleur flared. "You think I will leave because of scars, because he might become a werewolf?"

"He will be my husband. These marks will be the proof of his courage." Fleur took the ointment from Molly’s hands and dabbed it on Bill’s wounds herself.

Fleur’s glare promised a row. But Molly, after a beat, only said, "Aunt Muriel has a beautiful goblin-made tiara. You will look lovely wearing it at the wedding."

They fell into each other and sobbed.

Across the ward, Tonks cut off Lupin’s protests with a fierce kiss.

Harry sat amid them all and finally understood what Aiden had told him again and again—do not drive the power of love with anger. The world had a little more love in it now. Dumbledore would have liked that better than anything.

He shut his eyes. Within him, the white-chained seal around the blood-red orb loosened. The bitterness locked inside began to flow and change, drawn into his magic, and Harry felt that fury turning into something else—something he could use.