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World in Pieces	By : Lomonaaeren Category: Harry Potter > General > General Views: 16431 -:- Recommendations : 1 -:- Currently Reading : 3
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Chapter List
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Chapter Twenty-Two—The Folds of Shaldon’s Garden
            If they are frantic, that only means they are hiding something from you. What could it be? What could they have to hide from Harry’s godfather, who loved him so much?
            Severus finished sending the last thought to Black and opened his eyes. He was once again in his bedroom, seated cross-legged, but this time, he felt as strong as he had yesterday before he ventured into the Dark Lord’s soul.
            If some of that strength came from potions, Severus certainly did not intend to tell Harry. There were certain things that he needed to worry about and things that he didn’t, and this fell into the latter category.
            Severus stood up and spent a moment gazing into the mirror that hung on the wall. It had once been enchanted, but he had long ago muted the voice and charmed it to inform him only if there was a hair out of place on his head or his robes were absurdly wrinkled.
            The man who looked back at him was not the same one who had fled the Order so short a time ago, or the one who had seen this particular Harry arrive in the world. Stranger to accept was that he was no longer the man who had seen Lily Potter die, either—the one guilt Severus had thought would be with him forever. Seeing the Harry born to this world die had only increased that guilt. He had failed to protect her son.
            But it was gone now. He had guarded one of her sons. Not the same one; Severus would not make the same mistake as Albus and think that it did not matter who they summoned to their world, not when all the different universes out there had a Harry Potter and they had grown up violently, peacefully, thankfully, ungratefully.
            But if what came out of this ridiculous venture was some peace of mind for himself, then Severus would not reject it.
*
            Harry sat back and stared at the letter he’d written, tapping his quill against his lips. Then he realized that was a Snape mannerism, and he didn’t really want to act like him, did he?
            There are worse things.
            Harry smiled a bit, lowered the quill, and deliberately didn’t think about what the Sirius from his own world would say if he could hear that. The Sirius from his world was dead, and so was that Snape. What mattered were the living ones.
            He read the letter again, the basic template of the letter that they would copy out with slight variations and send to every Order member besides Dumbledore, and didn’t find too many changes he needed to make.
            Dear
            You should know that I fled because I can’t trust Dumbledore. Ask him why he wouldn’t let anyone closely examine the body of the Harry who died here, the one who was the reason for pulling me through time and space. Ask him why the body was so special, what was different about it. Mention the word “sacrifice” to him and see what he tells you.
            If you want to talk about this personally, then I might be willing to listen to you. You’re not the same as Dumbledore. You might be able to understand what frightens me and make adjustments based on that, and maybe together we could work out a way that would still allow me to save the world.
            If you’re interested in talking to me, then Apparate to these coordinates: a small grove of six hawthorn trees with two crooked ones in the front, next to a large Potions garden that has a green stone fence around it.
            Those were the real Apparition coordinates of a part of Shaldon’s Garden, the one that Harry and Snape, after some debate last night, had chosen as the one most likely to hold both Dumbledore and Voldemort. They’d added wards around it and wrapped it inside two more folds of wizardspace—which meant, as far as Harry could understand the concept, encouraging some of the different folds already in the house to move so that they encircled it the way layers of an onion would more layers. Whatever happened there, as far as spells flying went, shouldn’t leak out into the rest of the house.
            “You are done?”
            Harry started a little, but only because he hadn’t heard Snape come up into his room. He no longer feared that something bad would come from Snape walking up to him.
Harry held up the letter. “I am,” he said simply. “What do you think?”
Snape read through it, nodding, and then laid the parchment flat on the table in front of Harry and took a capped vial from his pocket. “You asked me why I wanted to go to bed so early last night,” he said. “It was partially to finish adding some active ingredients to an inert base, so that I could produce this.”
Harry looked with interest at the potion, but it didn’t seem to be especially interesting. It was a flat green color, and even when Snape opened the vial, it didn’t fizz or bubble or hiss.
Then Snape tipped it onto Harry’s parchment.
“Hey,” Harry began. He’d spent almost an hour working on that letter, but he didn’t know if he remembered enough of the wording to write it all over again, if Snape insisted on spoiling the only copy.
            Snape held up a finger that was commanding enough that Harry bit his lip and went quiet. Then Snape gestured, and a swarm of parchment came flying in from somewhere else in the house and splayed itself on the table around the original, potion-soaked letter.
            Snape waited, and the potion slowly trickled and spread out to the rest of the parchment. Then it began to hiss, and Harry stared as copies of his letter began to appear on the other parchments.
            Well, almost-copies. He could already see that each one was addressed to a different person in the Order, and the wording was slightly different each time, as well.
            “How did you do that?” Harry demanded, walking around the table to stare at the letters. The one to Lucius was more formal than the one he’d written, and the one to Hermione started out with a plea for her understanding from someone who wasn’t as smart as she was. “Those are the changes that I was only thinking about making!”
            “Magic.”
            Harry spun around and glared at Snape. “You know, what I like about you is that you don’t get as sarcastic as the Snape I knew in my world.”
            “No,” Snape said gently, his eyes warming for a moment so brief that Harry could pretend he hadn’t seen it, but he didn’t particularly want to do that. “I suspect I have the same amount of sarcasm. Mine is tempered around you. That is not the same as saying that it does not exist.” His face cooled again, and he added, “And when you ask a question that has a simple answer, a simple answer is what you will receive.”
            Harry shook his head and turned back to stare at the parchments again. All right, maybe not everything was framed exactly the way he would have framed it; the letter to Sirius referred to “all the great times we enjoyed together,” which Snape didn’t have any idea about from Harry’s real world and certainly hadn’t been the case with Harry and the Sirius here. “It’s still amazing. I never heard of a potion that could do that.”
            Snape shrugged. “I collected hair from the members of the Order long ago, in case I ever needed to brew Polyjuice Potion and become them. I used it in the preparation of this potion. That is how the potion could interact with the parchment and know who to address it to. The rest of the reason that it worked is High Potions Theory. I think it would be beyond your reach even if I gave you a detailed explanation.”
            Harry glared again, but he resented the condescension less than he would have if he had heard it from the Snape who’d died. “Okay. But…I have one more question.”
            “Yes?” Snape looked down at him with eyes gone fathomless now.
            “You supposedly argued with the other Harry right before his death,” Harry said quietly. “I accept that it wasn’t you, that it was someone Polyjuiced. But who was it? Lucius?”
*
            Severus sighed. He had already given the answer to this question, hadn’t he? Or at least Harry should have been able to figure it out.
            But he was looking at Severus with those steady eyes that needed an answer. And it wasn’t as though Severus didn’t have one to give.
            “I suspect it was Dumbledore,” Severus said. “That the Harry born to this world was suffering one more crisis of conscience—or fear—and did not like the idea of dying as a sacrifice. Dumbledore in my shape could have argued him down. I would not ordinarily have supported the idea in any form, so if I did, that would probably have convinced that particular Harry to go through with it. He was inclined to trust his own judgment over many things, but not mine, not when I spoke seriously.”
            “And Dumbledore would have spoken seriously.” Harry had his arms folded and a ferocious scowl on his face.
            “Yes,” Severus said quietly. “That Harry’s trust in me was exploited as part of his game of sacrifice is one of the things angering me.” He rested his hand on Harry’s shoulder for a moment. “Of that, you may be sure.”
            Harry sucked in a breath that seemed enough air to make him float off his feet, then opened his eyes and said, “Okay. You think that we have enough owls to see that all these letters are delivered?”
            “Yes,” Severus said briefly. He did not mind borrowing owls from the rebels, not for this particular endeavor. It was not as though they need ever see what the letters contained.
            Harry closed his eyes once more, then said, “Okay. Let’s do it.”
            And they did.
*
            Harry met Golden’s eyes. “Yes, I do have a plan to destroy the Dark Lord,” he said. “No, it doesn’t involve you.”
            Golden wrapped her fingers around the knife on her belt, but this time, she didn’t draw it. She just watched Harry with a look hungry and savage enough that he wouldn’t have been surprised if she did draw it and attack him.
            “I hope that you know we would make a number of sacrifices to bring him down,” Golden whispered.
            Harry turned and slowly walked away from her to stand in front for the fire. They were in the large room where he and Snape had spoken with the Weasleys when they first invited them to Shaldon’s Garden. He could feel the simmer of Golden’s temper behind him, and Heron’s. Heron was the only other witness right now, which Harry was glad of. He didn’t want to shame Golden in front of any of her supporters.
            “You’ve already made sacrifices to bring him down,” Harry told her. “You found the Death Eater strongholds, and I know that at least a few of your people died fighting at the others.” There had been no casualties among their people at the London site, amazing when Harry had actually faced Voldemort, but then, Harry thought Voldemort had been too focused on him to do much else.
            “They made those sacrifices willingly,” Heron, seeming to think she might make more impact on Harry if she was the one who spoke. “For a cause that we deserve to fight for, a war that we deserve to see the end of.”
            Harry turned around. “There is a way that you could help, actually. You yourself,” he added, when Golden stood up straighter and opened her mouth. “We need your heron magic to keep watch on some Apparition coordinates, and tell us when some people arrive.”
            “I could do that,” Heron said, and seemed to stand twenty inches taller. Harry blinked at her. Is it really as simple as some people just wanting to help, whether or not they can do anything much? “If my lady agrees, of course,” Heron added, probably because she’d just caught Golden’s eye.
            Golden looked between them for a moment, then grunted and waved her hand. “If it will help the war, then you can.”
            Heron smiled and turned to Harry. “What do the Apparition coordinates look like?”
            Harry described the same hawthorn trees and green stone wall to her that he had in the letters to the Order members. It was a part of Shaldon’s Garden that Snape had removed the anti-Apparition wards from, although it was hidden by so many other strong folds now that there was little chance of anyone else noticing that. Heron and Golden and the rest didn’t even need to know it was part of Shaldon’s Garden.
            Harry would have trusted them with a little more information about that, but he could understand why Snape wouldn’t.
            When Heron nodded and walked out of the room, already touching the tattoos around her eyes as if she was conjuring the bird, Harry saw Golden watching him. “What?” he added. He wasn’t sure what she wanted him to say.
            Golden shrugged and touched her knife again. “You seem confident that you can handle this,” she said. “But we’ve been fighting the Dark Lord for years, and there’s no way to bring him down that I can see.”
            “He hasn’t been defeated by anyone because he’s so powerful,” Harry said. “But I have an ally who’s powerful, too.”
            Golden considered him for so long that Harry was sure she would ask questions. But maybe she decided that he was telling enough of the truth to be going on with, because she sighed and nodded. “Just make sure that he can actually do what’s needed,” she said, and turned away.
            Harry gave a shaky sigh and rubbed his face with both hands. They’d given the Order members the information, and they hoped Lucius—or the traitor, if it was someone else—would pass the Apparition coordinates on to Voldemort. The big thing was that they had to keep Dumbledore and Voldemort from realizing the strength of the trap that contained them and leaving before the other one got there.
            And then…
            Harry had to wonder if Dumbledore was right about anyone else except Harry being unable to kill Voldemort. If Dumbledore really had tried to use fatal spells on him in the past and they’d bounced, then the prophecy was real and Harry had to be in it.
            But that was why they had the geode upstairs. Harry just wanted Dumbledore to wear Voldemort down and keep him occupied while they used Fiendfyre to destroy the reverse Horcrux.
            If the prophecy was so literal, then Harry didn’t think he needed to participate in every second of the battle against Voldemort. He just needed to be in at the death.
            And Snape will be there, too, because he insisted.
            Harry had to admit that made him feel better, to know he wouldn’t be alone.
*
            Severus raised his wand and waited until he could feel the quivering energy around him, both wards and folds of wizardspace, align on him. Since he was the master of Shaldon’s Garden, he could change them at his pleasure, an advantage he had used more than once in the past.
            His wand curved and rose and fell, and the world around him—the immediate world, the one enclosed by wards and walls—began to gracefully spin.
            Harry might trust in the strength of the ancient wizardspace to hold the two most powerful wizards in Britain, and Severus had never known it to fail. But this was not an ordinary situation, nothing like what he had done in the past, and that meant he was not willing to trust to chance.
            If he was going to give up his home after this, if he was going to leave and go to Harry’s world with him, then he had no reason not to change as much as he could.
            Wizardspace folds opened around him like the edges of swords. Severus could watch them moving if he wished, but since that created a rather confusing mess of moving light and rings of magic, he kept his gaze fixed on the green stone wall instead. It was wavering and dancing now as though he saw it from underwater, and he found it hard not to reach out and try to steady it.
            But this was the process as it had to happen. As long as he was steady himself, he saw no reason that the stones would fall.
            The whole of Shaldon’s Garden twisted slightly back and to the left. No one else currently in the folds of wizardspace would feel anything, Severus knew. The most they might notice was that the proportion of a doorway was now off.
            But the magic that had created Shaldon’s Garden was old and very powerful, and Severus could change it, if not duplicate it. Carefully, he aligned the folds and the petals and the edges, and then wrapped them together with a single sharp wring of his hand.
            Now, they were no longer loosely wrapped around each other, with paths leading to the outside as long as Severus wanted to permit someone to access them. Now they were a labyrinth, and they led inexorably in to the center, to the garden protected by its green stones and marked by its hawthorn trees.
            Severus took a step back and studied it. Then he nodded. It was perfect.
            A bolthole and way of escape remained open, of course, because Severus was not stupid. But since it was in Harry’s bedroom, beneath the reverse Horcrux, Harry and Severus would be the only ones who had access to it. And no one but them who arrived in the garden would be able to leave it.
            Severus swept the garden a bow and turned to pick his way back through the wrapped folds of wizardspace towards the new edge. He had done all he could, and now they had to play the waiting game.
*
            Where are you, child?
            The voice swept into Harry’s head and hovered there, dripping dew and softness. Harry lifted his head and opened his eyes.
            In front of him stood his mother.
            Harry caught his breath. She looked just the way she had when he walked through the Forbidden Forest, the same soft smile and wide green eyes. She looked at him with the same pride and hunger.
            But she also reached towards him with one hand now, which she hadn’t done at first. Harry scrambled to his feet.
            Still, caution kept him away. What if he wasn’t seeing his mum, but the one who had belonged to the boy who’d been killed here? Was it possible to start having dreams that really should have been in your other-world counterpart’s head?
            No, Lily said, in the same soft voice. I remember you. The one who walked through the Forbidden Forest and used the Resurrection Stone and summoned me. I missed you terribly. After you used the Resurrection Stone, though, I could feel you. I had a connection to you that I’d never had while I was drifting in limbo.
            But now I can’t feel you anymore. Fear and pain made her wince, and Harry did it at the same time. He’d had enough of hearing his mother scream in pain when Dementors were nearby. Where are you?
            Harry opened his mouth, wondering what would come out, if it would be the same soft voice that emerged from Lily’s, but instead he sounded just the same as he always did. “I’m in another world. They took me to another world. They reached out and snatched me, because their Harry died.”
            His mum blinked. But that’s terrible. How could they do that to you?
            Harry smiled, glad that he could be in contact with someone who agreed with him without going to extremes to talk to Ron and Hermione, or waking Snape up. “I don’t know,” he said. “Desperation, I reckon. They wanted me to fight Voldemort because their Harry died before he could do it.”
            It seemed to him his mum flinched at the name, but the next moment, her expression was just the same again, so it didn’t last long. And are you in a safe place there, too? A place where someone can take care of you and make sure that you don’t die?
            “Yes,” Harry said, and he thought that maybe they were even standing in a corner of Shaldon’s Garden. He hadn’t paid much attention to the landscape around them before, but it seemed to shift and alter with his mind. “It’s a place that Snape picked me up and took me to. You wouldn’t believe how nice he is in this world, Mum, it’s like he never hated me at all.”
            You knew that he never hated your mother.
            Harry hesitated. Then he said, “That’s right,” and concentrated on the green stone wall and the hawthorn trees that he had given as Apparition coordinates to Shaldon’s Garden to the Order members. His heart was pounding hard, which was a strange thing to feel when he was in the midst of a dream.
            But not so strange to feel if this is Legilimency instead of a dream. You know Legilimency has a stronger connection to a body.
            It had just sounded, for a second, like his mother was referring to herself in the third person, as if she wasn’t the person Snape had liked. And maybe she was losing the distinction between the Snape in this world and the Snape in Harry’s world, the one who had been partially responsible for her death.
            But Harry had blurred the distinction himself, hadn’t he? Maybe his dreams were just responding to the way his mind leaped and blurred.
            And maybe you should stop being stupid. You know that isn’t what’s happening.
            It hurt Harry, but he leaped ahead and pushed, as hard as he could, against the image he had of his mother, of the ghost he’d seen in the Forbidden Forest, and whose expression hadn’t changed as she spoke.
            The image held for a moment, then broke. And in its place was a complicated snarl of snakes and red eyes and images of pain and horror.
            Harry fought, dodging back and forth, going so fast and on such instinct that he wasn’t even sure he was making decisions; by the time he thought he should do something, he’d already done it. But he tried to keep the image of hawthorn trees and green stone walls away from Voldemort, tried to shield it, and Voldemort broke through the shields and took the image and floated away laughing.
            Harry opened his eyes and gasped, sitting up. His head throbbed, but not specifically across his scar. That’s right, Harry thought dazedly, rubbing his forehead. Snape thought Voldemort was finding me through the Parseltongue gift, not because I’m connected to this one through my scar.
            Snape burst into his room in the next second, his eyes narrowed and his wand aimed at Harry. Only the wild hair on his head threatened the picture. “Where is he?” he demanded. “I felt the Dark Lord here.”
            Harry swallowed. “He invaded my mind,” he admitted. “I pushed my memories at him the last time we met, all the things that made me different, and that meant he could use an image of my mum to shield himself. But I showed him the Apparition coordinates and made him think they were a huge secret, and he laughed and went away.”
            Snape watched him for the shortest of moments. Just as Harry was opening his mouth to insist that he was telling the truth and he hadn’t left anything out, Snape nodded and wheeled back towards Harry’s bedroom door. “Then we have very little time before he is here,” Snape said, and he was gone.
            Harry sat there for a few seconds catching his breath, because he had to. Then he scrambled up and started tugging on more clothes.
            Here it comes.
*
            Severus could feel the Dark Lord’s magic moving through the world, building in ripples, heading for Shaldon’s Garden.
            It did not come only through the Mark on his arm, although it was easy to feel as if it did so. Magic as strong as the Dark Lord’s caused ripples in the world, disturbances around him, echoes and shadows, if one listened or looked for them. Severus had grown immune to the way that Dumbledore’s magic disturbed the universe, because he had been so close to the man for so many years, and in the center of a building where adolescents had accidental magic and unexpected surges of power all the time.
            But it was much easier to feel now. The Dark Lord, Severus thought, had always been slightly stronger than Dumbledore.
            It remained to be seen whether he was stronger than the wards and the wizardspace on Shaldon’s Garden.
            What Severus absolutely did not want was the Dark Lord arriving so far in advance of Albus that Severus and Harry would have to battle him first to keep him from ripping the wards apart.
            So he reached out for Black as he headed through the curving labyrinth he had created towards the center. It was not that hard to navigate. Go through each room and around to the left, and when you emerged out the door, you would find yourself in the next fold of wizardspace that led closer.
            Black!
            He felt the confusion, the jerk and jolt back to consciousness that indicated Black had been sleeping himself. Severus snorted. The Order was woefully unprepared, most of the time, for any attack by night. Apparently it was “unfair” to be clever and alert and take naps during the day when you were a Light wizard.
            Go to Dumbledore and ask about sacrifice, Severus told him rapidly, as he clattered out through another doorway and the burn on his left arm grew worse. Tell him that you know he sacrificed Harry. If he makes it clear that you should not know, say the information came to you in a dream. Tell him about the hawthorn trees and the green stone wall, if he does not know.
            He felt the flicker of recognition in Black’s mind when he spoke, though, and nodded in satisfaction. Their letters had come through, and although of course Albus would have intercepted and read at least one, he seemed to have decided to let the rest take their course. They needed to stir up Albus now, to make him panic and arrive abruptly, and Black was their best chance. If necessary, Severus could summon him to Apparate here, which might make a nice distraction for the Dark Lord.
            He heard footsteps behind him, and turned his head rapidly. If one of the Weasleys or the rebels was following—
            But it was Harry, alone. Well, mostly alone. Stumbling behind him, in a robe that looked as if it had been pulled on with a sleeve over the head, was Percy Weasley.
            “Where are you going?” Weasley tried to ask, and then got interrupted by a yawn. “We can’t—it’s the middle of the night—are you going somewhere?” To Severus’s regret, he was becoming more alert by the moment. “What’s happening?”
            Severus spun his wand without answering and made one of the walls protrude a bit. Weasley slammed into it and sat down, cross-eyed. Harry Stunned him as they went by, and Weasley slumped to the floor.
            “You will not be in good repute with the Weasleys once they learn of this,” Severus remarked, as they came through another doorway and emerged into one of the wide-flowing gardens that held only flowers instead of Potions ingredients. The flowers arched close, but parted into a tunnel instead once they recognized the master of Shaldon’s Garden and his designated heir. Severus ducked nonetheless as petals brushed his hair.
            “Neither will you,” Harry said. He wasn’t gasping yet, which Severus took as a good sign. He would need all his breath for battle. “I’m pretty sure Percy will remember you pointing a wand at him.”
            Severus grunted and ran on. They came out of that garden into a large dining room, complete with chair and tables in the middle that they had to dodge around, and then into another garden. Severus held up his hand. He recognized both this garden and the glittering edges of space around it, and knew they were close.
            Harry pulled up, panting. He looked at Severus and waited, and if his eyes darted ahead to the waiting entrance, they returned almost at once to Severus, which made him smile.
            “The Dark Lord is more powerful than you know,” Severus said softly. “Confusion and luck helped you in previous battles, but he will be at his strongest here. I want you to attack him and only him, do you understand? I will handle any Death Eaters he brought with him.”
            Harry managed to laugh. “You say he’s the strongest, so I should attack him? Why is that?”
            “Because, as Albus found out to his cost, the prophecy is relentlessly literal,” Severus said. “You are the only one who can strike the fatal blow.”
            Harry grimaced. “I thought we were going to do that by burning the reverse Horcrux with Fiendfyre.”
            Severus nodded. “But we also thought we would have Albus here to wear him down. Dodge around him while I investigate the wards and make sure they are strong enough. Stay as clear of him as you can. If necessary, I will weary him, or we will come back out and leave him trapped in there. Understand?”
            Harry frowned and pushed his glasses up on his nose. “Why not just leave him trapped in there until Dumbledore arrives?”
            “Because I am not sure that the wards and wizardspace can hold him,” Severus said, grimacing as he said it. He had never thought he would have to doubt either of them were, not in Shaldon’s Garden, but he had never thought the Dark Lord would come here, either. His plans for escape from both his masters had depended on staying safe and secret, and only retreating here if he had no other choice. “I will be checking that as we engage in the battle. If I cast a flood of green sparks into the air, I am satisfied with the wards and you are to make for the entrance, no matter what shape you are in or where I am. Understand?”
            Harry looked at him long enough that Severus worried that, whether or not he understood, he would refuse to leave Severus there, and then he nodded. “All right,” he said quietly, and faced the arch that led into the garden from this point of view.
            Severus nodded and walked in.
*
            Harry stepped into the garden—
            And Voldemort attacked.
            Harry was surprised how fast it was, maybe because every other time Voldemort had shown at least a little interest in talking first. Here, he simply pushed his magic at Harry in an overwhelming wave, and Harry slammed onto his arse, choking, the Elder Wand buzzing frantically, but unable to do anything because of the Dark magic that was draped like moss over it, choking it, too.
            Harry got his feet under him, somehow. He was remembering the way that Dudley used to beat him up and how no one ever did anything about it, and no one ever would except him. So he had to stand up, or he would die there.
            He pointed the Elder Wand at Voldemort and asked, again, for magic, even more wordlessly this time than he had during the attack on the Death Eater stronghold. The Wand hissed, and a glittering wave of silver rose up in front of Harry. Harry lifted his head and blinked, managing to focus on it, finally.
            It was a serpent, but one with fluttering fins on its sides instead of smooth scales. It dove at Voldemort, and he had to break off his attack on Harry to combat it instead—especially since his first spells drove through it with no success, while a sweep of the serpent’s head knocked him sprawling.
            I’m not really an equal for him at just magic, Harry thought, as he got to his feet and retreated towards the hawthorns. But the Elder Wand is.
            Then he caught sight of Snape. He had assumed that Snape had had to deal with Death Eaters and that was the reason he hadn’t been involved in the fight so far, but it seemed Voldemort had come alone, like the arrogant bastard he was. Snape was standing with his head bowed and his hands slightly parted. His wand hung between them and vibrated like a string.
            What is he doing?
            But Harry discovered the answer in the next moment, without asking the question aloud, and then felt a little silly for being so stupid. Testing the wards, of course. Snape would hardly be refraining from the attack for anything less.
            Snape’s wand did a complicated spin, Harry’s silver serpent exploded in a cloud of sparks, Voldemort turned towards Harry again, and Snape lifted his head.
            A flood of green sparks shot from his wand.
            Harry flung himself in a dive to the ground, as though he was playing Quidditch without a broom. Voldemort’s fire spell caught the stone wall and melted some of it, but Harry had to trust what Snape had said with the sparks. The wards were going to hold. They could get out of here now, the only people who had passage through the labyrinth going back the other way, and wait for Dumbledore to show up. Or they could just burn the reverse Horcrux and destroy Voldemort that way.
            But Voldemort had turned towards Snape, and his magic had settled to a sustained pulse-beat about him. There was death in his eyes, Harry saw. Snape might not know it, but Voldemort was going to do his best to kill him.
            Snape opened his mouth to cast his first curse.
            Then he fell to his knees, screaming. Harry knew from the way he clutched his left arm what the problem was. No doubt Voldemort could keep up the pain that flowed through the Dark Mark, and make it so intense that there was no way even a good wizard like Snape could concentrate on his spells.
            Harry held up his wand in the moment Voldemort spent looking at Snape in satisfaction, and cast the Summoning Charm. If they couldn’t get out of here, then Harry would make the reverse Horcrux come to him.
            Voldemort turned to face him, lazy and smiling. Again, he didn’t bother with words, only gestured with his wand. Harry countered with a Shield Charm that cracked and splintered a moment later, but meant that the spell Voldemort had probably intended to cut his throat only split a line of blood down his cheek.
            Harry retreated again. Voldemort slowly turned to stalk him, his eyes wide and pleased, his wand tapping against his leg. He still didn’t say anything.
            And yes, Harry might have been safe if he’d retreated the moment Snape shot the green sparks, but that would have meant leaving Snape here and sacrificing his life, and Harry wasn’t about to let that happen.
            Shit. Horcrux, hurry up and get here.
*
            moodysavage: Exactly. This piece of soul is stretched away from the rest of Voldemort, not split, so instead of being bound to an object, it binds him to one, and his life now depends on that object.
            And thanks!
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World in Pieces