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Inter Vivos	By : Lomonaaeren Category: Harry Potter > Slash - Male/Male > Harry/Draco Views: 42948 -:- Recommendations : 3 -:- Currently Reading : 1
Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter, and I am making no money from this writing.

Chapter List
- 38
- 39
- 40
Thank you again for all the reviews! After this comes the
epilogue, and then the story ends.

Chapter Thirty�Snake

�� Severus
acted without thought, because he knew if he waited, then too much thought would paralyze him. He used the same sorts of
spells he had used when they destroyed Ravenclaw�s tiara and the Resurrection
Stone, and halted the flight of the shard of spirit. It crashed into an
invisible wall and floated in place, screaming in a shrill voice that made
Severus abruptly wish he was deaf.

�� The Dark
Lord started to speak the first syllables of what Severus recognized as a long
and complicated spell that would allow him to regain control of the piece of
his spirit. Severus had considerably fewer words to speak. �Accio soul,� he whispered, and it soared
towards him, and into the invisible net that his spells had prepared.

�� For long
moments, there was silence. Severus watched as the Dark Lord turned towards
him, his eyes empty. That was more frightening than anger would have been.
Severus could practically watch the thoughts passing behind those blank eyes
without the aid of Legilimency. The Dark Lord knew they knew about the
Horcruxes, and he would be working out all the implications of that.

�� Then the
Dark Lord said, in the gentlest of voices, �You will die, Severus.�

�� Everyone
is mortal,� Severus said, and then gambled. He didn�t know how much of the
ritual to remove the Horcrux from Harry the Dark Lord might have recognized. He
often knew quite surprising things, given his many years of study in Dark
magic. �Including you, now.� He reached out as if he would snuff the piece of
soul like a candle flame.

�� The Dark
Lord�s blank eyes widened until Severus seemed to stand on a dusty black plain,
beneath a sun that had burned to a cinder. He shivered in the bleak wind that
blew around him, and thought he heard Lily�s voice, mourning him. You never did amount to anything in life,
Severus, and you won�t see me in the afterlife.

�� He wanted
to surrender, then, to curl up and shake with reaction.

But he remembered the world he was
born into, where the sun was bright and the winter wind didn�t always blow, and
that gave him the ability to cry out at himself, and at his enraptured and
dreaming mind, This is Legilimency!

And suddenly he was free, and able
to see the Dark Lord stalking towards him, his wand out and already weaving a
net of black strands studded with obsidian, set to capture the piece of soul
and guide it towards him again.

�� Severus
leaped back and strengthened his own spells. The Dark Lord halted for a moment
and watched him with those same blank eyes. Severus knew he was gathering his
power and that the cut, when it came, would be stronger than he could endure.

�� On the
other hand, he had no intention of standing still to meet it.

�� He summoned
up old knowledge, knowledge overheard as he watched victims writhe on the ground
in front of the Dark Lord, and used the spell that would lift his body on the
wind as the Dark Lord�s had been lifted. In a moment, his feet lost contact
with the floor, and he zoomed out through the breach in the wards into the
Halloween night.

�� The Dark
Lord howled soundlessly and followed.

*

�� Draco
finished the last Switching Charm with tears streaking down his face. He had
seen his mother on the floor, losing more blood than anyone should be able to
and live.

�� Which meant
that she couldn�t live, of course.
Draco wasn�t in the mood to hide from reality at the moment.

�� But still
it didn�t matter, as long as he and Granger could finish the ritual that would
free Harry before the Dark Lord attacked and they all died.

�� It was a
strange place to be in, mentally, Draco thought, as he shuddered back into his
body and kept his eyes closed for a moment. To know that one thing was more
important than all the rest, to force yourself not to care about someone who
was once the dearest person in the world to you, to be able to sacrifice that person�

�� He
shuddered and opened his eyes, turning them sideways before he turned them
forwards. He met Granger�s gaze and saw the same kind of suffering and
understanding in her face.

�� Then, and
only then, did he feel able to face Harry.

�� Harry was
on his knees in the middle of a tightening circle of Fiendfyre. Draco looked
steadily at the flames, but didn�t see the leaping animal and demon shapes he
knew would have been there if the fire had burned too long. Instead, it reached
wispy tendrils inwards that passed through Harry�s face and arms as if he were
a ghost. Harry still flinched. Draco thought he would have, too. Knowing that
the Fiendfyre�if Granger had modified the incantations in the right way�could
only burn a soul was not reassuring
when one had the flames leaping all around one and hissing in one�s ears.

�� And then
came the sound of a horrifying scream, one that made Draco shudder and wrap his
arms around himself, feeling as if the scream would rip the fabric of reality.

�� The fire
blew out of Harry�s head again, clenched triumphantly around a small,
struggling Dark figure that sometimes had a face and sometimes looked like the
mass of a squashed bug. The figure freed an arm, and then a shapeless limb, and
then the fire seized control of it again and roared. Draco thought he could hear the voice of a lion behind the normal
hiss of the fire.

�� That would be only appropriate, he thought,
slightly hysterical. The Gryffindor
symbol is a lion, after all.

�� The figure
began to fade and to grow smaller at the same time, as if the Fiendfyre were
simultaneously burning it to a shadow and escorting it down a long tunnel into
the heart of the flames. The screams grew shriller and worse, until Draco
plugged his ears on instinct, though it didn�t help at all. Granger watched,
more steadily than he could, her hands white-knuckled on her wand, tears
burning down her face.

�� And then
the tiny figure vanished, and the Fiendfyre winked out in the same moment.

�� Granger
whirled around with a cry and ran to where Weasley lay motionless on the floor,
surrounded by a large amount of blood. Draco followed her with his eyes, then
quickly gulped and looked away. In some ways, he was glad that his mother was
dead already�dead beyond denial, her head almost ripped off, and Nagini dead
beside her�and he didn�t have to have the desperate hope that she could be
saved.

�� Instead, he
reached out his hand to Harry as he staggered slowly back to his feet, blinking
and shielding his eyes as he would against a strong light.

*

�� Harry had
never thought about what it would be like to be without the Horcrux. Every
stray moment for the last few days had been taken up with worrying about
whether Draco and Hermione would succeed, and willing them to do it. He hadn�t
dared to think about after. That
would imply too much confidence, somehow.

�� But now it
was after, and his head felt lighter
and clearer than it ever had. He wondered absently if the Horcrux had been
affecting him mercilessly for years, making every experience�like the
starvation at Privet Drive�worse than it really was.

�� Harry?�

�� You�re scaring Draco, his conscience
scolded him. Draco must be uncertain whether Harry was still sane after all the
soul-switching they�d done. Harry blinked away his own speculations and stepped
forwards, his hands on Draco�s shoulders.

�� Thank
you,� he whispered. �I owe you a debt that I can�t ever repay.�

�� Draco gave
him a proud smile, but it was with trembling lips, and then he abruptly stepped
forwards and clutched at Harry with desperate strength. Of course, he�d been
through an ordeal, the same way Harry had, but Harry didn�t think it could all
be attributed to that. He put a hand on Draco�s back and looked around for some
clues.

�� He saw
Narcissa Malfoy first, almost decapitated, with Nagini motionless not far from
her. And on top of the snake, or scattered around her in a circle, were bits of
glass and drops of brilliant green venom.

�� Sirius had
just forced Pettigrew to the floor, and was binding him with Incarcerous ropes, his breath ragged and
ferocious. Harry could see that he was struggling with himself not to simply
kill Pettigrew and be revenged in one fell swoop.

�� And
Hermione knelt beside Ron, whispering healing spells in a stream so constant
that Harry hardly dared to speak again, lest he interrupt her.

�� He couldn�t
see Snape or Voldemort, but still, Harry thought he knew what had happened.
Somehow, their enemies got through the wards. The Horcrux that was in Nagini
had been destroyed, or, at the very least, Snape was doing his best to keep the
shard of soul away from Voldemort. Narcissa was dead. Ron was dying.

�� And with
that set of realizations, complete calm fell over him. He had to be ready to
destroy Voldemort when he came back, as he surely would. What else had he been
training for, waiting for?

�� Of course,
that didn�t mean that other people couldn�t help.

�� He turned
around and tucked his fingers gently under Draco�s chin, lifting it until Draco
could look him in the eye. �Draco,� he said. �I need you to help me. Can I
borrow the Elder Wand? And can you create an illusion for me?� He dropped his
voice into a persuasive tone when he saw the slow way Draco blinked at him. He
seemed to have used up all his strength in the ritual, spent all his reserves,
because he�d thought that he could collapse afterwards. �Can you create an
illusion of the Resurrection Stone and place it in my hand? I need both of them
to distract Voldemort when he comes back.�

�� Draco gave
the reflexive flinch at the sound of the name, but nodded hesitantly. Then he
held up the Elder Wand and cast the illusion. And since it was that particular Wand acting in concert
with Draco�s will, the illusion was perfect. Harry smiled grimly down at the
stone they�d put so much effort into destroying, and then accepted the Elder
Wand from Draco�s nerveless hand.

�� This time,
he could feel its malevolent power, the way it immediately reached out to him
and tried to judge his strength and whether it could overwhelm him and use him.
Harry raised an eyebrow and ignored it after a moment. He didn�t think he would
really be tempted by the Wand�s magic.

�� And he
didn�t have to use it.

�� He stepped
into the center of the room, nodding at Sirius and whispering soft
encouragement to Hermione, arranged himself so he should be the first thing
anyone saw if they Apparated in or flew through the window, and then waited.

*

�� Severus
hadn�t flown more than a few Muggle streets before he knew that he would have
to turn back soon. This flight spell was exceptionally draining, which was the
reason that more wizards didn�t use it. And he didn�t have the Dark Lord�s
immense reservoirs of magic to draw on.

�� But if he
went back too soon, then Granger, Draco, and Harry might still be involved in
the ritual, and the distraction would have been for nothing.

��

He glanced over his shoulder. The
Dark Lord still soared after him, his eyes fixed not on Severus but on the net
that contained the struggling shard of soul.

��

Severus sneered. That is another reason you must turn back.
You know that you can�t maintain the net and fly at the same time.

And that undeniable fact gave him
an idea for another distraction. He let himself waver, and then drop straight
down, as if his ability to support the flight magic had suddenly failed.

The Dark Lord zoomed after him, cackling
and cawing like a crow that had suddenly seen a baby bird with a broken wing.

�� Severus let
himself fall as far as he thought was safe, subduing his own fear with inner
calculations of speed and distance. This was another reason not many wizards
used the flight spell. It unnerved them, or they spent too much time glorying
in the unusual situation as a dream come true, and either way they lost track
of the strength that was supporting them and which they needed to keep such
careful track of.

�� Severus had
never had that problem. Joy could surprise him, but it could not overwhelm his
senses, because he would not let it.

�� He spun in
a circle, though sideways, so it would look less like the controlled spin it
really was, and then shot up behind the Dark Lord.

�� The Dark
Lord, meanwhile, had committed too much to his own momentum to reverse that
quickly. He slid past Severus and then turned around�by which time Severus had
used his carefully marshaled strength to rise to gliding level again and shot
back towards the house. This time, the cry behind him sounded like a hawk�s
hunting scream.

�� Severus
felt the tingling ache in his muscles, and nodded. He had given Harry and Draco
all the time he could spare. They would have to be ready to confront the Dark
Lord when he and the Dark Lord returned to the house.

�� If not�

�� Severus did
not let himself think about that possibility, or about the possibility that the
Dark Lord would cut him down with a curse from behind before they ever reached
Grimmauld Place. He leaned on the wind and flew, and behind him came doom and
death, silent after that one furious cry.

*

�� Draco sat
beside his mother, and watched Granger cradling Weasley in her arms, her expression
one of pure bliss. He would need intensive Healing to repair the skin lost on
his arms and shoulders to the Flaying Curse, but he would survive.

�� Unlike Narcissa.

�� Draco gently
pushed her hair away from her neck, the strands catching in and sticking to the
blood from the wound, and ignored the constant muttering from behind him. Black
was telling Pettigrew in loving detail about the tortures that he would inflict
on the coward and traitor the moment Harry said he could. Draco knew those
tortures would never happen, for a whole host of very good reasons, but he
didn�t really care about them right now.

�� Narcissa
could never have lived. Draco knew that. The fangs had gone in at an angle that
both opened a jagged wound and pumped her full of poison. It was remarkable
that she had lived long enough to dash a vial of basilisk venom over the
snake�s head.

�� Granger was right after all about that being
useful. I�ll have to remember to tell her so.

�� If any of us survive what�s coming.

�� Draco
looked up. Black, the only one who had any reason to pay attention to Professor
Snape and the Dark Lord, had said they�d both flown out through the breach in
the wards. He couldn�t tell when they would be back, but he didn�t seem
concerned. He believed Harry would handle everything from now on, Draco knew,
because he lived in a world of heroes and believed that was possible.

�� He looked
down at his mother. There was his last
heroine, dead. He touched her hair again, and this time he brushed it across
the wound. Then he scooted back from her and wrapped his head in his arms.

�� He had to
be like Black, now. He had to trust, though not as blindly. There was no one
else to stand up and save them, and he had done his part in forcing the Horcrux
to release its hold on Harry�s soul, so that the Dark Lord could be defeated.

�� At the
moment, he was tired and grieving and had nothing left.

�� So he sat
there and waited for Harry Potter to save them all.

*

�� Harry
lifted his head when he saw Professor Snape soaring in through the window. Here it comes. And he�s holding�

�� A piece of Voldemort�s soul!

�� It was the
one thing Harry hadn�t planned on. He had thought for sure that the Horcrux in
Nagini had been destroyed, because, after all, Snape had watched Hermione cast
the Fiendfyre incantations and knew them, too. He should have destroyed
it�except that he wouldn�t have if he kept it to lure Voldemort, the same way
that Harry was trying to lure him with the illusion of the Resurrection Stone
still existing.

�� Harry took
a deep breath. He wanted to let the cool plans collapse and run to Hermione,
because she was the one who had done the Fiendfyre before and they didn�t have
any basilisk venom left.

�� But she was
busy. And he�d done the least of anyone in the battle so far. Even Ron had been
wounded fighting wand-to-wand against Voldemort, and thanks to Hermione
studying some Healing spells, he would get the chance to tell everyone all
about that.

�� Unless
Harry failed.

�� He lifted
his wand, cradled in his right sleeve beneath the Elder Wand, and saw Snape hit
the floor, rolling. At the same moment, he tossed the magical net with the
shard of soul wrapped in it straight towards Harry. Harry moved forwards, wand
out, and chanted the incantations he�d used when they were destroying the
Resurrection Stone. He wanted contained Fiendfyre,
not the kind that would char everyone in the room to ashes.

�� He didn�t
think he got it quite right, because the Fiendfyre blasted in several
directions at once, and only one splash went where he commanded it. The net
vanished in midair, and the shard of soul didn�t even get the chance to scream.
Harry took a deep, cleansing breath, and then yelped as he saw the Fiendfyre
circling back.

�� Snape was
on his feet in a moment, though, chanting strongly, and the fire recoiled and
fell back from the same invisible barriers that Harry had constructed once
before. He would have smiled his thanks, but Voldemort landed on the floor in
front of him just then, and Harry whirled towards him, holding the Elder Wand
and the Resurrection Stone up high.

�� Voldemort.�
His voice cracked in the middle. That was all right. The whole point was to
give himself enough time to do what he had to, whilst convincing Voldemort he
was frightened and desperately trying to bargain for his friends� lives.

�� Harry
Potter.� The hissing voice was worse than the voice Harry had confronted
through Seamus, or the shade of the original Tom Riddle he�d seen in second
year, because it had more power and more malice behind it. Voldemort stalked a
few steps closer, never taking his eyes from the objects in Harry�s hand. �What
have you there?� His words were almost gentle this time.

�� The Elder
Wand,� Harry answered, �one of the Deathly Hallows. And another one of the
Deathly Hallows, the Resurrection Stone�and one of your Horcruxes,� he added.

�� Inwardly,
he began the spiral. He needed love, and he needed hatred. Hatred for the
curse, as you needed it for any of the Unforgivables, and love to make sure he
wasn�t a monster when he cast it, because love would be the reason for the
curse.

�� Hatred. That was easy enough. The
Dursleys, and everything they had done to him, were a black hole of hatred
waiting to be exploited if he dug into it, like a tarpit. He plunged into it
and came up stinking and slimy.

�� Love. The first time he�d ever felt
anything like it was when he saw Hermione shyly smiling at him and Ron after
they defeated the troll. And then she lied to McGonagall for them, and Ron
looked at her thoughtfully and decided that she was all right after all. And
they were friends.

�� Hatred. He understood, now, some more of
what he�d felt when Seamus destroyed his possessions. It was there, and it
could burn him if he let it. He�d frozen in his shell as he did at least in
part to prevent the hatred from burning him, and everyone else around him.

�� Harry
Potter,� whispered Voldemort almost lovingly. �How did you learn of the
Horcruxes?�

�� Love. In third year, seeing Sirius for
the first time, realizing that here was someone with a viable connection to his
parents, realizing that here was someone stubborn enough to keep digging
through all the barriers that might be put up against him.

�� Hatred. Fourth year, and the way Snape
had turned against him at the end of the year. He�d been so furious,
breathtakingly angry.

�� You always
did underestimate Dumbledore,� Harry said. It took an effort to speak the
words, to force them out against the overwhelming pressure of the emotions.
Mostly, he wanted to stand still and feel.

�� Love. In fifth year, and Draco and Snape
finding out and pulling him away from the abuse despite his digging in his
heels and screaming. And Ron and Hermione hadn�t reacted as badly as they could
have, either. Harry stood there and felt love blaze up in him like an enormous
flame, emerald as his mother�s eyes. He thought he could remember her eyes,
sometimes, if he let himself, but the real memory of love came from his
friends, and his mentor, and his lover.

�� And if I
want one of my Horcruxes back?�
Voldemort took a step nearer, and Harry tightened a hand warningly around the
illusion of the Resurrection Stone.

�� I want
your promise that you�ll let us all go first,� he said, and made his voice
harsh. �I don�t care about the rest of the wizarding world. They abandoned me, hurt me.� It was no effort to give his
voice a petulant edge, as he thought about the abuse he had suffered at the
hands of the Dursleys and how many people had ignored it. �But I want your word
that you�ll let everyone in this room go free and not hurt us for the rest of
our lives. Then I�ll give you the Stone and�and even the Wand. What do I care
if you conquer the world?�

�� Hatred. Suffocating, it had been, the
hatred for Bellatrix when he realized what she�d done to Snape and what she�d
made him live through during that year. And the disappointment in Dumbledore
was sometimes not very far from hatred, given that he kept doing the wrong
thing again and again, and he wouldn�t give up his obsession with the Stone.

�� Voldemort
laughed softly. He was falling for it, Harry saw. He was hurt by the
circumstances of his own childhood, the orphanage and the lack of care from
anyone for himself, and he had damned the world when he started making
Horcruxes. He would think it entirely reasonable for Harry to do the same
thing. He was limited by his own emotional reactions.

�� I feel sorry for him, Harry thought, the
suffocation of the emotions too much again, and then the pity crowned the last
emotion he pulled up.

�� Love. So much love, these last months,
as he understood fully what he was fighting for. As he honored his friends for
their stubbornness and willingness to help him across time and distance. As he
explored Draco�s body. As he watched Sirius heal. As he finally started
trusting Snape again, after so many years.

�� The love
flooded through him, and burned out the hatred. Harry blinked and gasped
slightly. He had thought he needed the hatred, but he didn�t, not really. He
simply needed to acknowledge it as part of who he was, so that he didn�t become
trapped in repeating the same actions again and again, the way Voldemort had.

�� At the
moment, he was far more whole than he
had ever been before.

�� And it was
pity that made him raise his wand, because Voldemort would never know anything
like this, and whisper, not the Unforgivable he had intended to use, but
something simpler, because Voldemort was mortal now, and didn�t need to die by
the Killing Curse.

�� Acer.�

�� Voldemort
watched the golden beam of light approach him without trying to do anything
about it, because he thought he was still immortal, that a Horcrux still
existed. Harry thought, in the moment he had before the spell hit, that he
could wave his own wand and banish the illusion of the Resurrection Stone, so
that Voldemort would know it was hopeless.

�� But he held
his hand in the end. There was no need for cruelty.

�� The Slicing
Spell sliced across Voldemort�s throat and took his head off. His expression
was still expectant, still full of laughter, as his head soared across the room
and his body fell, spouting blood. Harry immediately used another spell to
contain its spread and then sat down, hard, as the strength and the emotions
left him all at once.

�� But with
Draco suddenly on his left side, supporting him, and Snape�s steady hand on his
shoulder, he did not fall.

*

�� qwerty: Thank
you! I�m glad that you understood Draco and Hermione�s decision; I was worried
they might seem heartless.

�� SamuraiSaaya:
Well, Narcissa was too late, but yes, Ron and Snape will be all right.

�� Thrnbrooke:
Someone did. ;)

�� Sneakyfox:
Thanks for reviewing.

�� MewMew2:
Thanks! This is done for the final confrontation, and after that comes only the
epilogue.
- 38
- 39
- 40
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Inter Vivos