TITLE: The Green of His Eyes
AUTHOR: Rune Scriptor (runescriptor@hotmail.com)
PART II
2:27 am
Voldemort snarled. A cold, feral smile pulled at his mouth as he advanced towards Harry Potter.
It was all so terribly simple; in the end, the boy had come into his waiting arms. There had never been need of a trap, or plan.
Harry had apparated inside Malfoy Manor, in Lucius' high-ceilinged dining hall. The boy had walked to the middle of the room and stood beneath the chandelier hanging in its crystal finery, waiting with wand drawn.
Voldemort had felt his coming-- felt the boy's power the minute he appeared. They had always been two of the same coin.
Harry raised his wand.
"Expelliarmus!" Voldemort commanded.
Harry's wand flew across the room.
Voldemort received it into his smooth hand and studied it for a moment, reveling in the boy's vulnerability. "Holly," he said, a sneer coiling about his lips. "And what's this? A phoenix feather inside." He caressed the wand and mimicked Mr. Ollivander. "So let's put this all together, shall we, Harry? Holly and phoenix feather, eleven inches-very good for a young boy. Ah! And here is its brother." He drew out his own wand and pointed it at Harry. It was thirteen inches long and made of yew. "Interesting how these things all work out, isn't it?"
"I'm not afraid of you!" The voice rang clearly across the room.
Voldemort laughed and chandelier light glittered in his teeth. "Crucio," he whispered.
Harry's body buckled under the force of the curse. Voldemort watched, his snake's eyes wide to catch each lurch of the boy's limbs. He shook his head; the boy's will was strong. He refused to fall.
Voldemort increased the power of the spell. Harry's glasses fell to the ground as he writhed, barely able to stand.
In five quick strides, Voldemort stood in front of him. He slipped his tongue around the side of the yew wand and then licked his lips. He shivered as the magic that channeled into Harry raged through his own body like needles. It was exquisite to watch Harry test his willpower against the strength of the cruciatus curse.
Exquisite, but gradually tiresome.
Voldemort sighed and ended the spell.
He smiled at Harry, who finally fell to his knees, choking on blood.
"I have waited for you," he said as a lover would. As his own traitorous Severus might have whispered into the boy's ear one violet night.
At the thought of Severus, his Severus, twined around this unworthy child, Voldemort's face twisted into the horrific grin of a death's head. "Goodbye, Harry. I will miss you." He raised his wand once more. "Avada Kedavra."
A burst of green light sprang from the wand and dove, shrieking towards Harry, who stared it down with his emerald eyes and a look of defiance on his face.
Energy crackled through the room, sending the chandelier crystals tinkling against each other as they swayed roughly back and forth. The lit candles set in sconces on the wall guttered violently until all blew out in great gusts of crackling electric wind. The chandelier began to sway wildly. Velvet curtains tossed and slapped against the window glass.
The spell impacted Harry's body and sent him flying backwards. The ceiling cracked in a great, shuddering motion and the chandelier came crashing down, missing Harry by a breath. It shattered on the floor and glass and crystal sprayed everywhere.
Harry tumbled to the ground and lay there unmoving. He stared at the sky as a tongue of magic ruptured his chest and shot upwards in a fountain of emerald flame. A triumphant smile passed across his lips.
Voldemort's great, snake-slitted eyes widened in recognition as the green fire, twin to his Avada Kedavra, poured into the room, encompassing every fixture and corner. He recoiled in horror and scrambled backward to flee.
But the fire was quicker and much too powerful.
It impaled him as he screamed hoarsely. Voldemort writhed in frozen torment, muscles seizing up until he was trapped in the rictus of a scream.
There was a soundless explosion of matter coalescing, and then releasing in a sudden surge of supernatural power, encircling the one living thing in the room. The bolts of magic shot through Voldemort's body like bullets through water, agonizing in their slowness, yet accurate in their aim.
Voldemort gave a final, hideous shriek before the light released him and he collapsed to the floor.
The emerald glow faded until it was little more than a light playing in Harry's darkening eyes.
The room, which had so recently been filled with sound, was silent and only sky and starlight now marked where the ceiling had once been.
December 12
2:43 am
Albus Dumbledore forced open the locked doors of the dining hall with a spell. The handles of the great wooden doors had melted into the wood and an acrid smell emanated from the room beyond.
Albus stopped in the doorway.
Footsteps ran up behind him. "Did you find him?"
It was Minerva. She pulled up beside him, her face worn and red with effort. Her robes were torn from the battle they had fought with the Deatheaters inside Malfoy Manor and she was bleeding from a shallow cut on her forehead.
Albus could only nod.
Minerva turned to look into the room and by the way she tensed and how her hand dove for her wand, Albus knew that she had seen it, too.
A frantic voice rang out behind them. "Where is he? Headmaster, where-"
The voice cut off as Albus and Minerva moved aside and the room was exposed.
A small whimper of sound escaped as he shoved them both aside and ran into the room.
He leaped over Voldemort, barely seeing him, and collapsed at Harry's side.
His eyes were wide with confusion as he took the small hand in his and turned to Albus and Minerva. "I don't understand! Please...I don't understand...I don't understand..." He voice trickled off to an incoherent babble as he rocked back and forth, clutching the slim white hand.
With a rustle of robes, Albus was at his side. "You must finish what he started," he said gently. He nodded his head at the insensate Voldemort, lying seven feet away. "Voldemort lives still."
Eyes large and pupils dilating, he stood and gently placed the small hand on the chest that would never rise and fall again.
He drew his wand from his robes and walked slowly over to Voldemort.
"Recro!" he hissed.
Dumbledore and McGonagall's eyes widened at his choice of spells.
Voldemort blinked, revived. He stared up at Harry, utterly perplexed.
He did not give Voldemort a chance. Before Voldemort could rally his thoughts, he snarled, "IMPERIO!"
Voldemort immediately stiffened as if at attention.
"For what you did to all the innocents, you will suffer-" he brought his wand down and Voldemort grabbed a jagged piece of glass among the ruins of the chandelier, "by your own hand." He raised the wand and watched as Voldemort drove the shard first into one eye, then the other. The silence in the room was eerie.
He did not allow his victim release through screams.
Voldemort raised the piece of glass and punched holes in his stomach again and again. Then, with mechanical precision, he sliced wide tracks across his arms.
Dumbledore and McGonagall surrounded him like marble statues.
"And for what you did to him," he said, his voice shaking and raw as he pointed to the body lying beyond the chandelier, "you will suffer by mine." He raised his wand. "Suffoco."
He did not release the spell until a gentle hand upon his shoulder roused him from his trance.
"It is over," Minerva said softly.
He looked up at her, startled. It seemed that an hour had passed by while he watched his victim slowly suffocate to death.
Lord Voldemort had fallen back to the ground and lay prostrate on a bed of glass and crystals. His face was a deep violet-blue.
A soft shimmer from across the chandelier drew their attention.
Dumbledore sighed deeply as he saw it, knowing it for what it was.
"What's happening?"
Minerva put a comforting hand on the thin, quivering shoulder, but she could not stop him from leaping forward. She looked to Dumbledore, who shook his head: Let him see it.
Harry's body was glimmering; the shine spread from his messy black hair to his shoes, pulsing in waves of colour. The boy's body began to stretch outward, lengthening as every limb strained with magic.
In moments, Harry Potter's body was gone, and Severus Snape's lay in its stead.
"Polyjuice..." Harry breathed. His wand dropped from his nerveless fingers.
"Harry," Albus said quietly.
"Leave me alone," Harry whispered, tears beginning to run down his face. "I need to be alone right now."
"Harry...He chose this path. Like your mother, he used love as a weapon." He bowed his head. "Voldemort could never understand this. The concept of sacrifice."
"The only difference was that Lily didn't intend it to have the effect that it did-- reducing Voldemort to a mere creature, the ruin of a man-- while Severus was counting on it. Harry, you must understand that he did this to defeat Voldemort; so that we could fight him at his weakest point, and win. For the good of-"
"Please." Harry lay beside his lover's body and gathered him into his arms. He had not heard a word that was spoken. He could see and feel only Severus. "I need to be alone."
Dumbledore sighed. "If that is truly what you wish, Harry."
He received only a small nod.
As Albus and Minerva passed out of the room, Harry pulled Severus to his chest and curled his body around him. His own tears tasted like salt as he kissed Severus' lips and smoothed his hair. "I'll hold you until you fall asleep," he whispered in a broken voice, and lay his head upon his lover's shoulder, holding him close until grief overtook him and he slept.
