Harry Potter One Shots

The Battle of Hogwarts

All rights belong to the author, perforatedink

Neither one can live while the other survives.

These words have been chanting in Harriet's head, as she stood faced with Lord Voldemort, a firm grasp on her wand with her hand sweating furiously. The enchanted ceiling of the packed Great Hall has turned to dark clouds, rain falling and lightening striking just midway above their heads. Despite the massive crowd surrounding her and Voldemort, their silence amplified the ringing in her ears, as if no one dared to whisper the reassurance she craved. Harriet knew that tensing against the shaking of her limbs is useless, but she does it instinctively, trying to suppress the fear that threatens to engulf her. Neither one can live, she repeats to herself, while the other survives, and Harriet knew very well who would be the sacrifice.

Eyes were still glued on Harriet and Voldemort circling each other, wands up.

"It is not love that will save you this time," sneered Voldemort with disgust, "we duel on skill alone."

But Harriet had another plan, one that can either save or destroy humanity. Professor Dumbledore has always intended to use her as a mule, just another tool that otherwise would have been insignificant. But Harriet wanted to prove to herself that she was more than just a tool, she refused to let herself be the girl that survived on mere luck, the girl rejected by her own family and the Slytherin house, the girl that wasted so many precious lives just to be another cog in the machine.

Harriet lowered her wand to the ground, "To love is to destroy," she spoke, her voice more firm than her trembling limbs, "and to be the one loved is to be the one destroyed." Her fingers one by one loosened their grip around her wand, and with a loud clunk, it fell to the ground.

"What is this?' shrieked Voldemort, "pick up your wand, you silly little girl" he demanded, but Harriet stood still in place, her body feeling disconnected from her head.

"Pick up your wand! Let the deluded ones see that no man alive can beat me," Voldemort continued, still pointing his elder wand at Harriet, and no one dared to move.

"How foolish it was to suppose that this fragile little girl is stronger than me?" a sinister laugh escaped his paper-white lips, "I will kill Harriet Potter in front all of you, where there this no Dumbledore to help, and no mother to die for her."

Harriet felt her heart pound fiercely in her chest, but it would soon have to stop. Terror washed over her as she felt the moment creep closer, and for once at last, her eyes began to take in the crowd around her, fishing for someone in a sea of mortified faces, until her eyes fell upon Draco Malfoy's. How strange it was that she would seek to look at this boy to fuel her last dose of courage when he hated her every single gut.

Harriet shifted her gaze back to Voldemort, now that she mustered every bit of courage she could, she best act fast before fear creeps in on her again.

"Bow, little Tommy." She said mockingly, looking Voldemort straight in the eyes, "Bow... Show remorse... And I shall spare you..." The dining hall has erupted with gasps and shrieks of shock and fear.

"HOW DARE YOU-" nothing had shocked Voldemort like this, and Harriet saw his pupils contract to thin slits, and she knew it was time.

Harriet began chanting the familiar incantation in parseltongue that she had spent the past months memorizing; she knew each word by heart now. The words were soothing. The darkest form of magic, to which even Lord Voldemort himself hadn't the slightest of, were escaping from her own lips.

"AVADA KEDBRA" and with a gush of green light, she was knocked back on the hard cold ground, but she knew she was still alive because her lips were still unconsciously chanting the words of the incantation even louder now.

"IMPOSSIBLE!" she heard a scream so terrible, and the entire hall abruptly joined in. For a split second, Harriet thought that the screams were because of her defying the odds of death once again, but then it hit her. Pain. And she knew that the spell she was chanting has started to work, that the dark magic hadn't betrayed her.

One by one, figures appeared in the space between her limp body on the ground and where Voldemort stands stiff and immobilized like a statue. They first appeared to be as thin as vapor, but one by one, they hardened into solid life forms.

"FRED- FRED! FRED!- YOU'RE ALIVE-" she heard someone scream, "MUM, DAD!", she shuts her eyes tighter, searing fiery bursts pulsated around her whole body, intensifying with each dead person being brought back to life.

"SNAPE! IT'S PROFESSOR SNAPE!" the screams continued, "HOW ARE YOU HERE!... THIS IS IMPOSSIBLE!" she recognized Professor McGonagall amongst the shrieking noise. The pain around her body has now amplified, her muscles quivering, and her consciousness ebbed. Black mist swirled at the edges of her eyes, and her heart constricted in its wake as if not sure if it should go on beating. But she knew all too well that this is the easiest part of it all, that she will never have the privilege to a peaceful death.

It must have been hours, days, months, since Harriet has been blasted with the killing curse, but no one seemed to have noticed her laying there on the ground, twitching in agonizing pain, too distracted by the appearance of their dead loved ones.

"SILENCE!" cried what sounded like professor Snape, and there was a bang and a flash of bright light, and silence fell upon them all once again. "Where is she?" he asked, looking around. "WHERE IS HARRIET POTTER?" he cried out loud, his voice so deep and quivering. "MAKE WAY! MAKE WAY!" he used his wand to blast the crowd to either sides of the hall, and there he found her body lying on the ground in the middle of it all.

"No. no. no." Professor Snape mumbled under his breath as her ran up to her while she shrieks in agonizing pain. There was no sign of Nagini's bite on professor Snape's neck; it was too hard to believe that this man was dead three hours ago prior to this.

"What have you done, Harriet?" he gets on his knees and analyzes her body. An ivy of black crept under her translucent clammy skin, replacing what once was her veins, rapidly extending all the way to her face.

Harriet looks Professor Snape straight in the eyes, and tries to make out any audible sound, but her purple lips were now stiff as ice. The blackness now crept under her eyes, as if her iris had erupted. Professor Snape places a cold firm grip around her shoulders and desperately shakes her.

Professor McGonagall joins professor Snape, but he pays no attention to her. At this moment, it did not matter that he came back from the dead, it did not matter that Lilly Evans might be in the crowd of the living-dead, it did not matter that Lord Voldemort was right behind him stiff as a rock.

"Severus, what do you reckon happened?" asked McGonagall.

"The darkest form of magic the wizarding world has yet to witness" Professor Snape whispered back in monotone, tears streaking down his cheeks.