Order of the Phoenix
Know Yourself
By Ruskbyte
Chapter Twenty
~ Know Yourself ~
Ginny was giving very serious thought to killing Severus Snape.
On average she, along with the rest of the Gryffindors, considered Snape's untimely demise at least once every Potions class. Right now, however, Ginny was not in Potions, and she was not contemplating the action in the jesting manner she usually did.
This time she was in deadly earnest.
He had killed Harry.
And now she was going to kill him.
All that was preventing her from separating every part of Snape from every other part, was that she could not decide whether or not to make him suffer first.
When she had seen Snape push Harry over the edge of the Astronomy Tower, Ginny's world had come to a crashing halt. For those long seconds in which Harry had plummeted to the earth, she had stopped breathing and her heart had ceased to beat. Only after Harry had landed safely, not in the least bit perturbed by his fall, had she regained control of her petrified body.
I should never have left him alone up here.
Immediately after that, when Harry strode forward to take on Voldemort's Death Eaters, she had rushed off. Professor Flitwick's calls had not stopped, or even slowed her down, as Ginny raced along the ramparts and into the tower. She had not even been aware of her legs moving, but had flown up the stairway, taking the steps three at a time.
"Weasley? What are you doing here? You're supposed to be down on the ramparts!"
Snape had sneered and immediately begun berating her when she burst out onto the landing, her wand clasped so tightly in her hand that her arm began to tremble from the effort.
"I saw," she had ground out, feeling a blinding rage begin to settle over her.
The greasy haired traitor had opened his mouth to speak, doubtless to protest and claim his innocence, but Ginny knew better. She had clearly seen him standing close behind Harry and then shoving him firmly between the shoulders, catapulting him into open space.
"Bastard!" she snapped, before he could deny his guilt. "Expelliarmus!"
She had been so furious, so emotionally charged, that her simple Disarming Charm had blown Snape off his feet and into the air. He flew back and smashed hard into the stone wall behind him, a crack of breaking bones sounding as he impacted.
Ginny was intent only on Snape and completely ignored his wand as it sailed towards her, clattering to the floor at her feet. She waited for him to struggle to his feet, cursing under his breath and fixing her with a murderous glare that she matched with one of her own.
"Stupefy!" she shouted, once again allowing her emotions to charge her magic beyond what it was normally capable of. Or perhaps she was tapping into the power of the Order. She did not know, nor did she care. In either case, Ginny watched with great satisfaction as Snape collapsed in a heap as if pole axed.
After staring at his crumpled form for several moments Ginny had finally regained her senses and turned to look over the battlements and see how Harry was fairing. Gazing downward, she watched as Harry fought a short, but intense, duel with a Death Eater she recognised as Lucius Malfoy.
Then he faced off against Voldemort.
I should have jumped down after him and helped.
After conversing for a minute, the quiet chat he had spoken of, the two had begun to duel. It had not taken long for Ginny to realize that Harry was by far the superior of the pair, handling everything Voldemort sent his way with casual ease.
Why? Why didn't he move out of the way?
Harry had seen the curse coming, she knew he had, yet he had stood his ground and just... just let it hit him. The green flash had washed over him, like a second aura to replace his normal blazing white, gold and scarlet. And then, as if in some kind of terrible slow motion, he had dropped to the ground.
"Behold! Harry Potter! The Boy Who Lived - NO MORE!!"
Voldemort's high pitched cackle had rung loud and true across the besieged battlements of Hogwarts, bringing all activity to a halt. Even the trolls, who were too slow-witted to really understand, and the spiders, who had no stake in the matter, ceased their assaults at his cry.
Ginny felt her body grow cold, an icy despair suddenly embracing her whole being.
No. No, he can't be. Please God, no!
With a death's head grin on his face Voldemort contemptuously kicked at Harry's body, rolling him over onto his back. From her high vantage point Ginny could just make out Harry's wand as it fell from his grasp and rolled across the ground. Blood was trickling from his nose and mouth, staining his features in red as Voldemort threw back his head and laughed.
Tears began to well up in Ginny's eyes as her breath hitched in her throat, and she struggled to draw in some air. All she could do was stand there, eyes fixed firmly upon Harry, who Voldemort was gloating over.
A minute passed, two, then three. Voldemort had ceased his attentions to Harry and had moved off to where Lucius Malfoy was lying prone. As she watched him walking away, the terrible cold that suffused every part of her disappeared, replaced by something worse. Something primal in its nature, a need that burned within her like a newborn sun.
He killed Harry.
Ginny blinked away her tears, turning from the sight of Voldemort standing victorious and glared down at the still unconscious Snape. She brushed the back of her free hand against her eyes, forcing down the flood she knew was coming. She would cry later, but for now she had something else to do.
I will not cry.
She raised her wand and pointed it at Snape.
I will get even.
The treacherous bastard would be first. He had betrayed Dumbledore, Harry and everyone else, delivering Harry into Voldemort's reach. And from there into death. For that Ginny would make him pay with his life as retribution.
And after him, Voldemort.
It did not matter that she would probably die in the attempt, but Ginny vowed that the Dark Lord would rue the day he had met her. There was nothing she would not do to hurt him, kill him if possible. Even if it meant resorting to using the Unforgivable Curses, she did not care, for it no longer mattered to her.
With Harry gone there only one thing left in her mind: revenge.
Her focus was so intently fixed upon Snape, the raw power of every erg of magic she could lay claim to building around her, that Ginny almost missed it. A single sentence, spoken in a loud and clear voice, but rasping like Muggle sandpaper.
A voice she could not fail to recognise.
A voice that stopped her dead in her tracks.
"I'm not finished with you!"
***
Black.
Everything was black.
Complete, bottomless, glorious black. It went on forever and ever without any end. It was comfortable and encompassing, keeping him safe from anything and everything. It felt wonderful.
Naturally he was not happy when something intruded upon his sanctuary.
At first it seemed to shimmer and flicker about at the edge of his vision, which was odd since he was pretty sure he wasn't using his eyes. Slowly it began to creep more and more into his world, a warm, soothing pink that spread about him.
With a jerk and several breathless coughs, he found his eyes blinking open as the outside world returned to him in lucid sensation.
Offhand, things were not looking good for Harry. He felt as if he had been kicked in the gut by a unicorn, his lungs were burning with every breath that he was struggling to take in, the sharp metallic tang of blood filled his mouth, and his scar was bringing new definition to the concept of headache.
Harry's muscles complained loudly as he forced himself to roll onto his side, coughing up the blood that was pooled in his mouth. Grey fog was intruding on the edges of his vision, which was blurred as it had done when he had still relied on his glasses. Spots of red, pink, orange and several other colours seemed to hover in front of him.
I'm think I'm going to hurl.
He looked up and saw Voldemort standing over the fallen Lucius Malfoy, apparently finding his Death Eater's predicament amusing.
*You used up too much power at once stopping that curse. It's drained you badly.*
Harry grimaced and fought down the rising nausea as he pushed himself up onto his hands and knees. I thought you said none of you had ever exhausted the Order's reserves before.
*Yes, well, none of us were dumb enough to jump in front of a Killing Curse before.*
*Ze power drain eez almost crippling,* explained Joan. *You cannot dissipate anozer wun of zose.*
With his teeth clenched so tight his jaw muscles were threatening to cramp, Harry forced his protesting arms and legs to right his body. Choking down a scream of pain he rose to his feet, swaying unsteadily over where he had fallen.
*If you want to pull this off, you're going to have to play it carefully.*
*Especially after all the effort you've already expended.*
Summoning his wand to his hand, Harry took some comfort in the familiar feel of wood against his palm. With every fibre of his being screaming at him to flee into the safety of Hogwarts, Harry wiped at the blood that was dribbling thickly from his mouth and nose. Taking deep and steadying breaths, he drew himself straight, standing tall and proud.
"Tom," he called hoarsely, "I'm not finished with you!"
Voldemort froze, as if turned to stone, upon hearing Harry's voice. Slowly, as if unwilling to see the confirmation, he turned around to where Harry was standing. His thin and pale face was a picture of abject shock.
"Impossible!"
"It is impossible," agreed Harry, nodding his head. After a moment he shrugged and said, "I did it anyway."
With slow and deliberate steps he began to advance on Voldemort, aware that his almost prowling manner was generating a satisfying intimidating effect. The truth of the matter was that he was so unsure of his footing that he had to go slowly. Just getting one foot in front of the other without stumbling was an effort.
"Yes, my blood made you stronger than if you'd used anyone else's," he rasped as he drew nearer to Voldemort with each stride. "Yes, the protection my mum left in me - you have it too. And, yes, you can touch me."
When he was only ten yards away, Harry raised his wand to chest height and bared his bloody lips in a snarl. Voldemort looked totally dumbstruck and seemed unable to move, his mouth hanging open and his narrow eyes wide with surprise. Every muscle in Harry's body tensed to rocklike rigidity as he focused upon his wand.
Voldemort did not even have time to blink, let alone think, as he was blown away by a powerful Banishing Charm. He crashed to the ground with a loud crunch a hundred feet back from where he had been standing, a cloud of dust rising around him.
Harry lowered his wand with a satisfied grin and shouted out a challenge.
"But I can still kick your arse!"
***
He's alive!
Hermione watched in amazement, not to mention blessed relief, as Harry's corpse twitched where it lay, rolled over onto its side and then stood up on slightly unsteady legs. When Harry, apparently very much alive and well, blew Voldemort through the air and halfway across the front lawn, she did not know whether to laugh or resume crying.
Thank the heavens, he's alive. I'm going to kill him for scaring me like that.
Voldemort rolled into a sitting position, his black robes lying dishevelled about him. With a look of indignant fury he grabbed his wand and raised it high above his head.
"Terra irae canem!" he shouted, causing a dozen mounds of earth to rise around him. The ground heaved up and broke open as the allies he had summoned dug themselves free.
They were dogs of some kind, massive beasts that stood five feet at the shoulder and carried themselves like the predators they were. Their bodies rippled with muscles layered upon muscles layered upon sinew and bone, covering in thick, coarse fur that was a black as night. Their eyes glowed the same blood red as Voldemort's.
The Fury Hounds, which Hermione recognised them as being, let loose low howls as they pulled away from the holes they risen from. They bared their gleaming fangs and, at a gesture from Voldemort, charged at Harry, baying like wolves as they ran. The Hounds moved almost too fast for the eye to follow and were quickly bearing down on Harry.
Harry swept his wand up, glowing yellow, then down and across in a wide arc. A wall of blazing yellow and orange fire exploded forth from its tip, streaking across the ground with frightening speed and catching the bulk of the charging Fury Hounds within its length. The flames rolled over the dogs with such intensity that Hermione could see them being burnt down to their bones in a matter of seconds.
Good Lord, she thought as the firewall died down. He's mad as Hell and twice as hot!
Only three of the Fury Hounds survived the fiery onslaught, one so badly burned that it was not much more than a slow burning skeleton. The other two had only caught the trailing edges of the fire and made it through with their fur coats smoking.
The smaller of the two charged straight at Harry, pouncing at him with claws outspread and fangs gleaming in its wide open jaws. Harry jerked his wand up as the Hound came at him, brilliant streams of blue-white lightning striking the beast in the chest with a clap of thunder. The Hound was knocked back and fell writhing to the ground, arcs of electricity crackling around it.
Harry drew his sword as the last Hound, the third and badly burnt animal had collapsed, and met it head on as it sprang at him. It was too close for him to use the weapon effectively and all he could manage was to jab the blade between him and its slavering jaws as they crashed to the ground after colliding in midair.
Hermione heard Cho beside her gasp and clutch at her chest with one hand. But Harry was quick to deal with the Fury Hound, jamming his knees under its body and pushing it off him with a mighty heave. The Hound twisted in the air and landed on its feet like a cat and immediately sprang at Harry a second time.
But Harry was prepared, already on his feet and broadsword poised to strike. The gleaming three foot blade flashed back and forth, slicing across the Fury Hound's chest as Harry stepped to the side at the last second. The Hound sailed past him and landed, whirling about to face Harry and preparing to leap at him a third time.
As it turned to face him, its hind legs collapsed, and it fell to the ground with a lurch, its underside neatly sliced in a lacerated X shape. Steaming entrails began to seep from the cuts in its belly as the Hound's lifeblood soaked into the earth from the fatal wound. With a flourish Harry decapitated the suffering creature and somehow managed to sheath the sword in the same graceful movement.
"Avada Kedavra!"
Oh no! Not again!
Voldemort had regained his footing and now launched another Killing Curse at Harry, clearly intent on succeeding where he had failed only minutes earlier. This time, however, Harry did not stand his ground and try weather the attack. Instead he dived into a forward roll, straight towards Voldemort, and came up in leap that covered a dozen yards, landing at the Dark Lord's feet.
With startling speed Harry planted a roundhouse kick to Voldemort's face with his right foot, reversing the same motion to swing a hook kick to his opponent's temple. The cracks from the impacts sounded loudly in the still air, like gunshots.
Voldemort cried out in pain and anger, staggering back as Harry pressed in close with powerful punches to the ribs. Roaring like an injured beast, Voldemort raised his hands high and shouted something Hermione could not make out. The air between him and Harry shimmered, twisted around itself, and then Harry was blown back, high into the air as if launched from a catapult.
Sweet Merlin, he's airborne.
As with his fall from the Astronomy Tower, Harry flipped and spun through a triple somersault, landing hard in a low crouch. His head snapped towards Voldemort and he raised his arms high above him, hands clenched into tight fists. Green and brown wisps of energy writhed and spun between his fists, which glowed with jade light.
Harry slammed his hands down, a wave of displacement breaking around him. The ground before him rippled and shifted, cracking and shattering and heaving as it streaked directly towards Voldemort. With the roar of mountains falling, Voldemort was engulfed as the earth he stood upon erupted around him. Great stone monoliths broke through the ground and surged up into the dark skies, toppling and crumbling against each other.
"Holy shit!"
Hermione turned from the scene of carnage and magic gone wild to stare in disbelief, along with Cho and Professor McGonagall, at a wide-eyed Neville. Against the rumbling thunder of shifting earth and rock, Neville noticed their attentions and blushed a furious scarlet.
"Sorry, Professor," he apologised, ducking his head.
"It's quite all right, Mr Longbottom," replied McGonagall, returning her gaze to the battle raging below them, "I was looking for the right words myself."
***
With a burst of green light the massive rocks and mounds of dirt that covered Voldemort blew apart into billowing clouds of dust. The storm of debris buffeted over Harry as he stood his ground and waited for the air to clear. His robes whipped around him and he could feel small shards of rock cutting into his exposed face and hands.
After the bulk of the dust clouds had passed him Harry looked up and saw Voldemort standing in a shallow crater, surrounded by ploughed earth.
*I think you pissed him off,* observed Quetz, sounding slightly worried.
*Miniature earthquakes do that to a fellow.*
Voldemort raised his arms up, the air around him swirling with dust, and Harry could see the power radiating from and around him. He had observed the Dark Lord's pitch black aura from afar before the battle had been joined. It already been a terrible and disturbing sight then, but now it had grown to monstrous proportions, extending far beyond Voldemort's body as he exerted himself.
"Pyronimbus!"
The air between Harry and Voldemort began to sparkling, reminding Harry of the faeries that graced the Great Hall during Christmas. But somehow, looking at the magic being used, he doubted that this was going to be as benign. Only moments later, he was proved correct as one of the many glowing sparks shot at him.
Harry jerked to one side at the streak of light slashed against his robed arm which felt the extreme heat. His robe caught fire where it had been hit, and Harry hurried to extinguish the flame before it spread. More of the sparks were diving towards him, a veritable rain of fire that he would not be able to evade.
*Yep, I'd say he is no longer in a good mood.*
*Put up a barrier! Now!*
"Defensor Lux!" Harry shouted, tracing his wand in a complex pattern. An impenetrable bubble of light sprang to being around him, absorbing the sparks and fire that showered down. The shield screeched like metal being torn apart and the glare was almost blinding.
The rain of fire continued to fall and rebound off the shield, igniting the grass surrounding the area where Harry stood. The strain of maintaining this defence in his already weakened state quickly began to wear on him, forcing him to retaliate in the hope that Voldemort would have to cease his own attack to deal with Harry's challenge.
"Wingardium Naturam Furor!"
All around Harry the air seemed to darken and began to swirl about. With every passing second the wind picked up speed and fury until it was howling fit to rival the Fury Hounds Harry had dispatched earlier. Such was the force of the wind that even the fire rain was being deflected by its relentless presence.
Harry grinned in relief and satisfaction. The miniature tornado he had created was pretty big in its own right, easily seventy feet across. From his spot in its eye Harry could see the edges of the vortex tugging at Voldemort's robes. By anyone's standards it was an impressive feat of magic that perhaps only the Dark Lord and Dumbledore could ever match.
The pride Harry felt welling inside of him as Voldemort struggled to maintain his footing came from his knowledge that he had brought this force of nature into being. Harry, without any form of outside aid; he was not even drawing on the Order.
The drain of dissipating the Killing Curse had been substantial, which meant that Harry could not use the Order's power for his defence and the little surprise he had planned for Voldemort - there just wasn't enough left to do both. Good thing he was a powerful wizard in his own right.
Just hope I can keep it going long enough.
*You'd better.*
With Voldemort suitably distracted for the moment, Harry began drawing on the Order's power, focusing it within him for when he needed it. He was calling on everything he had, leaving nothing at all as a reserve, concentrating instead on summoning forth every iota of magic he could lay his hands on.
*Let this be a lesson to you. Next time you fight a mortal enemy. NO GRANDSTANDING!*
Don't shout like that. My head's hurting badly enough.
*Uh oh. He's doing something...*
Voldemort had retreated back several paces, away from the worst of the tornado's reach, and had begun an incantation. With the roaring wind surrounding him, Harry stood no chance of hearing what was being said, and his vision was still too unreliable for him to try and lip-read at this distance.
Still, once the spell was done, Harry was left in no doubt about just what it was. Balls of acid green fire, each the size of a Quaffle, erupted from Voldemort's wand. They shot towards Harry in a staccato rhythm, relentlessly forcing their way through the bludgeoning wind.
*We're dealing with fire. Douse it.*
With what? There's too many of them for me to stop them all before they hit me.
*The lake.*
Harry forgot completely about the tornado, allowing it to die away with a whisper, and giving the fireballs a clear path. For an instant they seemed to hover in place before hurtling towards him.
"Accio water!!" Harry shouted at the top of his lungs, his wand aimed at the nearby lake, which responded to his call in a manner that would give everyone that saw it something to talk about for years to come.
For a moment Harry wondered ridiculously if perhaps he had gone too far and actually drained the entire lake. The moment after he decided that, considering the situation, he really did not care. With a wolfish grin he watched as a mountain of water rose up from the lake, like the tsunamis he had once read about.
With a crash like rolling thunder the mass of water broke before Harry, immediately rising up in a defensive wall. The fireballs were smothered with casual ease as they splashed into the depths of this fifty foot high water wall.
*Nicely done. You've bought more time.*
"Crucio!!"
Pain beyond imagination washed over Harry with the force of a speeding train. The air in his lungs exploded out of him in a breathless gasp as he lost his hold on the water before him. As Harry dropped to the ground, the wall of water collapsed with him, soaking everything in the immediate area.
Harry had made another mistake, perhaps a fatal one this time. He had been concentrating so fully on Voldemort that he had completely forgotten the four Death Eaters that he had dispatched earlier. Obviously one of them had recovered enough and now sought to aid his lord.
The pain was too much, far too much. He had suffered under the Cruciatus Curse before, at the hands of Voldemort, who was undoubtedly more powerful than whoever was cursing him now. But there was something wrong, something that was amplifying the curse beyond what it was normally capable of.
He was lying, immobile, on the ground. The pain was so great that Harry could not even manage a scream around it. He could feel its jagged edges ravaging his mind. His nerve endings burnt with cold fire that overrode his mind's frantic attempts to move. So much pain that he was practically paralysed by its raw intensity. He couldn't take much more. Oh gods, it hurt. It hurt beyond what he understood.
The curse.
Sever.
Break.
Link.
*Use the link!!*
It was something only Harry would ever be able to do. Any other wizard would have been helpless against the waves of unbridled pain. But Harry had been chosen by the Order of the Phoenix and given access to a power beyond imagination. He was hardly an ordinary wizard and, even without the Order, was in a class of his own.
Even so, it was a sheer miracle that he survived.
His mind was completely cut off, too busy struggling against the pain that seemed to increase with each passing eternity. Of course it had probably only been a matter of seconds since the curse hit him, but certainly felt like forever. Since Harry's mind was otherwise engaged, it settled upon pure instinct to save him.
Completely separate and acting without any interaction with his brain, Harry somehow managed to find the link connecting him to the Death Eater's wand. He found the link, traced it back along the magical path it wound and then gave a twist in just the right place.
"GGGGGAAAAHHH!!"
Harry arched his back and gasped in a deep breath, filling his lungs with sweet oxygen. His limbs trembled uncontrollably, and he was still feeling ghostly echoes of the pain, but he was free and once again able to think. Blood was streaming from his nose, ears and mouth, soaking his robes and shirt underneath as he turned to look behind him.
The Death Eater, the one he had kneed in the face, was now writhing on the ground in insurmountable agony, a victim of his own curse. Harry had accessed the magic of the Cruciatus Curse being used on him and done some magical tinkering. In effect he had created what Muggles would call a feedback loop, sending the curse right back to where it had come from.
*You okay there, Harry?*
Never better, he replied, wiping his mouth with the back of a sleeve.
"So, Potter, you've managed to overthrow the Cruciatus Curse as well. Impressive."
Harry turned, to look up at Voldemort, who was leering down at him. Disregarding the numbness suffusing his body, he forced himself into a sitting position, looking around to see that his wand was lying several yards away. Well out of reach.
Voldemort aimed his wand at Harry's chest. "Let us test to see if you can survive the Killing Curse yet another time."
"You sure you want to risk that?" asked Harry, spitting blood.
"Third time lucky," replied Voldemort with an evil smile.
Harry struggled for a moment and managed to push himself upright, Voldemort standing not a yard away. "I wouldn't bet on it," he said, exploding unexpectedly into action.
His arm shot out and knocked Voldemort's wand away from him. At the same time he twisted to the side and kicked with all his might. His boot connected with a crack and launched Voldemort back several paces. Harry reached out his hand and, with the aid of magic, summoned his wand to it.
"Excelsior Defensor Transit Lux!!"
This was what he had been saving the last of the Order's power for. A spell unlike any that had ever come before. A spell that Harry had conceived of and painstakingly constructed, with the help of the Order, over the past few months.
For a moment it almost seemed as though the sun itself had come down and touched the earth where Harry was standing. Then a circular wave of brilliant white and gold energy exploded around Harry, making its way out. It was the most beautiful, yet terrifying thing anyone had ever seen. It poured out from Harry with unbelievable force, rolling outwards in all directions at once. And in its wake nothing remained.
The Dementors, the guards of Azkaban, were shredded by the wave's impact. Their black robes were torn to pieces, none larger than a Muggle postage stamp, and their hideous grey bodies exploded in black and indigo flames. Not even ashes remained of them and the tiny fragments of their robes disintegrated as they drifted in the air.
The various trolls, mountain, forest and cave varieties, froze where they stood. Their skin shot through with veins of grey and tan as they were swiftly transformed into stone statues. As the wave departed the stone immediate began to crack and crumble away, reducing the trolls to what amounted to piles of loose gravel.
Finally, after having travelled outwards for nearly half a mile, the rolling wave of magic and energy began to dissipate. With every dark creature in its path utterly destroyed its purpose had been fulfilled.
Harry, now standing alone on the front lawn, looked around him in something of a daze. "Well, at least that's over with," he said into the silence.
*That's a relief.*
*We're going to need a long holiday to recover from this.*
*We? I think it's Harry that needs the holiday.*
Can I pass out now?
***
"Um, could somebody please tell me what's going on up there?"
Ron Weasley had never been so utterly frustrated, not to mention confused, by anything in his life. Something, something very big and most likely important, had just transpired and he did not have a clue what it was.
I am not using this map of Harry's again unless he makes some changes to it.
Reports of Harry's death had filtered into the Practical Fighting Techniques auditorium via the communications Portkeys everyone was wearing. Complete silence had greeted the announcement and Ron had struggled to hold back his tears. Even Dumbledore had lost the usual twinkle in his eyes and suddenly slumped with the weight of the world on his aged shoulders.
Then, naturally, Harry had stood up and become The-Boy-Who-Lived-Again.
From then on, all Ron could make out, from the chatter he heard of those up on the battlements, Harry had begun to wage a full fledged war against You-Know-Who. From what he could hear it sounded like Harry had taken magical combat to an entirely new level. A much more powerful, not to mention dangerous one.
"I mean... that the heck just happened? Somebody? Anybody?"
Then something had happened that Ron could not explain. He had a theory that seemed to fit the facts, but he struggled to believe even Harry capable of that. Somehow Harry had done something, and the next thing Ron knew, Tom Riddle's dot had vanished.
Almost immediately after that, the four Death Eaters had also disappeared and then something had swept over the masses of Dementors and trolls. It had been like watching an eraser sliding across the map, wiping away the dots of all those attacking the castle.
They just vanished.
"Harry survived a Killing Curse," answered what sounded like Fred or George's voice. "Beat the crap out of You-Know-Who. And then vaporised every last bad guy with a single spell."
Ron blinked.
Dumbledore blinked.
Everyone blinked.
"Deactivate Hogwarts Defences," announced Dumbledore after several seconds had passed in utter silence. There was a deep rumbling noise, and Ron felt the sensation of going up as the auditorium began to rise. Looking down at the map and Harry's dot, which was swaying unsteadily back and forth as if he were somehow drunk, Ron decided he couldn't bear to wait.
"I'm not waiting," he said to Dumbledore and held up the hand with his Portkey, "Deploy."
A moment later, after the usual twisting and pulling sensation, Ron found himself in the Great Hall, standing on the stage. He immediately set off at a fast run, heading through the Entrance Hall and out the front doors, which hung open. As he barrelled through and onto the battle-scarred front lawn, he saw that many of those that had been fighting had come down from the ramparts.
Everyone was crowding around Harry, shouting and cheering and generally making nuisances of themselves. Several of the teachers that had come down, McGonagall, Flitwick and a few others, were trying to calm the celebrating students.
"Harry!" he shouted, jumping up and waving his arms.
Harry, with Hermione, Cho, Fred, George and several other students around him, lifted a tired arm and waved Ron over. Pushing through the masses Ron grinned broadly at his friend, but the smile quickly faded as he took in Harry's battered condition.
"Circe's liver, Harry!" he exclaimed, "what happened to you?"
"Voldemort and I had a nice, quiet chat," replied Harry, his voice rasping thickly. He turned his head and spat out some blood, swaying unsteadily on his feet. Fred and George immediately grabbed him by the waist and shoulders for support.
Dear Merlin, it's a miracle he's still standing.
"Harry!"
Everyone turned at the familiar voice and did a double take. Ginny was running up to them, her face split in a wide and relieved smile. Tears were streaming down her face, and she was babbling nonsensically as she swept Harry up in tight hug. This was not what caused them all to react, since this was sort of what they expected from her.
It was Snape.
"What happened to him?" asked Fred, pointing.
Ginny pulled back from Harry slightly and looked back at Snape's unconscious body that was floating in the air several feet behind her. Ron didn't know whether to be concerned or amused at the Potions Master's predicament. "I saw what he did to you, Harry! I can testify if you want. I almost killed him when I got up there. I thought Voldemort had killed you!"
We all did.
Harry winced. "Ah... Gin? Take my advice and drop Potions before he wakes up."
"What? Why?" she asked quizzically.
"Snape's a spy, remember?" said Harry, reaching up to massage his temples. "We needed a way to convince Voldemort of his loyalty."
And that's when the Knut dropped. Ron, along with Hermione, Fred, George and especially Ginny gaped at Harry in total consternation.
"You had Snape push you off the Astronomy Tower just so that You-Know-Who would be convinced of his loyalty?!" bellowed Hermione in outraged disbelief.
"It was his idea," shrugged Harry.
Nobody could really think of anything to say to this, except that it would have probably been a good thing if Harry had warned them in advance. Especially considering the fact that Ginny had come within a hairsbreadth of killing Snape because of it.
"So..." Ron looked about the ravaged grounds. "Does this mean we won?"
"As soon as the urge to throw up my appendix stops, I'll let you know," replied Harry, seeming to lean more heavily on the twins with each passing moment.
"What happened, Potter?" asked Professor McGonagall, who had come up behind Ginny and the still unconscious Snape. "What was that spell you used?"
Hermione asked an even more important question. "Where did all the Dementors and You-Know-Who go?"
Harry sighed and waved a hand vaguely. "The Dementors are destroyed. Completely gone. Poof. That wave was a variation on the Patronus Charm, but much more powerful. Turned the trolls into stone as well. As for Tom and his lackeys... the spell didn't hurt them. Instead it just teleported them away from here."
It was incredible. Ron, nor anyone else for that matter, had ever heard anything like it. Harry was claiming that one single spell of his had managed to annihilate nearly two hundred Dementors in one fell swoop. That and it had also somehow got rid of You-Know-Who at the same time.
"Still got a few bugs to work out, though," Harry admitted sheepishly.
"Where did you send them to?" asked Professor Lupin, who had just arrived. Snuffle was at his feet and looking anxiously at Harry.
Harry shrugged and waved his hand vaguely again, smiling broadly and somewhat giddily. "Aah... well, um, actually, that's one of the bugs. I'm still working on it. But I hear the weather's nice in Mexico this time of year!"
And, for the second time that day, Harry's world dissolved into black.
TBC...