The Burning Pen

When Good Wizards Go Bad
by Ruth Solomon

The story content is adult in nature and can contain graphic sex and violence.  Those under the age of 18 are asked to leave this site immediately.  You are not welcome here.  The author is not responsible for those under-aged who view these works.

CHAPTER 15

Disclaimer: All recognizable characters belong to JKR. All situations are mine. No $$$ is being made from this fanfic.
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Chapter 15 ~ Facing Off with Voldie

Voldemort landed in front of Snape’s mansion. He could feel the wizard inside. On his way, he had taken a small detour to the former domicile of Harry Potter and killed Marcus while he lay bound on the stone floor.

The violet-eyed wizard looked up in terror as his Master strode in, his crimson eyes narrowed.

”My Lord,” he said desperately, struggling in his bonds, “Let me explain…”

”You failed me,” Voldemort hissed, casting the Killing curse on the wizard, then exiting without as much as a backwards glance at Marcus’ lifeless body, taking off again to find his other so-called ‘servant’ and give him his reward.

Voldemort walked up to the gleaming doors of the mansion.

”Reducto!” he snarled, blasting them to splinters then entering. Immediately, he stopped, shuddering.

The entire inside of Snape’s mansion was coated in ice. It was freezing. Voldemort couldn’t function in the cold. His nature was reptilian. He couldn’t generate his own heat. The despot wrapped his robes around him, his small pointed teeth chattering.

”Damn him!” he hissed, casting a warming spell around himself, then running forward. He would have to move quickly. Warming spells had to be constantly reapplied and weakened when other spells were cast.

Snape heard the blast. He was no longer in pain however. Voldemort couldn’t maintain his torture and do other magic.

”He’s coming. Get ready,” Snape said, dragging a table from the wall to the middle of the hallway and turning it over so it served as a barrier. It wasn’t much. Then he ran over to the far wall and pressed himself against it, gesturing to Hermione to do the same thing on the other side. Voldemort would assume they were behind the table and they could ambush him.

Hermione readied herself, her wand drawn.

Voldemort came into view, his eyes on the table.

“You can’t hide from me, Severus!” he cried, blasting the table. Oddly, it didn’t burst apart, but slid further down the hall.

“Sectumsempra!” Snape roared, jumping forward and slashing at Voldemort, who whirled back quickly, his robes sliced but his body unharmed.

Voldemort screamed a counter spell, a huge serpent of fire emerging from his wand and bearing down on the Potions master, its mouth of flame agape and ready to consume him. Snape reactively threw up his arms, stunned by the thing flying toward him.

”Aguamenti!” Hermione cried, firing a deluge of water at the fiery creature, putting it out before it reached the wizard.

”You bitch!” Voldemort hissed at the witch, “Where did you come from?”

He tried to throw a hex at Hermione but Snape cast a “Confringo” spell, or Blasting curse which the despot barely managed to block. The cold was getting to him and he was becoming sluggish. He cast another warming spell on himself then slashed at Snape, then Hermione sending bolts of energy towards them.

They both managed to block his spells, equally amazed that they were able to do so. Voldemort was so powerful he should have been able to rip through their defenses. The trio whirled and danced, throwing hex after hex, none of them managing to do any damage as spells flew.

“We’re getting nowhere,” Hermione panted.

”Keep going!” Snape hissed, “We’ve got to get through and don’t have much time!”

They continued battling the despot, who was equally puzzled as to why he hadn’t blasted them to pieces yet. He was the Dark Lord. No one was a match for him.

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Harry appeared in front of Snape’s mansion, the Port Key the wizard had given him in his hand. He could hear the sounds of battle and gathering up the robes he wore, which were a bit too long because they belonged to Snape, he ran through the mansion toward the noise, looking in wonder at all the ice everywhere

He saw Voldemort, Snape and Hermione dancing about, spells flying and ricocheting off of the smooth ice that coated as they battled. Hermione slipped and the wizard snarled “Reducto!” firing the hex at Hermione, whose wand had fallen from her hand.

“Protego!” roared Harry, and the Shield Charm expanded and protected Hermione as Voldemort turned to see the source of the spell. His eyes widened as he saw Harry, alive and well.

Snape took advantage of the despot’s surprise, ran over and grabbed Hermione, pulling behind the overturned table.

”The Calvary has arrived,” he said, peeking over the top.

”But how? How is Harry here?” Hermione asked.

”Who cares?” Snape said, “He’s here.”

Harry walked toward Voldemort, his eyes narrowed. The lens of his glasses was still cracked from Snape punching him.

”Why does Harry have a black eye?” Hermione asked Snape, who didn’t answer her.

Voldemort held his wand in a defensive position, unsure of what was happening here. He had killed Harry. He knew he did. How did he come back?

“I don’t want anyone else to try to help.” Harry said loudly, “It’s got to be like this. It’s got to be me.”

”I will give you no argument, Mr. Potter. Now, less talk more Avada Kedavra!” Snape called back.

“Potter doesn’t mean that,” Voldemort hissed. “That isn’t how he works, is it? Who are you going to use as a shield today, Potter?”

“Not me,” Snape muttered as Hermione scowled at him.

”We should help Harry,” Hermione said to the pale wizard, who looked at Hermione as if she were insane.

”Unlike yourself and at times, Mr. Potter, Miss Granger, I DO know how to follow instructions. If you want to go out there and possibly ruin Potter’s concentration and get us all killed, forget it.”

”I’m going,” Hermione hissed, starting to rise.

”Petrificus Totalus!” Snape intoned, hexing the witch, catching her stiffened form and laying her prone on the floor. Hermione’s amber eyes shifted back and forth furiously. The wizard looked back at Harry and Voldemort, who were circling each other.

“It’s just you and me,” Harry said to the wizard, “Neither can live while the other survives, and one of us is about to leave for good. . . .”

”But why, Harry? You can live in the lap of luxury for the rest of your days. Pampered and well-cared for. Treated like a king. Why risk death when your life could be a fairytale?” Voldemort lisped at him.

“While everyone else lives in the hell you’ve created? I don’t want to live that way. I can’t live that way. One of us has to die. I’m no longer a Horcrux, so you don’t have to protect me any longer. You’re mortal now. So if I kill you, you won’t be coming back from it,” Harry said victoriously.

”Gryffindors talk too fucking much,” Snape said, his black eyes flicking down to Hermione, whose eyes were still furious.

Voldemort heard him.

”After I deal with this worthless sap, Snape, it will be your turn,” the wizard cried, “To think I trusted you!”

Snape made an obscene gesture at the despot, who snarled at his audacity. But he kept his wand trained on Potter. Snape would get his. He’d quarter the bastard.

“You won’t be killing anyone else,” said Harry as they circled, and stared into each other’s eyes, green into red. “You won’t be able to kill ever again. Don’t you get it? I was ready to die to stop you from hurting people—”

“But you did not!”

“—I meant to, and that’s what it did. I’ve done what my mother did. They’re protected from you. Haven’t you noticed how none of the spells you put on them truly affected them? You can’t torture them. You can’t touch them. You don’t learn from your mistakes, Riddle, do you?”

“You dare—”

“Yes, I dare. I know things you don’t know, Tom Riddle. I know lots of important things that you don’t. Want to hear some, before you make another big mistake?”

“Is it love again? Dumbledore’s favorite solution, love, which he claimed conquered death, though love did not stop him falling from the tower and breaking like an old waxwork? Love, which did not prevent me stamping out your Mudblood mother like a cockroach, Potter—and nobody seems to love you enough to run forward this time and take my curse. So what will stop you from dying now when I strike?”

“Just one thing.”

“If it is not love that will save you this time you must believe that you have magic that I do not, or else a weapon more powerful than mine?”

“I believe both.”

“You think you know more magic than I do? Than I, than Lord Voldemort, who has performed magic that Dumbledore himself never dreamed of?”

“Oh, he dreamed of it,” said Harry, “but he knew more than you, knew enough not to do what you’ve done.”

Snape was drumming his fingers on the edge of the overturned table now, holding up his head with his other hand, a bored expression on his face. Gods, this was taking forever. Why did the final face-off have to occur between two self-important arseholes who loved to hear themselves talk? Good grindelows. Kill each other already!

“Fuck Dumbledore. He’s dead. At least Snape killed him and his body decays in the marble tomb in the grounds of Hogwarts. I have seen his corpse, Potter and he will not return,” Voldemort declared, hurling the words at Harry as if they would cause him terrible pain.

”Yes, Dumbledore’s dead,” said Harry calmly, “but you didn’t have him killed. He chose his own manner of dying, chose it months before he died, arranged the whole thing with the man you thought was your servant.”

“Too much information, Mr. Potter,” Snape called.

Gods, he loathed Gryffindors. They could keep nothing to themselves.

“What childish dream is this?” said Voldemort.

“Severus Snape wasn’t yours,” said Harry. “Snape was Dumbledore’s Dumbledore’s from the moment you started hunting down my mother. And you never realized it, because of the thing you can’t understand. You never saw Snape cast a Patronus, did you, Riddle?”

Snape clasped his hand over his face. Don’t tell him. Just . . . don’t.

“Snape’s Patronus was a doe,” said Harry, “the same as my mother’s, because he loved her for nearly all of his life, from the time when they were children. You should have realized. He asked you to spare her life, didn’t he?”

This was too much. Snape rose from behind the table and strode out, his wand drawn. He wasn’t going to stand for his personal life being bantered about. This was exactly why he didn’t want to give Harry his memories.

”Enough of this chatter. I’m on a schedule!” Snape hissed, firing a blast at Voldemort who blocked it and fired one back at the Potions master, who also blocked it. It seemed Harry was right. He was protected.

”Not as strong as usual, are you my Lord?” the wizard snarled, “Expelliamus!”

The hex hit Voldemort squarely and the shocked wizard flew back several feet, landing hard on the floor and sliding.

”Stop it!” Harry said, “I want to do this!”

”Then do it, damn you!” Snape hissed at him, “There are people waiting at the Ministry! If we aren’t there shortly, they are going to disperse!”

While Snape was talking, Voldemort rose and cast another warming spell on himself, then eased forward, his red eyes on Harry who was scowling darkly at the pale wizard.

“Avada Kedavra!” the wizard cried, the dread green light flying toward Harry.

For a quick second, Snape was moved to push Harry out of the way, but the moment passed. Instead, he fired his own killing curse at the Dark Lord since he was distracted.

Two things happened. The Elder Wand moved of its own accord, blocking the curse and firing it back at Voldemort, connecting with the wizard at the same time Snape’s spell hit him. Voldemort writhed in the doubled curse, his scarlet eyes rolling upward, then fell backwards, his arms splayed, dead.

Both Harry and Snape blinked at the dead despot.

”Well, that was rather anti-climatic,” Snape commented, “But it worked out better than I expected. Now we can both share the glory of killing the Dark Lord. That ought to be worth a few galleons.”

Hermione clambered up from behind the overturned table, the spell finally wearing off. She stormed up to Snape furiously.

”You tell me not to get involved, then you do!” she shouted at him, “How dare you hex me! I didn’t even get to see what happened!”

”He died,” Snape replied, his mouth quirking

”I can see that!” Hermione hissed, stamping her foot. Then she turned to Harry and ran toward him.

”You’re alive!” she cried, hugging the wizard in a burst of emotion as Snape looked on.

It seemed her love for Mr. Potter inspired her to feel as well. Maybe she wouldn’t do too badly after all.

“But how, Harry? How did you come back?” she asked him.

”When Voldemort took my blood to rebuild his body, he took my mother’s protection and kept it alive. As long as he lived, I couldn’t die,” Harry explained.

”So he was like a Horcrux too, in a way,” Hermione said, looking down at Voldemort’s body.

Harry nodded.

”Snape gave me a Port Key and said to use it if anything went wrong. Voldemort was gone when I woke up, so I used it. Then I heard you all fighting and came. Why is it all icy in here?” he asked the witch.

”We had an early frost,” Snape snarked, picking up Voldemort’s body, slinging it over his shoulder and disapparating.

Harry’s eyes bugged out.

”Where’d he go?” he asked Hermione.

”I think to the Ministry. That’s where the Order members are waiting. Come on, before he takes all the credit,” Hermione said, grabbing Harry’s arm and disapparating.

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A/N: Again I've utilized dialogue from DH, paraphrasing it. Thanks for reading.

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