FicWad

Chapter 6: Battle's End and Aftermath

Just a heads up for FicWad readers, the rating in this story will probably move to the NC-17 range over the next couple of chapters, if you don't want to read all the lemony stuff there will be an "M" version over at fanfiction dot net. Oh, and BTW, I did a slight re-write on chapters four and five, you may want to skim over those before reading this one, and if you get a chance, please rate and review. Thanks, now back to the story . . .

Harry Potter was down on the cold stone deck of the rampart cradling Hermione's unresponsive head against his chest rocking back and forth. With tear filled eyes he looked at Voldemort and simply said, "Kill me."

Voldemort smiled and raised his wand "I said you would beg me for death; and I, being a merciful lord . . ."

Hermione moaned "no."

Harry froze.

He dared hope for a miracle.

"Hermione?" he murmured.

She whispered, "On three hit him with a flame hex, ready . . . one, two, three!"

On 'three' they rolled away from each other; she made a slashing movement with her wand and screamed "diffindo!" as Harry shouted "inflamare!"

Voldemort's extended arm dropped to the ground, his fingers curling around his wand just before he burst into flame.

Screaming he ran toward Harry and Hermione but was stopped by a physical shield courtesy of Dobby.

"Harry Potter," the elf said, "he is healing far too quickly, we are just making him angry!"

To prove the point the flames winked out and Voldemort's blackened skin began to flake off revealing the unscarred parchment white skin beneath.

"He has Lady Ravenclaw's healing jewel somewhere on his person" a calm voice said from just behind Harry. He spared a glance and saw the ghost of the Grey Lady.

Hermione asked, "how do you know this, milady?"

"Because child, Lady Grey is my married name, I was born Rowena Ravenclaw."

Harry put as much power as he could into the simple accio spell to retrieve the stone from Voldemort's possession. He was fully prepared to hear tearing cloth or leather, from whatever was holding the jewel; he did not expect to hear the dork lard screaming in unholy agony as the stone ripped through the skin just below his ribcage. The gem, a fist sized blue sapphire, landed wetly in Harry's outstretched hand.

Voldemort shrieked as he fell to the stone floor, curled into a fetal ball and pressed both his hands on the exit wound made from the summoned stone, but without the healing power of the jewel he could barely staunch the flow.

Harry saw Hermione, bewildered and disheveled and thought she had never looked as beautiful as she did at that moment. He looked at his own tattered robes, at the wand in his right hand and the jewel in his left.

The jewel, Rowena Ravenclaw's healing stone.

The final horcrux.

In his hand.

The Dork Lard had sacrificed his familiar to give himself an edge in battle and a simple accio had deprived him of even that.

Something spoke in the back of his mind "you will have a power that he knows not."

And Harry finally understood. He hadn't really planned to survive the day, but he was determined to take Riddle with him. Harry loved his friends, his Hogwart's family - the only real family he'd ever known, more than his own life. Bottom line, while Harry wasn't afraid to die, especially if it meant his loved ones would be able to live in a Voldemort-free world, Voldemort feared death above all other fates - he had endured pain and loss and the rending of his soul just so that he wouldn't have to die. But he didn't love. He didn't love life, he didn't love anyone, point in fact; he didn't even love himself. Fear and loathing were all he had; he was a living (if you can call it that) construction of nihilistic malevolence, it was all he was.

He could feel the malevolence radiating from the stone, Harry's first thought was to smash the jewel against the granite battlements but he was stopped by Lady Ravenclaw Grey.

"You still have the connection to Voldemort, use it."

"I don't understand, milady."

"The gemstone will do your bidding, Harry" Hermione explained.

"It can't be that simple."

"Then it can't hurt to try."

"Finite!"

The evil drained from the stone like dark oil from a broken vessel. Harry shook the sapphire to make sure all of Riddle's essence emptied out, and then placed it into his pocket.

"So the basilisk's tooth, Dumbledore's ruined arm, the poison filled basin?"

The phantom lady sighed, "All unnecessary I fear; all that was needed was for Voldemort, or some piece of him, to want to end the spell."

The maimed dark lord rasped, "You may think you've won, Potter, but I'm not finished yet!"

The dark lord rolled onto his knees, still bent in pain, screwed his eyes shut and began to chant.

Harry felt an odd pressure on his forehead, as if something were trying to flow out of his scar, but was being held in by the skin of his brow, he reached up and felt a lump, like a blister forming there.

In the hospital wing Ginevra Weasley shrieked as the same black bile that had drained from Rowena's stone began to bleed from her eyes, ears and nose. A healer's assistant quickly contained the black bile and worked to clear the young girl's airway of the residue before she could choke on it.

"Better for her if I'd just let her asphyxiate," the young apprentice healer thought "all she's got to look forward to is a lifetime in Azkaban."

Back on the wall the skin behind Harry's scar burst releasing the pressure in a spurt of black ichorous fluids.

Through the searing pain he heard the lady ghost cry "Stop him!" Her urgency, the near panic in her eyes made Harry act immediately.

"Reducto!"

The explosive curse impacted Voldemort blasting him to the wall where the deck of the parapet joined the vertical stones. The result looked less like a dark lord and more like an unnaturally flattened road kill.

The chanting ceased.

Voldemort ceased.

The death eaters in the courtyard fell to the ground and writhed in agony, clutching their left forearms.

The few remaining dementors hovered in the shadows, waiting for someone to tell them what to do.

Dobby stood before Harry and said, "It is finished."

The remaining elves all popped onto the high wall along with Harry and Hermione.

A very old elf with a beard that nearly drug the ground stood before the two humans and with great reverence and dignity intoned, "The debt is paid."

The elves began to change before their eyes, large bulbous eyes shrank, and ears began to conform to a more, if not human, then anthropomorphic shape. Indeed many of the elves began to resemble well formed, normally proportioned humans, albeit very short humans.

Dobby had golden blond hair in tight curls around his pointed ears, matte skin and well formed limbs. He snapped his fingers and charcoal grey cotton breeches and polished black boots appeared below his jumper, another snap and the pullover was transfigured into a white linen shirt topped of with a smart forest green vest. The other elves followed suit transfiguring their Hogwart's tea-towels into smart, stylish clothing.

"Harry Potter"

Harry looked around and saw the source of the melodious voice was that of the elder elf, looking for all the world like a miniature version of Albus Dumbledore, complete with elf-sized wizard's robes.

"I am Sage" the old elf said, and bowed.

Harry returned the bow and asked "what is happening here?"

"We are reverting to our true forms; re-becoming the people we were before the enslavement deformed us."

"How can a curse affect an entire race?"

"Two and a half millennia ago we elves were as you see us now, we co-existed with the major magical societies of the day, the Druids of Eyre, the Eastern Mystics as far east as Cathay, and all around the Mediterranean sea, including the Greeks, Egyptians, Assyrians, and Babylonians. But we saw the growing number of human mages as a threat to our existence. Indeed the first acts of aggression in the Human-Elf War were visited upon elves by their human neighbors, something or other about crystals. We felt we had no choice but to take up arms against the wizards and witches of the day. We used our elfin magic to move unseen among the enemy killing many thousands in the first few days of the war; indeed, it looked as though the age of human magic was about to end before it truly began.

Then a confederation of powerful human mages cast a geas upon all the elves, forcing us into perpetual servitude, rendering us incapable of using our magic against a wizard or witch unless that wizard or witch was a danger to one we were sworn to protect."

"That is how I was able to attack the older Malfoy all those years ago" Dobby explained, his natural voice a pleasing tenor, "and how I was able to attack Voldemort today."

Sage continued, "We were forced to serve in this manner until the day that we could redeem ourselves by saving the world of magical men, we had to be commanded by a powerful light wizard to overcome a darkness that would threaten to cover the world. When you commanded us to attack the dark creatures you gave us the keys to our freedom. We are forever in your debt."

With that all the assembled elves knelt and bowed their heads to Harry.

"Um, Sage, Dobby, everyone, please get up."

"As you command Harry Potter."

"Is this change happening all over the world or just here at Hogwarts?"

"It is a universal change, Harry Potter, just as a few elves were responsible for our twenty five centuries of enslavement, only a few elves were needed to affect our delivery from bondage."

"Sage, Dobby, can you and the other Hogwart's elves help us clear away this mess? I understand you are free now and no longer bound to serve us, but I for one would be grateful for any help, and I need to see a healer about this leg."

Lady Ravenclaw Grey asked "have you looked at your injuries?"

Harry felt for the cuts on his face from the shattered stone and found none, he released the magical splint from his leg and gingerly placed his weight on the leg that had been shattered not an hour before. It held his weight perfectly.

"The healing stone" Hermione explained.

"Sometimes I love magic!" Harry exclaimed, then he and Hermione looked at their other best friend, who lay still on the stone parapet and they simultaneously murmured "Ron" hoping against all hope that the miracle would extend to the youngest male Weasley. He drew the stone from hi pocket; knelt down and placed it on Ron's chest and prayed.

After a few moments he called softly "Ron?"

The tall redhead stared blankly into space, breathing in and out, but that was all. Sadly Harry stood and said "I'm so sorry mate, so sorry . . ."

Hermione spun around and hugged Harry tightly, her face against his chest "he's gone" she sobbed.

Harry began to assess the damage: the Creeveys, another Weasley being mourned by the Patil twins and either Fred or George, Lavender, and the Hufflepuff defenders. Oddly enough, most of the casualties in the courtyard were actually death eaters who had been set upon by the dementors when they fell from the ramparts or were taken down by spellfire.

He walked over to the parapet where he saw that it was George laying on the ground, a vacant expression on his face. Parvati and Padma were both clutching the front of his robes, sobbing inconsolably.

'Merlin help me; what am I going to tell Molly and Arthur? Ginny will probably be in Azkaban for the rest of her life, Ron's been dementor-kissed and George had been struck by one of Riddle's last killing curses.

"He was going to ask one of us to marry him" Parvati said, stroking his red hair.

"I know he wasn't serious" Padma sobbed, "but I would have said yes in a heartbeat!"

"Set. The. Date. Then . . ."

The Indian girls both gasped, "George?"

"Owie?" he seemed to ask.

Fred was beside himself with relief, "that was an AK bro! I saw the green curse hit you! You should be with the bleedin' choir invisible!"

"Dunno, m'be he waz weak?"

Padma was startled by her own realization, "the patronus; it had to pass through a patronus to get to George, your patronus must have absorbed the worst of the killing curse!"

"S'plains why I'm just slightly dead" George said through gritted teeth.

"So that makes you only the second person in history to have survived a killing curse; wicked!" Fred enthused.

Harry was heartened by the news, another Weasley would be going home tonight; that would ameliorate some of Molly's grief.

What of Ginny?

What of /Draco/? As much as Harry wanted to see the ferret locked up forever, he had passed the information from Snape that had saved the day. If not for him, Voldemort would have won. He had raped Ginny, countless times to hear her tell it. Wizard custom gave rapists to the family of the victim; it would be for the Weasleys to decide.

He was utterly at a loss as to how to deal with Ginny. Was it his fault that she had been taken, in every sense of the word, by death eaters? He had sent her along with friends and family to Grimauld Place because he knew she would be safe there. It had been his decision, made in good faith.

Why did that sound familiar?

He had endured ten years of hell living with the Dursleys because Dumbledore was sure he'd be safe there. Dumbledore just assumed family would treat their orphaned nephew like, well /family/. He hadn't checked up on little Harry once in that ten-year period.

How often had Harry actually gone to Grimauld Place to check on his guests? Like Dumbledore before him Harry had made a serious mistake in judgment and Ginny was now paying for it.

It really sucked to be him sometimes.

He looked up from his musings and saw the courtyard was clear of bodies; the injured were still being ferried to the hospital wing two at a time. Sage was directing the cleanup efforts from the parapets. Harry joined the ancient elf on the battlements.

"Now that you're all free, will you be staying with your human families?"

"No Harry Potter, our enslavement was a curse and far too many of us have had very unpleasant captivities. It's best that we just go away."

"What will you do now; where will you all go?"

Sage smiled "We shall build ships and sail into the sunset. When we reach the point where the sun meets the sea we will be in the western lands, the enchanted domain where only elves may dwell, indeed, it is the place from which the first elves ventured forth to discover the human world."

"Um, Sage; you'll never reach the point where 'the sun meets the sea,' the sun is like a hundred and fifty million kilometers away from us off in space."

Sage smiled again, "as with so many things magical the place of which we speak is metaphorical, we will be drawn to a certain part of the ocean where we will be transported to the world of our origins."

The old elf looked pensive for a moment, "of course, some humans have been known to find the portal; I believe it is sometimes known as the 'Bermuda Triangle.'"

Back in the great hall a general feeling of optimism began to permeate the air; the dementor effect seemed to be dissipating. So it was quite a shock to see a lone dementor hovering just outside the main doors.

"Now, everyone!" cried Amanda Stevens, "lumos!"

Two dozen powerful narrow beams of light struck the dementor, which screeched in pain before flying down the hall then out an open window to disappear into the darkness.

Neville was taken completely by surprise, both by the appearance of the single dementor, and by the quick action of the first years.

"Well done! Well done all of you he said to the assembled first years. I'm going to see to it that you all get special awards for services to the school!"

"Was Mandy whot done it" said a small sandy haired boy.

"Twas' the Professor here whot taught me!" Amanda countered, looking at Neville with adoring eyes.

"I'm not a professor; I'm just Neville, Neville Longbottom"

"You'll always be the Professor ta' me, Neville."

Neville smiled and thought about a group of first years going up against an unspeakable evil, and remembered some of the stories about Harry and Hermione and Ron in their first year. He opened his arms and little Amanda ran to hug him around his middle. As he hugged her back he considered the events of the day, the deaths, the worse than deaths, the endings of some friendships and the beginnings of others.

He thought about the odd behavior of the lone dementor hovering just outside the entrance to the great hall.

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Author's note: think that about wraps up this story? Guess again, remember the title? Expect a surprise or two in the next chapter. N!