[SSHP] End of life

Harry woke up.He was still very sleepy in the warm feather mattress, but he couldn't remember how he fell asleep.It was very dark in the ward, the lights had been turned off, and the only light came from the windows.Someone took off his glasses, his vision blurred, and he knew he was alone.A voice came from far and near, and he touched his glasses by the pillow and put them on.

The door was pushed open violently, and the curtain was blown by the wind.The lowered voice sounded angrily: "Minister, I told you that Albus is not here, this is the ward! If you say any more, Harry will be woken up by you!"

There was a sound of footsteps, "Behind the curtain - Severus, don't stop - what is this!"

Harry heard Sirius' angry growl at the foot of his bed.Fudge's voice stopped at the edge of his curtains, and after the growl, Fudge's voice faded away.

He breathed a sigh of relief.Snape hadn't returned to Voldemort's side.

"What happened?" Dumbledore's voice sounded, and he walked into the room, "Minerva? I asked you to watch over Barty Crouch Jr..."

"It's not necessary, Dumbledore." McGonagall's voice was trembling with anger, "The minister made sure of this!"

"We told Mr. Fudge that we found out that the Death Eaters were responsible for tonight's incident." Snape whispered, his voice was closer than Fudge, obviously he stood outside the curtain and blocked Fudge just now with Sirius, "He seemed to feel that his personal safety was also a problem, and he must find a dementor to accompany him into the castle. He brought the dementor into the office where Barty Crouch Jr. was—"

Harry looked intently at the curtain, through which he could see tall, dark figures indistinctly.Madam Pomfrey is here.They argue in hushed tones outside the curtain, and Dumbledore again mentions asking Fudge to banish the dementors and send a message to the giant, and Fudge still insists that Dumbledore is mad.

A black shadow swayed. "See?" Snape said hoarsely. "The Dark Mark. It's not as obvious as it was an hour ago, when it was charred black, but you can still see it. Every Death Eater They are all branded by Voldemort. This is a way for the Death Eaters to identify each other, and it is also a signal for Voldemort to call them back to him. When he touches the mark of a Death Eater, we must Apparate immediately, Appeared beside him. The mark has been more and more obvious for a year. Karkaroff's is the same. Why do you think Karkaroff ran away tonight? We both feel the mark burning. We both know he is back Yes. Karkaroff was afraid Voldemort would retaliate against him. He betrayed many of his fellow Death Eaters, and surely no one would welcome him back among them."

Harry gripped his thin comforter tightly.Snape said "Voldemort".He thought he would never say the word, never call his name—but he did.

He felt like he was reacquainting with Snape.But Fudge was still as stupid as ever.The Minister for Magic stormed off, slamming the door shut.For a moment, none of the people left spoke.

"Minerva," said Dumbledore after a moment, "I want to see Hagrid and Madame Maxime in my office as soon as possible - if she wants to come. Poppy, please go and find Molly, I want She is willing to wait for me outside the principal's office for a while..."

No one responded, only silent shadows swayed.The door opened and closed again.

Dumbledore didn't speak again until the footsteps faded away.

"Now," he said, "the two of us can know each other for who we are. Sirius...can you go back to your normal self?"

There is no sound.Harry looked at the foot of his bed. The dim light from the window cast a black shadow that stretched from the foot of his bed until it was the height of a man.

Snape said nothing.

"I invited him, Severus," said Dumbledore, and Harry could hear the weariness in his steady tone. "And you too, Sirius. I trust you both. Now you should Let go of old differences and trust each other."

Still no one spoke.The two shadows stood where they were, without any intention of moving.

"In the short term," said Dumbledore, with a hint of impatience in his tone, "I will be content as long as you are not openly hostile to each other. You may as well shake hands. You are now on the same side. Time is short and we are a minority." The few who know the truth must unite, or there is no hope for us all."

The two shadows moved.Sirius and Snape came forward very slowly, shook hands, and let go quickly.One returned to the foot of the bed as if it had never moved, and when the other put down his hand, there was a gust of wind, and the white curtains swayed.Harry quickly closed his eyes.

"That's about it," said Dumbledore, without anyone noticing that Harry had woken up. "Now you both have missions. Fudge's attitude, although we expected it, changed the whole situation. Sirius, I I need you to leave immediately. You go and inform Remus Lupine, Arabella Figg, Mundungus Fletcher—those old men. You are temporarily hiding at Lupin's place, and I will go there Contacting you. Severus, you know what I'm going to tell you. If you're okay...if you're ready..."

"No problem," Snape said.

"Good luck, then," said Dumbledore a second later.

"Do not--"

The sound of turning the doorknob stopped.The heart-piercing, miserable voice didn't seem to come from Harry himself. He saw Dumbledore lift the curtain, with a look of surprise on his face, and Sirius turned back into the big black dog, with one paw on the doorknob, looking back To see him.Snape stood by the curtain, his face paler than usual, his familiar black eyes hollow like tunnels.

He's using Occlumency.

"Nooooooooo!" Harry screamed, struggling.It wasn't until he really wanted to use his body that he felt his whole body was stiff and weak, even his tongue didn't seem to be his own.The moment he saw Snape's black eyes, he was transported back to that last cold night, watching Snape die slowly before his eyes.His brain seemed to explode. He saw Voldemort standing on the grass, saying coldly that traitors who left him would be executed. He saw Voldemort wave his wand and direct the cage containing the snake to wrap around Snape's shoulders.

He shook his head frantically, trying to move his body as best he could.He rolled toward the edge of the bed, off the mattress and fell to the floor, his glasses flying out and sliding under the bed in front of him.His eyes felt a burning sting, and his soul was trembling, as if he was repeating the process of going through that moment of warmth turning into coldness, and the trembling was uncontrollable.Snape's trousers were in front of him, and he grabbed them with a stiff hand and held them tightly.

The black boot moved slightly in front of him, as if considering whether to kick him away.He clutched his pant leg and moved desperately, wrapped his arms around the foot, and pressed his face to the boot without dignity. "No, don't—" he said, his voice full of fear so strong that it was foreign to him.

"Harry...?" Dumbledore asked suspiciously.Sirius bared his teeth viciously at Snape.

"He was sleepy and mistook the person." Snape said coldly, lifting Harry up with one hand. "Poppy's dreamless potion is still here, obviously he didn't finish it."

He said, threw Harry on the bed, picked up the goblet with one hand, clamped Harry's jaw with the other hand to force him to open his mouth, and poured the potion into his mouth.Harry choked and coughed, purple liquid sprayed from his nose, but desperately he reached out and grabbed Snape's hand.Snape shook him off and retreated behind the curtain with a look of disgust on his face.Sirius ran over and took human form in front of Harry.

"You'll see me again soon, Harry, I promise." A large warm hand took his hand, and the same warm touch of another hand remained on his chin, and Dumbledore stood by the bed looking at him.

not like this.He wants to say.Don't go, don't let Snape go back to Voldemort, he'll die—

But he couldn't say anything.He felt as if his body was sinking deeper and deeper into the warm feather mattress, he couldn't open his mouth, exhausted, and soon fell into a dreamless sleep.

******

The next morning, Harry woke up in a state of blank mind, momentarily unable to remember where he was.His scar throbbed, but there was only a dull discomfort, and he decided it must have hurt badly last night.

Voldemort's scar only hurt when he was lurking nearby or when he felt a urge to kill.The closer you get to Voldemort, the angrier Voldemort gets, and the worse the scar hurts.Its pain seldom extended into the next day, and it seemed Voldemort had been very angry that past night.He should have seen it all, but the dreamless potion ruined it all.

He covered his face in agony at not being able to prevent Snape from returning to Voldemort last night.Voldemort wanted to kill the traitor, and after he wounded Voldemort, Voldemort was even angrier, and Snape might have gotten a very painful death.Ron and Hermione, by his side, both had a slightly wince look on their faces when they found him awake.

"Ron, please open my box and get me the Marauder's Map." Harry said hoarsely, trying to suppress his urge to cry.

Snape was dead.The dire possibility made his head and throat sink into his stomach, and before Ron could get the map back, he sank limply on the pillow, all kinds of desperate thoughts running through his head, not wanting to say a word.

Returning with Ron was Dumbledore. "Are you all right, Harry?" he said wearily, sitting on the edge of Harry's bed.

For a split second, Harry felt deeply guilty for not telling the old man everything.At the same time, he felt more intense anger, because Dumbledore sent Snape to Voldemort again with his own hands.He wanted to open the map, but he didn't in the end and just shook his head.

It was a week before the holidays, and Ron and Hermione had one last subject to test.They left the hospital wing, the room was quiet, the curtains around the bed were drawn, the windows were open, and the warm wind lifted the curtains.

"I dreamed that Voldemort was back," said Harry finally, slowly and clearly.He thought he was going to cry, and go crazy over Snape's death, that he could still pretend as if the frustration and pain didn't exist.He stared blankly at the sky, feeling himself standing on the edge of the fish tank again, looking at the shrinking landscape.Those howling rainstorms and strong winds become extremely small and unreal because they are on the far shore, as if there is a vast, silent ocean between them.

"It wasn't a dream, kid," said Dumbledore kindly, putting a bag of gold coins on Harry's bedside table, "Karkaroff was found dead in Hogsmeade this morning, but in the end Judging you for victory. How did you know the trophy was a conspiracy?"

"My scar hurts, Professor," said Harry.He numbly continued to say what he should say, "Last time you told me...maybe those dreams are real, but I can't figure out how to hold a wand without a body. Since then, I always Dreaming, exhausted... He was talking to Wormtail about using the Triwizard Tournament to revive... Those dreams were fantasy, yet so real. I just wanted to see if my scars really connected us ...if he is really waiting for me in that cemetery, then our connection is real..."

"But you've put yourself in danger by what you've done," said Dumbledore gravely.

"But I dreamed that I was him. Sometimes I was the snake. I followed his orders, and it made me sick. Sometimes I got angry for no reason, and sometimes I saw him move. A lot of times— I feel like I'm not me anymore."

Dumbledore looked at him thoughtfully.Harry curled up on the bed, hugging the pillows, staring out the window with empty eyes.He just hoped that Dumbledore would leave quickly, give him some time, and let him accept the tragic reality alone.It was a foregone conclusion, he had to get up...but he couldn't get up without letting him find himself.The sun outside was so bright, but he felt that even his bones were going to freeze.

"Harry, you've taken on the mantle of being a grown-up wizard, and we've found you to be up to the task. You've made us expect more of you - so what you've learned now will be important to your future." It’s far from enough.” After a while, Dumbledore said, “This summer, I will ask Severus to teach you some necessary abilities, but before that, you all need have a good rest."

Severus - thought Harry.This familiar name made his chest twist, and he seemed to return to his body in an instant, and the pain and heaviness returned.Does he need a good rest?He is still alive.He buried his face in the pillow, and it took him a while before he finally dared to confirm that everything was true.

"Do I still need to go back to the Dursleys' house?" Harry asked in a low voice after a long time.

"You need to stay there for another two weeks." Dumbledore said, his voice contained no refusal. "In two weeks, I will send Severus to pick you up."

The author has something to say: Note, this is the same as the previous chapter.Translation problem, in the original book, what SS said was not Voldemort, but the Dark Lord.

This chapter...is it sweet?laugh.I think it's very sweet, hahahahaha.If you don’t think it’s sweet, I’m not lying, the standard is different~ To keep the sweetness, I’ll make a double change later today~