Severus stood before the one he'd once called master. It seemed so long ago now that a troubled school boy had gone down that dark path, aligning himself with those who saw even him as inferior, simply for the chance of power, of being strong enough as to at last be untouchable for those who would torment him. "...my lord, their resistance is crumbling—" The man drawled. Nearly over now, you're nearly finished, he assured himself behind his mental barriers.

"—and it is doing so without your help," said Voldemort in his high, clear voice. "Skilled wizard though you are, Severus, I do not think you will make much difference now. We are almost there...almost."

"Let me find the boy. Let me bring you Potter. I know I can find him, my Lord. Please."

"I have a problem, Severus," Voldemort said softly as he stood, red eyes locked on his follower.

"My Lord?" Said Snape.

Voldemort raised the elder wand, holding it as delicately and precisely as a conductor's baton. "Why doesn't it work for me, Severus?"

"My—my Lord?" Said Snape blankly. "I do not understand. You— you have performed extraordinary magic with that wand."

"No," said Voldemort. "I have performed my usual magic. I am extraordinary, but this wand...no. It has not revealed the wonders it has promised. I feel no difference between this wand and the one I procured from Ollivander all those years ago. No difference," he repeated musingly.

Snape did not speak. He was not a fool. Trapped between two very powerful men the majority of his life he knew when he was treading across thin ice and this, this was the thinnest he imagined he'd ever attempted crossing.

Voldemort began prowling about the room as he spoke in the same measured tone. "I have thought long and hard, Severus...do you know why I have called you back from the battle?"

Snape's eyes were fixed on the snake coiling in its enchanted cage. "No, my Lord, but I beg you will let me return. Let me find Potter."

"You sound like Lucius. Neither of you understands Potter as I do. He does not need finding. Potter will come to me. I know his weakness, you see, his one great flaw. He will hate watching the others struck down around him, knowing that it is for him that it happens. He will want to stop it at any cost. He will come."

Snape has no doubt the man was correct. "But my Lord, he might be killed accidentally by one other than yourself—"

"My instructions to my death eaters have been perfectly clear. Capture Potter. Kill his friends—the more, the better—but do not kill him. But it is of you that I wish to speak, Severus, not Harry Potter. You have been very valuable to me. Very valuable."

"My Lord knows I seek only to serve him. But—let me go and find the boy, my Lord let me bring him to you. I know I can—-"

"I have told you no!" Said Voldemort, his red eyes glinting impatiently. "My concern at the moment, Severus, is what will happen when I finally meet the boy!"

The pair continued on in this way, Snape knowing full well this would not end well for him and desperately attempting to convince the man before him to allow him to find Potter. He had no interest in actually bringing him to the dark lord but there were facts the boy needed to be aware of, he couldn't die yet, not without telling him. His task had not yet been completed.

"The elder wand cannot serve me properly, Severus, because I am not it's true master. The elder wand belongs to the wizard who killed its last owner. You killed Albus Dumbledore. While you live, Severus, the elder wand cannot truly be mine."

"My Lord!" Snape protested, raising his wand.

"It cannot be any other way," Said Voldemort. "I must master the wand, Severus. Master the wand, and I master Potter at last." Voldemort swiped the air with the elder wand. It did nothing to Snape, who for a split second seemed to think he had been reprieved: but then Voldemort's intention became clear. The snakes cage was rolling through the air, and before Snape could do anything more than yell, it had encased him, head and shoulders, and Voldemort hissed in Parseltongue. "Kill."

There was a terrible scream. Snape's black eyes widened even as his face lost the little color it possessed and the snake's fangs pierced his neck, as he struggled and failed to push the enchanted cage off himself. Severus' knees gave way and he fell to the floor.

"I regret it," Said Voldemort coldly and turned away. There was no sadness in him, no remorse. He pointed the wand, convinced it would now do his bidding, toward the starry cage holding the snake, which drifted upward, off Snape, and swept from the room.

The potions master fell sideways onto the floor, blood gushing from the wound in his neck.

Harry told himself it was for Caelen, that it was his sister's affection for the man that caused him to move across the room toward the man he hated. Snape seized the front of his robes, as Harry bent over him, and pulled him closer.

"Take...it...take...it..." He rasped, a terrible gurgling sound issuing from Snape's throat.

Something more than blood was issuing from Snape, his eyes, ears, and lips. Harry knew what it was, but did not know what to do—

It was Hermione who responded, unsurprisingly. A flask was conjured from thin air and thrust into his shaking hands. Harry lifted the silvery substance into it with his wand. When the flash was full to the brim, and Snape looked as though there was no blood let in him, his grip on Harry's robes slackened.

"Look...at...me..." he whispered.

Green eyes found black, but in a moment the black seemed to lose something, the spark of life fading from them leaving them fixed and empty. The hand holding Harry thudded to the floor and Snape moved no more.

It was a mere moment, long enough for the trio to escape once more into the tunnel, before a glowing began along the collar of the man's robes. The silvery stone he still wore around his neck, a gift from the little girl who refused to give up on him, seemed to melt like mercury, leaking into his wounds and across his body until he was covered, a glistening silver corpse. The mercury glow grew in intensity until it was a blinding light, escaping through the cracks and boards of the shack, and with a flash matching the intensity from the brightest lightning Severus gasped and jerked upward.

His hands scrambled for the stone, finding nothing more than the simple black chain and empty casing where the stone had hung, "Caelen," he breathed with a small, overwhelmed burst of laughter.

_____

Caelen stood still as a statue, perhaps in this case ice sculpture would be more appropriate. Her skin was grey, a fine layer of frost patterned her cheeks and ice crystals hung from lowered lashes. Some part of Sirius noticed the strong magical markings, hovering around her at eye level, much like dust in the rays of afternoon sunshine.

He took a deep shaking breath and ran a trembling hand over his face. His goddaughter, crystalline tears glistening frozen on her cheeks, had followed her father into death. He breathed a prayer to whatever deity might be watching to bring her back to him, at least her. He daren't hope she'd succeed. He knew he couldn't follow her, opening the gateway to the river of death attracted attention, the wrong sort. He couldn't chance it, not with Caelen in there. One misstep and he'd lose her as well as everyone else.

Sirius crawled forward beside Remus and Tonks and bit his lip against a heartbroken sob as he brushed his fingertips over the man's closed lids. "Damnit Remmy you promised you'd be careful," he sobbed. "You're too clever for this, you can't do this to me...Rem...I," his voice cracked and he buried his face in his palms, "I love you."

___

Caelen breathed in a shallow puff of air as she opened her eyes in death. The iciness bit into her trachea and she coughed, peering into the darkness. A flash of something bobbing toward the second gate caught her eye and the girl lurched forward, the attempt nearly sending her into the swirling black waters. Her father's voice sounded in her head as if he were hovering at her shoulder, "the river wants to drag you under, it wants to drag you down to the ninth gate beyond help," she murmured the echo of her father's lesson. "Once a soul is beyond the first gate it's tether to the natural world will snap and they'll be lost."

With another fortifying breath she tentatively stepped forward, dragging her feet along the river bottom as she searched out the pitfalls she'd been warned about. Caelen was as cautious as she could bare to be, eyes locked onto the bobbing forms of her parents as she moved forward. With a final quick step forward she latched onto the pair of them.

Remus blinked up at his little girl, were he still in his physical body he'd have cried at the heartache written clearly across her face.

"You guys can't leave me," She sniffles and tried to tug them back the way she'd come. The river had other ideas and her feet skidded closer toward the second gate.

"Oh baby," it was Tonks who spoke first, her voice filled with worry and regret.

Caelen's feet slipped again and she pitched forward, only just managing to catch herself. The roar of the second gate was near deafening and a flash of fear arched through the girl's brown eyes. "Daddy, m-Mama," She stuttered the second term. Till this point she'd not called Tonks anything, the honorific a thing of fear like the name of a nightmare rather than the title it was meant to have been, now it was a little girl's cry of fear and helplessness. "I can't, I can't," she sobbed, fighting valiantly to pull the both of them back.

The woman breathed a small bittersweet laugh over the endearment. "Take care of them Remus," Tonks whispered. He glanced toward his wife in obvious confusion as she reached up to cup the little girl's cheek. "It's ok baby, it's alright. You've been so brave, coming after us like this."

"Tonks no," Remus gasped, horrible understanding dawning on his face.

"It's ok Remus," she took a calming breath. "You are, the most amazing father, look after our babies, your babies."

She shook away his protests and kissed him gently, "don't be guilty, I'm not so clueless as you'd think. Thank you for loving me, all that you could." With that the woman kissed her daughter's knuckles and wrenched her hand away, nearly instantly falling past the gate.

Caelen was sobbing nearly before she'd lurched through the gate and into her body once more. She collapsed to her knees at the same moment as Remus arched upward with a gasp. "Daddy I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I tried," the girl hiccuped.

Remus pulled her wordlessly into his chest and cradled her against him, "I've got you," was the other thing he could think to manage.

Sirius barely restrained himself from launching into them, "Merlin when this is over I'm going to beat your arse," he breathed eventually and glanced expectantly toward his cousin's still form.

Remus gave an imperceptible shake of his head. "Why's it so quiet?" He asked.

"He who should've been strangled ages ago was taunting," Sirius responded and wrapped himself around the pair for a quick hug. "Come on you bastard let's join the others, I collect...I'll be behind you."

Remus nodded and stood, cradling his daughter against him as they slowly made their way toward the great hall.

Mrs Weasley gave a startled yelp as they entered and rushed toward the group, her family not far behind. "Why on earth?!" She began fussing over the girl anxiously. "You're cold as death," she tisked.

Caelen hiccuped a choked laugh and began sobbing into her father's shoulder once more.

"Oh not Tonks, Remus I'm so sorry," mr Weasley was the first to notice Sirius arranging the woman carefully along the line of the dead.

Remus nodded shakily, "where's Harry? What's happened?"

"No ones seen him Professor," Luna provided, appearing nearby. Something had grazed her temple and there was a layer of dried blood smeared along her hairline. "Voldemort demanded he give himself up."

"You don't think?"

Sirius cursed loudly and marched toward the door.

"Harry Potter is dead!"

The rest of the resistance streamed out behind Black, staring in horror at the sight before them. Hagrid, big gentle Hagrid, carried a limp harry in his arms, sobbing noisily as he was led toward the castle.

Remus held his daughter tightly and tried to turn her face into him, away from the sight. She whimpered, too heartbroken to do more than continue her soft sobs into his neck.

"Harry Potter is dead. He was killed as he ran away, trying to save himself while you lay down your lives for him. We bring you his body as proof. Your hero is gone," Voldemort taunted to the raucous laughter of many of his most faithful followers.

Remus was glad Caelen didn't see the next events. In a matter of moments the fighting began again, Grawp storming forward with cries of "HAGGER!" And above the den of war and the shouts of the giant runt Hagrid's frantic voice rang, "HARRY—WHERE'S HARRY?"

Chaos reigned throughout the Once peaceful school as the fighters were forced back into the great hall. Remus found himself shoulder to shoulder with his best friend, both men desperate to protect the little girl clinging to her father's neck.

Silence fell abruptly and completely as Harry and Voldemort began circling each other in the center of the great hall.

"I don't want anyone to help," Harry said loudly, his voice echoed around the hall in the silence like a trumpet's call. "It's got to be like this. It's got to be me."

"Potter doesn't mean that," he said, his red eyes wide. "That isn't how he works, is it? Who are you going to use as a shield today, Potter?"

"Nobody," Said harry simply. "There are no more horcruxes. It's just you and me. Neither can live while the other survives, and one of us is about to leave for good..."

"One of us?" Jeered Voldemort, and his whole body was taut and his red eyes stared, a snake about to strike. "You think it will be you, do you, the boy who has survived by accident, and because Dumbledore was pulling the strings?"

Caelen sniffled and drew her face from her father's shoulder as the pair circled one another, Harry explaining the concept Voldemort could never comprehend, love. The love lily had for him, the love he had for his friends, and the love Snape had carried for his mother.

The man in question slowly slipped into the room, whole and healthy but weakened by his brush with death. The crowd nearest him would've murmured were they not all staring in rapt attention at the pair before them.

Caelen's eyes met his across the room, a mixture of relief and sorrow glistening in their warm, brown deaths. He looped his finger through the black chain at his neck and pulled it forward, a silent thanks for the protection the little girl had unwittingly provided him. The gift a child's simple, pure hope in protecting those she loved. For the first time in his life he felt he could truly accept such a gift.

As the first glow of the morning sun burst across the enchanted sky above them the light hit both Harry and Voldemort's faces, the latter's suddenly a flaming blur. Harry heard the high voice shriek as he too yelled his best hope to the heavens, pointing Draco's wand:
"Avada kedavra!"

"Expelliarmus!"

The bang was like a cannon blast, and the golden flames that erupted between them, at the dead center of the circle they had been treading, marked the point where he spells collided. Harry saw Voldemort's green jet meet his own spell, saw the elder wand fly high, dark against the sunrise, spinning across the enchanted ceiling like the head of Naginin had earlier, spinning through the air toward the master it would not kill, who had come to take full possession of it at last. And Harry, with the unerring skill of the seeker, caught the wand in his free hand as Voldemort fell backward, arms splayed, the slit pupils of the scarlet eyes rolling upward. Tom riddle hit the floor with mundane finality, his body feeble and shrunken, the white hands empty and snakelike face vacant and unknowing. Voldemort was dead, killed by his own rebounding curse, and Harry stood with two wands in his hands, starring at the shell of his enemy.

_______________________

Holy gum drops people I've done it!!! There's going to be at least an epilogue perhaps a couple more chapters but that is my tale!! I'm honestly so proud I could cry! I started this in October of 2015 and I honestly didn't plan to write past POA at the time but I'm so so glad I did. I'm honestly so proud of this and so grateful for all the love and comments from all of you readers and the encouragement, thoughts, and listening ear my hotrod All_Our_Sins provided me. I honestly cannot believe we're here at last. Thank you all so so much!

Oh and I do hope this makes up for the last chapter and this chapter's picture 😄😘