Neville held his breath as he heard the first blows on the mighty oak door that was the entrance his group were guarding. He felt a brief warmth engulf his hand as Hannah threaded her fingers with his, causing him to look at her.
"I love you, you idiot." She said, not looking him in the eye, her gaze locked squarely on the door. "I have since we were little, and I've been too scared to say anything. But I'm done waiting. When this is over? You're taking me to Hogsmeade. We're going to have a lovely time, and then you're not coming up for air." There was no question in her voice, Neville was convinced he could never love her more than he did in that moment. How the woman before him could sound as confident as she did despite the terrifying task ahead of them was beyond him, but he wouldn't look a gift horse in the mouth.
"I just hope we can find someplace better than Madam Puddifoots." Neville managed to say, his words being slightly drowned out by the battering against the door, the cracking of the aged wood under the heavy spellfire. "I think I know you well enough that you wouldn't like that place… and I think with what you have planned for me, it's a bit too refined." His heart was leaping in his chest as he spoke. The anxiety of the oncoming battle, the rush of hearing her finally admit what he'd hoped since they were much younger, and a million other things culminating in this one moment, where they stood, hand in hand, ready for whatever dangers the world would throw at them.
"I have to let your hand go." Hannah managed to say, a sadness in her voice, as though letting go of his hand would mean he would vanish forever. "We need them for the fight ahead. We're coming out of this, but on the small chance we didn't… I couldn't bear going without you knowing how I feel. How I've always felt. My debut? The Yule Ball? Those were some of the happiest moments in my life, and it's all because of you." She squeaked out, before managing to pull her hand from his. "Now you owe me a few thousand more, so make sure we both make it through this to have them."
"Yes ma'am." Neville said with a light chuckle, as he raised his wand prepping himself for the oncoming battle.
Hell broke loose once the doors were flung open the bombardment spells had taken a toll on the death eaters at the front who had cast them, so the ones that stormed in first were the werewolves, and they quickly realized that Hogwarts was not as unprepared for an attack as they were led to believe. A volley of massive three inch long thorns shot forth from rows of Spiky Bushes, piercing the skin of the lycanthropes and forcing them to halt their advance for a moment as they attempted to protect their eyes from the second and third volleys that followed after. Spiky Bushes were an interesting plant species that spread its seeds by shooting large thorns full of seeds at beasts, causing them to carry the thorn with them as they fled, spreading the seeds and blood as it went. The spikes were coated in a natural blood thinner that slowed the blood's ability to clot. It wasn't unheard of for people to plant a few of them around areas that dangerous wildlife often entered, but never before had there been any record of someone using thirty or so of them as the first line of defense against an oncoming force.
Although up to now, Neville Longbottom had never needed to defend an objective, and no one was quite as adept at seeing the potential for herbology in warfare as he was.
More Death Eaters poured in, the werewolves having taken the brunt of the assault of the Spiky Bushes, which unfortunately were only capable of firing so many thorns, but that had been part of the plan. Neville, Cedric, and Pomona Sprout had planted many, many layers of protection to make this corridor as impenetrable as possible. The Death Eaters were panicked and annoyed by the plants, and in their sadistic rage pushed forward without considering that the Spiky Bushes might not be the only danger in the hallway. The illusion over the floor gave way to reveal a large mass of Devil's Snare that began to trap the legs of those who dared walk over it, trapping them in place while the defenders launched spells at them.
There had been many discussions in the lead up to the attack on what spells would be most appropriate for dealing with attackers while they were trapped in the plants. Fire would consume them, but would spread to the plants and ruin their ability to capture those who came after. Cutting charms were considered, but the risk of accidentally cutting one of the plants was also too great. Instead, piercing charms were selected, and the gathered defenders fired volley after volley of them into the fray.
As expected, Death Eaters began to form two lines in their limited movement. The front line held up shield charms, blocking the piercing spells, while the line behind fired counterattacking curses, which the defenders dodged out of the way of. Fortunately, this was part of the plan. With a wave of Professor Sprout's wand, the disillusioned Peruvian Man-Eaters took their place along the edge of the hallways, and sensing prey nearby, latched their jaws onto the attackers, draining their blood onto the ground.
By their estimation, the Man-Eaters and the Spiky bushes had taken down a couple dozen Death Eaters, and the piercing spell barrage a dozen or so more. It was better numbers than they had hoped for at this stage of the plan, and the Death Eaters continued playing right into what they imagined they would. Jets of flames began to shoot from the wands of the Death Eaters in the back, setting the plants ablaze, and clearing a more safe path through. A handful of Death Eaters were caught in the inferno as well, but the defenders had expected such a thing. Death Eaters cared only for their own glory, and provided enough of them won at the end of the day, the fewer people that needed to share the glory, the better. Truthfully, the team for this hallway had already far exceeded their expected quota. Falling back now was well within the expected parameters, but they still had an extra trick up their sleeve. As the remaining Death Eaters pressed their attack down the hall, Neville reached deep inside himself, pointing his wand towards them and incanting "BOMBARDA MAXIMA!" causing a line of massive explosions that halted their advance. In the cover of smoke, fire and dust caused by the Death Eater's own flames and Neville's explosion, the final stage of the defender's plan came to light.
The last thing the Death Eaters in the hall ever heard, was a loud, piercing scream, as from a pot near the defensive line, Cedric pulled out an adult Mandrake, directing it towards the attackers while the Defenders wore their earmuffs.The Mandrake ran down the hall, guided by the plant control spell Neville cast, ensuring that more and more Death Eaters fell to its wailing cry. It was in some ways unfortunate about the proximity the Mandrake needed to be for its cry to be fatal, as before it could rush out the door and towards the enemy line in full, it was quickly silenced by a dark purple severing charm, cast by a pale woman with wild black hair and fury in her eyes. She stormed the castle, amber flames shooting forth from her wand wildly as she attempted to storm the corridor solo, and Neville's eyes widened in fury as he recognized her.
Through fate or misfortune, Bellatrix Lestrange had been the one to lead the assault on Neville's corridor, and through cowardice or strategy, she had not been one of the ones caught in the early assault.
"Neville, quickly, we must fall back. We surely cannot take her, not without the plants." Professor Sprout said, attempting to pull her student towards their fallback location.
Neville looked to his professor, smiling at her before speaking. "You all fall back. I'll join you, I just have to do this first." Neville said, as he prepared himself to face Voldemort's right hand woman.
Hannah pulled his arm and stared him in the eyes, trying to read his mind through them as she had all their lives. No one knew Neville quite like Hannah did. Even Harry, his brother in all but blood, still didn't know what went through Neville's thoughts the way that Hannah did. "You promised to take me to Hogsmeade." She reminded him.
"I'll keep my promise. Fall back, I'll join you once I'm done." Neville said, his face set with determination as he looked to the love of his life.
"Go get her." Hannah said as she placed her first kiss on Neville's lips, before rushing with Sprout and Cedric towards the rendezvous point.
Neville moved to stand in the alleyway created by the barricade they had set up in the hallway. Bellatrix was certainly a powerful enough witch to simply blast through them, but it would still be taxing. The number of wizards in Britain who could push through the large reinforced stone barricades they had erected without exhausting themselves was small in number, although he did think everyone who could was here tonight. Bellatrix would fare better than almost anyone, but that was it, only almost. Dumbledore could manage the feat. Voldemort likely could as well. Professors Snape, Lupin, and Black might even be able to do it, and Neville knew without a doubt in his mind that Harry could do it as well, and that was a measuring stick Neville was quite aware of where he stood next to.
"If it isn't ickle Longbottom." Bellatrix sneered in her sing-song voice, walking nonchalantly up the hallway like she didn't even consider him a threat. "Lucky lucky me. I take away mummy and daddy, and then as a treat, I get to take the little baby too!"
"I don't think it'll be as easy as you think it is, Lestrange." Neville said, his wand briefly flicking as he silently cast his plant controlling spell again, the Peruvian Man-Eaters on his back falling under his control. "I'm not exactly a crying baby anymore."
"You're certainly no warrior. Maybe I'll let you live just long enough to watch the rest of your friends die." Bellatrix said, before flicking her wand forward and casting some nasty violet curse at Neville, who dodged out of the way with grace one wouldn't expect from a boy of his stature.
People rarely really looked at Neville, having gotten a solid sense of who he was several years ago, and personality wise, he hadn't changed much in that time. A touch more confidence in who he was, but that mostly just reaffirmed the rest of what they knew about him. Neville was the Herbology nut. Neville was Harry's best friend. He was the Gryffindor prefect. All of the things that were true about him, but there was something no one but a select few really knew. Neville was Harry's greatest competition.
Everyone for years had assumed that the closest to Harry's level of skill when it came to combat was Ivan, tournament results supported that fact, but they tended to overlook a small detail. Harry needed a sparring partner, and while the girls, especially Padma, took up the role on a number of occasions, it had always fallen to Neville to be the one to push Harry's limits. Knowing that taking out Bellatrix would be far more impactful than defeating almost anyone else, barring Voldemort himself, Neville accepted that there was no better time to go all out, magical exhaustion be damned, and so he did.
The 5'10" boy, burly and muscular, shot back with his own spell, an explosion charm that Bellatrix threw up a shield against, causing it to bounce off with little effect. Her eyes widened a fraction as she felt the power of the charm, but it was obvious she assumed he couldn't do more.
The second one disproved that. As did the third, and the fourth, and the fifth. By the sixth, she assumed he must have been out of juice, and by the seventh she was proven wrong once again. The hallway was filled with dust now, the explosions having eroded away large parts of the rock walls and powderized the heavy stone. Visibility was certainly poor, not helped by the spots in Bellatrix's eyes from the bright glow of the explosion and her shield.
"Ickle Longbottom has more fight than I imagined." Bellatrix sang out, although Neville could tell there was a strain to her voice that wasn't there before. There was little wonder about that, while there were few other options to take an explosion charm but to block it with a shield if you couldn't get out of the way, it was a difficult thing to manage. Most people couldn't block one at all, and those that could would rarely be able to do more than two or three before exhaustion. For Bellatrix to do seven certainly put her in the top 1% of Witches in Britain at the very least. "But there's no way you have anything more to give." She managed to get out, heaving. Dust entered her lungs though, and started a massive coughing fit, and that was what Neville was waiting for.
In the lessened visibility, he shot forward, using the dregs of his energy to catch her in a paralysis spell, before wrapping his arms around her. A mental command towards his Man-Eaters, and they drove their thorny fangs into the deranged woman's body, perforating her as they worked to do as they always did, fertilize their roots with the iron-enhanced liquid they had evolved to use.
"That's for my mum and dad." Neville said as he released the woman, letting her rigid body fall to the ground as blood poured from her body. He'd obviously hit some sort of artery, and while the sound of the remaining Death Eaters coming through the door could be heard, he knew they'd never be able to stabilize her in time. Neville Longbottom had just taken out one of Voldemort's top lieutenants, and he knew without a doubt that she would be far from the last one of them to fall. He retreated back down the corridor, two order members covering his retreat as Death Eaters followed him. He made it to the great hall before he collapsed, Hannah rushing to give him a potion that Daphne had stockpiled.
"She's gone." Neville managed to say. "We're going to win."
"A long way to go yet, but I think you're right." Hannah said, gently pouring the potion down his throat. A good wiggenweld would go a long way towards making a tired wizard able to keep going.
—-
"They were… oddly prepared, Severus." Voldemort sneered as he watched from a nearby hill. Over half of his invading force hadn't even made it past the entry corridors, and now, feeling the connection he had with Bellatrix severed, he knew this was not just the normal defenses Hogwarts had. They'd set up more.
"There's been a pattern to these kinds of things." Severus noted, still attempting to deflect, although he was well aware his time was quickly running out. He had one mission he was to do left, and while he had been waiting for an opportune moment, he was aware that one may never come. "The past four years had always had some grand event occur at this time. Your attempted retrieval of the Philosopher's Stone, your shade attacking Harry Potter with the Basilisk, Peter Pettigrew's reveal, and your return last year." Snape said, true statements leaving his mouth. "Patterns form, perhaps they simply realized such a thing was a possibility and made their preparations."
"You did not know of them?" Voldemort asked, his sneer unending on his serpentine face, turning to the bat-like man. "They knew of your treachery?"
"It was known to them that I was your man before. The mark on my arm cannot be properly hidden, after all." Snape said, still telling the truth. It was a skill one learned as a double agent, when and how to tell the truth while keeping your deceptions in tact. "They could have suspected me returning to you with the information and kept the plans secret from me." They hadn't of course. While Snape didn't know everything that was going on in the defense of the castle, he knew enough. He also knew what his role was, and how vital it was. The massive black mamba that was Nagini slithered around her master, the woman she was lost to the base animal instinct inside of her, tormented by Voldemort's soul fragment no doubt.
"You knew nothing of the defenses?" Voldemort asked, and Snape was well aware of the skepticism in his voice. His time was shorter than he'd thought, it appeared.
"I knew the castle had several, and that should you attack they would likely have enough time to mount some kind of defense, although to this level, I hadn't suspected." The first only partial lie he'd spoken on this night. Severus disliked Harry Potter immensely, but was unable to deny the ability the boy had to rally people. He also knew the capabilities of most of the Order members, as well as the general lack of ability among the Death Eaters. Death Eaters were generally average or below, getting by primarily on blood purity and raw aggression. They used scare tactics and general terror to hide their weaknesses, and the power of the handful of truly exceptional members in their ranks, Bellatrix, Bartemous, Dolohov, and so on made them appear as a terrifying monolith. The average member of the populace could likely take on most Death Eaters and have a solid chance of victory, but were easily cowed. Such was not the case for Hogwarts' defenders on this night. They were willing to stand up and fight, and each one of them was above average. Seeing what he had now, there was no doubt in Severus's mind that they would win tonight, even if the losses were great, they would triumph, provided he did his part.
"Then you are of no use to me. An informant incapable of providing information is comparable to a wizard with no wand, and both are things I seek to eradicate." Voldemort said. "Nagini, kill." The snake man spat the command at the snake, pleased to see his familiar move in to perform the action with no hesitation. The massive reptile shot forward with speed befitting of a creature of her size, ready to sink her fangs into the double agent.
Severus, though, knew this was coming. His wand had already been in his hand, cupped lightly inside his lengthy sleeve, and ready to shoot into it at a moment's notice, and Voldemort in his ego had given him several. Two words shot from the greasy-haired man's lips, an incantation the pair knew quite well, the rage and pain of years of service and lost love gathering for one singular moment. The green flash shot through the area, slamming into the serpent and snuffing out its life instantaneously. In that moment, Severus knew he had succeeded, no matter what happened to him from this point on, he had won his battle. His war was over, in this one act, he may not have redeemed himself for his past actions, but he took steps toward securing the future for Britain. For the world. He did not know if he deserved forgiveness, or even if he wanted it, but he did know that he had triumphed.
"I hope you do not expect to live for killing my familiar." Voldemort spat at the man, a fury and anger in his voice that Severus had never heard before. The Dark Lord had been calculated, keeping a veneer of confidence and malice throughout his days, relishing the joys of success and punishing incompetence, but never had Severus seen such unrelenting rage from the man.
"In fairness, I didn't expect to live regardless." Severus said, flicking his wand towards the Dark Lord. If the prophecy was to be believed, only Harry could properly kill the man, but Severus was certainly willing to test that theory. A bone breaking curse shot forward from Severus's wand, but Voldemort merely flicked it away. Bartemous stepped between Voldemort and Snape, firing back his own spell towards the traitor.
"I shall deal with the traitor, my lord. Why don't you descend upon Hogwarts and show them the futility of standing against you? I will join you once this one lies dead at my feet." Crouch said, as he and Snape locked themselves in a duel.
Snape was unfortunately aware that when it came to offensive magic, Bartemous might be his better. It was a close race, but Bartemous had been a much better student than Severus had been in everything but potions, and that raw skill and talent translated to his magic as well. Bartemous really made people remember the oft forgotten part of the phrase "jack of all trades, master of none is oftentimes better than a master of one." There was no doubt that Severus would humiliate the man in a potion-making competition, but this was not one of those. This was a duel of wills and skill, and Severus thought he might be losing.
They traded spells of course, and an outside observer might even truly believe them to be equally matched, but Severus knew that he couldn't keep this up for very much longer. The killing curse on Nagini had been draining enough, it was a spell that took a lot out of anyone who could cast it, which was partially why it had been Voldemort's signature spell. To be able to cast it not once, but many times in a row was a sign of incredibly high magical power, something which Snape had, but not enough to end this quickly.
To that end, he was quite glad that Bartemous seemed to be holding himself back from using it as well, perhaps worried that his Lord would need him later to take care of other business. Voldemort was many things, but a fool was not among them. While he was certainly primarily focused on Dumbledore and Harry Potter as his biggest threats within Hogwarts, to view ONLY them as worthy of consideration was foolish. Sirius Black, Remus Lupin, Minerva McGonagall, and Kingsley Shacklebolt were all highly accomplished wizards, comparable or exceeding Severus and Bartemous in power and skill. There was no question that they could easily dispatch even a half dozen Death Eaters on their own with little issue, and with Bellatrix's death, and Severus's betrayal, that had really only left Bartemous, Dolohov, Rookwood, and the Dark Lord himself who could stand up to them with any chance of winning one on one. Their advantage in this battle was only ever going to be through surprise and numbers, and lacking the one, they were losing the other, rapidly. Voldemort HAD to end this quickly, to cut off the head of their enemy in a swift, decisive moment, or it would all fall apart.
Bartemous had much to lose if this fight didn't go in his favor, but that also included if he expended too much energy in the fight. Severus however, had nothing to lose. If he died here, the world would turn without him. They might mourn his sacrifice, but he had performed his role in this play perfectly. He still had some fight left in him. A desire to press on that little bit more, if only to have one more chance to apologize on Lily's grave. To fulfill his promise that he had made to her on the night she died and he removed his allegiance from Voldemort forever. He hated James Potter, but he loved Lily more than life itself, and Lily had given that life to Harry.
And Snape would be damned if he allowed Lily's love to die on this night.
Severus poured every ounce of his magic through his wand, firing every curse and charm he knew at the other lieutenant, exhausting himself, pushing his core to its limit, before in a single instant, everything snapped. The sound of shattering glass could be heard, and the two men stood apart from each other, wands pointed, the men gazing at each other with hate and rage, before they both collapsed to the ground. Bartemous breathed his last as the effects of Sectum Sempra took hold, the deep gashes Snape had left all over his body simply made him lose too much blood, the skin around them a deep, ugly purple as the perfected spell prevented the body's natural defenses against such wounds.
Snape fell to the ground with his own injury, a large piercing wound through his abdomen, as though he'd been run through by a javelin. He could only look as the blood exited his body, feeling the darkness closing in. The pain was terrible, almost crippling. He reached into his pocket, pulling a small flask from inside. He poured a small amount on the wound, the pain intensifying before he held it to the sky for one moment, gazing up at the stars above. "To Lily." he toasted, before pressing the flask to his lips and taking a drink. The pain faded.