Chapter Text
Hogwarts was trembling. Maybe it was the coldness. Or maybe I was not. The month of May had been at work right now after all, so there was no reason for nature to act the way it did with all the moody clouds. The sky was crying, freezing and woeful tears coloring the castle gray. At that moment, however, the whole world got quiet, streams of rain and snow falling down, mercilessly washing off the dust of the battle from the faces of survivors. The sky was in deep sorrow for all the dead. And there, on the once majestic courtyard now just dirty ruin, the crowd started gathering up. Those who were wounded, tired of the seemingly never ending battle, with their hearts broken by the endless cruelty of war. Those who have defended Hogwarts and were ready to give their life there. For better future, for just a pitiful chance that the boy who lived really was The Chosen One who will once save them all. That he might be the one to vanquish the Dark lord for good.
They gathered in that courtyard with hope that the sun would come from behind the clouds, that lord Voldemort wouldn't keep his dark promises, that the war would soon be over. But the sun didn’t want to watch this sorrowful event. And from the distance, another crowd was slowly making its way across the half destroyed bridge. Dark figures tardily followed their master, who as their king walked in front of them and laughed loudly. Along with their master, Death Eaters must have come to the courtyard for the Hogwarts defenders to notice their wide victorious smiles and the half-giant tied in chains.
“Hagrid!” shouted the red haired girl standing in the front rows of the crowd as she watched it all with horror in her eyes. And then, the horror changed into total dread and terror. “No,” she barely breathed. For she was the first one to realize that something terrible has just happened. Something that should have never happened. “NO!” she shouted again, her voice full of pure agony cutting deep into everyone’s soul. Rain started to mix with her tears coursing down her cheeks.
Voldemort’s smile grew even wider. He revealed his yellow teeth, not so different from snake ones, and if there has ever been any humanity in his face, now it was completely gone. He spread his arms in a somewhat victorious gesture, examining the devastated crowd in front of him with his snake-like eyes with utter contentment. He watched as other people from the enemy lines finally started to understand what was going on.
“Harry Potter is dead!” he shouted and after his unspoken instruction, some of his followers started to laugh. They laughed at the boy who survived once but couldn't do so the second time while his lifeless body lay in Hagrids tender arms.
“He was captured while trying to escape Hogwarts to save his own skin. He left you to fight for him, die in his name while he ran away to the Forbidden forest. You put your faith in the wrong hands-,” his voice suddenly became softer. Almost as if he tried sounding fatherly and patiently. But he lost that ability a long time ago alongside those parts of his soul that he left to live on their own outside of his body. He lost it at the same time he lost his humanity - the moment he killed in the name of his ideals for the first time and created the first horcrux.
“I do not blame you,” his lips grew wider in a content and almost mocking grin. “I give you one more chance to correct your mistakes. Join me now and everything shall be forgiven,” he watched all those weary faces and granted them a moment of inevitable silence. „Continue defying me and you will die by the hands of my followers.”
He ended his victorious speech with yet another spreading of his armas, almost as if he wanted to offer to all the defenders of Hogwarts, all the members of the Order of the Phoenix, all the others, one big hug. „Well then?”
He watched the hope vanish from their eyes. Some of them were still children. Others were simply tired by lifelong fighting to which they were plunged by Albus Dumbledore recruiting them to his light army. They didn't deserve to see their only and last hope lying lifelessly in the arms of one of their own. They didn't deserve a discovery that all of their sacrifices were for nothing. There was certain hopelessness and desperation. It almost made some of them truly consider Lord Voldemort’s offer.
And then, the voice almost clear and mocking cut through the heavy silence. Everyone’s attention turned into the direction from which the voice came. And there…