[HP] This deer is not a deer

Voldemort finally got the Elder Wand in its entirety, and he gave one last order.

Let your friends die for you, or stand up for them?He'll be waiting in the Forbidden Forest for an hour... an hour...

With an hour left, they returned to the castle, and the castle was eerily silent, neither lights flickering nor crashing, screaming, and shouting could be heard.In the empty foyer, there are bloodstains on the stone slabs...

The academy tables were gone, and the auditorium was packed.The survivors stood in groups of three and four, hugging each other.The wounded were gathered on the high platform, Madam Pomfrey and a group of assistants were treating them.

Harry staggered back from the doorway, and the Great Hall seemed to fly away, shrinking and shrinking.He couldn't breathe.The castle was deserted, and even the ghosts seemed to join the mourning crowd in the Great Hall.He didn't have the courage to look at the body, to find out who else had died for him.

Harry ran on and on, crystal bottle clutched tightly, into the headmaster's office, the empty portrait of Dumbledore hanging behind the headmaster's chair, the stone Pensieve, Harry was panting, he couldn't Got it, what did Snape give him his memory for!What are you doing?

Harry stayed silent for a while, then moved the large stone basin engraved with runic symbols on the mouth of the basin to the table, and poured Snape's memories into it.He slammed into it tremblingly, the memory was spinning, silver-white, strange in shape, with a kind of resentment that was extremely resentful in his heart, he hated this man to the core.

... what did he see?

A small boy, looking longingly at another girl... Harry felt dizzy, was that his mother when she was young?

"Severus?"

A smile flickered across Snape's lips when she called his name.

……

...he was on platform nine and three-quarters, and Snape was standing next to him, slightly hunched over, next to a thin, sallow, sullen woman who looked just like him.Snape was staring at a family of four not far away.The two girls leave...

He was always, always, always looking at her.

...Lily and Snape were walking in the castle yard, apparently arguing.Both of them are much taller.It seemed years had passed since the Sorting.

"...thought we were supposed to be friends?" Snape was talking. "Best friends?"

"Yeah, Sev, but I don't like the guys you hang out with! I'm sorry, but I hate Avery and Mulciber! Do you see what's good about him, Sev? Sneaky Damn! Do you know what he was trying to do to Mary Macdonald that day?"

……

They were arguing...and Harry was standing next to them, his eyes sour, he couldn't seem to hear much.

"I just want you to see that they're not as good as everyone thinks they are."

She blushed under his intent gaze.

Harry was still watching them quietly...

"But they didn't use black magic..."

"I didn't mean that - I just didn't want to see you being taken for a fool - he likes you, James Potter likes you!" The words seemed to be pulled out of Snape's mouth with difficulty, "he It's not... the great Quidditch star everyone thinks..."

"I know that James Potter is a self-righteous megalomaniac, you don't need to tell me that. But the so-called humor of Mulciber and Avery is evil. Evil, Sev. I don't understand how you I can make friends with them."

As soon as Lily accused James Potter, his whole body relaxed.As they turned to walk away, Snape's steps became lighter again...

The scene disappears...

"I can't pretend anymore, you chose your way, I chose mine."

"No—listen to me, I didn't mean to—"

……

The hallway disappeared, and the scene change took longer this time...he was standing on top of a desolate, cold mountain in the dark...the grown-up Snape turned around on the spot, panting, his hands clenched The wand, as if waiting for someone or something... There was a blinding, zig-zag white flash in the air that Harry thought was lightning, but Snape fell to his knees and the wand flew from his hand.

"Do not kill me!"

"That was not my intention."

The wind whined through the branches, drowning out the sound of Dumbledore's Apparation just now.He stood in front of Snape, his robes fluttering in the wind, the light of his wand illuminating his face from below.

It's Dumbledore.

……

The hilltop disappeared, and Harry stood in Dumbledore's office, something making a horrible noise, like some kind of wounded animal.Snape sat slumped in his chair, leaning forward.Dumbledore stood before him, looking stern.After a while, Snape raised his face. Since the scene on the top of the wilderness, it seemed that he had passed through 100 years of suffering.

"I thought...you would...keep her...safe..."

"She and James mistakenly trusted people like you, Severus. Didn't you also expect Voldemort to spare her life?"

Snape's breathing was feeble.

"Her son survived," said Dumbledore.

Snape shook his head violently, as if trying to dislodge an annoying fly.

"Her son is alive and has the same eyes as his mother's, exactly. I think you remember Lily Evans' eyes, the shape and the color, don't you?"

"No!" Snape yelled, "It's gone... dead..."

"Is this remorse, Severus?"

"I hope... I hope it's me who dies..."

"What use is that to anyone else?" said Dumbledore coldly. "If you love Lily Evans, if you really love her, the way is clear for you."

……

"I mean Voldemort's plan around me. He planned that poor Malfoy boy to kill me."

……

"Anyway, the boy was as definitely condemned to death as I was," said Dumbledore. "I suppose it would be you who would take over the job should Draco fail?"

……

"Never mind, try it. I'm more concerned about the accidental victim of any of the boy's plans than I am about myself. Of course, ultimately there's only one way to save him from Voldemort's wrath."

Snape raised his eyebrows and asked sarcastically, "You're going to let him kill you?"

"Of course not. You must kill me."

There was a long silence, and there was only a strange rattling sound in the room.Phoenix Fox gnawing on a small cuttlefish bone.

"Do you want me to do it now?" Snape asked, his tone thick with sarcasm, "or do you need a little time to conceive a tombstone?"

"Oh, not yet," Dumbledore said with a smile, "I think that moment will come when it should come. Judging from what happened tonight," he pointed to his withered hand, "we can Definitely it will happen within a year."

"Since you don't care about dying," Snape said gruffly, "why don't you let Draco do it?"

"The boy's soul hasn't been completely ruined," said Dumbledore, "and I don't want to tear it apart for my sake."

"And my soul, Dumbledore? Where's mine?"

"Only you know that helping an old man from pain and disgrace will not hurt your soul," said Dumbledore. "Severus, I beg you to do this great thing for me, because death is a certainty for me. thing……"

His tone was relaxed, but those blue eyes looked at Snape sharply, as they had looked at Harry before, and seemed to see the soul they were talking about.

Finally, Snape nodded slightly.

Dumbledore seemed satisfied.

"Thank you, Severus…"

……

Harry seemed to be watching Dumbledore and Snape from the end of a long tunnel, so far away that their voices echoed strangely in his ears.

"The boy...the boy must die?" Snape asked calmly.

"And it has to be done by Voldemort himself, Severus. That's very important."

There was another long silence, and then Snape said, "I thought...all these years...I thought we were protecting him, for her, for Lily."

"We protect him because we have to nurture him and let him hone his abilities," said Dumbledore, still closing his eyes tightly, "at the same time, the connection between them is getting stronger and stronger, like a A kind of parasitic life. Sometimes I feel as if he is aware of it himself. If I really knew him, I think he would arrange everything so that when he did die, it would mean the real end of Voldemort."

Dumbledore opened his eyes, and Snape looked terrified.

"You let him live just so that he can die in due time?"

"Don't panic, Severus. How many men and women have you seen die?"

"Lately, the only people I've been powerless to save," Snape said, and he stood up. "You used me."

"What do you mean?"

"I spy for you, tell lies for you, risk death for you. All this supposedly to keep Harry safe. And now you tell me—"

"How touching, Severus," said Dumbledore. "Have you really begun to like Harry?"

"No—" Snape protested violently, "I refuse! Perhaps I shouldn't be at your disposal again, Dumbledore."

Dumbledore was quiet for a while, as if he had made up his mind, "You must listen to me, Severus, only in this way can Harry have a chance of survival."

"You lied to me!"

"Whether it is or not, you have no choice, Severus, you can only listen to me." Dumbledore was very calm, "Do you think that if you don't listen to me, Riddle will not be able to kill Harry?"

Snape looked pale.

……

He knelt in Sirius' old bedroom, reading the old letter from Lily, tears streaming down the tip of his hooked nose.The second page of the letter only had a few words... Infinite love, Lily Snape read it carefully several times, he put the envelope in his hands and hid it, and then he tried to tear the photo in two - he Suddenly it stopped again.He watched Lily's smile quietly, and Snape angrily threw the torn photo on the ground, at the bottom of the cabinet... He turned and left.

……

"Headmaster! They're camping in the Forest of Dean! That Mudblood—"

"Don't say that word!"

"—that Granger girl said the name of the place when she opened the bag, and I heard it!"

"Okay, good!" cried the portrait of Dumbledore behind the headmaster's chair. "Now, Severus, take that sword! Don't forget that you must have need and courage to get it." It - don't let him know you took it! In case Voldemort reads Harry's mind and sees you helping him -"

"I know," Snape said simply.He moved closer to Dumbledore's portrait and pulled it out.The portrait opened to reveal a hole hidden in the back, from which Snape drew Gryffindor's sword.

……

Finally, the truth came out.Harry was lying on the floor of the office, his face pressed against the dirty rug, suddenly blank in peace, all resentment gone, just a horrible blankness in peace...

He felt his heart beating violently in his chest.How strange that, in his fear of death, his heart beat so powerfully that it bravely kept him alive.But it had to stop, and it had to stop soon.It won't be beating too much.

Slowly, very slowly, he sat up, Harry stood up, and he crossed the castle one last time, across the playground, into the Forbidden Forest...

The author has something to say:

I doubt very much that you should skip this chapter...however, this is not all in the original!Scanning roughly, probably can't see anything...

pps: 〒▽〒 means hit me...