Forlorn Prophecy by elssha
Summary: Sequel to Forlorn Hope and Forlorn Dream. "But here they stand, against my very wish, and push me toward my goal. Not with fists or words or thoughts, but by their very hopes and dreams, they call for me to live." Horris
Categories: Parental Snape > Biological Father Snape > Severitus Challenge Main Characters: .Snape and Harry (required), Draco, Hermione, Voldemort
Snape Flavour: None
Genres: Action/Adventure, Angst
Media Type: None
Tags: Slytherin!Harry, SuperPower! Harry
Takes Place: 5th summer
Warnings: Alcohol Use, Violence
Challenges: None
Series: Forlorn Saga
Chapters: 16 Completed: No Word count: 45482 Read: 50285 Published: 30 Apr 2007 Updated: 30 Dec 2012
Ch 11: To Live, to Fight, to Kill by elssha

Draco shook off the remnants of his interrupted sleep as he hurried into his battle robes. Being woken in the middle of the night to fight off some stupid Death Eaters was seriously becoming an annoyance. He was dressing on autopilot, barely able to keep his eyes open, even with the Asp ability to go without sleep for days on end. Dean or Blaise was giving him a rundown of the situation, though honestly he felt more than half the words fly in one ear and out the other.

“When?” he would ask intermittently, if he thought he had just heard something important or ask some detail of numbers or location when needed.

Someone handed him coffee as he walked briskly to the garden, the bitter taste helping him finally take heed of his senses. Most of the others were not much better... except for those who had been on watch tonight.

“This is going to be a big one,” Blaise (yes, Blaise... he could actually identify him now) warned him, “Pony left just as the Death Eaters were starting to apparate in, and already there were at least twice as many as usual.”

“Any-” he yawned, “any of the Order show up?”

“Not before she left.”

“Give the apparition coordinates, Blaise; I want to get this over with.”

He chugged the rest of his coffee before aparating himself, taking one last look towards the hallway beyond which waited his fluffy bed. The next moment however, he was on the outskirts of a small village, clearly magical, dodging curses. As Blaise noted, there were far more Death Eaters than usual. Also unusual (though occurring with increasing frequency), the Order was already there as well. Their Phoenix, most prominently, was fighting off the hoard of black cloaks. And Merlin, could he fight! Only due to his Aspian senses could Draco follow the Phoenix's staffwork, and he saw a good number of other fighters simply watching the crimson robed figure. The Death Eaters, Draco quickly disposed of with a well-placed spell. The two Asps he noted, planning to thoroughly reprimand them as soon as they returned to Snape Manor. And then another oddity made itself known. As the Death Eaters in his immediate vicinity fell, the Phoenix turned to take aim on Draco's Asps. Normally, the Order ignored their presence until it was time to demand they share the captured Death Eaters... but the Phoenix fought as if anyone not of the Order was automatically an enemy.

“Get down!” he yelled at Wolf, who was busy fighting a couple Death Eaters at the periphery of Draco's vision. Thankfully, he ducked down in time, but to Draco's left another Death Eater screamed. As when Draco fought him (if their encounter could be termed as such), the Phoenix's spells passed through his Aspian shields as if they were not there at all. He fired spells to redirect the red-robed figure's focus... hopefully creating a big enough distraction for one of the other Asps to help Marcus. Well, he certainly got the Phoenix's attention... the big staff the odd fighter had been using turned on the blond with with a menacing whirl. Its first spell hit Draco's left knee, already weakened from some Death Eater's lucky shot and not quite healed yet. He felt the leg buckle instantly, falling back against a tree into a reclined position that still let him level his wand at the aggressor. He fired several spells, none of which visibly affected the hooded figure at all. The Order's Phoenix was stalking towards him, and Draco could not remember being more scared.

Some of the other Asps tried to distract Draco's assailant, the Phoenix not even heeding the spells; it was as if the Asps had been shooting nothing but bursts of light at him from several directions. Phoenix was fixated on him, apparently, and for a second Draco could have sworn he saw the green flash of Killing Curse like eyes within the darkened hood. Just as the Phoenix stepped before him, a blur tackled him over a mound to his right. Now that he no longer needed to fire at the Phoenix, Draco forced himself up with a loud groan as his side protested the effort. He pulled himself to the top of the mound, trying to find out what had happened. He couldn't feel anything but pain from mid thigh to just above his ankle, but not actually bending the knee seemed to allow him a sure-enough footing. Why it was taking so long to start healing he would question later, when dodging stray curses and fighting the Phoenix was not taking up so much of his attention.

There were others still fighting around him, but something insisted he look at what was happening, an instinct too forceful to ignore. And there, the moment he looked over the small hill, a stone fell in his gut. The Order's Phoenix was slowly getting to his feet, methodical, calm and far too mechanical. Blaise just lay there, unmoving. Dead. One of his Asps was Dead. The staff was still on the other side of the mound where Blaise had first knocked the still-hooded figure over, and Draco had yet to see the Phoenix use anything else to cast. The thought gave him a sliver of hope and he began shooting spells at the still-rising figure.

The spells seemed to dissipate before they even touched his cloak, a magic alien to Draco, but keeping the spells off must be drawing on the Phoenix's power... and so Draco just kept on firing.

“Draco!” he heard from somewhere behind him, glancing with one eye to identify Dean,

“Stay back,” he ordered, “break the staff!”

“Break it?” he heard Dean question incredulously,

“Smash the damn focus stone to smithereens!” he insisted, still firing curses at the Phoenix. Hopefully, destroying the staff would hamper the hooded fighter. “Call the Asps here,” he added as an afterthought.

Dean sent up sparks to gather the Asps, running off quickly to grab the staff before returning to Draco. The blond could tell Wolf was reluctant to leave him leaning against the tree, trying to keep as much weight off his injured and stubbornly non-improving leg. Thankfully, the reluctance did not keep him from following Draco's orders. The figure before him simply stopped and was just looking at him. Creepy, really... made him feel exposed. He took the calm moment to readjust to a more dignified pose, though he moved no further than where he could still latch onto the tree in case the leg gave way again.

His Asps were beginning to gather around him, and in the background, he could hear Dean trying to break the staff. Why was the Phoenix, who surely heard all this just as well as he, just standing there? Even if the staff was not his only weapon or his most powerful, staffs were hard to replace... and a wizard should always protect his tools. At the very least, he should have been preparing for the gathering enemies.


“It's done,” Dean told him, pulling him up and letting him lean against his friend instead of the hard and uneven bark, “we're gathered.”

Draco looked around, counting twice before realizing why he was coming up short.

“Emily?” he asked softly, not seeing the young Ravenclaw in their midst.

“A Death Eater took her by surprise,” Dean said regretfully, “I didn't get to her in time.”

“Phoenix killed Blaise.”

“I saw,” Dean acknowledged, trying to help heal Draco's knee with his own venom. The ache might have receded somewhat, but Draco could not be sure. Nor did he particularly care. What was important now was their opponent.

“He needs to die,” and it would probably take all those left to make it so.

Dumbledore had watched the battle calmly, feeling only a slight annoyance when those meddling Asps joined in the proceedings. His Phoenix was fighting beautifully, truly shaping into his ultimate weapon against the Dark. He was already planning how to make his tool work further from the necklace... how to plan the final battle.

“Where did you find him?” Moody whispered in his ear, “there be something strange about him...”

“Accept him, Alastor, and trust my judgment.”

“He has too much power, Albus. Such people cannot be trusted blindly.”

“We will speak on it later,” Dumbledore insisted, never really taking his eyes off the battle. The necklace had been sporadically warming against Albus' chest, nearly burning him on one occasion. The strange sensations made him wary of the sight before him, though his Phoenix had not shown any problems.

His necklace burned again, turning substantially hotter than the few times before, and this time the event inciting the change could not be mistaken. Without warning his Phoenix turned from some nameless Death Eater onto one of the young Asps. Like before, when Dumbledore felt hard pressed to stop his weapon when he had attacked Draco (seemingly) of his own initiative, his Phoenix turned vicious when his dull-green eyes fixed onto the Asps; first one, then another.

Dumbledore tried to call him back through the necklace when he realized his weapon was turning from violent to deadly. As annoying as these Asps were, the fact remained that they aided his Order against the Death Eaters... it would be quite foolish to dispose of them at this time when they could still be of some (albeit limited) use. More importantly, while he was sure his Phoenix could triumph against any one or two Asps that chose to fight him, could he really take on all of them at once?

The necklace kept burning him, throbbing with an inner heat that he found most troublesome. He had never heard of the wearer's will not flowing into the vessel freely... of the controller encountering such resistance.

“Are you alright, Albus?” Minerva asked,

“Fine,” he assured, forcing his hand to fall from the concealed necklace and rest calmly at his side.

“Albus,” she insisted more worriedly, “You're bleeding!”

“Excuse me?” he asked, now actually turning towards her in his confusion.

“Your hand, Albus, it's bloody.”

It was, and there could only be one place the blood could have come from. And even that was impossible, as far as he could tell. He quickly turned his back on the battle and his allies before pulling out the necklace. The normally clear, crystalline exterior was now deep red, slick and bordering on gelatinous... like a dislodged blood clot. He nearly dropped it from shock, the outside staining his palms and robes.

The next moment, the crystal was hard and clear again, the blood on Albus' hands brown and crusted. He quickly called for as much of his strength as possible, refusing to acknowledge just how disturbed the moment had left him. He could not lose his grounding, not while they were fighting a battle. The strength he pulled he tried to direct into the stone, summoning his Phoenix back from the fight. Before he even finished the attempt, he was already sure his weapon would not hear the call... let alone follow it.

Throwing discretion to the wind, he turned back to the battle, crystal still clutched in his palm.

“Return,” he demanded, scanning the field for his soldier. It took him a moment to locate the boy surrounded by what must have been all the Asps. A glance at the rest of the battlegrounds revealed mostly other Order members subduing the few remaining Death Eaters. The message, to Albus, was clear... the snakelings were concentrating on the threat, and were probably not planning to stop until his Phoenix was dead. Albus ordered his fighter back again, hearing desperation creep into his voice. Could the boy take on the Asps? Possibly. Was Albus willing to risk it so early on? No. Especially not if there was a chance the snakelets would realize where his Phoenix had come from... what Albus had done.

His Phoenix was standing his ground, the Asps slowly circling him like a pack of hungry wolves closing in on the kill. One Asp broke rank and lunged at the central figure with his arms in what Albus assumed was an attack with his venoms. At the same time, several of the others fired spells from different directions. It was the first time Albus could remember seeing any 6f the children use wands since before they left Hogwarts, though even when they had he assumed they only pretended to use them as to not draw attention to their growing abilities. Their use of them now sent chills down his spine.

Still, his Phoenix deftly caught the Asp by the wrists through the child's cloak, twisting him to absorb some of the fired spells before tossing the Asp back at the others with a loud crack of the child's arm, as it was obviously dislocated with the sudden change of momentum. Could his Phoenix win this? A tall Asp caught the human projectile, lowering him quickly behind their line when a smaller one tried to run to the fallen before the tall one pushed her back towards the fight. Not caring for their wounded? Odd. Unless the curses they had thrown were meant to do more than wound.

Now he wished he knew who the young Asp was. Had he known the boy well before his nature had ripped him from Albus' sphere of protection? What House had the boy been in? What year would he have been? With a substantially heavier heart he tried calling his Phoenix back again, realizing the prominent absence of the weapon's staff. And as he tried to scan the field for it, he saw an Asp use it to strike at his Phoenix as if it were a stick or a cheap broom. This was not good; his Phoenix could only work magic through the staff. The blow knocked the central fighter down, the rebound causing blond hair show as the hood fell from his attacker. Draco, then. His Phoenix stood back up quickly, but Draco was ready to strike again, this time aiming for the head instead of the gut. That swing was dodged, but a crack resounded when the staff struck his Phoenix's leg on a returning arc.

Albus noted the young blond walked forward with a limp of his own, wondering if it was his Phoenix who had caused the injury (and how extensive it must have been for it to last while the Aspian healing venom was circulating in the blond's blood). It would not be the first time a Slytherin combined an attack with revenge, after all. Albus was still trying to call the Phoenix back, pausing only when he knew the pull (if it was reaching the figure at all) could overly distract him while fighting.

The other Asps, Dumbledore knew, were not standing idle; some made sure the Phoenix did not attempt to escape, others casting spells when their present leader gave them an opening. All stunning or non-lethal spells... most likely to ensure Draco did not become overly hurt on accident. Quick learners, Asps. He wondered how long it would take them to realize that his Phoenix could not cast anything.

He dared not loosen his grip on the crystal, feeding it power that he hoped would help his Phoenix. He could tell the red-hooded figure was weakening... not standing as straight, not recovering from the blond's blows as quickly or as fully. Draco was still limping with no obvious bettering thereof. It was a testament to the boy's resolve; as he was obviously hurting himself -knowingly- in order to hurt the Phoenix. Albus wondered how all these kids would react if they knew... if they knew who his Phoenix had been.

Just then, his fighter hit Draco with a solid kick to the injured leg, causing the blond to fall onto his side. The next moment Draco was up again, in time to dodge a second attack. He was limping quite a bit more, however, Albus noted. The small victory did not appease him, as he knew his Phoenix was drawing on the last of his strength. The battle had gone on too long, and the youth would need to 'sleep' it off for a week or more. He was just about to call on some of the other Order members to break things up when it happened.

A kick from his Phoenix had landed again, knocking the young Asp off balance but not quite causing him to fall. From his hunched position, the blond latched onto the Phoenix's ankle, sending both of them down onto the ground with the force of their combined momentum. Then, in a voice loud enough for Dumbledore to hear from his vantage point, the blond ordered the Asps to apparate out. For a moment, Albus thought all would be well, until Draco's 'eat wards, you scum' echoed on his own popping disappearance. The blond had never let go of the Phoenix's ankle, and now the only figures remaining were those of the Order and the fallen Death Eaters. And, at the exact moment his Phoenix was pulled into apparating with Draco, the crystal burned Albus' hand... then shattered before the popping sound fully dissipated.

It was at that moment that Dumbledore knew winter had come upon the Wizarding World... that Voldemort had won and that his Phoenix would rise no more.

“Gather the Death Eaters!” he ordered, for once the Asps not bothering to collect their fallen foes and take them to whatever fate awaited the others they had captured. He wanted to leave here as quickly as possible and realign the wards around Hogwarts to permanently and absolutely ban the Asps from entering. And, as he knew they had some way of entering without tripping the wards already in place to keep unauthorized visitors from coming in, he planned to post some major protective wards around his office itself. Against Severus, too... the boy's father would definitely try to reach Albus as well.

Only then would Dumbledore allow himself to mourn (or even truly acknowledge) the loss of a weapon with such potential. Shards of the crystal still lay in his hand; shards that he would need to remove post haste, so regaining his Phoenix was quite impossible. The Asps had not taken the staff, and while Albus would be sure to retrieve it before he left, that provision alone did him little good.


Draco blinked a few times once he landed on the cold stone floor, momentarily unsure of what he was seeing. He had done it to finally finish the damn Phoenix, unsure of what else might work against the foe. Hell, the only reason he had chosen to apparate directly to the dungeons (something not even the other Asps could do, something Draco had only recently been keyed in for by the Professor) was to force the the Phoenix through both sets of wards. The outer one should have been powerful enough, disabling anyone too powerful to be bounced back (or in this case, someone pulled forcibly through), but the ones around the dungeon were set to kill unauthorized intruders.

The Phoenix was not moving, at least, but judging by the weak throb of magic he sensed against the hand he still had clamped around the Phoenix's ankle, he was not dead either. How, Draco was not sure, but that could wait for now. He quickly pushed his opponent into the nearest cell with a burst of wandless magic, putting up several extra wards before pulling the door closed. He had to get back to the others, lest someone assume he had been left behind. He had wounded Asps to tend to; three dead to mourn. The Phoenix could wait and rot for all he cared. He was not important; not now, hopefully never again.

To be continued...
End Notes:
Figured I'd post it here first, for once (vs FF.net) ^_~

Next chappy should be at the beginning of Dec


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