Final War [7]

Herpo stood amid the carnage, Grindelwald's once-handsome face twisted with malevolence that transcended the merely human. Power radiated from him in visible waves, dark magic scorching the flagstones beneath his feet. The air around him shimmered with heat, carrying the scent of something ancient and terrible.

"ENOUGH GAMES!" he roared, voice echoing with inhuman resonance that vibrated the very stones of the castle. Without warning, he launched himself skyward, defying gravity as he soared toward the now-open ceiling.

Dumbledore reacted instantly. With a swirl of his midnight-blue robes, he too took flight, ascending to meet the ancient evil. They collided in mid-air with apocalyptic force, a shockwave of magical energy blasting outward, shattering every remaining window in the hall. The sound of splintering glass cascaded through the castle like deadly rain.

"YOUR TIME IS OVER!" Herpo screamed, hurling curses of such ancient malevolence that the very air ignited where they passed, leaving trails of sickly green flame suspended in the storm-torn sky.

Dumbledore wove between the lethal spells, his wand a blur of motion as he countered with precision and power belying his years. Lightning erupted from his wand, forking in multiple directions to cage Herpo in a web of crackling energy. 

Thirty feet below, Voldemort snarled with rage as he watched the aerial combat. His attention snapped to Marquas, red eyes blazing with murderous intent.

"Your turn, Face-Wearer," he hissed, obsidian blood dripping from a gash across his chalk-white face.

Marquas barely raised his shield in time as Voldemort unleashed a barrage of killing curses. Green death splashed against his magical barrier, which cracked like glass under the onslaught. Each impact sent vibrations up Marquas's arm, while sweat poured down his face from the effort of maintaining protection against such power.

With a feral howl, Voldemort closed the distance between them, abandoning spellwork for brutal, physical assault. His unnaturally strong hands seized Marquas's throat, drove him backward into a shattered pillar. Stone fragments sliced into Marquas's back as scarlet soaked through his robes, warm against his cooling skin.

"I'll tear you apart with my bare hands," Voldemort snarled, spittle flying from his lipless mouth. His grip tightened, each finger a vise of inhuman strength.

Marquas drove his knee upward with desperate strength, catching Voldemort in the stomach. The Dark Lord's grip loosened just enough for Marquas to wrench himself free, gasping for air that rasped painfully through his damaged throat. The taste of iron flooded his mouth as he staggered backward, fumbling for his wand.

As lightning flashed through the broken ceiling, Marquas glimpsed the aerial duel intensifying above. Dumbledore and Herpo spiraled through the stormy sky, magic crystallizing the rain around them into deadly projectiles that glittered like diamond daggers in the lightning's glow. A slash from Herpo's wand opened a gash across Dumbledore's chest, crimson spraying in an arc through the air. The Headmaster responded with a counter-curse that caught Herpo's shoulder, burning flesh with white-hot intensity. The smell of charred skin drifted downward.

"YOU CANNOT KILL WHAT TRANSCENDS DEATH!" Herpo screamed, his borrowed voice distorting with rage, the sound rippling through reality itself.

Dumbledore didn't waste breath responding. His next spell sent a cyclone of fire roaring toward Herpo, who dove through it, emerging with Grindelwald's golden hair singed black and skin blistering. His mismatched eyes burned with hatred older than civilization itself.

The possessed dark wizard retaliated with a curse in a language dead for millennia, syllables that seemed to cut the air itself. The spell struck Dumbledore directly in the chest, sending him plummeting fifty feet before he arrested his fall mere yards from the shattered flagstones. Scarlet painted his silver beard as he fought to regain altitude, internal damage evident in his labored breathing.

Meanwhile, Marquas had retreated to the far end of the hall, using the broken house tables as cover while he attempted to staunch the bleeding from multiple wounds. His left arm hung useless at his side, shattered by Voldemort's brutal assault. Each breath sent spikes of pain through his chest where at least two ribs had fractured.

The Dark Lord stalked him through the debris, each footstep leaving scorched impressions in the stone floor. "There's nowhere to run," he called, voice cold as the grave. "Your allies fall one by one. Your sanctuary burns. Your body fails."

Crouched behind an overturned table, Marquas's tactical mind worked through their dwindling options. His fingers found the vial he'd been saving. The glass felt cool against his fingertips, the potion within glowing faintly crimson in the darkness.

The draught burned like fire as he swallowed it, searing his throat and spreading molten heat through his veins. But the effect was immediate. Strength surged through his battered body, pain receding as accelerated healing knitted torn flesh. His vision sharpened, colors intensifying as his magical core flared with borrowed power.

Voldemort rounded the broken table, wand raised for the kill, only to receive Marquas's boot directly to his face. Bone crunched as the Dark Lord staggered backward, obsidian blood pouring from his shattered nose.

Before Voldemort could recover, Marquas cast a blasting curse at the floor beneath the Dark Lord's feet. Stone exploded upward, throwing Voldemort through the air. But instead of falling, Voldemort caught himself mid-trajectory, suddenly airborne like the duelists above.

"You're not the only one who can fly without a broom, Face-Wearer," he snarled, wiping blood from his distorted features with the back of one pale hand.

Marquas had seconds to react as Voldemort dove toward him like a striking predator. Drawing on long-forgotten lessons from the real Snape's memories, he too launched himself skyward, narrowly avoiding Voldemort's attack. The sensation of untethered flight surged through him, weightlessness combined with perfect control, as if gravity had become merely a suggestion rather than law.

As lightning flashed through the broken ceiling, the battle transformed into a three-dimensional nightmare. Dumbledore and Herpo circled near the remnants of the enchanted ceiling while Marquas and Voldemort weaved between shattered pillars closer to the ground. Each pair of combatants moved in deadly synchronicity, four dark silhouettes against the storm-wracked sky.

A stray curse from above struck the High Table, detonating it in a shower of burning splinters. The blast caught Marquas in the back, sending him spiraling toward a wall of broken glass. He twisted mid-air, casting a cushioning charm that only partially absorbed the impact. Shards sliced his face and arms as he crashed through, tumbling into the corridor beyond.

Scarlet dripped from dozens of lacerations as Marquas staggered to his feet just as Voldemort glided through the shattered window. The Dark Lord's robes billowed around him like wings, his red eyes gleaming with cruel anticipation.

"Running away?" A cruel smile twisted Voldemort's lipless mouth as he flicked Marquas's desperate counter-attack aside with casual disdain.

Marquas didn't waste breath responding. Instead, he sprinted down the corridor, drawing Voldemort away from the Great Hall, away from the remaining students. Ruby droplets marked his path across the stone floor, trailing him like breadcrumbs.

Behind him, he heard Voldemort's cold laughter. "I smell your blood. I can follow it to the ends of the earth."

Rounding a corner, Marquas came face-to-face with a group of Death Eaters dragging wounded students toward the dungeons. Without breaking stride, he cast a wide-arc slashing hex that caught the unprepared Death Eaters across their throats. They collapsed gurgling in pools of their own blood as Marquas vaulted over their bodies, shouting for the students to run.

Voldemort appeared seconds later, momentarily surprised by the carnage. His hesitation gave Marquas precious moments to increase his lead, charging up the grand staircase toward the higher levels of the castle.

As Marquas ran, his tactical mind raced through their dwindling options. Dumbledore had signaled him during the aerial duel, a quick gesture toward the Astronomy Tower that confirmed their contingency plan. If he could separate Voldemort from Herpo, divide their enemies' strength...

By the time he reached the Astronomy Tower, Marquas's enhanced strength was failing. The potion had limits, and he had pushed far beyond them. His muscles burned with lactic acid, his lungs struggled for air in the thin, cold atmosphere of the tower heights. Blood loss and exhaustion threatened to overwhelm him as he stumbled onto the open platform, the storm raging around him.

Lightning cracked across the sky, casting the grounds below in stark, blue-white relief. The acrid smell of smoke rose from Hagrid's burning hut, while rain hissed as it met magical fires that refused to be extinguished. Thunder rumbled through Marquas's bones as he glimpsed the dementors, dozens of them. their tattered forms rippling like oil on water as they circled above the fallen, feasting on the despair that permeated the battlefield.

"Nowhere left to run," came Voldemort's voice as the Dark Lord ascended the final steps. "No allies to die for you. No tricks remaining."

Marquas turned to face his nemesis, blood-soaked and swaying but unbowed. "I don't need to run anymore, Tom," he gasped. "I just needed you to follow."

Confusion flashed across Voldemort's serpentine features before understanding dawned. He spun around too late—Dumbledore hovered outside the tower, having tracked their path through the castle. The Headmaster's robes were shredded, one arm clearly broken, but his wand remained steady as he cast a sealing charm on the tower entrance, trapping Voldemort inside with Marquas.

Voldemort turned back to Marquas, desperation now mingling with hatred in his red eyes. "You think trapping me changes anything? I conquered death itself!"

"Not anymore," Marquas replied, his voice a ragged whisper through his damaged throat. "Your Horcruxes are gone. You're just a man, Tom. A sad, broken, mortal man."

With an inhuman howl of rage, Voldemort launched himself at Marquas. They collided with bone-crushing force, tumbling across the rain-slicked tower platform. Wandless now, they fought like animals, clawing, biting, tearing at each other with mindless fury.

Crimson painted the stone as Voldemort's unnaturally sharp nails ripped open Marquas's chest. Retaliating, Marquas drove his thumb into one of Voldemort's red eyes, feeling it rupture like an overripe fruit. The Dark Lord's scream echoed off the mountains surrounding Hogwarts, rising above the thunder.

They rolled dangerously close to the tower's edge, the hundred-foot drop to the courtyard below promising instant death. Rain lashed their intertwined bodies as they struggled, each seeking any advantage against the other. Marquas found himself pinned, Voldemort's weight pressing down on his chest as those cold, strong hands once again closed around his throat.

"DIE!" Voldemort roared, his remaining eye blazing with insanity as he squeezed. "DIE, FACE-WEARER!"

Black spots danced across Marquas's vision as oxygen deprivation set in. The world narrowed to a tunnel, with Voldemort's hate-contorted face at its center. With the last of his strength, Marquas reached blindly for anything he could use as a weapon. His fingers closed around a broken piece of the tower's stone railing—jagged, heavy, and sharp at one end.

Using the momentum of Voldemort's own attack, Marquas brought the stone up in a wide arc, driving its pointed end directly into the Dark Lord's temple with every ounce of his remaining strength.

The stone punctured Voldemort's skull with a sickening crunch. The Dark Lord's eye widened in shock, his grip on Marquas's throat suddenly slack. For a moment, they stared at each other—murderer and victim frozen in a macabre tableau as rain washed over them both.

"How..." Voldemort whispered, genuine bewilderment replacing rage in his remaining eye. Black blood streamed from the wound, crossing the ridges of his serpentine face. "After everything... a rock? A simple rock?"

Marquas met his gaze, finding strange clarity in this final moment. "Sometimes," he gasped, each word painful through his crushed throat, "immortality blinds you to mortal dangers."

Something like recognition flickered in Voldemort's eye. "I was supposed to... reshape history."

"You did," Marquas acknowledged. "Just not how you intended."

Voldemort's final breath escaped in a rattling hiss, carrying with it the last vestige of his terrible power. The air around them seemed to lighten, as if a malevolent pressure had suddenly lifted. The Dark Lord's body, once animated by hatred and dark magic, slumped forward with the dull weight of ordinary death, flesh returning to mere flesh.

Marquas rolled the body aside, the stone still embedded in Voldemort's skull as he lay motionless on the rain-soaked tower platform. Lightning illuminated the corpse in stark relief, thin, pale, and broken. In death, without the animation of hatred and power, Voldemort seemed smaller somehow. Just another casualty in a war that had claimed too many.

Marquas dragged himself to the tower's edge, dark wetness spreading beneath him with every movement. Through the storm and smoke, he could see Dumbledore and Herpo still locked in aerial combat above the burning forest. Magical energy crackled between them, illuminating the night more brilliantly than the lightning itself.

Summoning the last reserves of his strength, Marquas staggered to his feet. The strengthening potion had almost worn off, leaving his muscles trembling with exhaustion. He had to help Dumbledore, had to reach him before Herpo's ancient magic overwhelmed even the greatest wizard of the age.

But before he could take a single step, the night was split by a scream of such primal agony that it seemed to tear at reality itself. Looking up, Marquas saw Herpo convulsing mid-air, engulfed in golden flames that consumed his borrowed form.

Dumbledore hovered before him, both hands gripping his wand in a stance Marquas had only seen in ancient texts about ritual magic. The incantation that flowed from the Headmaster's lips wasn't Latin or Greek, but something far older, words of power that seemed to resonate with the fabric of reality itself. Golden fire spread from his wand, wrapping Herpo in a cocoon of magical energy.

"RELEASE ME!" Herpo screamed, his voice distorting as Grindelwald's body began to disintegrate under the onslaught. "THIS IS NOT POSSIBLE!"

Dumbledore didn't respond, his entire being focused on maintaining the spell as blood poured from his eyes and ears with the strain. The magic he channeled was clearly killing him, burning through his life force even as it consumed Herpo. Each word of the ancient incantation cost him visibly, aging him years in seconds.

With a final, reality-shaking scream, Herpo exploded in a blast of magical energy that lit up the night like a second sun. Grindelwald's body was obliterated, reduced to ash that scattered on the storm winds. A dark mist, Herpo's disembodied consciousness, writhed in agony as Dumbledore's spell forced it back toward a tear in reality that had opened mid-air.

"NO!" The mist that was Herpo writhed against the pull of the void, its voice seeming to come from everywhere and nowhere. "YOU CANNOT BANISH WHAT EXISTS BEYOND WORLDS!"

The final words lingered even as the mist disappeared: "I ALWAYS RETURN!"

The rift sealed behind Herpo's essence with a thunderclap that shook the very foundations of Hogwarts. For a moment, silence fell across the battlefield, as if the world itself had paused to witness the banishment of an evil older than recorded history.

Then Dumbledore fell.

His strength finally exhausted, the Headmaster plummeted from the sky like a shooting star, robes billowing around his broken body. Marquas watched in horror, too far away, too weak to intervene as Dumbledore crashed into the burning forest below.

Collapsing to his knees, Marquas stared numbly at the impact site, hoping against hope to see movement, to see Dumbledore rise from the flames. But there was nothing, only fire consuming the mighty trees of the Forbidden Forest, and somewhere within, the body of the greatest wizard of the age.

Rain mingled with blood and tears on Marquas's face as the magnitude of what had happened crashed over him. Victory. The word felt hollow as he surveyed the devastation. Voldemort and Herpo were gone, but what remained of their world? Of those who had fought to save it?

Flitwick. Hagrid. Dumbledore. How many others had been lost in this final, desperate battle?

Darkness encroached at the edges of Marquas's vision as blood continued to pool beneath him. His injuries, temporarily held at bay by potions and adrenaline, now demanded their due. He fought to stay conscious, to witness the aftermath of their hard-won victory, but his body had reached its limit.

As consciousness slipped away, Marquas saw figures racing across the grounds toward the forest, McGonagall, Lupin, others he couldn't identify through the rain and distance. Help was coming, but too late for many.

The last thing he saw before darkness claimed him was the Dark Mark above the castle dissolving in the storm-torn sky, green mist dispersing to reveal the stars beyond. Voldemort's final signature on the world, erased by the cleansing rain.

Marquas Snape, collapsed beside the corpse of Lord Voldemort, their blood mingling on ancient stone as the battle of Hogwarts finally, mercifully, came to an end.