Time's Last Laugh [Harry Potter Fanfiction]

The Failure

They had had one last Horcrux.

Just one, and then they could have taken Voldemort down. Saved the world, made the difference for which they'd sacrificed so much.

A touch to his arm has him turning. Hermione smiles weakly at him, her eyes red-rimmed but sympathetic. On her other side, Ron meets his eyes and offers his own ghost of a grimace. Harry tries to smile, but the weight of failure and grief presses him down. His smile falls away before it has a chance to be born.

In truth, he's tired. Tired and leaden, his heart thudding slow and ominous in his chest. The long, horrible process to get here, the fight to prove themselves, and now...this.

If only Rem-

He sucks in a sharp breath. The pain slams into him all over again, the sadness and hurt in Remus's eyes a stab in his heart anew. He tries, instinctively, to clear his mind of it, wrench his mind to the present, but his Occlusion skills fail him. I can't be with you anymore, Jerry. When Remus finds out about this....

"Harry. Harry." Hermione tugs on his arm. "We've got to go. Before anyone else shows up."

"...Oh. Right," he says dully. "Can't have anyone showing up to witness how we bollixed up the only thing we came here for."

"Not now," Hermione hisses. "Save it for later. For now we have to get back. Croaker's not going to be happy."

Before Harry can say "Sod Croaker," Ron snorts. "Understatement," he rasps. "'E...-!"

"Ron!" Hermione whips out her wand, flicks it where Ron is bent over, coughing. Instantly Ron's body relaxes, the coughs easing while the purple sparks from Hermione's wand sink into his throat. Ron's pants are uneven, but his eyes shine with gratitude when he looks up.

"Any time, Ron," Hermione says in a hushed voice. "I wouldn't have had to spell you if you'd kept quiet, but...anytime."

Watching the way she reaches out to Ron's shoulder, Harry has had enough.

"Let's go," he says roughly, stalking past the two to the Disapparition point. He knows, without a doubt, that Ron and Hermione are exchanging glances behind his back, but he can't bring himself to apologize. On top of everything else, he can't handle...them. The reminders.

They catch up to him just as he gets to the Disapparition point. Without acknowledging them, Harry spins on his heel and Disapparates, the loud crack! of his disappearance punctuating his mood.

(Mere minutes after they Disapparate, Sirius Black pops in and rushes to the same point Harry, Hermione, and Ron had previously stood. "No," he gasps. "No, not James and Lily. James! Lily!"

Black scrambles over to the house, forcing open the door which hung askew on its hinges. "James! Lily! Answer me!" he yells, then stops. "Prongs..." he says in a choked off voice. "Prongs, wake up! C'mon, Jim, this isn't funny! Jim..."

His words trail off into sobs, then wails. The sound of his voice is the only thing in the village; the rest of it is stone silent. Each of the houses nearby seem blank and lifeless, their windows like death-glazed eyes. Greenish light reflects off the windows and shine high into the sky, where the Dark Mark floats lazily, its grin sadistic and leering around the snake uncoiling leisurely from its jaws. The snake, like the skull, seems to relish the scene below, the pandemonium it marks, the deaths it heralds.

It's only later that wizarding England learns that the Dark Mark in Godric's Hollow signals not only the death of James and Lily Potter, but also the seemingly impossible: the death of the feared Dark Lord, Voldemort.)