Loved [Zianourry]

Chapter 17

A/N: Hahaha....haha....ha...ha... Sorry.
I'm publishing early because... I've finished! Yes, I've finished this series, I'm just editing before I publish the rest.
And... Oops. See first line of A/N.
********************
We have to wait until his guard's taken down." Harry panted as we ducked behind the corner of an outbuilding, halfway to the city road. "Otherwise we'll get slaughtered."
"The others might be nearby as well." I gasped, lungs burning with exertion. "Haz-"
"Lou?" Suddenly, Harry's face turned alarmed. "Are you having an asthma attack?"
"I-" although I was gulping in copious amounts of clean air, pressure was constricting my chest and even though the air was filling my lungs, I wasn't breathing. "I-"
"It's okay, Boobear." Grasping my hands, Harry crouched in front of me, looking into my eyes. "Nice and deep, yeah? Breathe in... And out..." With a coughing splutter, I forced my breathing to slow a fraction, despite the pain it caused me. "That's it, you can control it. In... And out..." We sat there, time ticking by, Harry steadily breathing with me and my heart battering against my skin.
"I'm- I'm okay." I murmured, feeling my breathing gradually even out. "I can breathe."
"Do you need to rest more?" He asked me, tucking my growing hair behind my ear. "You've got to be on top form."
"No, it's fine." Quickly clambering to my feet, I placed a gentle kiss on his lips. "I'm okay now."
"Alright." Harry smiled at me, love radiating from both of us. "We should hurry."
"Z, Ni and Liam might already be there." I agreed happily, hands clasped between us as we bounded off towards the city road.
********
"Ssh." I tugged on Harry's hand, pulling him behind one of the many sheds. The city loomed ahead of us, buildings stretching into the clouded sky, shadowing the alleys concealing potential danger. "We need to wait."
"We've gotta scope out where they're coming from, how much guard he's got, where the squads are and if they can take them out." Harry replied, squinting at the city, before his eyes blacked over. "Structures... Structures... Can't see anything. Not a soul in sight."
"Not even the guards?" Frowning, I raised my hand to shield my eyes, peering into the enveloping darkness. "Won't they be by the edge?"
"Not that I can tell, Boobear." With a noncommittal shrug, Harry sat back down, resting against the side of the shed and gazing up at me. "They're not gonna be here yet, we've got to wait, as you said." Slowly, I twisted the engagement ring on my finger around, staring at the mud-streaked, slightly-battered band of metal. The tiny heart engraved into the diamond was barely visible in the poor lighting, especially underneath the dirt. "Hey... It's gonna be okay."
"I now, Hazza, I know." I mumbled, glancing back up at the city. As the sun rested on the horizon, light just about streaking across the earth, we stood, creeping towards the dusty road. "It's still a couple miles away... D'you wanna fly?"
"Too obvious." He quickly declined, tilting his head with contemplation. "The guard should be here, soon."
"Can you tell?"
"There." Harry lifted his hand, pointing to the right hand side of the city. "I can't tell how many, but there's quite a lot."
"Can you literally-"
"I can just see their skeletons, behind the buildings. Because they're grouped up, I can't tell how many." Harry's lips twitched into a sly smile. "Not good enough for you?"
"You're always good enough for me, Haz." I chuckled.
"Always?"
"Always." With that promise, we both set off towards the city.
********************
"Ssh, they're almost here." Harry nervously fiddled with his fingers, watching the city, still shrouded in shadows and a sense of foreboding. "Should we hide?"
"Probably." Carefully, we ducked behind some bushes at the side of the road. Whilst not very effective cover, it prevented us from being both perfectly visible and vulnerable. "Is the guard gonna be taken out, d'you think?"
"There's... Over there..." Waving vaguely, Harry nodded his agreement. "Yes, there's not many, twenty perhaps. We're pretty well-trained at the school, they should be able to take them out. Element of surprise as well. Look!"
A mass of life marched onto the city road, just about to leave the city. Black amour, glinting in the light. Weapons, shielded from view by just the shadows. "Where are-"
People swarmed onto the road, screams piercing the air like the blades cutting through flesh. Blood was spewing, drowning the dead corpses. So many collapsed, faster than I could see. It was murder, slaughter, war. So quickly, it was over, the army marching on. The squads had failed, leaving the slightly diminished army to stride on, until more appeared from side roads, seamlessly joining the progression.
"What the fuck do we do now?"
"Who's-"
Liam, Niall and Zayn were sprinting onto the road, weapons twirling in their hands as they ploughed through the reinforced guard, bones splintering under extreme force, flesh frazzling when met with sparks of lightning and shapeshifters spiralling down, unable to hide. Both Harry and I were frozen, totally flummoxed at the sight of our fiancés tearing through our enemy as though water dousing fire.
"They've done it... They've basically k-killed them all." I murmured, turning to Harry. "They're alive, and they've cleared them out."
"I told you it was gonna be okay," Harry was smiling, "I told you. They're alive, we're alive, we can have our happy ever after."
"What's in our happy ever after, Hazza?"
"Well, we're going to clear out the school... Funeral's for everyone, properly, perhaps bury them together instead of in the ordinary cemetery. Build a war monument, a mark of our freedom. Find the cure safely, send squads over to kill off the Cebors and treat anyone infected. Fix everything that's broken... Then we can get married, all five of us, with everyone there, and we'll be so, so happy. We can finish school, and find jobs, if we want. Then we buy a house in the city together, or out in the countryside, and we go to live there after we finish school. And we can one day have children, perhaps just starting off with something like a dog." Harry's hand slipped from my face, and he turned to face our fiancés, still over a mile away, in front of the city, now embraced in warm hues of the gleaming morning sun, still barely risen from it's slumber. "It's a new dawn right now, it can symbolise the rest of our lives, however long they may be. We'll have several children, and they'll grow up as we grow old, together. They'll go to the school as well, we might be quite old by that time. And maybe we'll even see in-laws and grandchildren, and if we're lucky enough, great-grandchildren. Eventually we'll die, but then we're eternally together, up there, in the clouds... It's going to be perfect, Lou."
"That sounds amazing, Haz." A wide smile covered my face. "I love you so much."
"I love you, Boobea-"
Slowly, ever so slowly, Harry looked down at his heart, where the deathly arrow had pierced his fragile skin, now surrounded by a blossoming puddle of red, thick blood. Our eyes met, his face pale, my hands shaking... before the green emeralds became lifeless and he fell to the floor.