Chapter Sixty-Nine
Hogwarts, May 2nd 1998
Morning light was nearing, and Silas was weary of fighting. He had already lost so many, had been horrified to see Violet and he family among them, his father and Hal – all gathered to fight to protect their home, to protect each other, to end it all, once and for all.
But where was Harry?
The question bothered him as they fought, friends falling like petals from flowers, white and glassy eyed. He watched Molly and Arthur lose their son, cried in the arms of their other children. He had found Remus and Tonks, laid them beside one another in the hall. He sat in the Great Hall now, Ivy's head in his lap as Inesa stitched a gash in her arm. She was one of the few healers around, and was very busy aiding people. She had tear tracks on her cheeks, and she insisted Ivy keep her eyes closed so she didn't see the new ones forming as she aided her youngest daughter.
He watched Orson with his fiancée, Sybil, Anthea with her husband Rolland, and wondered if he would lose them all. Magnus had never made it to the Room of Requirement, instead fighting alongside them, as had Ginny. Inesa had been furious, but admitted she was proud – their children were brave, and good fighters. Silas wished they had never had to fight at all, but here they were.
Anthony came to sit beside him, as Ivy had dropped off into a fitful sleep. Silas ran his fingers through her blonde curls, remembering what she had been like as a little girl. He had never imagined this is what she would be doing, at only nineteen years old.
Silas' father had gone completely silver now, and his glasses were always a little crooked; he had a scruffy beard and two worn wedding rings – well, one was a promise ring to Hal, but everyone called it a wedding ring anyhow. Silas was comforted by Anthony's presence, as he always had been.
"I think..." said Silas finally, slowly, "That I will see him tonight."
Anthony sighed. "I think, my son, that you are right. I wished, when you were a child, that you would never have to be anywhere near him."
"But I was," he said softly, "That day, a year after Mamma died – he came to the London apartment, looking for her. You asked me to trust you."
"And you did, for as long as you could." Anthony frowned, "I wish it had all been different, I spent years wishing – but the past cannot be changed, I have learned to accept what I have, and realized it is more than enough. I have the most wonderful son, the best grandchildren – because of a monster who manipulated a beautiful woman, who deserved only the best. But beauty blooms in the worst conditions sometimes, as we have learned." He gave Silas a one armed hug, and then stood. "I am going to see if Inesa needs any help, okay?"
"Okay Pa – I love you." Silas added, and Anthony smiled.
"I love you, too Sy."
Silas watched his father walk away, and Ivy stirred in his lap. That's when they heard it, someone was shouting –
"They're coming!" someone cried, "From the forest, they're coming – all of them!"
Everyone left the Great Hall in a wave, leaving the dead beneath the fabricated rising sun; they poured out the front doors, Silas and his family pushing to the front, with the Weasley's and Hermione, countless others. Silas gripped his wand, thought of his mother kneeling by his bed, saying a prayer. What he would do for a God in this moment.
The Death Eaters approached like a grounded storm cloud, moving steadily towards the castle. And at the front, Hagrid – and in his arms....
Silas felt a chill settle through him, his throat closed up – it couldn't be, not now, not after all they had lost already.
The Death Eaters came to a halt, spreading out in a line facing the doors. "NO!"
The scream was the more terrible because Silas had never expected or dreamed that Professor McGonagall could make such a sound. He heard another woman laughing nearby, and knew that Bellatrix gloried in McGonagall's despair. Silas saw Voldemort standing a little in front of him, stroking Nagini's head with a single white finger.
Silas stared, unable to believe his eyes – his biological father, standing within metres of him, after all these years. His blood boiled, and he wanted to scream, yell at him – 'you killed my mother, you broke her heart once and for all, you ruined her, you made me this way, you put this doubt in my mind – I hate you for the life I was given.'
But Silas stayed silent, and instead listened to the screams of Harry's loved ones.
"No!" "No!" "Harry! HARRY!" Ron's, Hermione's, and Ginny's voices were worse than McGonagall's.
"SILENCE!" cried Voldemort, and there was a bang and a flash of bright light, and silence was forced upon them all. "It is over! Set him down, Hagrid, at my feet, where he belongs!"
Hagrid lowered Harry onto the grass.
"You see?" said Voldemort, striding backward and forward right beside the place where Harry lay. "Harry Potter is dead! Do you understand now, deluded ones? He was nothing, ever, but a boy who relied on others to sacrifice themselves for him!"
"He beat you!" yelled Ron, and the charm broke, and the defenders of Hogwarts were shouting and screaming again until a second, more powerful bang extinguished their voices once more.
"He was killed while trying to sneak out of the castle grounds," said Voldemort, and there was relish in his voice for the lie, "killed while trying to save himself —"
But Voldemort broke off: Someone had broken free of the crowd and charged at Voldemort: Silas saw the figure hit the ground, disarmed, Voldemort throwing the challenger's wand aside and laughing.
"And who is this?" he said in his soft snake's hiss. "Who has volunteered to demonstrate what happens to those who continue to fight when the battle is lost?"
Bellatrix gave a delighted laugh.
"It is Neville Longbottom, my Lord! The boy who has been giving the Carrows so much trouble! The son of the Aurors, remember?"
"Ah, yes, I remember," said Voldemort, looking down at Neville, who was struggling back to his feet, unarmed and unprotected, standing in the no-man's-land between the survivors and the Death Eaters. "But you are a pureblood, aren't you, my brave boy?" Voldemort asked Neville, who stood facing him, his empty hands curled in fists.
"So what if I am?" said Neville loudly.
"You show spirit and bravery, and you come of noble stock. You will make a very valuable Death Eater. We need your kind, Neville Longbottom."
"I'll join you when hell freezes over," said Neville. "Dumbledore's Army!" he shouted, and there was an answering cheer from the crowd, whom Voldemort's Silencing Charms seemed unable to hold.
"Very well," said Voldemort, and Silas heard more danger in the silkiness of his voice than in the most powerful curse. "If that is your choice, Longbottom, we revert to the original plan. On your head," he said quietly, "be it."
Voldemort waved his wand and seconds later, out of one of the castle's shattered windows, something that looked like a misshapen bird flew through the half-light and landed in Voldemort's hand. He shook the mildewed object by its pointed end and it dangled, empty and ragged: the Sorting Hat.
"There will be no more Sorting at Hogwarts School," said Voldemort. "There will be no more Houses. The emblem, shield, and colors of my noble ancestor, Salazar Slytherin, will suffice for every- one. Won't they, Neville Longbottom?"
He pointed his wand at Neville, who grew rigid and still, then forced the hat onto Neville's head, so that it slipped down below his eyes. There were movements from the watching crowd in front of the castle, and as one, the Death Eaters raised their wands, holding the fighters of Hogwarts at bay.
"Neville here is now going to demonstrate what happens to anyone foolish enough to continue to oppose me," said Voldemort, and with a flick of his wand, he caused the Sorting Hat to burst into flames.
Screams split the dawn, and Neville was aflame, rooted to the spot, unable to move, and Silas could not bear it: He must act —
And then many things happened at the same moment.
They heard uproar from the distant boundary of the school as what sounded like hundreds of people came swarming over the out- of-sight walls and pelted toward the castle, uttering loud war cries.
At the same time, Grawp came lumbering around the side of the castle and yelled, "HAGGER!" His cry was answered by roars from Voldemort's giants: They ran at Grawp like bull elephants, making the earth quake. Then came hooves and the twangs of bows, and arrows were suddenly falling amongst the Death Eaters, who broke ranks, shouting their surprise.
In one swift, fluid motion, Neville broke free of the Body-Bind Curse upon him; the flaming hat fell off him and he drew from its depths something silver, with a glittering, rubied handle —
The slash of the silver blade could not be heard over the roar of the oncoming crowd or the sounds of the clashing giants or of the stampeding centaurs, and yet it seemed to draw every eye. With a single stroke Neville sliced off the great snake's head, which spun high into the air, gleaming in the light flooding from the entrance hall, and Voldemort's mouth was open in a scream of fury that nobody could hear, and the snake's body thudded to the ground at his feet —
Then, over the screams and the roars and the thunderous stamps of the battling giants, Hagrid's yell came loudest of all.
"HARRY!" Hagrid shouted. "HARRY — WHERE'S HARRY?"
Chaos reigned. The charging centaurs were scattering the Death Eaters, everyone was fleeing the giants' stamping feet, and nearer and nearer thundered the reinforcements that had come from who knew where; Silas saw great winged creatures soaring around the heads of Voldemort's giants, thestrals and Buckbeak the hippogriff scratching at their eyes while Grawp punched and pummeled them; and now the wizards, defenders of Hogwarts and Death Eaters alike, were being forced back into the castle. Silas was shooting jinxes and curses at any Death Eater he could see, all the while trying to keep an eye on Inesa and the kids.
The Lacroix family ran into the Entrance Hall, spotting Voldemort from across the room, firing spells from his wand as he backed into the Great Hall, still screaming instructions to his followers as he sent curses flying left and right; the family pushed through the crowds to the Great Hall, where they joined the fight already flourishing inside it.
And now there were more, even more people storming up the front steps, and Silas saw Charlie Weasley overtaking Horace Slughorn, who was still wearing his emerald pajamas. They seemed to have returned at the head of what looked like the families and friends of every Hogwarts student who had remained to fight, along with the shopkeepers and homeowners of Hogsmeade. The centaurs Bane, Ronan, and Magorian burst into the hall with a great clatter of hooves, as behind Silas the door that led to the kitchens was blasted off its hinges.
The house-elves of Hogwarts swarmed into the entrance hall, screaming and waving carving knives and cleavers, and at their head, the locket of Regulus Black bouncing on his chest, was Kreacher, his bullfrog's voice audible even above this din: "Fight! Fight! Fight for my Master, defender of house-elves! Fight the Dark Lord, in the name of brave Regulus! Fight!"
They were hacking and stabbing at the ankles and shins of Death Eaters, their tiny faces alive with malice, and everywhere Silas looked Death Eaters were folding under sheer weight of numbers, overcome by spells, dragging arrows from wounds, stabbed in the leg by elves, or else simply attempting to escape, but swallowed by the oncoming horde.
Voldemort was in the center of the battle, and he was striking and smiting all within reach. Harry could not get a clear shot, but fought his way nearer, still invisible, and the Great Hall became more and more crowded as everyone who could walk forced their way inside.
Silas saw Yaxley slammed to the floor by George and Lee Jordan, saw Dolohov fall with a scream at Flitwick's hands, saw Walden Macnair thrown across the room by Hagrid, hit the stone wall opposite, and slide unconscious to the ground. He saw Ron and Neville bringing down Fenrir Greyback, Aberforth Stunning Rookwood, Arthur and Percy flooring Thicknesse, and Lucius and Narcissa Malfoy running through the crowd, not even attempting to fight, screaming for their son.
Voldemort was now dueling McGonagall, Slughorn, and Kings- ley all at once, and there was cold hatred in his face as they wove and ducked around him, unable to finish him —
Bellatrix was still fighting too, fifty yards away from Voldemort, and like her master she dueled three at once: Hermione, Ginny, and Luna, all battling their hardest, but Bellatrix was equal to them, and Harry's attention was diverted as a Killing Curse shot so close to Ginny that she missed death by an inch —
Silas changed course, running at Bellatrix rather than Voldemort, but before he had gone a few steps he was knocked sideways.
"NOT MY DAUGHTER, YOU BITCH!"
Mrs. Weasley threw off her cloak as she ran, freeing her arms. Bellatrix spun on the spot, roaring with laughter at the sight of her new challenger.
"Molly!" shouted Silas, rushing to her side.
"OUT OF MY WAY!" shouted Mrs. Weasley to the three girls, and with a swipe of her wand she began to duel. Silas watched with terror and elation as Molly Weasley's wand slashed and twirled, and Bellatrix Lestrange's smile faltered and became a snarl. Jets of light flew from both wands, the floor around the witches' feet became hot and cracked; both women were fighting to kill.
"No!" Mrs. Weasley cried as a few students ran forward, trying to come to her aid. "Get back! Get back! She is mine!"
Hundreds of people now lined the walls, watching the two fights, Voldemort and his three opponents, Bellatrix and Molly, and Silas was busy keeping his own and other people's children alive.
"What will happen to your children when I've killed you?" taunted Bellatrix, as mad as her master, capering as Molly's curses danced around her. "When Mummy's gone the same way as Freddie?"
"You — will — never — touch — our — children — again!" screamed Mrs. Weasley.
Bellatrix laughed, and Silas' blood ran cold.
Molly's curse soared beneath Bellatrix's outstretched arm and hit her squarely in the chest, directly over her heart.
Bellatrix's gloating smile froze, her eyes seemed to bulge: For the tiniest space of time she knew what had happened, and then she toppled, and the watching crowd roared, and Voldemort screamed.
Silas felt as though he turned in slow motion; he saw McGonagall, Kingsley, and Slughorn blasted backward, flailing and writhing through the air, as Voldemort's fury at the fall of his last, best lieutenant exploded with the force of a bomb. Voldemort raised his wand and directed it at Molly Weasley.
Suddenly, a shield charm expanded in middle of the Hall, and Voldemort stared around for the source – and suddenly, Harry was there. Silas roared Harry's name, a did others; the yell of shock, the cheers, the screams on every side of "Harry!" "HE'S ALIVE!" were stifled at once. The crowd was afraid, and silence fell abruptly and completely as Voldemort and Harry looked at each other, and began, at the same moment, to circle each other.
"I don't want anyone else to try to help," Harry said loudly, and in the total silence his voice carried like a trumpet call. "It's got to be like this. It's got to be me."
Voldemort hissed.
"Potter doesn't mean that," he said, his red eyes wide. "That isn't how he works, is it? Who are you going to use as a shield today, Potter?"
"Nobody," said Harry simply. "There are no more Horcruxes. It's just you and me. Neither can live while the other survives, and one of us is about to leave for good. . . ."
"One of us?" jeered Voldemort, and his whole body was taut and his red eyes stared, a snake that was about to strike. "You think it will be you, do you, the boy who has survived by accident, and because Dumbledore was pulling the strings?"
"Accident, was it, when my mother died to save me?" asked Harry. They were still moving sideways, both of them, in that perfect circle, maintaining the same distance from each other. Silas held Inesa's hand, and had an arm around Anthea. He watched the boy he cared for and the man he hated circle each other. "Accident, when I decided to fight in that graveyard? Accident, that I didn't defend myself tonight, and still survived, and returned to fight again?"
"Accidents!" screamed Voldemort, but still he did not strike, and the watching crowd was frozen as if petrified, and of the hundreds in the Hall, nobody seemed to breathe but they two. "Accident and chance and the fact that you crouched and sniveled behind the skirts of greater men and women, and permitted me to kill them for you!"
"You won't be killing anyone else tonight," said Harry as they circled, and stared into each other's eyes, green into red. "You won't be able to kill any of them ever again. Don't you get it? I was ready to die to stop you from hurting these people —"
"But you did not!"
"— I meant to, and that's what did it. I've done what my mother did. They're protected from you. Haven't you noticed how none of the spells you put on them are binding? You can't torture them. You can't touch them. You don't learn from your mistakes, Riddle, do you?"
Silas' breath hitched as he heard what the fates had meant his surname to be, the family he not Tom had ever known, Muggles he now knew Tom had killed.
"You dare —"
"Yes, I dare," said Harry. "I know things you don't know, Tom Riddle. I know lots of important things that you don't. Want to hear some, before you make another big mistake?"
Voldemort did not speak, but prowled in a circle, and Silas knew that he kept him temporarily mesmerized and at bay, held back by the faintest possibility that Harry might indeed know a final secret. . . .
"Is it love again?" said Voldemort, his snake's face jeering. "Dumbledore's favorite solution, love, which he claimed conquered death, though love did not stop him falling from the tower and breaking like an old waxwork? Love, which did not prevent me stamping out your Mudblood mother like a cockroach, Potter — and nobody seems to love you enough to run forward this time and take my curse. So what will stop you dying now when I strike?"
"Just one thing," said Harry, and still they circled each other, wrapped in each other, held apart by nothing but the last secret.
"If it is not love that will save you this time," said Voldemort, "you must believe that you have magic that I do not, or else a weapon more powerful than mine?"
"I believe both," said Harry, and he saw shock flit across the snakelike face, though it was instantly dispelled; Voldemort began to laugh, and the sound was more frightening than his screams; humorless and insane, it echoed around the silent Hall.
"You think you know more magic than I do?" he said. "Than I, than Lord Voldemort, who has performed magic that Dumbledore himself never dreamed of?"
"Oh, he dreamed of it," said Harry, "but he knew more than you, knew enough not to do what you've done."
"You mean he was weak!" screamed Voldemort. "Too weak to dare, too weak to take what might have been his, what will be mine!"
"No, he was cleverer than you," said Harry, "a better wizard, a better man."
"I brought about the death of Albus Dumbledore!" "You thought you did," said Harry, "but you were wrong." For the first time, the watching crowd stirred as the hundreds of people around the walls drew breath as one. "Dumbledore is dead!" Voldemort hurled the words at Harry as though they would cause him unendurable pain. "His body decays in the marble tomb in the grounds of this castle, I have seen it, Potter, and he will not return!"
"Yes, Dumbledore's dead," said Harry calmly, "but you didn't have him killed. He chose his own manner of dying, chose it months before he died, arranged the whole thing with the man you thought was your servant."
"What childish dream is this?" said Voldemort, but still he did not strike, and his red eyes did not waver from Harry's.
"Severus Snape wasn't yours," said Harry. "Snape was Dumbledore's, Dumbledore's from the moment you started hunting down my mother. And you never realized it, because of the thing you can't understand. You never saw Snape cast a Patronus, did you, Riddle?"
Voldemort did not answer. They continued to circle each other like wolves about to tear each other apart.
"Snape's Patronus was a doe," said Harry, "the same as my mother's, because he loved her for nearly all of his life, from the time when they were children. You should have realized," he said as he saw Voldemort's nostrils flare, "he asked you to spare her life, didn't he?"
"He desired her, that was all," sneered Voldemort, "but when she had gone, he agreed that there were other women, and of purer blood, worthier of him —"
"Of course he told you that," said Harry, "but he was Dumbledore's spy from the moment you threatened her, and he's been working against you ever since! Dumbledore was already dying when Snape finished him!"
"It matters not!" shrieked Voldemort, who had followed every word with rapt attention, but now let out a cackle of mad laughter. "It matters not whether Snape was mine or Dumbledore's, or what petty obstacles they tried to put in my path! I crushed them as I crushed your mother, Snape's supposed great love! Oh, but it all makes sense, Potter, and in ways that you do not understand!
"Dumbledore was trying to keep the Elder Wand from me! He intended that Snape should be the true master of the wand! But I got there ahead of you, little boy — I reached the wand before you could get your hands on it, I understood the truth before you caught up. I killed Severus Snape three hours ago, and the Elder Wand, the Deathstick, the Wand of Destiny is truly mine! Dumbledore's last plan went wrong, Harry Potter!"
"Yeah, it did," said Harry. "You're right. But before you try to kill me, I'd advise you to think about what you've done. . . . Think, and try for some remorse, Riddle. . . ."
"What is this?"
Of all the things that Harry had said to him, beyond any revelation or taunt, nothing had shocked Voldemort like this. Silas saw his pupils contract to thin slits, saw the skin around his eyes whiten. It was then that Silas saw, that the eyes he had seen only twice – they existed no longer.
"It's your one last chance," said Harry, "it's all you've got left. . . . I've seen what you'll be otherwise. . . . Be a man . . . try . . . Try for some remorse. . . ."
"You dare — ?" said Voldemort again.
"Yes, I dare," said Harry, "because Dumbledore's last plan hasn't backfired on me at all. It's backfired on you, Riddle."
Voldemort's hand was trembling on the Elder Wand.
"That wand still isn't working properly for you because you murdered the wrong person. Severus Snape was never the true master of the Elder Wand. He never defeated Dumbledore."
"He killed —"
"Aren't you listening? Snape never beat Dumbledore! Dumbledore's death was planned between them! Dumbledore intended to die undefeated, the wand's last true master! If all had gone as planned, the wand's power would have died with him, because it had never been won from him!"
"But then, Potter, Dumbledore as good as gave me the wand!" Voldemort's voice shook with malicious pleasure. "I stole the wand from its last master's tomb! I removed it against its last master's wishes! Its power is mine!"
"You still don't get it, Riddle, do you? Possessing the wand isn't enough! Holding it, using it, doesn't make it really yours. Didn't you listen to Ollivander? The wand chooses the wizard. . . . The Elder Wand recognized a new master before Dumbledore died, someone who never even laid a hand on it. The new master removed the wand from Dumbledore against his will, never realizing exactly what he had done, or that the world's most dangerous wand had given him its allegiance. . . ."
Voldemort's chest rose and fell rapidly, and Silas could feel the curse coming, feel it building inside the wand pointed at his face.
"The true master of the Elder Wand was Draco Malfoy."
Blank shock showed in Voldemort's face for a moment, but then it was gone.
"But what does it matter?" he said softly. "Even if you are right, Potter, it makes no difference to you and me. You no longer have the phoenix wand: We duel on skill alone . . . and after I have killed you, I can attend to Draco Malfoy. . . ."
"But you're too late," said Harry. "You've missed your chance. I got there first. I overpowered Draco weeks ago. I took this wand from him."
Harry twitched the hawthorn wand, and he felt the eyes of everyone in the Hall upon it.
"So it all comes down to this, doesn't it?" whispered Harry. "Does the wand in your hand know its last master was Disarmed? Because if it does . . . I am the true master of the Elder Wand."
A red-gold glow burst suddenly across the enchanted sky above them as an edge of dazzling sun appeared over the sill of the nearest window. The light hit both of their faces at the same time, so that Voldemort's was suddenly a flaming blur. Harry heard the high voice shriek as he too yelled his best hope to the heavens, pointing Draco's wand:
"Avada Kedavra!" "Expelliarmus!" The bang was like a cannon blast, and the golden flames that erupted between them, at the dead center of the circle they had been treading, marked the point where the spells collided. Silas saw Voldemort's green jet meet Harry's spell, saw the Elder Wand fly high, dark against the sunrise, spinning across the enchanted ceiling like the head of Nagini, spinning through the air toward the master it would not kill, who had come to take full possession of it at last. And Harry, with the unerring skill of the Seeker, caught the wand in his free hand as Voldemort fell backward, arms splayed, the slit pupils of the scarlet eyes rolling upward. Tom Riddle hit the floor with a mundane finality, his body feeble and shrunken, the white hands empty, the snakelike face vacant and unknowing. Voldemort was dead, killed by his own rebounding curse, and Harry stood with two wands in his hand, staring down at his enemy's shell.
One shivering second of silence, the shock of the moment suspended: and then the tumult broke as the screams and the cheers and the roars of the watchers rent the air. The fierce new sun dazzled the windows as they thundered toward him.
The sun rose steadily over Hogwarts, and the Great Hall blazed with life and light. Silas caught Harry's eye, and nodded.
Silas kissed Inesa then, hard and as if they were teenagers, with such relief. He clung to his children, hardly able to think anything other than thank goodness they're all alive.
The body of Voldemort was moved to a chamber off the hall, and when no one was looking, Silas slipped through its door. There was only one window, and it was high up, drained shafts of sunlight filtering through.
In the centre of the room lay the body of Tom Riddle, as Silas decided he would never use the title Voldemort again. He stood over the crumpled corpse, feeble and shrunken, his snakelike face vacant and unknowing.
"Hello," said Silas finally, his voice lifting into the dim. "I don't know if you ever figured it out, but Gwyn had a baby, and that baby was me – and I have your old eyes, something I hate." He studied the hands, the last human thing about him. "You saw me twice, but I thought of you all the time, and I have spent so long hating you, for what you did to my mother, to my head, for all the time I spent agonizing over how we share the same blood..." Silas thought of Gwyn, her smile, how she prayed, her laugh.
"You never succeeded in killing her light, though I now know you tried, but you can't kill something that wants to live so desperately – and Mamma wanted to, and she gave her last scraps of life to me, and to Violet, and you never took away her spirit.
"But she loved you, and I don't know if that ever faded. So you were loved by one, worshipped by many, hated by hundreds. This is the end, Tom Riddle. We are free of you, and I..." Silas swallowed heavily. "I am sorry that life was so horrible to you, so that in turn you made it horrible for others. There must have been something good in you, at the start, or Mamma would never have loved you."
Kneeling down, Silas closed Tom Riddle's eyes. "Goodbye Tom." With that, he left the chamber, walked past the mourning families, the wounded; Molly and Arthur spot him, and they join him. Inesa takes his hand as he passes her, and the four walk out into the light of day.
On the steps of the castle, Silas looks at the dawn; he smiles at Molly, who rests her head on his shoulder. Arthur had his arm around his wife, and he squeezed Silas' shoulder.
"Tom Riddle was my biological father." He says at last.
"We know, Sy." Molly sniffs.
Arthur nodded, smiling sadly. "For a long time."
"He killed your son." Silas said, pained.
"And now he is dead too," squeezing his hand, Molly sighs. "You are separate from him Silas, we have always seen it that way. You are our friend, our family – it's time to stop beating yourself up for something that is not your fault."
"I am so lucky," the words trickled from him slowly, "To have friends like you three."
"We are lucky, aren't we?" asked Inesa. "To have come so far, through all the storms and wars – and here we are, the four of us, as it was at the very start."
It was then Silas noticed, the feeling in his chest – peace. It was back, here to stay; holding his wife's hand, with his best friends, his children, father, sister, all safe inside – he began to cry, like he had as a child, heaving and heavy, but liberating.
Tilting his face to the sky, he welcomed the new day, the first of many in a world without fear – and thought of Gwyn, of everything he had spent years remembering, and let go of all the bad that had weighed him down.
'I remember you Mamma,' he thought, 'don't worry, I did this for you – we are finally free.'
A/N: Woah.
Despite my wrist I sat down and wrote this because I just had to, and it could probably use some touch ups, but I just wanted to get it up here.
One more chapter. The Epilogue. And it's over.
Woah.
Question: what do you think the Epilogue and last chapter will be? What will Silas be doing now that the war is over?
Rose
*Rose from a few hours later: forgot to mention that I've actually written the last chapter, I'm just not sure if it's good enough...? Its tricky to write. You'll see what I mean. It'll be up very soon, I promise.