Halloweens Horror is too short for a summary! There is the death of a major character but only one… read it to find out whom! Told from Severus Snape's point of view with a discrete Harry/Ron pairing 'cos the boys aren't exhibitionists

and I don't own the characters… duh!

0o0o0o0 Reposted with a few errors removed, and a few lines added.0o0o0o0

Halloween's Horror

Severus Snape had seen a lot in his career as a Death Eater and Spy that could be classed as truly horrific. He'd known torture, as a bystander, a participant and as a victim. He'd both seen and caused death, destruction, deprivation and despair. He'd seen a three-year-old child repeatedly stab the woman that had been beating it cruelly all its life in a fit of uncontrollable rage, and a sobbing man forced to slaughter the family he loved under the Imperious Curse. None of that compared to the events that had unfolded only a few short nights ago at the annual Halloween feast.

The students had filled the Hall with their boisterous chatter under the gruesome gaze of the jack-o-lanterns, and as Head of Slytherin, Snape had been there especially to supervise his House. Even the normally placid Hufflepuff's tended to become boisterous on this day, and Professor Sprout was beaming at them with a fond indulgence that was truly sickening to behold.

The Golden Trio of Gryffindor were sitting at the end of their House table closest to their teachers, and in a hall full of boisterous behaviour, theirs stood out like a beacon. Potter had returned to the school in his sixth year in a state that could only be described as broken. He was rake thin, silent, eerily still and not disposed to socialising. Minerva McGonagall was desperately worried about him, and his first sight of the teen he hadn't seen all summer had taken even Albus aback.

Weasley and Granger never left his side. Potter was never to be found without one or the other of them close at hand, and Severus the Spy had noted several times that when Potter reached out, it was to Weasley alone. He'd even caught the boys holding hands, gripping each other tightly as if any moment someone would leap upon them and drag them apart. Both boys quit the Quidditch team and all three were to be found in the library whenever they weren't in class or in a spare classroom, practicing their casting. As Snape had yet to catch them casting spells that were illegal or otherwise forbidden to students, he'd been forced to allow this habit of theirs to continue. The Golden Trio handed in their schoolwork to a standard that even Severus had to admit was excellent, and their behaviour in class was a model of propriety.

This Halloween feast was no different from any other meal in that the behaviour of the Trio continued unchanged. Potter was a teen shaped non-entity that was bracketed by his two fierce friends. Weasley and Granger spoke to him without response or to each other over his bowed head. The Boy Who Lived ate quietly; dished up for his friends from the platters he picked up, and generally ignored everyone else.

The first sign of trouble came from the wards themselves. One minute the walls of the Great Hall were the usual slightly grubby grey stone, the next the wards were pulsing blood red over them. This was a sign that they had been breached, something that hadn't been done in over two hundred years, and while the students exclaimed and pointed the teachers vaulted to their feet, Severus included, wands drawn. The Headmaster lifted his wand to let off a huge bang and get the students attention, but before he could the doors to the foyer burst open, effectively silencing the chattering students.

Death Eaters crowded the door, and in the middle of them was a sight that made Severus' blood run cold. The Dark Lord himself had attended this raid, which meant that there would be a wholesale slaughter of everyone within the four walls of the school that the Death Eaters could find. They might be able to get a few of the students out, but this was sure to be a massacre.

"Time to finish what I started fifteen years ago Potter," Voldemort's voice rang clearly through the silence, "Time to kill you as I killed your mud blood mother and the pureblood she fooled into marrying her."

That simple sentence alerted the entire Hall that He Who Must Not Be Named was actually standing in their midst and those closest the door panicked, screaming in fear and running towards their teachers, an action that set off the rest of their fellows.

It was chaos, pure and simple. Those that fell were run over unless they were lucky enough to roll under a bench. The teachers had no chance to get between the Death Eaters and their charges, and the Death Eaters were stunning children left right and centre.

Something caught Severus eye, and he glanced at it long enough to become transfixed.

The Golden Trio had leapt onto their House table and were running the length of it, food flying from under their feet, firing curses, hexes and stunners at the Death Eaters with lethal accuracy, buying their fellow students time. Even as Snape waved the nearest to the side door that would let them into another part of the castle, as were his colleagues, the Dark Lord brushed aside those standing near him and leapt up onto the end of the Gryffindor table himself, and action that froze the entire Hall.

"Time to die, Potter," the Dark Lord hissed, and the Golden Trio slid to a stop. With a wave of his hand, Potter gestured his friends to step back, and they did so reluctantly, jumping down to the floor. Weasley's face was a mask of anguish, a sort of sick horror in his eyes that matched the feeling in Snape's stomach.

Lord Voldemort smirked and pulled his wand out of the dark robes he wore. It was a light coloured wood, not the holly one that Severus had last seen in the hands of his Lord.

"Brother wands no more, Potter," the hiss carried clearly in the unnatural silence, "You won't be saved by such paltry luck this time."

Snape gasped - as did the entire school - when Potter put his own wand away deliberately, pulling instead from his robes something long that glittered in the light of the floating candles. It took the Potions Master but a second to recognise it, though he had thought it rested in a display case in Albus' office. Potter was holding the Sword of Gryffindor, and holding it like he knew how to use it.

"Diffendo!" Voldemort snapped, and the cutting spell headed for Potter's neck, as if to make a point. Potter swung the sword up, angling it in such a way that when the spell hit it was deflected into the crowd of Death Eaters that still stood by the door, causing a spray of blood to arch into the air, followed by a scream.

Potter did not wait for the echo to die. Before Voldemort could launch a second curse the teen was once more running the length of the table. Proving that his speed in Quidditch was not purely due to his broom, Potter covered the distance quickly, not stopping as he slammed into the Dark Lord with such power that they both fell, the sword punching through Voldemort's back and embedding itself in the table below.

They had twisted as they fell, and Potter was facing Snape now, though his gaze was fixed firmly on the Wizard he had effectively skewered to the table. The mortally wounded man was gasping in pain and shock, and Potter's face was a cold mask as he stared at the man he was kneeling on. The teen's face tightened for a moment and he gave the sword he was still holding a jolt, cruelly sending waves of pain through his opponents dying body. Voldemort still had his wand and before Snape could cry out a warning the mortally wounded Wizard touched it to Potter's shoulder and uttered the spell all Wizard kind feared the most.

"avada kedavra"

Potter looked triumphant for a moment as the words hung in the air, and then the wand glowed green against the shoulder it was pressed to. There was a rushing noise and Potter was surrounded by the spell, even as Weasley screamed his lovers name and Granger shouted a useless denial. Potter flung his head back; a look of agony on his face as the spell took hold and his skin absorbed the green light. From the body beneath him rose the spectre of the Dark Lord, a formless black mass that abandoned the shell that had been its living body.

And that was when the horror of Halloween really struck. Because that was when they were all shown very clearly what had happened the night that baby Harry Potter banished Lord Voldemort the first time. The foul green curse that the teen - no the man, for Potter had certainly proved tonight that he was no child - had absorbed burst from his body with a sound that could rend souls. The very walls around them shook and swayed as if made of the flimsiest paper instead of constructed in the thick stone that Severus knew them to be. Potter's green eyes had snapped open and were fixed clearly on the black mass that was even now attempting to flee and the green of the curse followed. The famous scar upon his forehead split wide open in a spray of blood as Voldemort's essence - his soul, his magic and his memories - were engulfed in the curse that he himself had cast, backfiring once again, and this time there would be no recovery. Severus knew that as clearly as he knew his own name.

And then it was over. As suddenly as it had started, it stopped. The power of the rebounding curse stopped shaking their very bones and the inhuman sound stopped. Potter collapsed without ceremony, and only Weasley's sudden leap prevented him from falling to the floor entirely. The Death Eaters in the open doorway disappeared as quickly as they'd arrived, fleeing for their lives, though there was no one in the castle, not even the Headmaster, who would spare them a thought for some time.

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It was rather an anticlimax to round the students up and seal the uninjured ones in their dorms while the injured were taken to the hospital wing for treatment. An emergency call had Aurors and Healers descending on the castle in waves, and Snape spent the night locked in with his House, providing his own brand of comfort and support.

It was three days before he had a chance to make his way to the chamber where Potter lay, apparently still weakened, his magic deeply depressed, leaving him defenceless. Rumour had it that a new scar had formed on his shoulder where the wand had been pressed, and Snape knew for a fact that Weasley had refused to leave Potters side. The school was closed, the students sent home for the term until the damage done to the wards and the cracks in the Great Hall could be repaired. The castle had not escaped the backlash of that spell unscathed, though it was more solidly constructed than the house that was destroyed fifteen years ago. The Wizarding world was celebrating wildly, and even Granger had been seen dancing with the youngest Weasley on their way to the carriages that would take them home.

It was the deepest part of the night, and Snape slipped into the chamber that housed Potter noiselessly, not wanting to wake Weasley should the boy be asleep. As it was, he needn't have bothered. Weasley was curled upon the bed, Potter in his arms, the two of them kissing slowly and deeply, fingers stroking each other with such tenderness that made Snape's throat ache. The green-eyed teen was being supported entirely by his lover's arms, and Snape knew with a moment of clarity that Potter had never been safer in his life, not even when his mother had first cradled him.

There was talk of course that the young man would receive the Order of Merlin first class - his friends would get second class for the aid they gave him in preparing his final strategy to face Voldemort - but Snape could see clearly that this was all the reward Potter would ever need. The attention-seeking brat that Severus Snape had assumed the son of his enemy to be was happier being kissed by his impoverished boyfriend than receiving the accolades of his peers.

In a way, that someone who was ranked by the Wizarding world as more important than the Minister of Magic himself could disregard the approval of that world so casually was a kind of horror in itself.

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End