42

CHAPTER FORTY TWO:

"...Well, that was anticlimactic."

"Indeed."

"...The others should be here soon."

Severus remained quiet, merely inclining his head in agreement. Harry sighed and sat down off to the side, leaning against the wall in a spot where he could keep the entire room in sight, particularly the door and the two dead bodies lying at the front of the room.

"Not that I'm not glad that it was this easy, but... it just seems too easy, you know?"

"I do agree," Severus replied, unable to take his eyes off his dead master. "I did not even feel any pain at his passing."

Harry straightened worriedly. "Is there a way to check whether it's really him?"

"It is," came the prompt answer. "I would know the feel of his magic anywhere, and you cannot fake the Summons. No, this is the Dark Lord."

"What about Quirrell?" Harry frowned. "You didn't know he was being possessed by Snake Face, no?"

Severus finally turned away from the body that was still warm under the stasis charm. "That is because it was not true possession – Quirrell was still fully in control, and as such was using his own magic."

Harry shrugged in understanding.

"...Has it still not been five minutes since we appeared here?"

Harry checked his watch and replied, "One more minute – we were done faster than I had expected." Two cutting curses and both Voldemort and Nagini had crumpled to the floor, their heads landing a foot away; stasis charms on everything to keep it from decomposing and they were done. Voldemort hadn't even had time to realize that his two first followers to appear would be the only ones.

Suddenly a series of cracks rent the air and Harry heaved himself to his feet. "Stand down!" he said evenly, and the Order members lowered their wands slightly.

"Blimey," Tonks breathed. "Is that..?"

"Yes," Harry said, confidently walking to the front of the hall. "As you can all see, Snake Face and Nagini have been dealt with, and no other Death Eaters were summoned for this meeting, so there are at present no people to fight. Alastor, can you see any other people in this building?"

Moody's eye was spinning madly, but his good eye switched only between Harry and Voldemort's headless body. "My eye doesn't see that far, but there is no one directly outside this room. You want us to check the rest of the building?"

Harry nodded. "Absolutely. Everyone, stay in your teams and go scout out the building; Severus and I will hold this position on the off chance that Snake Face did summon more people and they're just taking a while to get here. Dobby? If there are any house elves in this building please ask them to come talk to me." The humans and elf scattered, leaving Harry and Severus alone with the corpses once more. Harry absently cast a Protego around their defeated opponents, "In case anyone comes and tries anything," he explained at Severus's odd look.

Just then Dobby reappeared. "Master Harry, there is being no house elves here!"

"That's great, Dobby, thanks. Are there any wizards or witches in the building?" He was wondering if he had just sent his people out for no good reason when Dobby replied in the affirmative. "Okay then. That's all for now, thanks!"

"Master Harry is welcome!" Dobby said before popping away, and Harry couldn't help but smile as he always did when talking to Dobby.

"Guess we just wait here, then," Harry said to Severus, going to sit against the wall again. "Hey, Severus? Do you think we should tell Amelia that we killed Snake Face, or should we just say that the Order of the Phoenix did it?"

Severus walked over and leaned against the wall beside him. "You killed the Dark Lord, not I – but even so I am unsure. Are you planning on letting the wizarding world know of your presence in this time frame, or were you hoping to stay hidden?"

"I was thinking of becoming Minister of Magic, actually," Harry replied evenly, and Severus's eyebrows rose.

"A thankless job."

"Yeah, but someone needs to do it, and who else will? Amelia would be great, but I know how much she loves being Head of the Aurors; I wouldn't take that from her. I don't want to keep the post for long; just long enough to get Britain running properly again. I'm hoping it won't take more than five years."

Severus stifled a groan as he saw his wish for a very extended world trip going down the drain. "Then it would be advantageous to make it clear from the start that you defeated the Dark Lord, are the leader of the Order, and are the head of both the Potter and Black families," he said evenly, and Harry nodded.

"I thought it might be... Oh, but I really don't want to be Minister!" he whined, and Severus saw an opening.

"Then do not," he said, hiding carefully how little he wanted Harry to assume that post. "Have Madam Bones run for the post while giving her your full support, let Kingsley be promoted to Head of the Aurors, and work through them. You will have a great deal of power from your Wizengamot seats alone, especially since the Light and Neutral families will be behind you and many of the powerful Dark families have been... dealt with," he said with a delicacy that implied his participation in the past missions. "There is no concrete need for you to run for Minister, unless you want to give the sheep another reason to cling to you." His arguments seemed to be close to convincing the younger man to give up his idea, and Severus decided to deliver the killing blow. Crouching down, he leaned in close and whispered in Harry's ear, "Besides, were you to assume the post of Minister I would be forced to travel the world alone..." He smirked at the man's exclamation.

"You would go without me?" Harry pouted, and Severus pulled back to see his face.

"No," he confessed, his smirk changing to a smile. "But there is no guarantee that you would only be Minister for five years, and it is a thankless job with little chances for even short vacations, let alone the immersion into various cultures that we wish to experience. Also, it is hardly as though we need the funds – did you know that we can present ourselves at Gringotts and claim the vaults of the Death Eaters by right of conquest?" A dark smile spread across his face at Harry's surprised look. "The Lestrange vaults would fall to you anyway, but I can also claim the vaults of the Carrows and Avery, to be split with the other members of my teams. Lupin, being a werewolf, can claim neither the Jugson nor the Avery vaults, but I can claim the one and Black the other, dividing the contents fairly afterwards. William will be quite a bit richer after receiving even part of the Carrow and Dolohov vaults," Severus smirked, "and could even argue that a percentage of the Lestrange vaults should go to him as well, as he was the one to get us past the wards."

Harry just looked stunned, and a thought came to Severus then. "In fact... There is the possibility that you could claim the vaults and possessions of all Death Eaters by right of conquest, as you defeated their marked master..."

"My God," Harry breathed, a grin slowly appearing on his face. "Bankrupt all of Snake Face's supporters, and by playing by their own rules? Severus, you're brilliant!" Giving the man before him a hard kiss, Harry stood and strode to the middle of the room. "Dobby! Fetch Kingsley for me, please." It took but a few seconds, then Kingsley appeared before him. "Thanks, Dobby. Kingsley, I think you should go get Amelia now," Harry said, unable to keep the grin from his face. "I have to discuss some things with her, and the sooner, the better. It's already past ten, after all."

"I'll bring her right away," Kingsley bowed, to Harry's surprise, before apparating away.

"Is everyone going to start bowing to me now?" he asked Severus petulantly, and the man nodded.

"Most likely; you are now no longer simply the Boy Who Lived, but also the Vanquisher of Voldemort," the Potions Master sneered as he said the new title, and Harry couldn't help but grin.

"That actually doesn't have a bad ring to it," he said cheerfully. "Vanquisher of Voldemort." Severus's lips twitched as he watched his lover from the wall.

Sooner than they had expected Kingsley reappeared with Amelia by his side, both of their wands drawn. "Peace," Harry took a step forward, raising his empty hands nonthreateningly. "Amelia, it's good to see you again." She gave him a sharp look, and he grinned disarmingly. "Though I don't believe you've met me before." Sweeping a bow, he introduced himself. "My name is Harry James Potter-Black, and I came from the future to deal with a little problem that got out of hand..." As he said the last part he swept out an arm to gesture at the dead bodies.

"Is that-?" Amelia gaped, and Kingsley answered, "It is. The leader of the Order of the Phoenix believes however that a forensics team should be brought in to check that it truly is Voldemort."

"Dumbledore?" Amelia asked, pursing her lips. She was not fond of the old man, and it rankled to know that Shacklebolt answered to him.

"No," Kingsley replied, to her surprise. "The man you see before you is our leader."

It took rather unusual circumstances to put Amelia Bones off-balance, but Harry could see that the woman was just that.

"Perhaps we should discuss it at length another time," he offered amicably. "I think right now it's more important to have confirmation that this is Voldemort, and that he is dead this time. I am reasonably sure that both things are true, but official confirmation is always a good thing to have."

At that Amelia seemed to rally herself, and she immediately turned to the reassuring familiarity of the standard procedure for a crime scene. Turning to her subordinate, she ordered, "Shacklebolt, organize a team of Aurors to secure the building and a forensics team, then bring them here directly." The man nodded and Amelia turned back to the strange man, but he spoke before she could.

"Would you prefer if I got the Order out of the building, then? They've been subduing the people present, but we can leave it to the Aurors if you prefer."

Amelia blinked, then straightened. "This is a task for the Aurors. Please call off your vigilante subordinates."

The man simply nodded, then crouched and called for a house elf. Amelia blinked at the friendly tone the man used when addressing his servant, and soon the house elf popped away to tell the Order members to return to their homes with a message thanking them for their assistance. Then the man straightened again, and cocked his head slightly, looking at her.

"Severus, would you rather stay or go?" Amelia started in surprise when a low voice answered the man's question, head jerking to look at the man who she hadn't even noticed standing against the wall.

"I would stay," Severus Snape replied smoothly, his gaze fixed on her just as his companion's was. "I have worked behind the scenes for this day for too long to simply trust that no one will attempt anything with the Dark Lord's body."

"I thought you might say that." Amelia stared as the supposed time traveler turned to smile at the Death Eater.

"Did you not attend my trial at the end of the last war, Madam Bones?" came the silken voice of Hogwarts' Potions professor. "I was released on Dumbledore's word that I was a spy for the Light; a testimony that he gave no other Death Eater beside myself." The man didn't smile, merely look at her with a disconcertingly level gaze, and she had to keep from fidgeting despite being older than he. "Many doubted the veracity of such a statement, but I am more than prepared to confirm under Veritaserum that I have, for the past sixteen years, been a spy in the Dark Lord's ranks."

"Sixteen years?" Amelia asked sharply. "If I am not mistaken, you joined You-Know-Who over seventeen years ago."

Severus inclined his head. "That is true. However, the Dark Lord was a skilled recruiter – he lured me in with promises of a Potions Mastery, and it was not until shortly before Potter's birth that I learned of the true nature of the group I had joined. At that point I turned to Dumbledore and became a spy for the Order of the Phoenix."

"I see," Amelia said, but her gaze was still sharp. "I will be happy to accept your offer to say as much under Veritaserum at the next possible opportunity." To her surprise, the man simply nodded, seeming unconcerned at the subtle threat. Could it be that he's telling the truth?

"I will be happy to testify under Veritaserum as well," a younger voice said then, and she turned back to the speaker, "but I think right now is not a good time. Your teams should arrive at any moment," the young man smiled disarmingly, and she reluctantly nodded. She wanted answers, and she'd prefer having them right away, but it was more important to verify whether the headless corpse truly belonged to You-Know-Who.

As if the strange young man had known of their imminent arrival, just then a number of people apparated into the hall, and Amelia immediately set then about their tasks. She felt that she would be busy for the next few days, especially so if that body really was that of You-Know-Who...