To start off with, just letting everyone know that this is a repost. I had originally had this on my old account; however I wasn't happy with that so I took this down and have reposted it with my new account. Also any grammar or spelling mistakes found are mine and I apologise, I don't have a beta reader at the moment.

This is AU. The final battle in the DH is changed and the Hallows involved in this, which means that Voldemort doesn't have the Elder wand. This idea just popped up and I started writing and this is the result. This was originally intended to be a one-shot. However after some encouragement from my friends and siblings I am in the process of writing of sequel, however I will post that separately, so then you can either just read this as a one-shot or you can also read the sequel to it. Also hope no-minds the title, I think it is somewhat fitting, but generally I am bad at giving titles or they end up being corny.

By the way there is a funny 'deleted' scene at the end of this, seems I can't get away without writing something funny in my fanfictions. Normally I write humour, however this has a more Sirius (pardon the pun, couldn't help it :D); a more serious flow to this fanfiction.

Disclaimer: Harry Potter and everything associated belong to J.K. Rowling.

Lost Hope

In the Great Hall at Hogwarts as Lord Voldemort and Harry Potter duelled for the final time. Harry was feeling confident that with all of the Horcruxes destroyed that Voldemort would finally be gone for good. As Harry uttered the killing curse, he felt a sense of relief as the curse headed towards Voldemort and started to lower his wand thinking that the dark lord's regime would finally end.

However in an instant that feeling of relief was gone, replaced by a spine tingling cold sensation as Harry watched Voldemort, who did not collapse dead as he was hit with the curse instead there was a brilliant gold light that interfered with the green curse. Afterwards the dark lord remained standing; the only difference being the smirk that played on the dark lord and the glint in his ruby eyes that said 'I know something you don't know'.

Voldemort had prepared for this moment since he returned years prior in case the killing curse was cast on him or if the killing curse ever backfired again like it had with Potter. He took certain precautions in which should he ever end up in this situation again, instead of leaving him in a ghastly form searching for a new body, his current soul would not be destroyed however one of his Horcruxes would be destroyed but he would be able to remain in his current body. In this case though since Nagini was killed her soul piece had returned to him so when he was struck by Potter's killing curse, that piece of his soul was the one destroyed instead causing the gold light to interfere.

Students, members of the Order and Death Eaters all stared in shock at the Dark Lord, trying to comprehend why he wasn't dead. Harry, their saviour was supposed to kill the Dark Lord and yet here he was; Lord Voldemort was now the second person to survive the killing curse.

Harry who had been standing in shock uttered a soft "but how? You should be dead; we destroyed all your Horcruxes" Harry briefly thought about all their accomplishments that year, all the Horcruxes that they destroyed.

Lord Voldemort grinned maniacally at this "What? Did you honestly think I would split my soul up and then leave them lying around where anyone could find them. I wasn't that stupid, they were fakes that I left should that old fool Dumbledore ever try to destroy me. My real Horcruxes are hidden in various secret locations under high security."

Hermione and Ron, who were standing to the side near Harry, gasped in shock at hearing this. This was not possible. They had spent the year looking for the Horcurxes and destroying them. Had it all been in vain? Hermione started to think about a reasonable understanding of how Voldemort must be wrong, she needed to desperately cling to any hope that the past years of their life had not been for nothing. That Professor Dumbledore must have known what to do; after all how could he not have known the Horcruxes were fake she wondered.

Harry then thought about the diary in his second year, the locket when Ron stabbed it and the ring that cursed Dumbledore. "Then what about the diary, ring and locket? They had bits of your soul in them and they were destroyed, how could they not be Horcruxes" Harry asked trying to stall Voldemort while he somehow thinks about how they could get out of this. Harry runs his hand through his sweaty hair trying to appear calm and not outwardly worried, as he knows that there is no way that he could properly duel the Dark Lord and that when he managed to cast the killing curse before, it was only a lucky shot. After all, the Dark Lord was an experienced dueller with many years experience and a genius when he was young; compared to Harry, who had not even finished seventh year, most of his years at Hogwarts had incompetent or compromised professor's for defence against the dark arts all these years and other than being taught basic spells in Hogwarts he had never been properly trained to fight one on one with Voldemort.

Voldemort seemed amused by this "Your stupidity amazes me Potter, but I suppose the actual blame for this would fall on your dear old Headmaster Dumbledore. After all he was the one to fall for my fakes. It was so simple, all I had to do was make a copy of all those items and then just added a bit of dark magic and some duplicate memories and that was it. I then placed them in places I knew Dumbledore would stumble across and all the pieces fell into place from there. While he was looking for my fake Horcruxes, my real Horcurxes are safely hidden, aside from Nagini of course, but her death was not in vain"

Harry knew his luck was about to run out, he glanced towards Hermione and Ron; she had unshed tears in her eyes while he looked defeated and hopeless. Harry then glanced around the Hall and saw Order members and students, most of which had horror etched on their faces; while Death Eaters were smirking and seemed quite confident. He then looked back towards Voldemort, who still had some sort of twisted smile and now had a mad glint in his eyes. Harry tightened his grip on his wand and raised his wand arm towards the Dark Lord once more with a new determination that he would do the best he could; he wasn't going to give up.

Lord Voldemort smirked, "Do you honestly think you stand a chance against me" he spoke rhetorically. It would end tonight, the prophecy would finally be ended and nothing would stand in his way to take over.

Harry spoke another curse in which the Dark Lord stepped out of the way of and returned his own dark spell towards Potter. At the sight of the now fighting Saviour and Dark Lord, everyone else in the hall resumed their battles. Different colours flying everywhere, screams and bodies falling to the ground were the only sounds for the remainder of the night, in which only one side would become victorious. Tomorrow the wizarding world will either be saved or will fall to darkness.

And here is the funny deleted scene inspired by my sister – keep in mind that this would only happen if Harry was still a Horcrux, however in the book there is no mind link anymore because of when Harry 'died' and destroyed the Horcrux, so just pretend the mind link is still there

*Start of deleted scene*

Afterwards the dark lord remained standing; the only difference being the smirk that played on the dark lord and the glint in his ruby eyes that said 'I know something you don't know'. Harry then felt a sharp pain coming from his scar; he clutched his head and realized that he could hear something from his mind? Harry thought for a moment that Voldemort was trying to possess him again like at the ministry all those years ago... But instead he could clearly hear this mocking sing-song voice and realized with horror it was the Dark Lord's voice, continuously saying 'I know something you don't know'. Harry screamed in horror of it all. Ten minutes later, the Dark Lord decided he was done gloating and finally left Harry's mind alone.

*End of deleted scene*

Thanks for reading and hope you enjoyed it.