Disclaimer: I own nothing. And I'll own even less if my trial on December 29th goes as bad as I fear.

Ok, anyway...so, this is my Final Battle story. Don't worry, I'm not going to go all clichés and just have Harry kill Voldemort, or vice versa. As Dumbledore said, "there are worse things than death", and merely taking Voldemort's life wouldn't satisfy me either. So I had to think of something else. Oddly enough, it came to me while I was writing a Quidditch World Cup story.

A Fate Worse than Death

By Scott Jewett

There were times during the battle when Harry Potter had wished he'd never had to graduate. He knew Voldemort would attack him on the grounds of Hogwarts, in the hope of destroying him and Dumbledore in one fell swoop.

And attack he did. Using a few well-placed Death Eaters disguised by Polyjuice Potion, Voldemort entered the grounds of Hogwarts. Witches and wizards were incapacitated as the Dark army advanced. The only lucky move was when a few good shots took out the giants, and they crushed the dementors on the way down.

Obviously, of course, the defenders of Hogwarts weren't entirely caught unaware. Every member of the Order of the Phoenix was attending the graduation. Perhaps the most astounding sight came in the form of a group of centaurs at the edge of the forest. None of them ever advanced. They simply stood there, firing arrows at the Death Eaters. No one in history has ever questioned a centaur's marksmanship with a bow and arrow, and that battle was a shining example of why. The Death Eaters, expecting a quick takeover, were suddenly forced to fight in two different directions.

Lord Voldemort had seemed to take it in stride. He simply ordered an attack on the centaurs of nothing but Killing Spells, which wiped them out. Reducing the battle to one front, however, didn't have much of an effect. The defenders of Hogwarts fought hard, all through the day, as storm clouds gathered and rain poured down.

At one point in the battle, Harry Potter simply looked around. He could barely see through the rain, and he could barely hear over the mingled shouts of curses. "Sort of like a Quidditch game" he thought to himself. "Actually, lots like a Quidditch game...I think I risked death during a match more than most people." Then he dove to the ground as a jet of dark blue light shot over his head. He quickly turned, pointing his wand.

"Petrificus Totalus!" Rodolphus Lestrange fell to the ground in the Full Body-Bind. Harry immediately got very worried. He'd been fighting off the Lestranges, not to mention Lucius Malfoy, Crabbe, and Goyle, all day. He rather suspected that they had been ordered to just capture him, as he hadn't had to dodge any Killing Curses from them. And being the one in a five on one battle was more likely to wear him out than them. Harry began to run towards a large vague shape he assumed was Hogwarts. He jumped over limp forms on the ground, firing curses at Death Eaters along the way to clear his path.

Skidding to a halt outside the front doors, Harry turned to find the five Death Eaters surrounding him, wands drawn.

"REDUCTO!"

It should be noted here that this particular curse is used to blast solid objects out of the way of a witch or wizard. It also has this effect if used against a witch or wizard. Malfoy, Crabbe, Goyle, and the Lestranges were blasted forward against the front doors and knocked unconscious. Harry, who had ducked, stood up, smiling weakly at the people who had just saved him: Hermione, Ron, Neville, Remus Lupin, and Mad-Eye Moody.

"Close one, Potter" Moody growled.

"Are you ok, Harry?" Hermione asked, her eyes wide. Harry nodded.

"How's everyone else?" Lupin spoke up.

"We seem to be holding up well...Shacklebolt's got a cut on his face that no one can seem to fix, and Bill Weasley's had his ponytail blown off...Molly doesn't seem to mind though."

"But what about Professor McGonagall? And Snape? And Dumbledore? The spell won't work if they can't help perform it!" Harry cried.

"We KNOW, Harry...we helped build it, remember?" Ron said.

"Besides, when have you ever known any of them not to be okay?" Neville added.

At least mildly reassured, Harry rejoined the battle. It raged on for hours more. The rain intensified, as if reacting to the general feeling of hatred and pain in the air. The Death Eaters began to fall, one by one. Harry was particularly proud to see Lupin acting completely unnatural, his eyes wide, face contorted, almost like the werewolf he became monthly, as he performed the spell that killed Peter "Wormtail" Pettigrew. Even on the other side of the battlefield, Harry could hear Lupin say "that was for you, Prongs." Although he didn't want to, Harry forced himself to cast the spell that had killed his parents. The Killing Curse shot from his wand repeatedly, destroying Macnair. Rabastan Lestrange. Nott. Avery. Lucius Malfoy.

As the rain slowed, the defenders of Hogwarts switched to non-lethal means. The remaining living Death Eaters were attacked en masse, cursed and stripped of their wands, then placed under various forms of containment. Finally, there was only Voldemort left.

Dumbledore and Voldemort had been dueling for hours. Neither showed the slightest sign of tiring. Many people had been simply watching the duel, occasionally firing curses at Voldemort, but he was easily deflecting them without losing stride in the duel. Harry didn't think he had a chance of succeeding where everyone else had failed, but he tried anyway.

"Expelliarmus!" To everyone's shock, Voldemort's wand flew out of his hand.

"Eradicus!" The Eradication Spell was one step down from an Unforgivable, but just as bad. A jet of yellow light flew from the tip of Dumbledore's wand, hitting Voldemort's wand and completely destroying it. Voldemort simply laughed.

"And I suppose you think you have me now, Dumbledore? There's nothing you can do to me!" He laughed cruelly as Professors Snape and McGonagall, Hermione, Ron, and Lupin stepped forward. They formed a semicircle around Harry and drew their wands, pointing them at him.

"Actually, Tom, you're quite right...there's nothing I can do to you." He pointed his wand at Harry. A beam of blue light connected the tip of his wand with Harry's chest.

"However" Snape spoke up, "there is something that Harry can do to you." A similar beam of light erupted from his wand.

"You see," McGonagall remarked as her beam of light struck Harry's chest, "none of us wanted to kill you."

"We wanted to make sure you could never rise to this level of evil again." Lupin spoke quite calmly, but the fury in his eyes as he looked at Voldemort matched everyone else's. His beam of light struck Harry.

"And I found a way to do it" said Hermione as her beam of light connected. "As you can see, though, it takes quite a bit of magic."

"As talented as Harry is" Ron said, "this isn't a spell one wizard can do properly by himself. He needs the combined power of all of us." Ron's beam of light connected with Harry.

Harry simply stood there for a second, his eyes closed, feeling the power grow within him. This is it, he thought. This is our last chance to take him down. His thoughts were so intense that he almost didn't hear Voldemort's savage, almost triumphant laughter.

"You think the combined effects of seven witches and wizards will destroy me? The greatest sorcerer EVER? I've taken more precautions and experiments to conquer death than anyone has! You can never kill Lord Voldemort!" he screamed happily. Harry's eyes snapped open.

"Kill you, Tom? I'm not going to kill you. Dumbledore was right all those years ago...your failure to understand that there are worse things than death really is your greatest weakness, isn't it?" Harry raised his wand, the combined powers growing even stronger inside him. Voldemort actually laughed louder.

"There's NOTHING worse than death! But please, I beg you...attempt to kill me. Give me one last second of amusement before I destroy all of you!" Harry simply smiled, opening his mouth.

"ANIMO DEPRIVUS!"

A jet of black light shot from Harry's wand, striking Voldemort in the chest. The laughing look on his face was replaced by one of shock. He tried to run, but the force of the magic kept him in place.

To everyone's shock, a second jet of black light shot from the lightning bolt-shaped scar on Harry's forehead, hitting squarely between Voldemort's eyes. His head shot back in apparent pain. Nothing happened for a few seconds, but everyone kept their concentration, forcing the spell to work.

Then suddenly, it happened. Little spots of white light started appearing over Voldemort's body. Slowly, they grew, and were joined by other white spots. They grew and grew, until Voldemort seemed to be nothing more than a being of perfect white light. A glow seemed to emanate from him. The glow got brighter, almost too much to bear...and then suddenly, it stopped. The white light started flowing out of Voldemort's body, along the two jets of black light, into Harry's wand and his scar, and back along the other beams into everyone else. Harry forced every bit of his mind to maintain the spell, to drain every bit of white light out of the Dark Lord.

Something else was happening. Voldemort's snakelike face was changing. His eyes changed from blood red to brown. A nose took shape around the slits he had for nostrils. Color started flowing back through his skin, replacing the bright whiteness. He was even shrinking.

And then it was done. The last bits of white light were drained out of the Dark Lord's body. Harry and the others, lowered their wands, staring at what the Dark Lord had become. Gone was the evil, forbidding snake-like creature; in its place was a very ordinary looking old man, black-haired and brown-eyed, who looked very out of place in dark robes that were at least two sizes too big. He could have been Harry's grandfather. For a couple of seconds, he just stood there, wobbling slightly.

"I...suppose...that was meant to destroy me?" he asked, attempting to mask his confusion. Harry merely smiled.

"Tom...and I'm sure I can call you that now...weren't you listening to anything we said? We never meant to kill you. Let me give you an example of what we did, ok?" He pointed at Hogwarts. Voldemort turned to look, and his jaw dropped.

"Where did Hogwarts go? WHAT DID YOU DO?"

"It's very simple, Tommy boy...Muggles can't see Hogwarts, can they? That's the beauty of Animo Deprivus. It doesn't kill a wizard...it simply drains him of all his magic powers. You're no longer a wizard, Tom." Voldemort's eyes widened.

"No! NO! It's not possible!" He looked around frantically, and snatched a wand from a fallen Death Eater, pointing it at Harry.

"AVADA KEDAVRA!" Nothing happened. Voldemort's hand started to shake.

"AVADA KEDAVRA! AVADA KEDAVRA!" Harry sighed and raised his wand.

"Appara Reflectis!" A mirror appeared in front of Voldemort. He started screaming when he saw his reflection.

"NOOOOOOOOO!!!!" He threw the wand aside and charged Harry, who simply Stunned him.

Harry stood over the old man that used to be Lord Voldemort. "Could it really have been this easy?" he thought. He barely noticed the celebration starting around him, or the screams of the captured Death Eaters. Then, something else happened that he really felt he should pay attention to.

Harry's wand started shaking in his hand. Looking around, he noticed the same effect in the wands of his friends.

"We should have expected this" Dumbledore said. "It's Voldemort's power...it can't stand to reside in any of us. We all have to expel it."

"But is that safe?" Hermione asked. "I mean, where can we expel it where there won't be any negative effects? What if the power somehow finds its way back into Tom's body?"

"We have to take that chance, Hermione" Ron said. "This is beginning to get pretty uncomfortable." All seven of the wands that had helped draw the power out of Voldemort were shaking almost uncontrollably.

"He's right, Hermione" Lupin said, raising his wand to the sky. The others followed suit.

"But now what?" Harry asked. "Do we just concentrate or something?"

"Exactly, Harry" said Dumbledore. "We have to concentrate as hard as we can to expel Voldemort's magical power from our wands and bodies." Harry nodded and closed his eyes, concentrating as hard as he could.

Suddenly, a burst of light shot from the tip of Harry's wand. He had to grab the wand with both hands to control it. Similar blasts erupted from the other six wands. All of them were mixed green and silver. The blasts shot straight up into the sky, molding together to create a giant green and silver serpent.

Harry was looking up in shock, never letting go of his wand. The huge serpent slithered through the sky, still connected to the wands below. It began to grow, larger and larger, feeding on the evil power. A dark black spot appeared in the center of the snake. As it grew, the wind and rain increased.

Somehow, Harry knew what to do. He refocused his mind, concentrating on destroying the serpent. The black spot within the serpent grew. Harry concentrated harder.

"We need to destroy it!" he shouted, not sure that anyone could hear him. Every particle of Harry's mind and being was focused on destroying the serpent. The black spot stopped growing, but it wasn't shrinking either.

The rest seemed to get the idea. Slowly, the black spot shrunk. As it disappeared, streams of red and gold light rose up (except for Snape's wand, which produced more green and silver light), spiraling around the beams of green and silver and surrounding the serpent. The serpent writhed in midair, appearing to try and throw off the red and gold, but it was no use. Finally, the serpent spun around, took its own tail in its mouth, and started to spin. Faster and faster it spun, a green-and-silver disc bordered with red and gold, until finally it just exploded. Pieces of the serpent flew across the sky, exploding into bright, multicolored fireworks that lit up the night. Harry and the others watched Voldemort's power dissipating into the night. He felt more than saw Ron and Hermione coming to stand on either side of him.

"It's amazing that something so beautiful would come from something so evil" Hermione said. Everyone just stood silently, watching the eradication of Voldemort's magical powers.

When the fireworks were done, Harry turned to the still-Stunned Tom Riddle.

"What do you think...put him in Azkaban?" Ron asked. Harry smiled.

"Put him in a prison he can't even see? No, I've got a better idea..."

Two weeks later...

Harry stood in his bedroom at the Dursley's house. His trunk was packed, and he was ready to move in with Ron in their flat in London. Only one item left to pack...

Harry reached for his copy of last week's Muggle newspaper. Quickly, he flipped to the second page and read the headline: "Insane Man Committed After Fiasco At King's Cross"

An unknown man in his mid-60's was committed to a mental hospital today after knocking himself out at King's Cross railway station. Witnesses observed the man, dressed only in long, old-looking robes that were a couple sizes too large, ranting and raving about "Platform Nine and Three-Quarters" as he called it, and someone called Harry Potter, shortly before running into the divider between platforms nine and ten and knocking himself out cold.

"I couldn't understand it" one witness was heard to say. "He kept yelling "I'll get you, Harry Potter!" And then he lunged at the divider like he would be able to pass right through it!"

"This man, who referred to himself as "Lord Voldemort", has no identification of any kind, and keeps going on about an entire magical world that no one can see" remarked the arresting officer. "Out of his mind, if you ask me...talking about "Muggles" and "Hogwarts"...obviously he's been demented for a long time."

"Whoever this man is, he's obviously been delusional for a long time" quoted a doctor at the hospital. "He speaks of an entire magical world, hidden from our own, apparently. Not only that, he speaks of being the most powerful wizard in the world, before "Harry Potter" removed his magic powers and left him in our world. It just makes me wonder: if he was so powerful, how come he didn't think of a way to keep his powers permanently?"

That article made Harry laugh every time he read it. He could still see Ron's confused face from two weeks earlier.

"You're just going to let him go?" he'd asked. Harry had just smiled.

"Trust me...this will be worse than death for him."

The End

(A/N: So there you have it...my dramatic debut. I'm going to follow this up with a Quidditch World Cup story...made unique by the fact that it will feature me and two of my ex-girlfriends on the American team! Annnnyway...read and review!)