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Hagrid carried him back through the Forest and to the front of school, huge tears falling down from his face and onto the ground. Harry kept perfectly still, not daring to move should he be exposed. He felt a chill come over him and knew the Dementors were near, but knew he would be left alone as long as he was within Voldemort's presence. Suddenly they stopped, though Harry didn't open his eyes to find out why.

He didn't need to, for a loud, booming voice soon filled his eardrums as Voldemort spoke, his voice magically amplified. "Harry Potter is dead. He was killed as he ran away, trying to save himself while you lay down your lives for him. We bring you his body as proof that your hero is gone."

"NO!" The scream of panic and despair was more terrifying the fact it came from Professor McGonagall. Many other screams and cries were heard until utter silence fell.

"Silence. The battle is won. You have lost half of your fighters. My Death Eaters outnumber you, and the Boy Who Lived is finished. There must be no more war. Anyone who continues to resist, man, woman or child, will be slaughtered, as will every member of their family. Kneel before me now, and you shall be spared. Your parents and children, your brothers and sisters will live and be forgiven, and you will join me in the new world we shall build together."

"Draco…" Harry heard Lucius speak, trying to beckon his son. "Draco, please."

"Draco, come." Narcissa, too, tried.

There was a pause, and Harry begged to the heavens above that Draco made the right decision. Eventually, his boyfriend spoke. "No mother. My place is here, with my friends, protecting the school. For Harry."

"You dare defy me, young Malfoy?" Voldemort asked, his voice unnaturally calm.

That was when Harry knew he must act. With one swift movement, Harry fell out of Hagrid's arms and landed on his feet, pulling his wand out and casting a curse in Voldemort's general direction as he ran back towards the school, getting lost in the throng of people, students and adults alike, all running inside as he heard Voldemort's scream. Knowing he didn't have long left, Harry apparated away to the Astronomy Tower away from all the fighting, where he would not be found, and used his coin, summoning his Assassins. Within seconds, they all arrived, some looking a bit worse for wear, as they began bombarding him with questions. "Enough!" He shouted at them, silencing falling instantly. "We don't have the time for all these questions. This is where the battle ends. You all must fight, with your masks up. Don't hold back. Protect the students, kill the Death Eaters. Show them whose side you are really on. Do not take the masks down unless I do. Neville, I have a special task for you. Find the Sorting Hat and get the Sword of Gryffindor from it. Then, kill Nagini. She has to die. Now go, all of you. And be careful. I'll see you on the other side!" He put up his own mask. Running back down the stairs, Torva joined the fray, trying to buy time. He hoped that Voldemort did not find him, he hoped Neville could kill the snake before he had a chance to.

All around him was destruction. He saw winged creature soaring above the heads of Voldemort's giants, thestrals and Buckbeak scratching at their eyes whilst Grawp pummelled and punched them to the ground. Looking around, it seemed that every family member of every student who had remained behind was fighting. The centaurs Bane, Ronan and Magorian burst into the Hall, with a clatter of hooves, shooting arrows at anyone they could reach. The house-elves were hacking at the ankles of Death Eaters with carving knives and meat cleavers. Torva saw Yaxely slammed to the floor by two of his Assassins, unsure as to who, 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 another Assassin, again unsure who, bring down Fenir Greyback. Aberforth stunned Rookwood, two Assassins beating Thicknesse, even Lucius and Narcissa were doing their bit. But rather than fighting, they were cast shield charms around the injured, their eyes all the while desperately searching for their son. Voldemort was duelling McGonagall, Slughorn and Kingsley all at once, and His face was one of cold hatred as they wove and ducked around Him, avoiding His many attempts to kill them.

Bellatrix, too was duelling three at once. Hermione was one of them, the other two, who should have really had their masks up, were Ginny and Luna. She, too, had a face of cold anger, unable to kill the three teenage girls. Harry watched silently until he felt it. A pain in his chest and a piercing scream in his head. Voldemort roared with anger as he, too, felt it. Roxanne, wherever she was, would also be feeling the pain, Torva knew. Spinning round, he found the body of Nagini lying on the ground, blood spurting from where her head should have been and the head itself lying a few feet away. Neville, Torva was pleased to note, was nowhere to be found, nor was the sword. He watched, in great agony, as black smoke rose from the great snake and spiralled up into the air, as the last Horcrux faded away…

The silence was soon broken as Voldemort screamed. Firing a curse that narrowly missed His victims He restarted the battle, Bellatrix copying her master. Harry watched in horror as the Killing Curse shot from Bella's wand, narrowly missing Ginny… Before Harry had a chance to run forward however, Mrs Weasley, her mask dropped, ran forward and entered the battle, pushing the three girls out of the way as she shot a spell at the other witch. Bellatrix's smile became a snarl as she fought back, both women out for blood. Hundreds of people now lined the walls watching the two battles.

"What will happen to your children when I've killed you?" taunted Bellatrix, as mad as her master, as Molly's curses danced around her. "When Mummy's died and gone to heaven?"

"You will not touch our children again!"

"Really?" Bellatrix taunted back as she fought on, until a shield charm appeared between the two women.

Torva searched madly until his eyes fell upon Roxanne who stepped between the two women, her wand pointed directly at Molly. Voldemort, at the sight of His daughter, disarmed His three opponents and watched. Roxanne stopped when she came level with Molly, and Torva could see her face. She wore a blanket of no expression, simply aiming her wand at the older woman's heart. Bellatrix laughed. "Come on Roxanne, just like I taught you."

Roxanne didn't flinch, despite the hundreds of eyes staring at her. Torva watched her, praying she didn't listen, as she took a deep breath before winking at Molly. "Avada Kedavra!" However, as she said the curse, she spun on the spot, so that her spell hit Bellatrix, whose face froze in shock as she froze then dropped to the ground. Roxanne rounded on her father, her arms wide and accepting of her fate.

Voldemort was in shock. "Roxanne, what are you doing?" He hissed.

"What I should have done a long time ago, father." At the reveal of her parentage, gasps and whispers went around the crowd of spectators. Roxanne continued. "I'm following my own life. I am not your pawn. I never was, and I never will be… I was excited to meet you when I was younger, especially after the Triwizard Tournament. Sure, I knew who you were. I knew what you'd done, but there was still that loyalty, you know? You were my father, and despite my best interests, I still, dare I say it, love you." She laughed briefly. "I actually thought I could change you. But then I saw your true colours. You thought I was double-crossing everyone here. In fact, I was double-crossing you. Harry came to me in August and offered me a place in his ranks, spying on you. I was the perfect spy. Nobody, certainly not you, suspected me. All year, I've been going against you. And I will continue to do so. Kill me if you wish, but know this: you are no father of mine, and I will never be like you." All the way through her speech, Roxanne had kept her cold ice-blue eyes locked on her father's red ones, and now she was finished, her face showed her true feelings towards her father; hatred and disgust.

Voldemort's chest rose and fell rapidly, the only indication of internal fury. But Torva knew what was coming. Mask up, he cast a shield charm between the two Riddles before any damage could be made. As he stepped forward, Torva noticed out of the corner of his eye how some of the younger students shrank back in fear, the older students and adults beamed, and the rest of his Assassins came to the front of the crowd to support him. Roxanne, at the sight of her leader, backed down, so now all that stood in the centre of the room were the two leaders of their respective groups- the ultimate enemies until the very end.

"I don't want anyone else to help." Torva said loudly, his voice like a trumpet call in the total silence. "It's got to be like this. It's got to be me."

"Come now Torva. Nobody here knows what you mean. Why don't you show them who you really are, hmm? Show them who is behind the mask. Who is behind every mask!" Voldemort.

"Fine." A wave of his hand dropped the mask, and Harry stood in the Assassin's place, as more gasps and cries went around them. Those gasps intensified further as all the other Assassins followed suit, revealing their true identities. Feeling himself be judged, Harry continued on regardless. Let's show them what you truly look like, shall we Tom? Tempus revocatas facialis." At once, Voldemort's glamour went up, and his original face was put on show for all to see.

"Well played Potter. But who are you going to use as a shield today?"

"Nobody." Harry said 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 Tom. "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, and for Harry no face existed except Tom's. "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 Tom, 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 snivelled behind the skirts of greater men and women, and permitted me to kill them for you!"

"You won't be killing anyone else tonight." Harry said as they circled, and stared into each other's eyes, green into brown. "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 touch them. You don't learn from your mistakes, Riddle, do you?"

"You dare…"

"Yes I dare." Harry said. "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?"

Tom did not speak, but prowled in a circle, and Harry knew that he kept him temporarily mesmerized at bay, held back by the faintest possibility that Harry might indeed know a final secret. "Is it love again? Dumbledore's favourite solution, which he claimed conquered death, though love did not stop him falling from the tower and breaking like an old waxwork at your hand, did it? That's right everyone! Your great Harry Potter murdered Albus Dumbledore!" Tom told the amazed and shocked crowd.

"I did so to free the Wizarding World, as you full well know. Just like I'm going to kill you."

"Love did not help though did it? It 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 you stop dying now when I strike?"

"Just one thing." Harry replied calmly, despite his blood boiling at the insult to his mother. 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 Tom, "you must believe that you have magic I do not, or else a weapon more powerful than mine?"

"I believe both." Harry said, and he saw shock flit across the handsome face, thought it was dispelled.

Tom began to laugh, and the sound was more frightening than his screams; humourless and insane, it echoed around the silent Hall. "You think you know more magic than I do?" he said. "Then I, than Lord Voldemort, who has performed magic that Dumbledore himself never dreamed of?"

"Oh he dreamed of it. That's what sent him insane. I know more than you both, know enough not to do what you've both done."

"You mean you are weak!" screamed Tom. "Too weak to dare, too weak to take what might be yours, what will be mine!"

"No, I am clever than you. A better man. Your equal in more ways than one. That was the only thing Dumbledore got right."

"I bought about the death of Albus Dumbledore!"

"You thought you did," said Harry, "but you were wrong."

"Dumbledore is dead! You made sure of that!" Tom hurled the words at Harry as in the marble tomb in the grounds of the castle. "I have seen it, Potter, and he will not return!"

"Yes, Dumbledore is dead. But I didn't kill him. You didn't have him killed. He chose his own matter of dying, chose it months before he died, arranged the whole thing with the man you thought was you servant. It would have worked too, had it not been for my hand."

"What childish dream is this?" said Tom, but still he did not strike, and his brown eyes did not waver from Harry's.

"Severus Snape was never yours. Up until a point, Snape was Dumbledore's. From the moment you hunted down my mother until the moment he realised my mother meant as little to Dumbledore as she did to you. He loved her for nearly all of his life, from the time when they were children. You should have realised. He asked you to spare her life, didn't he?"

"He desired her that was all." Tom sneered. "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! But he was Dumbledore's spy from the moment you threatened her. Until Dumbledore, last year, told Snape that I was to die anyway, and that he had been protecting me so I could die at the right moment. From that moment, Snape was mine. Either way, Dumbledore was already dying when I killed him."

"It matters not!" Tom shrieked, who had followed every word with rapt attention, but now let out a cackle of mad laughter. "It matters not who Snape belonged to, or what petty obstacles he and Dumbledore 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 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 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. But before you kill me, I'd advise you think about what you've done… think, and try for some remorse, Riddle."

"What is this?" Tom hissed.

"It's your last chance. 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…" Tom said again.

"Yes I dare! Because Dumbledore's plan only partly backfired! And guess what, it wasn't on me." Harry watched as Tom's hand trembled on the Elder Wand. The moment, he knew, was seconds away. "The wand still isn't working properly for you because you murdered the wrong person. Severus Snape was never the master of the Elder Wand! He didn't kill him, and he didn't disarm him. For years, Dumbledore moulded me, as you know. Moulded me to become the master of the Hallows, the Master of Death. But it backfired. Because not even I defeated Dumbledore."

"You killed…"

"Aren't you listening? I never beat Dumbledore! It was planned for Snape to kill him, then for me to kill Snape in a mad fit of rage because by that point, Dumbledore would have moulded me enough to want to kill Snape. Except I saw through the lies and broke away. I killed Dumbledore. But even if I didn't, it still wouldn't have worked, because yes, I murdered him, but I didn't defeat him. The Elder Wand recognised a new master before Dumbledore even died, let alone before you snuck into his tomb to steal it! A new master, who didn't even realise exactly what he had done, or that the world's most dangerous wand had given him its allegiance…" Tom's chest rose and fell rapidly and Harry could feel the curse coming, felt it building inside the wand pointed at his face. So Harry dealt the final blow. "The true master of the Elder Wand was Draco Malfoy."

Blank shock showed in tom's face for a moment, but then it was gone. "But what does it matter? Even if you are right, Potter, it makes no difference to you and me. I see you are not using you phoenix wand. We duel on skill alone… and after I have killed you, I can attend to Draco Malfoy…"

"But you're too late." Harry said. "You've missed your chance. I got there first. Draco handed the power of the wand willingly over to me. We felt the allegiance change." Harry dropped his voice to a whisper. "So it all comes down to this, doesn't it? Does the wand know its last master abdicated control? Because if it does… I am the true master of the Elder Wand."

"One final thing, Potter." Tom spat. "Just the little fact that, for nearly two years, you have been on my side. You and all your little friends."

Now it was Harry's turn to laugh. "Don't you get it? I used you! I used you, like Dumbledore used me. I used you to get close enough to you to kill you without you knowing. And guess what, it worked. Of course, you knew I was destroying the Horcruxes, you felt it. But you still didn't realise. I used you, and I even turned Narcissa, Lucius and Severus against you. Even your own daughter! Just like Roxanne, I was never on your side, and never will be. Now enough. Let's finish this…"

A red 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 their faces at the same time, so that Tom's face was suddenly a flaming blur. Harry heard the shriek as he too yelled his best hope to the heavens, pointing his untraceable wand…

"Avada Kedavra!"

"Expelliarmus!"

Red and green jets met halfway, and the bang was like a cannon blast, the golden flames erupting between them, dead centre of the circle, marking the point where their spells collided. Harry saw Tom's spell rebound, saw the Elder Wand fly high, dark against the sunrise, spinning across the enchanted ceiling like a spinning Quaffle towards the master it would not kill, who had come to take full possession of it at last. And Harry, with the skill of the Seeker, caught the wand in his free hand as Tom fell backward, arms splayed, the slit pupils of the scarlet eyes rolling upward. The madman hit the floor with a mundane finality, his body feeble and shrunken, the white hands empty, the handsome face vacant and unknowing. Tom Marvolo Riddle, Lord Voldemort, was dead, killed by his own rebounding curse, and Harry stood with the two wand in his hand, staring down at his enemy's empty shell.

What happened next was a blur. All Harry could remember was an eruption of noise, people cheering and hugging and kissing each other and celebrating. And in the midst of it all, he remembered Draco walking calmly towards him and taking him in his arms and, for the second time in months, kissing him passionately. He remembered the cheers getting louder as this happened, he remembered being taken by the hand and led away, out into the courtyard and into the quiet, where he, Draco, Ron and Hermione could celebrate, on their own, a hard year's work, and a job well done…

A/N: Hey. Two chapters left, then we're done. My first multi-story mini-series. I'm proud of it, I'll admit. This is different to what I'm used to. Darker than I normally write, but I'm proud of it. I hope you all like it too. Not long left now, I promise. :)

xxxxx