From there, the trio made it to the Room of Requirement. Just as Harry found it, right where he had left it a year earlier, they were attacked by Malfoy, Crabbe and Goyle. As a battle within the bigger battle erupted between them, Crabbe eventually set the room alight with the incredibly dangerous Fiendfyre Curse. It cost him his life and almost killed the entire group, but it also destroyed all of the contents of the room, including the diadem and the piece of Voldemort hidden within it.

Once out of the room, the group found that the war had moved inside the castle and was raging out of control. Fred, who they had found fighting alongside Percy as the charged down the corridors, was killed by a nearby blast. It nearly tore the heart out of all of them.

Voldemort still was unaware that the diadem had been destroyed and his only remaining horcrux was his prized pet, Nagini. He was unaware they were now seeking Nagini with the goal of killing the great snake.

Harry soon discovered that Voldemort was hiding in the Shrieking Shack. He was protecting Nagini and waiting for Harry to come to him. Against his better judgment and that of Ron and Hermione, he decided he had to go there. He had to kill the snake. It was the only option forward.

Once there, he was confronted with the vision in his mind of Voldemort talking to Snape. He watched and listened to Voldemort talk to Snape. He was convinced the Elder Wand would not work for him because Snape was its actual owner. He fatally injured Snape in the belief that he would now be the owner of the wand.

As he left the shack with the snake, Harry went to the dying professor and was given a vial of memories with the instruction to go to the pensieve and view them. Following the call for a temporary truce and another demand from the voice of Voldemort for him to surrender to him, Harry and the others headed back into the castle.

The entry to the castle was a sad, sobering scene when they arrived. Amidst the destruction lay the dead bodies of dozens of fallen fighters from both sides, most prominent amongst them were to side-by-side bodies of Remus and Tonks. Harry could not bear to join the Weasleys as Ron and Hermione made the way to where they were now mourning over the body of Fred. Instead, he made his way to the spiral stairway leading to the office of the headmaster.

Once in the office, he poured the memories of Snape into the pensieve. His total misunderstanding of Snape became more and more apparent as he stood immersed in Snape's inner secrets. He learned of Snape's love of his mother, his tortured life, his early-on betrayal of Voldemort in an attempt to protect her and him. He learned of Dumbledore's fatal condition and that his death by Snape's hand was by design. And finally, he learned about his own life, that he was a horcrux and needed to die in order for Voldemort be killed once and for all. The final news caused him to crumple onto the floor

Harry began pondered life as he started the walk that was destined to end in his death. He passed quietly out of the castle and made his way toward the forest and his death. His mind burned, flashing his life before him, pausing only to tell Neville of the importance of killing the snake. Inside, his heart was pounding, the jumble of emotions making it too hard to collate into thought.

"Where's Harry?" said Hermione in a hushed tone as she noticed he was no longer with them.

"I don't know," said Ron, also keeping his voice down as he looked up with tear streaks smearing the dust and dirt that had soiled his face. "I thought he was here."

"I can't see him, anywhere," said Hermione as she knelt down and put her arm around Ron. Tears were also flowing down her cheeks in full view of everyone. Hermione, the girl who had purposely hidden her tears for years The girl who acted ashamed of them not that long ago, was no longer concerned with hiding them. Her heart and Ron's felt like they had become one. She felt his pain. She felt the agony crushing in on the family's heart. She willingly let out her tears in support of him, his family and herself.

"Where do you suppose he went?" asked Ron as he tried to wipe the tears off his cheeks, but only succeeded in smearing things into a streaky, dirty mess. "Not the forest, I hope."

"I don't know," replied Hermione as she pulled out some tissue to clean off Ron's face and then her own. "He had that vial of memories. Maybe he went to look at them in that pensieve he told us about up in Dumbledore's—uh—Snape's office.

"That's probably it," said Ron, accepting that notion. "He is probably looking at them. I can't imagine what he will see coming out of Snape's mind. There has got to be some weird stuff up in there."

"Yes," agreed Hermione with a forced chuckle. "He will probably be back after he finishes."

They turned back to the family. They were needed here. Neither of them had a clue that the next time they saw Harry he would be dead.

Time passed and the mood in the room, while still sad and in shock at all that had taken place in the past few hours, was slowly gaining calmness. "Where can he be?" asked Hermione. "He should have been back by now."

"I'm sure he is alright."

"He's missing. It doesn't feel alright."

Yeah. Right," replied Ron. "Maybe we need to go look for him."

They both stood up. Ron put his arm around Hermione. She, in turn, put her arm around his waist. Even though they had no real idea of where to begin looking, they needed to go somewhere, they needed to move.

"You don't think he…" started Hermione

"…No! No! He wouldn't," interrupted Ron, know where she was going with her statement. "I'm sure he wouldn't."

They slowly walked toward the front doors. Just as they reached the entry the voice of Voldemort, the one that they had heard earlier, boomed from everywhere and nowhere. Its high-pitched hiss shattered the relative quiet that had slowly descended on the room over the past hour.

"Harry Potter is dead," it announced. Hermione's started to collapse. Ron caught her as he felt a hand grab his heart in a grip. His brain throbbed like it was about to explode. The whole room fell silent, becoming paralyzed chaos.

As Ron got Hermione back to her feet, he felt the need to go back to his family. Voldemort was coming. There is no telling what was going to happen when he arrived. Cold fear stabbed at him. He could literally feel his heart and Hermione's pounding against each other as she trembled in his embrace. They stood, waiting for the arrival of Voldemort and his army. While their brains were a hot mess, their hearts needed to see the proof in order to believe him. Somewhere inside them was still a sliver of faint hope that it was a lie and Harry still lived.

Harry feigned death as Hagrid was forced to carry his limp, lifeless body on Voldemort's triumphant march to the castle. Then felt the sharp, anguished scream of Professor McGonagall pierce his brain and he knew they had arrived. The voices of Ron, Hermione and Ginny, followed by countless other added to his pain. He wanted to jump up, expose his ruse, but he knew the better.

Hagrid was forced to cast Harry onto the ground as Voldemort ranted and raved about himself and Harry's weakness. He wanted to end the ruse and fight, but he knew in his heart he had to wait for the right moment to present itself. That moment finally came when Voldemort set fire to the sorting hat and placed in on the head of the body-bound Neville Longbottom.

In the blink of an eye, the final skirmish of the battle and war erupted. Curses flew and giants roared. Explosions rocked the grounds and Neville relieved Nagini of her head with a swift stroke of the Sword of Gryffindor. Finally, Harry revealed himself, resurrected to the cheers of his supporters, and ready for the final, climactic duel with Voldemort. There, in the quiet of the paused frenzy, the future of the Magical and Muggle worlds was decided.

Heroes had fallen that day, Remus, Tonks, Fred, Colin, Lavender and fifty plus others defenders of Hogwarts. But new heroes were also forged in the foundry of battle, none more the Neville, who completed the long journey from a meek, clumsy, first-year student with a monumental lack of confidence to a rock star, a revolutionary leader with that stroke of a sword. All of the martyrs who had fought against Voldemort from the beginning of his rise were honored. Evil, for the time being, was vanquished.

The prophecy Harry had been inextricably locked into since the night he survived the Killing Curse had been finally realized. He had exposed the ignorant arrogance and fateful failings of the Dark Lord to everyone as he sorted out the Elder Wand's ownership.