Disclaimer: Nothing is mine; everything is J K Rowling's.

Number 100... What else is there to say?

Chapter 100

'What is wrong with the weather in this country?' Fleur complained from the kitchen, rummaging through cupboards irritatedly.

'It's raining again is it?' Harry asked without looking up.

'You know it is,' Fleur scowled, 'you can hear it.'

'Stay inside then,' Harry grinned. 'Nothing good ever happens in the rain.'

'It was clear when we got up,' she sighed, 'I wanted to go out into the meadows today. It's the middle of spring, Harry, there should be some sun.'

'There is,' he chuckled, 'it's just behind all those grey clouds.'

'You're so British,' Fleur smiled fondly.

'I prefer the sun, actually,' he reminded her, 'you know where my favourite place is.'

'I wish we could just go back there,' Fleur said softly.

'Soon,' Harry promised.

Deep down he knew there was nothing to come but a single duel, one that would be set on a stage above anything he had ever fought or seen before, and despite his possession of the Elder Wand he was not sure who would win.

I will win, he reminded himself. I made a wish I have to make real.

'It's still raining,' Fleur sniffed, shutting the last cupboard rather more firmly than was necessary.

Harry looked up from the table to stare at the girl who had ensnared him carefully. She was standing, arms folded across her chest, eyebrows curving into a delicate vee, lower lip slightly extended and all shrouded under a veil of silver.

He hadn't seen her looking so sulky in some time, and it made her irresistibly kissable.

'We're out of sugar, aren't we,' he deduced amusedly.

'I bought a whole bag last week,' she cried out exasperatedly. 'Sirius is stealing it. I know he is.'

'I'm not Sirius,' Harry placated her, slipping out of his chair, giving into temptation.

His lips pressed lightly against hers until her pout faded, curving into a soft smile he traced his tongue over until she shivered.

While he had her distracted he discreetly extended his left hand behind his back, tangling his right into her hair, and pulling her mouth more firmly against his. The jar of sugar that he had seen his godfather sneakily stashing behind the sofa slapped gently into his palm.

'Here,' he grinned, offering it to her wryly. 'Sirius isn't very good at hiding things.'

Fleur eyed the jar, then gave him a smouldering look. 'Yet you kept it a secret long enough to steal your kisses,' she murmured.

'Would you have it any other way?' He teased.

'Well.' Her lips trailed over the corner of his mouth and along his jaw. 'I can think of a much more appropriate award for returning my stolen treasure,' she breathed.

'Let's not give Sirius a show,' Harry whispered to her, catching her chin as her lips lingered on his neck.

'He's not here,' Fleur sulked, pushing herself into him.

'Not yet,' Harry said, finding it increasingly hard to remember why Sirius seeing them would be so terrible.

'Fine,' Fleur groused, neatly plucking the sugar from Harry's hands and setting it beside the mug she had been making for herself.

'One for the hot chocolate,' Harry commented, knowing how Fleur liked to make her drinks. 'And one for me,' he finished, grinning as Fleur stole the next spoonful of sugar for herself.

'Hush,' she laughed.

'Your teeth will rot,' Harry warned cheerfully.

'I'll just regrow them,' she shrugged, sipping her hot chocolate, then frowning and absently adding more spoonfuls.

Half the jar was already gone, and it hadn't been a small one.

'Where is Sirius?' Harry wondered.

'He sleeps in,' Fleur said more seriously. 'The injury Malfoy gave him keeps him from sleeping well.'

'Ah,' Harry nodded, 'probably a good thing he doesn't sleep well, otherwise we would have likely woken him up this morning.' Fleur flushed faintly, and Harry winked at her; they both knew who had been making the most noise out of the two of them, and who had promised they had already cast a silencing ward just so Harry hadn't needed to get up, and find his wand to cast another.

Something hit the wards and the whole house shivered.

'Sirius is inside, isn't he,' Harry said slowly.

'Yes,' Fleur set her mug of hot chocolate down carefully, pulling her wand from her waist. There was a second and third set of runes engraved around it now.

'Added to it?' Harry inquired, walking cautiously towards the door.

Is this soon enough? He wondered to himself. Have we been found.

'It's a part of me I don't want to have to part with,' she agreed. 'It can only be summoned by me, and it will only answer to me now, not that it would have answered to anyone before,' she smirked, 'veela hair and rosewood is a temperamental wand combination, but a very picky one.'

'Beauty within and without,' Harry grinned, drawing the Elder Wand, and casting the homonym revelio spell.

There was nobody outside.

Fleur frowned, having cast the same piece of magic herself.

'Odd,' Harry grimaced, he would have preferred being able to see his enemies to this uncertainty. 'Could anything have triggered them?'

'A spell,' Fleur said thoughtfully, 'but there's no reason for a stray spell to be find us, and the Fidelius should keep our home concealed.'

'I'm going out,' Harry decided.

Fleur clenched her jaw, but said nothing.

A silver scorpion hovered at the edge of the wards, scuttling in circles at the point the Fidelius shrouded their dwelling.

'It's Neville's patronus,' Harry called out curiously.

Fleur swept out to join him.

'How did it find where we lived?' She wondered.

'Perhaps it was looking for me, and not our home,' Harry mused.

'That's a tenuous difference,' Fleur scowled, 'but possibly. Why is it here?'

Harry stepped a little further towards it, slipping outside the protections of the Meadow.

'Harry,' Neville's voice emanated from the scorpion. His friend's tone held a note of desperation and fear that he had not witnessed. 'He's here, Harry,' the scorpion pleaded, 'they're all here. We need you. We can't keep them safe without you. I'll be waiting in the bathroom.'

'Voldemort is at Hogwarts,' he said slowly.

I can't leave them all to die. I have to face him eventually anyway, and where better than a place I know well, where he is surrounded by as many enemies as I will be.

The thought did very little to quell the fear that had arisen with the knowledge that the moment he had not worried would be so soon had already come.

'We're going,' Fleur said simply, understanding immediately what he had already decided. 'I will wake Sirius.'

She disappeared back into their home, perfectly calm except for the way her fingers twisted in the material of her clothes.

Harry dispatched his own patronus. He didn't give the anzu a message; it didn't need one.

Turning back towards the Meadow he followed Fleur back inside, slipping his original wand into the wand holster on his right wrist, and keeping the Elder Wand to hand.

I'll need it soon enough.

'I heard we're going back to school,' Sirius grinned, rubbing sleep from the shadows beneath his eyes.

'You look terrible,' Harry said flatly.

'I'm not staying behind,' he looked affronted, 'not when I can still cast spells, or seduce enemy witches.'

'Looking like that?' Fleur raised an eyebrow.

'Why did you and James have to choose such cruel women?' Sirius whined.

'Are you ready?' Fleur asked, ignoring his godfather. Normally she would have laughed, but Harry could feel the tension radiating from her.

'I suppose we'll find out,' Harry smiled weakly, trying to will his heartbeat to slow down before it hammered its way through his ribs.

Fleur took one hand, entwining her fingers tightly through his, Sirius wrapped an arm over his shoulder, and with a soft snap they appeared in the Chamber of Secrets, staggering forwards under their combined weight.

Sirius hissed with pain, and pressed his fingers to his chest.

'You go up,' Fleur told him, 'I'll check on Sirius' injury.'

He pulled her close to kiss her hard.

'If he's too hurt to duel make sure he stays down here however you have to,' he whispered.'

'If I can,' Fleur agreed.

'I'll go see Neville then,' Harry agreed, running up the stairs, taking them three at a time, and calling out ahead to open the entrance.

'Nev?' He called out.

Something hit him hard in the side, throwing him against the wall, and he almost lost his balance, falling momentarily to one knee, then cold, hard ice encased his arm, trapping him against the tiles.

'Not pleasant, is it?' A girl's voice said sternly. 'I remembered where you keep your wand, Harry.'

'Hermione?' Harry raised an eyebrow, looking around for Neville. 'Might I ask why? Or where Neville is?'

He tested the ice, but it held firm, holding him against the wall from the tip of the Elder Wand to his shoulder.

'Neville is there,' Hermione indicated a sprawled, still form with one foot. 'He was stupid enough to invite you here, I knew as soon as I saw your patronus, so I followed him to stop whatever you have planned.'

'Joined Voldemort have you?' Harry asked, thoroughly confused.

Jealousy, and disgust are one thing, he realised, but this is another completely.

'No,' she hissed indignantly, 'but just because I oppose him doesn't mean I will invite someone just as bad into a school full of children.'

'I am nothing like Voldemort,' Harry denied fiercely, though he knew it was not even close to true.

'You're a killer,' Hermione half screamed, 'how many deaths are you really responsible for? I want to know, before I stop you from falling any further.'

She means to kill me, something in his stomach twisted in desperate fear, not like this, not the nothingness, not when Fleur is so close.

'How many have I killed?' He answered calmly, slowly, dragging every syllable out to preserve every precious second. 'As many as I needed to.'

'Who?' Hermione seethed, 'I want you to say their names.'

Where are Fleur and Sirius?

'The first wizard I killed was Quirrell,' Harry said slowly, 'but I was too young to understand, so I suppose he doesn't count. Barty Crouch Junior would be next,' he admitted with deceptive calm. 'He attacked me at the World Cup in the ashes of the camp, and I killed him by mistake, after that I knew I had to get stronger, so I did.'

'I knew there was something different about you after then,' Hermione exulted. 'I was right!'

'I spent a long time learning more useful spells,' Harry continued, 'magic that would help me defeat Voldemort.'

'Dark magic,' Hermione whispered.

'There is no dark or light,' Harry corrected automatically, 'only power and the intent that guides it.'

'Who else?' Hermione demanded, as disgusted by his belief as he was with her naivety, and levelling her wand at his heart.

'Peter Pettigrew,' Harry said dispassionately. 'Bertha Jorkins too, they helped rig the Triwizard Tournament.'

'Victor?' She asked him, almost pleading, 'did you kill him too?'

'No,' Harry shook his head. 'Would you like me to tell you what really happened?' He offered gently.

'No,' she hissed, 'you'd just lie,' but a horribly vulnerable, desperate longing in her eyes belied her denial.

'He was indirectly killed by Bertha Jorkins,' Harry began, stopping abruptly when her wand glimmered with purple light.

'I said no,' she spat. 'I don't want to hear your lies.'

When did she become so unreasonable, so illogical?

'Who else?' Hermione repeated angrily.

'Umbridge, Bellatrix Lestrange,' Hermione started at the witch's name, and Harry smiled slightly, 'Dumbledore was surprised by that too.' After those two there have been many. 'Nott, both Nott's, Jugson, Macnair, Avery, Travers, Yaxley,' there were more than he had realised, and he couldn't remember all the names of the Death Eaters, just the ornate silver masks, 'Malfoy, of course,' he smirked slightly.

At least this way if I die here nobody will ever think to accuse Fleur.

'Do you not regret any of them?' She almost pleaded.

'Only one,' Harry admitted.

'Katie?' Hermione asked, eyes narrowed.

His magic surged, unprepared for that accusation, even though he should have guessed it was coming, and the floor of the bathroom froze. Hermione stepped back warily, wand still levelled between his eyes.

'Never,' he spat, 'I would have all but died before I let anyone hurt her.'

'I don't believe you,' Hermione decided. 'I wish I could, but you, you've grown so dark, Harry.' There were tears trailing down her cheeks, dripping from her chin past her outstretched wand. 'I wish I did not have to do this, but I must, you're no better than Voldemort is now.'

'Dumbledore is the death I regret,' Harry added swiftly, hoping to buy himself a few extra seconds before Hermione cast the spell.

'No,' she shook her head despairingly, wand wavering, 'you couldn't, you wouldn't, tell me you didn't kill the only wizard who could have stopped Voldemort!?'

'I could stop him,' Harry said softly.

'And then you would follow in his footsteps,' his former friend declared. 'No. It has to be this way.'

What an ignominious way to die, Harry thought hopelessly. Salazar's going to be very disappointed.

'I miss the boy who dragged us all into danger to save anyone and everyone he could,' Hermione whispered to herself, squeezing her eyes tightly shut, 'but you aren't him, you're someone else, someone too dangerous to live.'

'My name is Harry Potter,' he told her icily unwilling to let her believe that, and have any shield from the guilt of what she was about to do, 'and I hope this haunts you for the rest of your life.'

Sorry, Fleur, he thought, swallowing the lump in his throat, straining hopelessly at the ice that trapped him.

There was a rush of footsteps on the stairs behind him, but Hermione's wand was already raised, and he dared not hope.

'Sectumsempra,' Hermione screamed, slashing her wand at him.

Something shattered the ice around his arm, and he crumpled to the floor.

Hermione's spell carved a jagged line a finger's length deep across the wall, tearing past the entrance and straight across the chest of his saviour.

'No,' Harry and Hermione whispered in horrified tandem.

'That's Snivellus' spell,' Sirius remarked distantly, watching the line of crimson wash red, vibrant and vivid across his chest, swelling past the ivory gleam of bone, then he toppled onto his face, and fell still.

The Elder Wand was out of reach, but he lunged for it anyway, hurling himself across the floor, avoiding the claw of fire that tore through the air where he had been only moments before.

'Sirius?' He heard Fleur ask in disbelief.

'You're really with him,' Hermione's voice echoed Fleur's disbelief.

'Of course I am,' Fleur spat, features shifting furiously. 'You despicable traitor, attacking those who have come to fight to keep you safe.'

'He's a murderer,' Hermione hissed, wand coming back up, and cold, tight fear clenched at Harry's stomach.

Fleur is the better dueller, he told himself, summoning the Elder Wand back to his fingers even though he knew he would be too late to cast anything to stop Hermione's spell.

'Sectumsempra,' his once friend cried, slashing her wand wildly at the pair of them, over and over again.

Had the spell ever reached them they would have been cut to ribbons, but he needn't have worried.

Fleur's ward distorted the spell, and the jagged, brutal slashes faded out of existence between them even as a stream of white flames emanated smoothly from Fleur's other hand to strike Hermione in the sternum.

Girls who play with fire get burnt, Harry recalled hollowly, but this time there was no satisfaction to be had.

The girl dropped without a sound, a hole the width of Harry's hand where her heart should have been.

'Renervate,' Fleur snapped, awakening Neville.

Harry stared in horror at the body of his friend, for, glittering in the cavity of her chest, swaying gently between her charred, hollow ribs, was an all too familiar locket.

I destroyed it, he thought in shock, I watched it burn.

Slytherin's lost, corrupted locket swung triumphantly in the chest of its victim, somehow it had found its way here. The one he had destroyed in the cave had been a decoy, or a fake, or something insignificant. It hardly mattered what it had been that he had destroyed in the cave, for the true horcrux hung here.

'Sorry, Harry,' Neville groaned, 'she caught me by surprise.'

'Sirius is dead because you were followed,' Fleur snapped, 'your apology is not enough.'

The price of Neville's naivety, Harry thought bitterly.

Strangely he did not feel angry, not really, just empty. One of the pillars upon which he'd built his dream was gone, torn away.

Neville paled, staring at the body of Harry's godfather for a moment, then he turned to Hermione and flinched in horror.

'Harry,' he gasped, 'that was Hermione!'

'What was left of her,' Harry said sadly, pointing to the dangling locket, 'that is a horcrux, Nev.'

'The necklace,' he murmured, 'but she's been trying to open that for over a year, since the Christmas before last!'

Neville bent down to unclip it from her neck, but the moment his fingers grazed the chain he flinched back as if he had been burnt.

'What's wrong?' Harry asked, surreptitiously shifting his weight in case Neville was similar affected.

'It showed me you,' Neville whispered, edging away, 'you were terrible.'

'I think it must have showed Hermione the same thing,' he realised, and suddenly so much was clear. 'It gave her nightmares, kept her from sleep, filled her head with fears, twisted her onto the path that led her here.'

Harry could only imagine what would have happened to Hermione if she had succeeded in opening it. He thrust out a hand, summoning the vial of basilisk venom that still lay on the shelves of Salazar's study from all that time ago, and steeling himself he snatched the necklace from his friends from by its chain, catching the vial in his other hand.

For an instant the world fell away, and he found himself standing in France, beneath the willow tree.

It was dead.

The trunk was charred, twisted and withered, the branches shrivelled into skeletal fingers, and the river ran dark beside it, white pebbles spattered red. The whole scene gleamed eerily under the ghastly, green glow of the skull and serpent in the sky above him.

None of that held any horror compared to what he found at his feet.

There was more red than he could have ever imagined, staining everything scarlet, but there was still a sliver of silver, just enough for him to recognise how much he had lost.

'Open,' he ordered the locket, not caring that he had slipped into parseltongue in his distress, and pouring the vial onto the locket.

The metal screamed, blackened and cracked, the chain slipping from his fingers onto the bathroom floor. He pitied the girl that had been his friend. Harry was not sure he could have lasted so long under the locket's influence while ignorant of the true source of the terrors it must have fed her.

'What did you see?' Neville asked hesitantly.

'Something that will never come to pass,' he said coldly, stepping over Hermione, whom he set alight with a flick of his wand. The truth behind her fate would never be known; it was the only mercy he could show her now.

Goodbye, he bid the girl who had once broken her precious rules beside him.

'The snake,' Fleur said calmly, placing a hand upon his shoulder. Harry suspected that she had already guessed the gist of what he had seen while touching the locket.

'The snake,' Harry agreed viciously.

I'm going to enjoy tearing what little Voldemort treasures away from him before he dies.

It was good that he had torn himself to pieces, and scattered the objects so Harry could destroy them, for the Dark Lord cared only for himself, and there would be nothing Harry could take him from had he not.

'We'll come back for Sirius,' he told Neville, gently levitating the body of his godfather into the safety of the chamber, and closing the entrance.

I can still say goodbye to him, he reminded himself, remembering the ring that hung around Fleur's neck, and I cannot mourn him now.

'And now?' Neville asked.

'Follow us,' Fleur told him contemptuously. She clearly held him in poor regard for his failures, and Harry could hardly blame her. Neville had failed when they kidnapped Travers, he'd nearly got the two of them trapped in Gringotts, and now he'd managed to be careless enough to let himself be followed.

Sirius is dead because of him.

Whatever Neville might have been to him he could never be now. Sirius's easy grin and casual air would always be reflected in his eyes, and so would that blood-soaked tangle of coal-black hair, and his jagged, rent flesh.

Harry strode out of the bathroom, before the sadness could swell within him, Fleur at his side.

The sound and sensation of magic swelled within Hogwarts, and the clamour of conflict, its cries, screams and shouts, echoed through empty corridors.

'Where is everyone?'

'The teachers are defending the courtyard,' Neville said slowly, 'but most of the students are in the Great Hall.'

'All of them?' Harry asked incredulously. There was only one way out of the hall, they would be massacred the moment the doors were forced open.

'The younger ones are on their way to the boathouses,' Neville said, 'it's the only way out between the Death Eaters, and the Forbidden Forest.'

'To the Great Hall, then,' Fleur suggested calmly.

They only made it to the stairs.

'The professors,' Neville breathed in horror, seeing the Death Eaters, and those of Greyback's followers who had remained loyal to Voldemort within the walls.

'I suggest you focus on staying alive, Nev,' Harry told him bluntly. 'Go find Hannah, keep her safe.'

'Fulminis,' he commanded, clearing a path through debris and Death Eaters alike. None of those who survived dare step towards him, the blank, white masked Death Eaters, backed away, fleeing to find weaker opposition.

Neville gave him a sad look, then clenched his jaw and ran through the ashes that floated over the stairs.

'Good riddance,' Fleur said quietly. 'He is far too weak to be so judgemental, forcing others to make the harder decisions because he lacks the power, then condemning their actions.'

'He sees Death Eaters as evil,' Harry replied mildly, 'it fractures his view of the world to see they are not so different from the rest of us. Neville is correct in a way,' he admitted, 'I suppose what I have done is not right, but…' He trailed off, staring helplessly at her.

'I know,' Fleur smiled faintly.

'I think I should head outside into the courtyard,' Harry told her. 'If I were Voldemort that is where I would be waiting.' He smiled wryly. 'It is the best place for such a dramatic duel, the perfect setting to see if I am his equal or not.'

'Homenum revelio,' Fleur whispered, taking advantage of the lull to check whether Harry was right.

'Anything?'

'The serpent,' she whispered, 'it's above us on the stairs.'

'Why?' Harry asked warily. 'It may well be a trap.'

'It's heading back the way we came,' she told him, 'someone is with it.'

'Perhaps I won't have to go outside after all,' Harry smiled weakly.

'It will save you going into the rain,' she joked, but her voice caught halfway through, and Harry squeezed her wrist.

'Time to go,' he said dryly, walking back up the way they came, trying to ignore the fear that was welling up within him, 'you get the easy snake, I get the Dark Lord.'

'Don't joke,' she told him, voice strained, and fingers almost painfully tight about his.

'Sorry.'

They caught the pair in the middle of the corridor back towards the Chamber of Secrets, Harry stepped straight into the serpents companion, pushing him away, and levelling his wand at the wizard, the snake squirmed wildly, vanishing from sight, but there was nowhere it could hide in Hogwarts, not with a piece of soul within it.

'You're looking a little short for Voldemort,' he grinned, recognising Ron.

'I'm going on a snake hunt,' the red-head grated.

'Care for some company?' Fleur offered.

'As long as it ends up dead,' Ron spat. 'I don't know why it's skulking up here, but it killed my father, and now I'm going to kill it.'

Voldemort is trying to send it somewhere he knows it will be safe, or he wants to know why the chamber is sealed to him.

'Where is it?' Harry asked Fleur, casting the revealing charm that identified the familiar as Voldemort's final horcrux.

Something red glimmered around Ron's feet, then lunged past him, fangs flashing. Harry braced himself for pain, but it never came.

Fleur gasped, hands grasping at her heel.

No!

Harry's scream was silent, and the corridor froze in an instant, burying everything under almost a foot of cold, dark ice, bursting lights, windows, and ruining every painting.

Voldemort's snake struck once more, catching Fleur on her shoulder, then there was a brilliant green flash, and the serpent slumped still.

Ron stared at his wand, half-horrified, half-satisfied with spell he had just cast.

Harry did not care.

Cradling Fleur against him, he brushed her hair back from her face.

'It broke my wand,' she whispered heartbrokenly, extending the dangling pieces of rosewood, joined by a single, gleaming, silver thread.

'You can have mine for as long as you need,' Harry promised, pushing his original wand into her hands. 'Just don't leave me,' he pleaded softly.

'I'm not going anywhere,' she pushed herself off the floor, clinging to him to keep her balance as she inspected the puncture marks on her arm, and at her achilles heel. 'It was only a little bite,' she sniffed, smiling fondly at him, 'but I'm glad to know you would have missed me.'

'Always,' Harry sighed, relieved beyond words when she accepted his wand, and used it to heal her injuries.

'A piece of you,' Fleur smiled, fingers curling possessively around the slender piece of ebony, tilting her head into the crook of his neck. 'I won't let anything happen to it.'

'You better not carve runes all over it,' Harry warned her with a chuckle.

'I would never,' she promised, blinking slowly several times.

'Are you ok?' Harry asked, the cold fingers of fear tracing their way back along his spine.

Fleur was very pale.

'I feel a little dizzy,' she admitted. Her grip on his robes loosened, and he had to catch her to stop her from falling.

'It's venomous,' Ron said grimly, ever so morose. 'That's what killed Dad.'

Poison, the air was ripped from his lungs, stomach twisting so tight he couldn't breathe to replace it.

Somewhere, a long way away, someone was saying his name, over and over, echoing meaninglessly in his head until Fleur's fingers caught his chin, and drew his attention back from the faint, pink pinpricks on her ankle.

'It's a very good thing we're both immune,' Fleur breathed, reassuringly. 'I feel very very sick, but it's passing, Harry, I'll be fine.'

The ritual, Harry remembered, and the ice melted, cascading into water around them, then evaporating into shimmering steam.

'Never again,' he told her weakly.

'I promise.' She kissed him gently. 'No more getting bitten by very big, dangerous snakes.'

'I'll hold you to that,' Harry said quietly, smiling against her lips.

Ron splashed away down the corridor, face haunted, guilty and angry.

Harry let him go, he'd taken his revenge on the snake that had killed his father, and done more good than he realised in destroying the last horcrux, but it wouldn't help bring his father back.

Fleur straightened up, gathering the pieces of her rosewood wand, and carefully placing them into her pocket.

'Lumos,' she murmured, directing Harry's ebony wand in the correct gesture.

A very faint light emanated from the tip, then wavered out.

'Wonderful,' Fleur sighed, 'your wand doesn't seem to want to me to wield it.'

'It's very loyal to me,' Harry shrugged, eyeing the length of ebony in disappointment.

Fleur needs a wand.

'Reducto,' Fleur muttered, whipping the his original wand in a sharp vee, even as Harry raised his hand to swap wands with her. He would rather face Voldemort with no wand than leave Fleur defenceless.

The banisters shattered into splinters, and the last thing Harry saw of Sir Cadogan was the splinter studded canvas and frame above the stairs.

'Well that was quite effective,' Fleur noted. 'It should be ok to duel with, even if I can't use it for more delicate things.'

'Be careful then,' Harry warned her, 'don't try to use your wards.'

'I have other weapons,' Fleur smirked, raising flame bathed palms, and making her way back down the steps, stopping only when Harry caught her arm to keep her from falling into the trick step.

'Potter!' Someone shouted furiously from the corridor below, and Harry swivelled to deflect an onslaught of curses, batting them to either side, and directing them back at his assailant.

Beside him Fleur was duelling two blank masked Death Eaters at the same time, moving all around them, forcing them into each other's way, and deflecting all their spells expertly back at the pair of them.

Half a silver mask shone brilliantly up at him from the bottom of the staircase. The other half was blackened, melted and warped.

'You die, Potter,' Lucius Malfoy hissed, transfiguring the wooden shards into scorpions, and sending them in a wave up the stairs before unleashing another barrage of curses.

Despite his injury he was no less dangerous than he had been in the Department Mysteries, but Harry had grown far stronger than he had been then.

Fiendfyre destroyed the scorpions, swelling past Malfoy's feet, burning through the wall, and melting the golden hourglasses in the Great Hall. The spells were flicked away from the tip of the Elder Wand, and Harry smiled coldly. Here was one last member of the Inner Circle who had so far escaped him. Someone who swore to stand beside Voldemort.

Something I can take away from him.

Malfoy was still casting spells, not even attempting to shield in his anger, but Harry was too fast, and every single one was brushed aside to spatter harmlessly against the wall, or fly over the heads of the fearful, watching students huddled in the hall beyond him.

A twitch of his wand, and the bodies of the two Death Eater's Fleur had just dispatched hurled themselves at the Death Eater, glowing an eerie yellow.

Malfoy incinerated them in a few seconds, but that moment of freedom was all Harry needed, and from behind Malfoy a serpent of molten gold coiled from the ruined hourglasses, rising silently.

The Death Eater sensed the danger too late, turning only in time to be crowned in melted metal as the snake struck, spattering itself over his head.

He screamed as it seared his face, pouring in through the eyeholes of his mask, collapsing to writhe desperately on the floor.

Harry left him twitching in front of the silent students to search out his true foe.

Where is Voldemort?

It was not like the Dark Lord to hide away while his followers were felled so easily, not when Harry was the only wizard left to challenge him.

A handful of blank-masked Death Eaters dared to challenge him from by the doors out to the courtyard, so he infused the air with his magic, imbuing it with his intent.

Fleur engaged them before he could sweep them aside, and he watched, unable to use this piece of magic with her so close, as she neatly defeated them, cutting them down one after the other as she danced and spun through bright beams of magic.

The last of them tore the mask from her face, as a group of Hogwarts' students stepped around the corner, following Neville as they cast volleys of stunning spells at the wizard Fleur had just eviscerated.

'You killed my son,' she hissed furiously, dropping the ivory to the floor with a hollow clatter.

Narcissa Malfoy.

'Your husband too,' Harry told her icily, stepping aside from the curses she hurled angrily in his direction.

Narcissa Malfoy was no duelist, but her fury lent power to her magic, and Harry was forced to dodge until she overextended, and he was given an instant to think about retaliating.

A simple twist of his wand, and he snapped her neck in swirl of air.

Her grey eyes were blank before she hit the ground.

Behind her Neville turned away, disgusted, leading the members of his DA back towards the Great Hall where the other students hid.

'Is he outside?' Fleur asked quietly, lip trembling.

'I would imagine so,' Harry nodded, handing her the cloak he had inherited from his father, his fingers lingering over hers when she took it from him.

He's definitely outside, Harry thought.

Sometimes you just knew.

Fleur opened her mouth to say something, but the words seemed to catch on her tongue, so she simply clutched him to her instead, crushing herself into his arms. For a long moment he simply held her, wishing he did not have to step through the doors in front of him, but, he did, and he knew it.

The doors to the courtyard creaked open at a flick of his wand, and Harry gently pried Fleur from him, pushing her out of the way of the doors, and out of sight Voldemort.

I do believe this is the end, he thought with no small amount of trepidation.

Harry twirled the Elder Wand in his fingers, spinning it about the span of his hands, and putting all thought of prophecies, promises and people from his head; they would only distract him from the reality of the duel. Two would fight, but only one would walk away to see their dreams fulfilled.

Stepping through the doors he walked out to face the single figure in the courtyard's centre, glancing up at the grey sky, and shielded Scottish sun.

It was beginning to rain.

AN: Please read and review, and thanks to everyone that does. Fortunately I am not the sort of person who needs to have a nice round number of chapters... Otherwise I wouldn't be able to leave this ludicrously melodramatic cliffhanger!