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

Here we are, a nice palindromic number for what will hopefully be a good chapter.

Chapter 101

Rain drops, the first heavy few, burst upon the stones between them, running like tears across his cheeks, and soaking silently into his robes.

'You've been busy, Harry.'

Red eyes glowed, hot as coals, barely restrained fury etched in every aspect of Voldemort's face.

Around him lay bodies by the score, tattered, blood-drenched school robes, and glassy-eyed professors among a scatter of dark-robed wizards bearing unadorned, white masks. A single, uncovered pathway led from the entrance to Voldemort's feet. A straight line not broken by a single body; where the wizard had walked from the gates to the courtyard's centre.

'You and Dumbledore,' the Dark Lord whispered furiously, 'have spent too long destroying things more precious than you understand.' The parseltongue carried clearly across the courtyard, but they were the only ones who understood. Voldemort did not want his secret bandied about if he could help it, and there were still others nearby.

Wizards and witches of either allegiance lingered at the edges of the square, lurking behind the cover of archways, not daring to duel, not able to tear their eyes away from what everyone now knew was coming.

'When I learned of how Dumbledore died I could not help but wonder,' the Dark Lord whispered, 'I do not believe in coincidences. Imagine my surprise when I discovered the heirloom of my ancestors lost.'

Harry did not have to. Its echo was plastered across Voldemort's features, concealing incandescent rage.

'So I checked the others.' Voldemort's wand shimmered briefly with emerald light. 'They were gone, lost. My mother's locket.'

'Burnt by me in the cave you entrusted it to,' Harry said simply, speaking in parseltongue.

'I searched for my diary, entrusted to one I was sure would keep it safe.'

'Riven by a basilisk fang ripped from the monster you set on students.' Harry raised his wand, steeling his nerves.

'The Lestrange brothers I sent to secure the cup that was once Hufflepuff's, they did not return,' the Dark Lord said.

'They died badly,' Harry answered, 'and the cup is gone.'

'You will not destroy the others,' the Dark Lord whispered furiously, 'you will not take my immortality from me!'

'I already have,' Harry smiled coldly. 'The diadem, blackened and burnt, and Nagini, slaughtered in the halls.'

'Your former friend has paid the only price I would extract for her death,' Voldemort murmured. A flick of his pale wand bared Ron's pale, still face from the crowd of bodies. 'Now I will take from you the only thing you could still value.'

'You will try,' Harry said, voice icy cold, fingers tight about the Elder Wand.

'I will succeed.' Voldemort's lips curled. 'I never fail.'

'You have already failed,' Harry told him, dispassionate, detached. 'Where is the boy who was nothing now?'

'He became the greatest wizard who ever lived,' Voldemort retorted fiercely. Beneath him the stones of the courtyard smoked and steamed, magic seething and searing around him.

'He is nothing still,' Harry disagreed. 'Voldemort's name is feared, but Tom Riddle is lost, nobody remembers him. I am the Dark Lord's equal,' he echoed the words of the prophecy, 'not Tom Riddle's.'

Voldemort flinched.

The motion was almost imperceptible, lost to anyone who was not adept at legilimency, and reading the emotions from a face, but Harry saw it, and it made him smile.

He is not invulnerable.

'It does not matter,' Voldemort decided. 'I am no longer Tom Riddle, and we have yet to see if you are truly my equal.'

'When I was a baby you destroyed by me,' Harry said softly.

'Your parents' magic, blood magic,' Voldemort said. 'I did not expect it.'

'When I was eleven I destroyed the stone you sought, burnt you from the body of your host.'

'Dumbledore's doing, not yours.' Voldemort shifted the sleeve of his robe, severing it completely at the elbow so it would not hinder him.

'I slew your basilisk, and defeated the shadow of your diary in the chamber that is and will forever be mine.'

'Had it truly been me you faced alongside Slytherin's serpent you would have perished,' Voldemort answered.

'I escaped you in the graveyard, broke your shield when few others have even grazed it.'

'A strong spell, and again something I did not expect,' Voldemort admitted, 'but a single spell is not enough to make a wizard great.'

'It is enough kill a wizard, great or not.'

The shadows of wizards and witches around the edge of the courtyard drew back in fear, neither friend nor foe would risk coming between them.

'And now it ends,' Voldemort said. The pale yew wand came up, gripped tightly between long, ivory skinned fingers, its tip gleaming green.

'No,' Harry said, 'now it begins.'

A dream will be born from a death here.

The bodies rose, writhing, jerking, spasming onto their hands and feet. Nails, hair and teeth elongating under Voldemort's spell, skin swelling, cracking and hardening.

Ron's wild, red mane flowed as his defiled body lunged forwards.

Harry bathed him in fire, but while his robes smouldered, charred and turned to ash the shell of his former friend refused to catch alight.

Fiendfyre washed from Harry's wand, and this time the inferius burnt, but only for a few moments for Voldemort wrested enough control of the flames to banish them, and Harry was forced to use Grindelwald's spell to knock the inferi back against the walls.

'Fire is not enough, Harry,' the Dark Lord said, casting glimmering orange curses that Harry deflected away into the repairing inferi. He seemed almost disappointed.

A stream of butterflies swirled from the end of the Elder Wand, flowing around him in ribbons of ebony wings, then streaming forth to burst in wisps of dark smoke against the encroaching inferi.

He matched Voldemort's smile with one of his own, locking gazes through the settling cloud of dust.

'Lacero,' he cast, flicking his wand lazily, casting a bone-splintering curse either side of the flesh-cutting curse to test Voldemort's speed.

The three curses were swatted aside, the first by Voldemort's wand, and the second two, which the Dark Lord would not have been able to deflect away, by the same brilliant, silver shield Harry had seen in the graveyard. They scored long, dark scorch marks along the stones, and Harry took a deep breath as the silver shield faded.

He is no faster than I am.

Voldemort's retaliation was anything but lazy, however, and the wizard clearly had no desire to test Harry. He would unleash his full fury, and Harry would prove himself equal, or perish in the storm.

There were no unforgivebles, not yet, but more spells than Harry thought he would ever be able to learn arced from the tip of the yew wand, hissing viciously across the air between them.

Harry apparated away, reappearing on the far side of the courtyard with a soft, double-snap, and unleashing a hail of his own.

Voldemort did not bother to defend. He merely carried on casting, and their spells met in the middle, deflecting off each other to ricochet wildly away, crackling beams, and floating, drifting specks of light of all hues burst, hissed and spattered against the walls of the courtyard, chipping shards from centuries old stone.

The tree in the corner withered, then burst into flames.

Yet for all Harry's speed it seemed his spells were not strong enough.

Voldemort's magic seared at the sky, the rain dissolved about him, his spells shivered, and shimmered through it. Harry could feel the heat of it upon his face, taste it in the dryness of the air, and see it in the way the stone melted away at its touch.

Volatile, he remembered, apparating away to the roof, flinching from the stone beneath him as it crumbled before the onslaught.

The water in the fountain, leapt forwards, stabbing, in long, lethal needles of ice, towards Voldemort's back, but the moment it neared him it sublimed instantly to steam, yielding to the burning aura of magic that rippled from the wizard.

'Contusio,' the Dark Lord uttered confidently, flinging the string of tiny beads of light from the tip of his wand.

Harry's hurried use of Grindelwald's favourite duelling spell sent them slicing off in different directions to explode in dull, booming ripples against the towers above them.

He transfigured the falling tiles into bats, sending them to impede Voldemort while he attempted to catch the Dark Lord off guard by apparating about him to hurl spells from all different directions.

A hiss of pain and surprise announced his success.

The bats dissolved into flames, combusting from the heat of the magic emanating from the Dark Lord alone, and allowing Harry a glimpse of the red line he'd torn through Voldemort's robes and shoulder.

It was little more than a shallow cut, and it faded in moments just as it would have had it been him.

'Fulminis,' Voldemort spat, drawing a small ellipse in the air with the tip of his wand to focus the swirl of sparks.

Harry apparated once more, and the blinding beam struck the doors to the Great Hall instead, warping the metal, lighting the wood, and sending out spatters of glowing sparks to splash across the stone.

The lightning did not dissipate, and the slight twist of Voldemort's bare forearm was all the warning Harry had before it lashed back around behind him, slicing through the stonework like so much soft butter, and leaving the dissected, smoking, cauterised corpses of ally and enemy alike beneath the canopy.

'Fulminis,' Harry cried, meeting the lash of lightning with an arcing tendril of his own.

There was a brilliant flash, and then that side of the courtyard was gone.

The cracked, charred columns were strewn in rough hewn chunks across the flagstones, and the stones themselves were glowing, bubbling hot and molten where their magic had collided.

The heat was pouring off the Dark Lord now, stone glowed cherry-red beneath his feet, and he was half-shrouded in a shimmering haze.

A flick of the Elder Wand and the air curled, tightening around Voldemort, crushing and squeezing at the body he had built.

For an instant the wizard clutched at his chest, then he smiled, and with a mirroring flick of his own wand he countered the spell.

'Contusio,' Harry murmured, unleashing his own version of Voldemort's spell at its inspiration.

The single pin-prick of light exploded violently against the silver-shield, waves of force rippling across it, but it did not break. The reflected shockwave shattered the fountain, sending pieces of the sculpture that had somehow remained untouched spraying dangerously in all directions until Harry transfigured them into moths, setting them to swallowing spells about him.

A serpent's maw lunged from the lava that had once been the courtyard's centre, thrusting its fanged maw at Harry, but, with a twist if his wand, he transfigured the ground beneath into towering spikes pushing the conjured creature away from him, bursting its molten skin and sending waves of molten stone lapping across the far side of the square to set fire to the gate.

Voldemort was laughing.

'See how strong I have made you,' he said, almost proud, 'everything I have taken from you has driven you to this, and now, when you have nothing left but yourself and your goal you have almost equalled me.'

Almost.

A tight, bright point of cold welled within him. Raindrops froze, falling to shatter around his feet.

I did not lose Katie, Sirius, and so much more for almost.

The cold flared, shivering along his wand arm, seeping into the air around him, and every spell he cast left hoarfrost outlines against the stone, and trailed icy mist in its wake.

Their magic collided again, no longer simply restricted to spells, but two vast waves of volatile emotion and intend crashing against one another. Frost and fire fought between them, steam, stone and sky split, froze, melted, and fractured.

The Elder wand hummed, screaming in delight, and sending shivers of power through him, but, for all its joy, Harry could feel his magic waning, its potency spent. The stinging of a thousand small cuts, the throb of a hundred bruises, and the protesting ache of his limbs as he forced them faster and faster dogged him, as pushed himself on regardless.

The Dark Lord looked haggard too.

The sleek, black robes were scorched, and ragged. Frost coated the remaining sleeve, and sweat dripped down the sides of his serpentine skull.

I can win, he urged himself. I will win.

The silver serpents flowed around Voldemort as he shielded himself for a moment of respite, but Harry, suspecting that Voldemort may well have carried out innumerable rituals to improve his recovery from injury and exhaustion, dared not let him.

The hazy outline of his basilisk thrust its fangs at his foe, shattering the silver shield even more comprehensively than before, throwing Voldemort across the cobbles like a child's toy until he apparated mid-tumble to renew his assault on Harry's own shield from behind.

Abandoning it, he made to apparate, only to find he could not, and Voldemort's curse struck him on the shoulder, hurling him into the charcoal skeleton of the tree that once grown in the corner.

The Dark Lord frowned, shifted his weight, but remained firmly in the same place.

'The Ministry,' he realised aloud. 'They have come to throw what little they have left at me.'

'You are outnumbered,' Harry grinned viciously, 'and trapped.'

'When you fall,' the Dark Lord's lips curved cruelly, 'so will have they.'

Their magic clashed again, wordless, wandless, without gesture, or direction, only instinctive, pure hate to guide it.

The ice spread across his chest, and this time, rather than suppress it, or simply listen to it, he embraced it, encouraged it, and poured himself into it until there was nothing else left within him.

White scales, sharp, tapering to cruel, curved points, coated in hoarfrost spines, and emanating a cold so fierce it cracked the stone beneath, froze the air, and shattered what little glass still remained in the windows.

This time it was real, a manifestation of his magic.

Across from it another serpent reared from the molten ruins of the gatehouse. It was just as painfully white, flames rippling from nose to tail, eyes of incandescent fury, burning there so bright the flames were no longer visible. When its mouth gaped, it screamed with a thousand fiery tongues, a challenge Harry could only answer in kind.

Vast, dark eyes slid open over a maw of needle-like teeth, that glittered like icicles, they gleamed with hunger, an insatiable, destructive desire.

It surged forward with a hiss like the cracking of ice.

They met with a crash, writhing, biting, and wrapping around one another, flailing furiously until the courtyard was little more than a crater, and dulling in colour as they weakened. The serpents faded to cherry-red, and pale blue, then vanished completely, dark eyes melting into a wave of black water that drenched the flames of Voldemort's creature, both bursting into a sea of steam.

The steam scattered, but there was nothing left to see of the courtyard, nor the gatehouse, or even many of the surrounding buildings.

They stood alone over a plain of rubble, gasping, bent double, magic all but spent.

It was Voldemort who regained his breath first, straightening and turning to watch the silent, white wings of a snowy owl pass over their heads, while Harry continued to gasp.

'Ever you surpass my expectations,' he smiled, the expression almost soft, but oddly hungry. 'If only I could let you live, leave you to grow, and watch what you become.'

They both knew it was impossible, no wizard who dreamed of being the greatest could suffer an equal, no enemy's understanding was worth risking the everlasting emptiness.

The yew wand snapped up, and Harry raised his aching, trembling arm again.

The storm of spells renewed itself against Harry's wavering shield, the butterflies clouding about his head, dipping to swallow the spells his shield could not stop, but he knew that it would not, could not last.

I cannot win, he realised, watching ripples of colour flood across his shield, its light fading a little with each wash of vivid magic. And if I fall, they fall.

There was no magic left, every drop that lingered would be spent on the next spell he cast, no matter its intention or purpose.

I cannot even apparate away to try again.

The Ministry had trapped them all within their wards.

He wanted to laugh, but the mirth that bubbled in his throat died, strangled by sorrow and drenched in despair.

The Elder wand rose, flourished, fell and twisted, painting purple patterns on the air.

I will fall, he accepted hollowly; it was already certain.

Harry swallowed his pain, abandoned all his fears save one, the last, the worst, the one he could never allow.

She will not.

The light of his shield wavered, but he ignored it, and kept drawing the runes, carving his intent, his dedication into the sky around him, just as Dumbledore had always intended him to do. He knew now the real reason for those references to Fleur, to sacrifice, the conversations in his office about love, and its power. He was always intended to die for those he loved, if not everyone, then just for her; it would have worked just as well.

Harry hoped, desperately, that Dumbledore's theory about the blood magic bound between them from the resurrection would save him, but he knew the field better than the old wizard had. There was no horcrux within him to be sacrificed in his stead, and without it the chances of escaping the nothingness were slim.

Better I die like this than her.

He could never allow anyone to condemn Fleur to that emptiness, without her he would be nothing again anyway, better she live and he die, better she survive and he fall, better she remember and he vanish, than both of them fade.

The shield flickered, the once bright, blinding light now little more than a faint glow, and with a leaden heart he knew the time had come.

The Elder Wand trembled in his fingers as he twirled it, fighting the desire to look back through the doors, knowing his sacrifice would be all the more potent if he gave up that too.

There had been a dream, a desire, for love, for Fleur, for family, and for a silver-haired girl with green eyes, but they were bittersweet ashes on his tongue. He should have known better than to hope, to believe, because he had always known the truth, the reality, cold and cruel as it was.

Wishes like that, he thought, smiling bitterly, they never come true.

The shield fell, butterflies bursting in wisps of ebony smoke, shrouding him from sight, as Voldemort stepped forwards, the first words Harry had ever remembered on his lips.

He raised his chin proudly, letting the Elder Wand fall from his fingers on the floor.

Why? Voldemort's eyes seemed to ask, widening in incredulous shock, as the spell left his wand.

Fleur, Harry answered, though the Dark Lord could not hear him, always Fleur.

There was a brilliant, viridescent flash, a wave of emerald that washed out every other hue, then there was pain, pain beyond words, thoughts or feeling, his very essence screamed out soundlessly, and he blindly, desperately hurled himself towards the only escape.

AN: Please read and review, thanks for everyone who does! Also, don't hate me too much?

I have already written the next chapter, I wrote them together, but I'm going to hold back on posting it for a day or two so that any reviews I get for it are based solely on that chapter rather than the events of both. You'll see why when you read it!