A/N: Thank you to all those that have been reviewing. Thanks to my betas Rivenn and IamSiriusgrl for their feedback.
Disclaimer: I wish I could be as good as JK Rowling but I'm not. This is her stuff and not to mention the influence that this story took from various fanfics.
Chapter 39
The Third Task
For weeks after the funerals, hundreds of Death Eaters were captured and a two court system was setup. One was run by the Ministry of Magic for Death Eaters in general and the second was run by the Alliance headed by the goblins to put on trial all those that have wronged the goblins. The Alliance was not permitted to try those that wronged the centaurs and house elves because they weren't recognized as sovereign entities.
The Ministry of Magic used its normal system of trail to be heard by the Wizengamot and an appeals process that was either granted or denied by the Minister of Magic. In most case, the appeals were denied due to the overwhelming evidence and almost all of those appearing before the Ministry of Magic court were sentenced to life in prison. The only ones that weren't sent to life in prison were newly recruited Death Eaters that have not killed yet or those that the Ministry felt were remorseful and did not return to Voldemort when summoned.
The court system set up by the Alliance was harsh but took longer. All of the Death Eaters captured on Diagon Alley and a few who escaped the battle were sentenced to death after a fair trial where they were provided with adequate counsel or the defendants provided their own counsel. They were all found guilty even when the lawyers tried to do tricks in the court room like shifting blame and pleading that they were under the Imperius curse. The reason why the Alliance court system took longer was because all of the guilty were automatically granted one appeal to have their cases heard again. This only worked to prolong each Death Eater's case but the Alliance felt it was necessary to make sure that justice was served.
The Alliance asked for permission to send the Death Eaters through the veil but the Ministry denied the request stating that since the goblins are a separate entity then they must carry out their own death sentences because the Ministry of Magic did not want to get tied up in it. This angered the voting members of the Alliance which caused more resentment towards the Ministry and Order delegations. The Ministry was adamant not to execute anyone even though public opinion was at an all time high for executing Death Eaters. Mr. Weasley along with Dumbledore, weren't exactly friends anymore but continued to work from the same agenda, and persuaded enough members of the Wizengamot not to use the death sentence. The Alliance ended up using public hangings or given the death potion as witches and wizards continued to throw conjured items at the Death Eaters.
As expected, a few of the top ranking Death Eaters along with Voldemort weren't captured. Bellatrix, Lucious, Pettigrew, and Voldemort were hiding out together planning their next move. The remaining Death Eaters agreed that something drastic must happen and a critical blow must be dealt to Harry to take him out of the equation. It became painfully obvious to everyone on both sides of the war that the key figure in this war was Harry and if Harry survived the light would win and if Harry were to die then more than likely the light would lose.
Weeks after the trials, life at Hogwarts returned back to normal, at least normal by Hogwarts standards. The DA resumed its practice session under Ron and Hermione's leadership but many of the members quit in fear of retaliation from the Patriots. Ron and Hermione were still dating but one major issue kept their relationship from progressing which was Harry. Hermione became remorseful after their attempted ambush on Harry and she was hesitant to carry through with those orders in the first place. She tried to talk the Order out of issuing those commands but they wouldn't listen to her. Instead, she managed to convince the DA to only use stunning spells when trying to capture Harry. She hoped that he wouldn't be hit with too many spells and survive the ordeal without any injuries.
Ron was still acting like an ass while still blinded with jealousy for Harry. The fact that Harry became the leader of a powerful alliance that is composed of some of the most influential people in the magical world, became incredibly rich while not having to work for it, in a stable and loving relationship, and his natural talents in magic made Ron more resentful. The one thing that Ron did acknowledge was that Harry did not have an easy life because he saw it with his own eyes when he went to rescue Harry from the Dursleys during his second year with help from Fred and George. Hermione was making some progress with Ron as Ron slowly began to see what really was going on but just like Percy, Ron is just too stubborn to admit that he was wrong.
In all of her debates with Ron, Hermione became more lost than ever before. Hermione always relied on Dumbledore being right and not leading her astray but that didn't seem to be happening. The more she learned about what was going on and especially the fallout between her favorite Professor, which was McGonagall, and the Headmaster, she had to question on more than one occasion if she was doing the right thing. When everything came to light at the last Alliance meeting that the Order was permitted to attend, she saw the errors in her way and was trying to slowly work her way back into Harry's life as a friend and hopefully as one of his best friends once again.
Hermione became closer with Ginny and Kayla as the weeks passed by. Ginny and Kayla sympathized with Hermione and knew that she was only doing what she thought was right. They hoped that Harry would forgive her and accept her back in his life but knew that that was going to be a long healing process. Ginny and Kayla were resentful towards Hermione at first and tried to avoid her whenever possible but Hermione managed to confront them and plead her case. They weren't sure if she was putting on an act or not so they played it cautiously and observed what Hermione was doing and what she wasn't doing. After about a month, the three girls weren't quite friends but their relationship was healing. Kayla had a hard time convincing Ginny and knew that she was going to have one hell of a time trying to convince Harry.
Between Dumbledore and Harry, it would take an act of God to heal their relationship. Harry always held out hope that he would be able to work with Dumbledore again but that all went to hell when Dumbledore ordered the attack on him. Dumbledore tried at first to talk to Harry and make him see his side of the story but Harry just stared at the Headmaster and didn't reply with anything other than 'yes' and 'no'. Dumbledore ended up giving up on trying to heal their relationship and tried to devise plans to help Harry in his cause instead of control Harry after the berating that he took from the members of the Alliance, this did not include his minority group of supporters which was now a small group of individuals inside the Order. For the most part, the Order was no where near the strength they were prior to the meeting in the Sanctuary with most of the members quitting and offering their services to Harry. Harry had them assist the Aurors and help organize the town defense groups though it is no longer necessary considering all the Death Eaters that were captured. Needless to say, Dumbledore lost credibility within the Alliance, many members of the staff at Hogwarts, most of the former members of the Order of the Phoenix, and a few influential officials in the Wizengamot. Dumbledore still held power and for the most part, most of the wizards and witches in the world still revered him as a great wizard.
During the weeks of relative peace, due to the information from the network of house elf spies, the Patriots reduced the amount of practice sessions. They only had once a week practice sessions while the rest of the time was given to the Patriots to freely wander into the Sanctuary for meals, exploring, playing with the orphans, or shopping. The house elves in the Sanctuary happily agreed to help the students get their miscellaneous shopping done because the elves were eager for more things to do.
The orphans were transported back to their respective orphanages but social events were setup so that the kids could meet each other once a week because many of them became friends when they lived together in the Sanctuary. Most of the excursions were set for the orphans to go to Hogsmeade and walk around town under escort from chaperones and Aurors or they went to the Sanctuary to play with the Patriots and house elves that they came to see as friends. Anna and Anthony got to spend a lot of time together when Anna went to the Sanctuary. The orphans voiced their desire to make some money so they could buy things on their excursions so an arts and craft shop was setup so the kids could make things and sell it to merchants or sell from their orphanage. Harry ended up buying a great deal of the kids' art and used it to decorate the Sanctuary with emphasis in the bedrooms. The art started to gain more attention as word got out that Harry liked it and the kids now had enough money to share with each other. They were not rich but now had enough money to buy a birthday gift for each other once in a while and buy food and drinks in town when on excursions.
The Hogwarts All-Star team was picking up on their training sessions. Hermione, Ron, Luna, Ginny, and Kayla were slated to represent Hogwarts. Harry had little fear that Ginny and Kayla were going to lose their matches, he doubt that they would even be injured but he knew that he was biased and hopeful in this situation. Ginny and Kayla's abilities were beyond NEWT level with Hermione, Ron, and Luna just below NEWT level. The team in general was well above average but Durmstrang did not have the difficulties with Defense teachers that Hogwarts had in the past.
The much anticipated day of the last challenge arrived: Durmstrang versus Hogwarts in individual dueling competition. The students at Hogwarts were excited because the thought that their team composed of leaders of the Patriots and the DA losing was unthinkable. On the other hand, Durmstrang was determined to take this into a tie breaking competition and hopefully they will get lucky in the draw. As usual, Beauxbaton showed up with Madame Maxime serving as the official for the duels. The Great Hall was set up in a football style stadium seating with seats running the perimeter of the oval. At the center of the oval was an elevated platform made of wood sitting about four feet above the ground that was also oval. There was about a ten foot gap between the dueling platform and the stands.
On the North and South side of the stadium, which was the side with the Head Table and the large doors leading into the Great Hall, were small spectator boxes at ground level on the stands. That was where the two respective teams were seated. The dueling platform was surrounded by a clear protective dome to stop outsiders from interfering in the match and to protect the spectators from stray spells. Entry onto the platform was through a side door that was connected to the team observation areas. Once the two duelists were inside the dome and the doors closed, the dome would seal the occupants in until one side was defeated.
Reporters from around the world were also present to witness and record what was going on. To most of the world, at this point, the threat of Voldemort is gone unless there was something happening that nobody knew about. There was relative peace and the people were starting to live their lives without fear, though some did head Harry's advice and to remain vigilant until Voldemort and his top ranking leaders were removed. The dueling in this competition would be everything goes just short of the unforgivables as the only protocol is bowing before the start of the duel and the duel ends when the other person can no longer duel.
Ginny was the first on the Hogwarts side of the duel. She was going against a tall, blond, beautiful girl that sent waves of confidence off of her as she walked. The two girls bowed to each other and almost immediately the fighting started. Ginny shot smoke from her wand and when the arena was covered in smoke, she disillusioned herself and slowly made her way behind her opponent or at least where she hoped that her opponent would be. The girl from Durmstrang shot various stunning spells in front of her in every direction as she slowly backed towards the edge of the dueling area so that Ginny couldn't get behind her. At first the smoke was so thick that nothing could be seen but as it slowly dissipated, Ginny managed to see where the spells were originating from. Ginny ended up standing next to the girl while the girl from Durmstrang looked around frantically for any sign of Ginny. When she realized what was happening it was too late, Ginny removed the disillusionment charm on herself and had her wand pointed at the girls head. Ginny asked if she conceded which she reluctantly agreed to do and dropped her wand. Ginny won the first match as the Hogwarts students cheered enthusiastically for her. The two girls shook hands afterwards and congratulated each other before they made their way back to their seats.
Luna was next going against a tall muscular guy from Durmstrang. Just like Ginny's duel, immediately after bowing to each other, they started firing spells at each other. Luna was using offensive spells only but the guy was faster than her. He started off with shielding charms but when he recognized the pattern in Luna's spells which were a mixture of the tickling charm and simple stunning spells while her spells were also aimed at his chest. After standing in one spot and allowing Luna to get comfortable in her pattern of spells and the targeted spot on his body, he rolled to his right and fired off a stream of silencing charms around Luna and where she was standing just in case she was going to jump out of the way. Luna was hit by the silencing charm and unable to fire off another spell because she never learned how to do wordless magic. The guy jumped backwards as Luna tried to rush him and fired the disarming spell at her which hit her in her chest. Durmstrang won the second duel and after the announcement, the guy removed the effects of the spells that he placed on Luna just before they walked back to their respective teams.
Kayla was up next going against another guy that appeared to be in good physical shape. Kayla was quicker than her opponent and shot a constant stream of water out of her wand but it was more like fast bursts of water coming from a cannon. She kept the stream of water going and redirected to wherever her opponent moved. The guy at first spent most of his time dodging the water and using shielding charms once in a while to give him time to catch a quick breath. What he didn't seem to realize or didn't show that he realized was that the water was building up on the platform because of the protective barrier that kept stray spells from leaving the dueling arena. About five minutes into the duel, the water was already up to their knees. Kayla was starting to get tired from using the water spell so much and felt her magical reserves getting weaker. She casted a bubble around her body which encased the lower half of her body from touching the water similar to how a bubble head charm works but at the lower part of the body. While this was going on, her opponent was panting from running around so much and fired a few poorly aimed spells at Kayla which she didn't know what they were because he was whispering his spells. When the bubble charm was completed and her body was protected from the water, Kayla shot mild electric shock spells into the water. She learned the electric shock spell from her healing class which was used to help restart the heart should the heart stop beating. At first the shock spell only tickled her opponent then it became painful as she slowly increased the magic behind the electricity. It didn't take long for her opponent to surrender, he didn't know how to do the bubble shield to protect himself and was too tired and too hard to wade through the water to make it to Kayla to physically stop her so he just dropped his wand and raised his hand to surrender. After congratulating each other, when the door to the dueling platform was opened to allow Kayla and her opponent to leave, the water rushed out and soaked everyone who was sitting on the lower levels. After some drying charms on people's clothing and on the dueling area, the next duel was ready to start.
The next duel was between Ron and Petia. After the bowed to each other, Petia dropped to the ground holding her ankle and acting like she was in a lot of pain. Ron lowered his wand and slowly made his way over to her to see if she was fine and was about to call the duel off when Petia raised her wand and shot a stunning spell at Ron. Ron was quick enough to respond with a shield charm do to all the quidditch practices. A small portion of the spell made it through but only managed to slow down Ron for a short period of time. Petia jumped back up and started hurling all kinds of spells from conjuring spells like avis and serpensortia which conjured birds and snakes respectively to cause confusion while cutting and stunning hexes like diffindo and stupefy quickly followed behind the conjuring spells. To Ron's credit, he was able to discern the distraction spells from the harmful ones. The problem was as the spells became more complicated and with so many birds and snakes running around, he lost concentration long enough to have his wand hand hit with a cutting hex which slowed him down just enough for a stunning spell to hit him almost immediately afterwards. The score was now tied two to two with Hermione's duel as the deciding factor.
Hermione went up against a 7th year guy that exuded confidence and just looking at him made you fell a little intimidated. While watching the other duels, she noted how each person dueled and how they won. She also tried to make note if there was a pattern to how Durmstrang dueled which she noticed that with the exception of Petia, they tend to fight straight on and fought poorly if their game plan needed to be changed in the middle of the fight, so she needed to be on the offensive early. After their bow, both of them shot banishing charms at each other at the same time and neither of them reacted quickly enough and threw their opponent into the protective shielding around the dueling platform. They slowly stood back up and stumbled towards each other but Hermione's opponent started using Kayla's trick and started firing off bursts of water. Hermione formed the bubble charm on the lower half of her body and fired off 'lumos maxima' with her eyes closed which temporarily blinded everybody in the Great Hall. While everyone but Hermione was blinded, her opponent continued to fire a stream of stunning spells at her and amazingly enough it was close to where she was standing and moving around. Hermione quickly realized that this was probably because he could hear the bubble around her body moving around in the water while she was trying to dodge the spells. She decided to copy a trick by Petia and dropped to the ground acting like she was stunned with her eyes slightly opened but not noticeable to someone looking at her while her hand gripped her wand. When everybody regained their vision, they saw Hermione lying on the ground. The guy from Durmstrang started jumping up and down in excitement as the students from Durmstrang screamed in excitement at winning but Hermione jumped up and quickly stunned him. The students from Durmstrang stared in disbelief at losing while the Hogwarts students were still processing three things which were Hermione winning her duel, Hogwarts won the dueling tournament, and Hogwarts won the tournament of challenges from Durmstrang. After a minute of silence, the students from Hogwarts and those who supported Hogwarts from Beauxbaton jumped up and down in excitement while Durmstrang and their supporters stared in disbelief.
After the duel, everybody was escorted out of the Great Hall so it could be prepared for a celebration for Hogwarts and end to the challenge from Durmstrang. When everybody returned, they found that most of the tables in the Great Hall were circular tables that seated anywhere from six to ten people each. The dueling platform was left there and there was an open invitation for all those interested, they could have friendly duels while the celebration was going on. The leaders of the three schools did the planning for the celebration.
While the celebration was going on, many of the students from the different schools were sitting with each other and talking happily. Though, Durmstrang was a little depressed about the loss, they acknowledge that it was a fair duel and that Hogwarts was an excellent school.
Ginny and Kayla approached Harry during the celebration and asked him to join them out by the lake under their favorite tree. When they reached the tree, Hermione was there along with Neville and Luna. Harry was about to walk back to the castle but one look from Ginny and Kayla and he knew that this was important. Harry was so preoccupied by trying to figure out what Hermione, Neville, and Luna wanted that he didn't notice a small crowd that was following him.
When Ginny, Kayla, and Harry met up with Hermione, Luna, and Neville, Hermione was the first to speak. She walked up to Harry while facing the ground sheepishly and slowly raised her head while she apologized. She said, "I'm sorry Harry for everything that has been going on this year and I guess to some extent for a very long time. I never meant to hurt you or should I say, we never meant to hurt you." She gestured to Luna and Neville.
"We thought at first what we were doing was the right thing. It wasn't until recently that we realized what we were doing was wrong. I guess deep down, we knew what we were doing was wrong but just couldn't admit it to ourselves," Neville had continued off where Hermione had left off.
In an even voice, Harry asked, "Why…Why did you do it?"
Luna joined in and losing her usual airy demeanor, sheepishly replied, "I think in a way we fell to temptation. We knew it was wrong in some sense but we were used due to our weaknesses. Hermione has always trusted Dumbledore with everything given everything that she has read about him. She didn't want to believe that Dumbledore was manipulating you and that she was also being manipulated because Dumbledore was supposed to be a hero of the light. In some sense the same thing was happening with Neville. You already know about Neville's parents and how they were tortured. Dumbledore told Neville that if Neville agreed to help him then he would do everything in his power to help Neville's parents. I guess any of us would do that if we were given hope that our parents could be healed or saved. Well for me, I've always been an outcast and for the longest time, only Dumbledore accepted me, then Ginny and then last year you all accepted me. But I guess it took some time for me to come to terms that Dumbledore was wrong and you didn't need me to help you. In a way, I thought I was helping both sides but I guess I was just hurting you. We're really sorry and we want to make it up to you. We'll do anything to get you to forgive us."
"How do I know that you all aren't trying to set me up again?" Harry's scathing reply hurt Hermione, Luna, and Neville. Hermione and Luna were close to tears.
Nobody responded because they were too ashamed and while everybody was quiet. Harry took this opportunity to do a little bit of probing in their minds. Do to Harry's mastery of Legilimency, when Harry is in close proximity with someone, he is able to use Legilimency without having to look in a person's eyes. Dumbledore could barely perform this and Voldemort could only do it to Harry do to the link that Voldemort and Harry shared. Harry saw that they were truly remorseful but a side of him knew that he wouldn't be able to trust the three of them like he used to be able to. What hurt him was that Ron was not included in this group but relieved somewhat that his friends didn't abandon him over something that was frivolous but something that all of them were blinded by. He could relate to them considering, like Hermione, how much blind faith he had placed in Dumbledore in the past and it wasn't until absolute proof was given in the letter and memories from Kayla's mother that Harry became enraged with Dumbledore instead of the displeasure that he had prior to that moment. He also knew what it felt like to be rejected by everyone around him like Luna. He knew the feeling of trying to be accepted but to continually be rejected because nobody took the time to get to know him. Just like Neville, Harry would do anything if he could bring his parents back or if he was in Neville's case, bring them back from insanity.
Harry turned to look at Kayla and Ginny who had hopeful looks in there eyes that Harry was going to forgive the three estranged friends. Harry was confused; he wasn't sure what to do. If he forgave them then it would be too easy but on the other hand, a true friend wouldn't make another friend suffer. Many arguments continued along that line in Harry's mind about what to do and what to feel. After about what seemed like an endless amount of time of absolute silence, Ginny placed her hands in his and gave him a hopeful look and asked, "Harry?"
Harry gave her a kiss on her forehead and gave her hand a squeeze. He turned to look at the lake as if expecting his answer to appear on the lakes surface but none came. Hermione and Luna were sniffling as they were wiping their nose absentmindedly on their respective sleeves while staring at Harry's feet. He ended up doing more mental probing to determine everything that Hermione, Neville, and Luna have been doing with relation to him and saw a few things. The first thing he saw was how everything started off small and snowballed into the mess that they were in now. He also saw the pain that went through each of them as Dumbledore asked them to be more persistent with Harry. The last thing he saw was what was happening currently. Harry saw that the longer he was not saying anything, the more that the three of them were losing hope and the more their hearts were breaking and in some cases, it was shattering.
Harry took Ginny's hand again as Kayla took his other hand while she asked, "What are we going to do now?"
Harry took a look at everyone again then sighed. "To tell you all the truth, I don't know what to do either." He looked over at Hermione, Neville, and Luna, and said, "I'm sorry but I've spent the last few minutes probing each of your minds to determine if I should even be talking to you or not but that developed into if you all were remorseful and truly wanted to change." Harry waited to let the information sink into them and then continued on, "This year has been pretty hard on me also but one of the things that was the hardest has always been the feeling that I was betrayed by my closest friends or former friends."
Hermione's group flinched when Harry said former friends. Hermione was about to say something but Harry held up his hand to silence her and continued on to say, "I always hoped that one day we would be friends again but that feeling grew dimmer and dimmer with every passing day. We will probably never achieve the close friendship that we had in the past but I'm willing to work on it if you all are. I can't say that I can forgive you all for what you all did because I'm not sure of how to do that but I can say that I would have helped you all out even if we were still fighting with each other. I do hope to be friends again but the road to recovery will be a long one."
Ginny gave him a bone crushing hug that would have made Mrs. Weasley proud. She gave him a long kiss and when he recovered from the kiss, he found that he was being hugged by everyone. The group of six sat under the tree for the next few hours getting reacquainted with one another though it felt awkward for all of them but they all knew that this was the first step to recovery and that they were willing to try.
When it was getting dark, Hermione suggested that they all go to dinner and everyone agreed. The group made to go to the Great Hall but was met by Headmaster Lechkov of Durmstrang and three of his staff members. He asked if he could have a word with Harry and Harry agreed while motioning for his friends to go on ahead and he'll meet them in the Great Hall.
The group from Durmstrang and Harry watched his friends walk off and Harry turned to Lechkov and asked, "What can I do for you sir?"
Lechkov replied, "If you will take a walk with me, I would like to ask you about your dueling abilities."
The group walked off towards the Forbidden Forest and when they almost made it to the forest when Harry noticed that one of the staff member's hairs started to change into a platinum blonde color. Harry stopped and pulled out his holly wand and pointed it at the man whose hair just changed color. Harry yelled, "Stupefy!" and the spell hit its mark and the man fell over.
The rest of the staff from Durmstrang pulled out their wands and pointed it at Harry. Lechkov's facial and body features slowly started to change while the group had their wands on Harry. When the change was complete, Harry saw that it wasn't the Durmstrang staff that was with him but Voldemort, who was Lechkov, accompanied by Bellatrix, Pettigrew, and Malfoy Sr. was the man that Harry stunned.
Harry yelled, "What did you do to Headmaster Lechkov and his staff?" While Harry was yelling, he sent an emergency message through his watch to every member of the Alliance that had a watch and to the Patriots. He knew that he wouldn't be able to take on all of them because Voldemort would take up all of his attention in a fight.
Voldemort cackled his response, "Potter, you catch on quickly but Lechkov is none of your concern. He's taking a nap in a closet with the rest of his teachers."
"Why did you have to kill them?"
"Itty bitty baby Potter is so concerned with others. Awe, how heroic… Don't worry, they're not dead, we kept them alive just in case we needed more of their hair but they'll be dead soon enough, right after the Dark Lord dispose of you," Bellatrix responded in a taunting voice. While Bellatrix was taunting Harry, Pettigrew was reviving Malfoy.
Harry slowly backed away as all the Death Eaters gathered around their master. Voldemort laughed and triumphantly said, "Where are you going to run to now Potter? You're out here all by yourself and nobody is here to help you."
What Voldemort and his Death Eaters did not notice was that the centaurs, goblins, and strike elves were gathering along the tree line taking aim at each of the Death Eaters. When Voldemort saw Harry's eyes twitch just a second looking away from him and towards the tree line, Voldemort casted a powerful shield around him and his Death Eaters. When that happened, Harry also casted a powerful shield charm around himself because he was afraid that Voldemort was attacking him. The centaurs launched a barrage of arrows that bounced off of Voldemort's shield. The same thing happened when the strike elves magic rebounding off of Voldemort's shield when they tried to attack but the goblins were casting anti-portkey charms over the open field extending from the Forbidden Forest to the front gates of Hogwarts.
Bellatrix, Malfoy, and Pettigrew sent the explosion hex at Harry. They knew better than to cast the killing curse because they knew that only Voldemort could kill Harry. That didn't stop them from weakening Harry as much as possible and letting their master have the final blow. Harry's shield managed to withstand the full brunt of Malfoy and Pettigrew's spell but only reduced the effect of Bellatrix's curse. Bellatrix's curse was weakened enough so that the effect on Harry was skin and some muscle being blown away from Harry's upper left arm. He stumbled back but recovered quickly.
The Patriots being led by Ginny and Kayla were leading the charge into the fight. They were followed by the Hogwarts staff and members of the Order that were at the castle for the post-tournament celebration. All of them had their wands drawn and ready to help Harry. There were just too many people out there and Voldemort had no way to escape.
Remus made to charge directly at Pettigrew with Tonks following him. Remus, Tonks, and the centaurs all ganged up on Pettigrew who didn't have a prayer in the world. As soon as Voldemort's shield dropped, Voldemort used Pettigrew as a human shield which resulted in his body being pierced with dozens of arrows and Remus beating every single drop of blood out of Pettigrew's body. When Tonks made it to them, she was trying to pull Remus off of Peter's dead body. She was finally successful in dragging away Remus when the centaurs came up to help her. She held him as he sobbed from the pain of the memories of his dead friends, joy for being able to get his revenge, and remorse from being barbaric and uncontrolled when he was beating on Pettigrew. Tonks held him close and whispered comforting words to him.
Neville followed by Luna ran for Bellatrix. When Bellatrix saw Neville coming, the memories of torturing the Longbottoms came back to her and she became determined to put the last Longbottom into a comatose state so that the family would vegetables together. She ran to Neville and the three started to duel. Bellatrix was sending an endless barrage of red spells and the only word coming out from her mouth was 'Crucio.' She looked like a possessed woman as she smiled while trying to torture Neville. She wasn't successful though because Luna was doing an endless stream of transfiguration work that formed a physical barrier that took the brunt of the curses. Neville would run around the barriers but mentally he was thankful that Luna was there to protect him. When Neville made it close enough that his aim would be accurate and his spells strong enough to have an effect, he let out a stream of cutting hex. Neville wanted to cut Bellatrix limb from limb and when he was done, he wanted to cut her into small pieces. When Neville let his stream of spells go, Bellatrix was surprised at the ferocity in Neville's eyes and hesitated just long enough for one of the cutting hexes to hit her in her right leg. She responded by falling back to a defensive position waiting for her chance to retaliate but that never happened because Luna joined in with the cutting hex and the strike elves were seeking revenge for their fallen friends that died while spying at Voldemort's headquarters. In less than five minutes, Bellatrix was beyond recognition. When Bellatrix died, Luna went over to Neville to comfort him just like Tonks did for Remus.
Hermione and Kayla were making there way to Malfoy. The two witches stood away from one another so Malfoy would have a difficult time taking them on. What Malfoy didn't take into account were the goblins that were coming up behind him. When he realized what was happening, Malfoy had no chance of survival as they showered him with a variety of spells from stunning, bludgeoning, cutting, explosion, torture, and killing curses. Every goblin had their own separate preference on what spell they wanted so it looked like a rainbow hitting Malfoy in the back and his sides. When Malfoy died, the two witches turned to watch Harry and Voldemort fight.
The Death Eaters were the first to go down and when all of the Death Eaters died, all eyes turned to Harry and Voldemort. Nobody wanted to interfere with the fight because many of them either consciously or subconsciously knew that this was going to be the final duel. Harry and Voldemort were staring at each other at first with their wands pointed at each other but once Pettigrew went down screaming it snapped the two of them back to reality. As if they were thinking the same thing, the two of them shot flames at each other but didn't hit their marks. This resulted in the two of them being surrounded by fire while they dueled. The fire started to grow but nobody made an attempt to put out the flames because they were still staring at the two dueling each other.
When Harry and Voldemort realized that continually using the flame spell was not going to work. Voldemort went back to his trusted killing curse and continually used it with disregard to defense. Harry knew that he would not be able to cast the killing curse so he used the explosion hex which was the most dangerous spell he could think of at the time. Harry also ignored defense and went all offensive. Neither of them was able to hit their marks but Harry was at an advantage because debris from the explosion hex was hitting Voldemort. Outside the ring of fire, people were dodging the stray killing curse spells being casted by Voldemort. In the end, everybody just moved from being behind Harry. Since neither of them was hitting their marks do to all the evasive dodging from Harry and Voldemort, it became an endurance duel. Both of them were incredibly hot from the flames and were getting mild burns as the flames closed in on them.
Harry was in worse shape due to his injured left arm. That was when Harry switched his holly wand to his left hand which was slow to move and snapped his wrist so that his rose wand came out. The fighting was tiring on him and didn't know how much longer he would last but knew he couldn't let Voldemort leave this duel alive no matter what. Harry raised both wands in the area around Voldemort and summoned all of the alcohol from the school to hit the ground near Voldemort and around the inside circle of the flames. When the alcohol bottles started to break the flames started to feed off of it and Voldemort started to burn alive. He turned his wand on himself and tried to cool the burns and protect himself from the flames but it was too little too late. While Voldemort was getting rid of the flames around him, Harry made his way closer to Voldemort and unloaded with a barrage of explosion and cutting hexes at Voldemort's head. Voldemort died almost instantly after the first spell hit him but Harry's continued use of the spells made the head unrecognizable pieces of flesh and gray matter. After seeing the parts of Voldemort's brain scattered on the ground, Harry magically summoned all of Voldemort's body parts and placed in a pile in front of him. Harry fired off several fire spells to ensure that the corpse was burned and could not be recovered. By the time the last parts of Voldemort turned to ashes, Harry was being singed by the flames surrounding him and that's when Nightlight showed up and Harry knew what to do.
Nobody saw the end of the duel. All the spectators saw were alcohol containers flying towards the duel and when the alcohol bottles broke, the flames became too high for anybody to see anymore. That was when people started to put out the flames and when they were done, nothing was left except for burned ground, broken bottles, and ashes on the ground. Many of the people were stunned, some wanted to celebrate but some wanted to mourn Harry's death. Ginny was in tears being comforted by Kayla because her portkey to Harry wasn't working.
After a few more minutes, over the Forbidden Forest a few objects could be seen making their way over to the group gathered out on the field. It was four birds but on closer inspection, it was four phoenixes. The four phoenixes were Nightlight, Sunrise, Sunset, and the last one was last seen in the Great Hall with Ginny. When the fourth phoenix landed, it landed on the ground in front of Ginny and transformed back into Harry. She jumped on him and he almost fainted immediately from all the pain that his body had just gone through.
Ginny kept on yelling, "Don't you ever do that again! Are you hurt? Of course you are considering what you just did! Honestly…" she continued on and on until she noticed that Harry was barely standing.
Harry leaned into her for support and after he whispered to Ginny, "I'll be fine. I need to rest," he fainted.
A/N: I wanted to thank all of my reviewers once again and to let you all know that there is only one chapter left. Also to those who like to flame saying that I depart from canon. Just like most authors, and with every successive book that JKR has written, you will notice that it has always changed from what was held to be thecanon for the characters. In this story, if canon was to get in my way, I will choose to follow my own path and I know that I am breaking from tradition but changes happen so to those that don't like the departure from canon then there are plenty of other stories to read. Thank you again to those who give constructive criticisms and encouragement because you are the ones that keep this story going.