Chapter 57:

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

He looked at his sister who instantly looked ready to argue, but even she knew this was how it had to be. She looked at him and then turned to Voldemort before she took a step backwards.

This seemed to be the defining motion and not a single person seemed ready to argue, if even Alicia wasn't.

Voldemort hissed.

"Potter doesn't mean that," he said, his red eyes wide. "That isn't how he works, is it? Who are you going to use as a shield today, Potter? Your poor sister?"

"Poor." Alicia huffed, insulted by the word but scoffing regardless.

"Nobody," said Harry simply. "There are no more Horcruxes. It's just you and me. Neither can live while the other survives, and one of us is about to leave for good…"

"One of us?" jeered Voldemort, and his whole body was taut and his red eyes stared, a snake that was about to strike. "You think it will be you, do you, the boy who has survived by accident, and because Dumbledore was pulling the strings?"

And Alicia laughed some more, several people turning to her. Harry however had the explanation.

"Accident, was it, when my mother died to save me and Alicia?" asked Harry. "Accident, when we decided to fight in that graveyard? Accident, that I didn't defend myself tonight, and still survived, and returned to fight again?"

"Accidents!" screamed Voldemort, but still he did not strike, and the watching crowd was frozen as if Petrified. "Accident and chance and the fact that you crouched and snivelled behind the skirts of greater men and women, and permitted me to kill them for you!"

"You're so ignorant." Alicia said "Those weren't accidents. They were stupidity, carelessness, over confidence by you. Just like the boy who believed he was the only one smart enough to find the Room of Requirement. Shall we see a raise of hands of who's been in there? Cause I can name at least twenty students right now." she said, her temper rising.

"You won't be killing anyone else tonight," said Harry as they stared into each other's eyes, green into red. "You won't be able to kill any of them ever again. Don't you get it? I was ready to die to stop you from hurting these people —"

"But you did not!"

"— I meant to, and that's what did it. I've done what my mother did. They're protected from you. Haven't you noticed how none of the spells you put on them are binding? You can't torture them. You can't touch them. You don't learn from your mistakes, Riddle, do you?"

"You dare —"

"Yes, I dare," said Harry. "Like my sister, as she said some things to you before, I know things you don't know, Tom Riddle. I know lots of important things that you don't. Want to hear some, before you make another big mistake?"

Voldemort did not speak, but Harry knew that he kept him temporarily mesmerised and at bay, held back by the faintest possibility that Harry might indeed know a final secret…

"Is it love again?" said Voldemort, his snake's face jeering. "Dumbledore's favourite solution, love, which he claimed conquered death, though love did not stop him falling from the tower and breaking like an old waxwork? Love, which did not prevent me stamping out your Mudblood mother like a cockroach, Potter — and nobody seems to love you enough to run forward this time and take my curse. Not even your beloved sister."

"He doesn't need me to, you've failed so many times to kill him, and yet you still think you can, like he's a simple flame?" Alicia said "We know so much more than you do." she grinned.

"So what will stop you dying now when I strike?"

"Just one thing," said Harry, and still they circled each other, wrapped in each other, held apart by nothing but the last secret.

"If it is not love that will save you this time," said Voldemort, "you must believe that you have magic that I do not, or else a weapon more powerful than mine?"

"I believe both," said Harry, and shock flitted across the snakelike face, though it was instantly dispelled; Voldemort began to laugh, and the sound was more frightening than his screams; humourless and insane, it echoed around the silent Hall.

"You think you know more magic than I do?" he said. "Than I, than Lord Voldemort, who has performed magic that Dumbledore himself never dreamed of?"

Alicia was laughing now but Harry spoke instead of her.

"Oh, he dreamed of it," said Harry, "but he knew more than you, knew enough not to do what you've done."

"You mean he was weak!" screamed Voldemort. "Too weak to dare, too weak to take what might have been his, what will be mine!"

"No, he was cleverer than you," said Harry, "a better wizard, a better man."

"You're the weak one. You know no bounds and so you seal your own fait. Taking in Harry's blood, you all but kept him alive all this time. Constantly letting him into your head, you gave him a scapegoat to your plans. Hey, did you ever even consider why you and Harry had this weird connection?" Alicia asked "Dumbledore did."

"I brought about the death of Albus Dumbledore!"

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

"Tom Riddle kill Dumbledore, what a stupid notion, a boy's dream." Alicia said

For the first time, the watching crowd stirred as the hundreds of people around the walls drew breath as one.

"Dumbledore is dead!" Voldemort hurled the words at Harry as though they would cause him unendurable pain. "His body decays in the marble tomb in the grounds of this castle, I have seen it, Potter, and he will not return!"

"Yes, Dumbledore's dead," said Harry calmly, "but you didn't have him killed. He chose his own manner of dying, chose it months before he died, arranged the whole thing with the man you thought was your servant."

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

"Dumbledore had a cursed hand, cursed by you in a way, that was killing him all of last year." Alicia said "And he was more than aware that you had ordered Draco Malfoy to kill him, or Draco would die instead. And so, Dumbledore made a plan, to stop Draco's soul being destroyed, and to stop himself from dying a terrible death by the curse of his hand. Everyone in this hall can tell you how his hand had been blackened and shrivelled." Alicia said and Voldemort turned his eyes from Harry to her before Harry spoke next.

"Severus Snape wasn't yours," said Harry. "Snape was Dumbledore's, Dumbledore's from the moment you started hunting down my mother. And you never realised it, because of the thing you can't understand. You never saw Snape cast a Patronus, did you, Riddle?"

Voldemort did not answer.

"Snape's Patronus was a doe," said Harry, "the same as my mother's, because he loved her for nearly all of his life, from the time when they were children. You should have realised," he said as he saw Voldemort's nostrils flare, "he asked you to spare her life, didn't he?"

"He desired her, that was all," sneered Voldemort, "but when she had gone, he agreed that there were other women, and of purer blood, worthier of him —"

"Of course he told you that," said Harry and Alicia together,

"But he was Dumbledore's spy from the moment you threatened her, and he's been working against you ever since! Dumbledore was already dying when Snape finished him!"

"It matters not!" shrieked Voldemort, who had followed every word with rapt attention, but now let out a cackle of mad laughter. "It matters not whether Snape was mine or Dumbledore's, or what petty obstacles they tried to put in my path! I crushed them as I crushed your mother, Snape's supposed great love! Oh, but it all makes sense, Potter, and in ways that you do not understand!

"Dumbledore was trying to keep the Elder Wand from me! He intended that Snape should be the true master of the wand! But I got there ahead of you, little boy — I reached the wand before you could get your hands on it, I understood the truth before you caught up. I killed Severus Snape three hours ago, and the Elder Wand, the Deathstick, the Wand of Destiny is truly mine! Dumbledore's last plan went wrong, Harry Potter!"

Alicia laughed.

"You got the wand because we let you." Alicia said and Voldemort stared at her now as she stood opposite him, and Harry paused beside her. "We knew you were after it, we watched you hunt down Gregorovitch and kill him, and then head to Nurmengard and kill Grindelwald who had it next. And I knew if Grindelwald had it last, than Dumbledore would be buried with it. Why do you think we let you have it?" She sort of changed the facts a little but she saw the look in Voldemort's eyes and enjoyed it. She wondered for a moment if it was sadistic, but it was important for the man to realise how wrong he had gone.

"Yeah, it did, Dumbledore's plans changed," said Harry. "You're right. But before you try to kill me, I'd advise you to think about what you've done… Think, and try for some remorse, Riddle…"

"What is this?"

Of all the things that Harry had said to him, beyond any revelation or taunt, nothing had shocked Voldemort like this. His pupils contracted to thin slits, the skin around his eyes whitened. Alicia huffed, that would never happen.

"It's your one last chance," said Harry, "it's all you've got left… I've seen what you'll be otherwise… Be a man… try… Try for some remorse…"

"You dare — ?" said Voldemort again.

"Yes, I dare," said Harry, "because Dumbledore's last plan hasn't backfired on me at all. It's backfired on you, Riddle."

Voldemort's hand was trembling on the Elder Wand, and Harry gripped Draco's very tightly.

"That wand still isn't working properly for you because you murdered the wrong person. Severus Snape was never the true master of the Elder Wand. He never defeated Dumbledore."

"He killed —"

"Aren't you listening? Snape never beat Dumbledore! Dumbledore's death was planned between them! Dumbledore intended to die undefeated, the wand's last true master! If all had gone as planned, the wand's power would have died with him, because it had never been won from him!"

"But then, Potter, Dumbledore as good as gave me the wand!" Voldemort's voice shook with malicious pleasure. "I stole the wand from its last master's tomb! I removed it against its last master's wishes! Its power is mine!"

"You can't just take a wand as old as the Elder wand and possess it in true power." Alicia said "You never listen do you?"

"You still don't get it, Riddle, do you? Possessing the wand isn't enough! Holding it, using it, doesn't make it really yours. Didn't you listen to Ollivander? The wand chooses the wizard… The Elder Wand recognised a new master before Dumbledore died, someone who never even laid a hand on it. The new master removed the wand from Dumbledore against his will, never realising exactly what he had done, or that the world's most dangerous wand had given him its allegiance…"

Voldemort's chest rose and fell rapidly as his wand was pointed at Harry's face.

"The true master of the Elder Wand was Draco Malfoy."

Blank shock showed in Voldemort's face for a moment, but then it was gone.

"He disarmed Draco that night on the Astronomy tower, and then they had a nice lengthy chat before Snape ever arrived." Alicia said

"But what does it matter?" he said softly. "Even if you are right, Potter, it makes no difference to you and me. You no longer have the phoenix wand: We duel on skill alone… and after I have killed you, I can attend to Draco Malfoy…"

"But you're too late," said Harry. "You've missed your chance. I got there first. I overpowered Draco weeks ago. I took this wand from him."

Harry twitched the hawthorn wand, and he felt the eyes of everyone in the Hall upon it. Alicia smirked.

"So it all comes down to this, doesn't it?" whispered Harry. "Does the wand in your hand know its last master was Disarmed? Because if it does… I am the true master of the Elder Wand."

A red-gold glow burst suddenly across the enchanted sky above them as an edge of dazzling sun appeared over the sill of the nearest window. The light hit both of their faces at the same time, so that Voldemort's was suddenly a flaming blur. Harry heard the high voice shriek as he too yelled his best hope to the heavens, pointing Draco's wand:

"Avada Kedavra!"

"Expelliarmus!"

The bang was like a cannon blast, and the golden flames that erupted between them, at the dead centre of the circle between them, marked the point where the spells collided. Voldemort's green jet meet Harry's own spell, the Elder Wand flew high, dark against the sunrise, spinning across the enchanted ceiling like the head of Nagini, spinning through the air toward the master it would not kill, who had come to take full possession of it at last. And Harry, with the unerring skill of the Seeker, caught the wand in his free hand as Voldemort fell backward, arms splayed, the slit pupils of the scarlet eyes rolling upward. Tom Riddle hit the floor with a mundane finality, his body feeble and shrunken, the white hands empty, the snakelike face vacant and unknowing. Voldemort was dead, killed by his own rebounding curse, and Harry stood with two wands in his hand, staring down at his enemy's shell.

One shivering second of silence, the shock of the moment suspended. Alicia ran at Harry, threw her arms around him and held him close before she beamed at him. And then the tumult broke around Harry as the screams and the cheers and the roars of the watchers rent the air. The fierce new sun dazzled the windows as they thundered toward the twins, and the first to reach them were Ron and Hermione, and it was their arms that were wrapped around the two as Alicia didn't relinquish her brother, their incomprehensible shouts that deafened them.

Harry.

Yes?

Don't you ever die on me again.

I didn't die.

You had the choice to.

How do you know?

You really think you're gonna get hit with a killing curse and it wont effect me? Harry looked at her surprised over everything and she grinned. And Dumbledore was right, I would never forgive you if you left me here by myself to deal with all that.

Ginny, Neville, and Luna were there past Hermione and Ron, and then all the Weasleys and Hagrid, and Kingsley and McGonagall and Flitwick and Sprout, and not a word that anyone was shouting could be made out, nor tell whose hands were seizing Harry, pulling him, trying to hug some part of him, hundreds of them pressing in, all of them determined to touch the Boy Who Lived, the reason it was over at last —

The sun rose steadily over Hogwarts, and the Great Hall blazed with life and light. People spoke, clasped hands and said their thanks to Harry here there and everywhere. Everyone seemed to want him there with them, their leader and symbol, their saviour and their guide.

The news now crept in from every quarter as the morning drew on; that the Imperiused up and down the country had come back to themselves, that Death Eaters were fleeing or else being captured, that the innocent of Azkaban were being released at that very moment, and that Kingsley Shacklebolt had been named temporary Minister of Magic…

They moved Voldemort's body and laid it in a chamber off the Hall, away from the bodies of Percy, Tonks, Lupin, Colin Creevey, and fifty others who had died fighting for Harry. McGonagall had replaced the House tables, but nobody was sitting according to House anymore: All were jumbled together, teachers and pupils, ghosts and parents, centaurs and house-elves, and Firenze lay recovering in a corner, and Grawp peered in through a smashed window, and people were throwing food into his laughing mouth.

Fred turned to Alicia the second he could and held out his hand. She rose an eyebrow at him but he gave her a knowing look.

"Come on." and so she reached into her pocket, where the velvet box, which had luckily not moved, still remained and she placed it in his hand. He suddenly stood up and to her surprise he climbed up onto the table, being careful of the food, and stood there before her, gaining a few's attention.

Alicia was reminded of their fourth year when Fred had asked Angelina Johnson to the Yule Ball, he'd shouted it across the Common Room. She gapped at him, stunned by the likely bold declaration he was about to make.

"Alicia Potter!" and several people turned to him as he grinned at her, his voice loud. She just sat before him in surprise.

He opened the and she saw the ring, with an emerald in the centre, surrounded by a few small diamonds.

"I think it's about time." he grinned at her.

She waited before crossing her arms.

"Well?" she said when he didn't speak. "You actually gonna ask me?" The hall seemed rather silent as he grinned at her while a few laughed.

"Will you, Alicia Potter, do me the honour, of marrying me?" So many people gasped and girls started giggling, a few people wolf whistled.

"Do I get time to think about it?" she asked and a few laughed as she grinned. Fred rolled his eyes before he and George together got Alicia up and forced onto the table beside him above everyone else.

Many people called to her and shouted just to say yes and she glanced around at them all before sighing dramatically.

"Well… I suppose I could agree." she said and many people encouraged her, rolling their eyes at her response. She smiled at Fred. "Yes." heaps of people jumped up and started cheering, the closest around the two congratulating them as Fred took the ring and slipped it onto the third finger on Alicia's left hand, a shining emerald that matched her eyes.

She smirked at him before throwing her arms around his neck and the two shared a kiss which brought more responses from those in the hall.

"Gosh, just cause the war's over." Seamus said, his voice carrying over many others as he was near the two.

Alicia simply grinned as they broke apart.

"Well, it was about time." she said to him and Fred nodded.

"We having a beach wedding then?" George asked loudly and the two laughed.

The two climbed down from the table to have people surround them and congratulate them, girl's grabbed Alicia's hand and looked at the ring, cooing at it and expressing their jealousy while smiling at her.

Amongst everything there was a tap on Alicia's shoulder and she turned before a voice sounded from no where by her ear.

"Need an escape?" Harry asked quietly. He was clearly hidden under the cloak.

"Looks like it." she responded before she kissed Fred's cheek, who was being clapped on the back. Before he could turn to her and grin his usual grin though, she had gone and was under the cloak.

"Had to make a spectacle?" he asked her and she shrugged.

"Not me who made the spectacle." she confessed but looked down at the ring grinning.

"Can't say I'm surprised. Even if you are only seventeen."

"I am, Fred's nineteen remember. Besides, who cares about age." she said smiling. "So seeing as Dad can't, you gonna walk me down the isle?" Harry scoffed and Alicia laughed.

They moved, looking around at the families around them: Ginny was two tables away; she was sitting with her head on her mother's shoulder. Neville, the sword of Gryffindor lying beside his plate as he ate, was surrounded by a knot of fervent admirers. Along the aisle between the tables they walked, they spotted the three Malfoys, huddled together as though unsure whether or not they were supposed to be there, but nobody was paying them any attention. And finally, the two that Harry seemed, obviously, to be searching for, came into sight.

"It's me," he muttered, crouching down between them.

"Hope you don't mind leaving." Alicia chuckled

"Will you come with me?"

They stood up at once, and together the twins, Ron, and Hermione left the Great Hall. Great chunks were missing from the marble staircase, part of the balustrade gone, and rubble and bloodstains occurred every few steps as they climbed.

Alicia ducked out from under the cloak and Hermione gripped her instantly.

"Ohh, congratulations." she said, hugging her and Alicia chuckled as she held up her hand. "Honestly I gotta say, he picked well." and Hermione nodded as they admired the ring on her finger. Ron rolled his eyes.

"Women."

"Careful, you're gonna be related to me now. No escaping if you piss me off." Alicia warned him. Ron shared a look with Harry as the boy laughed, having pulled his cloak off.

Somewhere in the distance they could hear Peeves zooming through the corridors singing a victory song of his own composition:

We did it, we bashed them, wee Potter's the one,

And Voldy's gone mouldy, so now let's have fun!

"Really gives a feeling for the scope and tragedy of the thing, doesn't it?" said Ron, pushing open a door to let Harry and Hermione through.

"I'm sure we'll be alright eventually." Alicia said. "We'll get there. We have time now after all."

They hadn't had a destination in mind, but they seemed to all have silently picked one. They arrived at the corridor, where the gargoyle guarding the entrance to the headmaster's study had been knocked aside; it stood lopsided, looking a little punch-drunk, whether it would be able to distinguish passwords anymore as a rather good question.

"Can we go up?" Harry asked the gargoyle.

"Feel free," groaned the statue.

They clambered over him and onto the spiral stone staircase that moved slowly upward like an escalator. Harry pushed open the door at the top. Like when Alicia had been here so many times before, the pensieve now sat on the desk, likely from where Harry had left it after watching Snape's memories. She again wondered what he'd seen in full?

And then an earsplitting noise made Harry cry out and Alicia jump. With all the curses they'd been hearing all night it was the first thing that came to her mind. But it was applause. All around the walls, the headmasters and headmistresses of Hogwarts were giving Harry a standing ovation; they waved their hats and in some cases their wigs, they reached through their frames to grip each other's hands; they danced up and down on the chairs in which they had been painted; Dilys Derwent sobbed unashamedly; Dexter Fortescue was waving his ear-trumpet; and Phineas Nigellus called, in his high, reedy voice, "And let it be noted that Slytherin House played its part! Let our contribution not be forgotten!"

"Well, it definitely wont be, not with a brave man such as Severus Snape who was headmaster in the worst time." Alicia said smiling at him, making the promise.

Harry however was staring at a single portrait. The man who stood in the largest portrait directly behind the headmaster's chair. Tears were sliding down from behind the half-moon spectacles into the long silver beard. Alicia smiled at him too.

At last, Harry held up his hands, and the portraits fell respectfully silent, beaming and mopping their eyes and waiting eagerly for him to speak. He directed his words at Dumbledore, however.

"The thing that was hidden in the Snitch," he began, "I dropped it in the forest. I don't know exactly where, but I'm not going to go looking for it again. Do you agree?"

Alicia looked at him, but smiled. Perhaps he had been right in Harry having the stone in his snitch. What had he seen? Their parents and Sirius? Perhaps Lupin too? For a moment she wished she'd been there. But that was not how it was.

Though she was envious Harry got to see them, it was something she couldn't help.

"My dear boy, I do," said Dumbledore, while his fellow pictures looked confused and curious. "A wise and courageous decision, but no less than I would have expected of you. Does anyone else know where it fell?"

"No one," said Harry, and Dumbledore nodded his satisfaction.

"Well I'm sure I could figure it out." Alicia said and Dumbledore chuckled as she smiled, not meaning a word of insinuation.

"I'm going to keep Ignotus's present, though," said Harry, and Dumbledore beamed.

"But of course, Harry, it is yours forever, until you pass it on!" "

And then there's this." Harry held up the Elder Wand, and Ron and Hermione looked at it with a reverence.

"I don't want it," said Harry.

"What?" said Ron loudly. "Are you mental?"

"I know it's powerful," said Harry wearily. "But I was happier with mine. So…"

He rummaged in the pouch hung around his neck, and pulled out the two halves of holly still just connected by the finest thread of phoenix feather. Hermione had said that they could not be repaired, that the damage was too severe. But then, in Harry's hand was a wand that could do miraculous things apparently.

He laid the broken wand upon the headmaster's desk, touched it with the very tip of the Elder Wand, and said, "Reparo."

As his wand resealed, red sparks flew out of its end. Alicia grinned as Harry picked up the holly and phoenix wand

"I'm putting the Elder Wand," he told Dumbledore, who was watching him with enormous affection and admiration, "back where it came from. It can stay there. If I die a natural death like Ignotus, its power will be broken, won't it? The previous master will never have been defeated. That'll be the end of it."

Dumbledore nodded. They smiled at each other.

"Are you sure?" said Ron. There was the faintest trace of longing in his voice as he looked at the Elder Wand.

"That's what makes Harry the true owner of the Hallows. He doesn't covert them, he doesn't desire them, he doesn't use them to meet an ends. He's someone who happened to be tempted and fought such temptation. He didn't need such things." Alicia smiled "And who better to master Death, than one who's not afraid of it?" Harry smiled back at her.

"I think Harry's right," said Hermione quietly.

"That wand's more trouble than it's worth," said Harry. "And quite honestly," he turned away from the painted portraits. "I've had enough trouble for a lifetime."

Alicia chuckled and she moved to place a hand on her brother's shoulder.

"What kind of trouble we talking, cause it's not quite over." she said and the three looked at her. She held up her hand with the emerald ring, declaring it again and Hermione chuckled as it drew all three of their eyes.

"How long should we go before we plan another wedding?" she asked amused.