Sorry again for the delay. I think I may have finally figured out where I want to go with this story. Now if only I could keep from being distracted by all the other stories . . .
(I don't own Harry Potter or related items.)
(This confrontation in the movie-verse was awful.)
;)
"I don't want anyone else to try to help," Harry said loudly. In the total silence of the Great Hall, his voice carried like a trumpet call, and Amelia was almost afraid to breathe. "It's got to be like this. It's got to be me."
Voldemort hissed. "Potter doesn't mean that. That isn't how he works, is it? Who are you going to use as a shield today, Potter?"
"Nobody," Harry said simply as Amelia watched the two combatants circled each other. "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 . . . "
Voldemort was taut, his red eyes staring, a snake poised to strike. "One of us?" he jeered. "You think it will be you, do you, the boy who has survived by accident, and because Dumbledore was pulling the strings?"
"Accident, was it, when my mother died to save me?" Harry asked. Amelia did not know when she had taken Sirius' hand; she wasn't even sure which one of them had reached first. But her grip tightened involuntarily at the mention of Lily. "Accident, when I decided to fight in the graveyard?" Harry continued, the two combatants tracing a circle of death in the middle of the Great Hall, moving sideways in a perfect circle. There was ever so much symbolism attached to circles and somehow it felt appropriate. "Accident, that I didn't defend myself tonight, and still survived, and returned to fight again?"
"Accidents!" Voldemort screamed in fury. Sirius tightened his grip, then, but Voldemort did not move to strike out. "Accident and chance and the fact that you crouched and sniveled behind the skirts of greater men and women, and permitted me to kill them for you!"
"You won't be killing anyone else tonight. 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?"
Amelia's breath caught at the public usage of the Dark Lord's proper name, his Muggle name.
"You dare – "
"Yes, I dare." Harry was calm. Almost too calm. "I know things you don't know, Tom Riddle. I know lots of things you don't. Want to hear some, before you make another big mistake?"
"Is it love again?" Voldemort sneered. "Dumbledore's favorite solution, love, which he claimed conquered death, though love did not stop him from 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." That did not seem to be true. There were quite a few people in the crowd who looked ready to run forward at any moment, but neither of the duelists dared look away from the other to see. "So what will stop you dying now when I strike?"
"Just one thing," Harry said, still calm. What did he know? What final card was there to play?
"If it is not love that will save you this time, you must believe that you have magic that I do not, or else a weapon more powerful than mine?"
"I believe both."
Amelia was fixated on the screen of mist, hardly daring to breathe. She saw shock flit across the snakelike face for an instant before Voldemort began to laugh, a humorless, insane laugh that echoed in the otherwise silent Hall.
"You think you know more magic than I do? Than I, than Lord Voldemort, who has performed magic that Dumbledore himself never dreamed of?"
"Oh, he dreamed of it, but he knew more than you, knew enough not to do what you've done."
"You mean he was weak! Too weak to dare, too weak to take what might have been his, what will be mine!"
"No, he was cleverer than you, a better wizard, a better man."
"I brought about the death of Albus Dumbledore!"
"You thought you did, but you were wrong."
The crowd stirred at that. Because they didn't know, they hadn't seen, those memories kept locked behind tight black eyes, those eyes that no longer could see.
"Dumbledore is dead!" Voldemort screamed, hurling the words like weapons. "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, still so calm, "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?" But Voldemort did not strike, intent on learning this knowledge, this weapon Harry claimed was so powerful.
"Severus Snape wasn't yours," Harry announced to the entire assembled bystanders. "Snape was Dumbledore's, Dumbledore's from the moment you started hunting down my mother. And you never realized it, because of the thing you can't understand. You never saw Snape cast a Patronus, did you, Riddle?"
Of course he hadn't. The Patronus Charm required a genuinely happy thought. Rabid fanaticism was not enough. Amelia doubted any of the Death Eaters could cast a Patronus. But Severus hadn't been a Death Eater for a long time.
"Snape's Patronus was a doe, 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 realized, he asked you to spare her life, didn't he?"
"He desired her, that was all," Voldemort sneered, casting down the possibility of love yet again. "But when she had gone, he agreed there were other women, and of purer blood, worthier of him – "
"Of course he told you that, 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!" Voldemort shrieked, refusing to acknowledge that perhaps he might be wrong. A mad cackle of laughter followed. "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!" Voldemort mocked.
"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!"
"Yeah, it did. You're right," Harry replied, not at all perturbed. "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?" Harry's lack of reaction to Voldemort's grand revelation shocked the dark wizard more than anything else.
"It's your one last chance, it's all you've got left . . . I've seen what you'll be otherwise. . . .Be a man . . . try . . . Try for some remorse . . . "
Amelia's eyes flicked to Tonks in question. "Remorse would reverse the damage the Horcruxes did to his soul," the younger witch explained.
"You dare – ?" Voldemort said again.
"Yes, I dare, because Dumbledore's last plan hasn't backfired on me at all. It's backfired on you, Riddle. 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! I stole the wand from its last master's tomb! I removed it against its last master's wishes! Its power is mine!" he shocked in malicious triumph.
"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 recognized 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 realizing exactly what he had done, or that the world's most dangerous wand had given him its allegiance . . . "
Amelia leaned forward, aware of Sirius doing the same beside her.
"The true master of the Elder Wand was Draco Malfoy."
Was?
Blank shock flickered across Voldemort's face and was gone. "But what does it matter? 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," Harry replied. "You've missed your chance. I got there first. I overpowered Draco weeks ago. I took this wand from him." That's it! The reason he was so calm. Harry twitched the wand in his hand, and every eye in the Hall settled upon it. It seemed an unremarkable hawthorn wand.
"So it all comes down to this, doesn't it?" Harry whispered. "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."
That, finally, was too much for Voldemort. And as the dawn broke over the enchanted ceiling, two curses shot across the Great Hall of Hogwarts.
"Avada Kedavra!"
"Expelliarmus!"
Like a cannon blast. And golden flames erupted in the exact center of the circle they had been tracing, at the point where the two spells collided. The Elder Wand flew into the air, to be caught with the unerring skill that made Harry the youngest Seeker on a House team in over a century. Voldemort fell to the floor, his own rebounding curse finally killing him.
For a shivering second, there was silence. Then the cheers began and the image faded in upon itself.
The silence in the grey mist continued for a few moments longer.
"It's really over?" Sirius finally asked in a quiet voice.
"Yes," Lily said simply.
"Old Moldywart finally kicked the bucket," James said. "That spell rebounded again, and this time it killed him. And Harry is still alive. Through it all, he survived."
"The Boy Who Lived," Amelia said softly. She didn't know when her eyes had become watery.
Lily nodded. "Yes."
"You don't have much time," Tonks said. "The battle is over, the thinning of the Veil is reversing. You have your door, but it is closing, and the next one will be much harder to find."
Amelia looked to Sirius. "Will you come back?" she asked quietly.
Sirius looked at James, at Lily, and at Remus. "We'll still be here," James said. "But you've still got a life."
"You can't keep punishing yourself," Lily told him. "It wasn't your fault. And it was half a lifetime ago – let go. We don't blame you for any of it. Stop blaming yourself."
"It won't be easy, Padfoot," Remus warned. "But that is life – it lets you know you're alive."
"Give yourself a chance," Tonks added.
Sirius opened and closed his mouth wordlessly a few times, the words not coming out. "I'll see you again?"
"We'll be waiting when it's time," James promised his best friend.
Sirius nodded. "Alright." He took Amelia's hand. "Lead on, Amelia. You've got the key, I can't see a bloody thing in here."
Amelia smiled at him. She looked over at her friends, but they made shooing motions. "Go! Hurry!" Blinking back tears, Amelia nodded and started running toward the pale pearly trail, dragging Sirius along beside her.
The mist slipped closer around them, but Amelia kept her eyes fastened to the thin path, which grew thinner as they ran.
All at once the path dropped out from beneath them and they were falling.