Disclaimer: I am not Jo. However much I WISH I was...I'm not. That woman...she's my hero! Haha!

So here it is. Sadly, Haunted is almost finished. Thankfully, I'll be having another story up soon...ish. Anywho...Hope you like this and REVIEW so I can know if ya liked it!

-LovelyAlice831-

Roars of delight and triumph rose from the watching crowd as Voldemort let out a high scream of rage.

I turned to look at the evil man just as Kingsley, McGonagall, and Slughorn were blasted backward, flailing helplessly as they flew back, slamming into the stone floor.

Voldemort was beyond angry as he realized his best Death Eater was dead. My eyes widened in horror as his wand rose to Mrs. Weasley, hatred on his face.

Ginny clutched me as she watched.

"Protego!" cried an all too familiar voice.

I almost sank to the floor in relief.

Harry pulled off the Invisibility Cloak with a relish, letting it fall to the floor. His wand was raised to Voldemort with what looked like a smirk on his face.

Cheers erupted along with, "HE'S ALIVE!" and "HARRY!" but the cries of joy were stifled at once as they watched, fearful, as Voldemort and Harry began circling each other.

I pushed through the crowd, Ginny and Luna right behind me. I stood in the very front, right beside Lee Jordan and Michael Corner.

"I don't want anyone else to try to help," Harry said loudly to waiting crowd, his green eyes never straying from Voldemort's red ones. "Nobody else is going to die. Not for me. It's got to be like this. It's got to be me."

"Potter doesn't mean that," Voldemort scoffed.

Voldemort can scoff? Wow. Way to be an angsty teen, I thought, trying not to laugh at the sudden thought.

"That isn't how he works, is it? Who are you going to use as a shield this time, Potter?"

"Nobody," Harry said simply. I felt a rush of pride towards my best friend. "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, this time…."

"One of us?" Voldemort jeered. He looked like a snake, his body ready to strike at the first opportunity. "You think it will be you, do you, the boy who has survived by accident time and again? Survived because Dumbledore was pulling this strings?"

Harry barked out a laugh.

"Accident, was it, when my mother died to save me?" he asked. I grinned as they stalked each other in their circle. Harry passed across from me, and, even though in knew he would be looking, I beamed at him, my eyes filling. I knew he could do it! "Accident, when I decided to fight in that graveyard? Accident, when I didn't defend myself tonight in the forest, and still survived to return and fight once more?"

"Accidents!" Voldemort screamed. I flinched and I wasn't the only one. He was still poised, ready to strike, but didn't. The whole crowd in the Hall stood as though they were Petrified. Hardly anyone dared to breathe except for the two in the middle. "Accident and chance and that fact that you crouched behind the skirts of greater men and women, and permitted me to kill them for you!"

"You won't be killing anyone else tonight," Harry said as they continued to circle. "You won't be able to kill any of them ever gain. Don't you get it? I was ready to die to stop you from hurting these people – "

"But you did not!"
"But I meant to!" Harry said. "And that what's did it. I did what my mother did to protect me. I sacrificed myself for them. That's why the spells you put on them aren't binding. They are protected from you. You cannot torture them anymore. You can't touch them. Don't you ever learn from your mistakes, Riddle?"

"You dare -!"

"Yes, I dare," Harry said darkly. "I know things you don't know, Tom Riddle. I know loads of important things that you don't. Want to hear some, before you make another big mistake?"

Voldemort was silent, watching Harry through his slitted eyes. I could see the curiosity in his red eyes. It kept him at bay, him believing that Harry knew something he did not.

I looked at Harry, fearful and curious at the same time.

"Is it love again?" Voldemort finally asked, his face in a sneer. "Dumbledore's favorite solution, love, which he claimed conquered death, though love did not stop him from falling and breaking like waxwork from the tower!"

Love is something you will never understand, I thought darkly.

"Love, was it, when I stomped your mother like a cockroach?" Voldemort continued. "No one seems to love you enough now, Potter, to take your place this time, no one to take my curse for you. So what will stop you dying now when I strike?"

No one to take your curse? I thought angrily. I would take it in a heartbeat. So would Ron and Ginny and Luna and Neville and…and…and everybody!

"Just one thing," Harry said as they kept circling each other.

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

"I believe both," Harry said coolly. Shock flitted over Voldemort's features before he controlled it to rage once more.

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

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

"You mean he was weak!" Voldemort screamed. I flinched back. I felt someone behind me. I turned and saw Ron. His face was serious as he watched his best friend anger the most powerful wizard in the world. "To weak to dare, too weak to take what might have been his, what will be mine!"

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

"I brought about the death of Albus Dumbledore!"

I swore I saw a flicker of a smile on Harry's face as he said, "You thought you did, but you were wrong."

I looked at Ron, who looked back at me, equally confused.

Wait…what? Snape killed Dumbledore, everyone knew that!

"Dumbledore is dead!" Voldemort spat at Harry, as if hoping the words would cripple him. "His body decays in the marble tomb on the grounds of this very castle, I have seen it and he shall never return!"

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

"What nonsense is this?" Voldemort asked. He still stared at Harry. I waited for the moment when he would strike, leaving Harry without warning of when he would do it.

"Severus Snape was never yours," Harry said. "He was Dumbledore's from the moment you started hunting my mother all those years ago. And you never realized it! You never realized it because of the one thing you can't understand. You never saw Snape cast a Patronus, did you, Tom?"

Voldemort was silent as he watched Harry.

"Snape's Patronus was a doe, the same as my mothers," Harry said, "because he loved her for nearly all of his life, from the time when they were children. You should have realized," he said when Voldemort became even more visibly angry, "he asked you to spare her, didn't he?"

"He fancied her, that was all," Voldemort sneered. "But when she was gone, he agreed there were other women out there of purer blood, women who were worthier of him –"

"Well of course he told you that," Harry said, sounding exasperated.

Really. Doesn't Voldemort know anything about love? I asked myself as I saw Harry's patience wearing thin. He wanted this to be over.

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

I flinched at the way he'd said it, but I knew what he said was true. These must have been the memories Snape had wanted him to see.

"It does not matter!" Voldemort shrieked. He had listened to every word with rapt attention and now, he was ready to strike. "It does not matter whether Snape was mine or Dumbledore's, to what petty obstacles they tried to put in my path. I crushed them as I crushed your mother, Snape's supposed love! But it all makes sense, Potter, in ways that you do not understand!

"Dumbledore was trying to keep the Elder wand from me! He intended Snape to be the true master of the wand! But I got there ahead of you, 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 is truly mine! Dumbledore's last plan went wrong, Harry Potter!"

"Yeah, it did," Harry admitted. My brow furrowed. Then…where was this going? "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?"

Voldemort looked confused as to what Harry was saying. But I knew. I knew that in order to put your soul back together, you needed to be remorseful about what you had done. It was painful and could very well kill you in the process. But Voldemort was so evil, so far gone, that I doubted he even knew how to feel even the slightest hint of sadness. All he knew was rage, revenge, and hatred.

"It's your last chance," Harry continued. I looked at him, a slight smile on his drawn, worn, bruised and bloodied face. He looked triumphant as the continued to circle one another. "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 – ?" Voldemort said once more.

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

I saw the Elder Wand trembling in Voldemort's hand as he took in what Harry said. Ah. So the darkest wizard who proclaims to be afraid of nothing, is suddenly terrified.

It was coming to a close. The moment which truly decided the fate of – not only the Wizarding world – but the whole world as well, was moments away. It was thick in the air.

I shot a glance out of the blown out windows and saw the sky growing pink.

"The wand still isn't working right for you, is it?" Harry asked, pulling me back to the situation at hand. "And it won't work because you murdered the wrong person. Snape was never the true master of the Elder Wand. He never defeated Dumbledore."

"He killed –"

"Aren't you listening to me? Snape never beat Dumbledore! Dumbledore's death was planned between them! Dumbledore intended to die undefeated, the wands last true master. If it had all gone as was 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 said, sounding right pleased with himself. But I was grinning. I got it, Voldemort did not. "I stole the wand from Dumbledore! I removed it against his will! Its power is mine!"

"You still don't get it!" Harry cried. "Possessing the wand, holding it, using it, is not enough! Didn't you ever listen to Ollivander? 'The wand chooses the wizard.' The Elder Wand recognized a new owner before its master had died, someone who had never once laid a hand on it, never knowing he had won the most powerful wand in the world's allegiance."

Voldemort looked terrified at this. His chest rose and fell rapidly as the circled.

And then I remembered: Draco disarmed Dumbledore. Draco was the true owner of the Elder Wand!

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

Shock showed on Voldemort's face before he was composed once more.

He shrugged and said, "But it matters not. When I have killed you, I shall kill him."

He still didn't get it. Draco was the owner! There's a new owner now! I thought as I watched Harry.

"I'm afraid you're too late, Riddle," Harry said with a grin. "You missed your chance. I overpowered Draco weeks ago. I took this wand from him."

He twitched the hawthorn wand that had once been Draco Malfoy's wand. Every eye in the room was on that wand.

"So it all comes down to this, doesn't it?" Harry asked softly. "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."

Ah, how things seemed to work out in his favor, I thought as sunlight suddenly burst into the Great Hall, showering everyone with golden light.

But no one was paying attention to the sudden sunlight.

The morning sun hit both faces at the exact same time. At the exact same time they raised their wands.

"Avada Kedavra!"

"Expelliarmus!"

With a blast like a cannon, golden flames erupted between them in the dead center of the circle they had been pacing.

I waited, horrified, as I watched Voldemort's green jet of light hit Harry's red one.

I found Ron's arm and dug my nails into it, biting my lip. I tasted blood in my mouth as I watched…waited.

Suddenly, the Elder Wand was flying out his hand, spinning rapidly through the air to its true master. To the master it would not kill. Could not kill.

Harry caught it and I watched as Voldemort fell backwards.

It was like slow motion, watching him fall, his arm still outstretched, his hand open from when the wand left him. His face was a mask of surprise, his mouth half-open, his red eyes slits.

Tom Riddle hit the flagged stone floor with ringing thud of finality, his eyes rolling upward, half-open. He lay spread-eagle on the floor, looking shrunken. Lord Voldemort was dead.

There was split second of bated silence and then the Hall erupted into cheers.

I ran flat out towards Harry, Ginny beating me by a split second. I wrapped my arms around Harry, and soon…so was everyone else. Everybody wanted to touch the Boy Who Lived. To touch the one who destroyed the most powerful dark wizard of all time.

When everyone pulled away, it was only the Weasley's, Ginny, Luna, Neville, Hagrid, Kingsley, McGonagall, and Ron and I.

I wanted to hug him, to tell him how brave he was.

The Boy Who Lived, the Boy Who Lied, Harry Plotter, the Chosen One, Undesirable Number One…had defeated the Dark Lord.

I beamed through my tears of joy at him as I watched him take Ginny in his arms and kiss her full on the mouth.

Turning to Ron, I saw him looking at me, his blue eyes filled with joy.

Sweeping me into his arms, he crushed his lips to mine and I was lost in this amazing man called Ronald Bilius Weasley.

We pulled apart just as the House tables were put back in place by Professor McGonagall, not that anyone bothered with sitting according to Houses.

As I sat at the Ravenclaw table with Ron's arm around my waist, I took in the sight.

Sure, the castle was practically turning to rubble and all over the country, people were coming back to themselves after being Imperioused and Death Eaters were hiding, but there was one amazing, simple truth to what that meant: The War Was Over.

Sighing happily, I tucked myself into Ron as the sun rose over the school.

I hope this wasn't too long and boring. Really. But let me know. Kthanks!