Here it is...the penultimate chapter! Only one more to go after this! Hope you all enjoy!

Song Inspiration: Not Gonna Die - Skillet

Chapter 33

To say that pandemonium reigned upon the realization that Harry Potter was alive would have been the greatest understatement of the century. When his green eyes locked with Voldemort's red ones, the older wizard shrieked in rage, and the triumphant looks on the faces of the Death Eaters that stood behind him faltered for the first time since they had marched up to the castle.

Hermione grinned fiercely through the happy tears that welled up in her eyes. She looked at Ron and saw her friend smiling widely at the sight of their best friend alive and in the fight once more. Turning to Draco, she saw a look of…relief on his own face and he nodded at her firmly.

It was time to finish this.

Both sides came to that realization at the same moment, and the battle resumed with even more ferocity than before. Spells crashed into the stones behind their heads as desperate Death Eaters and Snatchers fought to regain the upper hand, forcing the Order members, staff, and students back into the castle.

Hermione tried her best to stick close to Draco, knowing that at this point he would have an even larger target on his back that she did after his outright rejection of Voldemort. There would be many, she knew, who would seek to right the wrong he had done to their Master.

To her dismay, though, Draco was almost immediately swept away from her by the crush of retreating bodies flowing into the castle. As panicked as his absence made her, she knew that Draco was a perfectly capable wizard and that he could look out for himself. She hoped that his friends would stick close with him, that they would all watch one another's backs, but at the moment she needed to focus on watching her own.

She raced through the crowd, assisting her comrades where she could and taking down as many members of the other army as possible. She had been lucky so far, remaining untouched by a single spell, and she noticed curiously that most of the others had been, too. The number of inert bodies lying on the ground seemed to grow, but she saw that it was all robed Death Eaters and ratty-looking Snatchers. She hadn't seen a single person from their side lying injured, or worse.

Suddenly a flash of red caught her eye and she turned. Ginny was battling against none other than Bellatrix Lestrange. The older witch was cackling madly as she hurled spell after spell at Ginny, who dodged every spell gracefully while throwing back just as many of her own, but Hermione could see her growing weary and knew that, if she didn't get out of that fight soon, she might not have the strength to continue dodging the nasty curses that the crazed woman was sending her way.

Pivoting on the balls of her feet, Hermione charged over to the redhead's side. A quick wave of her wand pushed the younger witch away and left Hermione facing Bellatrix on her own.

"Well, well, well," the woman said with a demented cackle. "Didn't have enough the last time, little Mudblood? We can just pick up right where we left off."

Hermione forced herself to let the woman's taunt roll off her back. The slur that the woman had carved into her arm seemed to burn in her presence, reminding Hermione of the way that Voldemort's most loyal follower had branded her, but she ignored the pain. One hundred percent of her focus was on the skilled duelist in front of her.

She stepped to the side quickly as a flash of green passed by her, missing her by mere millimeters. Twisting on her heel as she dodged, she quickly shot a spell of her own at the witch, and then spells were coming so quickly that Hermione felt certain it was only though some sort of magical intervention that she was able to remain one step ahead of the talented witch. But Bellatrix seemed to wield the same type of luck as she danced away from every spell that Hermione flung back at her.

She could feel herself tiring, the use of so much powerful magic draining her. Just when she thought she would finally falter and meet her end at the hands of Draco's aunt, a shield charm so powerful it tangibly shimmered in the air around her appeared. Into the confines of the shield walked Narcissa Malfoy.

The willowy witch looked at her appraisingly. Her normally impeccably coiffed blonde hair was tousled from the battle, and she had a smudge of dirt on her beautiful face. Her blue eyes looked intently at Hermione as she stood between the Muggleborn witch and her sister.

"Ah, Cissy!" Bellatrix crowed happily. "Come to rid the world of this Mudblood filth and restore honor to the house of Malfoy? Allow me to help you."

Narcissa continued to look at Hermione for another long, uncomfortable moment before finally turning her back on the young witch to face her sister.

"No, Bella," she said, her voice quiet but clear to hear even over the din around them. "I will not allow you to hurt her."

The stunned look on Bellatrix's once-beautiful face would have been comical if Hermione hadn't been in a literal life-or-death situation. She sputtered angrily at her younger sister before seeming to regain control of her ability to speak.

"YOU FILTHY BLOOD-TRAITOR!" she screamed at her.

No more was said as the sisters began to battle. Narcissa kept the shield firmly around Hermione even as she hurled spell after spell at her sister. The ground beneath their feet cracked as spells were deflected away from them and into the stones beneath. Hermione watched in awe as Draco's mother wielded her wand with a proficiency that only came with great skill.

Pulled from her appreciation of Narcissa's magical abilities by a pained gasp, she looked up to see Bellatrix seeming to fold in on herself. Hermione was unsure what spell Draco's mother had used on her sister, but she saw the resolute tightness in her shoulders as she brandished her wand a final time.

Bellatrix Lestrange fell to the floor with a thud and moved no more.

Hermione sat on the cold stone, stunned, as Narcissa turned and walked over to her. The witch knelt down on the ground in front of her, looking at her intently, before hesitantly extending a hand and helping her to her feet.

"For Draco," the woman said simply, then turned and walked away without another word or a backward glance.

Hermione was drawn from her shocked musings by a strong arm that wrapped around her. She was drawn into Draco's embrace as he hugged her desperately. She could feel the tremors racing through his body.

"I saw you on the ground and thought…I thought Bellatrix was going to kill you."

"I think she might have," she said as she absently stroked his silky blonde hair, "had your mother not stepped into the fight."

Draco said nothing, and she knew that he had seen his mother kill her own sister to protect his Muggleborn witch.

"She loves you, Draco," Hermione said. "So much that she just made herself a target just to save me…for you."

He still said nothing, but she felt his nod as his head rested against her shoulder. The sound of cracking stone from behind them as a stray spell crashed into the wall just above their heads drew them both back to the present.

With a look at one another they prepared to rejoin the fray, but suddenly the hall went deathly silent.

Hermione looked up to see that a large circle had formed in the center of the room. All of the fights and skirmishes had ceased as the fighters from both sides stared, engrossed, at whatever stood in the middle of the circle.

She grabbed Draco's hand tightly and forced the two of them through a wall of bodies to stand next to Ron. The three of them watched, horrified, as Harry faced Voldemort – alone.

"You still don't understand, do you Tom?" Harry said, and Hermione watched as Voldemort's eyes narrowed at Harry's use of his given name – the name that had belonged to the Muggle father he had despised.

"You still think that the secret to power is fear and control," Harry added in a pitying voice. "You've never been able to understand that it isn't fear that makes a person powerful. It's love."

Voldemort scoffed at the word.

"Love," he spat. "Love is nothing but a tool to be used for leverage. You listened to the ramblings of that fool Albus Dumbledore for too long, Harry Potter. Love will not save you again. No one here seems to be willing to jump between us and take a killing curse for you like your mother did. Love is worthless to you know."

"You're wrong, Tom," Harry said calmly, and not for the first time in the course of their friendship, Hermione found herself in awe of Harry's ability to stay calm and focused in the face of danger.

"This time it was my love that protected others. You see, when I turned myself over to you willingly in the Forbidden Forest in order to save all of them," he motioned to the people that gathered around them watching, "I gave them the same protection that my mother gave me.

"Look around you; look at all the bodies of the fallen. What do you notice, Tom? Do you see that not one of them is from my side?"

Hermione watched as Voldemort looked around quickly, scanning the room and realizing for the first time what she herself had realized when the battle had moved back into the castle. Harry was right. Not one Order member, student, or teacher had been wounded beyond those injuries they had sustained before the renewal of the fight.

"You've never understood the great power that a deep, ancient magic such as love wields. After all, it is the only magic that Muggles can use, too. You took that to mean that it was weak, insubstantial. But actually, it is so powerful that it transcends all abilities and limits of the magical world. That is why you will lose here, Tom. Well, that and one other reason…"

Voldemort did not want to ask: Hermione could see it clearly in his eyes. But Harry had spent enough time falling into and out of the man's mind that he knew exactly what to say that would make the man's pride override his common sense.

"And what reason might that be, Harry Potter?" he asked derisively. "What is it that you think you have uncovered that the great Lord Voldemort has not?"

"Well, the fact that the wand in your hand does not belong to you."

Harry said it as calmly as if he were talking about the weather, but she saw the rage that descended over the other man's face.

"Severus Snape killed Dumbledore, and I killed Severus. That makes the Elder Wand mine!"

She heard the indrawn breaths of the witches and wizards around her as they realized exactly what weapon Voldemort wielded.

"It would," Harry said, nodding affirmatively, "if Snape had actually been the master of the Elder Wand."

Hermione felt her own breath catch at that and turned to look at Ron. His blue eyes had not strayed from the two people in front of them, but she could easily see the confusion in his eyes at Harry's words. Looking back at Draco, she saw that he had gone pale: clearly, he had realized the importance of Harry's words immediately.

"You see, Snape may have killed Dumbledore, but he did not do so on your orders. He did it on Dumbledore's."

A gasp followed this declaration and Hermione's eyes caught now on Professor McGonagall. The older woman tore her eyes away from the scene before her to look back at the area where the teachers' table had once stood and where the bodies of the dead and grievously injured now lay. She could see the wheels turning in the Deputy Headmistresses eyes and felt a twinge of irritation that she was still missing something.

"Snape never served you. He worked against you from the moment that you decided to kill my mother – the only woman he had ever loved. When you went after her, you sealed his fate. He has been working against you for almost eighteen years now, and you were too arrogant to realize it.

"You see, the fact that Snape killed Dumbledore on orders means that Snape did not defeat him. He did not earn the loyalty of that wand in your hand. Someone else earned it before he even got to the top of the Astronomy Tower that night."

Hermione felt a sinking feeling in her gut at Harry's words. She was pretty sure she understood now but wanted so desperately to be wrong.

"Draco Malfoy disarmed Dumbledore that night. The wand changed its allegiances to him."

Hermione saw every pair of eyes in the room, including the red eyes of Voldemort, turn to where she stood with Draco, gripping his hand tightly. She felt him jostle slightly and watched as his mother came up beside him and gripped tightly to his shoulder while she held her wand at the ready in her other hand.

"No matter," Voldemort said, affecting an air of nonchalance. "Once I deal with you, I will take care of that Blood-Traitor, and then I will be unstoppable."

"You still don't get it, Tom!" Harry said, sounding irritated for the first time since he had begun speaking. "The wand doesn't answer to Draco anymore. As I said before, you will be undone…by love."

Hermione was unsure where Harry was going with this now, so she merely tightened her grip on Draco's hand and strained to hear every word.

"When your mad servant Bellatrix tortured Hermione on the floor of Malfoy Manor, she assured her fate as well as your own. Draco helped us get Hermione out of there, because he loves her. He loved her enough to risk staying behind and facing your wrath at our escape, just to make sure she lived. And he loved her enough to willingly surrender his wand to me."

Hermione gasped as the implications of every single thing Harry had said came crashing down on her. Her eyes flitted up to Draco's face and she saw the look of slack-jawed astonishment. He had understood, too.

"So, if wands truly are sentient as Ollivander told you so many years ago, then that wand knows exactly who its true master is."

Voldemort screamed out in rage, lifting the Elder Wand high in the air. A jet of vivid green light exploded from the tip and raced across the chasm that separated him from the boy that he had marked as his equal almost eighteen years ago.

Hermione watched, awestruck, as a vibrant jet of red burst from the tip of Harry's own wand – Draco's wand – and collided with the jet of green. She watched as red and green fought for dominance, and a victorious smile spread across her face as the beam of red light grew longer and longer while the beam of green receded.

The entire hall watched as the wand that had been clasped so tightly in Voldemort's fist flew in a graceful arc through the air to land in Harry's outstretched hand. And they watched as the boy of Lord Voldemort – Tom Riddle – fell to the ground with a thud.

Just one more chapter to go! I'll hopefully have it out for you all before this weekend!

sbz