First of all, thanks to everyone who read, fav'd, alerted and most of all to my amazing reviewers.
Second, dearies, we're almost done. Epilogue tomorrow and then this story will be complete. It feels really weird.
Screams split the air and the boy was on fire, rooted to the spot.
Suddenly, though, it was as though a dam had broken. Out of nowhere, a giant came lumbering towards us with a loud cry. Two of our giants rushed at him with equal cries. At the same time, there was the sound of hooves and two rows behind me, Death Eaters suddenly started to drop to the floor, hit by thee centaurs' arrows.
And then, Neville Longbottom moved. He pulled the hat from his head and extracted a glorious, silver sword. My eyes widened as the blade slashed through the air and sliced off Nagini's head in one, clean stroke.
Tom screamed in cold fury while the horrible snake's head fell at his feet with a dull thud.
"HARRY!" I flinched violently at Hagrid's scream. "HARRY – WHERE'S HARRY?"
He was right. The body was gone and there was no trace of it. No one had come close enough to grab it – and that left only one possible explanation.
A wide grin spread on my face. The boy lived. He had not died at all; he had outwitted fate yet again.
My euphoria did not last too long, since for the second time that night, I almost got stomped on by a giant. I screeched and jumped aside. I looked up and found that at the head of the giants, Thestrals and hippogriffs were scratching and picking at them; and in that chaos, wizards, Death Eaters and Hogwartians alike, were forced to seek shelter inside the castle's walls.
There was a continuous flow of people and I figured that the school had gathered more supporters somehow. Curses were flying everywhere once more and I had to duck several times before I finally got my Shield Charm up. A door exploded to my right and a whole army of house-elves, armed with knifes and frying pans poured into the Entrance Hall.
"FIGHT!" one of the tiny creatures cried. "Fight for my master, the defender of house-elves! Fight the Dark Lord in the name of brave Regulus! Fight!"
Several Death Eaters apparently attempted to flee, but they could not; we were outnumbered now and it was very obvious. I, too, was pushed into the Great Hall, right in time to see Yaxley crumble at the hand of a boy that very much looked like he was a Weasley, too.
His brother, Potter's friend, was meanwhile duelling Fenrir Greyback. He brought the werewolf to his knees, but before he could finish it, I had reached them and pressed my wand right under Greyback's chin.
"If there's one guy I want to really suffer in Azkaban," I breathed to him. "Then it's you." I let him shiver for a short moment before I whispered, "Stupefy."
Greyback sank, unconscious, to the floor and I looked up to meet the Weasley boy's eyes. "You're welcome," I said.
"He'll kill you."
"He's got other stuff on his hands," I commented.
"NOT MY DAUGHTER, YOU BITCH!"
We both whirled around. In the middle of the wall, Bellatrix had been fighting three girls; one was Potter's friend, the Muggle-born, and one's red hair looked suspiciously like she could be the sister of the boy standing with me.
Sure enough, Molly Weasley was running towards Bellatrix, wand drawn and eyes livid. "OUT OF MY WAY," she shouted and the three girls darted away with the first slash of Mrs Weasley's wand.
Almost the entire hall had frozen; in another part, Tom was duelling three opponents, but that could not draw my attention. Tom was fully capable of handling this, but I had the distinct hope that Bellatrix might not be as competent.
"What will happen to your children when I've killed you?" Bellatrix said maliciously. "When Mummy's gone the same way as Freddie..."
"You will never touch our children again!"
Bellatrix laughed and as she did, she gave up her guard. It was the right way for her to go, I thought just as Mrs Weasley's spell hit her square in the chest – her arrogance had finally made her fall. Bellatrix's smile froze and then she fell and her dead body landed in a heap on the floor.
Somehow, I did not feel the satisfaction I thought I would feel.
Bellatrix was dead and therefore, there was only one person left to kill. In my mind, there was no doubt about the outcome of the night anymore. I turned very slowly to Tom, who had blasted his opponents away in his fury. Once again, I figured, he had not been able to control it and the magic had simply exploded.
Tom raised his wand to strike Molly Weasley, but there was a sudden roar of 'Protego!' and then, Harry Potter appeared, seemingly out of nowhere, in the middle of the hall.
"I don't want anyone else to try to help," Potter announced. "It's got to be like this. It's got to be me."
"Potter doesn't mean that," Tom sneered. "That isn't how he works, is it? Who are you going to use as a shield today, Potter?"
"Nobody. There are no more Horcruxes. It's just you and me. Neither can live while the other survives," they boy recited. "And one of us is about to leave for good. 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 didn't!" Tom seethed.
The two were now circling each other, eyes fixed on nothing but each other, as though all those people watching did not even exist.
"I meant to," the boy said. "And that's what did it. I've done what my mother did. I protected them 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," Tom snapped furiously.
"Yes, I dare. I know you things you don't know, Tom Riddle. I know lots of important things that you don't."
I could not help but admire the boy's courage. Very few had that kind of bravery. I, of course, had told Tom time and again that there were things he outright refused to understand, but that was an entirely different matter. I was not brave; in reality, I was a coward or I would have lived a different life.
"If you won't cower behind greater men or women this time, Potter, what is it that will stop you dying when I strike?" Tom challenged. "You must believe that you have magic that I do not or else a weapon more powerful than mine."
"I believe both," the boy stated and I watched Tom pale slightly. Then, though, he laughed and it was the desperate laughter of a madman.
"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," the boy said. "But he was cleverer than you. A better wizard, a better man."
"Dumbledore is dead!" Tom spat as if that somehow freed him of the boy's taunting.
"Yes, Dumbledore is dead," Potter said calmly. "But you didn't have him killed. He chose his own manner of dying, chose it months before he died and arranged the whole thing with the man you thought was your servant. 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. He loved my mother for nearly all his life! You should have realized."
Yes, we should have. I vividly remembered Snape's devastation after Lily Potter's death – and I, at least, should have realized that he was not on our side, anymore. Sure, there had been times when I had not fully trusted the man – but after Tom's return, the doubts had fled my mind quickly. How could we have ever missed this? Missed the betrayal right under our noses...
"It matters not!" Tom shrieked. "It matters not whether Snape was mine or Dumbledore's, or what petty obstacles they tried to put in my path! Oh, but it all makes sense in a way that you don't understand, Potter! Dumbledore was trying to keep the Elder Wand from me! He intended that Snape should be the true master of the wand. But I killed Severus Snape three hours ago! Dumbledore's last plan went wrong, Harry Potter!"
"Yeah, it did," the boy said. "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."
For a split second, Tom's eyes flickered to me and in that moment, the scales fell from my eyes. He had long done what Potter asked of him; he had not refrained from killing me because he intended to torture me beforehand or wanted to plan something gruesome. No, his reluctance had truly been mercy and the pain I had seen in his eyes had been quite real.
I wanted to shout out to him, wanted to tell him that I was sorry, that he was no monster; I wanted to tell him that I had not meant all of the horrible things I had said, wanted to tell him that I should not have betrayed him. I wanted to tell him that yes; I still loved him, I had loved him all along and I would probably never stop. Because somewhere in there, Tom Riddle still lived.
But I did not. The words caught in my throat and Tom turned back to the boy and hissed, "You dare-"
"Yes, I dare. Because Dumbledore's last plan hasn't backfired on me at all. It has backfired on you, Riddle. That wand," he added. "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!" the boy exclaimed. "You, possessing the wand, isn't enough! The wand chooses the wizard! The Elder Wand recognized a new master before Dumbledore died, someone who never even laid hand on it. The true master of the Elder Wand was Draco Malfoy."
I looked around frantically and found Lucius and Narcissa way back in the crowd and in that very moment, Narcissa hurled herself into her husband's arms in despair.
"But what does it matter?" Tom said softly. "It makes no difference to you and me. After I killed you, I can attend to Draco Malfoy."
"But you're too late," Potter said and for the first time, I heard something very much like triumph in his voice. "I got there first. I overpowered Draco Malfoy weeks ago."
That horrible day at Malfoy Manor flashed through my mind; I could almost see Draco's wand flying from his hands at Potter's Disarmament Spell.
"So it all comes down to this, doesn't it? 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."
There was a short moment of silence that seemed to drag on for an eternity. In that moment, I knew, without doubt, that this was the last time I would see Tom breathing. He would die. The finality of it took my breath away and so the voices that yelled at each other when the moment broke somehow blurred together in my mind.
"Avada Kedavra!"
"Expelliarmus!"
The two spells melted together with a loud clash and an explosion of light. The Great Hall was suddenly illuminated brightly and the walls echoed with the collision. And then Tom fell backwards agonizingly slow and he hit the floor. The dull thud of his body's impact on the floor was the loudest thing I had heard in my entire life.