Betrayal, Secrets, and Time
By Lyz135
Title: Betrayal, Secrets, and Time
Author: Lyz135
Type: Time-travel! fic/ Super! Harry/ Dumbledore/Weasley (minus twins)! Bashing, Lurry!ship
Relationships: Harry/Luna, Sirius/OC, Neville/Susan, Blaise/Daphne, Fred/Hermione/George, others TBA...
Summary: A few hours after the Battle of Hogwarts (book version just a bit more intense, the movie version is very anticlimactic and boring) Harry receives a letter from Gringotts, summoning him immediately. During the meeting, many things are brought to the forefront leaving Harry feeling broken and betrayed. "Savior of the Wizarding World...Hah! Nothing more than a naïve boy."
Disclaimer: I have not, and will not, ever own any rights to the characters that JK Rowling has created and used her own plot, anything you may recognize goes to the infamous author. However, I do have a few of my own characters joining the fray and a new plot. THIS IS MY DISCAIMER FOR THE ENTIRE STORY.
"regular speak"
'thoughts'
"parseltongue"
(dedication to the books in which they came from)
Lists
"Foreign Languages"
Devine Entity/Deity Speaking
Chapter 2) Introduction Pt. 2
He was lying facedown on the ground again. The smell of the forest filled his nostrils. He could feel the cold hard ground beneath his cheek, and the hinge of his glasses, which had been knocked sideways by the fall, cutting into his temple. Every inch of him ached, and the place where the killing curse had hit him felt like the bruise of an iron-clad punch. He did not stir, but remained exactly where he had fallen, with his left arm bent out at an awkward angle and his mouth gaping.
He had expected to hear cheers of triumph and jubilation at his death, but instead hurried footsteps, whispers, and solicitous murmurs filled the air.
"My Lord. . .My Lord. . ."
It was Bellatrix's voice, and she spoke as if to a lover. Harry did not dare to open his eyes, but allowed his other senses to explore his predicament. He knew that his wand was still stowed beneath his robes because he could feel it pressed between his chest and the ground. A slight cushioning effect in the area of his stomach told him that the Invisibility Cloak was also there, stuffed out of sight.
"My Lord. . ."
"That will do," said Voldemort's voice.
More footsteps: Several people were backing away from the same spot. Desperate to see what was happening and why, Harry opened his eyes by a millimeter.
Voldemort seemed to be getting to his feet. Various Death Eaters were hurrying away from him, returning to the crowd lining the clearing. Bellatrix alone remained behind, kneeling beside Voldemort.
Harry closed his eyes again and considered what he had seen. The Death Eaters had been huddled around Voldemort, who seemed to have fallen to the ground. Something had happened when he had hit Harry with the Killing Curse. Had Voldemort too collapsed? It seemed like it. And both of them had fallen briefly unconscious and both of them had now returned. . . .
"My Lord let me —"
"I do not need assistance," said Voldemort coldly, and though he could not see it, Harry pictured Bellatrix withdrawing a helpful hand. "The boy. . .Is he dead?"
There was complete silence in the clearing. Nobody approached Harry, but he felt their concentrated gaze; it seemed to press him harder into the ground, and he was terrified a finger or an eyelid might twitch.
"You," said Voldemort, and there was a bang and small shriek of pain. "Examine him. Tell me whether he is dead."
Harry did not know who had been sent to verify. He could only lie there, with his heart thumping traitorously, and wait to be examined, but at the same time noting, small comfort thought it was, that Voldemort was wary of approaching, that Voldemort suspected that not all had gone to plan. . . .
Hands, softer than he had been expecting, touched Harry's face, pulled back an eyelid, crept beneath his shirt, down to his chest, and felt his heart. He could hear the woman's fast breathing; her long hair tickled his face. He knew that she could feel the steady pounding of life against his ribs.
"Is Draco Alive? Is he at the castle?"
The whisper was barely audible; her lips were an inch from his ear, her head bent so low that her long hair shielded his face from onlookers.
"Yes," he breather back.
He felt the hand on his chest contract; her nails pierced him. Then it was withdrawn. She had sat up.
"He is dead!" Narcissa Malfoy called to the watchers.
And now they shouted, now they yelled in triumph and stamped their feet, and through his eyelids, Harry saw bursts of red and silver light shoot into the air in celebration.
Still feigning death on the ground, he understood. Narcissa knew that the only way she would be permitted to enter Hogwarts, and to find her son, was as part of the conquering army. She no longer cared whether Voldemort won.
"You see?" screeched Voldemort over the tumult. "Harry Potter is dead by my hand, and no man alive can threaten me now. Watch! Crucio!"
Harry had been expecting it, knew his body would not be allowed to remain unsullied upon the forest floor; it must be subjected to humiliation to prove Voldemort's victory. He was lifted into the air, and it took all his determination to remain limp, yet the pain he expected did not come. He was thrown once, twice, three times into the air; his glasses flew off and he felt his wand slide a little beneath his robes, but he kept himself floppy and lifeless, and when he fell to the ground for the last time, the clearing echoed with jeers and shrieks of laughter.
"Now," said Voldemort, "we go to the castle and show them what has become of their hero. Who shall drag the body? No — Wait—"
There was fresh outbreak of laughter, and after a few moments Harry felt the ground trembling beneath him.
"You carry him," Voldemort said. "He will be nice and visible in your arms, will he not? Pick up your little friend, Hagrid. And the glasses — put on the glasses — he must be recognizable.
Someone slammed Harry's glasses back onto his face with deliberate force, but the enormous hands that lifted him into the air were exceedingly gentle. Harry could feel Hagrid's arms trembling with the force of his heaving sobs; great tears splashed down upon him as Hagrid cradled Harry in his arms, and Harry did not dare, by movement or words, to intimate to Hagrid that all was not, yet, lost.
"Move," said Voldemort, and Hagrid stumbled forward, forcing his way through the close-growing trees, back through the forest. Branches caught at Harry's hair and robes, but he lay quiescent, his mouth lolling open, his eyes shut, and in the darkness, while the Death Eaters crowed all around them, and while Hagrid sobbed blindly, no body looked to see whether a pulse beat in the exposed neck of Harry Potter. . . .
The two giants crashed along behind the Death Eaters; Harry could hear trees creaking and falling as they passed; they made so much din that birds rose shrieking into the sky, and even the jeers of the Death Eaters were drowned. The victorious procession on toward the open ground, and after a while Harry could tell, by the lightening of the darkness through his eyelids, that the trees were beginning to thin,
"BANE!"
Hagrid's unexpected bellow nearly forced Harry's eyes to snap open. "Happy now, are yeh, that yeh didn' fight, yeh cowardly bunch o' nags? Are yeh happy Harry Potter's – d-dead. . .?"
Hagrid could not continue, but broke down in fresh tears. Harry wondered how many centaurs were watching their procession pass; he dared not open his eyes to look. Some of the Death Eaters called insults to insults to the centaurs as they left them behind. A little later, Harry sensed, by a freshening of the air, that they had reached the edge of the forest.
"Stop."
Harry thought that Hagrid must have been forced to obey Voldemort's command, because he lurched a little. And now a chill settled over where they stood, and Harry heard the rasping breath of the dementors that patrolled the outer trees. They would not affect him now. The fact of his own survival burned inside him, a talisman against them, as though his father's stag kept guardian in his heart.
Someone passed close by Harry, and he knew that it was Voldemort himself because he spoke a moment later, his voice magically magnified so that it swelled through the grounds, crashing upon Harry's eardrums.
"Harry Potter is dead. He was killed as he ran away, trying to save himself while you lay down your lives for him. We bring his body as proof that your hero is gone. The battle is won. You have lost half of your fighters. My Death Eaters outnumber you, and the Boy Who Lived is finished. There will be no more war. Anyone who continues to resist, man, woman, or child, will be slaughtered, as will every family member of their family. Come out of the castle now, kneel before me, and you shall be spared. Your parents and children, your brothers and sisters will live and be forgiven, and you will join me in the new world we shall build together."
There was silence on the grounds and from the castle. Voldemort was so close to him that Harry did not dare to open his eyes again.
"Come," said Voldemort, and Harry heard him move ahead, and Hagrid was forced to follow. Now Harry opened his eyes a fraction, and saw Voldemort striding in front of them, wearing the great snake Nagini around his shoulders, now free of her enchanted cage. But Harry had no possibility of extracting the wand concealed under his robes without being noticed by the Death Eaters, who marched on either side of them through the slowly lightening darkness. . . .
"Harry," sobbed Hagrid. "Oh, Harry. . . Harry. . ."
Harry shut his eyes tight again. He knew that they were approaching the castle and strained his ears to distinguish, above the gleeful voices of the Death Eaters and their tramping footsteps, signs of life from those within.
"Stop."
The Death Eaters came to a halt: Harry heard them spreading out in a line facing the open front doors of the school. He could see, even through his closed lids, the reddish glow that meant light streamed upon him from the entrance hall. He waited. Any moment, the people for whom he had tried to die would see him, lying apparently dead, in Hagrid's arms.
"NO!"
The scream was the more terrible because he had never expected or dreamed that Professor McGonagall could make such a sound. He heard another woman laughing nearby, and knew that Bellatrix gloried in McGonagall's despair, he squinted again for a single second and saw the doorway filling with people, as the survivors of the battle came out onto the front steps to face their vanquishers and see the truth of Harry's death for themselves. He saw Voldemort standing a little in front of him, stroking Nagini's head with a single white finger. He closed his eyes again.
"No!"
"No!"
"Harry! HARRY!"
Ron's, Hermione's, and Ginny's voices were worse than McGonagall's; Harry wanted nothing more than to call back, yet he made himself lie silent, and their cry's acted like a trigger; the crowd of survivors took up the cause, screaming and yelling abuse at the Death Eaters, until —
"SILENCE!" cried Voldemort, and there was a bang and a flash of light, and silence was forced upon them all. (Deathly Hallows—Chapter Thirty-six—The Flaw in the Plan) "Hagrid, toss his body in between us all. Where he belongs."
Harry felt himself go airborne and, as soon as he was in the air, he was landing and skidding across the rock covered ground. Hearing the cries of the half-giant, and the gasps of the Battle Survivors. He continued to lie there limp, and lifeless. "'Arry. . .I'm sorry. . ."
He was facing the castle on his side, but he could hear Voldemort speaking. "You see?" Harry could hear him striding back and forth, from his position, "Harry Potter is dead! Do you understand now, deluded ones? He was nothing, ever, but a boy who relied on others to sacrifice themselves for him!"
"He beat you!" yelled Ron, and the charm broke, and the defenders of Hogwarts were shouting and screaming again until a second, more powerful bang extinguished their voices once more.
"He was killed while trying to sneak out of the castle grounds," said Voldemort, and there was relish in his voice for the lie, "killed while trying to save himself —"
But Voldemort broke off: Harry heard a scuffle and a shout, then another bag, a flash of light, and a grunt of pain; he opened his eyes an infinitesimal amount. Someone had broken free of the crowd and charged at Voldemort: Harry saw the figure hit the ground, disarmed, Voldemort throwing the challenger's wand aside and laughing.
He heard the wand bounce off several rocks, and found he recognized the person who was now laying on the ground beside him: It was Neville.
"And who is this?" he said in his soft snake's hiss. "Who had volunteered to demonstrate what happens to those who continue to fight when the battle is lost?"
Bellatrix gave a delighted laugh.
"It is Neville Longbottom, my Lord! The boy who has been giving the Carrows so much trouble! The son of the Aurors, remember?"
"Ah, yes, I remember," said Voldemort, looking down at Neville, who was struggling back to his feet, unarmed and unprotected, standing in the no-man's-land between the survivors and the Death Eaters. "But you are a pureblood, aren't you, my brave boy?" Voldemort asked Neville, who stood facing him, his empty hands curled into fists.
"So what if I am?" said Neville loudly.
"You show spirit and bravery, and you come of the noble stock. You will make a very valuable Death Eater. We need your kind, Neville Longbottom."
"I'll join you when Hell freezes over," said Neville. "Dumbledore's Army!" He shouted and there was an answering cheer from the crowd, whom Voldemort's Silencing Charms seemed unable to hold.
"Very well," said Voldemort, and Harry heard more danger in the silkiness of his voice than in the most powerful curse. "if that is your choice, Longbottom, we revert to the original plan. On your head," he said quietly, "be it."
Still watching through his lashes Harry saw Voldemort wave his wand. Second later, out of one of the castle's shattered windows, something that looked like a misshapen bird flew through the half-light and landed in Voldemort's hand. He shook the mildewed object by its pointed end and it dangled, empty and ragged: the Sorting Hat.
"There will be no more Sorting at Hogwarts School," said Voldemort. "There will be no more Houses. The Emblem, and colors of my noble ancestor, Salazar Slytherin, will suffice for everyone. Won't they, Neville Longbottom?
He pointed his wand at Neville, who grew rigid and still, then forced the hat onto Neville's head, so that it slipped down below his eyes. There were movement from the watching crowd in front of the castle, and as one, the Death Eaters raised their wands, holding the fighters of Hogwarts at bay.
"Neville here is now going to demonstrate what happens to anyone foolish enough to continue to oppose me," said Voldemort, and with a flick of his wand, he caused the Sorting Hat to burst into flames.
Screams split the dawn, and Neville was aflame, rooted to the spot, unable to move, and Harry could not bear it: He must act —
And then several things happened at the same time.
They heard the uproar from the distant boundary of the school as what sound like hundreds of people came swarming the over the out-of-sight walls and pelted toward the castle, uttering loud war cries. At the same time, Grawp came lumbering around the side of the castle and yelled "HAGGER!" His cry was answered by roars from Voldemort's giants: They ran at Grawp like bull elephants, making the earth quake. Then came hooves and the twangs of bows, and arrows were suddenly falling amongst the Death Eaters, who broke ranks. Shouting their surprise. Harry pulled his invisibility cloak from inside his robes, swung it over himself and sprang to his feet, as Neville moved too.
In one swift, fluid motion, Neville broke free of the Body-Bind Curse upon him; the flaming hat fell off him and he drew from its depths something silver, with a glittering, rubied handle –
The slash of the silver blade could not be heard over the roar of the oncoming crowd or the sounds of the clashing giants or of the stampeding centaurs, and yet it seemed to draw every eye. With a single stroke Neville sliced off the great snake's head, which spun high into the hair, gleaming in the light of flooding from the entrance hall, and Voldemort's mouth was open in a scream of fury that nobody could hear, and the snake's buddy thudded to the ground at his feet —
Hidden beneath the Invisibility Cloak, Harry cast a Shield Charm between Neville and Voldemort before the latter could raise his wand. Then, over the screams and the roars and the thunderous stamps of the battling giants, Hagrid's yell came loudest.
"HARRY!" Hagrid shouted. "HARRY! WHERE'S HARRY?"
Chaos reigned. The charging centaurs were scattering the Death Eaters, everyone was fleeing the giants' stampeding feet, and nearer and nearer thundered the reinforcements that had come from who knew where; Harry saw great winged creatures and Buckbeak the Hippogriff scratching at their eyes while Grawp punched and pummeled them; and now the wizards were being forced back into the castle. Harry was shooting jinxes and curses at any Death Eater he could see, and they crumbled, not knowing what or who had hit them, and their bodies were trampled by the retreating crowd.
Still hidden beneath the Invisibility Cloak, Harry was buffered into the entrance hall: He was searching for Voldemort and saw him across the room, firing spells from his wand as he backed into the Great Hall, still screaming instructions to his followers as he sent curses flying left and right; Harry cast more Shield Charms and Voldemort's would-be victims, Seamus Finnegan and Hannah Abbott, darted past him into the Great Hall, where they joined the fight already flourishing inside it.
And now there were more, even more people storming up the front steps, and Harry saw Charlie Weasley overtaking Horace Slughorn, who was still wearing his emerald pajamas. They seemed to have returned at the head of what looked like the families and friends of every Hogwarts student who had remained to fight, along with the shopkeepers and homeowners of Hogsmeade. The centaurs Bane, Ronan, and Magorian burst into the hall, with a great clatter of hooves, as behind Harry the door that led to the kitchens was blasted off its hinges.
The house-elves of Hogwarts swarmed into the entrance hall, screaming and waving carving knives and cleavers, and at their head, the locket of Regulus Black bouncing on his chest, was Kreacher, his bullfrog's voice was audible even above this din: "Fight! Fight! Fight for my master, defender of house-elves! Fight the Dark Lord, in the name of brave Regulus! Fight!"
They were hacking and stabbing at the ankles and shins of Death Eaters, their tiny faces alive with malice and everywhere Harry looked Death Eaters were folding under sheer weight of numbers, overcome by spells, dragging arrows from wounds, stabbed in the leg by elves, or else simply attempting to escape, but swallowed by the oncoming horde.
But it was not over yet: Harry sped between duelers, past struggling prisoners, and into the Great Hall.
Voldemort was in the center of the battle, and he was striking and smiting all within reach. Harry could not get a clear shot, but he fought his way nearer, still invisible, and the Great Hall became more and more crowded as everyone who could walk forced their way inside.
Harry saw Yaxley slammed into the floor by George and Lee Jordan, saw Dolohov fall with a scream at Flitwick's hands, saw Walden Macnair thrown across the room by Hagrid, hit the stone wall opposite, and slide unconscious to the ground. He saw Ron and Neville bringing down Fenrir Greyback, Aberforth stunning Rookwood, Arthur and Percy flooring Thicknesse, and Lucius and Narcissa Malfoy running through the crowd, not even attempting to fight, screaming for their son.
Voldemort was now dueling McGonagall, Slughorn, and Kingsley all at once, and there was cold hatred in his face as they wove and ducked around him, unable to finish him –
Bellatrix was fighting too, fifty yards away from Voldemort, and like her master she dueled three at once: Hermione, Ginny, and Luna, all battling their hardest, but Bellatrix was equal to them. (Deathly Hallows—Chapter Thirty-six—The Flaw in the Plan)
He watched in silent horror as Bellatrix let three Killing curses fling out from her wand; One narrowly missing Ginny, Luna dodging the one flying at her, and Hermione falling lifelessly to the ground. Harry immediately changed course and pushed his way through the crowd. He was closest to Hermione and fought the urge to scream in grief at losing his sister in all but blood. His attention was diverted back to Bellatrix, and he felt rage begin to bubble beneath the surface.
"NOT MY DAUGHTER, YOU BITCH!"
Mrs. Weasley threw off her cloak as she ran, freeing her arms. Bellatrix spun on the spot, roaring with laughter at the sight of her new challenge.
"OUT OF MY WAY!" Shouted Mrs. Weasley to the two girls, and with a swipe of her wand she began the duel. Harry watched with terror and elation as Molly's wand slashed and twirled in a deadly dance that caused Bellatrix to go from smiling to snarling. Spells, curses, and jinxes flew from both wands, the floor surrounding the witches became extremely hot and started to crack; both of these women were dueling to kill. Mrs. Weasley refused the help of others, and as Bellatrix got distracted with her taunting and laughing at the grieving mother, Molly hit the mark with the final spell.
Bellatrix's gloating smile froze, her eyes seemed to bulge: For the tiniest space of time she knew what had happened, and then she toppled, and the watching crowd roared, and Voldemort screamed.
Harry felt as though he turned in slow motion; he saw McGonagall, Kingsley, and Slughorn blasted backward, flailing and writhing through the air, as Voldemort's fury at the fall of his last, best lieutenant exploded with the force of a bomb. Voldemort raised his wand and directed it at Molly Weasley.
"AVADA KEDAVRA!" Voldemort screamed in fury, his eyes promising death. Everyone watched as it soared toward Molly. Her kids were watching in shock, and her husband had tears in his eyes. But, Harry, he was beginning to get extremely pissed at people messing with his family.
"Protego!" roared Harry, and the Shield Charm expanded in the middle of the Hall, and Voldemort stared around for the source as Harry pulled off the Invisibility Cloak at last.
The yell of shock, the cheers, the screams on every side "Harry!" "HE'S ALIVE" were stifled at once. The crowd was afraid, and silence fell abruptly and completely as Voldemort and Harry looked at each other, and began, at the same moment, to circle each other.
"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."
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?"
"Nobody," Harry said 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?"
"Accident, was it, when my mother died to save me?" asked Harry. They were still moving sideways, both of them, in that perfect circle, maintaining the same distance from each other, and for Harry no face existed but Voldemort's. "Accident, when I 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, and of the hundreds in the Hall, nobody seemed to breathe but they two. "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," said Harry as they circled, and stared into each other's eyes, green into red. "You won't be able to kill any of them 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 I did. 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. "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 prowled in a circle, and Harry knew that he kept him temporarily mesmerized 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 favorite 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 from stamping your Mudblood mother like a cockroach, Potter – and nobody seems to love you enough to run forward this time and take my curse. 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 he saw shock flit across the snakelike face, though it was instantly dispelled; Voldemort began to laugh, and the sound was more frightening than his screams; humorless and insane, it echoed around the silent Hall.
"You think you know more magic than I do?" he said. "Than I, than Lord Voldemort, that has performed more magic that Dumbledore himself never dreamed of?"
"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."
"I brought about the death of Albus Dumbledore!"
"You thought you did," said Harry, "but you were wrong."
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 is 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.
"Severus Snape wasn't your," said Harry, "Snape was Dumbledore's, Dumbledore's from the moment you started hunting down my mother. And you never realized it, because of the one thing you can't understand. You never saw Snape cast a Patronus, did you, Riddle?"
Voldemort did not answer. They continued to circle each other like wolves about to tear each other apart.
"Snape's Patronus was a doe," said Harry, "the same as my mother's, because he loved her. For nearly all his life, from the time they were children. You should have realized," 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, "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 off."
"It matters not!" shrieked Voldemort, who had followed every word with rapt attention, but 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! 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," 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. . ."
Of all things that Harry had said to him, beyond any revelation or taunt, nothing had shocked Voldemort like this. Harry saw his pupils contract to thin slits, saw the skin around his eyes whiten.
"It's your 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 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. The moment, he knew, was seconds away.
"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 true last 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 the last master's wishes! Its power is mine!"
"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. . . "
Voldemort's chest rose and fell rapidly, and Harry could feel the curse coming, feel it building inside the wand pointed at his face.
"The true master of the Elder Wand was Draco Malfoy."
Blank shock showed on Voldemort's face for a moment, but then it was gone.
"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 their first. I overpowered Draco weeks ago. I took this wand from him."
Harry twitched the Hawthorne wand, and he felt the eyes of everyone in the Hall upon it.
"So it all comes down to this, doesn't it?" whispered Harry. "Does the wand in your hand know it's last true 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 center of the circle they had been treading, marked the point where the spells collided. Harry saw Voldemort's green jet meet his own spell, saw the Elder Wand fly 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 a seeker, caught the wand in his free hand as Voldemort fell backwards, 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 again, and Harry, after catching the Elder Wand, had been thrown backwards by the magical backlash of the spells colliding. . .his battered, broken, and bleeding body hit the wall behind him. When his body hit the ground, unconscious, was when people started to get through the shock of events they had just witness.
Luna and Neville ran over to check on Harry and get him out of the Great Hall quickly. Ron and Ginny were grasped in a grieving Molly's hug, as she checked them over for injuries. The three quickly went and looked for George, Percy, Charlie, Bill, and Arthur—so that they could decide on the Funeral for Fred and grieve as a family. McGonagall and Flitwick were talking to parents, letting them know the children will be sent home with them. Slughorn had decided to resign and hideaway from the world. The other Professors and Madame Pomphrey were busy checking the injured over. The centaurs were taking a break, to gain the strength to return back into the forest. Kingsley had been taken into a separate room, and asked multiple questions before he was placed as Interim Minister of Magic.