Sapphire (Lazuli Book #3) - Harry Potter Fan Fiction (Draco Malfoy)

Chapter Twenty-Six

The snake's head comes away in a single swing of the sword, and the entire thing disintegrates into ash, clouding upwards into the air. Just as with the diadem, a strange gas pours out of where the body was, screaming shadows of the last fragment of the Dark Lord's soul soaring up into the air. I watch in awe as they fill the entire hall, and then seem to blow away, as if in an invisible wind. I have done it. I've killed the snake, the last horcrux.

I've killed the Dark Lord.

I stumble towards a giant hole in the wall which overlooks the Entrance Courtyard - the place where I died - and watch as the Dark Lord breaks his spell and falls to the floor, clutching his sides in agony. He seems to waste away just watching him, until it's clear to see that the only thing that remains of him is the shell. His soul is dead, and now he is no more than a defeated body walking the earth without a purpose.

He looks up to where I am, as if he can sense me, and lays his eyes on me. In that moment, I could have sworn that he looked afraid, and so I lifted the sword for him to see. He should know that it was me who finished him.

The look on his face gave me more satisfaction than anything else ever could have done.

Harry was in the courtyard too - Cassiopeia hadn't lied when she said that he'd come back. He looked a little worse for wear, although that was probably due to his most recent bought with the Dark Lord, but he was alive.

The Dark Lord looked away from me slowly, and then back at Harry. He winced as he slowly leaned forward and sent one final curse flying at Harry Potter, which my friend easily met and held. The green magic from the Elder Wand beat against the Gryffindor red of Harry's own wand, and it was losing. But for once I was happy to see Slytherin green lose out to Gryffindor red. I wouldn't have even considered the Dark Lord's green to be Slytherin anymore anyway. Tonight, we had proven ourselves as good people, and I hoped that emerald green would never again be associated with evil.

Harry had a strength that the Dark Lord lacked, and as I watched I could have sworn that I saw the ghosts of his parents behind him, a hand on each shoulder, urging him on. I shouted my own words of support, although he probably couldn't hear me over the din that their colliding spells were creating. I raised my hand to shield my eyes as the glare grew, too bright for me to look directly at it any longer. Come on Harry, this is it.

The light seemed to turn a brighter and brighter red, until all the green had gone and the Dark Lord wasn't focusing on the spell, but on his wand. The Elder Wand was twitching to get away from him, shaking in his hand and splitting from the force and desire it had to leave him and return to its true master. Then, Harry's red touched the tip of the Elder Wand and the light disappeared. The wand flew out of Lord Voldemort's hand and soared through the air, spinning towards its true master who I now knew to be Harry. It landed easily in Harry's grip, and he was now the Master of Death. How ironic that he had defeated the Dark Lord, who prized himself on bringing death to all those he opposed.

Lord Voldemort lurched forward, and I found that I wasn't afraid to say his name any longer. He clawed at his body slightly, his mouth dropping open and his eyes fading, any life that had been in them leaving him. Without a soul, he was nothing but a body, and now that body was shattering into a thousand tiny pieces. His own Killing Curse had rebounded and hit him, but in the absence of a soul to kill, it had instead ripped his body up. He was like a pile of ash, one moment there and the next blowing away in the wind, the remnants of a once great fire forgotten. There was a strained sound, as if he had tried to let out a final scream but his vocal chords had gone, and then his body blew away as dust, the fragments scattered and never to be seen again.

At that exact moment, the clouds above the school parted, and a ray of sunshine shone through, falling exactly on where Harry was crouched and panting, the Elder Wand in his hand. Ron and Hermione had stood up and were behind me, watching as the Death Eaters realised that their master was dead and the battle was lost. A great cheer went up in the Great Hall, and those who had stood with Voldemort tried to apparate away in their clouds of black smoke. But with Voldemort's death the powers he had given them had gone, and try as they might they couldn't escape. They were trapped, and the aurors in the castle had already begun to make arrests.