The air was thick with tension and apprehension. No one knew what to do. It was quite literally one to fifty.
"I don't want anyone else to try to help," Harry said loudly, and in 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," said Harry 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. "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 everyone was frozen as if Petrified, and of the hundreds in the Hall, nobody seemed to breathe but Harry and Voldemort. "Accident and chance and the fact that you crouched and snivelled 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 ever 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 did it. 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 is 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 I knew that Harry 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 favourite solution, love, which he claimed conquered death, though love did not stop him falling from the tower and breaking like old waxwork? Love, which did not prevent me stamping out 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. Voldemort began to laugh, and the sound was more frightening than his screams; humourless and insane, it echoed around the silent Hall.
"You think you know more magic than I do?" he said. "Than I, than Lord Voldemort, who has performed 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's 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 yours," 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 thing you can't understand. You never saw Snape cast a Patronus, did you, Riddle?
"Snape's Patronus was a doe— the same as my mother's, because he loved her for nearly all of his life, from the time when they were children. You should have realized," 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! 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?"
Of all the things that Harry had said to him, beyond any revelation or taunt, nothing had shocked Voldemort like this.
"It's your one 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 last plan hasn't backfired on me at all. It's backfired on you, Riddle. 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 last true master! If all had gone as planned, the wand's power would have died with him, because it had never been won from him! Holding it, using it, doesn't make it really yours. Didn't you listen to Ollivander? The wand chooses the wizard."
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."
My hand found his and I squeezed it tightly. The Elder Wand belonged to the boy who held my hand, not to Snape or to the Dark Lord.
"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..."
Protectively, I stepped in front of Draco. My small stature did nothing but cover his chest as he was a head taller than me. I'd do anything to protect him.
"But you're too late," said Harry. "You've missed your chance. I got there first. I overpowered Draco weeks ago. I took this wand from him."
Harry twitched the hawthorn wand, and all of us stared at the wand I had thrown back to him— Draco's old wand.
"So it all comes down to this, doesn't it?" whispered Harry. "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."
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. I heard the high voice shriek as Harry 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 centre 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 the Seeker, caught the wand in his free hand as Voldemort fell backwards, arms splayed, the slit pupils of the scarlet eyes rolling upward. Lord Voldemort's mortal body hit the floor with a mundane finality, feeble and shrunken, the white hands empty, the snakelike face vacant and unknowing. Voldemort was dead, killed by his own rebounding curse, and Harry stood with two wands in his hand, staring down at his enemy's shell.
Silence followed the fall of Tom Riddle. Harry stood, panting, looking at the body. Then the uproar broke around Harry as the screams and the cheers and the roars of the watchers rent the air. The fierce new sun dazzled the windows as we thundered toward him. Letting go of Draco's hand, I, Ron, and Hermione reached him first and it was our arms that wrapped around him, screaming victory. Then Ginny, Neville, and Luna were there, and then all the Weasleys and Hagrid, and Kingsley and McGonagall and Flitwick and Sprout, and the cheers muddled together into incoherence.
The sun rose steadily over Hogwarts, and the Great Hall blazed with life and light; the Hall was filled with outpours of jubilations and mourning, of grief and celebration. As the morning drew on, the Imperiused came back to themselves, Death Eaters were fleeing or else being captures, the innocent of Azkaban were being released at that very moment, and that Kingsley Shacklebolt had been named temporary Minister of Magic.
Voldemort's body was moved and laid in a chamber off the Hall, away from the bodies of Tonks, Lupin, Colin Creevey, and fifty others who had died fighting him. McGonagall had replaced the House tables, but nobody was sitting according to House anymore: All were jumbled together, teachers and pupils, ghosts and parents, centaurs and house-elves, and Firenze lay recovering in a corner, and Grawp peered in through a smashed window, and people were throwing food into his laughing mouth.
Finding Draco in the crowd, next to his parents, I run over to him and stop once his parents look at me. Narcissa's cold eyes weren't as cold as before, they were filled with tears; Lucius Malfoy still glared at me as I stood in my spot; Draco smiled at me and held my hand. He pulled my hand harshly and smashed his lips against mine, causing a giggle from my throat.
"I could tell from the look in your eyes that you weren't just a random school girl," Narcissa said to me once Draco and I pulled away.
"I- I'm sorry, ma'am," I said politely, wiping my face from tears and dirt.
"Mum, Father, this is Charlotte Snape," Draco introduced me.
I extended my hand to them with a soft smile. Narcissa grabbed my hand and pulled me into a surprising hug, "thank you for saving my son. He told me what happened."
"I'd do anything for Draco," I smiled.
"I know," Draco said from beside me.
I pulled away from Narcissa's hug and lightly punched Draco on his arm.
"You are a good fighter, Miss Snape," Lucius Malfoy said to me.
"I am."
"This is my girlfriend," Draco announced.
"I am, am I?" I laughed. Draco pulled me to his side and gave me a hug.
A throat clear behind me and I turned to see Ron and Hermione, standing hand in hand, looking at Draco and me.
"Can I speak with Lottie?" Hermione said.
Draco let go of my waist and let me go. I gave the Malfoys a quick smile and followed Ron and Hermione. Great chunks were missing from the marble staircase, part of the balustrade gone, and rubble and bloodstains occurred every few steps as we climbed.
"Lottie—" I squealed at the sound of Harry's voice and looked around. "I'm under the Cloak."
Somewhere in the distance, we could hear Peeves zooming through the corridors singing a victory song of his own composition:
We did it, we bashed them, wee Potter's the one,
And Voldy's gone mouldy, so now let's have fun!
"Really gives a feeling for the scope and tragedy of the thing, doesn't it?" said Ron, pushing open a door to let Harry, Hermione, and me through.
Happiness would come, but at the moment it was muffled by exhaustion and the pain of losing Remus and Tonks pierced like a physical wound every few steps. Harry explained, to Ron and Hermione, the painstaking events we had seen in the Pensieve; to the three of us, he recounted what had happened in the forest when Ron and Hermione were missing and I was in the Astronomy Tower with Draco. My heart broke at the retellings on how he used the Ressurection Stone to see his parents, Tonks, Remus, and Dumbledore, along with what the fire had been in the forest. At last, we arrived at the place to which we had been walking, though none of us had mentioned the destination.
Since I had last seen it, the gargoyle guarding the entrance to the headmaster's study had been knocked aside; it stood lopsided, looking a little punch-drunk. We clambered over him and onto the spiral stone staircase that moved slowly upward like an escalator. Harry pushed open the door at the top.
Unlike before, when Harry and I had visited the Pensieve, the portraits were filled with the previous headmasters and headmistresses. All around the walls, they were giving Harry a standing ovation; they waved their hats and in some cases their wigs, they reached through their frames to grip each other's hands; they danced up and down on the chairs in which they had been painted; Dilys Derwent sobbed unashamedly; Dexter Fortescue was waving his ear-trumpet; and Phineas Nigellus called, in his high, reedy voice, "And let it be noted that Slytherin House played its part! Let our contribution not be forgotten!"
Behind the headmaster's chair, a large portrait stood peering at us. Tears were sliding down from behind the half-moon spectacles into the long silver beard.
At last, Harry held up his hands, and the portraits fell respectfully silent, beaming and mopping their eyes and waiting eagerly for him to speak. He directed his words at Dumbledore, however, and chose them with enormous care. Exhausted and bleary-eyed though he was, he must make one last effort, seeking one last piece of advice.
"The thing that was hidden in the Snitch," he began, "I dropped it in the forest. I don't know exactly where, but I'm not going to go looking for it again. Do you agree?"
"My dear boy, I do," said Dumbledore, while his fellow pictures looked confused and curious. "A wise and courageous decision, but no less than I would have expected of you. Does anyone else know where it fell?"
"No one," said Harry, and Dumbledore nodded his satisfaction. "I'm going to keep Ignotus's present, though," said Harry, and Dumbledore beamed.
"But of course, Harry, it is yours forever, until you pass it on!"
"And then there's this."
Harry held up the Elder Wand, and Ron, Hermione, and I looked at it with a respect that, even in his befuddled and sleep-deprived state,— I could tell— Harry did not like to see.
"I don't want it," said Harry.
"What?" said Ron loudly. "Are you mental?"
"Ron!" I scolded, but Harry put his hand up.
"I know it's powerful," said Harry wearily. "But I was happier with mine. So . . ."
He rummaged in the pouch hung around his neck, and pulled out the two halves of holly still just connected by the finest thread of phoenix feather. Hermione had said that we could not be repaired, that the damage was too severe.
He laid the broken wand upon the headmaster's desk, touched it with the very tip of the Elder Wand, and said, "Reparo."
As his wand resealed, red sparks flew out of its end. Harry knew that he had succeeded. He picked up the holly and phoenix wand and felt a sudden warmth in his fingers, as though wand and hand were rejoicing at their reunion.
"I'm putting the Elder Wand," he told Dumbledore, who was watching him with enormous affection and admiration, "back where it came from. It can stay there. If I die a natural death like Ignotus, its power will be broken, won't it? The previous master will never have been defeated. That'll be the end of it."
Dumbledore nodded. They smiled at each other.
"Are you sure?" said Ron. There was the faintest trace of longing in his voice as he looked at the Elder Wand.
"I think Harry's right," said Hermione quietly.
"It's too dangerous, Harry's right," I agreed.
"That wand's more trouble than it's worth," said Harry. "And quite honestly," he turned away from the painted portraits, "I've had enough trouble for a lifetime."