A/N: This is the second last chapter. There'll be one more chapter after this one, an epilogue, and then, of course, the sequel!
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There were no exhilarated shouts of, "HARRY!" or, "HE'S ALIVE!"
The crowd fell silent abruptly and completely, afraid of what was going to happen next, as Harry and Voldemort looked at each other, then began to circle one another.
In her exhaustion and shock at seeing Harry alive, Katerina had fallen backwards, but she was caught by Ron and Draco, who were now supporting her as she fought to remain conscious.
"Potter!" Draco yelled, and he tossed Harry his wand, which Harry caught with the skill of the Seeker.
"I don't want anyone else to try to help," Harry announced loudly. "It's got to be like this. It's got to be me."
"Potter doesn't mean that," Voldemort hissed. "That isn't how he works, is it? Who are you going to use as a shield today, Potter?"
"Nobody," Harry answered 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?" Voldemort jeered. "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?" Harry asked. They were rotating in a perfect circle. "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!" Voldemort screamed angrily. "Accident and chance and the fact that you crouched and snivelled behind then skirt of greater men and women, and permitted me to kill them for you."
"You don't learn from your mistakes, Riddle, do you?"
"You dare—"
"Yes, I dare," Harry said. "I know things you don't, Tom Riddle. I know lots of important things. Want to hear some, before you make another big mistake?"
Voldemort did not speak, but continued to prowl, staring at Harry through narrowed eyes.
The pain splitting Katie's face and stomach where Voldemort had cut her was almost unbearable now. She was so weak, so tired, so drained from her battle with Lord Voldemort and her loss of blood, that Draco and Ron we're now supporting all of her weight entirely. She wanted nothing more than to close her eyes, to fall away into the abyss, to give in to the sweet relief of death, but she could not leave without knowing that her friends would be safe. She willed herself to hold out just a little longer.
"Is it love again?" Voldemort taunted. "Dumbledore's favourite solution, love, which he claimed conquered death, though love did not stop him from falling from the Tower and breaking like an 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 forwards this time, and take my curse. So what will stop you dying now when I strike?"
Katie knew this was entirely false. She, Ron, Hermione, Ginny, Mrs Weasley, McGonagall, Neville, Luna — countless people gathered in that Hall would take the blow of a million curses if it meant keeping Harry from harm.
"Just one thing." Harry said.
"If it is not love that will save you this time, you must believe that you have magic that I do not, or else a weapon more powerful than mine?"
"I believe both," Harry stated, and shock flit across Voldemort's face, though it was instantly dispelled. He began to laugh.
"You think you know more magic than I do?" he jeered. "Than I, than Lord Voldemort, who has preformed magic that Dumbledore himself never dreamed of?"
"Oh, he dreamed of it," Harry said. "But he knew more than you, knew enough not to do what you've done."
"You mean he was weak!" Voldemort screamed. "Too weak to dare, too weak to take what might have been his, what will be mine!"
Katie's vision was slipping out of focus more frequently now. She was running out of time. The enormous gash across her stomach continued to bleed, yet neither Draco nor Ron seemed to realise that she was dying, and she could not summon the strength to notify them. Even if she could manage to make them aware of the situation, she wasn't sure Draco or Ron could do anything to save her now.
Too many times she had held her wand to her temple. Too many times she had journeyed to death's door, and now, as she rang the doorbell and stood waiting to be let inside, she did not feel nearly as much fear as she had felt on the occasions when she tried to preform the Killing Curse on herself. Dying meant peace — even if there was nothing but darkness in death, it was a world free of pain, free of grief, and maybe it was selfish to Katie to crave such a sweet relief, but there was little to no point of her wishing death away. He was already descending his staircase, readying himself to unlock his door.
"No, he was cleverer than you," Harry said. "A better wizard, a better man."
"I brought about the death of Albus Dumbledore!"
"You thought you did, 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 shrieked. "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," Harry said 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."
Katie clung to every word that Harry was saying.
"What childish dream is this?" Voldemort spat, his eyes not wavering from Harry for even a moment.
"Severus Snape wasn't yours," Harry told him. "Snape was Dumbledore's, Dumbledore's from the moment you started hunting down my mother. And you never realised it, because of the one thing you can't understand. You never saw Snape cast a Patronus, did you, Riddle?"
Every time Harry used Voldemort's real name, the red eyes blazed with wrath, but still he did not strike.
"Snape's Patronus was a doe," Harry went on, "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 realised — he asked you to spare her life, didn't he?"
Voldemort's nostrils flared. "He desired her, that was all," Voldemort sneered. "But when she had gone, he agreed that there were other women, of purer blood, worthier of him—"
"Of course he told you that," Harry said, "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!"
For some strange reason, none of this new information shocked Katie all too much. It was fascinating, sure, but she was putting all she had into forcing herself to stay alive. Just a little while longer, she told herself, until Harry wins, until she knew, for definite, that he and everyone else would be all right.
"It matters not!" Voldemort screeched. "It matters not whether Snape was mine or Dumbledore's, or what petty obstacles they tried to put on 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! 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! He could not keep me from getting the Elder Wand!"
"Yeah, it did," Harry agreed. "You're right. But before you try to kill me, I'd advise you to think of what you've done... think, and try for some remorse, Riddle..."
"What is this?"
Of all the things that Harry had said, this seemed to shock Voldemort the most. His pupils contracted into slits and the skin around his eyes whitened.
"It's your one last chance," Harry told him, "it's all you've got left... I've seen what you'll be otherwise... be a man... try... try for some remorse."
Katerina smiled. It took an immense amount of effort to do so, but she couldn't help it. Harry was too good, too pure, willing to show mercy even to Lord Voldemort himself.
"You dare—?" Voldemort said again.
"Yes, I dare," Harry cut across him, "because Dumbledore's last plan hasn't backfired on me at all. It's backfired on you, Riddle."
Voldemort's hand began to tremble and he gripped the Elder Wand more tightly. The moment, Katie knew, was seconds away.
"That want 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!"
"But then, Potter, Dumbledore as good as gave me the wand!" Voldemort's voice shook with triumph. "I stole the wand from its last master's tomb! I removed it against its last master's wishes! Its power is mine!"
"You still don't get it, Riddle, do you?" Harry said. "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 recognised 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 realising exactly what he had done, or that the world's most dangerous wand had given him its allegiance..."
There was a short pause, but Katie knew what Harry was going to say before the words left him, for she had been there the night Dumbledore was killed, and Draco disarmed him but could not bring himself to finish the deed.
"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. "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..."
Had Katie had the strength, her sense of protectiveness would have kicked in once again and she would have struck Voldemort dead herself, then and there, but she was too weak to move even a finger. Her hearing was beginning to fade — her ears filling with a ringing noise.
"But you're too late," Harry said. "You've missed your last chance. I got there first. I overpowered Draco weeks ago. I took his wand from him."
Harry held up the hawthorn wand. Every eye in the Great Hall fell upon it.
"So it all comes down to this, doesn't it?" Harry whispered, yet in the heavy silence his voice could be heard clearly by all in the Hall. "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."
Katie heard the high voice, and at the same time, Harry yelled, pointing Draco's wand at Voldemort.
"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, masked the point where the spells collided. The Elder Wand flew high, spinning across the enchanted ceiling, spinning through the air towards the master it would not kill. And Harry caught the Elder Wand with his free hand as Voldemort fell backwards.
Tom Riddle hit the floor with a mundane finality, his body feeble and shrunken, the white hands empty, the snake-like face vacant and unknowing.
Katerina felt her shoulders slump as a sigh of relief escaped her. It was over, they had won, and now that she knew that everything was going to be all right, her friends would be just fine, she succumbed to her injuries.
Death had been prowling steadily towards her ever since Voldemort cut that first gash in her cheek and blood streamed from it like a scarlet waterfall. She had known even when she ventured into the Forbidden Forest that she would not make it through the night. Maybe it was better if she left, slipped away from the world, because she had Tom Riddle's eyes... and they say that the eyes are the window to the soul...
She felt herself slide from the grip of Draco Malfoy and Ron Weasley and fall gently to the floor, her body sinking against the cold stone, and the last thing she saw before her eyes closed was the twinkling of the ever-lightening sky painted like the heavens on the ceiling of the Great Hall. A smile curved her pale lips, and then she slipped away into the darkness.