He lay facedown, listening to the silence. He was perfectly alone. Nobody was watching. Nobody else was there. He was not perfectly sure that he was there himself. A long time later, or maybe no time at all, it came to him that he must exist, must be more than disembodied thought, because he was lying, definitely lying, on some surface. Therefore he had a sense of touch, and the thing against which he lay existed too. Almost as soon as he had reached this conclusion, Harry became conscious that he was naked. Convinced as he was of his total solitude, this did not concern him, but it did intrigue him slightly. He wondered whether, as he could feel, he would be able to see. In opening them, he discovered that he had eyes. He lay in a bright mist, though it was not like mist he had ever experienced before. His surroundings were not hidden by cloudy vapor; rather the cloudy vapor had not yet formed into surroundings. The floor on which he lay seemed to be white, neither warm nor cold, but simply there, a flat, blank something on which to be. He sat up. His body appeared unscathed. He touched his face. He was not wearing glasses anymore. Then a noise reached him through the unformed nothingness that surrounded him: the small soft thumpings of something that flapped, flailed, and struggled. It was a pitiful noise, yet also slightly indecent. He had the uncomfortable feeling that he was eavesdropping on something furtive, shameful. For the first time, he wished he were clothed. Barely had the wish formed in his head than robes appeared a short distance away. He took them and pulled them on. They were soft, clean, and warm. It was extraordinary how they had appeared just like that, the moment he had wanted them. . . . He stood up, looking around. Was he in some great Room of Requirement? The longer he looked, the more there was to see. A great domed glass roof glittered high above him in sunlight. Perhaps it was a palace. All was hushed and still, except for those odd thumping and whimpering noises coming from somewhere close by in the mist. . . . Harry turned slowly on the spot, and his surroundings seemed to invent themselves before his eyes. A wide-open space, bright and clean, a hall larger by far than the Great Hall, with that clear domed glass ceiling. It was quite empty. He was the only person there, except for – He recoiled. He had spotted the thing that was making the noises. It had the form of a small, naked child, curled on the ground, its skin raw and rough, flayed-looking, and it lay shuddering under a seat where it had been left, unwanted, stuffed out of sight, struggling for breath. He was afraid of it. Small and fragile and wounded though it was, he did not want to approach it. Nevertheless he drew slowly nearer, ready to jump back at any moment. Soon he stood near enough to touch it, yet he could not bring himself to do it. He felt like a coward. He ought to comfort it, but it repulsed him. “You cannot help.” He spun around. Albus Dumbledore was walking toward him, sprightly and upright, wearing sweeping robes of midnight blue. “Harry.” He spread his arms wide, and his hands were both whole and white and undamaged. “You wonderful boy. You brave, brave man. Let us walk.” Stunned, Harry followed as Dumbledore strode away from where the flayed child lay whimpering, leading him to two seats that Harry had not previously noticed, set some distance away under that high, sparkling ceiling. Dumbledore sat down in one of them, and Harry fell into the other, staring at his old headmaster’s face. Dumbledore’s long silver hair and beard, the piercingly blue eyes behind half-moon spectacles, the crooked nose: Everything was as he had remembered it. And yet . . . “But you’re dead,” said Harry. “Oh yes,” said Dumbledore matter-of-factly. “Then . . . I’m dead too?” “Ah,” said Dumbledore, smiling still more broadly. “That is the question, isn’t it? On the whole, dear boy, I think not.” They looked at each other, the old man still beaming. “Not?” repeated Harry. “Not,” said Dumbledore. “But . . .” Harry raised his hand instinctively toward the lightning scar. It did not seem to be there. “But I should have died – I didn’t defend myself! I meant to let him kill me!” “And that,” said Dumbledore, “will, I think, have made all the difference.” Happiness seemed to radiate from Dumbledore like light; like fire: Harry had never seen the man so utterly, so palpably content. “Explain,” said Harry. “But you already know,” said Dumbledore. He twiddled his thumbs together. “I let him kill me,” said Harry. “Didn’t I?” “You did,” said Dumbledore, nodding. “Go on!” “So the part of his soul that was in me . . .” Dumbledore nodded still more enthusiastically, urging Harry onward, a broad smile of encouragement on his face. “. . . has it gone?” “Oh yes!” said Dumbledore. “Yes, he destroyed it. Your soul is whole, and completely your own, Harry.” “But then . . .” Harry trembled over his shoulder to where the small, maimed creature trembled under the chair. “What is that, Professor?” “something that is beyond either of our help,” said Dumbledore. “But if Voldemort used the Killing Curse,” Harry started again, “and nobody died for me this time – how can I be alive?” “I think you know,” said Dumbledore. “Think back. Remember what he did, in his ignorance, in his greed and his cruelty.” Harry thought. He let his gaze drift over his surroundings. If it was indeed a palace in which they sat, it was an odd one, with chairs set in little rows and bits of railing here and there, and still, he and Dumbledore and the stunted creatures under the chair were the only beings there. Then the answer rose to his lips easily, without effort. “He took my blood,” said Harry. “Precisely!” said Dumbledore. “He took your blood and rebuilt his living body with it! Your blood in his veins, Harry, Lily’s protection inside both of you! He thethered you to life while he lives!” “I live . . . while he lives? But I thought . . . I thought it was the other way around! I thought we both had to die? Or is it the same thing?” He was distracted by the whimpering and thumping of the agonized creature behind them and glanced back at it yet again. “Are you sure we can’t do anything?” “There is no help possible.” “Then explain . . . more,” said Harry, and Dumbledore smiled. “You were the seventh Horcrux, Harry, the Horcrux he never meant to make. He had rendered his soul so unstable that it broke apart when he committed those acts of unspeakable evil, the murder of your parents, the attempted killing of a child. But what escaped from that room was even less than he knew. He left more than his body behind. He left part of himself latched to you, the would-be victim who had survived. “And his knowledge remained woefully incomplete, Harry! That which Voldemort does not value, he takes no trouble to comprehend. Of house-elves and children’s tales, of love, loyalty, and innocence, Voldemort knows and understands nothing. Nothing. That they all have a power beyond his own, a power beyond the reach of any magic, is a truth he has never grasped. “He took your blood believing it would strengthen him. He took into his body a tiny part of the enchantment your mother laid upon you when she died for you. His body keeps her sacrafice alive, and while that enchantment survives, so do you and so does Voldemort’s one last hope for himself.” Dumbledore smiled at Harry, and Harry stared at him. “And you knew this? You knew – all along?” “I guessed. But my guesses have usually been good,” said Dumbledore happily, and they sat in silence for what seemed like a long time, while the creature behind them continued to whimper and tremble. “There’s more,” said Harry. “There’s more to it. Why did my wand break the wand he borrowed?” “As to that, I cannot be sure.” “Have a guess, then,” said Harry, and Dumbledore laughed. “What you must understand, Harry, is that you and Lord Voldemort have journeyed together into realms of magic hitherto unknown and untested. But here is what I think happened, and it is unprecedented, and no wandmaker could, I think, ever have predicted or explained it to Voldemort. “Without meaning to, as you now know, Lord Voldemort doubled the bond between you when he returned to a human form. A part of his soul was still attached to yours, and, thinking to strengthen himself, he took a part of your mother’s sacrafice into himself. If he could only have understood the precise and terrible power of that sacrifice, he would not, perhaps, have dared to touch your blood. . . . But then, if he had been able to understand, he could not be Lord Voldemort, and might never have murdered at all. “Having ensured this two-fold connection, having wrapped your destinies together more securely than ever two wizards were joined in history, Voldemort proceeded to attack you with a wand that shared a core with yours. And now something very strange happened, as we know. The cores reacted in a way that Lord Voldemort, who never knew that your wand was a twin of his, had ever expected. “He was more afraid than you were that night, Harry. You had accepted, even embraced, the possibility of death, something Lord Voldemort has never been able to do. Your courage won, your wand overpowered his. And in doing so, something happened between those wands, something that echoed the relationship between their masters. “I believe that your wand imbibed some of the power and qualities of Voldemort’s wand that night, which is to say that it contained a little of Voldemort himself. So your wand recognized him when he pursued you, recognized a man who was both kin and mortal enemy, and it regurgitated some of his own magic against him, magic much more powerful than anything Lucius’s wand had ever performed. Your wand now contained the power of your enormous courage and of Voldemort’s own deadly skill: What chance did that poor stick of Lucius Malfoy’s stand?” “But if my wand was so powerful, how come Hermione was able to break it?” asked Harry. “My dear boy, its remarkable effects were directed only at Voldemort, who had tampered so ill-advisedly with the deepest laws of magic. Only toward him was that wand abnormally powerful. Otherwise it was a wand like any other . . . though a good one, I am sure,” Dumbledore finished kindly. Harry sat in thought for a long time, or perhaps seconds. It was very hard to be sure of things like time, here. “He killed me with your wand.” “He failed to kill you with my wand,” Dumbledore corrected Harry. “I think we can agree that you are not dead – though, of course,” he added, as if fearing he had been discourteous, “I do not minimize your sufferings, which I am sure were severe.” “I feel great at the moment, though,” said Harry, looking down at his clean, unblemished hands. “Where are we, exactly?” “Well, I was going to ask you that,” said Dumbledore, looking around. “Where would you say that we are?” Until Dumbledore had asked, Harry had not known. Now, however, he found that he had an answer ready to give. “It looks,” he said slowly, “like King’s Cross station. Except a lo cleaner and empty, and there are no trains as far as I can see.” “King’s Cross station!” Dumbledore was chuckling immoderately. “Good gracious, really?” “Well, where do you think we are?” asked Harry, a little defensively. “My dear boy, I have no idea. This is, as they say, your party.” Harry had no idea what this meant; Dumbledore was being infuriating. He glared at him, then remembered a much more pressing question than that of their current location. “The Deathly Hallows,” he said, and he was glad to see that the words wiped the smile from Dumbledore’s face. “Ah, yes,” he said. He even looked a little worried. “Well?” For the first time since Harry had met Dumbledore, he looked less than an old man, much less. He looked fleetingly like a small boy caught in wrongdoing. “Can you forgive me?” he said. “Can you forgive me for not trusting you? For not telling you? Harry, I only feared that you would fail as I had failed. I only dreaded that you would make my mistakes. I crave your pardon, Harry. I have known, for some time now, that you are the better man.” “What are you talking about?” asked Harry, startled by Dumbledore’s tone, by the sudden tears in his eyes. “The Hallows, the Hallows,” murmured Dumbledore. “A desperate man’s dream!” “But they’re real!” “Real, and dangerous, and a lure for fools,” said Dumbledore. “And I was such a fool. But you know, don’t you? I have no secrets from you anymore. You know.” “What do I know?” Dumbledore turned his whole body to face Harry, and tears still sparkled in the brilliantly blue eyes. “Master of death, Harry, master of Death! Was I better, ultimately, than Voldemort?” “Of course you were,” said Harry. “Of course – how can you ask that? You never killed if you could avoid it!” “True, true,” said Dumbledore, and he was like a child seeking reassurance. “Yet I too sought a way to conquer death, Harry.” “Not the way he did,” said Harry. After all his anger at Dumbledore, how odd it was to sit here, beneath the high, vaulted ceiling, and defend Dumbledore from himself. “Hallows, not Horcruxes.” “Hallows,” murmured Dumbledore, “not Horcruxes. Precisely.” There was a pause. The creature behind them whimpered, but Harry no longer looked around. “Grindelwald was looking for them too?” he asked. Dumbledore closed his eyes for a moment and nodded. “It was the thing, above all, that drew us together,” he said quietly. “Two clever, arrogant boys with a shared obsession. He wanted to come to Godric’s Hollow, as I am sure you have guessed, because of the grave of Ignotus Peverell. He wanted to explore the place the third brother had died.” “So it’s true?” asked Harry. “All of it? The Peverell brothers –” “—were the three brothers of the tale,” said Dumbledore, nodding. “Oh yes, I think so. Whether they met Death on a lonely road . . . I think it more likely that the Peverell brothers were simply gifted, dangerous wizards who succeeded in creating those powerful objects. The story of them being Death’s own Hallows seems to me the sort of legend that might have sprung up around such creations. “The Cloak, as you know now, traveled down through the ages, father to son, mother to daughter, right down to Ignotus’s last living descendant, who was born, as Ignotus was, in the village of Godric’s Hollow.” Dumbledore smiled at Harry. “Me?” “You. You have guessed,, I know, why the Cloak was in my possession on the night your parents died. James had showed it to me just a few days previously. It explained much of his undetected wrongdoing at school! I could hardly believe what I was seeing. I asked to borrow it, to examine it. I had long since given up my dream of uniting the Hallows, but I could not resist, could not help taking a closer look. . . . It was a Cloak the likes of which I had never seen, immensely old, perfect in every respect . . . and then your father died, and I had two Hallows at last, all to myself!” His tone was unbearably bitter. “The Cloak wouldn’t have helped them survive, though,” Harry said quickly. “Voldemort knew where my mum and dad were. The Cloak couldn’t have made them curse-proof.” “true,” sighed Dumbledore. “True.” Harry waited, but Dumbledore did not speak, so he prompted him. “So you’d given up looking for the Hallows when you saw the Cloak?” “Oh yes,” said Dumbledore faintly. It seemed that he forced himself to meet Harry’s eyes. “You know what happened. You know. You cannot despise me more than I despise myself.” “But I don’t despise you –” “Then you should,” said Dumbledore. He drew a deep breath. “You know the secret of my sister’s ill health, what those Muggles did, what she became. You know how my poor father sought revenge, and paid the price, died In Azkaban. You know how my mother gave up her own life to care for Ariana. “I resented it, Harry.” Dumbledore stated it baldly, coldly. He was looking now over the top of Harry’s head, into the distance. “I was gifted, I was brilliant. I wanted to escape. I wanted to shine. I wanted glory. “Do not misunderstand me,” he said, and pain crossed the face so that he looked ancient again. “I loved them, I loved my parents, I loved my brother and my sister, but I was selfish, Harry, more selfish than you, who are a remarkably selfless person, could possibly imagine. “So that, when my mother died, and I was left the responsibility of a damaged sister and a wayward brother, I returned to my village in anger and bitterness. Trapped and wasted, I thought! And then of course, he came. . . .” Dumbledore looked directly into Harry’s eyes again. “Grindelwald. You cannot imagine how his ideas caught me, Harry, inflamed me. Muggles forced into subservience. We wizards triumphant. Grindelwald and I, the glorious young leaders of the revolution. “Oh, I had a few scruples. I assuaged my conscience with empty words. It would all be for the greater good, and any harm done would be repaid a hundredfold in benefits for wizards. Did I know, in my heart of hearts, what Gellert Grindelwald was? I think I did, but I closed my eyes. If the plans we were making came to fruition, all my dreams would come true. “And at the heart of our schemes, the Deathly Hallows! How they fascinated him, how they fascinated both of us! The unbeatable wand, the weapon that would lead us to power! The Resurrection Stone – to him, though I pretended not to know it, it meant an army of Inferi! To me, I confess, it meant the return of my parents, and the lifting of all responsibility from my shoulders. “And the Cloak . . . somehow, we never discussed the Cloak much, Harry. Both of us could conceal ourselves well enough without the Cloak, the true magic of which, of course, is that it can be used to protect and shield others as well as its owner. I thought that, if we ever found it, it might be useful in hiding Ariana, but our interest in the Cloak was mainly that it completed the trio, for the legend said that the man who had united all three objects would then be truly master of death, which we took to mean ‘invincible.’ “Invincible masters of death, Grindelwald and Dumbledore! Two months of insanity, of cruel dreams, and neglect of the only two members of my family left to me. “And then . . . you know what happened. Reality returned in the form of my rough, unlettered, and infinitely more admirable brother. I did not want to hear the truths he shouted at me. I did not want to hear that I could not set forth and seek Hallows with a fragile and unstable sister in tow. “The argument became a fight. Grindelwald lost control. That which I had always sensed in him, though I pretended not to, now sprang into terrible being. And Ariana . . . after all my mother’s care and caution . . . lay dead upon the floor.” Dumbledore gave a little gasp and began to cry in earnest. Harry reached out and was glad to find that he could touch him: He gripped his arm tightly and Dumbledore gradually regained control. “Well, Grindelwald fled, as anyone but I could have predicted. He vanished, with his plans for seizing power, and his schemes for Muggle torture, and his dreams of the Deathly Hallows, dreams in which I had encouraged him and helped him. He ran, while I was left to bury my sister, and learn to live with my guilt and my terrible grief, the price of my shame. “Years passed. There were rumors about him. They said he had procured a wand of immense power. I, meanwhile, was offered the post of Minister of Magic, not once, but several times. Naturally, I refused. I had learned that I was not to be trusted with power.” “But you’d have been better, much better, than Fudge or Scimgeour!” burst out Harry. “Would I?” asked Dumbledore heavily. “I am not so sure. I had proven, as a very young man, that power was my weakness and my temptation. It is a curious thing, Harry, but perhaps those who are best suited to power are those who have never sought it. Those who, like you, have leadership thrust upon them, and take up the mantle because they must, and find to their own surprise that they wear it well. “I was safer at Hogwarts. I think I was a good teacher –” “You were the best ---” “--- you are very kind, Harry. But while I busied myself with the training of young wizards, Grindelwald was raising an army. They say he feared me, and perhaps he did, but less, I think, than I feared him. “Oh, not death,” said Dumbledore, in answer to Harry’s questioning look. “Not what he could do to me magically. I knew that we were evenly matched, perhaps that I was a shade more skillful. It was the truth I feared. You see, I never knew which of us, in that last, horrific fight, had actually cast the curse that killed my sister. You may call me cowardly: You would be right, Harry. I dreaded beyond all things the knowledge that it had been I who brought about her death, not merely through my arrogance and stupidity, but that I actually struck the blow that snuffed out her life. “I think he knew it, I think he knew what frightened me. I delayed meeting him until finally, it would have been too shameful to resist any longer. People were dying and he seemed unstoppable, and I had to do what I could. “Well, you know what happened next. I won the duel. I won the wand.” Another silence. Harry did not ask whether Dumbledore had ever found out who struck Ariana dead. He did not want to know, and even less did he want Dumbledore to have to tell him. At last he knew what Dumbledore would have seen when he looked in the mirror of Erised, and why Dumbledore had been so understanding of the fascination it had exercised over Harry. They sat in silence for a long time, and the whipmerings of the creature behind them barely disturbed Harry anymore. At last he said, “Grindelwald tried to stop Voldemort going after the wand. He lied, you know, pretended he had never had it.” Dumbledore nodded, looking down at his lap, tears still glittering on the crooked nose. “They say he showed remorse in later years, alone in his cell at Nurmengard. I hope that is true. I would like to think that he did feel the horror and shame of what he had done. Perhaps that lie to Voldemort was his attempt to make amends . . . to prevent Voldemort from taking the Hallow . . .” “. . .or maybe from breaking into your tomb?” suggested Harry, and Dumbledore dabbed his eyes. After another short pause Harry said, “You tried to use the Resurrection Stone.” Dumbledore nodded. “When I discovered it, after all those years, buried in the abandoned home of the Gaunts --- the Hallow I had craved most of all, though in my youth I had wanted it for very different reasons --- I lost my head, Harry. I quite forgot that I was not a Horcrux, that the ring was sure to carry a curse. I picked it up, and I put it on, and for a second I imagined that I was about to see Ariana, and my mother, and my father, and to tell them how very, very sorry, I was. . . . “I was such a fool, Harry. After all those years I had learned nothing. I was unworthy to unite the Deathly Hallows, I had proved it time and again, and here was final proof.” “Why?” said Harry. “It was natural! You wanted to see them again. What’s wrong with that?” “Maybe a man in a million could unite the Hallows, Harry. I was fit only to possess the meanest of them, the least extraordinary. I was fit to own the Elder Wand, and not boast of it, and not to kill with it. I was permitted to tame and use it, because I took it, not for gain, but to save others from it. “But the Cloak, I took out of vain curiousity, and so it could never have worked for me as it works for you, its true owners. The stone I would have used in an attempt to drag back those who are at peace, rather than enable my self-sacrafice, as you did. You are the worthy possessor of the Hallows.” Dumbledore patted Harry’s hand, and Harry looked up at the old man and smiled; he could not help himself. How coul dhe remain angry with Dumbledore now? “Why did you have to make it so difficult?” Dumbledore’s smile was tremulous. “I am afraid I counted on Miss Granger to slow you up, Harry. I was afraid that your hot head might dominate your good heart. I was scared that, if presented outright with the facts about those tempting objects, you might seize the Hallows as I did, at the wrong time, for the wrong reasons. If you laid hands on them, I wanted you to possess them safely. You are the true master of death, because the true master does not seek to run away from Death. He accepts that he must die, and understands that there are far, far worse things in the living world than dying.” “And Voldemort never knew about the Hallows?” “I do not think so, because he did not recognize the Resurrection Stone he turned into a Horcrux. But even if he had known about them, Harry. I doubt that he woul dhave been interested in any except the first. He would not think that he needed the Cloak, and as for the stone, whom would he want to bring back from the dead? He fears the dead. He does not love.” “But you expected him to go after the wand?” “I have been sure that he would try, ever since your wand beat Voldemort’s in the graveyard of Little Hangleton. At first, he was afraid that you had conquered him by superior skill. Once he had kidnapped Ollivander, however, he discovered the existence of the twin cores. He thought that explained everything. Yet the borrowed wand did no better against yours! So Voldemort, instead of asking himself what quality it was in you that had made your wand so strong, what gift you possessed that he did not, naturally set out to find the one wand that, they said, would beat any other. For him, the Elder Wand has become an obsession to rival his obsession with you. He believes that the Elder Wand removes his last weakness and makes him truly invincible. Poor Severus . . .” “If you planned your death with Snape, you meant him to end up with the Elder Wand, didn’t you?” “I admit that was my intention,” said Dumbledore, “but it did not work as I intended, did it?” “No,” said Harry. “That bit didn’t work out.” The creature behind them jerked and moaned, and Harry and Dumbledore sate without talking for the longest time yet. The realization of what would happen next settled gradually over Harry in the long minutes, like softly falling snow. “I’ve got to go back, haven’t I?” “That is up to you.” “I’ve got a choice?” “Oh yes,” Dumbledore smiled at him. “We are in King’s Cross you say? I think that if you decided not to go back, you would be able to . . . let’s say . . . board a train.” “And where would it take me?” “On,” said Dumbledore simply. Silence again. “Voldemort’s got the Elder Wand.” “True. Voldemort has the Elder Wand.” “But you want me to go back?” “I think,” said Dumbledore, “that if you choose to return, there is a chance that he may be finished for good. I cannot promise it. But I know this, Harry, that you have less to fear from returning here than he does.” Harry glanced again at the raw looking thing that trembled and choked in the shadow beneath the distant chair. “Do not pity the dead, Harry. Pity the living, and above all, those who live without love. By returning, you may ensure that fewer souls are maimed, fewer families are torn apart. If that seems to you a worthy goal, they we saw good-bye for the present.” Harry nodded and sighed. Leaving this place would not be nearly as hard as walking into the forest had been, but it was warm and light and peaceful here, and he knew that he was heading back to pain and the fear of more loss. He stood up, and Dumbledore did the same, and they looked for a long moment into each other’s faces. “Tell me one last thing,” said Harry, “Is this real? Or has this been happening inside my head?” Dumbledore beamed at him, and his voice sounded loud and strong in Harry’s ears even though the bright mist was descending again, obscuring his figure. “Of course it is happening inside your head, Harry, but why on earth should that mean it is not real?”
Chapter thirty six
The Flaw in the Plan
He was flying facedown on the grond 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 have been knocked sideways by the fall cutting into his temple. Every inch of him ached, and the place where Killing Curse had hit him felt like the bruise of an iron-clad punch. He did not stir, but he remained exactly where he had fallen, with his left arm bent out at an akward angle and his mouth gaping. He had expected to hear cheer 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 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 milimeter. 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 have been buddled around Voldemort, who seem 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 briefly fallen unconcious and both of them had now returned. . . "My Lord, let me --" "I do not require assitance," said Voldemort coldly, and though he could not see it, Harry pictured Bellatrix withdrawing a helpful hand. "The boy . . . Is he dead?" There was a complete silence in the clearing. Nobody approached Harry, but he felt their concentraded 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 a small shrick 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 nothing, small comfort through it was, that Voldemort was wary of approaching him, that Voldemort suspected that all had not gone to plan . . . . Hands, softer than he had been expecting, touched Harry's face, and felt his heart. He could hear the woman's fast breathing, her pounding of life against his ribs. "Is Draco alive? Is he in the castle?" The whisper was barely audible, her lips were an inch from his car, her head bent so low that her long hair shielded his face from the onlookers. "Yes," he breathed 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 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 no 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 a 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 word, 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 croed all around them, and while Hagrid sobbed blindly, nobody 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 toes shrieking into the sky, and even the jeers of the Death Eaters were drowned. The victorious procession marched on toward the open ground, and after a while Harry could tell, by the lightening of the darkness through his closed eyelids, that the trees were beginning to thin. "BANE!" Hagrid's unexpected bellow nearly forced Harry's eyes open. "Happy now, are yeh, that yeh didn't 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 at 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 them where they sood, and Harry heard the rasping breath of the dementors that patrolled the other 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 ground, 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 you 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 must be no more war. Anyone who continues to resist, man, woman or child, will be slaughtered, as will every 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 togheter." There was silence in the grounds and from the castle. Voldemort was so close to him that Harry did not dare 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 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 the 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 camte to a halt; Harry heard them spreading out in a line facing the opne front doors of the school. He could see, even though his closed lids, the teddish 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 women laughing nearby, and knew that Bellatrix gloried in McGonagall's despair. He squinted again for a single second and saw the open 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 cries acted like a trigger; the crowd of survivors took up the cause, screaming and yelling abuse at the Death Eathers, until - "SILENCE!" cried Voldemort, and there was a bang and a flash of bright light, and silence was forced upn them all. "It is over! Set him down, Hagrid, at my feet, where he belongs!" Harry felt himself lowered onto the grass. "You see? said Voldemort, and Harry felt him striding backward and forward right beside the place where he lay. "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 a 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 bang, a flash of light, and 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. "And who is this?" he said in his soft snake's hiss. "Who has 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 unproctected, 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 in fists. "So what if I am?" said Neville loudly. "You show spirit and bravery, and you come of 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. Seconds 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, emtpy and ragged: the Sorting Hat. "There will be no more Sorting at Hogwarts School," said Voldemort. "There will be no more Houses. The emblem, sheild and colors of my noble ancestor, Salazar Slythering, will suffice 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 thta it slipped down below his eyes. There were movements 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 a flame, rooted to the spot, unable to move, and Harry could not bear it: He must act - And then many things happened at the same moment. They heard uproar from the distant boundary of the school as what sounded like hundreds of people came swarming over the out-of-sight walls and pelted toward the castle, uttering lowd war cries. At the same time, Grawp came lumbering around the side of the castel 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 the Invisibilty Cloak from inside his robes, swunt it over himself, and sprang to his feet, as Neville moved too. In one swift, fluid motin, Neville broke free of the Body-Bind Curse upon him; the flaming har 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 te stampending centaurs, and yet, it seemd to draw every eye. With a single stroke Neville sliced off the great snake's head, which spun high into the air, gleaming in the light flooding from the entrance hall, and Voldemort's mouth was open in a scream of fury that nobody could hear, and the snake's body thudded to the ground at his feet- Hidden beneath the Invisibilty Cloak, Harry cast a Shield Charm between Neville and Voldemort before the latter could raise his stamps of the battling giants, Hagrid's yell came loudets of all. "HARRY!" Hagrid shouted. "HARRY - WHERE'S HARRY?" Chaos reigned. The charging centaurs were scattering the Death Eaters, everyone was feeling the giants' stamping feet, and nearer and nearar thundered the reinforcements that had come from who knew where; Harry saw great winget creatues soaring the heads of Voldemort's giants, thestrals and Buckbeak the hippogriff scratching at their eyes while Grawp punched and pummeled them and now the wizards, defenders of Hogwarts and Death Eaters alike were being forced back into the castle. Harry was shooting jinxes and curses at any Death Eater he could see, and they crumpled, 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 Finnigan and Hannah Abbott, datted 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 Weasly overtaking Horace Slughorn, who was still wearing his emeral pijamas. 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 shopkeeps 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 intot he entrance hall, screaming and waving carving knives and cleaver, and at their head, the locker of Regulus Black bouncing on his chest, was Kreacher, his bullfrog's voice 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 shim 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 atruggling prosoners, and into he Great Hall. Voldemort was in the center of the battle, and he was striking and smiting al within reach. Harry could not get a clear shot, but 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 tot he 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 flooting 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, Kingsley all at once, and there was a cold hatred in his face as they wove and ducked around him, unable to finish him - Bellatrix was still fighing 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, and Harry's attention was diverted as a Killing Curse shot so close to Ginny that she missed death by an inch - He changed course, running at Bellatrix rather than Voldemort, but before he had gone a few steps he was knocked sideways. "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 the new challenger. "OUT OF MY WAY!" shouted Mrs. Weasley to the three girls, and with a simple swipe of her wand she began to duel. Harry watched with terror and elation as Molly Weasley's wand slashed and twisted, and Bellatrix Lestrange's smile faltered and became a snarl. Jets of light flew from both wands, the floor around the withces' feet became bot and cracked; both woman were fighting to kill. "No!" Mrs. Weasley cried as a few students ran forward, trying to come to her aid. "Get back! Get back! She is mine!" Hundreds of people now lined the walls, watching the two fights, Voldemort and his three opponents, Bellatrix and Molly, and Harry stood, invisible, torn between both, wanting to attack and yet to protect, unable to be sure that he would not hit the innocent. "What will happen to your children when I've killed you?" taunted Bellatrix, as mad as her master, capering as Molly's curses danced around her. "When Mummy's gone the same way as Freddie?" "You - will - never - touch - our - children - again!" screamed Mrs. Weasley. Bellatrix laughed the same exhilarated laugh her cousin Sirius had given as he toppled backward through the veil, and suddenly Harry knew what was going to happen before it did. Molly's curse soared beneath Bellatrix's constreched arm and hit her squarely in the chest, directly over her heart. Bellatrix's glounting smile froze, her eyes seemd to bulge: For the tiniest space of time she knew what had happened, and then she toppled, and the watching crowd roared, and Voldemord screamed. Harry felt as though he turned into slow motin: 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 leutenant exploded with the force of a bomb, Voldemort raised his wand and directed it at Molly Weasley. "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 of :"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 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. "This 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 wholy 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 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 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 powled in a circle, and Harry knew that he kept him temporarily mesmerized 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 favorite solution, love, which he claimed conqered death, though love did not stop him falling from the tower and breaking like and old waxwork? Love, which did not prevent me stamping out your Modblood mother like a cockroack, 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; humorles 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 frist 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 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 chldish 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 starting 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?" 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 of his life, from the time when 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, worhier 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!" "It matters not!" shrieked Voldemort, who had followed every word with rapt attention, but now 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! He intended that Snape should be the true master of the wand! 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 think 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 socked Voldemort like this. Harry saw is pupils contract to thin slits, saw the skin around his eyes whiten. "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.” 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 instended 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 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 in 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 there first. I overpowered Draco weeks ago. I took his wand from him.” Harry twitched the hawthorn 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 its last master was Disarmed? Because if it does . . . I am the true master of the Elder Wand.” A red-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 the Seeker, caught the wand in his free hand as Voldemort fell backward, 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, and Harry stood with two wands in his hand, staring down at his enemy’s shell. One shivering second of silence, the shock of the moment suspended: and then the tumult 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 they thundered toward him, and the first to reach him were Ron and Hermione, and it was their arms that were wrapped around him, their incomprehensible shouts that deafened him. The Ginny, Neville, and Luna were there, and then all the Weasleys and Ha
