“Severus?” Ellie called quietly. She shook his limp body gently. “Severus, say something,” she urged.
“I see now that I have been very foolish to trust him, the traitor was loyal to you all along, unfortunately for you, it doesn’t much matter anymore,” Voldemort said exultantly.
“I beg to differ,” said Dumbledore. Someone had obviously removed the Stunning Spell that had rendered him motionless as his Potions master died.
“Back for more are we, old man? I wonder how much more you can take, that arm of yours isn’t looking very good.”
“It is good enough, Tom,” Dumbledore replied coolly.
“Stop calling me that!” the former Hogwarts pupil spat.
“But it is your name. You are, and always will be Tom Riddle.”
“I am not! I am Lord Voldemort!” he shouted, a shower of green sparks burst from the end of his wand in frustration.
“No, Voldemort is the name that you have fashioned for yourself in order to hide from who you truly are, but you cannot hide for long. Both you and I know that the time is coming.”
“You still believe in the boy, don’t you? How can you possibly think that a powerless adolescent like him could ever destroy me, when not even you can achieve that?” There was a note of scepticism in the vile man’s voice that connected with Harry; that was a question that he had been trying to answer for two years now.
“It appears you have forgotten the fact that he came very close to defeating you when he was just a baby, when he had no power at all. The question then becomes what could he do to you now that his powers have developed?”
“Nothing, he has encountered me twice in recent years and has escaped purely through a mixture of luck and your mollycoddling. We have been delaying the inevitable,” Voldemort cackled.
“I disagree,” Dumbledore said matter-of-factly. His belief in his decision was clear to all.
“Enough of this pathetic banter, I want to dispose of you and move on to the boy!” he snapped.
“As you wish.” The two once again started firing spells at each other.
No one really had time to stop and watch the scene that was unfolding between the two men because they were all pre-occupied with their own conflicts. Ginny was faring relatively well with someone who sounded like Bellatrix Lestrange, while Hermione was just beyond her battling with another witch who was the same height and build as Narcissa Malfoy. Harry could just see Ron out of the corner of his right eye; he was struggling with a very large Death Eater whose outline Harry didn’t recognise. All the teachers were engaged in battle as well, Professor McGonagall was fighting two opponents at once and Professor Flitwick was in the process of beating back his attacker. Hagrid was on the edge of the forest with Grawp who was picking up Death Eaters and squeezing them in his enormous fist. Ellie had reclaimed her wand but wasn’t able to use it to do more than maintain the defensive shield that she had put up, she was currently try to withstand the onslaught of four Death Eaters.
Another group of Voldemort’s followers were attempting to gain entry to the castle and were being picked off by a co-ordinated attack from the towers on either side of the front doors. The North and South towers had synchronized their assaults so that one tower was raining hexes upon the enemy and before their adversary had the opportunity to start firing curses up at them the other tower would begin another attack. So far it had kept the group of Death Eaters from entering the building, which had been Dumbledore’s intention when he had separated the students in to groups.
There was a great thundering noise and, in the blink of an eye, the herd of Centaurs that occupied the Forbidden Forest had galloped into the fray. The powerful creatures began trampling over the men and women who dared to try and destroy their home. The extra help was welcome as several members of the D. A had fallen, Luna was lying unmoving near the front steps and Susan was limping as she tried to scramble away from her attacker. Neville was down near the edge of the forbidden forest and showing the distracted world that he had most definitely inherited his mother and father’s prowess for holding off Dark Wizards. He was darting in and out of the trees not only with speed but also with skill. Dean was sitting on the bank of the lake awkwardly while Seamus did his best to protect them both from two different Death Eaters. Justin Finch Fletchley had been stunned, along with Hannah Abbott and Ernie MacMillan.
The shield Ellie was holding up finally gave way when a sixth Death Eater joined the number that was attacking her. One of them hit her with a Reductor Curse and she soared through the air straight into her grandfather, narrowly missing the Blasting Curse that had been fired at him a second before. Dumbledore was able to disentangle himself from her and stand, but it was too late. By the time he had returned to his full height Voldemort’s Killing Curse was already halfway to him. There was nothing that anybody could have done to prevent what happened. Ellie tried in vain to pull her surviving grandfather down out of the curse’s path, but it was to no avail. Dumbledore took the green blast to the chest and fell sideways on to the ground. The greatest wizard who had ever lived was dead.
“No!” Ellie screamed. She reached over and grabbed the front of Dumbledore’s robes, she began to shake him, but not gently like she had with Snape, this was forceful, almost violent shaking. She seemed determined that she could rattle his extinguished flame of life back into existence. She released her grip on his robes and his lifeless body dropped back to the ground heavily. Her small and delicate hand reached out to touch his still warm cheeks; he looked as though he was in a deep and pleasant slumber. Finally the wave of emotion overcame her; her barriers were crushed under the despair of a life filled with loss. Throughout her life he had been her beacon of hope. She had believed him to be indestructible because, no matter what happened, he was always there to save the day. Without him here how could life possibly go on? Why were the birds still singing? Why was the sun still shining and the grass still growing? Didn’t they feel the hurt, pain and anguish flowing from her? How could one human being hurt so much without dying?
Slowly everyone realized what had happened. They stood still, looking at the spot where Dumbledore had fallen and where his last grandchild knelt sobbing uncontrollably into his chest. Voldemort was as astonished as the rest of them, he was staring at his wand and then at Dumbledore’s body like he couldn’t quite believe his luck. There was another bout of loud rumbling and everyone looked up to see that the Order had arrived at last. Remus, Bill, Charlie, Kingsley, Mad-Eye, Tonks, and dozens of other assorted Order members and Aurors were racing up the hill with their wands out. They didn’t hesitate to enter the battle along with everyone else. But Ellie continued to cry into Dumbledore’s dead body.
“Come, Elizabeth. I have just killed your grandfather, aren’t you going to punish me for it?” Voldemort taunted her mercilessly. That was the moment that Ellie lost all control. The strange atmosphere, that Harry had only ever seen rise up around her once before, manifested itself again. This time, however, it wasn’t so much as an aura as it was fire; she appeared to be a ball of golden flame.
“You’ll pay for that, Riddle!” she screamed at the top of her lungs. She advanced on Voldemort with her wand out and blasted every curse, hex and jinx that she could think of at him. He was able to deflect most of them, in the heat of her passion her aim wasn’t very accurate and a good number of them missed their target, although not by very much. Voldemort simply cackled at her.
“Tut, tut, I expected more of you. Instead you insist on attacking me with juvenile curses. Is this the best that you can do?” he laughed manically.
“Ellie, stop!” Harry urged. He had finally dealt with his assailant using a well-placed Blasting Curse.
“Does Potter want to try his luck? Think you’re ready do you?” There was a dangerous gleam in his slit red eyes.
“I think it’s about time I did, don’t you?” Harry responded. He wasn’t about to be intimidated.
“Very well, please try your best,” Voldemort sneered. They duelled in earnest, there was no question that Voldemort’s wand work was quicker than Harry’s, but in equal measure Harry’s reflexes were nimble and he was able to manoeuvre his way out of the paths of a majority of the curses aimed at him. All it took was a strong Banishing Charm for Harry to slam back into one of the walls of Hagrid’s hut; he saw multi coloured stars spinning around in front of his eyes. When his vision cleared up he was staring straight down the length of Voldemorts wand, there was three feet between them, and his opponent had his wand pointed right at Harry’s heart. “So this is all it takes to defeat the great Harry Potter? It would be laughable if it weren’t so tragic,” he chimed in his icy voice. “Good bye, Harry… Avada Kedavra…”
He had no idea where Ellie appeared from but within mili-seconds she was standing in front of him. Right before his very eyes she transformed into the most beautiful creature that Harry had ever seen; a phoenix whose plumage glimmered gold in the fading sunlight. She trilled a single haunting note before she swallowed the green light of the curse and burst into flames spectacularly. She burned to ashes that fell in a neat little pile on the ground at Harry’s feet.
Anger rose up in him, an anger that was unlike any that he had ever felt, it went beyond the feeling that he had had when Sirius was murdered; it was white hot rage. Ellie was the last member of his blood family and now she had been stolen. Harry came back at his adversary stronger than ever and watched with satisfaction as several of them hit their mark, a Stinging Hex, a Trip Jinx and a Full Body Bind all caught Voldemort in the right places, he recoiled, fell and froze in quick succession.
Harry took a moments respite to take a look around him; there was destruction everywhere. Hermione was now lying on the grass as well; Ron had been attacked by a strong Tickling Charm and was sitting in the shallows of the lake howling with laughter. Neville was nursing what looked like a broken arm; Susan was sprawled on the ground hardly moving, Remus was slowly picking himself up off the floor and Mad-eye was lying on the floor with his magical eye spinning in circles at his side, while Bill was covered in painful looking boils and Fred was on fire. It was the sight of Ginny that shook him to his core, she was lying on the grass near the top of the hill with several of her limbs sticking in awkward directions, she was as white as a ghost and a large pool of blood was seeping on to the grass beside her. Harry needed to end this war and end it now, it couldn’t go on any longer, or too many people would die. He knew what he had to do; he had to say the two words that would save the world from all this torment.
When he looked around at all these people fighting with him a feeling of love, hope and admiration sailed its way through his soul and he felt more powerful than ever before. With the image of his happy and smiling family in his mind he pointed his wand and changed his world forever. “Avada Kedavra!”
Instead of the green light that was usually emitted by a wand performing the Killing Curse, a blinding white light shone its way across the space between Harry and Voldemort. There was a mixture of shock, horror and pain etched into that foul and evil face. The blood red died away from his eyes and his features started to change, he once again became the handsome man he had been before he submersed himself in the dark arts. His tall and skeletal figure crumpled to the floor; Harry had killed Voldemort.
A/N: You all knew he could do it, didn’t you? There may be a small delay between this and the next chapter going up because I want to submit another one shot. Look out for One Life Owed. The next chapter is…The World’s Greatest Wizard.