Головна

Harry twitched the hawthorn wand, and he felt the eyes of everyone in the Hall upon it.

  1. Abruptly, as though the tree had been turned to marble, it stopped moving. Not a leaf twitched or shook.
  2. And at long last, Harry mounted his Firebolt, and kicked off from the ground.
  3. And she strode past Harry and sat down in the tent entrance bringing the action to a fierce full stop.
  4. And the scene shifted. Now, Harry saw Snape talking to the portrait of Dumbledore behind his desk.
  5. And then Harry heard a thin, piteous human scream from amidst the terrible commotion, the thunder of devouring flame.
  6. And then the tunnel began to rise; moments later it twisted, and Crookshanks had gone. Instead, Harry could see a patch of dim light through a small opening.
  7. And they turned a corner and saw the thing for which Harry had been prepared, but which still brought all of them to a halt.

"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. Then Ginny, Neville, and Luna were there, and then all the Weasleys and Hagrid, and Kingsley and McGonagall and Flitwick and Sprout, and Harry could not hear a word that anyone was shouting, nor tell whose hands were seizing him, pulling him, trying to hug some part of him, hundreds of them pressing in, all of them determined to touch the Boy Who Lived, the reason it was over at last-

The sun rose steadily over Hogwarts, and the Great Hall blazed with life and light. Harry was an indispensible part of the mingled outpourings of jubilation and mourning, of grief and celebration. They wanted him there with them, their leader and symbol, their savior and their guide, and that he had not slept, that he craved the company of only a few of them, seemed to occur to no one. He must speak to the bereaved, clasp their hands, witness their tears, receive their thanks, hear the news now creeping in from every quarter as the morning drew on; that the Imperiused up and down the country had come back to themselves, that Death Eaters were fleeing or else being captured, that the innocent of Azkaban were being released at that very moment, and that Kingsley Shacklebolt had been named temporary Minister of Magic.

They moved Voldemort's body and laid it in a chamber off the Hall, away form the bodies of Fred, 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 the corner, and Grawp peered in through a smashed window, and people were throwing food into his laughing mouth. After a while, exhausted and drained, Harry found himself sitting on a bench beside Luna.

"I'd want some peace and quiet, if it were me," she said.

"I'd love some," he replied.

"I'll distract them all," she said. "Use your cloak."

And before he could say a word, she had cried, "Oooh, look, a Blibbering Humdinger!" and pointed out the window. Everyone who heard looked around, and Harry slid the Cloak up over himself, and got to his feet.

Now he could move through the Hall without interference. He spotted Ginny two tables away; she was sitting with her head on her mother's shoulder: There would be time to talk later, hours and days and maybe years in which to talk. He saw Neville, the sword of Gryffindor lying beside his plate as he ate, surrounded by a knot of fervent admirers. Along the aisle between the tables he walked, and he spotted the three Malfoys, huddled together as though unsure whether or not they were supposed to be there, but nobody was paying them any attention. Everywhere he looked, he saw families reunited, and finally, he saw the two whose company he craved most.

"It's me," he muttered, crouching down between them. "Will you come with me?"

They stood up at once, and together he, Ron and Hermione left the Great Hall. Great chunks were missing from the marble staircase, part of the balustrade gone, and rubble and bloodstains occurred ever few steps as their climbed.

Somewhere in the distance they 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 moldy, 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 and Hermione through.

Happiness would come, Harry though, but at the moment it was muffled by exhaustion, and the pain of losing Fred and Lupin and Tonks pierced him like a physical wound every few steps. Most of all he felt the most stupendous relief, and a longing to sleep. But first he owed an explanation to Ron and Hermione, who had stuck with him for so long, and who deserved the truth. Painstakingly he recounted what he had seem in the Pensieve and what had happened in the forest, and they had not even begun to express all their shock and amazement, when at last they arrived at the place to which they had been walking, though none of them had mentioned their destination.

Since he 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, and Harry wondered whether it would be able to distinguish passwords anymore.

"Can we go up?" he asked the gargoyle.

"Feel free," groaned the statue.



Voldemort did not answer. They continued to circle each other like wolves about to tear each other apart. | They clambered over him and onto the spiral stone staircase that moved slowly upward like an escalator. Harry pushed open the door at the top.

Dumbledore nodded. | Silence again. | THE FLAW IN THE PLAN | The whisper was barely audible, her lips were an inch from his ear, her head bent so low that her long hair shielded his face from the onlookers. | There was a fresh outbreak of laughter, and after a few moments Harry felt the ground trembling beneath him. | 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. | Bellatrix gave a delighted laugh. | And then many things happened at the same moment. | 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- | Voldemort hissed. |

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