'And he's the best fuck that ever walked. He's beautiful - rich, in money and everything else; he's a rockstar to boot, trapped in the body of a fighter. And how he fought; at a state of turmoil with himself - somewhere inside his soul that only she...
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♱
'You live, you learn You love, you learn You cry, you learn You lose, you learn You bleed, you learn You scream, you learn
You grieve, you learn You choke, you learn You laugh, you learn You choose, you learn You pray, you learn You ask, you learn You live, you learn'
The bang was like a cannon blast, and the golden flames that erupted between them, at the dead centre of the circle they had been treading, marked the point where the spells collided.
Harry saw Voldemort's green jet meet his own spell, saw the Elder Wand fly high, dark against the sunrise, spinning across the enchanted ceiling like the head of Nagini, spinning through the air toward the master it would not kill, who had come to take full possession of it at last.
And Harry, with the unerring skill of the Seeker, caught the wand in his free hand as Voldemort fell backwards, arms splayed, the slit pupils of the scarlet eyes rolling upward.
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.
There was one shivering second of silence, the shock of the moment suspended, and then the tumult broke around Harry as the screams, cheers, and roars of the watchers rent the air.
The fierce new sun dazzled the windows as they thundered toward him. The first to reach him were Ron and Hermione, their arms wrapped around him, their incomprehensible shouts deafening him.
Then Parvati, 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 indispensable part of the mingled outpourings of jubilation and mourning, of grief and celebration. They wanted him there with them, their leader and symbol, their saviour 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.
