The Muggle Who Lived ☆ h.p au

thirteen - the end of the war

Hogwarts Castle. May 2, 1998

It took a while for Zoë to regain conscience of the world around her. When she finally did, she felt her body twisted on the floor, surrounded by laughter mixed with crying. It took her ears a bit of adjusting to figure out the words that were coming out of Tom Riddle, who she felt around.

"Harry Potter is dead!" 

Zoë wanted so badly to not believe what Tom had said. She even knew herself that he was, in fact, still alive. However, a tiny part of her had thought that Harry truly was dead.

Zoë could hear more screaming but refused to open her eyes. The voice of Neville Longbottom rang through her ears, and the events followed had Neville himself kill off the last Horcrux of Voldemort, finally making him vulnerable. 

She went to get up at the sound of feet moving and yells but was instantly wrapped in a cold cloth.

"I need to take you to Draco." Zoë turned to see Harry, under what Zoë figured was the Invisibility Cloak. 

"What? Harry no. Right now is the perfect chance for me to face Tom. He doesn't know you're alive yet and he will certainly focus on me if he thinks I was the only one who survived out of the both of us."

"But he will kill you. For real."

"That's what needs to happen Harry. Or else you won't be able to defeat him. The prophecy says so." Harry locked Zoë's arm with his. 

"What if the prophecy is wrong? You don't have to risk your life again for this please."

Zoë said nothing as she detached herself from Harry, running out of the Cloak.

"Zoë! NO!"

But Zoë didn't turn back, her heart beating fast as she made her way through the crowd. She could barely notice the people turning back to see he run by, the people who gasped at her sudden alive appearance.

Right now, she was focused on reaching Voldemort.

The whole battle seemed to stop as she finally reached Voldemort. He looked at her, his red eyes wide.

"She's alive!" People started to shout, but silenced quickly when Voldemort moved forward, examining Zoë like prey.

"You failed twice." Zoë said, her voice filling the whole area. "You haven't been able to kill me."

"Failure?" Voldemort spat back? "Your life was merely the use of Dumbledore and whatever plans he made to keep his poor niece alive."

"It's funny you say that Tom." Voldemorts' stare became intense at the use of his real name. "Because I am not a Dumbledore by blood. This whole time you've been failing to kill a mere muggle." 

The crowd stood silent, but she could tell that everyone was shocked at the discovery of Zoë being a muggle.

"Now come on Tom. If you can't kill a muggle, what makes you think you killed Harry Potter."

"Harry Potter IS dead. You were just..." Voldemort began to argue back, but Zoë interrupted, finally finding the thing to say that would make Tom Riddle snap.

"I was just another failure from you. Come on Tom, fail to kill me a third time." 

A wicked sneer appeared on Voldemort's face as he lifted his wand, gladly giving into Zoë's request. Before he could say the spell that would end her, she turned to spot the people in the crowd. She saw the Weasley twins that she had saved earlier, Hermione and Evanora, who helped her and became her friends in the lonely years in the Castle, Harry Potter, who for that moment, took of his Cloak, the boy who she shared the lightening scar with, and finally Draco Malfoy.

She gave a smile to Draco, who had tears flowing down his cheeks, screaming her name. Draco saw her mouth the words. "Goodbye."

Zoë turned back around just in time to see the green light come towards her for the third time, her world turning black.