Chapter 40 continued.....

“On your feet, Harry”Voldemort spoke with a pleasant voice, but Harry, in his minds eye could the sneer on Voldemort’s face.

He ignored Voldemort relishing in the feel of the rain on his back, the mud on his face, knowing that in a few moments, it would all be over. The pain the suffering, everything.

“I said, on you FEET!” Harry could hear the strain in Voldemort’s voice as he attempted to keep his cool.

“Why should I bother?” Asked Harry, not moving from his slumped position. “You are just going to kill me anyway.” The bitterness and self pity that Harry was feeling was apparent in his voice, and he hated himself for it.

“It wouldn’t do to strike down a wandless opponent when his back is facing me.” Was the answer he got back.

“Why not?” Harry said bitterly, his mother’s face flashed across his mind, from the small growl, he knew it flashed across the Dark Lord’s mind as well. He quickly sent images of everyone that he knew Voldemort had killed that had been wandless at the time. “You’ve done it before.” He added quietly.

“ENOUGH!!” Voldemort bellowed, waving his wand as if to block out the images. “You are different Harry.” Voldemort said, his voice almost sounding as if it were full of pride. “You are a worthy opponent, an equal if you will, now stand up!” With a quick flick of his wand, Harry felt himself being lift up to a standing position. He was baffled as Tom Riddle reached down and picked up Harry’s wand handing it to him.

He still had a questioning look on his face as Voldemort turned to look at him. He rolled his eyes and said, “Humor me. I know and you know that I am about to kill you, so please, just humor me.”

Harry shrugged as if to say, “Whatever” and returned Voldemort’s bow, fully planning to not do anything to protect himself against Voldemort’s attack.

As Voldemort raised his wand, Harry heard a scream, and turned his head to see Ginny, her hands covering her mouth.

The sight of Ginny gave Harry the strength he needed he ducked to the side just has the Killing Curse aimed for his chest struck the headstone behind him.

He could hear the frustrated scream of Voldemort.

“Run Ginny!!” Harry screamed, hoping that Voldemort wouldn’t go after her. He leapt out from behind the statue and screamed “Sectumsempra!”

Once again, the two brother wands were locked together. Harry, not wanting to see who Voldemort had killed this time, wrenched his wand away and dove to the right. Unfortunately, Voldemort anticipated this and dove to his left, blocking Harry in against a statue, his wand several feet away.

Voldemort leaned into Harry, pressing his wand underneath Harry’s chin.

“I thought you don’t want to kill you wandless opponent.” Harry chocked out, finding it hard to speak or even breath with Voldemort’s wand shoved up under his chin.

“I changed my mind.” Voldemort whispered near to Harry’s ear. “No way you can dodge this one.” He began to smile. “Would you like to say any last words, for your dear friends that are listening?” Harry realized that he was right, he could see Ginny, Hermione, Ron, Neville and Luna all standing just outside.

Harry desperately groped behind him for anything at all that might be able to help him. His hand enclosed on something, and he slowly smiled, “Yeah,” he chocked out, “I do.”

Voldemort eased the wand out from under Harry’s chin just enough for him to speak easier.

Harry took several large breaths of air while he tightened his grip on the object. “he looked up and said, “Your breath really stinks!” As he slammed the broken cement stone sword from the statue he was pressed against into Voldemort’s chest and then dove aside.

He watched as Voldemort fell to his knees, his blood flowing black out of his chest wound.

He walked up to Voldemort and kneeled next to him. “Now you will die like the muggle you are.” Harry said quietly into Voldemort’s ear. Jumping back as the dying man began to cough up his own blood.

“Avada Kedavra” Voldemort said weakly, barely able to raise his wand. The spell hit Harry full in the chest, but lacked the power to do anything besides slightly singe Harry’s jacket, scaring him none the less.

He watched Voldemort’s face as the life left his body. “Looks like you were right Ron.” He called over to his friend. He put his hands on the ground to give himself the leverage to stand up, his hand closed on something. Holding it up, he realized that it was Vodlemort’s wand.

“He was only as powerful as his wand.” Harry said to himself, snapping the wand in two. He looked down and realized that it might be possible to fix the wand again; he began looking around for something to fully destroy it with.

He made his way to the old caretaker’s house, ignoring the questioning looks of his friends. Inside the house he found a book of matches, some tinder and a frying pan.

Carefully he arranged the tinder around the broken wand and lit the whole thing on fire inside the frying pan. He watched as the wand caught flame and weird green smoke began drifting away from it He stared into the flame, and jerked back as he saw the face of Severus Snape in the flames.

“Harry!! Harry!! Wake up!”

Harry felt himself being shaken awake and he opened his eyes with a start. “What’s going on?” He asked grabbing his glasses, afraid they had been attacked. He looked with a start upon his room, packed full of people, the closest of which was Ginny.

“I think you were having a bad dream, Harry.” She said softly, pushing his sweaty hair off his forehead. “You were screaming, it woke us all up.” She spoke almost apologetically as if trying to explain why he now had a room full of people surrounding his bed.

“You saved me.” He said softly, smiling into Ginny’s worried face.

“What?” She asked, feeling his forehead for temperature.

“I was dreaming of the final battle with Voldemort, and it made me remember that I was going to let him kill me, until I heard you scream and saw your face, and I realized that I couldn’t let that happen. You saved me.” He reached out and cupped Ginny’s face in his hand and softly kissed her, ignoring all others until an uncomfortable cough brought him back to reality.

Reluctantly, he let go of Ginny, and hoping off the bed grabbed his robe and began to leave the room.

“Where are you going?” Ron asked, tailing behind him, “And what made you have that dream tonight.

“To the kitchen,” Harry called back, “to get some water, then off to find my parents.” He paused for a moment, “And I had the dream because of Severus Snape.”