Lord Voldemort, Lord Voldemort, Lord Voldemort...

Harry recited the name silently, scanning the chaos for any sign of him.

There.

Lord Voldemort stood ringed by Death Eaters, hurling curses in every direction without restraint.

The crowd at Hogwarts was too thick. Harry could only push forward inch by inch, forcing through the crush of bodies.

Glimpses came between the press of shoulders: Ron Weasley and Hermione Granger taking down the werewolf Fenrir Greyback together; tiny Professor Flitwick launching Antonin Dolohov into the air with a single spell; the Avengers sprinting across the battlefield, pulling students out of harm's way; and Neville Longbottom, the Sorting Hat still on his head, sweeping the Sword of Gryffindor in one clean arc and severing Nagini's head from its body.

Nicely done.

Harry cheered silently, then felt a tap on the right shoulder.

Turning warily, Harry found Draco Malfoy standing there, expression tangled and unreadable.

"You..."

Harry had wanted to ask what Draco Malfoy was doing here. Earlier, Harry had spotted the Malfoy couple, those two turncoats, scurrying back and forth through the crowd, not fighting, just shouting Draco Malfoy's name in every direction.

Honestly, watching that had almost made Harry feel sorry for Lord Voldemort.

With nothing but defectors under his command, it was a wonder he hadn't lost already.

Before Harry could finish the thought, Draco Malfoy cut in, voice brittle with nerves.

"You will defeat him, right, Potter?"

Draco Malfoy looked terrified. Platinum-blond hair clung to the forehead in cold sweat, and whatever color had been in that already pale face was gone entirely.

The fingers twitched. Some decision had been reached.

Draco Malfoy pressed the wand, gripped so tightly until this moment, into Harry's hand. The handle was damp. Harry could feel it.

"I know your wand and his share the same core, so you cannot harm each other." Draco Malfoy's lips pressed together briefly. "I don't know how you survived, but... use my wand. Defeat him."

"Think of it as... adding one more credit to the Malfoy family name."

Harry's confusion must have shown. Draco Malfoy gave a short, bitter smile.

Whatever had happened before, the Malfoy family had boarded the Savior's ship now, and there was no getting off. They had to do everything possible to make sure Harry won. Only then would the Malfoy family keep its place in the wizarding world.

"Alright."

Harry tightened the grip on the wand, pushed down everything rising in the chest, and gave a firm nod.

"I will defeat him."

It was almost funny. Six years as mortal enemies, and here they were in the final year, standing on the same side against Lord Voldemort. Harry of six years ago never would have believed it.

Draco Malfoy watched Harry slip carefully toward Lord Voldemort, then turned and ran silently toward the parents still searching for their child.

You have to come out of this alive, Potter.

...

Lord Voldemort was fighting alone against three: Minerva McGonagall, Horace Slughorn, and Kingsley Shacklebolt. A cruel smile sat on that face. Green light flashed from the tip of the wand, one bolt after another.

Close by, a short, balding man with graying hair trembled in a corner. The wand tucked inside the sleeve had slipped out just enough, and it was pointed straight at Minerva McGonagall.

"Expelliarmus!"

Harry stared at the man who had indirectly caused the death of Harry's parents, Peter Pettigrew, now angling to hurt the Head of House on top of it. Fury roared up without warning. Harry stepped out and blasted Peter Pettigrew into the wall behind with a single spell.

This rotten Peter Pettigrew. Harry watched Peter Pettigrew writhe on the ground and ground teeth.

Peter Parker, the other Peter, the wall-climbing one, who had made absolutely no secret of how much he hated sharing a name with this villain, had once walked Harry through the original storyline. In that version, the three of them were captured and dragged to Malfoy Manor.

There, His late-arriving conscience had made him hesitate for just a heartbeat before acting against Harry. That single hesitation was enough. The silver hand Lord Voldemort had given would have strangled Peter Pettigrew to death for it.

But the merging of the worlds had scrambled all of that. Harry Potter was never taken to Malfoy Manor, and so Peter Pettigrew, that miserable coward, had simply gone on living right up to this moment.

Lord Voldemort's sharp gaze snapped toward them. Harry pulled off the hat in one clean motion.

"You're actually still alive?"

Lord Voldemort's words only confirmed the suspicion everyone had been holding.

"Harry is still alive! Still alive!"

A wave of cheers broke across the hall, and then Hogwarts went dead silent.

The crowd drew back from Lord Voldemort and Harry, a wide ring of empty space opening around them. No one said a word. Everyone understood, without being told, that this fight belonged to the two of them alone.

"Lord Voldemort?" Harry tilted the head. "No, I should be calling you Tom Riddle."

A sudden, wicked little laugh followed. Lord Voldemort felt a flicker of foreboding.

"Let me guess. Do the Death Eaters who have followed you for years actually know that you — the one who never stops claiming descent from Slytherin — are a half-blood?"

A ripple of shock ran through the Death Eaters. It died the instant Lord Voldemort turned that cold gaze on them.

Harry caught it, a flash of something close to panic crossing that serpentine face, there and gone in an instant. Then Lord Voldemort laughed. Not a shout. A cold, unraveling sound, worse than screaming, rolling through the silent Great Hall and filling every corner of it.

"Do you think this is enough to disturb me, Potter? You are still far too young."

"You think you can defeat me? Defeat the great Lord Voldemort? Your great Headmaster died by my hand."

Harry smiled.

"Did he?"

The counter-question landed strangely. Lord Voldemort couldn't place it. Something uneasy stirred beneath the surface.

Wanting to drive it home, Lord Voldemort shrieked.

"Albus Dumbledore is dead!"

"Killed by my own servant, Severus Snape, whom Albus Dumbledore trusted without question—"

"Ah. My sincerest apologies for that."

A familiar, warm voice drifted in from somewhere behind the crowd. At the sound of it, Harry's smile spread wider.

Lord Voldemort looked toward it, disbelief written across every feature, and a group of figures walked slowly out from behind the students. Standing at the front, unmistakable, was Albus Dumbledore. Dead. Long dead. Standing there.

And Severus Snape, whom Lord Voldemort had been utterly certain was gone, stood beside Albus Dumbledore with that same expressionless face.

"!"

The crowd erupted, then caught itself, dropping to a breathless hush.

"Who are those people behind the Headmaster?"

"I know! Those are Harry's parents, my dad was in the same year as them and used to tell me stories about them all the time."

"Wait, isn't that the second son of the Black family? The one who died so young?"

"But... aren't they all dead? How are they standing here?"

"Who knows. Maybe they never really died at all, and it was all staged from the beginning."

"..."

"How — how is that possible?"

Lord Voldemort's composure cracked. Panic, barely held back. Then something clicked, and those eyes swept the crowd quickly, methodically, searching for one particular face from inside Harry's memories.

It wasn't there.

Mingling in the crowd in Slytherin robes, Yang Luoluo moved quietly from student to student, treating the injured while watching the confrontation unfold. When Lord Voldemort's search came up empty, she let out a slow breath.

She hadn't forgotten why she'd been kidnapped before. The moment she arrived she had asked Loki to lay an illusion over her face, even Peter Parker, standing right in front of her, might not recognize her now.

She was rather attached to staying alive.

And honestly, the plan Sirius Black and the others had cooked up was genuinely vicious: hold the resurrected figures back until the last possible moment, then walk them out right when Lord Voldemort was at his most triumphant, to hit him as hard as it could possibly hurt.

Just look at that. Lord Voldemort's mouth was actually trembling.

"Nothing is impossible, Tom," Albus Dumbledore said, watching with those eyes that seemed to see straight through to the back of the skull. "Besides, we were never truly dead."

That was the cover story they had agreed on after talking it through together. Not dead, only frozen at the moment of death, and only recently revived with the Avengers' help.

They couldn't expose Yang Luoluo's abilities. So Tony Stark had proposed the explanation, pointing out that they had a Captain Popsicle standing right there as a ready-made precedent.

Steve Rogers:...Fine.

Lord Voldemort steadied himself. A cold sneer settled back onto that face.

"Albus Dumbledore, I killed you once. I will kill you again."

"You think coming back changes anything?"

"Once I finish with you, I will go and find the one in Potter's memories who, "

Lord Voldemort was getting louder, mouth opening wider, on the verge of naming Yang Luoluo's power outright. Harry's chest pulled tight. Without hesitating, Harry thrust Draco Malfoy's wand high into the air.

Lord Voldemort stopped. Raised the wand.

Hogwarts went utterly still. Countless eyes fixed on the two of them. Golden-red sunlight fell across both their faces, and in the same breath, each one spoke the spell that held everything they hoped for.

"Expelliarmus!"

"Avada Kedavra!"

Red and green slammed into each other.

➤ Next: The Battle of Hogwarts (3)

Chapter 82 - The Battle of Hogwarts (3)

BOOM. The two spells collided like a cannon shot.

Lord Voldemort felt it the instant the incantation left his mouth. Something was wrong.

How could this be!

He had killed Severus Snape!

The Elder Wand's master should be him!

Why, why was the wand still resisting!

In horror, Lord Voldemort watched the spells crash together. Watched the Elder Wand rip free and spin into the air. Watched the Killing Curse, noticeably weaker than it should have been, stopped cold by a circular shield.

Harry's Expelliarmus hit like a battering ram. Lord Voldemort stumbled back several steps, and before there was any chance to recover, a storm of colorful spells came in one after another. Without the wand, Lord Voldemort was completely helpless, a lamb to the slaughter.

When everyone finally stopped, Lord Voldemort's hollow, dazed serpentine face was left bare for all to see.

Harry was just about to step forward and check whether Lord Voldemort was truly dead this time, when Tony Stark's voice broke the silence from somewhere in the crowd behind, whether deliberate or not, no one could say.

"Tsk. What a shame. To the very end, this bald guy never knew Severus Snape and the Malfoy family were all double agents."

Before Harry could even process that, Lord Voldemort's body, which should have been stone dead, began convulsing violently. Wide eyes stared up at the sky. A mouth opened and closed, but not a single word came out. After a moment, Lord Voldemort went still.

Harry: "..."

Poor Lord Voldemort.

Always treating everyone else as lambs to the slaughter, and in the end, becoming the lamb.

Lord Voldemort was dead. Riddled with wounds, consumed by bitter resentment, dead, and this time, there would be no coming back.

A brief, shuddering silence.

Then the world exploded.

Cheers detonated across the grounds like a wave. Shouts, sobbing, triumphant roaring, it all crashed together and surged into the sky. Ron Weasley and Hermione Granger were first, throwing arms around Harry before anyone else could move, and then came Ginny Weasley, Neville Longbottom, and the others, the Weasleys, Kingsley Shacklebolt, several professors, all of them surging in, every face lit up with joy too big to contain.

Before there was any chance to brace for it, Harry was hoisted off the ground by the crowd.

"We won! We won!"

The cheers just kept coming.

Through the press of bodies, Harry spotted those who had been revived standing together with the Avengers. They caught the look and simply smiled. James Potter and Sirius Black were grinning so wide it looked like their faces might split, both throwing ecstatic thumbs-up across the crowd.

The sun climbed above Hogwarts. Harry looked up, and the sharp morning light brought a few tears spilling out.

A laugh broke free anyway.

No death. No parting. Only joy, only reunion.

This victory wasn't mutual destruction. They had won, completely and truly won.

How wonderful.

...

Minerva McGonagall got the Great Hall roughly cleared, and everyone piled inside in cheerful chaos, the noise instantly surpassing any marketplace. Harry swept a look around. With the Avengers' help, the wizards had come through with zero casualties, every face bright with smiles. Every face except,

Remus Lupin was crouched tensely beside Nymphadora Tonks, while Tonks sat with a scrunched-up face, clutching a stomach in pain.

"M-Madam Pomfrey, Tonks really is all right? But Tonks looks like it really hurts..."

Remus Lupin's face was chalk-white, stuttering with nerves, nothing left of that fearless bearing from the battlefield moments ago.

Madam Pomfrey gave this exhausting couple a pointed look and held the potion out to Nymphadora Tonks without much grace.

"Drink this and you'll be fine."

"Honestly, you two. One goes charging onto a battlefield while pregnant, and the other just lets it happen!"

"Lucky the pregnancy is holding steady, but no more strenuous activity — understood?"

Nymphadora Tonks drank the potion while Madam Pomfrey kept going. The cramps slowly faded. As Tonks's expression eased, the color began creeping back into Remus Lupin's face.

"Of course, of course..." Remus Lupin nodded rapidly, answering on Tonks's behalf.

Reassured that neither was in serious trouble, Harry felt the tension loosen and walked over to the Avengers to offer a proper, sincere thank-you.

The Avengers were standing with Albus Dumbledore and the others. Steve Rogers clapped Harry on the shoulder at the words of thanks.

"Speaking of which — don't forget what you promised us," Tony Stark added from the side.

Harry nodded, though a trace of distress crossed the face.

Agreeing had been easy enough. Actually doing it was going to be a headache.

Severus Snape's sharp ears caught every word. Without drawing attention, Snape drifted closer to Albus Dumbledore's side and shot a sideways look at James Potter and Sirius Black, who were currently chatting away with great enthusiasm nearby.

Merlin. Why were those two brought back as well.

Heaven knew how badly Severus Snape had wanted to simply die in the Forbidden Forest the moment those two insufferable faces appeared at the Hog's Head.

"What has the Potter brat gone and promised them this time?"

"Severus — those people did not come to help us for free."

Albus Dumbledore answered briefly, and that was all it took to hook Severus Snape's curiosity.

"Those Muggles... who exactly are they?"

The question landed at exactly the same moment the students' curiosity reached its breaking point.

Students had swarmed the Avengers from every direction, buzzing without pause. No one had forgotten these mysterious, powerful strangers, the agile figures, the bizarre weapons, the completely unimaginable ways they'd taken down Death Eater after Death Eater.

Albus Dumbledore moved in and extracted the besieged group.

"Mr. Stark, perhaps your earlier proposal was the right one after all."

Albus Dumbledore looked at Tony Stark with a mild expression. Tony Stark simply raised an eyebrow.

Back at 12 Grimmauld Place, Tony Stark had put a proposal to Albus Dumbledore, to the wizarding world, really: why not go public?

In the wizarding world before the dimensional fusion, Muggles had held deep misunderstandings about wizards, which had led to no small amount of persecution. Take Gryffindor's own ghost, Nearly Headless Nick, Sir Nicholas, who'd attempted to straighten a lady's crooked teeth during the reign of Henry VII, accidentally gave her tusks instead, and was executed for it. From that day on, Nearly Headless Nick he remained.

Fear and hostility toward the unknown, that was what had brought the International Statute of Wizarding Secrecy into existence.

But the worlds had merged now. People with extraordinary abilities were everywhere. Ordinary people's capacity to accept the unusual had expanded considerably, and in that kind of world, hiding behind old walls wasn't wisdom, it was stagnation. Going public might genuinely lead somewhere better for wizards.

Besides, Tony Stark didn't think the wizarding world could keep itself perfectly hidden much longer, not with this many supernatural phenomena walking around in plain sight.

"Pleasure doing business?" Tony Stark winked.

"The pleasure is mine." Albus Dumbledore smiled.

This had been part of the earlier discussions too: if the wizarding world wanted to go public, operating under the Avengers' name was the most convenient path by far. It would keep the bulk of outside scrutiny at a distance, and given the Avengers' current standing worldwide, ordinary people would find wizards far easier to accept.

Severus Snape looked between them with open suspicion, feeling as though the entire world had become something unrecognizable. How had almost dying once made it impossible to follow a single conversation?

"Albus..."

Minerva McGonagall had helped round up the leaderless Death Eaters, and only now found a moment to come find an old friend, pausing along the way to give the Avengers a grateful nod.

"You worked hard, Minerva. All of this time."

Minerva McGonagall's eyes had gone slightly red, and the hand on the wand trembled faintly, but composure returned quickly.

"Now that you're back, it would be best for you to handle what comes next. The repairs to Hogwarts, coordinating with the Ministry of Magic, reaching out to the students' families..."

As Minerva McGonagall kept listing, Albus Dumbledore's ever-present smile began to slip. Beside them, Severus Snape went very still and quietly took one step back, as though bracing for imminent danger.

"Ah — I believe the current headmaster is Severus, actually. I'm only a former headmaster. And besides, I've rather reached retirement age..."

Severus Snape, having not seen any of that coming, fixed Albus Dumbledore with a sharp glare and said, stiffly:

"I think McGonagall is right. Now that you're back, the headmaster's position should naturally go back to you."

Years of managing students who acted like trolls had been headache enough. Making Snape headmaster on top of it would be outright lethal.

The three of them went back and forth, the position of Hogwarts headmaster passed around between them like something scalding.

In the end, Severus Snape and Albus Dumbledore outmaneuvered Minerva McGonagall with practiced ease, retired with considerable satisfaction, and left Minerva McGonagall as the new headmaster of Hogwarts.

While the completely unsuspecting students were still celebrating at full volume, the headmaster of Hogwarts quietly changed hands.

"So... who exactly are they?"

Severus Snape watched the students swarm the Avengers again and asked one more time.

"Perhaps you've heard of the Avengers, Professor Snape?" Peter Parker had materialized at some point, chest puffed out with pride that could not be contained no matter how hard one tried.

Severus Snape: "...What? Never heard of them."

Peter Parker: "..."

➤ Next: The Muggle Studies Professor