A/N: Right, I feel I should explain a few things. Firstly, this is a slightly alternate ending to the Deathly Hallows, based on a possibility that ran through my mind while I was reading the book. The post-DH content (ie. everything after the first couple of chapters) is mostly based on the real canon, but also has a few story arcs based on this alternate ending. However, while it may be an alternate ending, it still keeps largely to canon, canon ships and so on, although I am toying with the movie version of Neville/Luna (a "summer fling" before going on to their partners in the epilogue) which could go either way based on my whims (and yours, reviewer, *hint*). So, yeah, read, enjoy, and please review!

Chapter 1 - The End

"Harry Potter is dead!"

There was a stunned silence. Limp and apparently lifeless, Harry was peering through his lashes, taking in as much of the curious scene as he could without showing signs of life. Behind him, he could feel the nervous energy of the assembled Death Eaters, as all eyes, including Harry's, followed the pale, wraith-like figure that was now stood victoriously before the doors of Hogwarts. The first screech had just about reached the defenders inside, carried on a fell wind, but the message didn't seem to be sinking in. A few people stepped warily into the great entrance hall, and gazed on in disbelief. From his vantage point, sprawled on the stone floor of the courtyard at Hagrid's knees, Harry was squinting furiously, trying to recognise faces in the small, watery patch of vision he had. Without warning, Voldemort's head shot back, and he screamed again to the heavens.

"Harry Potter is dead!"

This time, his scream was accompanied by a cackle of laughter from Bellatrix Lestrange, who was glowing almost as triumphantly as her master. Slowly, as if in a wave, the laughter spread throughout the mob, as the other Death Eaters joined the din, which seemed to be half-laugh, half-cheer. Now, the defenders had got the message. Faces began to appear in the entrance hall, and Harry could make out battered, broken figures stepping tentatively out into the light, as several of the disbelieving defenders began to file out onto the steps that ran out into the courtyard, moving gradually forward, and the hall behind them filled with more anxious faces. Finally, slowly, realisation dawned on them, and hushed murmurs began to spread through the few remaining onlookers. Voldemort whirled around, lifting his hands to the heavens, and Harry quickly shut his eyes as the serpent-like face glanced at his own, then turned once more to the defenders of Hogwarts. There were a few moments of awful silence, and then, yet again...

"Harry Potter is DEAD!" Voldemort's serpent-like face wasn't happy – Harry doubted he remembered how to look happy – but instead wore a devilish, triumphant, almost crazed stare, as a fourth shriek rang out, not from the Dark Lord, but from someone on the steps. Harry didn't even have to look – he knew, even before he saw her mane of flaming red hair, whose voice that was. Ginny broke out of the hallway, and was half way down the steps – almost bowling Seamus aside as she went – before Arthur and Bill Weasley caught up to her, and Bill shot out a hand to pull her back. She shrieked again, and collapsed to the ground. Harry was shocked – in all the time he'd known her, in all the horrors she'd suffered, he'd never seen Ginny crying like she was now. Arthur crouched down over his daughter, but didn't dare to touch her, as Bill stepped past, wand still clutched in his hand. In all the uproar, Harry hadn't realised that he had forgotten any thought of stealth, and was staring wide-eyed at the scene on the steps – fortunately, both the defenders and the Death Eaters were too busy, watching Ginny's collapse or staring at Voldemort to notice his sudden attentiveness and lack of rigor mortis.

Finally, he could see the two dozen or so people assembled on the steps of Hogwarts clearly, and make out who they were. Neville was on the bottom step, still clutching a battered piece of black cloth which Harry first took for torn robes – with a horrible lurch, he realised that the dust-stained, crumpled black article was in fact the Sorting Hat, or whatever was left of it. Oh, what he would have given to have the sword now... Behind Neville, he could see Ron's red hair, just as noticeable as his sister's amidst the crowd, and Hermione, her head buried in Ron's shoulder. Next to them, Bill Weasley was still stood, scarred and grim-faced, in front of his trembling sister and his father, who was wearing a rather shell-shocked expression. Further up, he could see various members of the Order and Dumbledore's Army – Seamus Finnegan and Dean Thomas were stood at the very top of the steps, beside a white-faced Professor McGonagall, Kingsley Shacklebolt was stood half-way up, wand out, like Bill, furious to an extent Harry had never seen on the usually serene Auror's face, and several more students and Order members were now filing in behind them. Nonetheless, Harry couldn't help noticing the lack of numbers, compared to the crowd of Death Eaters who were now stood behind him.

The defenders were pale-faced and shaken, but there was no such demeanour on the other side. Voldemort was now pacing up and down, and as he turned, Harry could see the slightest of smiles creeping onto his serpentine lips. With a sickening sensation, he tried not to think about what he would do next. Would he gloat? Would he make a last bargain? Or would he just start killing? Every muscle in Harry's body was urging him to make his move, and only his brain stopped him – with the mob of Death Eaters close behind him, he couldn't risk it, not yet. His train of thought was interrupted as the Dark Lord's spoke again, rather quietly, so quietly that everyone was hanging on his every word, straining to hear him.

"Do you see now? Do you see? The Boy Who Lived," he murmured, his voice rising in volume and feeling as he went on, "The Boy Who Lived is dead! Do you see his lies, now? Your precious saviour was nothing, less than nothing! He hid behind you all, and sacrificed your friends, your families, to save himself..."

The words burned as Harry listened on, and it took every ounce of self-control he had to stop himself leaping up and attacking him. Voldemort, however, wasn't finished.

"I am not... merciless. I know you were lied to, cheated, used, by this worthless boy. I will give you one last chance at mercy. Kneel before me, place your faith in me, and you will be spared a place in the new world we are forging. Resist, and you will burn before the day is out, as will every man, woman and child you call family," Voldemort hissed more than spoke, his crimson eyes flickering over each of the defenders in turn, as he extended a pale hand, in a pale pretence of reaching out, a pale pretence of his "mercy". Murmurs were spreading through the defenders' ranks, and the Death Eaters seemed, at first, to take these as a sign of consideration. However, as moments passed, the murmurs became decidedly angrier, until, finally, they fell silent again, and the figures on the steps glared resolutely back, without a single bended knee. In the brief lull, Harry's eyes were drawn once more to Ginny – she had stopped crying, seemingly having run out of tears, and was lying on the cold stone steps, a look of blank denial on her face. Arthur had given up his efforts to calm her, and was now stood next to Bill, staring defiantly down at the Death Eaters, his own wand in his hand. Yet again, silence filled the courtyard, and Voldemort looked on, as if expecting them to start kneeling at any moment. Instead, a shout rang out, clear, and furious, and far louder than Voldemort's screeching proclamations.

"Dumbledore's Army!" The defenders continued to stare defiantly ahead, but Harry's eyes shot to Neville, with a slight shock as he realised it was his voice shouting. The plump, rather nervous boy he had once known was gone, and in his place there stood a young man with fire in his eyes. There was an awkward pause, and then...

"Dumbledore's Army!" Seamus and Dean roared from the top step. Then Ron yelled the words, as did Hermione, in a very strangled voice. Quite suddenly, the Order joined the cry. Louder than anything previous, Bill, Arthur and Kingsley bellowed out in unison, "Dumbledore's Army!" as Voldemort took a step back, clearly unnerved, while Bellatrix copied him almost exactly, taking a step back herself. Several of the other figures on the stairs sounded like they were about to join the cry, when a thin, metallic rasp silenced them.

All eyes were back on Neville, the sword of Godric Gryffindor now clutched tightly in his already-bloodied right hand, the Sorting Hat's remains in his left. Unfortunately for Neville, he only managed two steps forward before, with a low hiss, Voldemort pointed his wand at him.

"Petrificus Totalus," came the mutter, and Neville froze, sword still raised in his hand. Seamus' voice led several others in boos and yells of anger and disgust – they were petty, given the circumstances, but still satisfying to hear – until Voldemort flicked his wand again, and a blinding white flash erupted overhead, with a vicious roar of "SILENCE!"

The rabble fell silent once more, but their glares were even angrier than before, and every one of them now had a wand drawn, ready for the slightest provocation. Neville's face had frozen in a mask of realisation and trepidation, and his eyes were the only part of him that moved, roving around his sockets in a panic that made Harry's stomach turn over. Voldemort hissed again, and it took Harry a moment to realise that this time it had been a hiss, not his quiet words. His arm was raised, and for the first time, Nagini wove her way out between the Death Eaters' legs, coming to his side. He hissed again, and jabbed a finger at Neville, as another realisation set in for Harry, one that made his stomach drop even further, if that was possible – he couldn't understand it.

In a less panicked situation, he (or, more likely, Hermione) would probably have worked out that now the fragment of Voldemort's soul was gone from within his own, he had lost his fluency for Parseltongue. At the time, however, it was just another realisation in a scene where almost everything was moving too fast for his liking. Another serpentine hiss – this time, from the snake herself – and Nagini was weaving across the courtyard, forked tongue flicking in and out of her mouth, tasting the air, as her thick, jade-green body cut a smooth track through the dust and grime which had fallen over the courtyard floor. Neville's eyes bulged as the serpent closed him down, before he blinked, then opened his eyes with new determination. Harry recognised the defiant feeling in his eyes; it was one he had shared less than an hour ago – he wasn't going to give them the satisfaction of scaring him.

But Nagini proceeded, nonetheless. Slowly, ever so slowly, her head rose from the ground, followed by the upper half of her long, scaled torso. Neville winced as the scales brushed against his leg, but continued to stare resolutely ahead. There was a small, stifled gasp from someone in the crowd – Harry thought it might have been Hermione – as the great snake twisted around the back of Neville's legs, coiling her long frame around his knees, and then around his thighs, and then his waist, rising further and further up his petrified form as she continued to flick and taste him with her tongue. Voldemort's smirk grew, as he turned to the onlookers, and began to speak again, in the same low, tense voice.

"Who else? Who else would dare defy me? Who's next," he murmured, "the disciples, who fought so resolutely in his name? The friends, who followed him into the depths of hell?" Here, his eyes and his wand flicked from Neville, to Ron and Hermione. Instantly, Ron had shoved Hermione behind himself, standing defiantly in front of her – this drew another mocking cackle from Bellatrix, and widened Voldemort's evil smile.

"Or perhaps the lover, who waited for him for all this time? The little girl who will never see her beloved again..." Ginny got shakily to her feet, staring with a look of purest hatred at Voldemort, as he flicked across to her, stepping forward, and prompting Bill's knuckles to whiten around his wand as he stood in front of her. Had Harry been able to see Voldemort's face, he would have seen his smile at its widest yet, as his crimson eyes flickered between the two, taunting Ginny, and challenging Bill. He wheeled around, and Harry once again clamped his eyes shut, as Voldemort stepped away, still murmuring.

"He never loved you, girl. He used you. And now he's dead," he said simply, as Harry's insides began to burn. There was a vague whispering sensation in his head, but he paid it no heed, taking it for whispers among the Death Eaters behind him, and watching on in horror as the Dark Lord turned again, pointing his wand at Ginny. Bill snapped. Before anyone could stop him, his wand was up and aimed at Voldemort.

And then, just as quickly, he had tumbled to the ground again. No-one had heard the curse – there was nothing to hear, it was non-verbal – but several shrieks rang out and the onlookers began to murmur again, as Bellatrix smirked, her wand still giving out a few puffs of orange smoke. Bill was lying, limp as a ragdoll, at the foot of the stairs, but personally, Harry was relieved – at least she hadn't used the Killing Curse.

His relief was short-lived, however. Voldemort ignored Bill's lifeless form entirely, and instead fixed his gaze – and his wand – on Ginny. A moment later, there was a flash of red light, and he muttered the second-worst words Harry could have heard: "Crucio."

Ginny crumpled backwards, like Bill, but still very much conscious. For the first few moments, he could see the same defiant spark he'd seen in Neville's eyes, as she tried not to scream, not to cry, not to give the Death Eaters any satisfaction. As the torture persisted, however, she finally broke, and shrieked aloud. The other onlookers – and the Weasleys in particular – began to boil over with rage, and both Arthur and Ron seemed to be itching to take some form of revenge. Harry, however, was trying to block the noise out. It was painful, heart-wrenchingly painful, and he would have given anything not to hear her screams of pain. He resorted to trying – still very conscious not to move, or give away his secret – to listen to anything else, any other sound, any other voice but hers.

The whispering in his head, which he had put down to the Death Eaters behind him, was still going, and he latched onto it, trying with all his might to listen to those voices, and not to Ginny's. And then, with a stomach-churning moment of realisation, he found that the whispers really weren't coming from the Death Eaters. He was sure no Death Eater sounded like Albus Dumbledore.

"Do not pity the dead, Harry. Pity the living, and above all, those who live without love," said the murmuring voice inside his head. After a moment's confusion, Harry began to realise – they weren't new voices as such, they were memories. But how could that be possible? Was it normal to hear memories involuntarily? He forced himself to look back at Ginny, as Dumbledore's warning resonated throughout his mind. She turned over, screamed again, and Harry's heart began to pound in his chest, as the spectral Dumbledore continued, "By returning, you may ensure that fewer souls are maimed, fewer families are torn apart..."

The voice was fading now, but the whisper was not alone. Others came rushing up into his head, as if vying for his attention, and quite suddenly, Sybil Trelawney's entranced voice streamed into his hearing, in perfect clarity, "the Dark Lord will mark him as his equal, but he will have power the Dark Lord knows not," she said, "and either must die at the hand of the other for neither can live while the other survives..."

Looking up, he saw Voldemort's wand withdraw back, saw a momentary pang of relief on Ginny's face, then saw the wand plunge forward again with another scream and another flash. Now, his heart seemed to be pounding against his ribs, the red mist beginning to descend, as another voice filled his head, and his blood ran cold. The same voice had haunted his nightmares for as long as he could remember, had burned in his mind even whilst he was awake, and now it spoke to him, with the same, taunting words he had heard uttered over countless murders, over countless horrors he had been forced to watch in his mind's eye.

"You know the words..." Harry clamped his eyes tight shut as his mind began to blaze. When he opened them again, the scene was the same – Voldemort, wand raised, smiling maliciously as Ginny – his Ginny, he said to himself, with an odd pang of painful love – writhed on the floor, screaming again, as her friends watched on, every one of them fighting the urge to strike back.

" 'needs a powerful bit of magic behind it," barked the impostor Moody, his words etching themselves into Harry's mind. Harry was trembling, partly out of fury, and partly out of fear – he didn't know why the memories were surfacing now, but he knew what they meant. As if to confirm it, a woman's voice, high-pitched and malicious, burst into his ears.

"You need to mean them, Potter," cackled Lestrange, as clearly as when he had first heard it. He had made up his mind. He couldn't just sit back and watch this, couldn't just let him torture her... Just as he was on the point of leaping up, a small, rather Hermione-liked voice muttered in his ear, not a memory, but a new thought. "What about the snake?" it whispered. Harry's heart stopped, and his eyes flickered across to Nagini. He couldn't finish Voldemort while Nagini lived, and he had no way of killing it... His emerald eyes flashed painfully over Ginny, as she was given another reprieve, then hit for a third time, this time sliding down a couple of steps as she began to sob. Every onlooker had their wand out now, and they all seemed ready to strike, except for petrified Neville, who was – wait, was Neville staring at him?

Harry's eyes now span around to Neville, and that simple movement made the other boy's own eyes bulge. It seemed nothing short of a miracle – Neville had the sword, he was right next to the snake, but, oh yes, he was petrified. "Fat lot of good that does you," mocked his common sense, as his ears tried once again to block out Ginny's screams. He was sure the torture had only been going on for a minute or so, but it had seemed like hours... Finally, just as his brain had given up, a voice came drifting up, once again. Harry tried to block it out, until he began to listen, and heard his own voice enter the conversation – for this was definitely a conversation.

"I meant to let him kill me!"

"And that will, I think, have made all the difference."

"Explain," the spectral Harry said, although the very-real, very-corporeal Harry in the courtyard thought he knew already, and if he was right... his heart was hammering very hard at the prospect.

"But you already know..." and he certainly did. As if to confirm his suspicions, his eyes fell back on Neville, whose fingers began to twitch around the hilt of Gryffindor's sword.

"I let him kill me," surmised the spectral Harry, as Neville and Harry stared right at each other. Neville, it seemed, had noticed the curse's lessening effects. Harry's heart was still pounding, and his ears were still ringing with screams as the Death Eaters, ever so slowly, began to laugh in unison at the girl writhing on the steps. Carefully, cautiously, he looked Neville in the face and mouthed just three words, as clearly as he could:

Kill the snake.

Neville nodded, and his eyes bulged as he found that he could nod. His fingers tightened once again around the sword's hilt, and Harry saw his arm twitch ever so slightly as his muscles took up the slack from the curse. Harry's own arm slid, inch by inch, towards his borrowed wand, still tucked into the folds of his robes. To his amazement, the Death Eaters were all too distracted to notice his slight movements, or those of Neville, whose chest began to rise and fall once more as the curse fell away.

As Harry's fingers wrapped gratefully around Malfoy's wand, Voldemort stopped once more, and stepped back. There was pure hatred on the face of each defender as Ginny slumped, whimpering ever so slightly, drifting in and out of consciousness as, in a curious contrast, Bill began to stir, the effects of Bellatrix's curse finally fading too. Unfortunately for Harry, while his and Neville's recoveries had gone unnoticed, even the triumphant Voldemort couldn't fail to notice Bill wake, right under his nose. From behind, Harry couldn't see the look of dull realisation play across the Dark Lord's face. He knew enough about the "old magic" to know how Harry had been protected – in fact, Harry had told him how himself – and the first fragment of a suspicion was growing in his mind.

Harry's gaze shot back to Neville; he widened his eyes meaningfully, and Neville nodded sombrely, drawing a few murmurs from some of the more attentive Death Eaters, and a low hiss from Nagini. The huge serpent tensed, and the muscles in her torso crushed hard against Longbottom's ribs, but he managed to stifle his yells of pain. Instead, he clasped both hands on the ruby-studded hilt of Godric Gryffindor's sword, raised it high above his head and, before any of the Death Eaters could cast a spell to stop him, brought it crashing down.

Voldemort seemed to shriek from the moment the silver blade hit Nagini's head. To Neville's credit, he had aimed well. Nagini's head, which had been hovering over his stomach, was impaled on the sword, as dark, thick, crimson blood spilled out, staining the sword and drenching Neville's hands as he continued, plunging the sword through several coils of serpentine torso until the snake's dead weight fell away to the floor, and the sword slid free. Voldemort was spitting with rage, and set off towards Neville, wand raised, but Harry was filled with courage anew. He knew why his nemesis was so angry – the final Horcrux was gone. Now, it was down to simple mortality, and the whispers had given Harry an answer to that. The venomous hiss returned, deep within the recesses of his mind, and as Harry's eyes flicked from Neville, to the amazed onlookers, and finally to Ginny, limp and fragile, lying broken on the steps, they hissed the familiar words...

"You know the spell, Harry..."

There was a fresh gasp from both sides as Harry rose to his feet. Only two people didn't see it – Ginny, who was drifting into unconsciousness again, and Lord Voldemort himself, who, blinded by fury, was still set on his course for Neville, raising his wand as Harry watched on.

"It's over, Tom," he shouted, and now Voldemort saw him. His legs were still pacing furiously towards Neville, but his head and torso twisted as his flat, featureless face became a mask of horror and disbelief. Neither the defenders nor the Death Eaters had managed to draw their wands, transfixed with shock as they were, but Harry had his own, borrowed wand trained firmly over the pale form of Lord Voldemort.

Before anyone could react, they had locked together – in his rage, Harry wasn't even sure what spell he had cast – whatever it was, a stream of red light had erupted from his own wand, and met the stream of familiar green from Voldemort's with a loud crack, and a rumble like thunder. The spectators on both sides were stunned – no-one spoke, no-one intervened, they all merely watched the two combatants, who had fixed each other with murderous stares. Little bolts of white-gold lightning were erupting from the blaze where the two spells met, as they circled slightly, counter-clockwise, and Harry subconsciously brought himself closer to Ginny and the defenders on the stairs.

The golden blaze was intensifying now, shifting several inches either way and continuing to spit out lightning and bursts of light. There was a vague golden glow in the air, forming a ring around the two wizards that no-one wanted to cross. Harry gripped his wand tightly, focusing every ounce of his being on the golden flames, and sure enough, they began to shift, several feet towards Voldemort and the Elder Wand, as his crimson eyes shone with real fear, reflecting the flames in front of him. Another bolt of lightning, the largest yet, forked out and smashed into the courtyard wall, scattering bits of stone masonry to the floor, as several people screamed. Harry could see the red light from his own wand lengthening, as his opponent's green shortened, inch by inch, the golden inferno shifting closer and closer to the tip of his wand...

Harry didn't know how long the exchange continued – it felt like hours, but could have been mere moments – but now, the red cord of light from his wand was flickering, a fraction of an inch from the Elder Wand's tip. Every slight, nervous movement of Harry's hand made the cord wobble and twist, and, finally, as the golden flames began to shimmer over Voldemort's hands, he raised his wand, and then brought it down in a single, fluid motion, watching as the cord snaked, then smashed into the ground with a cataclysmic bang.

The golden glow in the air dissipated, as a roaring shockwave shot outwards from somewhere between Harry and Voldemort. At the same time, the Elder Wand lurched out of Voldemort's hands, flipping through the air and clattering down on the stone floor, several feet behind him.

"It's over, Tom," Harry repeated, panting heavily. The snake-like face barely registered his words, as Harry's heart filled with hatred, and thoughts of vengeance, as he looked down at the man who had killed his parents, who had brought so much misery to so many good people. He did know the spell, and he knew what the memories were saying, what his own mind was telling him to do...

He stole one more painful glance at Ginny, and his gaze hardened. Before anyone could stop him, before he could even doubt himself or his own strength, the two fateful little words had slipped from between his lips, to dance in the cold night air.

"Avada Kedavra."