2 How It All Began

Battle for Hogwarts.

These are just three words, but so much behind them! The final battle of the Second Magical War, in which all the forces fighting on the side of the Dark Lord Voldemort and the forces fighting against him came together.

Voldemort feared death, very much so. And to avoid it, he created Horcruxes - anchors for his soul, binding it to earthly existence. Harry, the child doomed by prophecy to defeat the Dark Lord or die, had to destroy all the shards of his soul and make the Dark Lord an ordinary mortal man, depriving him of the possibility of rebirth. He, his best and part-time first mate Ron Weasley, and their friend Hermione Granger set out to find and destroy the Horcruxes together. You could say they were lucky, two Horcruxes, Tom Marvolo Riddle Diary and Marvolo Gaunt's Ring, had been destroyed before their search. But first, the boys needed to find out where the others were hidden and what they were. Thanks to Hermione's wits and Harry's connection to Voldemort, the Salazar Medallion of Slytherin, Helga's Cup of Hufflepuff, and Rowena's Diadem of Claw were found. And then there was only one left, and that was the Snake Nagini. Her destruction became the priority of Harry and his friends.

But Lord Voldemort also knew that the boy was destroying his Horcruxes, for he could feel his power becoming less and less, and only one thought was beating in his brain: "To live!". After the dark mage felt the destruction of the diadem, he realized that death was already behind him. To get rid of his main enemy, Voldemort went for a trick - he withdrew his troops and, using Sonorus, spoke:

"You fought bravely. Lord Voldemort knows how to appreciate courage. However, you have suffered heavy losses. If you continue to resist me, you will all die one by one. I don't want that. Every drop of magical blood spilled is a waste and a loss. Lord Voldemort is merciful. I'm ordering my troops to retreat immediately. I give you one hour. Bid farewell to your dead with dignity. Give aid to your wounded."

Wishing to finally get rid of the threat from Harry Potter and believing that the death of the Chosen One would deprive the castle defenders of the will to resist, Voldemort issued an ultimatum. Already to Harry Potter himself.

 "Now, I'm addressing you directly, Harry Potter. You let your friends die for you instead of facing me face to face. I will wait for you in the Forbidden Forest for this hour. If at the end of the hour, you do not come to me and surrender yourself to me, the battle will begin again. This time I will go into battle myself, Harry Potter, and find you. I will punish every single man, woman, and child who helped you hide from me. So, one hour."

In pursuit of the snake, the boys witnessed the murder of Professor Snape, who had managed to give them his memories. If earlier for Harry the main goal was the snake, then in time to view Snape's memories, Potter learned that he was another, accidental Horcrux and that his death is necessary if he wants to defeat Voldemort. So Harry decided to volunteer to die, hoping that someone else would take down the Dark Lord when he became a mere mortal. On his way to the Forbidden Forest, where Voldemort's "headquarters" was located, he met Neville Longbottom, his classmate and very good friend. Asking him, if given the opportunity, to kill Nagini. Potter didn't explain why, just asked him to do it.

Harry Potter was ready to die so that Voldemort would stop killing and torturing people. He had come to the Dark Lord's camp willingly, and quite consciously put himself under his deadly spell.

- Avada Kedavra: just two words, and Voldemort, unknowingly, brought himself one step closer to death. Fate seemed to mock him - again, as on 31 October 1981, Voldemort, frozen with a wand that points at a defenseless boy, just one killing spell and, instead of his enemy, as on that fateful night, one foot in the grave is the Dark Lord himself.

 Harry survived. He had survived the death curse again, something no one had ever done before. And found himself at the center of the final battle. Two sworn enemies. Two people whose life paths had been so similar as children, and so different now, frozen against each other.

 Swish!

 The green beam of Voldemort's spell and the red of Potter's Expelliarmus met in the center of the huge arc that bound the two wands together. The force of the killing Avada was gradually pushing through the disarming spell, and now, as the green beam almost touched Harry's wand...

- Aah!" was Neville's battle cry as he cut off the snake's head a moment before it attacked the cornered Ron and Hermione.

 ...the green beam was about to touch Harry's wand when suddenly Voldemort was struck by a flash of intense pain, causing him to lose control of the spell, and it dissipated before it reached Potter. The bright beam of the spell blinked and disintegrated.

That's it, he's lost his last Horcrux. No more strength. The only thing on his mind is how to survive...

In the last swing, two beams of the same spell met in the center... From the first seconds, the red beam began to overwhelm the green one, reached the Lord, and disarmed him. After that, Voldemort began to disintegrate before his eyes, but there were no cries of pain or verbal abuse. The only thing that showed Harry's success was his opponent's face contorted in pain.

- You've lost, boy. You'll realize it in time, but it'll be too late.

The last words of the strongest Dark Lord of this century dissolved into space, and their master disappeared, utterly and irrevocably.

 Harry was about to pass out when he heard it:

- Thank you for everything, my boy, but your work is done," an unknown spell flew into his back, and Harry felt his hands and feet start to get cold. He managed to look behind him before he passed out, and what the teenager saw startled him enough that he couldn't utter a word. Nor, for that matter, to think about it...