It all came to a head on Halloween, just like it always had. That particular October had actually been unusually calm, with few Death Eater raids and no trouble at all from the Unspeakables, and Harry knew, without a doubt, that it was not going to last. And he also could not help but feel like all the bad luck and the bad things scheduled for that particular October were being saved up, all for one day. He would, in time, be proved right, but for now it was only a vague forboding. Besides, there wasn't much he could do to prepare, as he didn't know exactly what was coming, though he and the other members of the Golden Trio did their best to prepare. He, Ron, and Hermione helped Professor Snape dispose of the last horcruxes, (well, except for Nagini, as they didn't have access to her) but other than that, all they could do was revise their defense and healing spells and simply bide their time, and he was growing horribly tense from the waiting, itching to do something, to make some sort of preemptive strike. Harry, Hermione, Ron, Ginny, and Neville, who they had decided to allow into their confidence, partook in restless duels that were more just to expel their ceaseless nervous tension then to actually train, as they knew each other so well by now that dueling each other was not really the best way to get better. Hermione went off and consulted with the Gryffindor, Ravenclaw, and Hufflepuff upper year girls for hours, coming back with new ideas to implement, should the Death Eaters start something, though of the Slytherins, only Daphne Greengrass was willing to talk battle tactics with a mudblood. Harry informally drilled the first years as to what to do during an attack, and took it upon himself to keep a very close eye on the wannabee Death Eaters in Slytherin. Harry practiced defense with Professor Snape, even learning how to cast fiendfyre, so that he would have a way to destroy Nagini if he somehow did not have access to basilisk venom or the Sword of Gryffindor. Meanwhile, Ron was writing up battle plans on thick drawing paper, and Neville was making preparations that he refused to tell the others about, dorm-mates or no.

Harry couldn't help thinking it would be inadequate. They would potentially be facing fully grown and trained Death Eaters, and Merlin knew what, beside, and somehow he didn't think that kiddy jinxes would work too well against them. And, as if calculated to add to his anxiety (and it probably was) why were the Unspeakables suddenly so quiet? He had assumed they'd back down a little, to get their bearings (he had, after all, banished one of their number somewhere- he actually still didn't know where, as he'd been acting on sheer panic when he had done it- and that wasn't something the most powerful and dangerous department of the ministry was likely to advertise, even if they knew) but he would have expected that they would be coming back with a vengeance, not...this. Surely he hadn't actually intimidated them that much, he, Harry Potter, who, while famous and admittedly powerful was physically about as scary as a beanie baby? And- this thought scared him more than he was willing to admit- if he had, what would they do to him now that they thought him a threat? Harry gulped and went back to the Defense Text that he had been trying to read over all afternoon.

Surprisingly, however, Halloween day itself proved to be, at first, exactly like all the other crisp autumn days that had come before it. Aside from a pop quiz in Transfiguration, which Harry aced anyway, nothing unexpected had happened, and by lunch, Harry was tentatively hoping that Voldemort would skip this year, even if it meant that the Light would have to then wait for the other shoe to drop.

By that afternoon, he was growing more and more apprehensive. Tiring of trying to play Gobstones and Exploding Snap in the common room to drain his nervous tension, he took a walk through the halls of Hogwarts with Ron and Hermione, poking around in old classrooms and secret passageways for old times' sake, and finally, as Ron's stomach started to growl, the kitchens, as there was still an hour left to go before it was time for supper. Then they made their way to the Rooms of Requirement for a quick duel.

At least, that was what they had planned. They made their way up to the seventh floor via the various corridors and moving staircases, and they had just entered the corridor where the entrance to the Rooms of Requirement were, when they heard voices up ahead, voices that most definitely did not sound like students. Harry hastily drew his invisibility cloak out of a pocket and threw it over them, but they were far from first years, now, and even with Hermione's hasty wordless notice-me-not, they were not fast enough to hide without a scuffle of feet, and a harsh voice ahead of them called out, "Who's there!"

Oh, great. Harry recognized that voice; it was one of the Lestrange brothers. How had they got into the castle?! Harry's silent question was answered, moments later, when a party of some forty Death Eaters and a vanguard of dark creatures led by a smirking, pug-nosed Pansy Parkinson and Draco's old bodyguards from back when he ran in Death Eater circles, rounded the corner.

"Run!" Ron hissed, and then they were bolting in a zig-zag down the corridor, still partially concealed by the shimmering notice-me-not, although the cloak could not cover them all at once now they were running, and Harry lost valuable time having to shake the gleaming fabric from off his head, as the hood, now crooked, was covering his face. The Death Eaters followed, cursing, but the Golden Trio had had quite a lot of practice running from nasties of all sorts and descriptions, and so, although Ron took a cutting curse to the shoulder, they escaped quickly down one of the passages marked on the Marauders' Map, leaving the Death Eaters to rush on by outside. Once safely ensconced in their hiding spot, Hermione rummaged in her pockets and drew out her DA galleon, changing the usual message on it to read "Approx. 50 DE's + allies invading via. ROR. Need backup; tell adults."

Harry, meanwhile, opened up the mental link with professor Snape. "PROFESSOR!"

"What is it, Harry?"

"Pansy Parkinson let in a bunch of Death Eaters and dark creatures via. the vanishing cabinet in the Rooms of Requirement! Please tell Dumbledore; we're hiding from them in the secret passageway behind the portrait of Harald Hardrada and the manticore right now."

"WHAT?!"

"Yes; we've alerted the DA- that's the Defense study group I led last year- but there were no Slytherins or staff who know about that, so you'll have to warn the Light-side snakes and the teachers."

"Very well; stay safe, defend yourself, and don't lose your head. I'm going to mute the link so that we don't distract one-another."

"'Kay." Harry cut the link. "Right," he said out loud to his friends. "Professor Snape knows. We've got to get out of here and rally the DA; the teachers will probably be thinking about getting the lower forms to safety and neutralizing the wannabee Death Eaters right now."

"There are still Death Eaters out there," protested Ron.

"And I'm a phoenix animagus." Harry stuffed his cloak back into his pocket along with his wand. "I'll flash you guys to the Gryffindor common room. Grab my tail feathers and hold your breath; it's just like flooing." Harry told them, and transformed.

Ron and Hermione grabbed his tail feathers at once, Ron gripping them especially tight with shaking fingers; Harry had never flashed them before, but now was not the time to worry about that. The world dissolved into eye-searing electric blues, and then reformed, and they were in the common room. The other students gasped. They were even more shocked when Hermione opened her mouth.

"Death Eaters, in the school!" she panted, swaying to keep upright as the excessive heat of flaming wore off. "First through third years, you've got to either stay here or help Madame Pomfrey. Fourth years and up, if you can and want to fight, come with us; if not, stay in the common room and make sure the Death Munchers don't get in here!"

"What the heck?! Who died and made you Professor Dumbledore?" burst out one of the seventh years.

"No time for that!" Harry barked, having transformed, and everyone gaped at him. "The school is under attack; do what she says unless a teacher says otherwise! This isn't a game!"

On hearing their "savior" say these words, the last dissenters subsided, and Harry began to round the children up into a group of general fighters like he had in DA, making sure one of those he had taught before or someone he knew could fight was in the head of each group, and making sure that none of the third years were included. Then he popped everyone who wanted to work in the infirmary into the hospital wing in a series of short flames, thoroughly startling Madame Pomfrey in the process, and unwittingly earning himself the awe and adoration of many a firstie. Within only fifteen minutes, a considerably more tired Harry had flamed the last batch of students to the hospital wing, Ron had organized all the willing students into fighting units of four with one DA member as leader, a student good at healing, and two others, and Hermione was soothing the frightened firsties and making sure that they had defenders and comforters.

And then they really, truly went to war.

Whatever Voldemort and his forces might have suspected, it was evidently not this. All the older students who could fight did, and even Parvati and Lavender gave their all, throwing crystal balls from Trelawny's Tower, charmed to be unbreakable and extra heavy, at the Death Eaters from above, and Neville set up traps of baby mandrakes, baby whomping willows in pots, eros orchids, which secreted an overpowering perfume, Sagittus spinifora, or archery plant, and Mimbulus mimbletonia, as had apparently been his secret plan. And Harry would never look down at girls who spent all their time putting on makeup again after the things he saw Cho and Padma do with blush, charmed mascara, and overpowered leg-shaving spells! The DA, especially, worked like a single unit, stunning and binding Death Eaters right alongside the professors, and before long, the numbers of the Death Eaters had vastly decreased, even more so since about half of the (mostly younger) Slytherins were fighting on the side of the Light.

Harry was actually growing rather hopeful that they would come out of this with no casualties, when all of a sudden a chill swept the hall, and icy smoke began to swell up. Voldemort and his reinforcements had arrived, and there were far, far more of them than there were even students in the castle, much less students able to fight. Dementors swept forward, trailing their ragged cloaks in silence and despair, while behind them ranged vampires, covered in heavy sunscreen charms, a group of terrifying-looking men in ragged clothes who appeared to be Greyback's clan, and even a pair of chained dragons! Oh, damn, that might be a problem. And, which was more, behind them stalked Lord Voldemort himself.

The fighting broke out again, more virulent than ever, and, overlaying it all, an all-pervading sense of utter nihilism came over the fighters of the Light as the dementors approached. Harry, who had been dueling with a pair of minor Death Eaters, back to back with Ginny, (he had not yet caught sight of Nagini) fell back, but as it happened, the Death Eaters themselves were overcome as well, giving Harry and Ginny the respite needed to cast their patronuses. Ginny managed hers first, as she was not hearing the screams of all the people whom she had ever failed, and a gorgeous silver horse trotted into the hall, driving the dementors back away from the other students, and giving Harry the strength to cast his own, which burst from the tip of his wand in a dazzle of gold and tore apart the nearest dementors, causing the Dark forces to back away in shock and horror and the defenders, except for the well-trained DA, to falter in shock. Before long, the dementors were nothing more than bits of bone and ragged cloth, releasing the souls that they had consumed in a wave of white light, and about half of the Death Eaters were retreating, while Voldemort, nearly foaming at the mouth in his rage, shoved his way through Death Eaters and defenders alike to attack Harry. Before he had gotten half-way there, though, Professor Dumbledore engaged him in combat again, and the hall dissolved into turbulence once more.

Despite the ever-replenishing dark forces, it was clear from this moment on which side the battle was weighted on. Cho and Marietta, with terrifyingly accurate teamwork, were blasting vampires with finite encantems and tanning charms, turning them into powdery white ash that covered the floor and made everyone cough. Professor Mcgonagall took on Greyback, killing him with a transfigured silver knife to the head. Neville faced Bellatrix Lestrange herself, white-faced and trembling from rage as much as fear, and cast a cutting curse that disfigured her beautiful but maddened features forever, blinding one of her eyes before she caught him with an incendio that made his wand-arm unusable and fled. Flitwick took down the Carrows, one after the other, before having to be portkeyed hastily to the hospital wing, while the youthful version of Professor Dumbledore kept up perfectly with Voldemort, their duel almost more like an elaborate choreography than an actual fight in it's skill, speed, and sheer impressiveness. And still Harry hunted for Nagini, pausing on the way to help Lavender knock out Jugson and tie him to one of the chairs at Hufflepuff table, and having to be saved himself by Professor Sprout as one of the untransformed werewolves got too close. And then, at last, Harry caught sight of Voldemort's last horcrux, slithering though the battle.

In an instant, Harry was running, slipping on gore and on the hair of one of the fallen Slytherins as he made his way towards the snake, wand in hand. Oh, Merlin, the end was in sight! The snake reared up with a terrifying hiss, made more terrifying by the translation: "~I will swallow you and digest you in pieces, enemy of my master~" -what an inopportune time to learn that he was still a parselmouth!- but Harry only caught her with a wave of fiendfyre that made both Light and Dark sides stare-not just that the 'Chosen One' could cast it, but that he could control it- and within minutes she was a smoking mess of scales and cooked snake's meat, the horcrux dying with her, it's inhuman scream mingling with her agonized hissing into a sound that made even the Death Eaters clap their hands to their ears. But it didn't matter, because Voldmort's last anchor to immortality was destroyed.

Voldemort's scream of pain and rage was worse even than Nagini's. A wave of frothing Dark accidental magic knocked Professor Dumbledore flat on his back, and then Voldemort was charging straight at Harry though the mailström of combatants, and Harry had a moment to think "this is it, then," before the Dark wizard was upon him.

The duel was fast, furious, and charged with so much magic that it literally flowed off of both of them, filling the air with black smog and sapphire sparks. Harry shot off as many spells as he could think of, ranging from pitifully inadequate Light jinxes to some of the dark magic that he had seen used in his visions and read about in Professor Snape's private library, when the man would let him. Voldemort, in turn, cast a lot of Dark things that Harry had never heard of and probably couldn't even pronounce, given the chance; the only thing he was sure about was that he mustn't let the spells hit him. A few did, breaking through powerful defenses fueled by phoenix magic, and before long Harry was bleeding in multiple places, and his phoenix instinct and intuition was aching from all the dark magic. He knew instinctively, with that terrible phoenix power that had never failed him before, that all the magical strength and skill he could summon up would not be enough, not against this creature with an inordinately powerful wand at his command, and fifty-four more years of experience in the Dark Arts and combat magic than Harry had. And that was when three things happened in such quick succession that no intervention was possible, even by magic: a blazing spear of green light shot straight at Harry's unprotected chest, Hermione cried a warning, and a figure in voluminous black robes lunged in between Harry and the killing curse and fell in silence.