DISCLAIMER:
See
A/N: When I first
posted this
chapter in the original story, some people guessed my sources of
influence to
be things like “Star Wars,” “Anastasia,” some of the James Bond movies…
Nice guesses, but those weren’t among
them.
Also, sorry about the
multitude of
quotes below, except I liked them too much, and they were all fitting.
CHAPTER 48: FULFILLING DESTINY
“I have not yet begun to fight!” –John
Paul Jones
“...For neither can live while the other
survives...” –Professor Trelawny, Harry Potter
and
the Order of the Phoenix, by J.K. Rowling
“Why can’t you just be a good boy and
die?” “You first.” -Alec Trevelyan and
James Bond, 007: Goldeneye
“Everything that has a beginning has an
end.” -The
Oracle, Matrix Revolutions
“Enough! Now if I say you’re the damn
One, then
you’re the damn One!” –The Oracle, Scary Movie 3 (Deleted scene)
Magni saepe duces,
magni cecidere
tyranny. Often have mighty
leaders (and) mighty tyrants come to
ruin. –Propertius, Elegiae
(2.8.9)
After Voldemort’s
sleek
personal transport had been destroyed, he felt himself to be extremely
lucky
not to have been caught in the explosion. Of course, the prophecy
stated that
only Potter could kill him, but that didn’t put any limit on the damage
that
could be caused on him.
Voldemort’s Serpentine Army was now being utterly
eviscerated, with
the last few scaly monsters being picked off by the Light’s forces,
whose
renewed strength was becoming relentless.
Then again, Voldemort
privately reminded himself, they were mainly shock troops to scare the
Light
side, meant to cause as much damage as he possibly could. Without
Potter in the
way, no one could stop him anyway.
Speaking of which, the aforementioned
teenager was
now standing a few hundred yards away, killing some of those remaining
monsters.
It was time to fulfill the prophecy and
complete
his destiny.
After nearly two decades of struggle and
hard
work, Voldemort would finally be able to
kill Harry
Potter.
~*~*~*~
Harry was killing these last monsters by
himself
with absurd ease, destroying them anyway possible. The fact that it was
late at
night didn’t stop him; magical floodlights from the towers were helping
to
illuminate the grounds. A few people on SkyFoxes
were
circling, but upon seeing that Harry had the situation under control,
they left
him to it.
In fact, the pilots, along with the
people from
the towers, were starting to cheer his name.
“Harry! Harry! Harry!”
Harry gave no sign that he heard them,
since he
was still angry with them. His anger was at odds with his honor; on one
hand,
some of them had betrayed them, and on the other hand, he had to kill Voldemort, which went hand in hand with
defending them. As
they rushed onto the grounds, helping kill the last of the monsters, he
went
off in search of Voldemort.
~*~*~*~
After all of the students had been
safely
reorganized, the entire student body (including those on the SkyFoxes, which dismounted them, took back their
wands, and
gave the SkyFoxes to backup Aurors),
plus the staff (minus Snape, who was still
missing
somewhere), retreated down to a giant room, where Dumbledore gathered
them for
an announcement.
“Students and staff,” the old wizard
said, “The Aurors are rounding up and
killing the last of the
monsters, so there is no need for any of us to risk having to go back
out to
kill them ourselves. However, Voldemort-”
collective
shudder “-is still out on the grounds, and we need to leave it to Harry
to kill
him. And before anyone asks, yes, Harry has to do it, since he has the
ability
to accomplish this.
“Furthermore, I would like to say right
now that I
have never been prouder of all of you, regardless of whatever House you
may be
in.” As the students turned to each other and muttered, Dumbledore
elaborated,
“Never before has Hogwarts needed to call upon its own students to
assist with
defending the school itself. And of the different virtues that each
House
prizes, there is no one virtue that was used in defending the castle,
especially against the Serpentine Colossus. Every student here was able
to use
all the different virtues that the Founders prized. Gryffindor or not,
you used
bravery to face your fears. Hufflepuff or
not, you
cooperated with everyone to accomplish you goal. Ravenclaw
or not, you used wisdom to figure out how to make it work. Slytherin
or not, you kept your determination to see your goal through to the
end.
Basically, anyone could do well in any
House, but with varying degrees of
success, which, of course, is why the Sorting Hat chooses the best
House for
each arriving student.
“In a strange and unexpected kind of
way, it took
a threat to this school to help achieve some sense of Inter-House
Unity. Often,
one needs to witness something bad in order to appreciate how good
something
else can be.
“For now, you all need to stay here. But
in the
meantime, relax knowing that Voldemort
will not be
able to enter this castle, and that two hundred points have been
awarded to
each House for the students’ collective efforts.” As
everyone
talked to each other some more, Dumbledore left to talk to the other
teachers.
However, no one noticed that one other
student was
missing: Ginny.
~*~*~*~
It took an hour or two, but Harry spied Voldemort hiding on one of the mountains
surrounding
Hogwarts. With a shrill blast of phoenix music, Harry dove in on him,
flying
faster than his own Firebolt. Voldemort
ducked, but not fast enough, for Harry sliced at the Dark wizard with
his
phoenix claws.
Voldemort recoiled, howling in pain, and Harry didn’t
wait around
for Voldemort to strike back. He
transformed on
midair, and dropped on Voldemort as a
powerful lion,
striking and slashing. With his partial snake-like physique, Voldemort was able to wrench himself loose, but
not before
Harry clawed the Dark wizard in a few various places, topping it all
off with
leaving four identical gashes on Voldemort’s
face.
As Harry landed deftly a few feet away, Voldemort faced him, one of the ugliest looks
ever on his
face. Before Harry’s eyes, the claw marks vanished instantly, due to
some
instant healing ability that Voldemort had
achieved
through his latest experiments in Dark magic.
“We cross paths yet again, Potter,” he
snarled.
“Care to duel? Or would you rather not, owing to the connection between
our
wands?”
“Oh no, I’d rather not duel you,” Harry
replied in
an evenly hard tone. “I’d rather just kill you and be done with it,
because
since you’re going to try to kill me anyway you can, I might as well
just fight
back.”
As much as Voldemort
didn’t want to admit it, he could feel some apprehension at the sight
of this
young man. He seemed to be even stronger than when he was first
imprisoned in
Azkaban, and he now exuded an aura of strength, solidity, and
fearlessness.
Potter had hardly ever shown fear of his nemesis, and it now seemed
practically
non-existent. This new Harry Potter was not the same person he was
before.
“Your reign of terror and fear ends
tonight,
Riddle,” Harry said, his eyes glowing with some unearthly
determination.
“You’ve run around unchecked for too long. Time
for me to put
a stop to that.”
“I could say the same to you, you young
fool,” Voldemort scoffed. “You and your
foolish, liberal views
about mixed blood and equal rights.”
“You think it’s about what I believe
in?” Harry
asked incredulously as though his lifelong nemesis was being stupid. “Hardly. As much as I
disagree with your
radical views, that’s hardly why I fight you.” As he finished
his
sentence, Harry lunged in, he roared, “STUPEFY!”
Ever since his rumble with Umbridge
and her goons in Diagon Alley the previous
summer,
his power had been growing at quite an astonishing rate; he just needed
to know
how to harness it and use it to its optimum efficiency. The Stunner he
now
fired knocked Voldemort clear off his feet
and made
the Dark wizard dizzy, but didn’t knock him out.
Shaking it off, Voldemort
shouted, “IMPERIO!” He knew that Harry could resist the Imperius Curse, but it was still worth a try.
Voldemort’s evil glee quickly turned into confusion when
Harry
cancelled it by shouting an unfamiliar spell. “Solvo!”
“What in Slytherin’s
name did you just do!?” Voldemort shouted,
unable to
believe his eyes.
“I countered the Imperius
Curse, you idiot,” Harry said smoothly.
Roaring with anger, Voldemort
countered, “But I know you can’t resist this! CRUCIO!”
Once again, Harry was prepared. “Mulceo!” The
incoming red light of the Cruciatus Curse
was instantly gone.
Voldemort knew that using the Killing Curse like he did
the first
time he attacked Harry might not work, given their bond, so he instead
pondered
how his young enemy could possibly counter the lesser two Unforgivable
Curses.
“Dare I ask where you even learned those
spells?” Voldemort asked shiftily.
“None of your damn business,” Harry
spat. “Why
would you even to know? It’s not as though you’ll even need to use
them.”
“Too noble to use
Unforgivable
Curses, Potter?” Voldemort
sneered.
“No,” Harry smirked. “I don’t even need
to use
them.”
Voldemort could tell that Harry wasn’t bluffing. Now Voldemort
was worried, as little as he wanted to admit that. What new skills
could this
young man have possibly picked up during his disappearance after Snape rescued him?
“If that’s the case...” Voldemort
said, gripping his wand, “I’m sure you won’t have any problems demonstrating them!”
With that, Voldemort
lunged, shouting several spells and curses continuously. Dark magic
beyond
Harry’s imagination was being used before his very eyes: Shadow
creatures were
formed, explosions went off, he could feel
his own
energy being drained from his body... countless forms of Dark magic
even beyond
his own worst nightmares...
However, one personal rule that Harry
had was
never to give Voldemort satisfaction or
advantages of
any kind whatsoever. Using both modern magic he learned at Hogwarts and
ancient
magic he learned at the Founders’ temple, he counteracted all of the
Dark magic
the best he could. He was constantly on his feet, destroying all the
Dark magic
attacking him from all sides. His heart was pumping, his mind was
racing...
Just for kicks, Voldemort
said, “Stupefy!”
“Protego!” Harry responded instantly before dealing with
another Dark
shadow creature. Much to Voldemort’s great
surprise,
Priori Incantatem did not result; instead,
Voldemort was hit by his own Stunner and
knocked flat on
his back.
“But... how?” Voldemort
wondered out loud. “Our wands are brothers...”
“Not this wand,” Harry smirked while
blowing apart
the last rock monster that was attacking him. “I had Ardeavis
donate his first feather to this new wand. It won’t work this time,
Riddle.”
Snarling, Voldemort
unleashed a blazing spell that rocked the ground. Blinded by the
brilliant
white light, Harry quickly switched on his shades before falling to his
knees.
Using the shades, he could see Voldemort
standing
imperiously over him, wand pointed. “Avada-”
Saving this for last, Harry lunged out
and grabbed
Voldemort by the wrist of the hand holding
the wand. Voldemort screamed in pain as
his flesh smoked and burned,
turning red raw. It was just like five years ago, when he was
possessing Quirrel...
“Expelliarmus!” Voldemort screamed, knocking Harry against the ground.
The Dark
wizard could see that his arm was bruised, and quickly coming up with a
solution, he reached out and collected some of Harry’s blood on his
fingertip.
Harry could see Voldemort
doing this (his shades were now switched off), and he shook with
revulsion as Voldemort’s slimy cold skin
made contact with his own skin.
“‘Blood of the enemy, forcibly retaken,
you will
resurrect your foe,’” Voldemort said,
almost
poetically quoting the Dark ritual from that terrible night at the end
of
Harry’s fourth year. With a gesture that made Harry want to retch, Voldemort licked the finger with the blood, and
as a sickly
red aura surrounded Voldemort. Harry
commented,
“That’s just sick.”
Voldemort chuckled evilly. “No more blood protection,
Potter. Again.” Lifting
his wand again, he lazily intoned, “Negatio
Animagus!”
Harry knew what that meant: He couldn’t
become a
lion or phoenix now. “I learned from what happened when young Theodore
Nott
tried attacking you in
Harry screamed in pain, and his
screaming was
suddenly drowned out as SkyFox missiles
descended
upon Voldemort.
As the Cruciatus
Curse
faded from Harry, he looked up to see a pilot bearing down on Voldemort, with long red hair coming out from
under the
helmet. It was Ginny!
Dive-bombing at Voldemort,
she unloaded her missiles as Harry snatched his wand and got away. Voldemort was only hit by them because he was
taken by
surprise, but once he recovered, he quickly healed himself and sent a
Pulverization Flame Curse at Ginny. She just narrowly avoided it,
although the
tail of her broom caught on that purple fire. Trying to get out of the
way, she
shot upwards and out of sight, landing on an edge with a THUMP that
even Harry
could have heard from down where he was.
Voldemort laughed, and while conjuring tight cords around
Harry,
plus an Anti-Apparation Jinx to cap it all
off, he
said, “I think I’ll have a nice conversation with Miss Weasley
first before I deal with you. After all, the escapade in the Chamber of
Secrets
got cut rather short...” He laughed and vanished.
After a moment, Harry began to hear
Ginny’s
screams and Voldemort’s insane laughing.
Harry
squirmed on the ground, horrible images filling his head and himself
trying to
get free. His wand was only lying a few feet away, and he tried
desperately to
get out of this mess so he could save Ginny...
With each passing moment, with each
tormented
scream and evil laugh, Harry felt the blood pounding in his ears and
his
strength straining to get loose. His anger, his often-used righteous
fury
was trying to get loose...
Somehow, maybe almost subconsciously, he
broke
through the Anti-Apparation Jinx. A moment
later, he
was now on a flat plateau on the side of the mountain, about fifty feet
in
diameter.
Ginny was bound to a rod that was thrust
into the
ground, unable to move as Voldemort
applied cursed
her repeatedly with Dark magic, the latest spell being one used to make
the
victim relive their worst memories, as a dementor
would.
Harry suddenly appeared in the few feet
between Voldemort and Ginny, his facial
expression extremely angry
and his eyes blaze with fury.
Before the Dark wizard could react,
Harry did
something that no one ever tried before: He punched Voldemort
in the face.
The only time Harry had ever done that
to someone
before was when he did it to Sirius, still thinking that his godfather
was
directly responsible for the deaths of his parents. That particular
punch
didn’t even hold a candle to this attack; Harry’s own magic was fueling
his
speed and his strength.
“This is for Ginny!” he yelled as his
fist
connected with Voldemort’s face, making
the Dark
wizard stagger.
Before Voldemort
could
get himself back together, Harry struck again, with two punches to the
chest.
“This is for my mother! My father!”
Harry’s fury was taking over as Voldemort was being thrashed, apparently not
used to being
physically attacked. Two more punches ensued, these considerably warmer
owing
to the fact that his fire abilities were coming into effect. “This is
for
Cedric! This is for Sirius!”
His fire abilities finally “turned on,”
Harry made
one last lunge. “And this is for everyone else!” By now, all
the various
components of his magic were raised to the level where he accomplished
something that was seldom done to Voldemort.
He knocked
Voldemort right off his feet and into the
rock of the
mountain itself, where he disappeared, being several feet into the
mountain
itself.
‘Heh, Voldemort-bashing,’ he quipped to himself as he
started to
calm down. ‘Good stress relief therapy.’
He then remembered Ginny and quickly got
her
loose. After healing her and undoing the restraints and such, he pulled
her off
to the side. “Ginny, are you okay?” he asked worriedly. “Speak to me, please...”
Her eyes rolled in her head as she
moaned
deliriously. “Tom, please, don’t make me go
down
there, no...”
Harry realized with Harry that she was
somehow
reliving her horrible first year, when the diary of Tom Riddle
manipulating her
into doing all the dirty work with the Chamber of Secrets. He put some
more relieving
spells on her before a sudden rumbling from within the mountainside
caught his
attention.
Voldemort blasted his way out of the bedrock, looking
uncharacteristically angry. Has he set his sights on Harry and Ginny,
he
suddenly acquired a new look on his face; a smirk which Harry knew to
mean, “I
have a better idea.”
As Voldemort
calmly
collected himself, about a dozen Death Eaters appeared, spacing
themselves
around the edge of the plateau at equal intervals. Quickly using his Legilimency by making eye contact with the Death
Eaters
through their masks, Harry couldn’t recognize any of them as being
Death Eaters
from
One thing that struck Harry as unusual
was the
fact that Lucius Malfoy
wasn’t there. He knew full well that Malfoy
Sr. held
a very powerful position among Voldemort’s
minions;
so why wasn’t he here as well? (2)
His attention was drawn back to the
present
situation as Voldemort spoke up. “Oh,
don’t worry
about her, Potter. Just leave her on the side while we fight
that
inevitable fight, just like always.”
Harry considered this for a moment, and
then left
her on the side. Voldemort raised an
eyebrow, but
Harry explained, “I only agree on you with that because it’s for her
safety; I
won’t even bother trying to come to an agreement with you, because now
everyone
knows you can’t be trusted.”
Voldemort looked offended for a moment, but seemed to let
it pass.
Ginny seemed to be coming around, but quickly assessing the situation,
she
decided to remain on the side, slowly and quietly recuperating.
Harry stood his ground, standing firm
and strong,
but ready to take a defensive position if he needed to. Voldemort
chuckled evilly to himself. “Always the brave Gryffindor, Harry,” he
scoffed. “Textbook definition of the House.
No matter how much you
indulge yourself in the values of other Houses, whether it be Hufflepuff steadfastness, Ravenclaw
analysis, or even Slytherin
determination-” and here
his tone almost implied that Harry shouldn’t dare be a Slytheirn
in any way, shape, or form, “-you remain a Gryffindor with the usual
philosophies of bravery, courage and nobility.”
Harry cocked his head a little to one
side,
looking almost eager to challenge Voldemort
in this
manner. “You make that sound like it’s a bad
thing, being a Gryffindor,” he evenly countered. “I can punch a few
holes in
your arguments. You tempt other Slytherins
with your
false promises of power and glory, and in the end, they only end up
groveling
to you like dogs, serving your every whim, branded like cattle. Oh, and
I don’t
know how you’re going to handle this, but...” and here he let the drama
intensify for about a moment or so “...it turns out your dear ancestor Slytherin didn’t really build the Chamber of
Secrets with
the purpose of running the Muggle-borns
out of
school.”
As Voldemort
looked
thunderstruck, Harry elaborated. However, while doing so, he used his
newly-learned ancient magic to secretly summon Gryffindor’s
sword from the Founders’
“You knew,
didn’t you?” he mocked Voldemort, knowing
it would
infuriate the Dark wizard. “The whole ‘Heir of Slytherin
unlocking the Chamber of Secrets’ thing was a bunch of malarkey made up
by Slytherin’s more radical descendants,
being your ancestors.
Originally, Slytherin made it with the
function of
just that and left the school. What his more radical descendants
neglected to
mention - or should I say purposely didn’t mention - was that
years
after that event, Slytherin returned to
Hogwarts and
reconciled with the other Founders. He didn’t like the idea of Muggle-born students attending Hogwarts because
of the
times, but once a solution was reached, he actually had no problem with
it. So,
the Chamber was converted to a place to hide some of his more valuable
possessions for posterity, and the basilisk for the purpose of
defending the
castle, should some more violent and radical Muggles
ever try to attack the castle, one way or another and for whatever
reason they
might have had. Years after he died, those same descendants, who didn’t
like
the reconciliation, wanted to erase the true meaning from history and
cement
lies into magical history and legends. His more peaceful descendants
fled and
remained in hiding, just waiting for the time to reveal the truth for
the world
to see.” (3)
By now, Gryffindor’s
sword was quietly hovering just behind a cliff above them all and in
hiding,
waiting for Harry to finally summon it completely into his hands. Voldemort looked ready to have a heart attack or
something.
All of the Death Eaters looked on, unable to believe their ears and
looking
unsure whether to contemplate or not. Ginny could only look on in
amazement.
Just to add the figurative icing onto
the cake,
Harry added, “Oh, and by the way, your ancestor Slytherin
himself told me to pass on a message to you. He’s very
disappointed in
you.”
That was the final touch. As Voldemort
roared with absolute, unrivaled anger, he conjured a silver sword with
green
snakes carved into the blade and handle. He then spat at Harry, “And I
suppose
you have some special status as opposed to the rest of us, apart from
being the
only known and lucky survivor of the Killing Curse?” Drawing his sword,
Voldemort took on an offensive position and
added, “Who do
you think you are, Potter, Gryffindor’s
heir?”
Those words were barely out of his mouth
when Voldemort launched himself at Harry,
sword raised, ready to
kill. As quick as a flash, Harry completely summoned his own sword, and
was now
holding it horizontally to completely block his nemesis’ vertical
attack. His
strength extended with the sword, and in return, the sword lent its
strength to
him. As Voldemort assessed that he no
longer had the
upper hand (at least not at the moment), Harry gave a triumphant smirk.
“And
what, may I ask,” he said smoothly, “is wrong with that?”
The eyes of everyone else on the
plateau-turned-dueling ground bulged when they unraveled Harry’s
somewhat
cryptic response. Ginny thought to herself, ‘Harry is Gryffindor’s
Heir!? Somehow, I’m not surprised...’
Savoring the stupid shocked look on Voldemort’s face, Harry then withdrew his sword
and struck
before his enemy could respond.
With a downward strike, Harry slashed at
Voldemort’s chest, leaving a streak of
fire. Voldemort’s shriek of pain
threatened to hurt Harry’s ears,
but he stood his ground, waiting for whatever would happen next.
Voldemort recoiled, head
tilted forward but
his cat-like pupils locked straight onto Harry’s gaze. His evil
expression was
anger beyond words; it promised death, anger, pain, suffering and
rising hell.
Harry didn’t look the slightest bit
afraid.
Voldemort, on the other hand, had something to fear. In
his more
cautious and angry moments, during both his exile as a lowly spirit and
after
regaining his body, he often contemplated the possibility of this
scenario. The
scenario was more or less like the one he was currently in, where the
infant he
failed to kill grew into a young man, much stronger than before. Just
add some
vengeance and power to the mix, and you had a recipe for downfall.
The corrupt Dark wizard instantly
brushed that all
aside as he reminded himself with how he did things. Never show any
weakness! Always strive to get what you desire! Be strong, patient, and
cunning! Keep your determination! Never let ANYONE else conquer
you!!!
Voldemort collected himself and got up, his Dark magic in
his
mutated body already healing his own wound and a rather slow rate. He
allowed
his apprehension to turn into anticipation: This was it, where the
prophecy
would be fulfilled.
And he had every intention of
being the one
to survive.
Seeing Voldemort
ready
to attack again, Harry took up a starting defensive posture, Gryffindor’s sword ready. He had learned all he
needed to
from the books in the vault at the Founders’
However, one of those books was special
in its own
highly unique way. The only person it was meant to teach was the Heir
of
Gryffindor himself, who, of course, was Harry himself. It told him how
to
utilize his power as Gryffindor’s Heir,
which was the
unique fire elementalist ability which
only burned
the evil and corrupt, which was quite separate from his normal fire elementalist ability.
Harry was first shocked when he saw how
relatively
few spells were included in that book. It turned out that it was more
about how
to master those spells, rather than show how many of them there were to
begin
with.
But as it was often said in various
ways, quality
mattered more than quantity, and that was no exception to Harry’s
special
training at the Founders’
And now, tonight, in this duel, all that
training
would finally be put to use.
~*~*~*~
In perfect sync with each other, Harry
and Voldemort advanced,
swords ready
and minds clear. They clashed, the din for their swords filling the
void of
silence as everyone watched the fight. For several minutes, the two
enemies
fought like the most ferocious animals on Earth, with their blades
dancing in
combat.
Like a seemingly endless waltz of
fighting, the
descendants of the two most influential Hogwarts Founders sliced,
parried,
blocked, attacked... the bystanders, both Light and Dark, were
seemingly mesmerized by the show of skill and technique.
Harry certainly harvested his Gryffindor
traits,
and he frequently lunged and dived in to the heat of battle at enormous
risk,
always managing to draw out in time before his rival could launch a
devastating
counterattack; Voldemort, on the other
hand, utilized
all of his Slytherin skills to shift in
tantalizing,
confusing patterns, striking at whatever blind spots he could find.
Both of
them, fighting at the peak of their sword fighting skills, seemed to
compliment
each other like yin and yang, each of them keeping the other and bay
and
neither gaining the upperhand.
Then, as if both of them shared the same
thought,
they leapt up in the air, utilizing their own personal magic to jump so
high.
As they made contact in midair, both blades of metal struck again, and
both of
them had to resort to using physical force to force each other off
balance.
Voldemort landed back on his feet, albeit roughly, while
Harry
landed roughly and fell onto his back, his sword falling from his grip
and
landing a couple of feet away.
Voldemort smirked at this minor victory. “You never cease
to
surprise me and interfere with my plans, Potter. But then again, that’s
what
you’re supposed to do, isn’t it? Be the perfect little soldier and
sabotage all
my plans, merely because you feel you’re fighting for the better good.”
Harry rarely, if ever, let Voldemort’s
smooth-tongued crap manipulate him; now was no exception, either.
Getting
himself up and retrieving his sword, he actually decided to rise to the
challenge of philosophically arguing with a psychopathic Voldemort.
“Fighting for the better good?” he asked
Voldemort, not breaking eye contact with
his foe at all. “I
suppose that could be true, but that’s hardly the reason I fight you...
apart
from the prophecy, of course,” he then added as an afterthought.
After Voldemort
raised
an eyebrow in response, Harry continued. “I’ve tried to understand that
old
saying, ‘know thine enemy.’ I’ve tried to
understand
you... how you think, how you work, how you act. Eventually, I could
come to
the conclusion, as little as I wanted to admit to it, I reached an
interesting
conclusion. I can’t punish you or fight you solely based on what you
believe.”
A strange sort of silence reigned for a
moment or
so as Voldemort wore an unusual look of
slight shock
on his face. Harry continued, elaborating what he said and meant. “If
you
wanted to believe and uphold and your bigoted pureblood beliefs, there
was
nothing anyone could have said or done about it. It was your choice. However-”
and here his voice grew hard and stern “-I cannot accept or tolerate
what
you’ve done. If you and your followers had left everyone else alone and
taken
your beliefs with you, other people may have accepted that. But
instead, you
decided to be a heartless monster, forcing your beliefs on them without
respecting their beliefs as they might have respected yours. You took
away
peoples’ lives, their dignity, and their rights... you wreaked havoc
and chaos
in your attempts to create what you felt was a necessary ‘New World
Order’...
you tried to take the fate of the world into your own hands... you
tried to do
all of that when none of it was for you to decide. And all because you
had a
rotten youth.”
Voldemort’s amused look gave way to a snarl instead. “And
so you’re
blaming me for suffering pain which I did not deserve?”
Harry gave a hard look in return. “No. I
can’t
blame you for how you’ve felt... but I can blame you for what you’ve
done.” (4)
Snarling and gripping his own sword even
more, Voldemort advanced again. Both he
and Harry were now both
past the phase of mere sword fighting. The tension and love for battle
made
both of them take it up to the next level.
Both rivals now also employed the magic
imbued into
the swords themselves, in addition to the usual sword fighting. The
magical
tricks displayed to the onlookers had the likes of things almost never
seen
before, even in the Wizarding World.
Towards the end
of this phase of their duel, Voldemort
sent a green
ball of light (which looked something like a green fireball) at Harry,
which
started to drain Harry of his energy as it clung to him; Harry
countered that
by building up a defensive red aura, which repelled the sickly green
energy-sapping energy, and followed expanded, which made Voldemort
back up a little to avoid it. Returning the attack, Harry then struck
the
ground with his sword, sending a fiery fissure which cracked through
the ground
in Voldemort’s direction, which struck at
the Dark
wizard’s feet and set him on fire; Voldemort
stopped
it from spreading all over his body entirely by dousing it out with
green waves
of energy that acted like water.
As Voldemort
swiftly
swung his sword to unleash a devastating attack, Harry turned it aside
with his
own first before ramming the sword into Voldemort’s
chest, its silver blade glowing fiery red. The Dark wizard shrieked in
pain
before swinging his sword upwards to displace Harry’s weapon, which
went flying
up into the air in a large arc and falling beyond a distant side of the
mountain.
Harry wasn’t too disturbed by this
development,
and deep down, he held a tiny bit of satisfaction; he had utilized the
sword to
undo a great deal of Voldemort’s Dark
magic,
including the ability to heal faster and such. That satisfaction
quickly left
his train of thought 1when Voldemort used
the magic
in his own sword, throwing Harry back with unbelievable speed and
strength.
Less than a second later, Harry was stuck in a crater in the
mountainside, only
a few feet away from Ginny, who gasped, horrified.
Harry moaned in pain as he slowly fell
out of the
crater in the bedrock, face down on the
plateau’s
surface, his entire body aching in pain. It was a good thing he became
stronger
in the past month while he was in hiding, in through both
physical exercise and defensive magic, plus the fact he was now
wearing
those synthetic hides; otherwise, he’d probably be dead right now.
As he groaned in pain, Voldemort
shook his head while holding his sword by his side. “Why, Potter, why?”
he
asked as though being in a reverie. As Harry struggled to get up (Ginny
didn’t
dare interfere, as that could invite unwelcome trouble), Voldemort
continued, savoring this moment. “Why do you do it? Why do you bother,
what’s
the point of getting up and to go on fighting?” (5)
There was now a small but hard edge in Voldemort’s voice. “You feel you’re fighting for
a special
cause? Can you say what it is, do you even
know
what it is?”
Everyone could tell that Voldemort
was feeling angry over the fact that he was having so little an effect
on
Harry. As Harry was know on his knees, trying to get up, Voldemort
continued to question him, hoping to demoralize Harry and have him
question
himself. “Could your cause be freedom? Maybe
truth?
Perhaps it’s peace? Could it be because of what you know as love?”
He spat this last word, detesting the very idea and concept of it.
“They’re all illusions, Potter!”
he spat. “Deceptions in reality to make people
feel better and for the
corrupt to disguise their own ulterior motives! Abstract
concepts to
define fantasies they can’t find in reality! As useless and arbitrary
as terms
like ‘good’ and ‘evil,’ which are terms coined by weak-minded fools
only to
classify whatever exists in the universe for the sake of their own
convenience
and simplicity, because their small minds can’t handle it!”
Harry only ignored him, wincing in pain
as he
continued to get up.
“I’ve said it before and I’ll say it
again,
Potter!” Voldemort continued, trying to
drill his
demoralizing words into Harry. “There’s no good or evil in the world,
only power!
Good and evil are only relative terms to classify the beneficial and
the
harmful! Power itself is what makes the universe work! Without power,
you can’t
do anything, let alone go on fighting against me like this! Even you
must
have realized this by now!”
Harry was now back on his feet,
breathing heavily
and prostrated slightly from all the pain.
Now Voldemort
was
officially angry. “Why, Potter, why do you continue to persist!?”
he
growled.
Harry only looked Voldemort
straight in the eye. “I could ask you the same thing,” he replied
evenly.
Voldemort was certainly not used to being answered to
like that,
either. Scowling, he took his sword and advanced again, bringing the
blade down
with a war cry. Harry rolled to dodge it, his energy slowly coming back
with
magic he used on himself at the Founders’
As Voldemort
tried to
strike Harry with a few more futile swings, Harry dodged them. When Voldemort made to do a straight-out lunge, Harry
swiftly
whipped out his wand and had the tip of it counter the incoming blade.
A split
second later, there was an explosion of green light as the power of Voldemort’s sword backfired, causing it to
self-destruct
and send Voldemort back towards the edge
of the
plateau.
Voldemort slid to the edge angry and in pain. Harry’s
wand was
damaged, and it backfired by causing the tip to explode, thus making
the whole
thing catch on fire. Harry dropped it, wincing and hissing in pain.
Before he
could do anything else, however, Voldemort
moved
first.
Taking out his own wand, Voldemort
got up and pointed at Harry. “So long, Potter!” Harry looked up just as
Voldemort yelled, “Avada
Kedavra!”
Time seemed to slow down for everyone on
the
plateau. However, as Harry saw the jet of green light come near him and
the
blast of sound reach everyone’s ears, unbidden images came to his mind.
They
all flashed through his mind, but they seemed to last as long as ages.
Memories of friends and companions...
His fellow Gryffindors
celebrating as he helped win the Quidditch
Cup in his
third year...
Percy thanking him for winning the
match
against Ravenclaw that same year, thus
helping him win that bet...
Madam Bones working with him...
Tonks showing him her Metamorphmagus
abilities...
Kingsley talking to him in his Auror’s office on the day of his hearing...
Moody putting a Disillusionment Charm
on him...
Felicity la Fontaine (Umbridge’s
sister) meeting him and showing her wild turkey Patronus…
Cedric trying to be noble and help
Harry out...
Krum complimenting him in the forest
and
commenting on his flying...
Fleur thanking him for rescuing
Gabrielle…
Mark appreciating Harry’s help
that first day in class...
Harry meeting officially meeting Blaise on the train earlier in the year...
Discussing with Susan about becoming
an Auror...
Reconciling with Cho
and comforting her...
Coming to a truce and shaking Draco’s hand in
Snape agreeing to become his guardian...
Hagrid giving him the picture album of his parents...
Dumbledore sharing his wisdom with
Harry and
congratulating him on saving the Sorcerer’s Stone...
McGonagall vowing against Umbridge
that she would help him become an Auror...
Lupin teaching him to conjure a Patronus...
Mr. Weasley
thanking
him for saving his life from the snake...
Mrs. Weasley
hugging
him that on that terrible night after Voldemort’s
rebirth...
Bill coming to watch him at the Triwizard Tournament...
Charlie complimenting him on his
performance
against the Hungarian Horntail...
Fred and George accepting the money
to fund
their joke shop...
Aunt Petunia giving him his mother’s
lockbox...
Hedwig keeping him company...
Fawkes coming to his aid in the Chamber of Secrets...
Ardeavis coming out of his egg and looking up to Harry...
Nemorphus amusing Harry with his/their antics...
Buckbeak allowing him to ride on him...
Dobby praising him as the best wizard
in the
world...
Luna consoling him after Sirius’
death...
Neville working alongside him and
defending
him...
Ron talking to him in the train for
the first
time…
Hermione kissing him on the cheek...
His parents’ comforting words in the
Love Room
in the Department of Mysteries...
Sirius always and constantly
defending him...
Ginny kissing him...
And then the green light hit him. A
split second
later, Harry’s world went black.
~*~*~*~
In the hidden bunker, a lot of people
felt chills
go through them, some even flinching. “Anyone else feel that?” Ron
asked at
large.
A lot of other people nodded. They
remembered
times they helped Harry. Those images instantly filled their minds,
coming as
quick as arrows. That was all replaced by a sort of feeling that
descended over
them, almost as though feeling something gone wrong. What just happened?
Suddenly, Dumbledore returned. “I sent
out a
certain device called a SpySphere, which
should have
been watching the duel between Harry and Voldemort
this whole time. It should have been working by now...” He pointed his
wand at
a large wall, and part of it lit up like a screen before a picture
formed.
When the picture did form, it nearly
caused the
hearts of everyone in the room to stop beating.
An overhead view showed the plateau,
about thirty
feet in diameter. On one end was a slightly injured Voldemort
laughing maniacally. Around the edge of the plateau at equal intervals
were
Death Eaters, looking excited. Opposite Voldemort
on
the other end of the plateau was Ginny sobbing over someone’s limp,
unmoving
form.
It was Harry Potter, knocked flat on his
back and
immobile. His eyes were closed and his face held a look of something
like
exhaustion or small pain. He was dead.
According to a certain adage, a picture
was worth
a thousand words. If that saying was true, then this was worth an
infinite
number of them. All the hope and light in the universe seemed to be
gone. Their
hero and hope was dead. They were all doomed.
As if on cue, Hermione wailed and broke
down
sobbing. The Weasleys all then broke down
with tears
running down their faces, even the twins, who were rarely if ever
serious. The Gryffindors and people from
other Houses who didn’t trust
Harry also felt remorse, now knowing they could never apologize and
make it up
to them. Cho became hysterical with grief,
muttering
something like “No, not again...”
Most of the Slytherins
were silent in their grief, not letting any of their weakness show.
Neville
comforted Mark, while Blaise tried to
comfort
everyone else. Draco bowed his head, lost
in his own
thoughts.
Nor were the adults able to stand
strong.
McGonagall broke down sobbing, and cried into her handkerchief, a
feeling of
failure and uselessness eating at her. Hagrid
let out
a howl of pain and despair as Lupin
silently let his
tears run down his cheeks, that all-too-familiar feeling of loss
stabbing at
his heart again. Snape bowed his head,
unable to
accept that this could have happened despite all the precautions on the
parts
of so many people. Moody, to his own surprise as well, actually cried
from both
eyes, despite being told a long time ago when he got his magical eye
that the
muscles in that socket had atrophied.
Dumbledore could hardly believe it. He
even willed himself not to believe it. But
now, Harry was definitely dead. Gone. Forever.
Dumbledore actually sat down on the
stairs,
weeping as any father would for his son who had died. Some people heard
and saw
him, then pointing him out to everyone else. The aged headmaster cast
aside any
shame he may have felt and being weak like this for everyone to see. He
deserved then, he thought to himself, not giving Harry the love, care,
and
support he should have deserved.
In the image on the wall, Voldemort’s
laughing winded down as he gloated, “Now no
one can
stop me!” Facing Ginny, who bravely faced him in return, although
tear-stricken, the Dark wizard said, “You know what, this has actually
been
worth it today, what with all the destruction and defeat my minions
have
suffered. I think I’ll give everyone a day or so before attacking
Hogwarts
again; this has most definitely been worth my while.” Pausing
for a
moment as his Death Eaters regrouped with him, he said, “Good-bye,
Potter. At
least you’re reunited with your wretched parents and godfather now.”
As he turned to walk down the side of
the cliff, Ginny
sobbed even more and even whispered something to Harry as her tears
continued
to fall like rain on a stormy day.
Dumbledore continued to weep along with
her for a
moment or so, wondering what to do now. Just then, something
interrupted his
thoughts.
“Wait a minute!” Luna exclaimed, causing
everyone
to look at her as she pointed at the image. “I think he’s moving!”
~*~*~*~
Ginny couldn’t believe what she saw.
Harry just
watched the curse before it hit him and knocked him back, dead. Her
heart
almost stopped in that one moment. As Harry’s body fell to the ground
with a
lifeless thump, and Voldemort started
laughing evilly
and victoriously, she felt something within her crumble and die.
Ginny cried out in pain, horror, sadness
and
anguish, unable to accept it. She broke down next to Harry, trying to
stir him
awake and sobbing uncontrollably.
‘NO!’ she thought. ‘No no no
no no no
no no no
no NO!’
When Ginny didn’t feel so much as a
pulse on his
wrist or neck, she knew it was true. But she still couldn’t believe or
accept
it. She could have been less surprised if the Earth had suddenly swung
loose
from its axis.
Voldemort’s little speech brought her back. As he turned
away with his
other Death Eaters, she whispered, “I’m sorry, Harry. I should have
done something.
Rest in peace.”
Ginny sobbed even more, clutching him
close. When
she had to draw breath, her body shook so badly that one tear fall off
her
face.
If she had been watching, she would have
seen it
land on Harry’s scar, and then travel down it as though following it as
though
it were a path.
~*~*~*~
In the world of the dead, several
people were
watching. In the lead were James and Lily Potter, along with their best
friend,
Sirius Black.
“Well, the bond between them has been
renewed
somewhat,” Lily said when the tear landed on Harry’s scar. “Now all we
to do is
help him back up.”
James turned to everyone else. “Ready, everybody?” They all nodded.
Sirius grinned
his
mischievous grin while rubbing his hands together. “Here we go. Bye bye, Voldie. Welcome back, Harry..”
Together, the three adults that once
mattered
most in Harry’s life began chanting special magic and incantations from
their
realm. Its purpose was to siphon of their special energy and give it to
Harry.
Soon, others joined in. Cedric led
the way as
he contributed to the cause, followed by Bertha Jorkins
and Frank Bryce. All of Voldemort’s
victims now were
joining the ritual. Finally, with a nod from Harry’s parents and
godfather,
Peter joined them. He was now back in a
younger form,
as he was before he was forced to work for Voldemort.
Voldemort may have felt safe all these years, killing
those who got
in his way, thinking they would no longer pose any sort of threat to
him
whatsoever.
Fate, it seems, is not without a
sense of
irony. (6)
~*~*~*~
Harry felt like he was going down, down,
down...
into some bottomless pit or the like. It was cold, devoid of anything.
It was
not like outer space; at least the voids of the universe itself had
things in
it, regardless of how far apart they were. This was nothingness;
complete lack
of existence whatsoever.
Suddenly, he felt himself rising. He was returning to the world he knew and
belonged in. His soul was once again
reunited with his body.
With an almost excruciating slowness, he
felt
himself regaining consciousness and sensing more things, taking in what
he
could.
He could smell the air.
Feel the droplet of water on his
forehead.
Hear Ginny sobbing.
‘Sobbing?’
Then he remembered the Killing Curse. A
flash of
pain, and then... blackness.
‘It kills quickly,’ Harry thought to
himself,
‘Just as it’s supposed to.’
But boy,
he was sore all over.
With a small groan, Harry slowly opened
his eyes,
staring up at the night sky. Directly above him, he could see the Dog
Star.
Sirius.
Harry had a shrewd feeling that his
godfather had
been able to protect him in the long run, even from the Great Beyond.
Old
habits might die hard, or so the saying went, but Harry knew for a fact
that
Sirius’ restless and energetic nature didn’t die at all.
Slowly, Harry tried to get up, shrugging
off the
lingering soreness and lethargy, and his forehead, or his scar more
specifically, throbbing with a relatively dull pain.
With a choked sob, Ginny jumped back,
unable to
believe what she was seeing. Hoping against hope, she wondered if Harry
truly
was alive. Just for grins,
Harry shouted out, “Is that all you’ve got!?”
Voldemort’s suddenly stopped as though he had gotten
petrified from
staring contest with Medusa herself. (7)
Then, with excruciating slowness, he turned around. His normally
snaring,
sneering, and smirking face was now in absolute shock.
‘NO,’ he thought to himself, ‘It can’t
be...’
“That’s impossible,” he
spluttered to
himself out loud, his mien and dignified appearance gone in a flash.
Harry was now on his feet, looking Voldemort straight in the eye, two green fires
burning
almost bright enough to illuminate the area. “You wouldn’t believe how
often
I’ve invalidated and redefined that word,” he said with the faintest
hint of
sarcasm.
Back at Hogwarts, everyone could only
stare at the
battle, dumbstruck, eyes wide and mouths agape. Some people actually
whooped
with joy when they saw it. Dumbledore actually wiped his tears aside
and
exclaimed triumphantly, “Ha haaa!”
Almost as though sharing their thoughts
telekinetically, Harry remembered all his times with them. They saved
him. A
more proud, arrogant and bitter Harry would have neglected that, but he
knew
how to be forgiving at times as well. Unbidden, a tear rolled down his
cheek.
The tiniest of smiles threatened to spread across his face. Equally
unbidden,
something Dumbledore told him a year ago resurfaced in his memory.
“The fact that you can feel pain like
this is
your greatest strength...”
‘Thank you, Dumbledore,’ he thought,
almost
starting to swell with gratitude.
Voldemort, on the other hand, looked more infuriated than
ever. “You
just never know when to quit, do you?” he growled.
“What are you going to do about it,
Riddle?” he
mocked his lifelong foe. “Kill me?”
Almost everyone watching back at
Hogwarts laughed
and cheered when Harry said that. Dumbledore in particular roared with
laughter.
Harry made to take his normal wand out
of his
holster, but a voice in his head (which sounded like Godric
Gryffindor’s) said a single sentence to
him. You
don’t need to.
As Harry withdrew his hand, an
apprehensive
Hermione asked Dumbledore, “What’s he doing?”
Dumbledore, his eyes twinkling at record
levels,
said, “Oh, I think we’ll find out soon
enough, Miss Granger...”
There was a warm gust of wind around
Harry as a
small aura of fire (not very powerful) surrounded him, Voldemort’s
temper reached unthinkable levels, and Harry’s lack of need for his
wand seemed
to insult Voldemort in the Dark wizard’s
own mind.
That fearless look on Harry’s face was the finishing touch.
With a hiss that grew to a growl that
grew to a
roar, Voldemort screamed, “WHY CAN’T
YOU JUST DIE!?” (8)
Swinging his wand so he faced Harry, he
shouted, “AVADA
KEDAVRA!”
‘Oh no, not again,’ most people thought.
To everyone’s surprise, it flew off to
Harry’s left
as though Voldemort was aiming there to
begin with.
(Ginny was safe, since she was far off to Harry’s right.) That couldn’t
be
right, since Voldemort’s aim wasn’t that
terrible.
Voldemort was surprised himself. Aiming again, he fired
another
Killing Curse. Instead, this one blew a hole out of the ground in front
of
Harry’s feet, only inches apart from its intended target.
By now, the intensity of Harry’s aura
had grown
somewhat, and now it was a semi-vibrant fiery red. And the whole time,
he
didn’t break off eye contact with Voldemort
once.
Voldemort caught onto this, and made sure his was Occlumency was at its best before firing a third
Killing
Curse at Harry.
Unfortunately for Harry, he used his
scar to use
slight Legilimency to throw off Voldemort
by a little. Fortunately for Harry, that wasn’t the only sly trick he
had.
Harry didn’t even flinch as the third
curse went
straight at his heart. Just at the last moment, he swiftly raised his
right
hand and smacked it aside, backhanded. With a peculiar vibrating sound
that
made everyone’s hair stand on end, the curse bounced right off and flew
into
the bedrock behind him, blasting a few chucks of rock out of it.
Quite a few people students at Hogwarts
cursed out
loud when seeing that; when realizing what they said, they turned to
face their
professors apologetically, only to be met with equally shocked and
blank looks.
Voldemort almost looked downright frightened now. Today
clearly
wasn’t his day.
After hearing the Dark wizard mutter
something
indiscernible, Harry spoke again. “What are you afraid of, Riddle?” he
said,
not exactly bravely, but still pretty neutral. “That you don’t have as
much
power as you thought you had?”
Taking this opportunity to go on, Harry
elaborated. “Even now, I can still remember what you said in my first
year, all
that bilge about no good or evil, only power. I disagree. As someone
once told
me, it’s not what we are, are what abilities we have, but what we
choose to
make of ourselves and our abilities.”
Dumbledore smiled even wider from where
he was in
the bunker, remembering that from the end of Harry’s second year.
“You used your power to kill and control
everyone;
I used it to protect and defend everyone. If things had gone
differently, you
could have chosen otherwise.” Now he smiled a little grimly. “Time to
reap what
you sow, I suppose.”
The grim grin vanishing, Harry muttered
more to
himself than to his enemy, “Forgive me, Riddle.”
Voldemort heard this and tried to stop him with another
Killing
Curse, but Harry sent it right back, causing Voldemort’s
own wand to snap in half from the impact. Now looking downright
terrified, Voldemort and his Death Eaters
could only watch what Harry
was going to do next.
Putting his hands apart as though
holding some
spherical object close to himself, Harry
muttered
something under his breath. Golden lightning zapped and cackled between
his
hands, but then an orange-red ball of light began to form and grow. As
soon as
Harry stopped chanting, it stopped at the size of a Snitch, or perhaps
a Muggle baseball. Something about it,
perhaps just even
looking into it, made the evil wizards about as nervous as a phoenix’s
music.
Then Harry shouted an incantation not
heard for
quite possible more than a millennium.
“Gladius
Cuoris!” (9)
Only Dumbledore and perhaps a few other
people at
Hogwarts at that moment could decipher that classical Latin from the
time of
the
Harry now held a glowing sword that
seemed to be
made of fire itself. It glowed and vibrated when it moved, much like
how
Excalibur “sang” when it moved.
“‘Power the Dark Lord knows not,’” Harry
quoted
the prophecy with a shadow of a smirk. “You really should have paid
more
attention to that line, Riddle. Oh well, too late now.”
With that, he lunged. With every step
that he ran,
Voldemort could only watch before snatching
one of
his minion’s wands in a last-ditch effort. But even then, it was too
late.
Powered by ancient magic, the love of
the caster’s
friends and power of the caster himself, there was not much Voldemort
could have done anyway.
Harry leapt at Voldemort,
driving the blade into the Dark wizard’s chest.
Mustering as much Dark magic and
strength as he
could, Voldemort forced the cracks back,
until they
receded to the sword itself. Then, with a relatively small explosion,
the sword
splintered into fiery fragments with the sound of something like a
phoenix
shrieking. Harry fell back, and tried to get himself up as Voldemort
laughed some more.
“All those heroics, all for nothing!” he
cackled.
“You really can’t do much of anything, can you, Potter?”
But to his immense chagrin, Harry could
only
smirk, his eyes sparkling with mischief and wisdom.
Voldemort was now peeved again. “What are you so damn
sure about!?”
Harry pointed subtly to Voldemort,
his smirk growing a little wider.
Voldemort looked down, and to his horror, the cracks and
fissures
were spreading again from the point of impact. He couldn’t move,
standing
rooted to the spot with a combination of shock and pain, and as he
began to
have seizures, he clutched his chest and spat at Harry through all the
growing
pain, “Damn you, Potter...”
The process of Voldemort’s
demise would be firmly etched to the memories of all its onlookers for
all
time. The fissures spread through his body as though lava were
spreading
underneath Voldemort’s own ugly skin, all
spreading
form his truly blackened heart. He shook even more as those fissures
spread all
over his body, like some sort of fiery net or web. When those crevices
completed
spreading all over his body, light starting coming out through them.
Finally, Voldemort’s eyes and mouth glowed
as that fiery light
starting coming out of them.
With one last series of seizures and an
anguished
scream of pain and anger, Voldemort
exploded. Now a
white light with a hint of fiery reds, oranges and yellows blinded
everyone.
Harry stood strong even as Ginny tried to shield herself after watching
this
incredible display between two of the strongest wizards in the world.
As the
light died off, someone stood in Voldemort’s
place.
If Harry had to guess, he’d say it was
an adult
version of Tom Riddle, perhaps in his late thirties or early forties,
and what
he looked like before he used the Dark Magic to turn himself into Voldemort, both physically and mentally. All the
Dark magic
had been burned off, due to the few distantly spaced attacks that Harry
used on
him with both the swords of Gryffindor and the Sword of the Heart spell.
Riddle was currently standing in the
same position
as Voldemort was before he exploded. His
eyes were
wide open with shock, and his mouth was somewhat agape.
As if in slow motion, Riddle slumped
forward.
First he fell on his knees, and then he landed flat on his chest. His
head
looked off to one side, but even from the angle where Harry was
standing from,
he could see the mouth still open, and the eyes staring blankly out
ahead of
him. Tom Riddle was dead.
Those open eyes actually sent a small
chill down
Harry’s spine. It was much like seeing Cedric die all over again, or
Sirius
being hit with that curse and falling beyond the veil.
For one silent moment, Harry
contemplated if this
made him a murderer in the same class as Voldemort.
He knew better now; he didn’t do this in cold blood, he took no
pleasure out of
it, and for the most part, it was purely defensive.
Ginny watched from the side, still
somewhat unable
to believe what she was seeing. She never thought she’d see the Tom
Riddle who
possessed her again in any shape or form. He even looked somewhat like
Harry,
except he was about two or three times as old, had neater hair, not as
bright
green eyes, no glasses and no scar. But the biggest difference of all,
Ginny
knew: They were nothing alike in personality or anything of the sort.
As he walked over, there was sudden
movement, and
looking closer, he saw what it really was.
The two halves of Voldemort’s
wand rolled out of the slackened grasp of his limp hand. Harry felt a
sense of
irony that Voldemort’s wand could kill,
torture and control so many people, and not even defend himself.
Using a scanning spell he picked up in
his Auror manuals, Harry scanned Riddle’s
body. He was
officially dead.
And suddenly, Harry felt a weight lift
from his
shoulders. It was all over. The dreaded prophecy was fulfilled. He won.
He was
free of it and Voldemort forever.
With newfound hope and determination, he
looked up
to see the remaining Death Eaters, still watching him, almost fearful
and
locked into place with fear, apprehension and terror.
And now Harry was looking right at them.
And unless
their imaginations were deceiving them, there was a sort of fire
burning in his
eyes now.
With one quick look at each other, all
of them
fled for their lives before the now-triumphant Harry Potter could do
the same
thing to them too. (10)
(End of Chapter 48.)
A/N: YAY! Harry wins (of course)!
IMPORTANT regarding the events of this chapter: Relatively LITTLE of this I got from other sources. A LITTLE OF IT was Matrix-influenced, although just a bit to fill in the gaps I had. And you know what; what’s wrong with that, so long as I cite it?
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: Don’t accuse me of plagiarism. All those things like cheating death, blowing the bad guy apart, doing unbelievable things… those have all been done before in countless different places, HP or otherwise, fanfiction or not. Besides, I’ve had this idea brewing in my head for nearly a YEAR!
(1) “Imperio” means to control; so “Solvo” means to release from that control. “Crucio” means to crucify someone, or nail them to a cross, like in the sense of torture; “Mulceo” means to relieve that kind of torture. I originally was going to try to come up with some kind of fancy spell for Harry to counter the Killing Curse with, except he doesn’t need to... plus, it would have rather screwed up my storyline.
(2) I’ll answer that question for all of you right now: I’m saving him for the sequel.
(3) You know, now that I think about it, this sounds remarkably like Leigh Teabing’s explanation from “The Da Vinci Code,” where he talks about the Priory of Sion waiting for the right time in history before releasing the Sangreal documents, which contain the truth about the life of one of the most famous historical figures. I had this idea of the history of the Chamber of Secrets being altered by history’s victors (re-enter Rowena Ravenclaw’s quote in this story, “History is written by its victors”) ever since I started writing this story. Funny that, huh? Me and Dan Brown have something in common, methinks!
(4) Remember this for later, folks!
BTW, this philosophical fight between Harry and Voldemort isn’t too OOC, if at all, is it? (I’m sorry, but I just needed the drama to balance the action. Plus, I wanted and needed to address these points.)
(5) This is a paraphrased version of Smith’s “Why, Mr. Anderson?” speech, which I thought was quite fitting for this story when edited and altered.
(6) Yes, this is a line Morpheus says from “The Matrix,” but hey, you have to admit, he’s got a point there with that wise line.
(7) Heh, you guys like this line?
(8) I like this in particular… LMAO!
(9) Voldemort also dies from this in “The Grief I Suffered,” by the way, and the incantation means “Sword of the Heart.”
(10) I’ve read in
some fics (which shall remain nameless)
where when Harry
kills Voldemort, part of the magic behind
the Dark
Mark kills all the surviving Death Eaters, and so Harry has to stop Snape (and sometimes Draco
Malfoy) from dying with them.
That’s been done before in those fics,
and so I didn’t do it here, since it would have also
conflicted with how Harry kills Voldemort
in my
story.