AN:The final confrontation from the unwritten story wherein Voldemort's attempt to posses Harry at the end of fifth year resulted in them being locked in a surreal battle of minds, with illusory Hogwarts as a battlefield.
Slight AU, with implied background changes and Voldemort's personality being tweaked a bit.
Snakes and Corpses
The chamber of Secrets was all that remained of Hogwarts. It, too, will soon be destroyed. The signs of decay were there already. Exposed pipes intervened above Harry's head, making him think of a circulatory system belonging to some great impossible beast bleeding water and rust from countless wounds.
The dead basilisk was slowly crawling on them without direction, ribs scratching against the metal.
There were cracks between pipes, and looking at them was like holding a mirror close to the face and staring right into your own pupil.
A man stood at the centre of the Chamber. His face was a bizarre collage of snake and human features bleeding into each other. He silently observed Harry coming closer and stopping near a spot of ink where the cursed diary was stabbed.
"You arrived," he said after a few moments of silence.
"There is nowhere else to go," said Harry.
The man nodded.
"Everything is as should be. The board is clear. Distractions eliminated. You stand alone against me."
"Not alone."
Once the words were said, the scene froze for a moment before continuing. It was different, however. Where before were only two people, now stood dozens. Ron, Hermione, Hogwarts students, Sirius, Remus, Weasleys - all whose memories Harry could conjure in a moment appeared by his side.
"I know they are only an illusion," Harry said. "But I also know they are with me now, in the real world, doing whatever they can to protect me."
The man waved his hand, and newly appeared people were revealed as corpses with rotting faces and filthy clothes. Their stomachs burst and snakes crawled from inside, hissing at Harry.
Harry took a step back. He knew it was not real, but it didn't help much. The gruesome scene and the smell of rotting flesh made him want to vomit. Instincts screamed at him to run away. Still, he stood in place.
"Your believe in them is the true illusion here," the man said. "Trusting people just invites them to reveal their true treacherous nature. Only when you force them to do something they hate can you be sure of your power."
"That is not true." Harry stepped closer to the assembly of corpses and felt a sharp pain as snakes started biting him. Yet, as the reality shifted again, abiding his will, the pain disappeared, and the corpses returned to their previous appearance. "They could've hurt me many times in the past. They didn't. They stood with me and they risked their lives for me."
The man smiled.
"Like Dumbledore?" he asked.
Harry felt a hand on his shoulder. He turned and saw the familiar figure of the Headmaster smiling at him reassuringly. Yet the hand of Dumbledore was withered and dead, and there was a feverish glint in his eyes. The grip on Harry's shoulder became painful, subtle pain slowly spreading through his body.
"He conspires your demise, you know," the man said casually. "You contain a part of me which he wants to erase. The only reason you are alive right now is because you served as a good distraction for me and my followers. That is the true nature of humans: they stand by you when they think you useful. Nothing more."
Harry was trembling. He tried to look at the familiar figures around him for reassurance, but as his concentration slipped, so did their faces. Yet he refused to try breaking the hold on his shoulder, refused to move. Gestures had power in this place, and he could not afford to lose.
"I trust Dumbledore," he said, trying to be firm. "He is the greatest wizard alive..."
"Now that Flamel is dead," said the man.
"...He will work it out. I bet he already has some plan in motion."
"Do you trust him to choose you above that Weasley boy?" asked the man.
"What?"
"Or Granger, or Longbottom, or countless other children. You are not unique in his eyes. Even if you assume his motives are pure, are you sure he will risk the lives of others to save yours? When there is a more simple solution at hand?"
"He is going to try and save us all."
"Even if prolonging your life risks their death?"
"Even then."
As the conversation progressed, the pain in Harry's shoulder lessened. He chanced a glance at Dumbledore, and he looked more like his normal self now.
"And yet he sacrificed Flamels," said the man.
The pain returned in one sharp burst, and Harry couldn't help his screaming.
"They..." he had to pause to steady his voice. "They agreed to it. They were at peace with dying."
"They weren't before he spoke to them."
"He spoke to them because you were the one trying to steal the Stone! You are responsible."
"Obviously. But the fact is, Dumbledore didn't try to save everyone, as you put it. Even if dying was Flamel's idea, he could take the Stone to save someone else. It could have restored my body with no need for the ritual. Do you think Arthur Weasley would still be dead if Dumbledore had the Stone at hand?"
"I trust him," said Harry after a long silence.
"Then I call you a fool," said the man.
The scene froze again. Everyone present disappeared except for the only two real people. More cracks appeared in the walls, one of them cutting the basilisk in two. Broken parts continued their slow crawl without a goal.
"If you don't believe in people, what do you believe in?" asked Harry eventually. His right hand was numb. He suspected there were cracks in it, too, but didn't dare to look. Instead, he looked around, settling his gaze on the statue of Slytherin watching them impassively. "Pureblood ideology?"
"Of course not," said the man. "I am a half-blood, after all. I have a first-hand proof of its foolishness. Purebloods were simply there, angry for the loss of power due to the war cutting through the old families, wishing to revive the old days. My Slytherin heritage was a stroke of luck, something that could appeal to them. Ideology is but a tool of control, nothing more."
"What do you care about? Hogwarts? Your younger self talked about how the school was the first true home you knew... Founders? You collected their artefacts..."
"I didn't, actually. It is something I wanted to do, but never had the time and dedication. They lived a thousand years ago, it's hard to rack down anything that belonged to them, especially given the amount of fakes around... As for the reason you ask, I do admit to youthful foolishness. Hogwarts was the first place where I could feel at ease. Sometimes, at least. And the founders fascinated me at the time. They were people who created all this, they were people who have given me home..."
For a moment, the castle was whole again. Cracks disappeared behind the thick walls, the Chamber looked like it was just build. There was no dirt, no water, no signs of decay.
The man looked around, silent.
"In the end, however, I realized my mistake," he said, returning the scene on the verge of collapse. "Every attachment you have is a chain binding you to the world and making you follow its laws. Breaking them is the only way to be free."
"So, you care about nothing?"
"Yes."
"What do you live for?"
"I am all I need."
"Then you have nothing to live for. Suppose you win, what are you going to do?"
"Live."
"For what? What are you planning to achieve? What do you want to build? How would you fill the eternity?"
The man was silent.
The scene froze for the third time. Cracks consumed the walls, exposing the pair to the darkness behind their closed eyelids.
"It has to end," said the man.
"Yes."
"You can still join me."
"After you told me not to trust anyone?"
"You can trust me to act in my own interests. Keeping you alive is beneficial to me. And, while obviously your freedom will be restrained, there is no particular reason to deny you worldly pleasures."
"Or you could put me into a coma to avoid troubles."
The man smiled.
"You can die instead, here and now. It will even work in favour of people you care about so much. Remove a troublesome piece from the board, spare Dumbledore from hard decision."
"You can die, too."
"I won't."
"Neither will I."
They stood in silence.
"It has to end," said Harry.
"Yes. Do you have a resolution in mind?"
"No."
"Then I suggest you take a leap of faith."
"What?"
"Step out, into the darkness."
"Why would I?"
"You have anything better to do?"
"Why should I do what you say?"
"Because you are supposed to trust people."
"Not you."
"It is a place of symbols. Jump, and maybe there will be hands to catch you. I will remain here, for there is certainly no hands to catch me."
"...You are imposing your rules. If I stay with you now, I'll admit defeat."
The man smiled.
"Yes. What are you going to do?"
Harry looked at the man's ever-shifting face. He looked around, at the slowly collapsing Chamber, at the dead and shredded basilisk still trying to crawl somewhere, at the water tainted with rust and at the now headless statue.
He slowly made his way to the edge of the world.
And then he took another step.
Everything went black.
