Summary: After losing Sirius and learning the reason behind Voldemort's repeated attempts to kill him, Harry hardens and decides to take matters into his own hands. Things go a bit differently than they would have otherwise gone.
Where Lightning Struck
"There are two kinds of light-the glow that illuminates, and the glare that obscures." ~James Thurber (1894-1961)
Power swirled around the battlefield causing eddies and breezes. The dancing zephyrs were not much, but it made the smoke of destruction covering the grounds of Hogwarts move in odd ways. The crowd was still now, making the small movements of the colorful clouds even more obvious. Everyone held their breath as a bespectacled young man-hardly more than a boy-and a hooded figure stepped closer to each other through the low-hanging fog. All the fighting up until this point, though important in the long run, paled in comparison to the moment upon them now.
Like the crescendo of a song, the Final Battle was climaxing.
And the onlookers of both sides knew it.
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"Special lessons?" Hermione gave Harry a wistful smile after she spoke. All three of the friends knew what was on her mind. To the bushy-haired witch, special lessons with such a learned person such as the Headmaster would be a dream come true. Harry himself was a bit more reticent to be happy about them. Perhaps he'd feel differently after they started, but right now, it seemed much too little, much too late.
"Well, Harry needs to be trained if he has a shot at beating You-Know-Who, doesn't he?" Ron Weasley wasn't known for his intelligence, but somehow he had a way of cutting through nonsense. He also knew exactly what the female third of the trio was thinking. It would be better if she wasn't allowed to dream too much. It made her go mental and start talking about skipping meals in favor of research. "What will they be, mate?"
"I don't know. He didn't say..."
"Maybe he'll teach you dueling? Or Occulmancy-There's really no end to what all you should know," Hermione cut in again. She pulled out a fresh piece of parchment from a nearby stack and began to make a list. "Perhaps we should do a bit of extra studying this year on our own."
"But, Hermione-"
"Goats butt and birds fly, Ronald," she replied. She exchanged a look with Harry who was in the process of inking his own quill to help. Green and gold eyes met for the briefest of moments before Harry looked down to start writing his list. It was understood that she would take responsibility for persuading Ron. She could see the edges of guilt and grief haunting his eyes. Would he ever step back up to try to convince others to fight, she wondered, or had Sirius' death been that strong a blow? "There's a war coming. We need to be prepared. You know that it won't be just Harry that must fight." She paused and really looked at the redhead. "Don't you?"
"Can't let Harry get all the glory, can I? Of course I'll be there."
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The two figures stalked around in a circle. Each step was measured perfectly with the other's. Their eyes met over the distance as they danced. Abandoning their own battles, the Death Eaters began grouping together in a ring around the pair. Cautiously, members of the Light began to do the same. Watching seemed to be the only thing that in which they could unite.
To one side a few members of the Light gathered together. Three witches and two wizards, all the same age as the raven-haired youth, made sure to lined themselves up in a small arc with the witches in the center with the wizards as bookends. They reached out hands to one another.
The youth stopped in front of the odd grouping, never once looking at them. Across from him, the hooded figure stopped as well. In the shadows of the hood, the reptilian man smile with true mirth. He reached up and removed his hood. Eyes the color of spilt blood seemed to glow in the dimness of the battlefield.
"Now, Potter," Voldemort began only to be interrupted by the impertinent boy.
"We bow and pretend that this is an honorable duel?"
"What better way to die, boy, than with honor?"
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"What the hell is he doing here?" Ron demanded of Hermione. The witch looked honestly confounded about the appearance of Severus Snape in the Room of Requirement. Ron wasn't the only one surprised by the Room's choice for a dueling instructor. The Potions professor looked equally pleased to be suddenly located in a place different than where he had been a moment before.
"That is a fair question, Miss Granger," Professor Snape almost purred. It was a dangerous sound, especially when every line in the man's body spoke of how livid he was. Any second now, he was sure to begin docking points from Gryffindor. Surprisingly it wasn't Hermione who spoke.
"We want to learn how duel, Professor," Harry said calmly, confidently. The potion-maker snapped his gaze from intimidating the Gryffindor prefects to the Boy-Who-Lived. All the history between the two could be felt in the air between them when their gazes met. Silence reigned for long moments as they stared into each other's eyes. Emotions flashed across Harry's face, each expression lasting less than a heartbeat. Snape's face was nothing but a mask. Then the spy turned away and stalked towards the door. Harry's voice made him pause. "Hogwarts chose you, sir. And I can't think of anyone better."
"Now is not the time, Mr. Potter. I have things that I must have done in short order. Be here tomorrow night at seven o'clock sharp. If it's after seven, just keep walking."
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"In your case, I'd settle for dead, Tom," Harry said cheekily. As Harry had calculated, the use of his birth name enraged the Dark Lord. Voldemort threw the first curse. It bounced harmlessly against Harry's wandless shield. Harry countered with a jinx.
Thus began their private dance.
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"It says here that the Revealio Magus potion can reunite a soul…it doesn't have a recipe, however," Hermione said as she flipped a few more pages. Ron was too busy watching the witch to notice their encroaching enemy, but Harry noticed and began to frantically signal Hermione to stop talking-signals that she just didn't see with her nose in the thick tome. "If we just had a recipe, we could make it. It seemed a lot better than hunting down the Horcruxes one by one. It would pull the bits back to the source. We might even take some ourselves while we're at it-it makes you invulnerable to attacks from people who haven't taken it-"
"Really, Granger? Researching the Dark Arts here in the library where anyone can see? And you're supposed to be brilliant? I guess blood really does tell in the end-"
"Shut it, Malfoy," Ron growled, his face turning a color very similar to his hair. Harry reached over and touched his arm. Harry's green eyes were focused on the Slytherin prefect's face. It was kind of unnerving watching the Boy-Who-Lived calmly take his arch-rival's measure with a look, but then Harry had been acting weird since they got back from the Ministry last June. He was changed in some fundamental way. Ron wasn't certain if it was You-Know-Who's possession of him or Sirius' death, but the anger that had fueled his friend all of fifth year had cooled and hardened into something far different. The look he was giving the ferret was similar to how he looked during their first few sessions with Snape-like he was calculating their value.
"What do you want, Draco? This time without the insult," Harry finally asked, adding the bit about insult in an off-hand way like it was an afterthought. Malfoy flushed slightly as if he had been scolded for improper manners. Then his face stiffened as if he was going to bite out another insult just to prove that he was better than them. As fast as that happened, his shoulders slumped and a look of utter resignation settled upon him.
"I want to help-" The Malfoy scion stopped when Ron made a sputtering sound of disbelief. Hermione thumped him on the back of the head as Harry waved for Malfoy to continue, a very imperial gesture that he could have only picked up from Snape. "I will help you find a recipe for that potion. I'll even help you brew it."
"And what do you want in return?"
"Nothing that you won't already be trying to do, Potter," Malfoy responded, his customary smirk appearing. With Harry's odd behavior, the hateful sneer was surprisingly comforting. "I want you to kill the Dark Lord."
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"Why won't you die, boy?" Without waiting for a response, Voldemort sent another string of curses at the uppity teen. How dare he think that he could stand against him, the greatest dark lord ever? He was so focus on Harry bloody Potter that he didn't see the incoming projectile from another source until it was too late. The orb of bluish potion washed over both of the duelists, its magic activating immediately upon contact with skin. Voldemort screamed in disgust at the goo still dripping from his face. Crimson eyes focused on the quintet behind Potter. That mudblood had her wand out and a simple little vial. She was smirking. The Dark Lord raise his wand, intent on making her pay for indignity she had dared to cause him.
Suddenly the air around him was filled with faceless spirits. They howled in rage and fear. With fingers like claws, they slashed at the air as if trying to grab hold of some purchase in the air they flew through. It was a storm of foggy grey all centered on one Tom Marvolo Riddle.
What magic was this? Voldemort's black heart began to pound with an unfamiliar feeling: fear. He took a single step backwards away from Potter and his band of blood traitors and mudbloods. He demanded the question of the boy, proud of the imperious nature of it and the lack of tremble. He was the Dark Lord. Others trembled before him, not him before them.
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"How are your conversations with Professor Slughorn coming, Harry?"
Harry fiddled with his tea as he contemplated how to answer the headmaster's question. For some reason, he didn't think the fact that he hadn't really put any further effort behind getting the Potions professor to give up a version of that memory that hadn't been tampered would go over well. In truth, between his lessons with Snape and the search for proportions of the Revealio Magus potion's ingredient list, Harry felt that knowing how many Horcruxes old Snake-face had made was not as important. The Revealio would cause those separated bits to reunite with their source no matter where they were.
"Sometimes the best way to say something, my boy, is to just say it," Dumbledore said before he took a sip of his own tea. Harry had noted that he took lemon in it. That was one of the inconsequential facts that Snape's lectures had him noticing now. Harry sighed as he also noted that the old wizard's blue eyes were twinkling knowingly. He sat down his tea as to stop his anxious stirring.
"I actually haven't made any success in that arena, sir," Harry replied. He regretted sitting down the cup now. It at least had given him something to do with his hands. 'Watch the hands,' he heard in his head as Snape's words came back to him, 'they will always give away a mood.' "I haven't had the time lately. I think I've found a potion that will reunite the parts of a split soul. I've been focusing on that."
"My dear boy, there is no potion that will destroy a Horcrux after it had been made. I've looked."
Dumbledore's tone was regretful but firm. Harry could recognize that tone. It was the same one the headmaster had used when he had told Harry that he could not tell Harry why Voldemort wanted to kill him in the first place and the same one he had used while explaining that Sirius would be put to death. Harry used to think that Dumbledore knew everything and once upon a time would have believed anything said in that tone. If there was one positive thing to come out of the Department of Mysteries debacle last spring, it was learning that Dumbledore was only a man and therefore could be wrong. A condition that Harry felt the elder wizard had in this instance.
Harry also knew that there would be no persuading him from that stance without revealing just how deeply he was entangled with Snape and Malfoy currently. Snape's lessons had hammered home Moody's credo of constant vigilance and paranoia. The more research Ron, Hermione, and he did on the Revealio Magus Potion, the more Harry was convinced that the idea of uniting Voldemort's soul and then combining magic to destroy the united version was a dangerous one. Perhaps it would be better if he didn't tell Dumbledore, who might try to stop them if he knew exactly what they were planning.
"Yes, sir, I think I understand," Harry agreed almost before he had decided not to argue the point. The less people involved the less of a chance for it to go pear-shaped, after all. "I will try harder at getting the memory from Professor Slughorn." Dumbledore smiled at Harry in response.
"Now tell me how your classes are, my boy," the headmaster said after taking another sip of his tea. "Has Professor Flitwick gone over the Sealing spell yet?"
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"What magic is this, Potter?"
"Don't you recognize them, Tom? They're you-the rest of your soul," Harry answered as the specters touched their target. They disappeared as if down a drain. "You, oh, my halfblood Lord, are once again mortal."
There was no denying the terror that appeared on his snake-like features this time. Lord Voldemort now knew that all his plans were unraveling before his eyes. All because of a brat too stubborn to die.
A light from beyond said boy caught his eye. The mudblood had put her wand away and now clasped hands with the witches on either side of her. Two wizards held those witches' other hands. They were chanting. With each word, the glow surrounding them burned brighter. A single tendril was tying Harry Potter to the quintet so that the glow was wrapping him in its embrace as well. As the magic wrapped around Harry, swirls of black covered the visible skin on all six of the teenagers, giving them a demonic look.
"Time's up, Tom."
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"Mr. Potter, how does it feel to have conquered the greatest Dark Lord since Grindelwald-"
"Harry Potter, what do you plan to do now that-"
"Back off, you vultures! Over here, Potter!"
The crowd of reporters that surrounded Harry parted for the malformed retired auror like the Red Sea before Moses. He was quick to take advantage of that fact to maneuver his trunk through said crowd to Moody's side. Hedwig squawked in her cage as if scolding the noisy journalists for impertinence. Hermione, Ginny, and Ron were close on his heels. Moody threw one more disgusted look at the crowd before turning and beginning a brisk march towards the barrier with nothing more than a gruff command to follow.
"Good to see you, sir," Harry said as he moved through the crowd. Hermione huffed slightly at the fast clip that Moody set for them. Even a school year of working on her dueling skills couldn't make her as physically fit as the three quidditch players. The bookish girl did well enough to get by, but an athlete she was not. "Professor Dumbledore said you'd know where I was going for the summer?"
"Not here, Potter," he growled. "Security. There could be Death Eaters about still. Just because You-Know-Who has been defeated doesn't mean the world is a safe place. Constant vigilance, boy, constant vigilance."
"Yes, sir," Harry answered as they reached the wizard in the dark blue robes that he had come to associate over the last few weeks with the Department of Magical Law Enforcement-not the Auror Department, but the wizards who regulated everything else. The mousy-haired wizard nodded his head respectively to the ex-auror as Moody led the way through the barrier to the muggle world.
Even the prospect of seeing the Dursleys again couldn't dampen this homecoming. He had won. He had survived a war that the esteemed Dumbledore had told Snape that he couldn't, not if they were to achieve a true defeat of Voldemort. While the final battle had been rough on those fighting, no one of his immediate family had been lost. Yes, there were still Death Eaters at large and they would need to be rounded up and tried for their crimes. But that was not his responsibility yet. Harry could finally relax and finish school as a normal student with normal worries.
A bright new era was upon them and Harry, the Boy-Who-Lived, the Chosen One, was ready.