Chapter One: The Final Prologue
*snore* Wha–? It's time to wake up? To come out of hibernation? Excellent. My year break has resulted in nothing but copious amounts of notes and zip proper writing. Hahah… *cries*
Anyway, where are my manners? To the new readers, I say that this is a sequel so I recommend going and reading the first part before you pursue this one. If you are really in opposition this suggestion, then perhaps if you ask nicely enough, somebody may fill you in down in the comment section. :)
To the old readers, I say welcome back!
Thank you all for your comments, kudos, favourites and follows during the hiatus (depending on whether you are reading on AO3 or FFN). I received an interesting mix of supportive, entertaining and downright sinister messages (yes, I'm looking at you, BlueJordan09), but all were lovely and I'm sorry that I only replied to a handful of them. I wasn't lying when I said that this would be a busy year… however, thanks to your patience I am successfully a year 12 graduate. *throws confetti*
Enough talking. Just a reminder that :this: is Parseltongue.
Quick breaths left Harry's parted lips in puffs of vapour which billowed before his face like drowning clouds. Flexing the stiff fingers on his left hand, Harry tightened his grip on the wand in his right.
His dear wand still bore the ugly, jagged crack splitting it down the middle. A tattooed reminder of the fateful day he and Hermione had found themselves in a new world.
A new world, a place Harry wished he had never found. A place where he had fallen in love. He loathed himself for it. But the matter was beyond his own hands. Love was something beyond his control.
Harry pulled his cloak securely around his body to ward away the winter's chill. Dusk was rolling in, wrapping London in long shadows which stretched along the sidewalks like creeping fingers. It was a gamble to have stepped into the open in the heart of London, the place Voldemort was most active, but a gamble which had to be taken.
Standing by the entrance of a dark alleyway, Harry ducked his head, concealing his wand in the folds of his robes. Naturally, he had cast a Disillusionment Charm on himself – it allowed him more mobility than wearing his Invisibility Cloak would – because there was no telling which Death Eater he might stumble upon.
Harry held his breath as a Muggle shuffled past, taking long drags of a cigarette. She took no notice of him, camouflaged into the bricks behind him, and continued on her way. Harry let loose a breath, slackening his shoulders.
That was when he heard the click-clack-click-clack of little heels thrumming along the pavement.
Eyes narrowing almost comically, Harry lowered his gaze to the ground once more and watched as the pointy pink shoes trotted past his hiding place. Immediately, he slipped out of the alleyway and onto the street, a mere shadow, his footfall silent as he stalked the witch into the silence of evening.
Closer, closer, closer he crept, the stout witch paying no mind to the unsettling quiet which had fallen around them like a stifling shroud. Harry allowed the Disillusionment Charm to melt away with each step, right before seizing the woman by the arm and Apparating away before she could so much as shriek.
They reappeared in a flurry of motion within a circle of trees in the Forest of Dean. As promised, before Harry could so much as blink the witch was hit by a Stunner and slumped to the ground, dirtying her fluffy pink cardigan.
"Cheers," said Harry as Hermione and Ron stepped out from behind the cover of trees.
"No worries," said Ron, and they gathered around to stare down at the incapacitated form of Dolores Umbridge.
After a heartbeat, Harry kneeled by her, hand hovering above her for a moment. He closed his eyes and listened for the tired throbbing of a fragment of a soul.
It stung his scar, and Harry flinched.
"Well?" asked Hermione in a hushed tone of voice.
By way of response, Harry steeled his nerves and reached down to Umbridge's neck, yanking up the chain which was tucked away.
Out came Salazar Slytherin's locket, humming in cold greeting.
Ron swore beneath his breath and Hermione gave a tiny nod of her head. They had been expecting it, ever since they had forced the locket's location out of Mundungus Fletcher with the help of Kreacher.
There was another bitter moment of silence, then finally Harry snapped the chain away from Umbridge's neck and hung it around his own, tucking it away so that it was in contact with his bare chest. The metal was hot and electrified his skin.
The soul of Tom Riddle, speaking to him once more.
Harry. The memory of long, cool fingers on his face. I never wanted you to be the hero.
With a shudder, Harry straightened, willing the voice away. "We need to leave," he said. "Now."
"You alright with wearing it?" Ron looked at him seriously. "I mean, look what happened with Ginny, when she had the diary–"
"It's fine," Harry snapped unexpectedly, hand shooting up to lay protectively across the locket beneath his robes. He ignored the shock on both his friends' faces and glanced away, jaw tense. "Are we done here?"
Hermione recovered first. "Yes. I'll take us back to–"
Exactly where Hermione was planning on taking them was not revealed.
Overhead there was a crack, as loud as a thunderclap. Black smoke billowed out from seemingly nowhere, casting them in darkness, and a hurricane-like wind knocked the three off their feet, tossing them across the clearing as if they were ragdolls.
Harry flipped along the ground like tumbleweed, before finally finding a hold on the ground. He hung there for dear life, wind streaming through his hair until finally, it died away.
Blinded by the darkness, Harry could barely see as far as his own nose. Gaining his own feet again, he ducked down low, eyes stinging. Hermione and Ron were nowhere near him, and he wouldn't call out for fear of alerting their ambusher.
Scrambling for the locket, a jolt of relief ran up his spine when his fingers found it.
The relief did not last long.
Pain split across his forehead, like nothing he had ever felt before, and Harry fell to his knees with a howl, dropping his wand and clutching at his scar with his free hand.
"Harry!" he heard Hermione's voice distantly but could barely focus on it as the smoke parted before him, cleaving a path which was so clean and bright compared to the black which enveloped him everywhere else.
Once more, Harry's skull threatened to tear apart from the unadulterated agony which he felt, and his eyes screwed shut.
And then suddenly, so suddenly, it all stopped. The pain dissipated, like a dream. Then a clear voice crooned in his ears, low and cold.
"Harry… Potter."
A shiver crawled across Harry's skin, raising the hairs on the back of his neck, on his arms.
That voice. A voice he had once known, in an age long passed.
Hardly daring to believe, Harry opened his eyes.
Towering above his kneeling form was Voldemort. Tall, thin, his complexion as white as death. The slitted nose of a serpent, head as smooth as a boiled egg and eyes the colour of fresh blood.
A face so unlike the one that Harry had known. "Tom," he said.
A sneer curled the corner of Voldemort's lipless mouth upwards and he ran his wand along Harry's cheek with a tender viciousness, a motion which set off alarm bells in Harry's head.
"I have been searching long and hard for you, Harry Potter," murmured Voldemort, his gaze sweeping across Harry, committing him to memory.
Slowly, Harry rose to meet him, breath caught in his throat. Voldemort's wand, pressed against his cheekbone, felt like a brand of ownership. Voldemort allowed him the dignity of standing, his eyes glittering rubies.
"And I'm afraid," said Harry, more steadily than he felt, "that you will be searching again."
Voldemort tilted his head to the side, a curious little gesture. "You will not be leaving my sight again, Potter," he said, mellow as a song. "Not until you are dead, and it is your corpse being taken away from me."
Harry knew that Voldemort was merely the shadow of the person he had once been, the schoolboy Harry had fallen for some fifty years ago, but hearing such words come from his mouth still splintered Harry's already fractured heart.
"You have been angry for so long," he said, and it sounded like a plea, "but I understand now. It's me, Tom, I'm here, and I want to help–"
In a movement as swift as a whip, Voldemort had Harry by the throat, crushing his airway between long, pale fingers, like spider legs. Harry choked, eyes bulging, his hands swinging up on reflex to grip Voldemort's arm, grappling to free himself from the stranglehold.
But Voldemort's grip was firm and oxygen deprivation weakened Harry. His struggle rapidly slackened, spots dancing in the corners of his vision, and Voldemort's face was blurring over.
Images of Hermione and Ron surfaced before his eyes. Then there was Luna and Neville, Ginny and the Weasleys, Dumbledore and Sirius and Lupin and his mother and father. The long-ago faces of Peregrine Lestrange, Ignatius Prewett, Margot Greengrass and the boy who had once been known as Tom Riddle.
Harry had never imagined that this would be how he would die. Surrounded by black smoke, asphyxiated in the most Muggle, most intimate manner by Lord Voldemort. With only his memories to comfort him as he spiralled down the bright white tunnel to the unknown.
Then abruptly he was thrown to the ground and he gasped in air, his entire frame shuddering from the shock of yet another near-death experience.
"Give me the locket," Voldemort hissed and Harry looked up at him, eyes watering.
"Why not kill me and get it yourself?" he wheezed, his fingers scrambling for wherever he had dropped his wand.
Voldemort's face went even whiter, if that was possible, and he kicked Harry in the ribs, sending him tumbling. :Do not mock me, insolent brat,: he spat.
Harry groaned and lifted his head to the sight of his wand, a mere metre ahead of him.
"I know you remember me, Tom," he managed, pushing himself upright once more. He could tell that his ribs were bruised as he did so.
"Do not call me by that name!" Voldemort stalked nearer him and Harry scuttled backwards, closing in on his wand, desperate to put some distance between himself and his enemy.
"It was a long time ago," he pressed. "And things didn't go the way either of us planned. But you have to stop this, you have to remember–"
"How could I not remember?" Voldemort raised his wand, his eyes pulsing madness. "I remember that night all too well, Potter–"
"The night that you killed her."
Hermione, her mouth opening slightly in morbid surprise as her body was engulfed in green light, then nothing. Just an empty shell, lying on the ground, a mockery of the bright witch she had been.
"Yes, I killed her," said Voldemort, and there was no remorse in his voice. "I gave her the opportunity to move – a gift – but she refused, so now she is dead and so is your pathetic father. All to protect you, a perfectly ordinary, interfering, half-blood child."
There was a pause, during which Harry entirely forgot that he was meant to be grabbing his wand and escaping. He shook his head once, a miniscule motion, and said in a low voice, "We aren't talking about the same night. Are we?"
"I did not realise that we had the memories of an abundance of nights at our disposal, Potter," said Voldemort, and there was such hatred in his eyes that Harry wanted to cry.
"Stop playing games," he whispered. "I know that you remember Harry Delacour."
Please, Tom, remember me.
But there was no recognition which sparked on Voldemort's face, and a cruel smile curled his mouth. "Oh dear," he said. "Is that another of your beloved companions who crossed paths with me?"
For the first time since Harry had returned to the future, he thought that he might hate Tom Riddle after all. "Yes." His fingers closed around his wand, hidden from sight behind him, and emotion made his voice tremble painfully. "Yes, he was. Harry Delacour… I didn't know him for long. Only half a year. But he'll always be close to my heart."
"Is this love that you speak of?" Voldemort's pale face hovered there like a skull in the dark, so very mocking.
Harry grimaced. "Yes. And you thought you loved him, too."
Voldemort went silent, disbelief rippling off him like waves.
Harry seized the opportunity. "It was a long time ago. It was during the Christmas of 1944, the same that you produced a dragon Patronus."
Something fragile jolted in Voldemort's gaze, as if that had awoken something in him. His wand remained raised, pointing steadily at Harry, but he made no move to utter a spell.
The locket, hot against Harry's chest, crooned a soulful melody to him. Keeping talking, it seemed to say. Tell the world our story.
"And it was also during the Christmas of 1944," said Harry, aching, "that you kissed him."
Voldemort's eyes widened a fraction – snagged in Harry's words – and Harry leapt into action. "Stupefy!" he shouted, throwing himself to his feet, and the Stunner ricocheted off the shield Voldemort abruptly cast.
But it granted him enough time to spring back into the black smoke around them, blind once more, and he hurtled towards where he had heard Hermione's voice before. "Hermione!" he bellowed in desperation as he ran. "Ron!"
"We're here!" he heard somewhere to his right. He veered sharply, dogging the voices, and he could hear rustling behind him as Voldemort gave chase.
"I am not done with you, Harry Potter!" The outcry echoed all around, ringing sharply in Harry's ears, and he could feel fingers shadowing his cloak, rippling like a banner behind him.
So he took a leap of faith.
Through the air he sailed, his eyes filled with smoke, and the earth seemed to still around him as he flew. Then Harry slammed bodily straight into Ron and Hermione, huddled together in the darkness.
With a crack, Hermione Apparated them away, Voldemort's scream of outrage filling the atmosphere.
Once safely hidden away inside 12 Grimmauld Place, Hermione and Ron backed Harry into a chair where they could interrogate him.
Harry had almost forgotten what it was like, to have two against one. Despite a whole year passing since he and Hermine had returned, he had grown accustomed to it just being the two of them.
"Did he hurt you?" demanded Hermione, first up. Her bushy hair was a mess, poking around such that it could rival Harry's own, and her skin was blackened from the smoke, as was Ron's.
"You-Know-Who wouldn't hurt him," reasoned Ron, though his tone was sceptical. "I mean, weren't you his school boyfriend or something?"
No matter how many times Ron was told of their adventure in the past, he never seemed able to fully comprehend what had happened. If Harry had been in his best mate's shoes, he would have been the same. The whole story was completely mental, after all.
"But he's tried to hurt Harry in the past," Hermione argued, turning on Ron. "Just look at what happened during the Triwizard Tournament, if you've forgotten. You-Know-Who appears to have no qualms about harming Harry. Maybe he hasn't made the connection yet–"
"There is no connection to be made," croaked Harry, rubbing his reddened throat. He was sure that there were fingerprints there.
"You–" Hermione frowned, whipping her head around to stare at Harry. "What did you say?"
"There is no connection to be made," repeated Harry, his hands clenching into fists on his lap. He was unable to make eye contact with either of them when he spoke. "Vol–"
"Don't say his name!" Ron hissed, for the millionth time.
"You-Know-Who," snapped Harry, glaring at the ground, "does not remember me. He does not remember Harry Delacour. He does not remember that night, Hermione. It's all gone."
Hermione's mouth opened and closed, her face slack. She backed up a few steps, then collapsed into a chair opposite Harry's. "How… is that possible?"
"I don't know."
"Maybe he extracted and destroyed the memories?" suggested Ron, glancing helplessly between his two shell-shocked friends.
"You don't understand, Ron." Hermione pressed her fingers against her lips, staring into the distance. Her eyes were blank, as if she was seeing something which wasn't there anymore. "The Tom Riddle we met would never have destroyed the memory of Harry. He was mad, and he wanted to own Harry, like a possession. It was an unhealthy attraction. But the memory of Harry… that is something he would have treasured."
Harry's gaze shuttered as he listened to the words, and he swallowed painfully. He had come to realise, as horrible as it was, that everything Hermione spoke of was true. In the end, he had just been another item to Tom.
Ron pulled his shoulders up into a useless shrug. "Then maybe somebody destroyed the memories for him. I don't know. Maybe they were jealous of you, Harry, even if you were gone."
Harry exchanged a dark glance with Hermione. He would not have put it past Cassius Mulciber to have done something like that. But then again…
"Unlikely," he announced. "Tom had them all wrapped around his little finger. He couldn't have been overpowered by anyone."
"Anyone but you." Hermione's voice rang through the room, clear as a bell.
Harry's jaw tightened. "Well, obviously I wasn't the one who did it."
Nobody spoke for a long moment. Then Hermione said softly, "Ron, could you please ask Kreacher to prepare us a hot meal?"
From the corner of his eye, Harry could see them share a meaningful look and anticipated what was to come. This was a constant occurrence, nowadays.
"Alright," said Ron, attempting a bright tone. "We could all do with that. Food is healing, after all."
He went off in search of the house-elf, leaving Harry and Hermione alone.
"Harry." Hermione inched to the edge of her seat, eyes beseeching. "How are you feeling?"
"Fine," Harry gritted out.
"You're not fine," disagreed Hermione. "You've come face-to-face with him for the first time since we got back, for the first time in a year, only to learn that he doesn't remember you. You can't be fine."
Harry did not say anything, merely looked at her. All that was not said aloud could be read in his gaze.
Hermione pursed her lips. "If it's any comfort to you, this makes our job easier. Your job easier."
"How'd you figure that one out?" The sarcasm dripped in thick rivulets from Harry's voice.
"He doesn't remember you, he retains no emotional ties. Shouldn't that make destroying his Horcruxes less… complicated?"
Harry stood abruptly. "It changes nothing," he said. "Just because he has forgotten doesn't mean that I've forgotten."
Turning on heel, he made to leave the room but Hermione called after him. "You've still got it, haven't you?"
Harry paused. "Got what?"
"You know what."
Subconsciously, Harry palmed the locket through his clothes. It had not stopped humming since he had first put it around his neck. He glanced over his shoulder at Hermione, tense and perched on the edge of her seat. "I'll look after it for now," he said.
"I don't think that's a very good idea." Hermione held her hand out for it. "I'll wear it first."
"I'll be fine with it." Harry made no move to pass her the locket, and Hermione's expression twisted into disapproval.
"You've been using the word 'fine' an awful lot," she said. "You're already agitated, Harry. The locket will only make you worse."
But the locket contained a fragment of Tom's soul, and it had been whispering to Harry since he had first put it on, recalling stories of their past.
Despite the pure evil that it represented, it was something of a comfort to Harry. It was like walking with Tom's arms around him once more. It was something that Harry craved but did not speak of.
One more smile. One more kiss. One more brush of their fingers in a darkened room. One more.
"Harry," warned Hermione, sensing Harry's inner turmoil.
Don't, said the voice of Tom Riddle.
"Trust me." Hermione raised her eyebrows, extending her hand a little further forward.
Trust me. Those two simple words were always capable of pulling on Harry's heartstrings.
His fingers trembling, he yanked the chain off his neck, ignoring the Horcrux's cry to never let go. Mutely, he tossed it over to Hermione and immediately felt a little lighter once it was out of his hand.
"Thank you," she said, her knuckles white around the smooth metal of the Horcrux. "We'll rotate every day. Ron can wear it tomorrow. That should give you a break for long enough. All we have to do now is learn how to destroy it."
A year. They had been doing this for a year, and still they had not made any progress in that field. Little progress had been made in general, period.
The diary had been destroyed long ago. Dumbledore had taken care of the ring. Hermione had managed to snag Ravenclaw's lost diadem the day that they had fled from Hogwarts, and now they had the locket. But there were still more out there.
With one last lingering glance at Tom's Horcrux, Harry turned and walked away.
He couldn't shake away the feeling that a voice was screaming for him to stay.
But perhaps it was only a memory.
