Prologue
May 20th, 1998
Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry
Red and green hit at the same time.
Harry Potter didn't know what to think the instant before that, when the deadly green spell whirled around and flew towards its caster, except that perhaps this was finally over. That he finally won; finally lived up to his destiny as the vanquisher of the Dark Lord. But probably not, given his luck. He should have known something was about to go wrong.
The moment before that, when Harry yelled "Expeliarmus", he was thinking straighter. He was thinking how he didn't want to kill a man, however much evil that man had brought, however inhuman that man had become. This wasn't a purely intellectual debate on capital punishment that he might engage with Hermione when they weren't hunting for horcruxes or fighting or running for dear life. The fact of the matter was simple: Harry didn't believe it was his place to decide when and how a man died, born to be the Saviour of the Light or not. Maybe it was the right of the Supreme Wizarding Court to decide. Maybe it was the right of the powers that be. Maybe it was no one's right. Riddle could feel no remorse, so he had to die before he could hurt anyone else; there were no two ways about it. But Harry didn't want to be the one to do it. Long ago, he found out he would never use the Killing Curse, not on anyone, so he used his favourite red spell instead. Which should have been enough, because his archenemy of eighteen years used his favourite green spell. And when the curse rebounded, Harry saw pure, naked fear in his enemy's eyes, and he knew he'd won –
Except red and green hit at the same time and clashed to emit the most incredibly coloured light – what colour do you get when you mix red and green anyway? Not gold, surely? Harry wouldn't know because he was rubbish at arts back in primary school, but that was beside the point…
The Great Hall exploded in a golden light.
It was nothing like what Harry had known before. It wasn't the exhilarating silver light of the Patronus. It wasn't the dangerous, all-consuming brightness of the Fiendfyre. But as the world lit up even after he shut his eyes tight to avoid turning blind, the light brought a feeling that was good and clean and pure and… magic.
When eventually the light receded and Harry managed to open his eyes, his sworn enemy was no more. In his place was a slender teenage boy with dark chestnut hair, wide-eyed but composed… Tom Riddle Jr. From the diary, from Dumbledore's memories – Harry could recognize him anywhere, and judging from the gasps of several Order members behind him, they did too. By instinct, Harry had levelled his wand at the boy, whose eyes flickered to the Elder wand now lying on the ground halfway between them, as if calculating whether he had time to make a move. But then the boy looked up and met Harry's gaze, and Harry could swear that there was something in those clear blue eyes, something so different from what he was used to seeing in those slitted red ones and it had nothing to do with the shape or colour. Something … significant, and Harry almost felt compelled to lower his wand.
For a few long, long moments, the entire Hall seemed to be frozen in place by shock. One could taste the confusion in the air, and nobody made a sound. Until someone in the crowd supplied - rather quietly, in fact – "It's a trick – finish him off!" And all hell broke loose. Harry barely had time to take two great leaps forward and shoot a Protego into the air to cover their makeshift arena before spells started to fly all around them – at them, to be precise. Some of those curses were alarmingly green. There was so much sound now compared to the dead silence of two seconds before and Harry was sure his cries for everyone to just stop were drowned out in the frenzy. Everyone's yelling sounded strangely muffled to his ears, as if he'd been underwater. For the second time that night, Harry saw fear flash through Riddle's eyes. The boy's right hand shot out as if to Accio the Elder wand, but before the loyalty of the Hallow could even be tested, Harry felt his shield crack. One pale blue flash of light later, Harry watched his now teenage-looking arch nemesis sink to the ground in agony. A very familiar female voice screamed Harry's name, but it failed to register. Harry's world was slammed into darkness a split second later.