Disclaimer: All recognizable aspects of this story are the intellectual property of JK Rowling. No money is being made from this story.
Fuge
Confrontation
"This is it, Potter," the reptilian voice hissed menacingly. Voldemort's eyes flashed, reflecting the bright light that shone down in the center of the chamber where the two were standing. Harry had always pictured this confrontation taking place in some dark, dank place; yet, here they were, standing in the centre of a dry stone room, the roof missing right in the centre, allowing the midday sun to shine in unhindered. Harry wondered if this was irony, a dark confrontation taking place in a circle of brilliant light.
"Here we are," Harry replied to Voldemort.
"Drawn by the same prophecy, pawns in a game that is not of our making. Who will win? Perhaps it is already ordained," Voldemort stepped a little closer, his wand held by a steady hand. There was no doubt as to who Voldemort believed was ordained to win.
"No," Harry disagreed. "We are here because of the choices we have made. You chose to destroy lives, and I have been given the power to stop you from destroying more of what I hold dear. So, that is what I shall do."
Voldemort chuckled. "These two options are not exclusive opposites. Had the prophecy not been spoken, you would not have been given the power to stop me."
Harry shook his head; he could feel Voldemort's mind creeping around his own, seeking a way in.
"Ah, Harry," Voldemort sighed affectionately. "You seem to oppose everything I say merely on principle. You do not weigh things up and make your own decisions. You simply react." Without utterance, nor apparent warning, Voldemort threw a curse.
Harry blocked it instinctively, and as the two spells met, they created the golden, glowing tug-of-war that Harry had first seen in his fourth year.
Voldemort, it seemed, had prepared for this. He thrust hard and fast, hoping to catch Harry unprepared and have the battle over quickly. The pearl of spitting gold power slid at a frightening speed toward Harry.
However, it seemed that Harry had also been ready for this. Not six inches from his fingers, the bead stopped abruptly. Hissing power spluttered from the point where the beams were joined, but no amount of Voldemort's supreme effort could budge the bead any closer.
Slowly, slowly, the bead of power began to inch its way back toward Voldemort. There was sweat on the pseudo-man's skin, but no amount of snarling would stop the crackling pearl of power in its progress.
Voldemort seemed to be waiting for something. He glanced around at the shadowed columns that surrounded the outer rim of the brightly lit arena. But his glances were unrewarded, and the bead continued its slow slide.
Harry could feel the Dark Lord's horror, his terror at his immanent downfall. Harry felt a shock of thought pass through the bond between them: had someone had betrayed him? Harry chose not to inform the man that nobody had betrayed him, instead leaving him to think what he chose.
Instead of elation, Harry felt almost as horrified as Voldemort. He was winning, Harry was winning, but there was no joy in the knowledge.
Because this was murder, what he was going to do. He knew it; and he knew that he was no better than this man before him, who had murdered so many times.
Dumbledore had shown him so many things during his sixth year at Hogwarts, but it had taken him a long while to discover what he had been trying to communicate. Love, the stronger force that Voldemort knew not. It was love that had him here, doing this. Oh, yes, love for all the people he knew were still alive, love and vengeance for those whom Voldemort had killed. But also love for this creature before him.
It had been such a terrifying thought when he had first encountered it. He'd been at Privet Drive, readying to leave. Vernon and Dudley were watching TV in the other room, ignoring him completely. But Petunia had stood at the door. "I just want you to know," she had said, "that I never really hated you. What you represented, yes. Terrified of you, yes. But I tried to love you, Harry." He had laughed at that, but she had narrowed her eyes. "It's a difficult thing to do, Harry. Take in someone who had potential powers that I couldn't understand, who could destroy my family and everyone I loved. I never understood you, Harry, and I was terrified of you. I never liked you, either; you didn't seem to realize just how hard it was to be non-magical and be expected to raise you. How are you supposed to punish someone who could turn you into a smoldering ash-heap if he disliked it? But I did try to love you."
"How could you love someone you didn't like?" He had scoffed, eyeing his Aunt in distaste.
"You don't have to like someone to love them, Harry. You just have to want what's best for them. Liking someone can get in the way of that, even. Because doing the loving thing is sometimes harder than doing the nice thing. Putting Dudley on a diet was one of the hardest things I've ever done – besides taking you in, that is – but it was the loving thing to do. I knew that, of course; but it was harder than making you eat well, because I liked Dudley, and I didn't like you. But I did try, Harry, to do what I thought was right."
Harry hadn't known what to say to that; had simply taken his luggage and left. But her words had haunted him. You don't have to like someone to love them. You just have to do what you think is best for them.
So he was here, trying to love Tom Riddle. All the memories that Dumbledore had shown him helped a lot. The horror of Riddle's past – the abuse, the abandonment, the confusion – was in some ways so similar to his own experience. And yet, the choices they had made were so different. Riddle had chosen to destroy, to take vengeance for the wrongs that had been perpetuated to him. Harry had chosen not to do so.
But for a few choices, Harry knew – a few friends, a few older people who were willing to take the time to talk with him – he would have ended up the same as this twisted phantom of a man. Harry had compassion on this man: so alone and terrified.
He didn't like him. But he chose to try to love him. Tom Riddle had been a man – still was a man – and he was causing himself great harm by the choices he had made. He was causing others great harm by the choices he had made. And, Harry knew, the only loving thing to do was to stop him. And Riddle wouldn't be stopped by anything other than permanent death.
Murder was not something that Harry could do lightly. It was only the sure knowledge that this was love, this was the only loving thing that he could do, that kept the bead of power moving determinedly toward Voldemort.
Harry could feel Voldemort's confusion and horror over his inability to cease the movement of the bead. The golden sparks were nearing him, and only the knowledge that he was doomed anyway – damn Lucius for not showing up! – that kept his effort pouring through his wand into the golden fray. Five inches. Four. Three.
Potter began to speak. When Voldemort looked up, the calm look on his face told him that he had lost. "I understand you, Tom Riddle," he said. "I forgive you for what you've done. For who you've become. But I cannot let you continue to torture yourself this way. I cannot let you continue to destroy. There is no other way. This is the end, Tom Marvolo Riddle."
Voldemort may have replied, but it was at that very moment that the bead of pulsating power slid back into his wand. The arcing light that had joined the two wands abruptly terminated, leaving Voldemort alone with the bead of crackling golden light. It crept down his wand, and began to engulf his hand, his arm, his torso in brilliant light. Voldemort could do nothing: the light engulfed every appendage of his body, and – when Harry was beginning to wonder what was going to happen – there was a flare of heat, and Voldemort disintegrated.
Harry Potter realized that he had fallen to his knees, the stab of pain of Voldemort's demise had ricocheted through their link. Now, there was only emptiness. Harry began to cry. Maybe it was for Voldemort, maybe for his own shattered innocence; but mostly, Harry suspected, it was simply shock.
Kneeling in the middle of the sun-drenched stone, Harry Potter cried his heart out.
