The final evidence that my world had, in total fact, gone completely and utterly balls-up was the realization that I was laying in a little wicker basket, watching Dumbledore and McGonagall depart my new home at 4 Privet Drive. The fact that I was thirty-seven years old was just icing on the crap-cake.
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What-The-Hell-Was-I-Drinking Productions presents...
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My Time, My Mind
(I'm Out of Both)
A Harry Potter Fanfic by Red Death
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Now, I suppose you already know who I am. Harry Potter, Boy-Who-Lived, Man-Who-Hunts, and blah blah blah. I am just as sure you've read the partly fictionalized semi-biography series published a few years back. Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, etc. Well, don't believe everything you read.
The author did a very good job, I think, in chronicling the first few years of my Hogwarts education. She was even kind enough to leave out a few of the more embarrassing details; Neville's nose-picking problem, Ginny's odd habit of poking me in a random appendage and giggling whenever I would visit the Burrow, and Hermione's obsessive love/hate relationship with hairbrushes just to name a few. Yet we were not without disagreement. She had this idea that it would be more entertaining and beneficial to my social life to imply there might have been something more between Ginny and I, but I wanted her to stick closer to reality. Ginny was a sweetheart to be sure, but we never really clicked.
Thankfully, she stopped publishing her "fictographies" once the tale reached my final year at Hogwarts. They were becoming more and more fiction over fact, and many people were taking every word as some sort of Holy Writ. You would not believe how many people sent Ginny Howlers over the broom closet incident. It really wasn't what it looked like.
When all is said and done, I really couldn't complain about my life at Hogwarts, although my life afterwards was just two steps shy of nightmarish.
I should probably explain why I'm reminiscing like this, taking up your valuable time. Between you and me, whoever you are, you may have more important things to do with your time, but I don't. Allow me to elaborate why...
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"Tom, you're an ass. A complete and unmitigated ass." Insulting Voldemort's dead body was satisfying, but ultimately unhelpful. The tiny, smoke-hazed dungeon-like room Harry was trapped in with said body offered not a single exit.
"Why can't more dark wizards die on beaches? Even a sunny field would be an improvement," Harry muttered. His fruitless search for an escape route was starting to get to him. On top of the rest of the day's cataclysmic events, this was not good, in the way that throwing dynamite onto a campfire was also "not good." A raspy, gurgling voice stopped Harry in his search.
"Potter." Harry turned to face the not-as-dead-as-he-thought Dark Lord, leaning wearily against the cold stone wall. Blood ran in rivers down Voldemort's pale face, giving him an almost candy-cane appearance. One arm hung limply from his shoulder, and the left leg was missing altogether. He'd managed to pull himself generally upright to sit in a darkened corner. His glowing eyes were filled with an impotent malevolence that was nearly physical in nature.
"For Merlin's sake, Tom. Would you just die already?!" Harry's disbelieving eyes calmed when he spotted the spreading pool of blood under Voldemort. "Then again, it won't be long anyway." He raised his wand to finish the Dark Lord off.
"Wait," Voldemort gurgled, blood bubbling from between his lips to further stain his robes. "You've won. You're right, I am dying. I can feel it creeping up on me. That," he gestured to Harry's wand, "will not be necessary." He slumped against the wall in exhaustion. The evil light in his eyes flickered, dying to a dull maniacal gleam. Harry watched him struggle to remain conscious. There was no way he'd live more than twenty minutes longer. Not letting go of his wand, he settled into the corner opposite Voldemort. Voldemort finally broke the eerie silence.
"Why, Potter?" His voice had faded to barely more than a whisper.
"Why what, Tom? Why did I kill you? You should know better than to ask that."
"No," Voldemort breathed, "I know why you had to do that. Why did you oppose me? You're the definition of pureblood superiority. You could have ruled high in my service." Harry's face darkened, rage washing away the fatigue that had overtaken him.
"Why?! Because I knew better, Tom! I knew that there was no valid difference between a Muggle-born and any other witch or wizard. They have just as much value to the world as anyone else." He paused to breathe. "If you and your followers had simply wanted to live apart from the Muggles and Muggle-borns, I would have left you alone."
Voldemort's eyes widened in weakened surprise. "Truly?"
"Quite. I have no quarrel with anyone who just wants to live the way they wish, or to believe in what they want." The rage in Harry's eyes solidified into pure hatred. "But that wasn't enough for you was it? You had to 'purify' the magical world. Muggles and Muggle-borns had to be eliminated, didn't they?" He was practically snarling at Voldemort. The Dark Lord simply watched him quietly, a contemplative expression on his blood-streaked face.
"That's when I knew you had to be stopped, the sooner the better. When you started killing my friends. My family. I considered it justice, not simply revenge, whenever I would kill one of your minions. I used to keep a tally of who and how many I killed, but it was never enough, Tom. I would see the faces of everyone I knew that had died, and I would start all over again." Tears streamed from his eyes, trailing through the blood and dirt on his face. "Fred, Percy, and Bill Weasley. Neville and Seamus. The Grangers. Everyone. I remembered them all.
"Most especially my wife and daughter." He glared at Voldemort. "They are the sole reason I killed you, Tom." He let the silence take over again, not trusting himself to continue. Minutes passed before he spoke again.
"Now it hardly matters, does it?" Looking tiredly into Voldemort's dimming eyes, he laughed darkly. "You got your wish. There are no Muggle-borns left in Britain, they've all fled. Unfortunately, everyone else is leaving too. Even your precious Purebloods are leaving in droves." He smirked cruelly. "I've heard that many are even embracing Muggle life just to stay out of your sight. They value their survival over their 'blood pride.' Barely a quarter of British wizarding society is left, Tom. Our wizarding world is coming to an end." Harry could say no more as the grief overcame him, and he wept. Voldemort's fading voice brought Harry back to his senses.
"You're right."
"W-what?" Harry could only gape in shock. This admission was unexpected, to say the least. He'd been expecting vehement denials, arrogant declarations, and whispered threats. Anything but this.
"You're right. Our wizarding world is finished. I've done far too much damage," Voldemort breathed. He stared dully at the dungeon's stone floor, shaking his bloody head slightly. "This was not my intent. I did not want this to happen."
"You—" Harry's rage was returning quickly, but Voldemort cut him off with a surprising forcefulness that Harry hadn't thought the Dark Lord had left.
"I do not apologize for despising Muggles and their spawn. I don't deem them worthy to be in our world. I've believed this my entire life, and will do so until my last breath." He chuckled, a rueful smirk breaking up the bloody mask that was now his face. "Which, I suppose, should be within the next few moments." In violation of all things that make sense, the Boy-Who-Lived shared a laugh with the Dark Lord.
"But even my goal is pointless if the wizarding world dies. A society with Muggles," he sneered, "Is still better than a dead society."
"Kind of late to be realizing that, isn't it? You should have thought of it before you started killing people by the thousands. You murdered so many that even the Muggles are aware of what's happened." A strange mix of astonishment and anger filled Harry's mind. Voldemort picked now to come to his senses? "Even should our world survive the sheer loss of life, the Muggles know about us now."
"This must not be allowed to happen, Potter. Muggles or no Muggles, the wizarding world must not die."
"What do you expect me to do about it? I can't rebuild a society on my own, and there aren't enough wizards left in Britain to run a pub, let alone a government," Harry growled, irritated by the sheer arrogance Voldemort was still displaying, even this close to death.
"There is still a way." The Dark Lord was fading fast.
"Well, I'm open to ideas. I'm stumped." Sarcasm wasn't helping anyone, but Harry had nothing else to contribute.
"I must be stopped before I can do too much harm." This statement was met with a moment of silence.
"Wow, you do go mad just before you die. News flash, Tom. You've already destroyed it all!" Harry laughed at the futility of this conversation. There was as much chance that the wizarding world could be fixed as there was of his daughter spontaneously coming back to life.
"I know a way.. it can be done." These whispered words seized Harry's attention like a veela at the Playboy Mansion. Hope, an irrational hope, but hope nonetheless blossomed in his soul.
"What?! How?!"
"A spell. I know a spell that can give you the chance."
"A single spell?! Are you serious?! How- Never mind. I'll do it. It's got to be better than doing nothing. Tell me how, quickly."
"You cannot cast it yourself, but I can."
"Why not?" Harry was instantly suspicious. "Tom, if this is some sort of trick…"
"I assure you it is not. The cost of casting this spell is the remaining life force of the caster, regardless of how much."
Harry could not fathom Voldemort's offer. It went against everything he had ever believed about Voldemort and his followers. Could the Dark Lord truly have a conscience buried beneath the arrogance and the prideful veneer? "You're suggesting one of the Forbidden spells, aren't you?"
"I am," Voldemort wheezed. "If it fails, feel free to enact the proper punishment, irrelevant as it would be." The Forbidden spells, Harry knew, were the only magics in history that the use of was punishable by an immediate Avada Kedavra, cast by whomever was available. The wizard enacting that Killing Curse would be immediately pardoned. Harry only had to ponder for a moment.
"Alright. Let's do this. What do you need from me?"
"Just your permission, Potter."
"You've got it. Now what?"
"Just.. hold still. This may hurt." The Dark lord labored to raise his wand, taking aim at Harry's heart.
"Hey, w—" Harry scrambled to raise his own wand, but it was too late.
"Tempus Redux."
Harry's world dissolved into a whirling, swirling white vortex of agony beyond anything he had felt before. The Cruciatus was a mere itch compared to this. He felt a great wrench and a sense of growing displacement, as if he was falling rapidly to earth yet not moving an inch. Flashes of memories spun everywhere within the vortex like leaves in a thunderstorm. He watched in agonized horror as things best left forgotten dredged themselves from the dark places of his mind.
The destruction of Hogsmeade. The Diagon Alley Massacre.
The violation and murder of his wife. His daughter's horrific death.
The burning of London. The deaths of countless Death Eaters one by one at his own hand.
Dumbledore. McGonagall. Remus. Seamus. Lavender. Parvati and Padma. The children of St. Mungo's. Cho. Hagrid. Even poor, brave Dudley. He saw them all die again, and his soul screamed for salvation.
Blessed darkness finally overcame Harry, rescuing him from the white hell he had been put through, leaving only the sensation of free fall. Whatever was happening to him, his barely coherent mind prayed that it was over. As his last shred of consciousness fled, Harry heard an impossibly soft voice reach him from an impossible distance. Its message was crystal clear.
"Good luck, Potter. Don't fail."
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Coming Soon: Chapter 1: "When Harry Met Dursley."