WARNING: DEATHLY HALLOWS SPOILERS. DO NOT READ ON IF YOU HAVEN'T FINISHED THE BOOK.

I was inspired to write this while reading the most climactic scene in the story. I couldn't help myself; it was such a static moment. This is a short one shot from Voldemort's perspective, when he kills the Horcrux inside of Harry Potter. I hope I have done a fair job; do tell me if I have!

Voldemort knew that the time was very, very near. He knew that Potter was a meek, love-blinded fool; that he would come to him. The boy would feel that weak emotion that he himself, Voldemort, was incapable of feeling: guilt. Guilt, that his closest and most loved were being murdered before his eyes. Guilt, that as long as he, Voldemort, the most powerful sorcerer of all time, still lived, his loved ones would continue to die.

Voldemort knew this, was certain of it; he had seen into the boy's mind, seen and even felt what the child was suffering; he knew that the boy would come to him, thinking that this would stop his friends' suffering.

And yet, if this was true, then why was Potter not coming?

He felt the anger and frustration that he had spent years, even decades, controlling, boiling up inside of him. He heard his most loyal follower, Bellatrix Lestrange, murmuring words of consolation beside him, but this did not help.

"My Lord," she spoke softly. "My lord, you have never been wrong, I am sure the boy will come… My Lord…"

"That is enough." He spoke quietly, but Lestrange was immediately silenced. Though he was not looking at her—his eyes were on the Elder Wand, his prize—he could tell that her slightly bloodied-up face was pouting.

The Elder Wand. That was another mystery, another infuriating problem. Why did it not work for him? Severus Snape had died, had been killed at his hand, and yet the wand still did nothing more than his previous wand had. It was no different, no more special than the wand that shared cores with Potter's wand. The pit of white-hot anger in his stomach flared with increasing aggravation.

He heard footsteps and looked up. Dolohov and Yaxley stood meekly at the edge of the circle of Death Eaters, trying to hide frightened looks.

"No sign of him, my Lord," Dolohov said. He did not speak loudly, but his voice carried around the clearing, and it was like a war gong in that it meant the sentence of death for many people.

Voldemort kept his face straight, although his frustration blazed ever stronger. He turned the Elder Wand over in his hands as a chill spread throughout his body that the intense fire in the middle of the clearing did not have an effect on; it was the chill he felt just before he flew into a rage. He slowly turned his eyes to the leaping flames.

"My Lord—" but Voldemort held up a hand to silence Bellatrix.

"I thought he would come," he said to no one in particular, though he knew every person in the clearing was listening intently. "I expected him to come."

He could sense the fear from his followers like static in the air; it was almost tangible. They knew what he was going to do next.

"I was," he murmured, "It seems… mistaken."

"You weren't."

The familiar, fearless voice that had always tempted such anger and trepidation inside him made him look up sharply. There the boy stood, staring at him from across the fire, seemingly wandless, and in the frozen silence that followed his words, something small and black dropped from the boy's fingers and rolled to a stop by the fire.

The silence did not last more than a few seconds; the Death Eaters rose as one and burst into laughter, gasped in surprise, or yelled in shock, and the giants stamped their feet and roared.

Voldemort merely stared as Harry Potter, The Boy Who Lived, the child who had escaped his killing curse so many times before, walked forward. The firelight flickered over his blood-and-soot-smeared sweater, his calm, expressionless face, the round glasses perched awkwardly on the bridge of his nose, and the scar: the famous, lightning-bolt-shaped, tell-tale scar that marked the time he, Voldemort, invincible and immortal, had failed to kill Lily and James Potter's only son.

Voldemort's eyes didn't move from Potter's face when the great oaf, Hagrid, yelled from where he was tied to the tree:

"HARRY! NO!"

Potter's head turned, surprise and shame flitting across his face and his emerald eyes, which found one of his beloved friends in his state of humiliation, struggling against his bonds, making the branches above his wild-haired head shake. Voldemort saw out of the corner of his eye Rowle, standing right beside the half giant, take out his wand.

"NO! NO!" Hagrid was shouting. Voldemort felt amused and disgusted at the oaf's futile sobs. "HARRY, WHAT'RE YEH—"

"QUIET!" Rowle bellowed, and with a flick of his wand Hagrid fell silent, though he thrashed about even more violently.

Bellatrix was now standing, still right beside Voldemort, and was looking fervently between him and the Potter boy, breathing fast. Now it was completely silent, but for the crackling flames and the soft hissing of Nagini, floating in her protective cage right behind Voldemort.

Voldemort smiled, tilting his head curiously as his eyes traveled over Harry Potter's face, over the scar, over the piercing emerald eyes that were so like his Mudblood mother's, over the hair as untidy as his foolish father's. He felt excitement at what he was about to do banish the fury that had, moments ago, dwelled in his chest. He raised the Elder Wand.

"Harry Potter." His whisper was not unlike the crackling of the fire. "The Boy Who Lived."

In the moment before he uttered the killing curse, he saw something in the boy's eyes; it wasn't fear, or anger, or guilt; it was simply sadness, an expression that would have made anyone but Voldemort hesitate; a grief so deep and aching that it resembled the passion of love.

"Avada Kedavra." He whispered the words that he had spoken so many times in his lifetime; words so familiar on his tongue that they were like the name of a friend. He whispered them almost as if someone else was moving his mouth.

Voldemort saw the jet of green light sail across the clearing and hit the boy in the very center of his chest, above his heart, and then his world spiraled into darkness.