Tell Me Why
"Are you sure this will work?" I ask Hermione. She puts the book down and looks at me.
"Fairly. It's more reliable than Polyjuice and doesn't require any DNA," she says.
"Are you sure this is a good idea?" I ask..
"Oh, I'm positive that it's not. But give it one shot. It's all we have, besides letting you die and I won't. I won't," she says.
I kiss her hand and close my eyes. I mutter the spell under my breath. I can feel myself getting taller. She lets my hand go and walks a few feet away. I feel the hair tickle my earlobes as it grow longer- Tom Riddle's earlobes, I mean. I open my eyes and walk out to the hall.
The war has come to a standstill around me. My friends, my classmates, good people lie dead around me. They are all too busy to notice the enemy standing before them. Me. This pain and this loss is all my fault. I will avenge them. Even if this plan falls through, even if I do die, I will get my revenge. I walk the long path to Voldemort and stumble over a log. I breather into the Snitch left to me by Dumbledore. I open at the close. A small section of it opens and out comes a small black stone.
"The Resurrection Stone," I say. I take it in my hands and rotate it- once, twice, three times.
"Who are you?" my father asks.
"I am Harry Potter, and I am ready to die. But not before I make him see what he's done. Not before I make him regret it all," I say. I lead my march unto death and hope that this will work. My ghosts follow me and keep me walking straight. Bellatrix Lestrange sees my arrival and runs to him. I will avenge them all. Everyone, even those who succumbed to his will. Even they deserve freedom. And I will give him the worst punishment of all: I will forgive him and leave him to live alone with my mercy.
"Why?" I ask, my little boy's voice ringing out loud and clear into the forest.
Voldemort stares at me as though he has seen a ghost.
"Leave us," he says.
"Why?" I ask. I sound as though I am asking with the combined voices of all that he has murdered. I ask with such pain and conviction that he knows right away what I mean.
"Who are you?" Voldemort asks. He tries to keep his voice from wavering. He tries and he fails.
"I am you," I say.
"What do you want? Who are you really?" he asks.
"I am you. I want to know why," I say.
I'm doing well. He is afraid, though he tries not to show it, too afraid to kill me before he gets an answer.
"Why have you done this to me?" I ask him. I focus on the spell and will it to obey me. I shift forms again, into the thing that stands before me and the monster he has I go back to Tom Riddle as a child.
"Why have you killed so many people?" I ask.
He does not answer, he only stares.
Then he says, "I know what I did… It doesn't mean I wanted to. But blood is the fuel of power," he says.
I almost feel sorry for this man who, beneath his bravado and behind his army, is broken. But then I remember my mother. I stare at him and picture her so clearly in my mind that I become her.
"Why did you kill me, Tom? What have I done?" I ask.
He says nothing. I take a deep breath and revert to myself. My head is pounding from so much changing.
"I forgive you," I say.
"It was you!" Voldemort yells, "You thought I would see the 'error of my ways'. Well, Harry, I say to you again: Blood is the fuel of power. AVADA KEDAVRA!
I wake in a room of white.
