Title: Like Them

Rating: R

Warning: violence, suggestion of sex and abuse

Disclaimer: Not mine.

Pairing: Hermione/Voldemort

Summary: Harry pointed his wand down at the Dark Lord. The fall of Voldemort with a twist.

Notes: I started this a long time ago, but I waited to post it for when it was finished. I hope you enjoy it. This is what I wish Rowling would do. I would just like to add that this was meant to be a novella rather than novel-length. So this won't be as intricate as Abyss/Ascent by any means.

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Harry pointed his wand down at the Dark Lord.

Lord Voldemort was on his knees, something in his leg broken from the fall after their duel. His wand was broken into five pieces to the side. The close circumference of the fighting field around them had ceased fire and watched the situation with wide eyes. The Death Eaters, those who were still conscious or alive, froze in fear at their master's clear defeat.

The battle began the previous night under a clear, starry sky that soon dimmed with all the flashes of spells, the night creatures drowned out by screams, crying, punctuated by the silence of those struck silent. It was supposed to be a victory for Voldemort – even Dumbledore had feared this outcome. The Death Eaters were supposed to outnumber them after the five initiations that Voldemort had held since the public knowledge of his return. The Daily Prophet and other newspapers mirrored the total despair of the entire wizarding world as Voldemort's power and influence seemed only to grow. Trust was once again a precious commodity – each day oscillated from the knowledge that the day should be appreciated and the fear that it was the last day. Harry felt Voldemort's delight every day, even after his many successful Occlumency lessons that should have blocked him from the emotions – but the Dark Lord was delighted, and that worried the Order and the DA. Hogwarts still continued, although the students were jumpy, quiet – studying was one of the escapes, but even Hermione could not take pleasure in the sudden influx of responsibility when she knew it was only a matter of time.

Dumbledore himself helped the DA prepare. Everyone who saw him train the children knew that it broke his heart to teach students who had not even learned how to Apparate – people who had not even begun to live – how to kill, how to die. He watched the future of the wizarding world turn into instruments of war. Many of the other professors helped – Professor Snape, Professor McGonagall, the former Professor Lupin, the former Professor Moody, and the present DADA teacher, although she was not the most knowledgeable woman.

The Great Hall had been quiet when Dumbledore announced that the next battle – the last battle, everyone knew he meant the last battle – would require everyone's participation. The final confrontation, time for the wizarding world to take a stand against Voldemort. Law Enforcement Officers, Aurors, Unspeakables, other witches and wizards who wanted or needed to fight, now the students of Hogwarts, would face the Dark Lord – only to fail, Dumbledore thought.

But more witches and wizards, more children, came to that field, covering the one side of the hill like a swarm, afraid, but bolstered by their numbers. Many Death Eaters and other followers of Voldemort, but not as many as had been expected, came at them from the other side of the hill. While the number of experienced fighters were outnumbered by Voldemort's supporters, most natural fighters, Dumbledore's army was larger, ten to one. Voldemort's side put up a good fight, deep into the night and into the sunrise, but they simply could not match Dumbledore's side.

The rising sun bled over the fallen, who bled into the ground.

Voldemort looked up, crimson eyes filled with fear, anger, hate, and what dignity he had left. He wished he had a knife, a shard of glass, anything, just not to be half-kneeling at Potter's feet utterly defenseless and at the boy's mercy – what little mercy he might have for a man like him. He was going to die. Even if one of the immortality spells worked, Potter would be on his guard and hit him with a spell that would ultimately debilitate him, destroy him. The sun rose behind the boy, casting him into half-silhouette, like some born god, and Voldemort hated it.

"Look at you," Harry snarled. "You're pathetic. I should torture you for every single person you took away from me and for every single person you took away from everyone else. Then I should kill you five hundred times, just to make sure you stay dead. You'd know that there are worse things than death by the five hundredth time you refused to die."

Voldemort tried to stand, but hissed at the pain in his right leg. He could not move it, and he almost fell sideways, like a lame animal. No more weakness, damn it.

"You did this to yourself, all the little ways you've destroyed your body," Harry continued. "Trying to be something you shouldn't be. I've seen Tom Riddle, and as evil as you were at sixteen, you're a shadow of yourself now. You aren't yourself. Ambition is all well and good until you become this." Harry spat in Voldemort's face. "Not even a man. It's disgusting. If you hadn't tried to kill me, I would have never been a threat to you, you know that? You might have achieved all the power you wanted. Instead, you were afraid of a child."

Voldemort was not listening. He tucked his left foot under his body, braced his hands on the ground. He was not going to go down at Potter's feet. He would not. One more time… Keep talking, Potter.

"You obsessed about killing me for more than seventeen years. What does that say about you?" Voldemort's fingers curled into the ground, ripping at grass. "Me. Without you, I'd be nothing special. I'd just be an ordinary wizard. Instead, you gave me the scar, and suddenly I'm the great hero I never wanted to be. Now I have to do this. I'm seventeen years old and I had to think about murder. Words can't describe how much I want to kill you for what you've done to me. What you've done to all of us. Neville killed your precious Bella – Neville, who a few years ago didn't even like killing spiders. You've… you've destroyed everything. This field – it used to be green. Now look at it."

"The earth thrives on the pain of its inhabitants," Voldemort hissed. "The blood and bodies feed it – it will be all the greener after this. Life from death, Harry. Even if you kill me, I'll always be there in your mind, screaming – you will become a killer, and no amount of justice will change the fact you took a life, just like any one of us, just like me. I'll have made you what you are, just like you never wanted to be. Even if I'm dead, you'll never be rid of me."

"Shut up!" Harry screamed, thrusting his wand forward.

Voldemort could not help but smile – it was forced, but effective. Voldemort always knew where to strike, what chord would resonate deep within Potter's mind, drive him to do something… hopefully something stupid, something that would let him get Potter's wand…

"If I marked you as the hero, gave you power you did not have before, I have only cultivated you. I have invaded so much of your mind – what is you, and what is me? What part of you is unchanged by my influence? When will you become me, Harry? When will Hero Harry Potter become the next Dark Lord, maybe even greater than myself?"

Harry gave a strangled cry, and Voldemort saw his chance. Pushing up with his left foot and his hands, he leapt at Harry, colliding with his chest. Voldemort's sight blackened as Harry kicked up against Voldemort's broken leg, but he clutched at Potter's arm, scrambling to grab his wand – if he was going to die, he was taking the Boy Who Lived with him. The boy would die at his hand, no matter what.

Potter squirmed, hit, even bit at Voldemort's shoulder, drawing blood, but Voldemort did not feel it, so focused was he on the wand, the wand with the same core as his.

"Crucio!" Harry shouted, meaning it with every inch of his being, and Voldemort flew back, screaming. Had he been expecting it, he would have braced himself for the curse, but it flared through his blood until all of him was screaming, writhing like a pit of vipers. Interspersed with his screams were cries of serpent pain in the tongue only he and Harry shared.

It could have gone on forever – the power of the curse had not waned – but Harry dropped his wand arm, leaving Voldemort silent and shaking with muscle tremors. He stood there, looking at Voldemort's trembling form.

"You see, Harry," Voldemort whispered. "Like me. You know what the trouble is with Gryffindors like you, heroes like you? You always want a fair fight, but at one point, that fight, in order for it to be won, cannot match your ideology. Here I am, at your feet, the conquered evil enemy, subjected to the curse I used to torture you. How typical. I think… if I had the chance, even half-dead at my feet, I would kill you. What is stopping you, Harry? Afraid of me… yourself?"

"Crucio!"

But it was not the same. He did not mean it so much – the curse was borne of anguish, not of hatred. It hit Voldemort, then pulled back.

"Harry!"

Both of them turned in the direction of the voice, feminine, young. Voldemort could not see her very well – just a haze of brown mane, small features.

"No more," the voice said.

The voice sounded familiar, even for him, although she had to be a student at Hogwarts. Perhaps an echo from one of Harry's thoughts, one of the many facets of his mind Voldemort had invaded. A friend? A lover? He could not remember.

"Let him, he deserves it," said another voice, this one male, more familiar. Perhaps one of the Weasley boys. Voldemort hissed a curse that only a snake would understand. Harry heard it.

"No," the female voice said. "Remember the spell, Harry?"

What spell would work better than the Killing Curse? What spell, what spell? His mind flashed, one spell after another, all the spells he had researched, used, created… He could think of nothing that Harry would use, none that would destroy him yet leave him alive… not like the girl insisted upon.

"Ron!" the female voice shouted. The thundering footsteps that he heard in the ground stopped. "It's Harry's duty. We've talked about it." She sounded breathless. Voldemort struggled to see her. Who was she? He turned back to Potter, invaded his mind, plundered and took control. He saw himself on the ground and turned away in disgust. Harry's eyes darted to the girl, and he saw one glimpse of her that he stored away, like a photograph, before Harry pushed him from his mind.

"I could kill you," Harry said. "You know that, don't you? I want to. I don't want to kill, but I want to kill you. You know that?"

"You're too scared to kill me, Harry," Voldemort said quietly, crimson eyes looking in Harry's green eyes. "I know that. Why won't you kill me?"

"Do it, Harry," the female voice said. Hermione, Voldemort's memory whispered, and the picture of her that he had taken flared up in his mind.

Harry stared down at Voldemort, the former Dark Lord. "Killing you would be too good for you," he murmured. "We thought of a better solution." And he began to speak, not in English, but in Parseltongue, snake spells that Voldemort did not understand, but his instinct, the snake that had half-transfigured him, knew it all too well. He felt it twist, writhe, curl like a worm. Voldemort's body went stiff as the magic pouring from Harry's lips slithered into him, like calling to like. Voldemort knew serpent magic – he had used it so often, but this was different – this was not transfiguration, sacrifice, or persuasion, this was…

Voldemort screamed. His eyes snapped open, wide, staring at the glowing sky, the rays of the sun shining on the edge of his eyelids, but he did not notice. He felt the serpent, like an entity inside him, now in pain, lacerated. Being ripped apart, and the wriggling magic at its core being ripped… not apart, but away. Parseltongue sang in his ears, echoed, increased to a pitch unbearable to his head.

Then something new – the Parseltongue ceased, and Potter fell to the ground onto his knees. Voldemort turned his head to him. Harry looked back, face grimy and sweating. He was trembling. His wand was still in his hand, and he was trying to raise it. Voldemort could see that it was more than fatigue that kept him from doing so.

"What have…?" Voldemort breathed, pain hitching the question. "What have you done to me?"

"I'm not finished," Harry gasped. "I'm not finished yet. I need to keep going."

Harry's head snapped back, and his eyes flared with a sort of radioactive energy. He rose his wand, although his hand trembled, and he began the next half of the spell in his own human speech, and Voldemort screamed again, this time every single cell of his body shrieking in pain that was worse than the Cruciatus Curse, worse than when his Avada Kedavra turned back toward him, because the Killing Curse had not killed him, but as Harry completed the incantation and fell back, dropping his wand in horror, something died within Voldemort's body. He could not even scream anymore. It died, became alien, left him with a gaping hole inside of him, an integral part of him missing. Voldemort did not know what it was, but tears leaked from his eyes as he curled in a fetal position, wishing for the first time that he was dead, that Harry had killed him because he could not breathe, could not think without that part of himself.

There was a ringing in his ears, the sound of cheering all around the hill of battle, hoarse cries of victory, pockets of silence, of the defeated. He, Lord Voldemort, had lost. He was curled like an infant before Harry Potter, who had stood, gathering the pieces of Voldemort's wand in his hand and holding it out for all to see.

He said in a clear voice that wavered only a little, "I didn't want to be a killer. Even if I… I did not want to become a killer just because of you, even if that's what everyone wanted. I knew better. A fate worse than death, Voldemort. We worked on it for so long. You're not even frightening now."

There was a murmur of laughter, jeering. No one came too close because they remembered what he was capable of, all that he had done. Voldemort knew he was not frightening, not like this, like some coward. He stirred, stretching out his limbs. Something felt wrong, but despite his shaking, Voldemort made the attempt to get to his feet, maybe try to grab the boy's wand again, anything to stop this empty feeling. He stumbled, which caused the crowd to titter, but he finally stood straight, glaring down at Harry, who had an odd half-smile on his face, an odd look to his face – paler, thinner, more elegant, even the shifting of his feet graceful.

There was a collective gasp among the closest who could see him. The very movement of his body, the blink of an eye, the beating of his heart, the expansion of his lungs, it all felt so wrong.

"I did not want to kill you," Harry said, a slight hiss behind his words. "But I won't give you a chance to rise again back to your old power. I won't live forever, and now, neither will you. But your life is going to be a living hell. Look at yourself. Really. Look at yourself, Voldemort. You're nothing."

Voldemort fell to his knees, his legs unable to support him, and as he braced himself with his arms on the ground, he saw his hands, and his emptiness was forgotten as his entire world froze and shattered. Thin, pale, but… human. The hand of a forty-year-old wizard.

Voldemort jerked his head up at the form of Potter – the changed form of Potter – and said, "What have you done… to me?" Even his voice…

"You're never going to be who you were again. You're going to live the rest of your life like this."

Voldemort looked into Harry's eyes, even with the sun a bright globe behind him. "Legilimens," he muttered.

Nothing, not even a failed surge of magic.

He tried again. "Legilimens," he said, struggling to flex that special muscle that allowed him to do magic even without a wand.

"Potter…" His voice…

Harry winced, his eyes glittering with pity, regret. "Like a Muggle, Voldemort. You have no more magic. You're a Muggle. You're what you always hated. It was all I could think of."

"What?" Voldemort whispered.

"I stripped you of your magic, your transfigurations, and your survival spells. You're a Muggle, Voldemort."