Consider this,

Picture perfectly,

Sorrow…

Wake up, Harry Potter.

Opening his eyes, Harry blinked into the moonlight. It felt like he had never fallen asleep. A vivid energy possessed him, and as he attempted to slip on his glasses, he realized his hands were shaking. There was no pain in his scar, and no linger headache from a vision or nightmare. The other sixth years slumbered around him, some snoring loudly and others tossing restlessly.

Shivering in the predawn cold, he tossed the blankets back and reached for his cloak. Something ghosted across his skin, a caress that wasn't quite physical. It had him dancing up and sneaking through the door, shutting it with an echoing snap.

His feet slapped down the stairs, ice trickling into his toes. But the touch came back when he considered grabbing shoes, so Harry moved on.

Outside the Gryffindor common room, standing in the black silence of Hogwarts, Harry felt pain lance across his head. And this time he didn't need guidance. He knew exactly where to go. The voice was calling him again, very faint.

Hello, Harry Potter.

Despite the numerous times he had faced Voldemort, both in reality and dreams, a battle in the school seemed surreal. Hogwarts was safety and the last known defense against the Dark Lord. He shouldn't have to worry about his life while on the grounds.

The wards shuddered pitifully.

As he came around the corner, stepping slowly into the corridor, the ground quaked. Further toward the entrance hall, he could see the massive doors bolted and sealed. Every teacher had lent power to fortify and protect the students.

Harry was going to break them.

Shadows coalesced in his peripheral vision to mock him. These he ignored. The man… The monster that ruined hundreds of lives, killed mercilessly and swept a bloody path across the Wizarding World stood outside.

Lord Voldemort was known for his impatient.

Calling for help didn't occur to him. Harry didn't give Dumbledore a second passing thought; instead laying chilled hands flat on the door. Magic snapped at his fingers but caused no real pain.

Breathing heavily, the Boy-Who-Lived hesitated.

The boy and girl he had befriended in first year lay asleep upstairs, about to be woken to a horrible reality. Slytherins stirred in their beds, sensing the tip of the scale dart toward the Dark. A certain Potions Master stood in his study, gripping his forearm in agony. Teachers Harry trusted and respected slept unwitting.

Sleeping with dreams of victory.

It was much too late to back out now. Taking the strands of magic strapped to the door, Harry pulled.

And the school shuddered, and groaned and broke.

An explosion erupted, shrieking through Hogwarts as wards absolutely shattered. Like dropping a vase of the purest glass, the defenses were defeated. The doors quivered before falling open, sending shots of weak sunlight spilling over the wizard. Harry gripped the edges of his cloak and wrapped them tightly around his body. He wasn't cold but terribly tired.

Tired and terrified of facing the betrayed faces of his best friends. Of the people whom had believed in their savior, had given up everything to him. I'll defeat Voldemort. Just not in the way they planned, or wanted. Glancing up, green eyes caught a raging ruby gaze.

Bellatrix giggled, applauding as she stepped from her master and past Harry.

"Well done, Potter. I had expected you to fail." Bellatrix said, before vanishing. Harry never once took his eyes off of Voldemort, striding forward until the two were mere feet apart. Yet the boy could think of only how satisfied he looked, of how triumphant and sick and god, he was smiling.

"Hello, Harry Potter." Voldemort paused. "I see you weren't lying. Loyal, indeed."

Stuff it, you prick. I didn't do this for you. But the words stuck in his throat like bile, and he decided to speak something different.

"Of course, my lord."

The last ring of the wards was just beginning to fade. A clamor developed and ricocheted from inside the entrance hall. Voldemort raised a yew wand, and his skin flushed, pupils dilating.

"Avada Kedavra."

A jet of green light bolted past Harry and struck an unknown enemy. The Boy-Who-Lived ignored the telltale sounds of a corpse hitting the stone. Blinking, he returned to blankly staring at his new master.

"I must say, Potter, that my Killing Curse compliments your eyes so perfectly."

A deranged laugh signaled Voldemort into action, and as he marched to the school, he clenched a vise-like grip around Harry's shoulder. The boy squeezed his eyes to avoid looking at the body. Splintered parts of Harry protested valiantly, averse to witnessing the chaos and horror he himself had inflicted upon Hogwarts. However, there was no struggle.

"Tom." The painfully familiar voice cried, Albus Dumbledore approaching the two. There was no ever-present twinkle, and Harry refused to meet his gaze, even after Voldemort removed his hand.

"Albus."

The acknowledgment brought a halt to the small scuffles, as Death Eaters went rigid and faded into the shrinking shadows. Through shafts of mounting light, Harry saw the members of the DA standing faithfully behind the Headmaster. Hermione sucked in a horrified breath when she noted Harry. No, Hermione. I'm fine.

Fine was a backstabbing, murderer that abandoned the only people who had ever shown him compassion. Fine was Dark. Fine was loneliness.

"Let him go, Tom. This doesn't involve him." Dumbledore said, lowering his wand arm. Voldemort was no fool. He was more than aware of the wandless magic Albus could, and would, resort to if required. So he ignored the supplication, and brandished his own wand.

Harry tensed when it touched his temple.

Someone whimpered, and Ron went deathly pale. The light glanced off a head of white hair, and Harry cringed as Draco comfortingly turned to Hermione. The Slytherin was wide-eyed and rigid, knuckles white around his robes.

Harry had almost forgotten about Draco Malfoy.

Lord Voldemort reclined on his throne, waving down his enraged Death Eaters. Severus Snape was gazing distantly at Harry, obviously gauging the possible escape routes. Harry would obliviate him later.

"And tell me, Harry Potter. Will you also kill Dumbledore for him?"

To effectively kill a human being using the Avada Kedavra the wizard in question must mean it. Thinking back to the old man, the twinkling eyes and abundant kindness, Harry knew better than to assume anything.

Nevertheless…

"It doesn't have to be this way. If you just lower your wand, Tom—"

"THAT IS NOT MY NAME!" Voldemort cried, and whipped his wand back to the Headmaster. "You're a fool, Albus, for not seeing the treachery right before your very eyes. I'm certain you felt it. The darkness growing inside young Potter, the fits of rage, the withdrawn depression. Surely you felt him come more and more under my control."

A stillness fell about the students and staff, a different tension. Harry didn't miss the flash in the blue eyes, and shuddered with an escalating fury. It burned a trail across his subconscious. He had known.

"And now," Voldemort chuckled. "Now he is mine. Completely. He broke the wards upon Hogwarts, he gave my Death Eaters access to your precious students. He has doomed the Light, and won me a war."

Ron shook his head fiercely, and Hermione mouthed a single, heartbreaking word. Why.

…a power the Dark Lord knows not…

"Is it true? They say you're the one that will kill Voldemort. They say you're the only one who can."

"It's a prophecy, Harry. Once spoken, they cannot be deterred."

"I tried. I tried, but what was I going to do, Potter? He would have killed my entire family."

Time won't wait, for you.

It's much too late,

I won't wait for you.

"Harry would never do that!" Ginny's high-pitched scream rent the air, and with a speed foreign to the young woman, she sent her most powerful hex toward Voldemort. Caught off guard, the Dark Lord inhaled sharply but made no move to cast a protection charm.

Using every last ounce of willpower to move his body, and not stay still, Harry sent the hex careening into the ceiling. It connected with a shower of debris and dust. People stopped breathing as Harry finally met their gazes, irises shimmering with unnamable emotion. Dumbledore caught his look for an instance and read the intent.

"Protego!" Dumbledore exclaimed, as simultaneously a wave of wandless magic swept out and toward the group. It missed, barely, and was deflected to the stonewalls. Deep gouges rent the corridor, burning coal hot on the rims and smoking ominously. It would have torn them to shreds had it connected.

Voldemort was sneering.

Now the Headmaster had a new opponent, one he had never witnessed in battle. This would end quickly.

Invigorating power swamped Harry's senses, and flourishing his twin wand, he whispered the spell he had once attempted to use on Draco.

"Sectumsempra."

Snape shouted something intelligible as Dumbledore waved it off, and countered with a crimson stunner. Bracing himself, Harry absorbed the magic and snapped it with sickening finality. The older wizard let loose his breathe with a heavy sigh, resignation hooding his expression.

Any second, that curse would come.

Curiously, Dumbledore was interrupted from casting the next attack. Snape pushed the man aside, and leveling his stance, ripping into Harry's mind.

"Legilimens!"

Harry was five years old, and running from Dudley and his cronies. Pulling back, away from the memory, he turned to the Order spy with a quiet face.

"What are you thinking?" He asked, and the Potions Master snarled. Right as his hands curled in the collar of the boy's robes, the scene shifted.

Harry was nine, and after accidentally shattering every window in the living room, being shoved into his cupboard. Uncle Vernon's voice was muted, and the memory played in absolute silence. He still remembered the greasy fingers leaving bruises that lasted for weeks.

"How dare you ask me that, you insufferable brat! What are you doing? You can break the Imperious, I've seen it. Why have you allied yourself with the Dark Lord? What could possibly possess you?" Snape shouted, red blossoming on his cheeks. That rage, that rage.

"LET ME GO!" A hazy film crisscrossed Snape, and with a start, he realized Potter was pushing him out of his head. About to resist because indisputably he was the better Legilimens, he looked over and halted.

Harry Potter was crying.

"If you really think I would serve this man willing, and kill my friends, and ruin everything I have ever cherished, then you never knew me at all." Harry whispered, before tossing him backward.

When Snape blinked and found himself in his own head again, Harry was no longer crying. And Voldemort roared, prepared to cast the spy into the Hell he deserved. Potter…what are you doing?

Discreetly, Harry disrupted the curse. Unfortunately, Dumbledore saw the opening and stole the wand belonging to the Boy-Who-Lived. Voldemort was clutching his hand, screaming agony from the forceful intervention.

Straightening, the savior of the Wizarding World did not flinch.

However, Dumbledore hesitated. Harry cursed the Headmaster for his kindness, for his understanding and weakness. Kill me, you old fool. Now. Now. Instead of the familiar shaft of emerald light, he sent a Body-Binding curse that clung to Harry like a bad mood. This was not something he could absorb or deflect. Not with his magic so depleted.

Abruptly, frozen in place and slightly blinded by the sun, he realized how tired he was.

"No! No!" Voldemort shrieked. "I will not lose this!" Desperate, the Dark Lord gestured for his followers to attack, but they remained immobile.

Harry had promised Draco. He had always known it was a lie. Had always known it would not end that way. Still he had said it, hoping beyond even hope. At the last of strength, feeling to stretch of exhausted, he had to do something.

And I said I would try for you.

Gathering the ounces of his magic, so shallow, Harry banished them from school grounds. The wards restored themselves, sending violet hues along the brick floor. This is no longer your battle.

Reaching out for Voldemort, not noticing as he shrugged aside the Body-Bind, Harry let the pads of his fingers rest on the Dark Lord's scaly cheek. Agony lanced through his body but he shoved the feeling aside.

"…With the power to vanquish the Dark Lord…"

As the last magical act Harry could commit to, he took a hold of the essence that was Tom Riddle. Every memory, every emotion, every decision.

"It's not that. I'm not doing this just for Draco. I'm doing this for someone else as well, because while I know he's been lost for a long time, I also know that he's still alive. Two separate entities, just waiting to be given their own identity. I think I'm the only one that can do this."

And tore him in half.

Completed 1-8-2008

Lyrics by Emarosa, "Utah".