A FEW HOURS
EARLIER
VOLDEMORT'S POV
I watched as that wretched boy yelled some useless incantation, knowing it would be powerless against the killing curse I released. Still, even I knew it- the boy's spell was faster, speeding towards me. It would reach the green line of my Avada Kedavra before my curse reached him. What happened when two curses perfectly collided? Simple- they bounced off each other and sped off somewhere other than the target. But I knew that, with these circumstances, this wasn't the case. It had happened three years ago- the golden web, the ghosts, the awful escape of my prize. Things were different now, though. Somehow, I knew I wouldn't see the golden web again. Actually, I was pretty sure I wouldn't see anything ever again. In that second, I faced death, knowing it was inevitable. There, in the shortest and fastest second I had ever felt, I, for the first time in my life, felt fear. Remorse. Pain. Sorrow. Desperately, knowing I needed to do it before I died, I forgave all those who had betrayed me, my mother, my father, the ancestors before that. I apologized for every horrible thing I had ever done (and there were a lot of them). That single second stretched out to be an eternity- time knew I had to apologize. I wordlessly begged forgiveness of those watching in the crowd before I took my own curse, full in the chest, and collapsed.