Chapter 29 – The Darkness Within

"Once more into the breach," Harry quoted as he crossed the threshold of the cave, before instantly gasping as his scar pulsed painfully.

Using the Force he suppressed his pain and walked further in, but despite suppressing the pain the feeling of darkness and the freezing air around him permeated all aspects of his being. As a cave it was unremarkable other than its saturating evil and the constant feeling of being watched that he was on edge about.

Drawing his primary lightsaber he unusually ignited the blade before he was even aware of a solid threat, but the feeling around him was so disturbing that he was not taking the risk. What disturbed him the most though was that his mind seemed to be working against him; his mind that was usually under his full control seemed to be unstable, as if someone else was there but he knew that no one had got passed his shields.


Deep inside the mind of Harry Potter a dark presence awakened from its long rest. The darkness that it had felt in the distance was here. Its time was now, it had never felt so much power before...Power that it could use.

Turning towards the way out it gathered all its strength and surged outwards.

"I rise again!"


Harry's collapsed to the floor as his brain refused to function, it felt as if someone was squeezing his brain and whatever it was was causing his scar to flare to an extreme he had not felt since the graveyard back on Earth. He struggled to his knees before falling back to the ground as a freezing black mist flowed forth from his eyes and mouth with a scream.

He was barely aware of his surroundings as the pain he was experiencing overcame his Force suppression and surged through him.

It took him several seconds to regain any sense of control over his mind and body. He was not in good shape, his mental defences had been damaged badly and distorted as if something that torn right through them, he was barely able to focus at all.

He knew not how long he stayed in that state but he later remembered being just able to comprehend that he needed to fix his mental defences and started realigning, rebuilding and repairing them with the help of his automated mental repair droids that were already repairing the Temple in his mind. With each successive repair his ability to think and reason increased until he was able to realise that he needed to know where he was and what was going on around him.

As his eyes crept open his memory of where he was and of what had happened returned. He found himself lying in a muddy pit, half his face lying in a puddle of water while most of his body was hidden in the mists that pooled over the surface of most of the swamps. There was also a red tinge to his vision, wiping his hand over his eye his hand came away bloody, his scar must have been bleeding.

Managing to raise himself up onto his knees he sat back on his heels and almost fell backwards until he regained his equilibrium. Using the nearby wall of the cave for support he stood and examined the surrounding cave and then himself; he was dirty but otherwise physically fine except for his bleeding head, the cave though seemed to have changed, he could still see the walls as they were but it was as if another image was superimposed over them, an image of a forest, a lake and a familiar looking man on all fours on the far shore.

"Nooo," The man moaned. "Noooo...please..."

Before he could even think about the impossibility of the situation he saw a young boy run up to the man, shortly followed by a young girl.

"Hermione, think of something happy!" the boy yelled. "Expecto patronum! Expecto patronum!"

The man shuddered and rolled onto his back, lying motionless. Then he saw them... The dementors gliding around the sides of the lake and the familiar ice cold feeling penetrating his being.

He knew what had to happen as they closed in and first the girl then the boy succumbed to their presence.

Stepping forward to the edge of the lake he went for his wand in his robes, briefly panicking as he realised he was not wearing any, before remembering that he was a Jedi and that his wand was now kept in his arm compartment. Flicking open the compartment he went to catch his wand as it was ejected from inside...but it wasn't there.

He raised his wrist in front of his face and looked inside, his wand and his shotos were both missing, his hand went to his hip and to his back, both his main and long handled lightsabers were also gone.

He started to panic as he turned back to the scene in front of him, he watched as the dementors closed around the younger Harry, Hermione and Sirius.

"No...It doesn't happen this way...I saved them," he shouted. "I saved us!"

The scene changed, it showed a cavernous room, wet and damp with a large statue of a long haired wizard at one end. An animalistic shriek went off to his left and he spun around to see a familiar looking giant snake diving towards him. Turning he ran back as he knew he was supposed to, retreating up the side of the statue, the Sword of Gryffindor miraculously appearing in his hand.

He turned to face his foe just as he had done so many years ago, carelessly swinging the blade through the air, none of his lightsaber skills were present in his movements. The creature lunged for him and he stabbed upwards as he had before, but the bottom jaw of the beast wacked into his hand as he stabbed upwards and he lost his grip on the sword. The sword clattered to the stone work below just as the jaws clamped down around his arm wrenching him forward before his flesh severed just below the shoulder.

He screamed out in pain and dropped to his knees as the serpent swallowed his arm before slamming its head into him, sending him at high speed into the wall behind him dazed.

As his vision cleared he looked down in shock at the bleeding stump that was his right arm. His Force suppression failing to work at all on the pain he was in, he never thought he would go through that experience again.

He did not have time to focus on this though as the snake was rounding on the redhead lying on the floor in the centre of the room.

"Ginny no!" he shouted as he started to try and move towards the stricken girl, only to find out when he tried to put his wait on his leg that the last impact has severally injured it. Collapsing back to the floor he watched helplessly as the snake picked up Ginny by the legs, threw her skywards, her almost lifeless body tumbling limply in the air before falling straight into the open mouth of the basilisk.

The scene changed again, this time showing an underwater scene and four familiar looking people tied down with kelp and a host of merpeople swimming around them with spears and tridents. He watched as one by one the sleeping victims woke up and as they each realised that they could no longer breath water. They started gasping as water flooded their lungs and each in tern realised that they were tied up and that other than the merpeople he was the only one in sight and frantically started trying to communicate with him.

He swam forward with his webbed limbs as fast as he could, not even realising that his arm was no longer severed. After again trying to find his wand he frantically swam to the sea bed the pick up the sharpest rock he could find.

He began tearing at Cho's bindings as she had awoken first and had already stopped struggling but even after the kelp was cut she just floated there beside them. Harry tried pushing her up towards the surface but she only went a couple of feet before stopping.

Harry could not stop to think about her now; Madam Pomfrey would save her, he had to get the others free first. He managed to free Gabrielle's just in time to watch her stop struggling too.

Frantically he turned to the merpeople for help but he despaired as he saw them grinning at him, turning back he was just in time to see Ron's head drop slowly downwards, only Hermione remained struggling, he managed to cut her bonds in time and they both started swimming for the surface, both grabbing a hostage in their arms as they went, they had made it barely five meters when Hermione stopped swimming and the light left her eyes.

Now terrified that they were going to die he scrambled to grab a hand of each of them and kicked for all he was worth, just as he noticed the webbing start to disappear from between his fingers and a tingling sensation from his neck as he started coughing.

The gillyweed was running out, he kicked even more frantically as he struggled for air, his limbs aching from the exertion. He could just see the tiniest hint of light at the top of the lake as his vision failed him and his body went limp.

He seemed to stay like that for several seconds, before dropping to the ground as if he had never been in water at all.

He gasped there for several seconds before realising that he had become stuck in the generated fantasy. There was something seriously wrong with this cave.

This was emphasised a moment later when a bone chilling laugh echoed through the cave.

"Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha,"

"That laugh," he gasped. "I...I know that laugh."

"Of course you do Hhhhharry Potter," replied the voice. "After all...how can you forget the man you have killed twice."

Climbing to his feet Harry took up a defensive position and started to slowly turning, trying to locate the source of the voice.

"Voldemort," he gasped.

"Ha ha ha ha ha ha...Yeeesssss."

"This isn't real...It's just another illusions like the others."

"Oh, I admit the others were illusions, but who do you think was controlling them, ha ha ha ha."

"You are dead!" Harry said firmly.

"Ha ha ha. Yes I was, but I have been dead before, remember?...Last time I spent years in hiding before Quirrell came along, this time your mind was a much nicer place to spend my time."

"That's impossible," called Harry to the disembodied voice. "My mental defences are some of the strongest in the Order, I would have known if you had penetrated my mind."

"Oh, I know very well how powerful your mind is Hhhharry, but I was in your mind long before your occlumency shields were put in place, I was there when you built them."

"You could not have been in my mind, it hurts us both...Remember?"

"Very true Hhharry, but it seems that the pain is directly proportional to how strong we both are and whereas in the Graveyard we were both strong, this time when I entered your mind we were both very weak, so weak that only I felt the pain, by the time you were up to strength I had buried myself deep in your mind behind so many levels of defences that I was still unnoticeable to you."

"How did you get into my mind then?" Harry demanded.

"Your little vacation in Azkaban, your mind was weak then, easily accessible. What better place to wait for the right opportunity than in the mind of my nemesis. Oh how I enjoyed seeing you wallow in that cell, I knew the weaker you got the easier it would be for me to control your mind when I regained my strength. It was going oh so well...At least until those Jedi came and got you out, I was ready to surge out of your mind and attack them for interfering with my plans...At least until that impressive display of magic...It was excruciating of course, but being shielded inside you r mind seemed to protect me from most of the spell...It's been a long time since I've felt such pain, but it's been even longer since I've felt such...raw power. That's when I knew I was in the right place and it only got better as you left the planet. It stretched my strength of course being split by so much space, I could no longer feel the rest of me, but I was able to sustain myself by drawing upon your strength."

"If you were getting stronger I would have felt the pain of your touch," Harry countered.

"Yes you would, but it seems your defences were so good that they even protected you from pain coming from inside your own mind and when I made it to your darkest memories you were deliberately suppressing those so you actually helped me remain hidden for so long...Ironic isn't it Harry, you made your occlumency shields so strong but you never gave your defences any way of letting you know that they had been triggered and thus you enabled me to grow even stronger by taking your power as my own while you carried on in ignorance."

"You can't have been, I would have noticed my lack of strength," Harry replied disbelievingly.

"You underestimate your own power Hhhharry, without me in your mind you would have been much more powerful than you have been, but taking some of your power is the least I could do to repay you for what your defences did to me."

"What do you mean?"

"When you were giving that blue master of yours that little guided tour of your mind I was following you, I went with you to Hogwarts, successfully penetrating that deepest part of your mind and then waited until you had left. You were more cunning than I gave your credit for, I spent years being subjected to one torture after another, especially in the 'pit of pain' as I named it, for that transgression alone I will give you a slow death, but then eventually I made it to the darkest part of your mind where you keep all your darkest memories and there I grew strong off of you and it only got better for me after that...Every so often I would wander through those deepest parts of your mind once I knew how to navigate them and especially once I found the thinking part of your mind and I was able to see your thoughts, then I learnt all I needed to about being a Jedi and using the...'Force' and now I can do everything you can do...see."

Harry turned around and despaired to see a dark shadowy mist form into the shape of his old enemy in front of his very eyes, like a Force ghost from the past.

"I can even cloak myself using your 'Force', anything you have thought about or heard about while I have been watching your thoughts I now know, and with the power in this place I can do anything and everything."

"I've stopped you before Voldemort, I'll stop you again," he stated firmly, throwing a Force push at the figure. It did nothing except blow the mists around.

"Would you like your little sword back Hhhharry," he smiled, raising his hand which was instantly holding his long handled lightsaber.

Harry pulled it towards him before igniting it and swinging it at Voldemort, only for his primary lightsaber to block his strike.

"How can a Force ghost wield a lightsaber?" he demanded.

"I am no mere 'Force ghost'; I am very much alive, and very powerful."

Voldemort swung his blade around at Harry who had to rapidly act to defend himself as he was put on the defences. He had not been lying; Harry recognised his own skills and techniques in Voldemort's effortless moves only they were much faster and more dangerous. It was like facing Master Windu when he was not holding back, he'd only been brave enough to ask to try that once.

Two more rapid hits with the blade and Harry was on his back with both his blades in his old adversary's hands, this was nothing like fighting Voldemort in the old days.

"I am not merely the all powerful wizard you knew before Harry, I have grown well beyond that."

Harry rolled back to his feet and tried to summon his blade back to him, only for his lightsaber to freeze in mid air between them and start vibrating violently against the two opposing forces before flying back into Voldemort's hand.

"I am more powerful than you will ever be Harry; I am so powerful that I have been struggling to find a new word to describe myself...But you came to help me there as well, your teachings at the Temple, I now know exactly what I am...I am Sith!"

A vibration ran through the cave, as if the very environment reacted to the proclamation.

"Then," replied Harry putting himself back into a fighting stance, "It's up to me to do what Jedi do best...Destroy the Sith!"

He lunged, using the Force to enhance his speed. Voldemort swung one of his lightsabers around and it impacted against Harry's raised artificial wrist which did its job and deflected the blade long enough for Harry to grab both the lightsaber hilts with his hands and to wrench them free as he dived through his nemesis, intent on swinging his blades around to attack the ghostly form from behind before he could strike at him, only for both of them to shriek in pain as Harry's head passed through Voldemort's stomach sending both of them to the floor.

The feeling that was once so familiar to Harry was enough to shake Harry's mind out of its focused state, but being a skilled Jedi Padawan he recovered faster than Voldemort and was back on his feet first but Voldemort was ready and with Harry's confiscated wand suddenly in his hand he disarmed Harry and banished him into one of the caves walls, stunning him again.

Voldemort now quite annoyed and panting slightly in annoyance advanced on him with a snarl on his face.

"You know Harry...I was going to kill you slowly, but I think I will possess you instead and use your body to kill those you love first...It will be excruciating for both of us of course...but well worth it."

Harry snarled and began to rise only to be thrust back into the wall, completely unable to move or defend himself as Voldemort moved forward and pressed his hand against his head. Both struggled to repress the pain that coursed through them at the contact.

"Say goodbye to your body...Harry...This is the last time you will ever be in control of iAARRRRHHHH!"

Harry gasped as he saw a silvery form of an otter pass through Voldemort's body causing him to collapse to the ground.

"Not if I have anything to say about it."

"Hermione," he gasped as he felt himself being Force pulled from his position by the floor to be caught by his best friend's arms. "Thank you."

"Why is it you can never go anywhere without me without getting into trouble, even the dead can't leave you alone."

"Hermione, we need to go," he struggled, managing to stand under his own steam, Voldemort's additional power meant that Harry was being hurt more by every contact. "He's far too strong, we need to-."

"Too late," replied his nemesis rounding on them, wielding Harry's wand before launching a barrage of curses at the pair. Hermione started deflecting the spells as Harry Force pulled the two of his lightsabers that he could see back to him and igniting his primary, joining her in deflecting what spells they could, taking some of the pressure off of his friend who was struggling under the greater power of Voldemort's attacks. The pair were able to hold off most of the attacks with their blades including some rather familiar green curses, but after all the study and self taught lessons on magic they were able to recognised the attacks that would react badly to contact with their blades and had to dodge around them. Voldemort soon realised this and searched his memories from Harry for the knowledge of which spells would be indefensible by a lightsaber.

After a barrage of such spells which forced the two jedi to duck to the floor Hermione quickly drew her wand and started deflecting those spells which Harry's more skilled blade could not deflect. Thankfully for them this was not a completely unprepared for occurrence, they had done this before with blaster bolts and against each other using wands so they knew a good many spells which could be defended against with a lightsaber or wand, those just by a lightsaber, those just by a wand and several that unfortunately could not be defended against by either. It was these and those which they had never tested that worried them the most as Voldemort now had all Harry's memories of these lists to draw upon.

The pair had two thing on their side; all jedi were trained to not only to fight on their own but in groups and the most affective group was the master padawan pairing as they were mentally linked and well practiced in working as a team. Second to this was what was sometimes referred to as the piers pairing, those classmates and fellow jedi that an initiate then a padawan and finally a knight would spar and train with the most during their long lives and thankfully for Harry and Hermione the jedi who had the most skill at combating spells were the two of them and they were also who each other had trained with the most and although they had never fought against an enemy as strong as Voldemort was now they were probably the only jedi in the order who had the required knowledge to do so.

Their only other advantage was that Voldemort had never wielded the Force before today so while he had all Harry's knowledge of how to use it, he had never actually done it himself and that made him have to think about everything new he did that jedi did automatically and instinctively.

In the midst of the battle in which Harry and Hermione had been turned around and forced deeper into the cave Hermione was able to send off a few spells that got passed Voldemort's defences; the first couple he managed to dodge but the last passed through him, causing all three to pause briefly as they realised he could not be harmed by conventional spells.

Unfortunately Voldemort recovered quickest and fired several spells back at them; they managed to dodge some but a reductor curser got through and whether by luck or by design impacted the shoulder that Hermione had broken years earlier on Alaris Prime. She instantly screamed out in pain as the bone was shattered along with quite a bit of the skin, flesh, muscle and ligaments that exploded away from her shoulder in a bloody red mist.

"Hermione!" Harry shouted as he took a step back towards her, moving between her new position on the floor and Voldemort. "Are you alright?" he asked, not daring to take his eyes of off Voldemort who was now grinning sadistically at them.

"Been...better..." she gasped out, rapidly casting some charms on her shoulder to stem the blood flow and to make sure none of the bone shards punctured anything vital as she used the Force to rein in the pain that was now coursing through her.

"You see now Hhharry, you and your Mudblood friend cannot defeat me...I am all powerful."

"You are not!" Harry replied hotly, his temper rising at seeing his best friend injured "If you were you would not have been defeated four times by an orphaned boy!"HHHHHhhh

"You did not defeat me four times; blood protections saved you the first time and the second time, the third time I was just a shadow in a book, you have only defeated me once and that was and will be the last time."

Voldemort lunged at him, bombarding him with spells as he approached, within seconds he had closed the gap and as Harry's lightsaber passed as harmlessly though him as had Hermione's spell, Voldemort's ghostly hand came to rest on Harry's head as his world spun again.

The scene around him changed and again he was in the forest by a lake with a familiar looking man on all fours on the far shore.

"Nooo," he moaned. "Noooo...please..."

He saw himself and Hermione run up to Sirius.

"Hermione, think of something happy! Expecto patronum! Expecto patronum!"

Sirius shuddered and rolled onto his back as the dementors came into view around the sides of the lake and the familiar ice cold feeling penetrating his being.

Stepping forward to the edge of the lake he went for his wand again only to remember he did not have it.

"You have no control Hhhharry," spoke Voldemort from beside the adult Harry. "I control your mind and I control what you see."

Voldemort expected Harry to panic again and for a brief second tension began to take a hold of him before a thought came to him, two important fact that he did not know before and that gave him a way out.

Raising his hand before him he curled it and his wand appeared between his fingers.

"What?" Voldemort stuttered in shock.

"Expecto patronum," Harry spoke calmly as Prongs erupted from the end of this wand and galloped of to do as he was instructed.

"How did you...It's impossible," stammered Voldemort backing away from Harry as the vision failed and the cave reappeared.

"You said it yourself Tom...It was my mind," he replied calmly. "I could do what I wish there, I am the one that could control what you saw."

Raising his hand again. Voldemort, not willing to take any risks that Harry might actually have a plan fired a series of spells which harry dodged easily. His confidence was affecting Voldemort mentally and that was throwing off his aim and his ability to wield his new found powers.

Carelessly dodging a few more spells, Harry focused and a bright glowing white light was emitted from his hand.

Voldemort violently recoiled from it and floated back towards the nearest cave wall.

"Stop! What are you!"

"You gave me a way to defeat you Tom, you told me how my spell at Azkaban had hurt you and I saw how Hermione's patronus seemed to be the only thing that can hurt you now. You are a dark side shadow and the light side hurts you now as my mother's magic did before that."

"Light cannot defeat the darkness," he scoffed. "It's too weak."

"Wizards are not the only ones who have the ability to generate strong light forces like patroni, the Jedi have been doing it for millennia like I am now."

"No!" Voldemort shouted as he dived around the light and dove towards Hermione who was not quick enough with her patronus and started convulsing as Voldemort disappeared inside her.

"If I...cannot...have you...then...I will have you Mudblood pet," came her suddenly rasping voice.

"Oh no you won't!" called Harry, turning his glowing palm on Hermione and pushed more Force power into the attack. As his hand touched her Hermione lurched and screamed before Voldemort flew out of her screaming at the lights contact and steadied himself again ready to fight back.

"You will not defeat me Ha-"

He was cut off as Harry threw his other arm forward and pushed all the power he had into the attack, the glow getting so bright that none in the room could see anything and the very walls of the cave started to shake as Voldemort screamed in pain and the feedback of it cursed through Harry's scar which began to bleed afresh.


Hermione watched stunned as for the second time in their life her friend was creating such a powerful Force light that the dark side saturated cave they were in was reacting to it.

She watched as Harry was almost bowled over as pain ripped through him as their nemesis writhed and screamed in an attempt to stop the devastating attack, flailing out with his Force powers and spells, several came very close to her and a couple did manage to graze Harry, injuring him slightly in Voldemort's blind casting.

Slowly, ever so slowly the screaming died away and the cold feeling of the cave dissipated as the dark side energies were balanced and neutralised by Harry's huge output of Force light.

As the screaming stopped the light in the cave dimmed as Harry let the power die away, her eyes readjusted to the gloom just as Harry slumping sideways to the ground in the otherwise empty cave.

"Harry!"


AUTHOR'S NOTE: Got there at last, that was definitely one of the hardest chapters I EVER had to write, I wrote up to the cave entrance and then I could not think how on Earth to write the resurrection and the battle which I was determined was going to be more than just talk banter spell spell spell dead.

By contrast I was able to write two and a half pages of the next chapter in the course of half an hour, it took me about three weeks to write that much of this chapter.