Harry was again standing in the main hall of Hogwarts – his memory mansion Hogwarts.
The roof was showing the events of the night over and over again in a jumbled, out of order, tangle of memories. Bright candles of his fear and hopes floated by on silent currents above his head; their television-like flames playing the moments where his emotions had been at their highest.
"Very impressive," said a voice from behind him.
Harry whirled, raising his wand and shooting off the first spell he thought of.
The red light passed harmlessly through a sixteen year old image of Tom Riddle. As he watched, the body image flickered into an older man, then back again, flickering like a flame in a breeze between Riddle at different ages. Even the snakelike visage of Voldemort, as he last appeared before having his body destroyed by Lupin, took shape.
Riddle laughed. "Oh, I am afraid that won't work, Harry. You see, you are not really here, it is all in your head. But I must congratulate you on constructing such an elaborate and detailed system for remembering things. It will undoubtedly make my task all the simpler."
"What task?" asked Harry, keeping his wand steady. "How did you get in here? What's going on?"
Riddle strode casually down the great hall watching Harry's memories playing out on the roof. He reached up and wordlessly summoned one of the memory candles to his hand.
"I am sure you recall my birthday present to you, Harry?" he said, looking into the memory candle.
"I remember seeing you collapsed on the floor when it went wrong," answered Harry.
A flicker of annoyance showed on Riddle's features, but he quickly regained control, slipping into the smug smile Harry had seen him wear before.
"Yes, well," he said. "Although the ceremony did not go quite as planned, I did learn an interesting fact about our connection. Did you know that, thanks to that scar on your forehead, our souls are linked? You could probably have possessed me, had that doddering old fool Dumbledore chosen to train you properly, instead of hiding you away and keeping you harmless."
Harry kept silent, not rising to the bait. Seeing his lack of reaction, Riddle continued.
"I learned that using your blood in the my rebirth ceremony gave our connection additional depth, depth that I have used to avoid once again being exiled as nothing more than a shadow of a ghost."
He gently caressed the memory candle in his hands, passing his fingers through the image 'flame' slowly, as if waiting for it to burn him.
"You see, Harry, I am going to possess you, but not in any normal sense of the word. I have learned that I can destroy your memories-"
He clenched his fist, crushing the memory out as if it was an ordinary flame. Harry gasped as he felt the loss deep inside of him.
"-And replace them with my own," finished Riddle.
He raised the unlit candle to his temple and used it to pull out a long silvery thread of memory, relighting it with his own memory.
"Fascinating isn't it?" said Riddle. "You are going to become me."
Harry screamed spells at the smirking man, but they passed through the flickering image of the man with no effect.
Ignoring his useless wand, Harry roared and charged, trying to physically tackle the ever-changing shape. He, like his spells, passed right through, as if Voldemort was truly a ghost.
"That's no way to treat a guest, Harry," he laughed. "Especially since I will be here for a very long time."
"Imagine the irony. I will become the boy-who-lived. You are indeed the chosen one," laughed Riddle. "Which reminds me, where is that pesky prophesy? I have no doubt you know it. Where have you put it? – Ah!! Of course, the Divination classroom!"
Harry started to panic as Riddle walked from the room, heading for the tower.
"Stop!" he yelled. Riddle ignored him and kept walking. Harry looked around desperately for ideas. The candle Riddle has just relit was gently floating back up to join the others, but had not yet risen high enough to be lost amongst them.
Inspiration struck
"Reducto!" Harry screamed, pointing at the candle.
Obediently, the candle exploded.
Riddle screamed in anger.
"You fool!" he yelled. "What do you think you are doing?"
"Destroying you," answered Harry, defiantly. "I figured if you can mess with my memories, I can mess with yours. You will never be safe, Voldemort. No matter what you do, I'll always be here, ready to wipe you from existence."
Riddles face was contorted in rage. "Then I will have to remove your memories first, won't I?" he said, raising his wand.
"You can't do that," bluffed Harry. "If you do, there will be nothing left, and the mansion will collapse, trapping you here forever. Either way – I win."
Riddle's face still showed his anger, but he spoke clearly in a conversational tone. "Clever, and possibly true, so I guess I will just have to find your darkest memories then. I will dig out those terrible little secrets that everybody has, those moments when you are at your blackest, and I will make you relive them again and again. They will eat into your soul, rotting it until it is as black as a Dementor's. Then you shall be happy to have my memories, and you shall be the new Dark Lord, but with my mind and soul."
"You'll never find them," said Harry.
"I will never stop trying," answered Riddle turning towards the door.
Panic rose inside Harry again. All of the Horcruxes were gone, so the only thing keeping Voldemort 'alive' had to be the cursed scar link.
With a sudden burst of inside, he knew what he had to do.
Closing his eyes, he concentrated like he had never concentrated before. With all of his willpower, Harry 'pushed', and left his memory mansion.
Back in Hogsmeade, barely a second had passed. People were screaming, spells were still flying after passing through the spirit of Voldemort, and Ginny was still tumbling away from him. Fawkes screeched.
He reached for the blackness of Apparition, feeling it blocked off by the familiar wall of a ward, but the wall was slowing crumbling - as if about to fail.
Inside, he could feel Riddle destroying bits of his memory. Each loss was as sharp as a physical blow, cutting painfully inside of him.
Harry drew on all of his strength, digging down deeply into the reserves of his magic, and tried to force his way through the ward and into the horrible compression of Apparition. It was like he was trying to push his way through solid stone, but he mentally dug his heels in and shoved with all of his magical might. The wall shattered, splintering into a million pieces, and Harry flew passed it and into the rubber-tube effect he had been longing for.
When the squeezing stopped, he found himself in the dignitary Apparition point inside the Ministry. It was late at night, so nobody was around on this level, but there were sure to be people in the complex somewhere.
Another piercing stab of memory destruction doubled Harry over, and for a moment he couldn't remember the names of his dorm mates. Running as fast as he could manage, Harry stumbled to the elevator and pressed the button to take him down.
The blows were coming more frequently now, staggering Harry as he made his way to towards the Department of Mysteries. He barely noticed the torches on the walls flaring to life as he passed, or the door to the room burst open before his hand could touch it.
For a moment his vision blurred and he found himself watching Riddle from a great height as he searched the castle, looking for specific memories.
"Where are they, Harry?" Riddle called, blasting a memory at random. "Where have you hidden your secrets? I will find them, and when I do, you will become like me."
Harry fell as he entered the circular room of doors, collapsing onto the floor as the last of his strength was drained away.
"Where's the Veil room?" he asked the empty room, as the door closed behind him. "Where is the room with the archway?"
A door to his right opened, and Harry could see the long descent to the dais where the veil hung from its decrepit arch, beckoning him into its depths.
Inside of him, Voldemort cried out in triumph. Harry could see him standing in front of the door to the Chamber of Secrets.
"Very clever of you, but not clever enough," the creature said.
Harry tried to stand, but he was too weak. He was so close, all he had to do was get down to the archway and throw himself into the veil, then Voldemort's soul would be gone, and probably his along with it.
It was worth it. He would willingly sacrifice himself to remove the blight that was Lord Voldemort from the face of the earth. The chance to avenge his parents, Dumbledore, and Sirius was worth the asking price.
He managed to crawl halfway to the door, when he saw Voldemort breaking open the door to the Chamber.
Harry knew he was not going to make it - he was already too weak. That left only one final chance.
Rasing the unfamiliar wand, Harry cast one last desperate spell. With all of his remaining might, he hoped it was the right one to choose, and that it would do what he wanted.
"Reducto!" he croaked out.
And his favoured duelling spell, powered from the very depths of his soul, smashed every door in the circular room into a shower of splinters.
From behind one shattered doorway, a huge wave of magic descended on him and, for the second time that night, Harry was subjected to a concentration of magical power he had never before conceived could exist.
Inside his memory mansion, Voldemort ran into the Chamber, and was instantly assaulted by Harry's memories. They weren't the dark ones he was expecting to find, the ones he had been searching for – those were locked away in a child's doll house under a staircase or in the deep dungeons. The memories hidden in the Chamber were Harry's most powerful ones, the ones he would have died to protect – they were of his friends.
Outside, Harry felt the emotion entwined with the magic as it flooded his being – Love – and a never forgotten conversation returned to him as if he was hearing it again.
There is a room in the Department of Mysteries that is kept locked at all times. It contains a force that is at once more wonderful and more terrible than death, than human intelligence, than the forces of nature. It is also, perhaps, the most mysterious of the many subjects for study that reside there. It is the power held within that room that you possess in such quantities and which Voldemort has not at all. That power took you to save Sirius tonight. That power also saved you from possession by Voldemort, because he could not bear to reside in a body so full of the force he detests. In the end, it mattered not that you could not close your mind. It was your heart that saved you.
Dumbledore's words repeated themselves in Harry's mind as the magic begin to burn. Its intensity was overwhelming.
Inside, Riddle fought against the emotions in Harry's memories, but the rush of love from outside gave each memory a thousand times the power it already had.
Ron's excited smile and joy-filled laughs as they played Quidditch.
Hermione's intense concentration as she studied a huge volume.
The sunlight reflecting off Ginny's hair as they sat together by the lake at Hogwarts.
Each memory struck the Dark Lord like a blow, cutting him with their force.
"NO!" Voldemort screamed, raising his wand to destroy them, but many more flew at him, knocking him down before he could strike.
Harry felt the magic slowly burning his mind out. It was impossible to resist. In a few seconds there would be nothing left of him except an empty shell, but he was ready.
If he was going to die, he could not think of a better way to go than reliving all of the memories that had made his life worth living, worth fighting for, worth dying for.
He opened his heart and accepted the magic into himself, willing it to consume him. He woul not be afraid of love.
The twin's playing outrageous pranks.
Hagrid in his hut treating a wild animal that he had rescued from the forest - his gentleness so great it easily overcame his violent giant half.
Albus Dumbledore, eyes twinkling as he smiled at Harry.
Ginny closing her eyes as he leaned in to kiss her.
Voldemort wept. He weakly raised his wand, but was struck by more powerful images from Harry's past. This was it. This was the Power Voldemort did not have and could not understand, or battle. Even without the added boost from the room, Harry's feelings of love for Sirius had caused Voldemort intense pain. Now it was infinitely worse for the Dark Lord.
Remus Lupin telling stories about his parents.
Sirius, laughing during the only Christmas they had spent together.
Mrs Weasley sweeping him into a hug unlike anything he had ever received before.
Ginny smiling happily when he entered the room, her eyes holding more feeling for him than he had ever seen in another person.
The body of Voldemort, lying in Harry's mental Chamber of Secrets, cracked, and then burst open. Out of it came a flood of memories, but they weren't Harry's memories.
Harry saw the life of the worst Dark Lord to ever live play out in front of him in a high-speed blur, and he had to fight to stop it from consuming him.
He watched as the young man with slightly malicious tendencies became bitter and twisted. His own memory of consciously refusing to act like the Dursley's matched it, defeating it with the knowledge they had both made choices, and it was their choices that made them what they were.
He saw Riddle's need to control his life grow into a need to control others. His own memory of feeling sorry for those Dudley bullied, countered it - his compassion and empathy refusing to be crushed.
He watched as Riddle came to despise weakness, and to see death as the ultimate weakness that had to be defeated at all costs. The memory of Dumbledore's wise and mysterious words as Harry lay in the hospital bed after protecting the Philosopher's Stone: 'to the well-organized mind, death is but the next great adventure'.
He looked on as hate consumed the man who was Tom Riddle, turning him into Lord Voldemort. Harry saw Ginny in a thousand different instances. He would never, could never, turn dark while she still loved him – it would be as impossible as the sun failing to rise.
The magic from the locked room wasn't burning him anymore; it was sustaining him as he overcame the bitter memories of Riddle's life with the simple pleasures of his own. Love permeated his soul, blazing a path to every corner of his mind and body. He accepted the flow, riding it to new heights, and he finally understood the 'power he knows not'.
No matter what magical strength Harry may have had, no matter what diabolically clever plans he could have made, Voldemort was a physical embodiment of everything opposed to love. The evil he propagated was not just one of terror and pain, it was a culture of hate that would spread and continue to consume lives long after its origins were forgotten.
There was only one thing that could stop it - Love.
Instinctively, Harry somehow gathered the magic and held it in his hands, gaining strength from the contact.
"Go," he told it. "Go and vanquish the stain that Voldemort has brought into our lives. Go and fill the empty places in people's hearts. Go – I command you."
The almost solid magic spread out into the air, getting thinner and thinner as it widened. Harry knew the walls of the room wouldn't stop it – nothing would.
He had time for one last thought. "I am sorry, Tom. I am sorry your life turned out like it did. I am sorry you were dealt such a poor hand, but I am not sorry to destroy you. Rest in peace."
A silent explosion rent the air as the magic gave a huge heave, and swept across room and out through the walls.
The last vestige of Tom Marvolo Riddle's soul burned away into nothingness, and the boy-who-lived slipped into the darkness smiling.
-
"Why am I freezing cold?" was the first thought that rose in Harry's mind as he came to. The second one was "What's that noise?"
All around him, he could hear ethereal voices echoing, but he couldn't make out any words. It was as if he didn't know the language, or somebody had cast the half-blood prince's Muffliato spell.
Then somebody was turning him over and a voice was forcefully insisting he open his eyes. He felt hands shake him roughly as another voice, a voice he realised he knew, snapped out something. The first voice replied, triggering a memory, and Harry finally recognised what he was hearing.
"Are you two ever going to quit arguing?" he asked, without opening his eyes.
He had just one last thought before the blackness reclaimed him yet again, and that was that if Hermione and Ron hugged him any harder, he was likely to suffocate.