Chapter 1
The man appeared with a loud crack and a swirl of displaced snow. Ice crystals, disturbed by his arrival, fluttered around him, bouncing across his thick coat and kissing painfully off the few patches of exposed flesh as they swirled towards the ground. The freezing wind immediately cut through the layers of robes and stung his skin, but he bore it calmly with single-minded stubbornness. He started forward, each step a struggle against the thick snow drifts and driving winds. A looming structure slowly slid out of the gloom as he approached, its sharp steeple cutting up into the snowy clouds. His thin wooden wand slipped into his hand, and he twirled it unconsciously in the same pattern he had a thousand times before. The small circles of the wand tip were the only visible signs of nervousness, a ritual born from years of battle.
The warm orange light shining from its windows slowly filtered through the snowy wind and the sight of the lonely monastery revealed itself. Its glow crept out from the ornate window panes along the face of the monastery and bathed the entrance in a welcoming aura that he knew was deceiving. He would find no hospitality here tonight.
The entrance was barred by a large wooden door, which hung slightly crooked in its frame. As he approached, a hand that shone oddly in the flickering light stretched out from beneath his thick robes and brushed along the door where the wood was blackened in a starburst pattern. Giving it a push the door creaked forward on cracked hinges, bathing him in a wave of warmth and prompting a sigh as the chill seeped out of his body. The thick coat was shrugged off, landing in the small puddle that had formed around his feet on the stone tiles. Surveying the hall with a cautious gaze, he slowly massaged the blood back into his hands. It was empty besides him, with no sign of any occupants besides the candles burning merrily along the walls, and the lack of dust adorning the ground. The door on the far side of the hall swung open with a gentle creak and a man in the somber robes of priesthood slowly entered.
He was middle aged and balding, possessing the lean body and demure posture of the monastics. Approaching with a friendly smile, he held out his hands in greeting.
"Hello my friend, I welcome you to this holy place. May I know the purpose of your visit?" He continued walking forward as he spoke, beatific smile fixed firmly on his face.
The visitor straightened his posture and turned to the priest with a grimace. "Ah yes, I'm looking for an old friend of mine. I heard he was holed up out here and I traveled very far to pay him a visit."
"An old friend?"
"Goes by the name Tom? Rather tall fellow, pale, quite violent and has a flair for the melodramatic? Sound familiar?" The priest's face went slack for a second before lighting back up in a smile.
"Yes, of course, of course, just follow me into the antechamber." The priest muttered as he reached for the man's arm. His hands tightened around the wrist and tugged the visitor forwards. The man rotated his body sharply to the side as a small knife, clearly pilfered from a kitchen, cut through the air where his heart used to be. The priest's manic smile dimmed slightly as he rebalanced himself. "Please sir, don't be difficult." A jet of red light caught him in the face in response, dropping him to the floor.
The man cautiously approached him, wand outstretched, and slowly prodded his body with a muttered incantation. The priest's body lay still, offering no resistance. His attention was pulled back to the door at the end of the hall—the priest had left it slightly ajar and the small gap flickered with an eerie green light from the room beyond.
Stepping through, the room was a gruesome sight, one of the sort he was depressingly familiar with. The floor slats were hidden beneath the mound of robed bodies, sprawled unceremoniously on top of each other. He grimaced as a wave of decaying stench rushed into his nostrils, a sickly sweet smell that made his stomach churn unpleasantly. A glowing skull floated menacingly above the room, illuminating the waxen faces of the corpses with its sickly green light. Stepping forward a gaunt hand grasped at the hem of his robes, nearly unbalancing him. Bloodless, pallid skin stretched tight over bone leered up at him from the ground, as the cadaver tried to pull him down. He quickly jabbed his wand into the corpse's gaping mouth and fired a blasting spell, showering the ground with chunks of brain matter. The commotion seemed to awaken the other bodies in the room, as they struggled to their feet in eerie synchronization.
He unleashed a flurry of spells into their midst, blowing a handful off their feet. The fallen were trampled underfoot as their brethren surged forward. Backing up into the doorway, he unleashed a silent bombarda at the ground in front of the tide of bodies. The wooden floor exploded in a shower of splintered planks, sending the front runners flying back. The next inferi to cross the boundary of the splintered floor received a cutter to the neck, severing the head completely in a bloody spray. With another wave of his wand he summoned a flock of small birds that swarmed towards the inferi, pecking and scratching at the exposed skin. The inferi continued stumbling forward, indifferent towards the avian creatures sinking talons into their decaying bodies. The small creatures suddenly burst and dowsed their targets in roiling flames, quickly catching on the desiccated skin and igniting. The room was filled with the acrid smell of burning flesh as the corpses writhed violently in the flames. He fired a powerful banisher into their midst, flinging them back against the far wall where they lay still once more in smoldering heaps.
He stalked through the scorched doorway into the main hall of the monastery and was greeted by a familiar figure. He let the hood of his robe fall back to his shoulders, revealing a startling young face, framed by messy black hair. Finally, he'd found him again, after weeks of chasing his path of hiding holes and traps: Lord Voldemort.
"Hello Tom." The pale figure responded with a streak of green light that flashed harmlessly against the man's chest. He sighed as the tendrils of power swirled against him for a second before dissipating harmlessly. "Why do you keep trying Tom, really. If it didn't work the first ten times…"
He trailed off as he quickly fired a spell that hit Voldemort squarely in the chest. His body was thrown back into a pew and his wand flew through the air and into the man's outstretched hand. His exuberance was quickly doused by the crumbling disintegration of the yew wand in his hand.
"Oh Harry, you didn't really think it would be so easy did you?" a sibilant hiss called from behind him. Harry wheeled around to see another Voldemort standing in the entrance of the hall, an uncharacteristically gleeful smirk twisting his cruel features. He looked back to the fake Voldemort and saw a stream of clay sludge slowly slip off the pew and coil on the ground. Voldemort took a step inside the hall and stilled, his wand glowing a malicious red. "You've been a terrible thorn in my side your whole life, boy, and for a while I almost despaired that I would never be rid of you. Especially after what happened when I sent my dear Bella back to England. That was not something Dumbledore would approve of, I think."
Harry sneered back at him. "Bellatrix deserved nothing less. She wouldn't receive mercy from any British wizard, not even Dumbledore."
Voldemort gave a croaking laugh as he raised his wand. "Oh, I don't doubt that your little friends would have loved to get their hands on her. The rest of Britain however? You overestimate them."
Harry tried to bring his wand to bear but his arm rebelled against his wishes, swinging sluggishly in the direction of Voldemort. As he stared in horror his hand moved slower and slower, before completely locking in place. He tried to stumble backwards but his legs proved just as unresponsive, leaving him trapped in place. Harry started thrashing in panic, desperate to free himself, but his body only responded by stiffening further.
"After so long I've finally done it. But of course, that is only inevitable, no wizard could oppose me forever. Even one of your remarkable … persistence. Our little war is at its conclusion I'm afraid." Voldemort took another step into the room, face still twisted into a gruesome smile. "It will be quite painful I promise, a little revenge for all the distress you've caused me."
"H–how?" Harry squeezed out through gritted teeth.
"Your protections are still in place of course, as much as it pains me to admit, my curses remain just as ineffectual as ever. Against your own magic however—why, you're defenseless. I'm almost ashamed I didn't think of it before." Voldemort gave a flick of his wand and Harry's head twisted sharply in place. His chin ground against his shoulder and the tendons straining along his neck flared in agony. Harry gazed in horror at the pile of clay that had formerly resembled his enemy. It rose and twisted in the air as if being shaped by the invisible hands of a giant, its slightly roiling texture spilling down on itself before surging back up into the pulsing mass. It was already half-formed into a humanoid shape, and the clay continued swirling as its features become increasingly defined. Harry stared in mounting horror as the shape slowly revealed itself. Black hair sprouted out from the top of the clay figure and curled around a familiar green-eyed face. Skinny tendrils of clay slowly extended from around its eyes and hardened into shining metal, as a lightning bolt pattern carved itself onto the homunculus's forehead.
"It is a horrific feeling, is it not? To be trapped by one's own magic. Your disarming charm activated the curse on the golem you see, leaving you completely helpless." Voldemort leered at him as he drew a serrated dagger from his robes. He glided forward towards Harry and slid the knife under his chin, careful to avoid skin contact. His face leaned forward, mere inches away.
"How utterly satisfying it would be to slit your throat right now, like a filthy muggle, and watch as you drown in your own blood at my feet. Oh, how sweet that would taste," Voldemort hissed as his red eyes pulsed with madness. "There are very few sights left in the world that would give me greater joy."
Harry screamed in his throat, a warbling cry of defiance that couldn't escape his body as Voldemort put his entire weight behind the dagger and shoved it into his neck. He tensed, waiting expectantly for the feeling of his life draining out through his ravaged throat. When nothing happened, he looked up to see Voldemort glaring in disgust at the melted dagger in his hand. Voldemort fixed his glare back on Harry, but the light of insanity had already fled, leaving them a dull burgundy.
"I despise your mudblood mother more every day," he spat. "Sometimes I think I hate her even more than you," He stepped back and pulled a familiar blood-red stone from his pockets. "Such direct methods cannot overcome the protections she laid upon you. But no enchantment is perfect—I cannot be denied forever. If only the cost wasn't so high—but I suppose it is rather fitting to end our struggle with such a sacrifice. To give up the means of my revival is a harsh blow, but nothing that cannot be overcome. Lord Voldemort will rise once more and reclaim his rightful place as the ruler of the British Isles. And, unfortunately, there won't be a Harry Potter to stop him this time." He brought down his wand with a sharp crack onto the Philosopher's stone. The stone was enveloped in a ruby red flash as it shattered into thousands of tiny shards.
Voldemort swished his wand through the air so fast the air screamed in its passing as he carved complex patterns into the air. The shards of the stone lifted into the air and swirled around him, caught in a nonexistent current, as he layered enchantment after enchantment on them. Harry could only stare in horror as the swirling cloud swelled around Voldemort, pulsing in time with the rapid incantations spilling from his pale lips. The room was slowly suffused in a blinding red glow as the cloud grew in luminescence, till it shone like a dying sun. Voldemort's face was thrown into sharp relief by the glowing shards, his already inhuman features twisted into something even more monstrous.
"At last," Voldemort cackled as he finished his manic orchestration.
The radiant storm stopped its cavorting dance around Voldemort and streamed forward towards Harry's frozen figure. The cascading shards washed over his body, burning deep into his skin wherever they touched. An agonized scream ripped its way out through his clenched jaw as he felt his body slowly being burned alive. He writhed in pain as the shards slowly dug through his clothes and buried themselves into his chest, the nerves along each appendage screaming in one last anthem of trauma before they shut off completely. His screams slowly quieted as the pain receded and he glared at his enemy through teary eyes.
"Goodbye Harry Potter. May you find no haven beyond this world." With one last wave of pain and a flash of light Harry was thrown out of existence.