There never was a chance.
Harry wasn't sure why he had gone in the first place, but once he was there he suddenly couldn't breathe anymore and the world spun off its axis. His muscles stopped working, and he fell to the ground.
The prophecy would come true, but Harry's heart caught in his throat, because he knew that he wouldn't be the one to walk out of there alive.
There would never be a chance.
He had thought he was alone, alone with the serpentine monster that strolled around his immobile body, and that had scared him.
He was more scared when Padma appeared, though, because he didn't know her that well and he didn't want anyone else to die.
He had to give her a chance.
He was surprised when Parvati appeared, but not scared. Not scared for Neville, Lavender, Justin, Susan, Mandy, or Terry, either. They walked in, one by one, and Harry wasn't sure if they were real.
And then Seamus, Dean, Michael, Ginny, Luna, Ron, and Hermione, and Harry forgot what it felt like to be scared.
He had to make them a chance.
Harry stood up, because they stood, and he looked through his eyes, because they looked, and he walked forward, because he could.
He had a chance.
There was pain, Harry remembered, later, when he could think again, a pain that swelled over your entire body in unrelenting crashes, pounding your feelings into oblivion. Harry hadn't been sure he existed.
There were lights, they told him later, when he couldn't see light anymore. There were blinding lights, Zeus's vengeance from the heavens, striking in a cacophony of roars that made all heads turn away.
He took his chance.
That part he remembered, because they didn't, and he could. There was the beating of his heart, throbbing in every vein, and the resolution of his wrist, holding the blade, and the easy way the sword cut through skin, as if it didn't exist.
He remembered the blood, oceans pouring into his hands, too much for him to hold, spilling onto the stones in a waterfall of crimson droplets.
His chance---was another's downfall.
Harry remembered stopping, falling to the ground, and lifting the head of another boy, a beaten, abused boy, who, like Harry, had seen too much for his years, into his lap, cradling it, stroking the phantom of the jet-black hair, like Harry's own.
Harry remembered the way Tom's hand grasped his own, the way his breath hitched as the blood continued to flow, the way his eyes changed, from red to black and then to a heartbreaking blue, the way that they anguished. He remembered the feeling of Tom's fingers brushing his cheek, a last, burning movement before Tom's eyes fluttered shut, the veins under his eyelids slowly turning an iridescent blue.
One sixteen-year-old boy sat there, holding another, amid a storm of blazing lights, at peace with the world, both knowing they were forgiven, that, for a moment, someone understood.
The others took their chance as the lights faded, sprinting in and lifting the living boy out, consoling him, when he was already consoled.
No one would understand, later, why Harry sought out the kinds of places mothers warned their children against, the places where a bulky man wouldn't flinch at drawing a whip over your back, sending a fist at your cheek, knocking you to the ground.
Harry bled, and it brought life to him. Harry bled, and he remembered. He remembered why, why he had been told to end a life, and why he had, and he remembered that all was right in the world, and he could forget those eyes, and stumble home the next morning, beaten and bloody and ready to face the world again.