A/N: This is the last chapter folks. And I hoped you enjoyed the story. I'm think of other stories I might write when all my others are done so keep your eyes open.

Chapter 8

Goodbye

Harry flew as fast as he could to Hogwarts. Voldemort would be heading there next, to deal with the smaller threat first. Harry would hide in the school or outside the school and wait for Voldemort to make his move. He arrived at the Hogwarts Grounds and landed in the forest. With a glance around, he made his way to the edge, where it was the least dangerous and rested against a tree. He had full view of the castle doors and that was the only easy way into the castle.

Harry waited patiently in the forest for over a month. Feeding off of food from the school gardens and Hagrid's gardens, he had been able to stay alive. He'd stolen a potion from Snape's store cupboard one night not long after he'd arrived at the Hogwarts grounds. It was a potion that once was in contact with the air, ignited and began to burn, unable to be quenched. It burned and burned until the antidote was found or brewed or a certain spell was cast. Harry had the antidote in his pocket, ready to put out the magical fire that would kill Voldemort. For good.

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October thirty-first arrived, the day Quirelle would have set the troll in the castle. Instead, Voldemort attacked. And Harry was ready.

As soon as Voldemort was in the school, Harry charged in after him. He followed carefully as Voldemort made his dramatic entrance by several loud bangs issuing from his wand.

'I'm home!' he cried.

Dumbledore stood up, staring at Voldemort and glancing fearfully at the younger Harry. The younger Harry however, was completely oblivious to the fact that he was the one Voldemort was after.

'What are you doing here?' called Dumbledore.

Voldemort didn't answer. Instead walk forward until he was only about a foot in front of Dumbledore (who was too shocked to see Voldemort to actually move), raised his wand and cast his spell.

'Avada Kedavra!'

Dumbledore died on the spot. Some of the girls cried out in fear. The teachers fled from Voldemort, only scared for themselves and losing their heads. Voldemort laughed gleefully. Harry however, roared in anger and charged into the hall, potion in hand, ready to be thrown. Voldemort mistook Harry's cry of rage as a scream of terror and didn't notice him until Harry was mere feet away from him. He rounded on Harry and Harry stopped dead, staring at the wand tip. He then looked Voldemort in the eyes, hating him. Harry's younger self saw who the older person was and panicked.

'No!' Harry heard his younger self scream. He ignored him and kept his eyes on Voldemort, who looked both scared of Harry and proud that Harry would be dead soon at the same time. Harry gripped the vial of potion, ready to throw it down at Voldemort's feet in a heartbeat. Voldemort smiled.

'Going to kill me Harry?' he muttered so only Harry could hear. 'Thinking of killing me again? You know it won't work. I've made myself immortal with your blood.'

'It didn't make you immortal last time and it didn't this time', Harry hissed back. 'Only we know about the prophecy, and we both know that I do have the power to kill you. As does my younger self. If you kill me, you'll still have him to deal with and it's going to be even harder to kill him then it was to kill me.

'So just give up.'

Voldemort growled and jumped at Harry, knocking him clean off of his feet. Harry gripped the potion even harder, refusing to let it fall out of his hand until he desided let it go. Voldemort kicked him on the side of his head, nearly knocking him unconscious then backed away and pointed his wand at him. Harry then remembered he'd lost his wand during his recent fight with the Dark Lord, the brother wand to Voldemort's... and the only chance he'd had of saving his own life.

'Get up', Voldemort said coldly. Harry groaned and rolled onto his side.

'Get up!' Voldemort roared. Harry glanced at him, then glanced at his younger self. Little Harry looked scared along with his two friends, Ron and Hermione.

Ron, a perfect friend who had always been there for him, helping him ever step of the way and someone who could make him laugh until life became to serious to even try and think of a joke.

Hermione, someone he had always been able to rely on and keep secrets. Someone who helped him pass all of his exams and had him smile even when the going got rough. Someone who had been there for him when he saw Ron get killed.

And then Little Harry, his younger self, his perfect self. The boy he had helped have a different future then the hell he was given. The boy who would comfort Lily and James when they found out their son from the future, 'Uncle Ron', was dead.

Harry forced himself up onto his knees then got up totally. He looked Voldemort in the eyes, his green eyes meeting his scarlet eyes, good and evil battling each other without a word. Voldemort didn't blink when he raised his wand to chest height.

Just as Voldemort opened his mouth to say the words to the deadly curse Harry had once cast on him, the doors to the Great Hall burst open and in came the Order of the Phoenix, Lily and James in the lead. They all stopped dead when they saw Voldemort and Harry at the end of the hall with Voldemort ready to kill him. Harry glance at Voldemort, to Little Harry then to his mother and father. With one glance, Lily and James knew what Harry had in his hand and what he was going to do with it. They looked at him and he gave a slight nod. Before they could stop him, before they could Summon the potion out of his hand, he lifted it up in the air.

'If you want me dead Voldemort', he shouted. 'You're going to die with me.'

He threw the potion down on the ground between him and Voldemort. It shattered and Harry, Voldemort and a few surrounding chairs ignited into sparks and flame. The students closest to then fled in fear. Everyone could hear Voldemort scream as the magical fire began to burn him. No one could hear Harry, but they saw him for a moment before the flames leaped too high. He had his eyes closed and was smiling peacefully.

Just before the flames wholly consumed him but were too high for anyone to see him, he opened his eyes and saw standing before him, his two best friends, Ron and Hermione, both as old as him, and both wearing the clothes they had been wearing the day they were killed. And they were both smiling. Hermione held out her hand to him, and, feeling no pain as he did it, grabbed her hand.

The moment their hands touched, Harry's soul left his body and he was a spirit like Ron and Hermione. The younger Harry knew his uncle was dead the moment older Harry and Hermione's hands touched. He felt it inside of him, in his soul. Sorrow filled him and he began to cry, not only because older Harry was dead, but because every memory Harry had possessed, every feeling he had ever felt, flew into the younger Harry, bombarding him with feelings he didn't want to know, memories he didn't want to have... But he received them anyways.

He saw his parents, mere ghosts talking to him as he struggled to hold on to his wand... Ron and Hermione both being killed in the Forbidden Forest... being stabbed in the arm by a fang from a giant snake... Sirius falling through a dark curtain to his death...

The prophecy.

There had been a prophecy made about him and Voldemort just before he was born. One of them had had to kill the other... And his uncle, no, his older self, had killed Voldemort so he didn't have to...

Harry crashed to his knees and sobbed as the new memories revolved around in his head, all of the pain his older self had know now burning inside of him. Hermione and Ron knelt down beside him, surprised by his sudden outburst of tears and sadness.

'Harry', said Hermione. 'What is it? What's wrong?'

Harry looked up and looked her in the eyes, years of friendship she didn't know about burning inside of him. He hugged her tightly, glad he wasn't going to lose her in his seventh year. After a moment, he let go and hugged a bewildered Ron. He let go of him after a moment also.

'That man up on stage', he whispered, looking at them both at the same time. 'He was me. He was my future self. He went through so much we haven't gone through, so much we'll never go through. He came back in time so we didn't have to go through it all. If had happened, I would have lost my parents, my godfather, you two... and I would have never had a sister. He changed everything...'

He looked back to the flames that were still burning freely at the other end of the hall.

'Everything he knew I now know. In fact', he said turning back to his friends and smiling slightly. 'I think I know every spell he ever learned. Even seventh year magic.'

He pulled out his wand and pointed it at the flames.

'Glacius.'

The flames instantly died away, leaving nothing but ashes. The hall became colder without the flames heat.

'Harry', Hermione whispered. 'That's third or forth year magic! That's really advanced for us!'

'Do you know what the Patronus Charm is?' he asked Hermione.

'A charm that wards off Dementor's by charging them down and getting rid of them. Only a really powerful wizard can cast a true Patronus. Why?'

Harry lifted his wand once again and pointed straight ahead of him. He thought of his mother and father, alive and well, just twenty feet away from him.'

'Expecto patronum.'

Something large and silver emerged from the tip of Harry's wand and, instead of being a stag as Harry had expected from his future self's memories, a huge lion came out of it. Never before in the history of witches and wizards had any Patronus made a sound. But this one did. It raised its majestic silver head and roared. The glasses rattled on the table and the ceiling shook from the din of the Lion's roar. It closed its mouth after a few seconds and turned to look at Harry. Instead of silver eyes, the Lion's were bright green. As it walked over to Harry, it's mane swayed back and forth as it walked. Harry glanced at its forehead and saw small white scar, in the shape of a lighting bolt.

Their eyes met and Harry knew he was looking both at his Patronus and his older self. The Lion seemed to smile as Harry learned this and dissolved into streaks of silver. The silver swirled around him then completely dissolved, leaving all three of the friends with feelings of happiness. Lily and James saw who had conjured the Patronus and rushed over to their son.

'Oh. Hello Lil... I mean, Mum. Hello Dad.'

'Are you alright?' asked Lily.

'Did you conjure that Patronus?' asked James.

Harry smiled.

'I'm fine mum. Yes I conjured that Patronus because my future self could.'

James and Lily stared at him.

'When my older self died, all of his memories, feelings and magic came into me, because I'm him. He could conjure a Patronus, so now I can. I also know every spell Hogwarts teaches its students.'

'So you know that he...'

'Was me', Harry finished for them.

James and Lily glanced at each other.

'You're OK with this?'

Harry thought before he answered his parents. When he did answer, it was an answer the older Harry would have given, in his old world. Because it was something a friend had taught him.

'No. But I will be.'