3 years later
"What have you been keeping stored away in this trunk of yours for all this time?" Ron said curiously, moving Harry's old school trunk into the room with a flick of his wand.
"Oh, just old rubbish from school days, that sort of thing," his friend casually replied as he walked in behind him. He glanced around, taking in the refreshing spectacle of his new flat.
So much had happened so quickly in his seventh year at Hogwarts that it had felt like the last three years were more like three months.
True to the prophecy, Harry had come face-to-face with the Dark Lord for one final time.
Flashback"Harry Potter. My, how I've become fond of our yearly meetings," Voldemort said cynically, his mouth twisting into a cruel smile. "Of course, I can't say that you feel the same…"
Harry clutched at his left side and felt that at least half of his ribs were broken as he breathed and bled heavily. He said nothing.
"Now that I have you all alone, with no one else to stand in the way," he continued, gesturing his arms to the empty room as if he were speaking to someone unintelligent, "you and I can finally test each other to our full strengths."
He smiled again before cackling his blood-curdling laugh.
Harry felt his insides clench. Was it from apprehension? Was it fear? Or was it simply the fact that he felt like he had been turned upside down and inside out, all in a matter of hours? Dumbledore had gone into hiding earlier on in the year, and he hadn't seen Harry since. Word of his capture must have reached him by this time, but it would be too late by the time he was able to send in reinforcements of any kind; Lord Voldemort did not wait for his victims to be saved. He was now on the floor of a dungeon somewhere far away from Hogwarts and Voldemort had somehow found one of the most peculiar dungeons of them all; there were no entrances or exits. The only one who could transport people to and from there was the Dark Lord himself, as he explained when Harry feebly began to search for a means of escape once he had been transported there.
"It's no use Potter," he said, smirking. "You cannot run, you cannot hide. You can only face me and die."
"No," he thought weakly. "I will NOT."
He smiled faintly as the look of utter satisfaction on Voldemort's face faded slightly. He had mastered Occlumency now, and his thoughts were perfectly safe from even the most powerful dark wizard of his time.
"Nothing to say to that? Well, well, this is a surprise…"
The smirk had returned to his face.
"No matter, you have no need of words in any form. Now, how shall I do it?" he said, beginning to pace in front of Harry. "Should I finish you off quickly? No, that would be far too merciful… it would, say, ruin my reputation… The Cruciatus curse only goes so far, and is only good for a means of torture… torture. That's it. I'll torture the famous Harry Potter to death. That way," he said, bending down so that they were facing each other, "I can finish you off, bit by bit, and be able to savor every moment of it."
Harry suppressed a shudder as he glared into the blood-red eyes of his enemy. Of his parents' enemy. Of the enemy of all that was or stood for good. He reached into his pocket and drew his wand before slowly standing and straightening up. Shakily, he raised his wand defiantly, never breaking eye contact. This seemed to amuse his rival.
"You haven't won yet," Harry said, feeling his blood begin to boil in pure hatred and anger.
Voldemort only laughed again.
"I always knew you had strong willpower… so like your father. Which was why I tried to persuade him to reverse loyalties and work for the one cause worth fighting for: the battle for power. Unfortunately, like you, he was stubborn and refused me. Well, he met his end soon enough. No one refuses Lord Voldemort and escapes punishment."
Acting on impulse, Harry raised his wand and yelled, "Crucio!" but his opponent was quicker. He deflected the charm as though it were nothing more than a mere fly, still smiling.
"So, impatient are we? Not much like the virtuous boy-who-lived that the entire wizarding world claims you are." And with that, he shot a jet of red sparks at him, causing Harry to double over in pain once more. "Little do you know that in my experiments, I have discovered a curse that equals the Cruciatus curse in power, yet is more destructive physically. Finally, I will have my revenge."
Harry summoned all his strength and raised his head to look once more at his foe, who in turn raised his wand again and prepared to send another explosion of sparks towards him. Reacting quickly, he rolled over to his left and dodged the curse by inches, painfully reminded of the time he had done the same thing in the graveyard in his fourth year. However, there was one difference: there were no tombstones to hide behind, and no Death Eaters to block any possible means of escape… not that it mattered whether or not they were there for that purpose…
When he stood to face Voldemort again, there was now a faint trace of admiration on the face of the Dark Lord. Surprised, he questioned him with a look, to which the only reply was silence.
Harry took this spare moment to shoot a Blinding curse at him, and succeeding; the ghastly being that was Lord Voldemort clutched at his eyes, cursing. Harry smirked. The Blinding curse had just been discovered by Professor Dumbledore himself and had been taught to only him. As of yet, there was no countercurse. He stayed alert nonetheless, aware of the possibility that the spell could be undone by a wizard as powerful as Voldemort.
He held his breath as the wizard in front of him slowly stood up before beginning to grope around blindly.
Voldemort muttered an incantation before opening his eyes and cursing. Obviously, his powers weren't strong enough to overcome this nearly permanent spell as he stumbled around half-blind.
"One point for Potter," he said sarcastically. "But we'll see who has the last laugh. We'll see."
Harry tightened his grip around his wand and carefully took aim. He closed his eyes, bracing himself and gathering together his wits.
"Avada Kedavra!" he yelled, hitting Voldemort squarely in the back. As a precaution, he shot several other curses he had learned over the last two years, anger and hate sweeping through his body, and with difficulty, finally vanquished the Dark Lord. His battle had been won and the war was over. And then-
Silence.
But not for long.
"Harry!" a voice somewhere called. "Are you in there?"
"Yes!" he managed to yell.
And before he could say anything else, he fell to the ground from exhaustion and found that tears mingled with the sweat on his face. His parents would have been proud, he thought to himself.
"But they are, Harry. They are."
Looking up, he saw the face of Dumbledore, and with his help, walked out of massive hole that had been made in the wall into the sunlight, feeling as though he had been reborn. And he felt it. The headmaster had been right. His parents were proud. And the tears continued to come as the boy-who-lived cried without shame as he was led back to Hogwarts to receive the glory he deserved.
"Are you sure you don't need any more help? I can tell Hermione that we need to move our date to some other time." Ron said, looking a little apprehensive.
"Go," Harry said for the last time, waving his hand as if to motion him away. "I know how important it is to you to spend time with her."
"All right, I'll see you later then," Ron said, turning to leave.
When the door finally closed behind him, Harry breathed a small sigh of relief, glad to be able to have some time for himself. It wasn't that he didn't like his friend; he just needed a half-hour or so with only his thoughts for company. He had been crowded around ever since he had been introduced back into the wizarding world at age eleven and to be honest, all the attention was stifling and becoming uncomfortable now that he had ridded the world of Lord Voldemort.
He crossed the room to place several picture frames on the mantel, brushing away dust here and there, smiling as the people in each picture waved happily at him, including his parents. He had chosen a spacious flat in Diagon Alley on the ninth floor of the building. When he had first viewed the apartment, he had decided on the spot that this would be the only one that he would ever be satisfied with, and the owner was more than happy to sell it to him for a low price.
"No problem, no problem at all," the gentleman said heartily, refusing the money when Harry had tried to pay more for it, "Anything for the famous Harry Potter,"
Of course, he would only live in it for a year or so before going abroad to begin training in an overseas Auror program that he had been given the opportunity to participate in. Nevertheless, he had decided to keep it for when he returned.
The first of the last three years had been spent living with the Weasley family until, with much protesting, he and Ron had moved out into their own apartment, insisting that, due to the fact that they were full-fledged wizards now, they needed to live in a place of their own. In the next two years they had shared a two-bedroom flat with no conflicts, yet Harry didn't feel quite comfortable sharing space with someone else, albeit it was his best friend he was living with. He had grown fond of being in his own company over the years and had decided, after a heated argument with his friend and awkward apologies, that he needed a place of his own.
He levitated his couch over to the living room, making the coffee table follow behind it. After he had accomplished arranging his living room satisfactorily, he went back to his trunk, deciding that he would go and rummage through the things to see what he would like to take out. Picking up the pair of Uncle Vernon's old socks and a pair of slacks from his uniform, a small notebook caught his eye and he remembered. He remembered that day when he had been in no hurry to meet his friends down by the lake and he had bumped into Cho Chang. She had dropped the notebook and he hadn't been able to give it back.
"Engorgio," he muttered, pointing his wand at the miniature notebook. When it had grown to its normal size, he made a move to open the cover, and then stopped. He didn't quite feel comfortable fiddling around with someone else's belonging, and besides that, he felt a sense of forbidding, an aura that seemed to give off the impression that something private was hidden inside.
Fighting the temptation to open it, he opened the bottom drawer in his desk and placed it carefully inside before turning back to unpack the rest of his own things. Still, he couldn't stop thinking about it somehow. Was it because it was Cho Chang's? Why did something tell him that there were words written in that notebook that involved him? He told himself that he was being ridiculous, that the notebook had probably been used for homework, yet the mere image of the thing haunted his thoughts. Finally, he decided that a walk would be nice, and he grabbed his jacket out of the closet, locked the door, and headed out. He never noticed a pair of dark eyes watching him intently from a window on the eight floor of the building as he walked down the street, hands in his pockets. Only when an unseen person had summoned her did she break her gaze and walk away from the clear glass pane.
A/N: Whoa, what's this, two updates in the same day (on different stories though)? Happy Thanksgiving everybody! Sorry it took such a long time to update and about the shorter chapter; I'm really not that creative when it comes to action stuff and if anybody has any suggestions on how to revise that certain part, please feel free to give them! I know it was kind of dumb though, because it shouldn't have been that easy to get rid of the most powerful dark wizard of all time, but hey, I had a touch of writer's block… thanks for all of your support everybody, you've been great! I appreciate every single review you guys send in and I hope you liked this chapter! And again, Happy Thanksgiving!
