I own none of these characters.

A/N: Sorry it's taken me so long to post. I actually had stuff to do in the real world. Amazing, no?

A/N: So I finally read HBP. It was a great deal of fun and sure enough this story is now even more AU than it was before. Still, I hope you all enjoy. I rather think I'm going to annoy/anger/disappoint some readers with this chapter. As a preemptive defense I would remind the reader that there are two chapters after this one before the story is complete. Actually, given various circumstances of real life, I think I'm going to post all three final chapters at once. Phew.

Thanks to my sister for beta-ing these last three chapters.

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Icarus
by MarbleGlove

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Dear Diary,

I don't know whether to laugh or cry. I'm too energized to sleep but too frazzled to concentrate on anything important. I haven't kept a diary for years, and I'll probably have to destroy this as soon as I finish writing it, but hopefully just getting my thoughts down onto paper will help.

The Boy Who Lived killed You Know Who.

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Studying the dark arts was a dangerous and often fatal enterprise. Those who survived did so by achieving a supreme arrogance. To falter or hesitate was to sign one's own death certificate. Of course, those who died in the attempt also did so by achieving a supreme arrogance such that they got themselves into the situations that killed them.

Studying the dark arts never became safe, but it instilled in its practitioners an odd mixture of paranoia of threat and contempt for those threats. They saw the possibility for ambushes everywhere and they knew themselves to be impervious to those ambushes.

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It's caught everybody rather off guard, which is kind of funny but not really. It didn't happen in a climactic battle between good and evil, there weren't battle lines drawn up or innocent lives at stake. It was an ambush and a betrayal and a death. And then the rest of the night lying about what actually happened.

There are four people who know the truth and one of them was the Dark Lord who's now dead. Then there's me, Harry, and Ron.

We slipped quietly out of the castle, I met the Dark Lord face to face and it was wonderful. I was so scared and I really hoped that Harry would attack immediately. But he didn't and so the Dark Lord and I sat down and discussed ways of using arithmancy to analyze DNA sequences, or possibly even produce some.

I had never seen Lord Voldemort before, although Harry described him as ugly and snakelike with red eyes. I suppose that's all true, but it's also true that he was beautiful and elegant in his extreme emaciation, like an Erté sketch. Grotesque when considered a human, but enthralling when thought of as something completely unique and other. He used his hands when he spoke. It was almost like he was casting a spell as he spoke in his hoarse soprano murmur. Perhaps he was.

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Lord Voldemort knew that both he and Icarus, his correspondent, were walking a very thin line. The danger to him was in confiding anything to an unknown individual who had not sworn loyalty. There was a good chance that Icarus originated from the side of the wizarding world that opposed Lord Voldemort.

Icarus was more deeply enmeshed in danger, however. She shared the danger of confiding in a little-understood individual, and this one was known to be the current dark lord. And Icarus' danger was compounded by the seduction inherent in the dark arts, the taint that could not be avoided.

The entire wizarding world searched for the answer to the question: who had developed the cure for lycanthropy? With Icarus' dabbling in the dark arts, it was certain that she could not have told anyone what she was doing. No one could be relied on to hold a confidence when confronted with the temptation of fame for presenting the knowledge to the public or the position of moral superiority by presenting the information to the Ministry Auror department. Icarus could have no recourse of support from others. She would have been betrayed long before if she had tried to depend on the weak ties of friendship. It would be unnecessary then for Lord Voldemort to appear with minions of his own. He would meet with Icarus one on one.

Of the two of them, one was an experienced practitioner of the dark arts and one was a novice. If there were to be an ambush or betrayal, Lord Voldemort felt confident that he could return it with interest.

And he prepared a much more insidious ambush of his own.

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Sometime during our talk I finally succumbed to temptation and fell in love with him. I'm not even sure what love is but I gave it to him. But it was too late, the ambush was already in motion, I was just the bait, and then there was Harry and the spell was cast. I hadn't even noticed Harry before that, and I'm glad I didn't because I'm not sure whether I would have warned the Dark Lord or not. Love is different from loyalty after all, but which would have proved to be the stronger?

The Dark Lord recognized the spell. Not specifically, of course, but enough to know that he could not use magic without endangering himself. I saw the realization come even as the spell struck him. With no warning, he could not dodge the spell; with no previous knowledge, he could not have preset personal wards. The spell hit, took effect, and turned him into a walking dead man. He was furious and he gripped his wand tightly, but he didn't attempt to raise magic. He snarled at me but then turned his back on me as if I were nothing, and he and Harry just stared at each other. Ron had to transform back into human to prompt Harry to cast the final stunning spell.

It probably added insult to injury that he was finally taken down by such a minor spell as that.

I cried, and Harry apologized for taking so long and swore that he would never have allowed harm to come to me. I was harmed. I was seduced and I fell, and maybe I didn't have time to betray my principles with any act, but I certainly betrayed them with my thoughts.

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Lord Voldemort had a variety of ways he used to bring people to his side. Over the past many years he had used a mixture of threat and bribery. He had sufficient power and sufficient reputation at this point that both were believable.

But when he had been young and beautiful he had occasionally used different means.

Imperio was not good enough when you wanted a follower who was both smart and powerful. The stronger coercive potions either caused irreparable damage to the subject or were obvious when used and had simple antidotes. Fate had sent Icarus to him with subtle direction and he would have to keep her with control.

Thus, it was little more than a pheromone that he created and rubbed onto his hands and face. Softly, softly, he would coax her to take that one last step into his life, his world, his control.

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And then we had to go back to the castle, trailed by the Dark Lord's body in mobulicorpus. We double-checked our story on the way back. We had gone out together to practice our animagi forms. Then we could apologize profusely for having illegal animagi forms and for leaving school grounds. And try to avoid rolling our eyes at the insincerity of our own apologies. And while we were out, Harry had been twitchy and seen something out of the corner of his eye and cast a stunning spell without thought.

The evidence all showed that he died from a stunning spell. The Aurors summoned were confused and unhappy that their most feared enemy had been so easily killed. But there is no evidence that my killing curse was cast. They think it was the Dark Lord's own mistake making him weak.

I suppose in a way, it was. He made me his weakness, and I used it. The history books will describe him as a failure, and I am perhaps the only person alive today who recognizes him as the greatest wizard of our times.

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Lord Voldemort spent days simmering in anticipation of his meeting with Icarus. He would have to be wary at first, but soon he would have her as his new apprentice, his new follower.

Soon, soon, he would meet her and see who Icarus truly was.

Soon, soon, who she truly was would be his.

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I miss him already.

Hermione