Chapter 64 The Final Showdown

Voldemort ran out from the house, yelling at Neville, the only one immediately in sight in the predawn darkness, "You have lost me my servant, boy!"

Voldemort quickly drew his wand, but Harry apparated in front of him, causing him to draw up short. With an easy smile, Harry called out like he was meeting a neighbor, "Hello, Tom, long time, no see."

Neville wasted no time ducking behind the petrified dementors. The others followed suit, peeping out from behind. Voldemort was visibly shaken at Harry's presence and calm manner.

"Potter! How is it we aren't seeing into each other's minds? The spell is not completed until one of us is dead."

Harry knew enough not to tell him the whole answer, so he pleasantly replied, "I decided to close my mind to you. But if it makes you feel better about the spell, I can still see into your mind. I knew you were asleep, I knew that you were worried, and I knew that you hadn't warned your pet that you could no longer see into my mind - AND I know that you are afraid."

Voldemort glared at him, peering intently, trying as hard as he could to use either legilemency or the scar connection he was so accustomed to relying on. Harry gave him the chance to try and smiled benignly. Harry could feel Voldemort's reaction as he tried to look into Harry's mind – it hurt like trying to look into a floodlight.

Realizing his efforts were futile, Voldemort said, "Potter, we've just fought – neither gained the upper hand – why did you come here? Did you think there was something to negotiate?"

"Hmm - a magical contract perhaps? My uncle used to laugh that contracts were made to be broken, and that they only last as long as both sides prefer what they are getting out of them to the alternative. I know you all too well, Tom; you are resourceful enough to find a way to break the charms of a magical contract and go back to your old ways. Besides, we haven't all that much time as separate beings. All too soon, what separation there is will collapse."

"Then why are you here – we're matched. Neither can kill the other, it seems."

"We fought to a draw before because we could each see each other's thoughts and act in anticipation. Now only I see into your mind, so I have the advantage." Harry paused to let the affect of that change in circumstances sink in. "But you needn't be so afraid - I'm not here to kill you: I'm here to help you."

"What do you mean by that, Potter?" hissed Voldemort, very obviously rattled.

"You've been sick for a long time, Tom. You have been filled with hatred ever since you discovered you were a wizard stuck in a muggle orphanage because your muggle father rejected your witch mother and she failed to get you to a wizarding family before she died. I understand that: I hated the muggle home I was raised in, too. But now I don't. I understand that they fear magic. And I forgive and accept them for who they are. I was lucky enough to find friends and counselors that helped me see beyond the hate: for whatever reason you were not open to such help. Now I have come to heal you of your hatred."

"You still think there are such things as 'hatred' and 'love'? You fool! There is only self: when you have power, you take what you want and use whom you have a use for; when you don't have sufficient power, you protect yourself until you have the power to destroy those who would stop you. To think otherwise is vain. Go then with your sentimentality and leave me alone."

"You know I can't do that, Tom," said Harry benignly. "You have hurt people, and left to your ways, you will continue to. You will continue to try to find ways to kill me. I do not desire to destroy you, but I will cure the sickness in your heart."

Voldemort screamed, "There's nothing wrong that killing you won't cure!"

Voldemort flicked his wand at Harry's feet and a chasm opened up, but before it had even begun to open, Harry had apparated behind him.

"Nice, one, Tom. Some of my friends used that today on your soldiers. But I knew what you were going to do. Relax and let me heal you."

Voldemort disapparated to a nearby rock and summoned stones on the other side of Harry, but Harry had already conjured a magical shield which deflected all the rocks over Harry to where Voldemort had gone. He in turn disapparated out of the way.

"This is futile, Tom. Relax and let me heal you."

Next, Harry was attacked with a rapid succession of deadly or disabling curses. Harry reflected those that could be back at Voldemort, and converted the rest or disapparated effortlessly out of the way. As Voldemort scurried to avoid his own reflected curses and to locate Harry to send another curse at him, Harry laughed gently at the efforts. After a reflected cutting curse caught the edge of his leg, Voldemort paused, panting heavily.

"You're bleeding, Tom," observed Harry sympathetically. There wasn't a hint of taunt or sarcasm to the comment, nothing to say other than genuine concern. "Relax and let me heal you."

"Half-blood scum!"

Harry chuckled. "No more than you, but I'm stronger in that I don't consider it to be a matter to be ashamed of. Let me heal you of your shame as well."

Then Harry felt Voldemort searching for a weakness and thinking naturally of Harry's friends. It would be hard for Harry to protect them, even though he knew the attacks as soon as they were thought of.

"Get off the island!" Harry screamed to his friends.

Voldemort fired an explosive charm just offshore from where the others were, and the explosion sent an enormous wave toward them that would either dash them against the rocks or wash them out to sea. But they were quick and resourceful as well. Some of them used Wingardium Leviosa to lift parts of the wall of water so it passed above them, letting it crash on the far side. Others used Thermo to vaporize other parts into steam. Ted Nott, trusting that his comrades would handle the water and wanting to use the distraction, ignored the wave and wound an arm around a petrified dementor's arm to avoid being washed away as he shouted "Petrificus Totalis" and aimed his wand at Voldemort.

Voldemort blocked the spell and advanced on Nott. They were too close to each other for Harry to block the spell when he aimed his wand and hissed "Avada Kedavra." However, Harry had sent a spell to levitate a petrified dementor even before the killing curse had been pronounced and it was brought in front of Nott, intercepting the curse just in time. The dementor began to shimmer and evaporate, releasing all of the souls it had ever extracted from their bodies. The souls were rather ghostlike, and yet they were more substantial than ghosts when they were first released and began to fade as they went on to their proper existence. As each was released from the dementor, it got a joyous look of relief on its face and then rushed toward Voldemort, who showed his growing terror with each one, before each disappeared.

The wave conquered, the others each took cover behind a dementor, carefully keeping an eye on Voldemort as the souls rushed at him. As the destroyed dementor finally evaporated completely, Tonks snapped her fingers, and then pointed her wand toward Voldemort, shouting "Expecto Patronum."

Tonks's sheep charged at Voldemort, jumping at him. Within seconds the others had also cast their patronuses, which surrounded Voldemort, leaping and flapping at him, blocking his vision and his wand. As soon as he destroyed one with a spell it would be replaced. Harry approached and was allowed by the patronuses to get close enough to begin the healing process. As the green light began to fall on Voldemort, Harry could feel Voldemort seeking deep in the most convoluted recesses of his mind. Harry had never seen a need to explore this portion, but Voldemort had stored a thought magically sealed out of conscious ken which was designed to elicit fear and loathing in Harry, to raise his most visceral and instinctive feelings and resentments. It was stored so as to cause a reflexive response, like an instinct – an action bypassing conscious thought so Harry could not prepare for it.

Voldemort apparated to the low rise from which Harry had overseen the petrification of the dementors, and Harry followed, so that he was facing his friends as well, as he attempted to continue the healing. The patronuses, too, gave chase. Voldemort dropped to his knees and screamed, "Forgive me, Master Severus, I have failed you!"

Harry was momentarily stunned, frozen by the doubt in his mind that perhaps Snape was the true Dark Lord and Voldemort just his servant. Voldemort seized the opportunity – he wheeled around shouting "Avada Kedavra" and pointed his wand at Harry. The bright green spell shot from his wand and as it reached Harry, every one of the raiding party groaned and collapsed, many passing out. However, instead of striking Harry, the spell stopped and held.

At first the green light of the spell held stationary between Voldemort's wand and Harry's chest and then it climbed up both their bodies until it was a bright green rope connecting both by their foreheads, passing right through Harry's scar. As it rose it became filled with scintillations that had come out of both of them, and they both realized that this was the power they shared. The Avada Kedavra curse cast over sixteen years earlier was now going to complete itself. They must vie for control of the shared power. And so they both focused their minds on pulling it to them.

They strained and tugged with all their will and might, and at first nothing happened. Then the scintillations started to shift. They started to flow, very slowly at first, toward Voldemort. Harry pulled ever more desperately but they continued their inexorable flow to Voldemort. Harry felt himself being crushed down, even as he struggled with all the strength of his mind and spirit. Harry tried thinking of the people he loved, but it did not give him the extra strength he needed.

The morning twilight started to give Harry a view of the island, and he noticed all his friends still cowering behind the dementors, peeping out. He was sickened that they had not fled and he wanted to scream out to them to escape or kill him, but he could not. He started to look at them, but then he caught himself. He could not bear to look at them: he realized that they must be filled with terror and he was too weak to suppress legilemency. He couldn't bear to look.

"And so should they be," he heard Voldemort thinking with a chuckle. "Yes, Potter, your defense is broken. You are filled with fear now and I see your plan. Your friends should be filled with terror, for I will punish them most severely for their defiance of me. Those that can submit to my Imperius may be allowed to live, after suitable chastisement. I need new servants after all. The rest will be killed – after they have suffered suitably. How they must loathe you, Potter, for leading them to this horrible fate. It is, after all, what awaits all who defy me – your parents, the Prewetts, the Longbottoms, the Boneses, that goblin tribe, so many, many more who have received what is the true reward of those who refuse me. Let's take a look, shall we? You are facing them – read their fear!"

"No," Harry shouted in his mind, "I won't!"

But he could not resist. He was too weak from all that he had lost. Voldemort took control of his body and forced him to look at his friends and read their feelings. There Harry saw it – yes, there was terror, terror such as he had never seen, terror without bottom - but it was not at all the terror or hatred Harry expected, and there was something else.

When Harry realized the nature of their fears, he suddenly understood. Then Harry felt a hand supporting him and lifting him, not by any one part of his body, not even his body so much as his soul. Harry heard a voice ringing through him.

"Come," the voice said. It was neither male nor female, neither old nor young. Harry couldn't even say that 'hearing' was the right word to describe how he received it.

"Who are you?"

"The word Counselor will do, or perhaps Guide."

"A guide? For whom?"

"For you," the voice answered mirthfully.

"Then from whom?" thought Harry.

"From all that is. Come."

"I'd really like to, but I'm rather busy here, fighting Voldemort."

"You cannot do it by yourself. I have come to help - let me take your burden."

"But … I 'm supposed to vanquish him."

The voice of the guide laughed gently. "Fret not, Harry, and be not vain. If it is to be, it will be through you, but you need help. Everyone does. All beings rely on each other. Your friends have helped you this far. Now you need my help. At this moment, all things are possible."

"But … the prophecy."

"Accept that you need help. You are falling into the trap that ensnares so many of those who come so far on the path of practicing love: you have learned to help others, but not to accept help. You have heard 'It is more blessed to give than to receive,' and you have given of yourself magnificently. But it is also blessed to receive, when you have needs, and you give of yourself also in accepting help when needed. It is prideful to deny you have needs and it deprives those others who would do so of the blessings of giving what they can. Martyrdom is only good when there is no other good choice. Let me relieve you of your burden."

Still Harry hesitated and the voice said, "Let go. It is time."