The Boy Who could have Lived
Harry lay, stunned, crumpled on the floor; his wand five endless feet away. Here he was, sprawled on the ground, cowering in the presence of Lord Voldemort like so many other wizards, dead and gone. This young, spindly boy, not yet eighteen, with tousled sable hair and bottle-green eyes, was going to die. His fate was sealed and he knew it. Harry had been the only one to end all this pain, and he had failed. There was no love in his veins, Priori Incantatem, or Fawkes to save him now. All that was left for him to do was to bite his lip and take his destiny. Like the man he would never be. Like his father. He had small solace in the fact he would die a painless, seamless death. He would be killed like Cedric. He would die like Sirius, like Dumbledore. He would perish like his parents.
Voldemort, now a greater man than ever before, threw his head back and cackled. A low high-pitched laugh that pierced the autumn air and shook the leaves from the trees. Harry thought he heard the crunch of leaves beneath Voldemort's soliloquy of how Harry would die on his knees, like Lily Potter, the woman who haunted his dreams. After hearing no other sound, Harry knew it was simply his feeble mind playing tricks. Everything around him was like death. He deserved to die. The boy who lived… and then died.
The towering entity that was the Dark Lord raised his wand, thirteen-and-a-half inches, Yew, the twin to Harry's own, the wretched thing that had started it all. A flash of Tom Riddle could be seen in his eyes. Harry braced himself, no hope pumped through his veins, no hatred raged in his skull. All that was left was the icy, cold feeling of being resigned.
There were the dreaded words, and a flash of emerald light, not unlike Harry's eyes, which he squeezed tight at the sound. And then there was nothing. The sound of a body, collapsing to the ground, a soft thud. Was he alive? Had he lived once again? What fluke had caused this turning of the tables? There was no blinding pain, no sudden death. His eyes fluttered open, he sat up and wretched, dizzy with pain. Glancing at the place where the man who had ripped Harry's life apart had stood, he saw something else.
Standing tall, wand raised, was the boy who could have lived. His freckled nose quivering in anger, a look of unwavering determination on his stone-white face, Neville Longbottom stood.