Disclaimer: I own no part of Harry Potter or its associated canon nor, any other already copyrighted material.

(A/N): And here comes the next chapter, the first part of the duel against Voldemort.

Chapter 35

Your Mother's Eyes

The dome reminded Harry of thinly stretched yellow bubblegum. Much of it was translucent and nearly transparent in a few places. Bands of energy floated across its surface, moving almost like ripples around the curved interior, fading the view behind them in and out at a slow pulsing rhythm. The firestorm of light from the multitude of spells being cast had been replaced with the same consistent yellow glow and the din of battle had become silence. Even the air within the space was dead calm, not so much as a breeze crossing his face.

Having taken the moment to examine his new surroundings, Harry's eyes settled back on Tom. The wizard was looking around, glancing over his handiwork. His eyes also returned and settled on Harry. "Do you like it? It's a dueling sphere. Created long ago when a wizard's duel meant only one person walked away with there life. Even using one these days is considered an offense equivalent to murder. That's basically what it is after all. You see…once the sphere is completed, none of the participants can leave…until someone dies." His wickedly twisted grin was in direct contrast to Harry's firmly passive face.

Keystone had been right. Harry still had no idea how the man had known about this particular spell, but given his extensive dueling experience, it wasn't that far fetched. He had visited the professor earlier in the week and asked him if there was anything odd he might have to deal with. Keystone had come up with a number of things, but this was the only one that seemed to fit Tom's style. After another moment's contemplation, he had recalled a number of interesting tidbits that Harry might be able to make use of as the duel progressed.

Harry could hear his own heart pounding in his chest as Tom's wand rose slowly. He thought back for a moment to the two times he had seen the man duel. The first could hardly be called a fight as he had merely been playing with Harry before executing him. Only a fluke, a predestine one to be sure, but still a fluke, of their wands had kept him from being mercilessly cut down that night three years ago. The second time was a year after the first and the thought of it still filled him with awe. When he had fought Dumbledore in the Ministry Harry had seen dueling at its highest level. Everything had been incredibly fast, unbelievably powerful…and dead silent. Harry still had no idea what many of the spells they had used had been and he hadn't tried to pile more research on Hermione.

He had faced the best the Death Eaters had to offer and lived, though mostly due to Neville's timely arrival, but one on one he could have beaten them. Tom though was on a whole other level. It was a level that could stand against Dumbledore, one of the most powerful wizards in centuries. Harry had spent a year training with the best duelist in North America but Tom had a lifetime of experience and a depth of knowledge of the dark arts that no living witch or wizard could match. And now Harry was staring across the small space at him, trapped in a sphere he couldn't escape, his only choices being to defeat the man or die and let everyone he loved die as well.

As he took a deep breath in a desperate attempt to calm himself, he could almost hear Professor Keystone's words from their last day of training. 'When a warrior fights, his only concern must be the total destruction of his opponent be it the lord god or Merlin himself, this is the way to win.' Letting out the breath, Harry pushed aside all thought of his friends, his family and the hints of fear growing from the memory of duel in the Ministry. He could feel his whole body returning to the focus he had felt before the battle began. The moment was at hand and nothing, nothing, was going to stop him now.

"Well then…shall we?" Tom's hissed question was followed a heartbeat later by a spell Harry couldn't identify, one of what he was sure would be many. He raised a shied and it ricocheted off to the side, dissipating into the dome. As it reached the barrier, the light became opaque for a second, as if strengthening to block the burst. Launching his own attack a moment later, it to was easily blocked. Tom's lips pursed into a small smile, though at what Harry had no idea. He attacked again and Harry blocked and counter attacked. Neither spell hit home. Tom took a pair of slow steps to his right, following the arc of the dome. Harry matched them, keeping the man as far back as possible. The pattern repeated itself a dozen times, each time the spells came a little faster and Harry could feel them becoming slowly more powerful. Each time his shield rose and stopped the attacks dead. All the time the smile on Tom's face became a little wider and a little wider.

"Excellent Potter! I knew you wouldn't disappoint me. With Dumbledore dead, I've been hard pressed to find worthy dueling opponents. Most just end up dead like poor Rufus." He attacked again and this time the shield barely stopped the blast, spreading sparks as it smashed itself to splinters. When Harry counter-attacked he fired one of the spells Tom had used earlier. He had no idea how he had known what the spell was or that the incantation was eradus, but he did. As the spell was knocked harmlessly away, he found Tom staring, looking for once surprised. "Where did you learn that?"

Before Harry could respond or even think about responding, Tom launched a flurry of attacks. Harry responded with shields and attacks of his own while lightly dancing out of the way of some of them. As the fighting continued, Harry noticed his shields weren't blocking the incoming spells anymore so much as canceling them out. The problem came from the fact his shields were also being canceled by the spells coming at them. After a moment he glanced to Tom and noticed the same thing was happening to him. Of course…brother wand cores. On one hand that similarity could save his life should he need to stop a Killing Curse. On the other it also meant his attacks would be basically useless.

Whirling to the side to avoid another attack, he felt the solid weight from the chest pocket of his cloak fall back against his body. Part of that was a crystal phial full of blue liquid Hermione had been smart enough to cast an unbreakable charm on, and the other half…was Remus's wand. Harry rolled to the side to dodge a string of attacks and had a split second to make a decision; give up the protection and power of his own wand, or be stuck in a stalemate with Tom until he grew tired and made a fatal mistake. Rising from the roll he kept the werewolf's wand partially hidden behind his arm as he regained his footing. He noticed Tom was glancing at his own wand as he did so.

"Brother wands…" Apparently he had noticed the effects as well. "Fortunately…this time I came prepared to deal with this little…problem." His hand disappeared into his robe and emerged a split second later with another wand, by far the strangest Harry had ever seen. It looked more like two wands that had been glued together along their length. On half was light tan and the other a deep brown, clashing oddly with each other. Harry stared at it a moment longer, still having no idea what it was exactly. "You don't recognize it…do you Potter?" Tom turned it sideways for a moment so he could get a better look, but Harry still had no idea why he should be able to recognize such a bizarre construct.

"Quiet a unique wand. Mr. Ollivander spent the better part of a year creating it. You see, I knew this day would come and I knew I would need a way around that annoying Priori Incantatum should I wish to be sure of vanquishing you. Fortunately, Wormtail provided the necessary materials to create what I needed. Ollivander wasn't even sure it could be done. And it was that challenge, even more than my threat of death, that drove him to mix willow and mahogany, unicorn hair and dragon heartstring." Something tickled the back of Harry's mind. He had heard of those two woods being used for…wands was it? But whose? "You see…he built this wand from the wands of your very own, dearly departed, parents."

Harry felt a spike of anger rise in him and threaten to consume him for a moment before he stamped it down. Tom swished the wand to the sides so Harry could clearly see each wood as he spoke. "Half from your mother…half from your father…built to kill…you." He hesitated only a heartbeat before throwing a fresh barrage at Harry, forcing him to block and dodge. Harry noticed his shielding spells were considerably weaker now that he was using Remus's wand. With Tom using that hideous concoction he would fall if he kept trying to use this one. Desperately suppressing the rage that threatened to take him over, he tried to put his parents out of his mind and figure out what to do.

Skipping to the side to avoid another attack, he spun and surreptitiously switched wands, leveling his holly and phoenix feather weapon at Tom. Blocking another attack, he could tell the man's spells had fallen off in power as well. They weren't pounding his shields quite as hard and for the first time in the duel, it looked like Harry might be able to match him. The thought he might be an actual match for the most feared wizard of an age threatened to shake him worse than finding out the man had his parents' wands. Forcefully steadying himself again blocked another attack. Tom seemed to notice the drop in his potency as well and compensated by attacking more frequently with what even Harry could tell were far more lethal spells.

They slowly began circling each other around the dome, stepping through the knee high dead grass that had so recently been released from the snow, the flurry of spells back and forth as furious as any of his training sessions with Keystone had been. With a start, Harry realized something. This was as fast as Tom could attack…and he was keeping up. Be it the lack of practice in the last twenty years or the fact he had had no serious competition, Tom was at the limit of what he was capable of in terms of speed. That was the second chink in his armor that Harry might be able to exploit. Despite the momentary triumph of having found this possible weakness, Harry knew the depths of the man's power had barely been scratched and it didn't matter how fast a Killing Curse was fired. For now though he seemed content to trade fast attacks.

As they made a full revolution of the circle, Tom came to a stop and ceased his spell casting. Harry followed suit a moment later, thankful for the moment of rest. The grin was now plain on Tom's twisted features. "Excellent Potter! You've become quite the duelist in the years since we fought. My followers said you were quite capable from seeing you in the ministry, but this is something else. A product of your most excellent Defense teacher I assume? Most impressive." His grin disappeared in a second and his tone dropped from the complimentary to the severe in a word. "Too bad it won't save you. Shall we see now how…powerful you've truly become?"

Harry raised his wand again, wondering what he would have to face now. His breathing took the chance to return to somewhere near normal and his heart slowed done enough he didn't think it would explode. Whatever Tom decided to use next, he had to be ready. He bounced on the balls of his feet, as he had been taught, ready to dodge to either side or jump back. He could feel Tom focusing and getting ready for whatever he planned, the dull pain in his scar that he had so far ignored rising for just a second. The double cored wand rose and the attack was launched.

Harry stared in confusion at if for several moments. First, nothing of any color or sound had left the wand tip. Second, nothing had happened to him. Third, Tom had actually spoken the spell and Harry was relatively sure attack wasn't the name of any incantation. Finally, and most telling, he was sure spells weren't suppose to be cast in Parlsmouth. It took Harry's mind several critical moments to put together all these factors and realize what was going on.

When it did he whipped around and rapidly searched the ground for the slithering form of Nagini. Finding nothing he span the other way and continued searching desperately amongst the dried and cracked grass. His eyes flashed this way and that, trying to look everywhere as once. Somehow the snake had gotten inside the sphere, undoubtedly by Tom's design, and now it was stalking him. Had Tom chosen that moment to attack, he would have been hard pressed to defend. That thought pulled his eyes back up to Tom who was merely standing there, waiting. They slid back down to the grass. There! Its tail! Harry tried to trace the rest of its body…

And exploded in a strangled gasp as pain erupted in his right shoulder.

Twin daggers were buried deep in his flesh, driven straight down by powerful jaws. The weight of Nagini drove him to his knees in a second and nearly made him drop his wand. Tom might have been laughing, he wasn't sure, the pain was too much. Harry focused all he had on continuing to breath, keeping his lungs working against the venom that was being dumped into his system at was sure to be a fatal rate. The only question now was how long it would take him to die and how much pain he would have to go through before it came.

Ominously, the pain began to subside and a cool numbness started to spread around the twin holes in his flesh where the snake had fastened it jaws, He knew this feeling, he had felt it five years ago, again at the hands of an oversized snake. This was death, or rather, dying. His body was collapsing under the weight or toxins and wounds being piled on it. Partially through the numbing agents Hermione could have told him were in the venom and partially through the endorphins her parents could have told him his body was releasing, the pain was subsiding and being replaced with nothing.

While he still had the strength he jammed his hand clumsily in to his robe, his fingers already losing functionality. Sliding his wand haphazardly into its inner pocket, the hand came back out with the crystal phial full of blue liquid. He stared at it for a moment; still not sure he could trust it. Even with what Snape had said, it could all be a trap, masterfully orchestrated by Tom or even Snape himself, finally getting revenge for the way James had treated him. Forcing his numbing right hand into a fist around the tube, he pulled at the stopper with his left. For a moment it didn't budge and he could feel his left hand starting to go. At this rate his lungs would give out in a few seconds, followed by his heart…and then…the release of death.

No! With a final heave he yanked the stopper free and brought the phial to his lips. He still hesitated for a moment before drinking. 'The time to do something that might kill you is when not doing the thing will kill you.' He was sure he had heard someone say that…somewhere… His mind was starting to get fuzzy as he forced himself to swallow. For a moment nothing happened. After another moment, nothing continued to happen. Whether it had been a set up or he had simply waited too long didn't matter. He was going to die on his knees with a snake embedded in his back because he had gotten careless. He wanted to sigh but his lungs had seized up and very soon his heart would follow.

He could see Tom smiling that infuriatingly smug gin of contempt and superiority that Malfoy had demonstrated on so many occasions. There was also something of regret in his face, almost as if he was sorry it was over so soon. Harry's eyes slipped and he knew that death had come for him.

With an explosive shuddering gasp the grim reaper was blasted away to claim some other soul. Harry's eyes ripped open as a searing burn started at the tips of his fingers and the soles of his feet and tore through his body in a flashfire wave before concentrating on the fangs buried in his shoulder. Feeling and strength came back in heartbeat. The anti-venom had worked!

With a burst of strength he rose to his feet, lifting at least a hundred pounds of snake with him. Nagini seemed to be squealing against his shoulder, but even with the ability to speak parlsmouth, it was hard to make out anything with its jaw wrapped around half his side. His fingers once again nimble and true, he reached not for his wand but for his sword. Drawing the enchanted steel in one swift motion he whirled the blade in a lighting fast arc behind his back. The blade slowed for only a fraction of a second as it cut cleanly through the neck of the dark pet. As it cut, Harry could hear a horrible scream emanating from the creature's mouth. Not the scream of its own death, but that of something far more sinister being destroyed.

Slipping the blade sideways between his shoulder and the now dying jaw, he jammed down on it hard and flipped the snake's head high into the air. Without thinking, he whirled around and slashed firmly, splitting the head in half straight across the jaw. Blood, Nagini's mixed with his own from the wounds in his shoulder, was flicked across the space and sizzled as it hit the barrier, vaporizing instantly. The pieces of the executed serpent's head fell to the ground as he turned back to Tom.

"NAGINI!" The wizard was visibly shaking with rage as he stared, stunned, at the shattered body of his pet snake. His mouth moved noiselessly while his eyes flared with hate, the red in them becoming even more intense and pulsing with rage. While Tom screamed silently, Harry felt the surge of strength that had come when he was yanked back from the edge of death starting to ebb away. Though the venom had been stopped, there were still two deep holes bored in his shoulder and a quickl glance told his that, though they had mostly closed up, small trickles of blood were leaking from each.

The damage to his muscles had weakened his arm considerably and he wouldn't be able to keep the sword up. Flipping it around in his grip, he jammed it into the ground, point first, using it as a crutch for a moment. His other hand moved swiftly and undid the belt, letting it fall down his legs to the ground. Without the sword, the belt would be useless and might get in his way at a critical moment. He had hoped to use the sword later. Tom was by no means a physically powerful man and his reliance on magic for so long hadn't helped that. A sword attack at an unexpected moment might have swung the battle in Harry's favor, but it would do no good now that he could barely raise the steel. While it fell, he quickly drew his wand and waited for the coming onslaught. One other thought crossed his mind as he did so. Now that the snake was dead…Tom was mortal again. In the few seconds it took to do all this, the wizard seemed to recover enough to speak.

"You…son of a bitch! DIE!" Harry could feel the power of the coming spell before it was cast, the raw energy making the hair on the back of his neck stand up. The green jet of death was monstrously strong and lightning quick, blazing across the space like a shooting star. Had he not been prepared for exactly this, he would have been killed for sure. Instead he dove to land on his halfway decent shoulder and continued to roll, just getting out of range in time. The spell cut a blackened path across the spot he had just been and crashed into the dome, instantly dissipating into nothing as it collided with the spell Tom himself had cast.

Harry managed a small smile while wincing from the spike in pain coming from his scar. Tom was madder than he had been in years, most likely since the failure of his minions at the ministry. His anger was compounded by missing with his first attempt at vengeance. As his wand moved to aim again, Harry couldn't help but taunt the man a little. "That's right Tom…your Horcrux is dead." At his words, he felt all trace of anger disappear, replaced with surprise and…fear?

"What did you say?" The low hiss was shocked but insistent. Harry remained silent with what he knew from Ginny having told him was an infuriating smile on his face. Tom repeated the question, this time as a forceful demand. "What the bloody hell did you say Potter!" Harry continued his smile and spoke in a steady voice as if he was discussing the weather rather than the destruction of one of the darkest creations in existence.

"I said, your Horcrux," he took special care to annunciate the word clearly so there could be no mistake in Tom's mind, "is dead." The man actually took half a step back, not entirely sure what to do next. The death of his snake had clearly made him insanely angry, but the fact Harry knew it was a Horcrux had spooked him. All too happy to rub salt in whatever wound he had made, Harry spoke again. "And it's not the only one." Harry swore Tom swallowed hard at that, but he could easily have been imagining it.

"What do you mean?"

"They're gone Tom. They're all gone. Every little bit of your soul has been destroyed and now it's just you and just me. And you…are mortal once more." Tom took a full step back this time, the slightest hints of fear creeping in at the edge of his eyes. "That's right. I know how you fear death. Can you feel it? Waiting to claim you?" The fear was washed out by an explosion of anger at the backhanded accusation.

"I don't believe you! Even if that old fool somehow found out what the diary was, oh yes, Lucius told me about that, much to his dismay, there's no way he could have gone any further. There's no one left who could have helped him! I killed them all!" Tom seemed to be working harder to convince himself than Harry and by the end, he had. "You're bluffing Potter. You might have coaxed out a name from that arrogant fool of a potion's master, but you don't know anything else." He sneered, convinced that Harry was indeed bluffing.

"Am I? Then…your grandfather's ring hidden in his home…and a locket belonging to Salazar Slytherin trapped in a drinkable potion in a stone basin, confined in a seaside cave you visited as a child…are those bluffs as well?" With each word the shaky confidence Tom had created within himself was crumbling. "Or perhaps the double handled cup of Helga Hufflepuff, seated on a pedestal surrounded by a sea of snakes, accessible only from your old room in the orphanage? How about-"

"Liar! You're guessing! Show me!" Harry felt the familiar sensation akin to legilemency as Tom tried to bore into his mind. He knew that letting his emotions spike would probably drive the man out, but he had Tom off balance and he could keep it that way for a moment. Ignoring the rising pain in his scar, he could feel his memories being searched, snippets flashing before his eyes as Tom combed through them. Instead of trying to block the assault as he had done before, he purposely fed the wizard what he was searching for.

The seconds it took him to destroy the diary with the Basilisk fang passed before his eyes but had little effect. Lucius had already told his master about this and suffered the consequences for using such a powerful object in a quest to settle a personal vendetta. The memory of the diary and the Basilisk that had preceded it naturally led to death of Nagini, much more personal from Harry's point of view. He could feel anger flare from the scar and the snake's head was cut in half. These two Tom already knew about. Now came the ones he didn't, the buffer he believed kept him immortal.

Tom kept digging and the ring passed before Harry's eyes next. The cracked and lifeless stone was apparent form the memory as he stared at it in Dumbledore's office the previous year. The first hints of trepidation passed through his mind, flowing through the scar from Tom. It was weird seeing these things in his memories while also seeing Tom standing across the way, staring as if transfixed. Before he could think anymore about that though, the next memory arrived, this time Halloween night. Harry let him see both when they had found Helga's cup in the depths of London, hidden through the secret passage in his old room, and when the Dementors had sucked the soul right out of it, causing a massive explosion. The tattered, chipped remnants were all that remained in the final second of the memory. Rage again melted to shock at the destruction of another Horcrux. He had expected Dumbledore to able to destroy it, but not Harry, not like this.

Harry decided the locket would be revealed next. Tom could only watch as the spell gained from Neville's father wrapped the unnatural creation in light and destroyed what was trapped within, the terrifying scream drowned out by the explosion of light. The burned image of Salazar fluttered to the ground before the memory ended. Harry could feel rage building once again in the mind linked to his. But this time there was something else, something that Tom was trying desperately to hide. It was fear. Fear that Harry was telling the truth, that his wards against death were gone and he was once again mortal. Fear that his overwhelming terror of death was once again justifiable.

Harry held back the final memory for just a moment, Tom's mind becoming more and more frantic as he searched for the last one. After waiting several moments though, he let his memory of the Mirror go and allowed him to see the destruction of the last Horcrux. Tom's reaction wasn't exactly what he expected as the secondary presence left his mind. Instead of the fear growing greater it had begun to recede, as had his rage. A totally unexpected emotion was now also present in the connection. He could feel mirth coming from the man, utterly confusing him. A man who had taken unprecedented steps to avoid death was now mortal once more…and he was laughing?

It wasn't actually a laugh, just less of a sneer than usual that crossed his features as his eyes relit, his mind returning fully to his own body. He could see and possible sense the confusion Harry was feeling as he spoke. "The mirror? You thought the Mirror was a Horcrux? Excellent. For a moment you had me worried. You found and destroyed five of my Horcrux. Excellent work Potter." Confusion filled Harry. The Mirror wasn't… But then Tom could still survive this day. "You were half right Potter. I did indeed intent to use the Mirror. Such a powerful artifact, and from one of the founders of Hogwarts none the less, could hardly be ignored." His hand flipped away a little, clearly indicating this should be taken for granted, and continued in a tone not unlike one of his professors lecturing.

"It takes a great deal of preparation to create something as powerful and enduring as a Horcrux and I had already done much of the magic when I arrived at your house. Your death would be my key to eternal life. In one swift move, I could crush what little hope my foolish former professor had gained, kill off two of my most annoying enemies and make sure I would live forever. I'll be the first to admit I never dreamed a conniving, power hungry, pathetic excuse for a human like Wormtail would be so useful, but I gladly accepted his betrayal of your parents to further my goals. I will give your father a mention at this point; he is the only wizard I've faced who actually had the nerve to physically attack me. Not that it did any good. He died at the foot of the stairs, trying to stop me from passing with his pathetic little attacks. You look so much like him. And now you can die at my hand, just as he did." Harry considered using the opportunity of his monologue to attack, but he also wanted to hear what this monster was saying. Either they had missed a Horcrux and Tom would survive this day or he had never made it since Harry hadn't died. He had to find out which was the truth.

"You looked like him right down to your hazel eyes." Now Harry was truly confused. His eyes were green, they always had been. They were his mother's eyes. Voldemort could see the fresh confusion on his face. "Oh…didn't anyone tell you? No…I suppose no one else knew. After I killed your father I hunted you and your mother down. I offered her the chance to stand aside, which she, as you know, refused, so I was forced to go through her. Had she tried she might have been able to challenge me, if only for a moment. I didn't realize it then, but instead of fighting she used all of her power to cast one last spell. It was the charm that saved you and protected you until your last birthday." Harry was enraptured by the description. Once and for all he was learning how his parents had died from the only man who knew.

"The spell, perhaps the strongest form of protective magic every devised, and cast by one of the few who could, had other side effects when combined the Killing Curse and the Horcrux incantation, the darkest of magic. She shielded you with her very soul. I, of course, saw nothing to stop me, the one mistake I've made, and immediately cast both spells at you while holding the Mirror to receive a piece of my soul. What I hadn't counted on was the first spell backfiring and tearing the Mirror from my hand. The power of your mother's soul absorbed the curse and reflected it back at me. As I fell, my hand grasped the next thing it found." Harry listened intently; perhaps the object was still in the bedroom. He could destroy this form and then destroy the Horcrux before Tom could recover. A wicked smile formed on the Wizards face as his hand slowly rose to point.

"You." Harry couldn't believe it. It was a lie, it had to be. "You don't believe me do you? Your mother's soul also absorbed the incantation and took the piece of my soul I had torn off with it. That's why we're connected Potter. You have a piece of me inside you. You also have a piece of your mother that keeps it from breaking free and still offered you protection until I was reborn with your blood. As I fell that night in your house I could see your eyes darkening, the hazel of the man I had just killed being replaced by the green of the woman who had just died. So you see, you are my sixth Horcrux Harry Potter." Harry couldn't speak and couldn't move. It couldn't be. It was impossible. Fear now gripped him tightly.

"Only one of us can leave here alive Potter, and either way, it's going to be me. Even if I fall, that part of me will remain and I can be reborn once again. Your mother's sacrifice now protects me as much as it did you. That part of your mother still lives inside of you. If you doubt me, just look in the mirror. After all, you truly have your mother's eyes."

(A/N): If you feel it is warranted feel free to review. I welcome any and all opinions.