It was a cool mid october night. Harry's sixth year had started this summer and the term had been tough. Voldemort was planning something big – Harry could feel it. He was haunted by more and more visions, which invaded his dreams and kept him up at night, particularly now that the Death Eaters had doubled their attacks in the last few months.
At the moment everyone was sleeping peacefully. Everyone, but one. Harry lay in his fourposter writhing and sweating, half covered by his blanket which had twisted about him. He was having such a teriible vision, that it was a wonder that he didn't scream already and had woken his dormmates with it.
He was looking through someone else's eyes, he noticed, when he regarded the unfamiliar room he was in. The person he was looking through sat on a kind of throne, his wand gripped firmly in his right hand. He found out that he was in a kind of hall. In front of him was a sea of cowering people in black robes with white masks.
The person he was looking through was casting the cruciatus curse at somebody he thankfully didn't recognise. To say it was awful was an understatment. He turned away to avoid looking at the poor victim as it writhed and screamed under the curse. Finally, he stopped and dismissed the man.
"Sssevverusss!" The person, Harry figured it had to be Voldemort, called. A figure walked quickly to the front of the room and then kneeled down again.
"Yes, my Lord!" he asked submissively, his eyes were downcast and his head lowered.
"What newsss do you havvve got from Hogwartsss?" he hissed at him.
"Potter continues to fail at occlumency, nobody suspects you of anything at the moment and there are a few more students eager to serve you, my Lord!" Snape drawled, hoping the news would please his Lord, knowing all too well that if it didn't, he would suffer the effects of his Lord's displeasure, just as his fellow Death Eater had nor five minutes ago. But he was lucky.
"Excellent! Dumbledore is foolish and simple. He will not notice anything until it is too late!" Voldemort sneered maliciously.
Then he dismissed Snape and called several other people to him. The were all just grovelling for merci, because they had no good news to report. Meanwhile, turning away from the gruesome scene in front of him he didn't want to witness, Harry turned his attention to Voldemort's mind. The opportunity to explore Voldemort's mind had never presented itself before, and he didn't think it would be a bad idea to take advantage of such an opportunity.
Harry had a rough idea of how to probe his thoughts, thanks to the occlumency lessons he'd had with Snape, but he knew he would have to be extremely careful. He didn't dare search too deeply, because the risk of being sensed by Voldemort was a lot higher. He wasn't so easy to notice, if he kept on the surface.
Harry didn't want to think about what would happen, if Voldemort caught him. But then considering how valuable the information would be he would find there, the risk was definitely worth it.
He sifted through the memories. He couldn't afford to spend too much time looking through them, and just barely looked at them, because he didn't want to risk being caught. Anyway, most of them were far too gruesome to want to spend too much time looking at them. The Lord had performed very much cruelty in his life.
Most of the memories scared him to the very core of his being. There were endless scenes of Death Eater meetings and attacks on villages, towns. Then there were a lot of scenes of the initiation progress and the burning of the dark mark. He skipped through them not wanting to take a closer look.
One particular memory caught his attention and he spent a little longer looking at this one, all the while hoping that Voldemort wouldn't notice his presence. The memory was both interesting and cruel.
There was a young boy, no more than about seven or eight, with shoulder lenghts black hair and eyes that had a peculiar mixture of blue and green. He was tanned and sat in a corner of a neatly mown lawn, laughing and playing with a small guinea pig.
A man walked briskly out of the villa nearby to the small boy. He was a tall man with brown hair. Harry thought he was about forty years old and he looked completely different than the boy.
"Tom! How many times do I have to tell you not to play with the laboratory animals? Get in the house right now and give me that creature!" the man yelled, pointing with his hand to the villa.
The boy looked up at the person guiltily and stood up, cradling the tiny creature in his arms protectively.
"I won't say it again! Give me that animal!" the man said scathingly, scowling at the boy and grabbing his upper arm.
"NO!" the boy cried, turning his body away and trying to shield his pet. His deed was futile. Tthe man slapped him hard across the face and he reeled backwards. Then the man ripped the creature out of the boy's arms.
"Go to your room. I'll be there in a minute! No, wait. Stay here – I want to show you what will happen when you disobey me!"
"Yes, Sir!" the boy replied mumbling. He lowered his head and held one hand to his swollen cheek.
The man dropped the guinea pig in front of them on the lawn which was too scared to run away. It seemed absolutely petrified. Then the man pulled out his wand and took aim at the pet, before uttering just two simple words.
"Avada Kedavra!" A bright green flash hit the small animal, which squeaked once before it dropped to the ground, and stopped moving. The boy stared at his dead pet with utter shock.
The memory faded and another one floated up. The same boy featured in this memory, but he appeared to be a few years older. He was around fourteen or fifteen now. The villa and the sunshine were gone, and now the boy stood in a dimly lit room. Harry recognised it as the Chamber of Secrets - the hall where he had fought and killed the basilisk in his second year – though he had never seen it look quite as it did in this partucular memory.
Tom was sitting cross-legged on a large fourposter bed with the hangings drawn. Another boy who looked about the same age as him, stood in front of him. They were arguing and this boy had his arms crossed and was scowling down at Tom.
"I swear I didn't betray you!" Tom pleaded, reaching out to the other boy.
"Oh, yeah? Daniel said he saw you with Elizabeth yesterday, snogging mind you! You crook! You said you were gay! " the other boy yelled leaning forward.
"I am! And I didn't cheat on you! He must have made up the whole thing!" Tom screamed at him. "I love you, only you!" He whispered now, close to tears, looking up at him with shining eyes.
"Really? I don't believe you. I believe him. Everyone else was right. You can't be trusted. I shouldn't have trusted you!" the other boy cried, sounding hurt and disappointed.
"Please, Harold! Harry! I wasn't unfaithful to you! Please, believe me!" Tom begged, tears running down his face.
"Look at you! Crying like a stupid girl!" Harold scoffed.
"Please, don't leave me as well. You're the only one I've got!" Tom cried, reaching out to touch him, but Harold stepped away.
"No! You deserve to be alone!" with that Harold turned around and walked away with quick steps. Tom slumped down on the bed, crying.
Harry slowly retreated from the memory. He felt sorry for Tom, though he still hated Voldemort. He felt weird for that he felt sorry for the person he absolutely hated. However, he could understand that Tom was furious with everybody, but he didn't know why Tom had become so violent. Though, no one deserved to be left alone.
Harry had had enough of Tom's memories and tried to escape Voldemort's mind, but he found himself trapped. It felt like the visions he had had in the past and couldn't wake up even if he wanted to.
When he looked in front of him he saw the Death Eaters again and caught the last of the sentence that was spoken by Voldemort.
"... We will attack Hogwarts now. I called all of you tonight, because Severus told me that nobody will be prepared for an attack, so we will encounter little resistence in capturing Hogwarts!"
Harry saw Snape's eyes widen in panic. He had obviously not reckoned on that! Even though a number of wards and spells protected the School, the castle wouldn't be expecting an attack of such dimensions. Harry needed to warn them all, because Snape would never make it back to the castle on time, and he would undoubtedly be expected to go along with the attack to maintain his cover as a loyal Death Eater. He gathered his strength and tried one more time to escape from his vision and fortunately, albeit surprisingly, there was nothing preventing him from leaving anymore.
"...ry, wake up, mate!" someone called. He moaned quietly. It sounded like Seamus' voice. Maybe it was worth for once that he had woken up the others with his vision. Thank goodness, if he hadn't woken him up, who knew how long he'd still be inside that lunatic's head! Normally he didn't like to wake his room mates, but this time he was glad he had. He groaned. His whole body ached from having spent the night thrashing about and he felt nauseus. He felt something wet and cold on his forehead and somebody was holding his hand. He relaxed slightly when he realised it was Seamus' hand, but then a coughing fit forced him up and he ducked his head over the side of the bed just in time before he threw up, pitifully. He stayed lying on his stomach, dropping his head into his hands and rubbing at his tired eyes. He heard feet shuffling, when he did.
Someone was rubbing his back soothingly and a voice whispered in his hear, but he didn't quite hear what it was said. After having evened out his breathing, he slowly opened his eyes to find Seamus, Ron, Neville standing around his bed watching with worried faces.
"How are you?" Ron asked concerned. Harry sighed and shook his head tiredly, not trusting his voice to say something. Seamus who was already sitting beside him on the bed, helped him up in a sitting position and took him in his arms. He placed a small kiss on Harry's temple and whispered something. Harry felt too fuzzy and tired to make out the words, but it didn't matter, just the sound of Seamus' voice made him relax. Gratefully he laid his head down on Seamus' shoulder and inhaled the scent of him which was enough to calm him down. He knew he could rely on Seamus.
"Where's Dean?" Harry asked weakly.
" He's gone to get Dumbledore." Seamus answered reassuringly, rubbing his back again.
"Good. I have to talk to him!" Harry answered wearily.
They waited only a few minutes, then the door burst open. Dean ran in first closely followed by McGonagall and then Dumbledore. Dumbledore looked at the scene for a moment, eyeing each boy for a second. Then he looked at Harry, his face blank.
"Harry?" Dumbledore inquired. "What is the matter? Dean has informed me that you have had a vision?"
"Yes, Sir. Voldemort is going to attack Hogwarts. Now!" Harry explained. He had tried to sound strong, like the hero everyone wanted him to be, but his voice let him down and all he was able to manage was a hoarse whisper. McGonagall gasped and Seamus tightened his grip on him, the others were silent.
He held the Headmaster's gaze, willing the Headmaster to see what he hadn't told him. Dumbledore looked alarmed.
"Do you know where they are now?"
"They could be at the gates right now." Harry answered evenly. Dumbledore nodded thoughtfully.
"Can you tell me how many are headed here?"
"I don't know. About three hundred."
"What? But.. I never realised he had so many followers. Severus has not noticed that, either." He said aghast, starting to pace.
"I think that was what he wanted. By the way, Snape is with them!" Harry told him.
"..." spat Ron.
Dumbledore turned around, muttering to himself. He looked at McGonagall and nodded, before both vanished from the room.
"What are we menat to do now?" Ron asked into the room, looking slightly panicked.
It wasn't long before Harry and his dormmates heard the alarm going off. They could hear people waking up and asking around why the alarm went off. Some of them sounded nervous and scared, others just a little bored.
Obviously, nobody knew that the wards went off, because Death Eaters were attacking.
Harry grabbed his glasses from his nightstand and his wand from under his pillow. He wans't sure what he should do. He knew that the prophecy said he was the one to kill Voldemort or selse Voldemort would kill him. And said person was here now. He was scared, though he would never admit that when everyone was counting on him. He was scared for himself, scared for his friends...and scared to lose the only person he'd ever loved. He had already lost so many people who had been close to him – his mum, dad, Sirius and Cedric. He couldn't bear the thought of losing Seamus, too.
Then suddenly Harry straighted and pulled out of Seamus' embrace. He had made up his mind. He would fight. He was the one to bring Voldemort down, so he would try to do that now. He had an idea of how to kill Voldemort – really kill him. So he wouldn't be coming back again. It had come to him while he had been sifting through Voldemort's memories.
He grabbed his glasses and snatched his wand from the nightstand.
"You stay here!" Harry said, looking sternly at his dormmates.
"Harry. What are you going to do?" Seamus asked anxiously, grabbing for Harry's arm.
"No time for explanations, love!" Harry announced and kissed him firmly on the lips. "Please, stay here!"
His friends were too dumbfounded to do anything, except from staring at him. Harry, noticing he was only in his pyjama, grabbed a robe off one of the bed posts, before he left the room.
He heard Ron calling after him, but he ignored it.
Downstairs in the common room, a lot of the students were in panic, futilely trying to calm each other down. Two Prefects stood guard at the entrance to the common room to keep everyone in and the rest were dispersed about the room trying to calm people down, or hexing people to keep them still
The two Prefects let Harry pass, as he pushed past them. Ron and a few others tried to follow him, but the Prefects were successfully blocking them.
He threw his robe on while hopping down the endless stairs.
When he finally opened the Entrance doors the battle was in full progress. The Hogwarts professors stood more or less fully dressed before the long line of death eaters he had seen in his vision. There were only twenty professors, but they all stood, their wands held high, ready to defend the castle.
He saw that even a few animals from the forbidden forest had joined in the fight. Centaurs, Gwarp and animals he couldn't identify from the distance were fighting alongside the teachers.
Spells and curses were flying back and forth. Even though the battle had just started it looked as though the Death Eaters were winning. The teachers were completely outnumbered.
Harry held his wand in front of him, ready to defend himself, but nobody seemed to have noticed him and he was relieved. He didn't want to fight anybody else if he didn't have to – he had to save his stength for his fight with Voldemort.
He searched for Voldemort, noticing that the battle had changed from a line of death eaters shooting at a line of teachers, to a conglomerate of individual duels between two or three witches and wizards at a time.
Harry noticed a large group of wizards hurrying along the path that led from Hogsmeade to the school grounds to join the fight. The aurors had joined the battle.
Harry continued to look around the battlefield, but he still couldn't see Voldemort and it made him nervous. Wasn't he here yet? Or was he just hiding in the background? Even his scar was quiet. It didn't hurt in the slightest.
Then all of a sudden, he saw him. He was walking calmly toward Harry as if it were the most natural thing in the world.
Harry held his wand ready in front of him, never taking his eyes off his target. His plan had to work. He'd lose everything if it didn't. All he had to do was cast the spell. It sounded easy enough, didn't it? He had to get it right the first time, there would be no second chance at this. His palms turned sweaty and his stomach tied itself into knots. What if he wasn't strong enough? What if something went wrong? But he had no time to worry. Voldemort had stopped a few feet in front of him, watching him intensely and looking at him with steely determination on his ugly face.
Harry was concentrating so hard on what he was going to do that it took a few moments for him to realise that Voldemort was standing not seven feet away from him and his scar wasn't throbbing. It didn't even twinge.
What kind of magic was at work here?
"Potter. We meet again. I thought you would hide from me forever!" Voldemort hissed dangerously, taking a step forward.
"I'm not hiding from you, Tom, but unlike you I have to go to school!" Harry answered nonchalantly.
"Sso proud of this ssschool, aren't you? What would you do, if this whole castle suddenly went 'boom'?" he purred, making a small gesture with his spidery hand.
"Oh, you won't do a thing!" Harry answered confidently.
"Harry, what are you doing there? Step aside!" the Headmaster shouted frantically from somewhere near them, but both Harry and Voldemort ignored him completely. They stared at each other, neither one flinching.
"No?" Voldemort sneered.
"NO!" Harry screamed, while gathering all of his power. "Obliviate!" he cried, throwing his spell at Voldemort. The dark Lord wasn't prepared for the attack and only had time to erect a low blocking shield that was easily obliterated by the spell. It hit him directly with its full force and left him dazed. Harry looked carefully at the dazed wizard and realised he had to cast the spell one more time. Voldemort had many memories and many years behind him, and he didn't want to find that he'd only been able to reach half of his memories.
"Forget everything you experienced after your twentieth birthday." He instructed loudly and taking a deep breath and gathering all of his power once more.
"Obliviate!" he cried again, before Voldemort could recover from the first spell.
"Forget everything that happened after your third year of school!" Harry said, keeping his wand leveled at the evil wizard. Voldemort stood absolutely still, held in place by the power of Harry's spell.
"And forget your parents, foster parents and Harold..." Harry told him, reasoning with himself whether he should say the next part or not. He had thought of doing so. He shook his head. The part about Harold was the key to defeating Voldemort...but Harry wasn't sure he could bring himself to do what he was about to do.
He desperately tried to find a better solution quickly, but he couldn't come up with anything. Damn. He had to do something fast, before the influence of the spell faded. Finally, he decided to do what he had planned to do from the beginning. He took a deep breath and braced himself for what was to come.
"Think of me. Only me. I make you feel safe, warm, loved. You love me, and I love you " he coaxed him. Exhausted and drained from the effort of throwing so much energy behind the two spells, he lowered his wand. Voldemort's eyes glazed over, before they focused. He furrowed his brows in confusion and then he adjusted to the new circumstances. Then Harry felt for the link he shared with Voldemort and, once he found it, easily entered his mind. Harry sifted through Tom's memories and was relieved to find that the spell had worked as he had hoped. The first part was done. The darker memories of Tom's life with his parents and Harold were gone.
Harry sagged to the ground. The first part had been difficult, but it had been worth it. He hadn't been sure, whether he would be strong enough to delete all of his negative memories, but in the end, he had been. He took a deep breath and gathered his mind for the last part.
Still sitting on the ground, he spotted a stone, about the size of his fist, on the ground next to his knee, and, seeing that Tom still looked dazed and disoriented, he quickly snatched it up and held it low by his leg, keeping it well out of sight while he transfigured it.
"Tom, come to me!" Harry called, smiling broadly. Harry didn't show it, but he was disgusted by what he was going to do - his stomach churned and he felt like he would throw up any second, though he suppressed it – but it was too late to turn back now. Harry watched the evil wizard approach him, with his scary white skin, gaunt face and spidery hands. The oddest thing was his normally piercing red eyes were looking softly around himself.
Harry suspected that Tom didn't have any idea of how hideous he was and it was probably better that he didn't know what he looked like after Harry had erased his memories. He was sure that the insecure young man he'd seen in Voldemort's head was in there somewhere.
He couldn't waste any more time. If the death eaters understood what he'd done, they'd try to rescue their Lord and restore his memories. He hadn't destroyed the memories, merely removed the very knowledge of said memories, as he wasn't strong enough to that as well. So the process could be reversed, and he couldn't allow that.
Tom smiled after recognising Harry. He walked up to Harry who thrust out his free hand to him.
"Come, love!" Harry said, doing his best to keep the tone of his voice light and gentle, but the fact that so many people had formed a wide circle around them and were staring at him like he'd lost his mind wasn't helping.
Tom did as he was told. He kneeled in front of Harry and drew him into a tight embrace. With one hand, Harry returned the hug stroking Tom's back reassuringly, the other hand still hidden behind his thigh. Tom closed his eyes and leaned into Harry who pulled him up and pressed his own lips to his. He kissed him with as much warmth as he could muster, trying to make Tom forget everything around him and focus only on him.
Tom happily kissed him back, bringing his hands up to hold Harry's head in place while he deepened the kiss.
When Harry was sure, he had captured all of Tom's attention and he returned the kiss, he tightened the grip on his dagger and slowly, so his movements wouldn't alert the wizard in front of him, he raised it and plunged it deeply into Tom's back. Tom reeled back from him and Harry felt him gasp and stiffen. But he kept his hold on the dagger and pushed it even further into his victim, aiming to pierce the evil wizard's heart. He pulled the ruckling and coughing Tom back into his arms who looked surprised and hurt.
"Why?" he asked feebly.
"I love you." Harry whispered and leaned down and gently kissed him one last time as Tom's eyes began to close. Harry felt Tom's last breaths on his face when he died in his arms and he lowered his body to the ground. Harry gestured a cross into the air in front of him and moved a few feet away.
As the enormity of what he'd just done sank in, he slowly became aware that the battle was still continuing around him. The Death Eaters who had not fallen in battle, were leaving rapidly on foot and disapparated or portkeyed away.
He looked at the bodies that littered the ground. It was such a senseless waste of life. Harry saw that nearly half of the people working with the Oder were dead and many of the death eaters who had fallen were so young. Barely older than he was. They clearly hadn't been trained to handle something on this scale, but they'd been thrown into it anyway.
Harry quickly looked around for someone he knew of the ones that were still alive. He breathed a sigh of relief when he saw McGonagall chasing a group of death eaters off the school grounds. Professor Flitwick was standing watch over a group of stunned death eaters and even Snape was alive. In fact, he was walking toward him – slowly, since he'd been injured. He looked relieved – that was the only word to describe the look on his face – sheer relief. Harry understood. A huge burden had been lifted from his shoulders. He nodded at his professor, who inclined his head, returning the gesture.
He was already quite near when Dumbledore rushed passed Snape to stand in front of Harry.
"Lower your wands!" he called to the aurors who had formed a perimeter around Harry and leveled their wands at him, uncertain of what to make of him.
Seamus ran toward him, ignoring the aurors who tried to pull him back, and gathered Harry in a fierce embrace.
"Thank God you're still alive!" he mumbled, crying. "I thought I would never see you again!"
"Sht. Everything is fine. I love you!" Harry tried to calm Seamus down, barely feeling anything himself after the adrenalin had ceased to flood through his veins.
Dumbledore stepped forward and looked severely at Harry.
"Is he really dead?" He asked, pretty disheveled. "How..?"
"There's no mistake this time. He's not coming back!" Harry answered wearily. "I pierced his heart."
"I saw you from the Entrance. Why did you do that with you-know-who?" Seamus asked, his voice trembling slightly. He wiped Harry's lips once and kissed him gently. Harry drew him close. He began to feel sorry for Tom. He could have had such a happy life, if people had had a bit more faith in each other. He was left alone by everyone. Harry knew what it meant to be alone. The ten years until he had gotten his letter from Hogwarts had been lonely. He never wished loneliness for anyone and wanted Tom to be happy at least in his last minutes of his life.
He answered Seamus a little sadly, but without hesitation:
"I think everyone has the right to be loved!"
Fine