Dumbledore, some children, others gathered around Harry while Voldemort fell sideways again, his broken leg splintering from his weight, the pain even worse with his magical protection gone. That empty feeling only grew as he realized that the magic that had been with him for all of his life – had hummed through him since he was a child, had been the reason his father left his mother, the magic that his life depended on – had been taken. Removed from his body. Stripped away.

He was a Muggle.

No one paid him any attention there on the ground. He could not hurt them anymore – why should they bother? His eyes clenched shut against the lightning in his leg.

A wand was tracing his thigh where the fracture burned. Voldemort gasped as a girl murmured a spell that numbed the pain before she held a vial to his lips. Voldemort did not care if it would kill him or cure him, and he hoped the potion would do the first, but the break mended itself in a strange weaving of bone.

Voldemort did not let the opportunity slip him by. He may have lost his magic, but he was not powerless, and his memory was intact. As quickly as he could in his condition, he curled an arm around the girl's neck and flung her over him. Getting to his feet, he clenched a hand around the girl's throat, relishing the gasps and choking sounds, the struggle of so many of his victims before her. He had not lost his touch. He gripped her thin neck tighter as he thought of what he had. Damn Potter to the lowest level of hell, this was the girl who had told him to say the spell instead of kill him. He would make both of them pay – he could taste the boy's anguish when he saw his best friend Hermione dead, a casualty even after his victory.

He heard someone coming behind him, preparing to fling a spell, but Voldemort whipped around with Hermione in his hands, struggling, losing her footing, losing her vision and the feeling in her arms and legs, gasping for air.

"I'll snap her neck," Voldemort said. His voice was achingly human, but he managed to add enough menace to give the approaching attacker pause. Voldemort vaguely recognized him, a black man, an Auror. "I swear I'll snap her neck."

"Tom," said Dumbledore softly behind him, "it's time to give up. You've lost. Let Hermione go. You won't kill her."

"Really?" Voldemort replied. He placed his free hand on her shoulder and moved the other up to her chin. One more second, and he could have jerked her chin up, killing her in a single, vengeful motion. But he could not block himself from all sides, and he was struck with a simple Stupefy, long enough to take Hermione from him. Dumbledore cast Enervate as soon as Hermione was pulled away and held by Harry and Ron Weasley as she swallowed the air she had been denied. He looked bitterly into her eyes, unable to look into her mind, but he did not see hatred. He was glad he did not see pity either. Instead, just resignation.

Voldemort did not fight as the black Auror bound his hands behind his back. He knew that the Auror was not following procedure, but why should he? The Dark Lord was a Dark Lord no longer, just a Muggle who was no match for the power of the wands around him, for the magic that crackled around him instead of within him.

"You know, Harry," Voldemort murmured, "I was wrong. You haven't become me – you're worse."

Harry could not meet his eyes, but it was Hermione's reaction that caught his eyes. She burst into tears, a culmination of fear, stress, fatigue, and… something else… perhaps what he had said. Voldemort did not recognize the spell that Harry had used on him – it was more than likely that Harry, with his average schooling, had discovered the incantations on his own, but from what he remembered of Hermione from a distance, she had the mental means… His lip curled.

"You could not even leave me with dignity," Voldemort continued as he was given into another's hands. He pointed his words at Hermione, knowing that she was listening because she tried to hide and close her ears from him. "I filled grown men with fear with my name. I worked all of my life to become what I was – I cheated death for it, for power that you could not imagine, that you felt fit to take. You've brought one Dark Lord to heel. When will the next rise, Harry?" He spat down at the ground.

"Your words don't mean anything anymore, Tom," Harry said, holding Hermione closer. "You brought it all on yourself. Remember that when they don't kill you for your sentence. I don't regret what I did, not anymore. None of us should." Harry gave Hermione's shoulder a gentle squeeze.

As Voldemort was being led away, he looked upon the Boy Who Lived Again and said softly, without malice, "So you've won, Harry. Are you happy now?"

Harry's head dropped down. "I could have been," he whispered. "I chose not to be."

And on those enigmatic words, Voldemort was taken from the field of battle, walking quietly with two Aurors. He would not beg, and he would not resist like a fish caught in a hook. He would find some way to get his magic back. He had not fought tooth and nail to become the most powerful, nearly immortal wizard only to fall at the feet of a seventeen-year-old boy. There would always be some way… some way… he would not… there would be a way…

His stomach tightened at the despairing thought – no, knowledge – that there was no way, and that was the cold, hard truth. He would be half a man forever, the very thing he despised, the very thing he sought to destroy, and he was now in the hands of the system he had nearly overthrown.

"Azkaban would be too good for you," muttered the other Auror, an unfamiliar one.

Voldemort agreed.

Their punishment was fitting, Voldemort thought to himself after it was finished, the hollow feeling inside of him extending like gangrene to his head. He drifted through his mind like some ghost, only dimly aware of what was happening to him. Yes, the punishment was fitting and quick.

There would be a time for mourning. Now, the citizens of the wizarding world who had hid and shivered in abject terror under his ascent to power and brief reign wanted their revenge. They would cry for the lost later. They would spit upon him now.

He was not brought before the Ministry. Why bother? They could throw him into Azkaban, but he could not see the dementors, even if he could feel them. And they did not want him in Azkaban, they wanted him where they could see him, where they could mock him.

Someone had prepared for his degradation in anticipation, or blind hope, that he would be brought to his knees, and the Aurors dragged him into Diagon Alley, which was filled to the brink with citizens of the British wizarding world. Their noises were nothing more than that, senseless words that did not quite reach his eyes. He saw their confusion, then recognition as the Aurors led him through the Alley to the plaza in front of Gringotts, the only open space within the cluttered street. There was a dais in the center of the plaza, and Voldemort felt heat creep up his neck and over his face.

"Yes, my lord," one of the Aurors said, sneering. "It's only right that a lord should have his coronation."

Voldemort lowered his eyes, gritting his teeth. He tried to drift again, but the gleaming wood of the pillory remained stark in his vision. He was shoved onto the dais, and with a slashing motion of his wand, the Auror divested him of his robes, leaving him naked and pale – but not white – before the crowd. He winced at the coolness of the air and the eyes on his skin. Even he could appreciate the irony. It would have been more ironic had they presented him to a guillotine, but that would make his torture far too quick and painless. Instead, abject humiliation in the plaza of Diagon Alley before all the people who he had tried to destroy… fitting, to say the least.

The Auror shoved him to his knees before the pillory, forced his arms and head through the indentions, shackling him there and bringing the top down over him. They would not even torture him with magic. Silence swept over the Alley as the Auror held up his hand.

"Here is the Dark Lord Voldemort," he began, and the crowd began murmuring, jeering in whispers, "brought low by the efforts of Albus Dumbledore, Harry Potter, Ronald Weasley, Hermione Granger, Albus Dumbledore, Severus Snape, Remus Lupin, and Minerva McGonagall. Once the pride of the pureblood traitors, he is now nothing more than a man. How many of you have suffered under his orders? How many have lost children, spouses, friends, relatives? How many have cowered in fear and distrust because of him?"

"How many, indeed, have left the war to a handful of students and teachers instead of winning it themselves?" Voldemort said, his voice effortlessly carrying over the crowd. Eyes turned hostile as a nerve was struck, and the Auror kicked him in the ribs.

"See your opportunity for revenge," the Auror continued.

"Like cowards, all waiting for me to be unable to fight back," Voldemort said. He groaned as the Auror kicked him again.

"Shut up," he spat, knocking Voldemort's head against the wood. "These people deserve to give every blow to you that they can."

He looked back out at the crowd. "There is to be no killing, and restrain your magic. We want him alive, and we don't want anyone else harmed because of your anger. Is that understood?"

"Commanding a crowd is like reasoning with fanged infants," Voldemort murmured. "I will die today."

"That would be too good for you," the Auror said. "We're prepared."

"So said the aristocrats during the French Revolution," Voldemort replied.

The Auror ignored him and turned to the fidgeting crowd. They were toying with wands, creating fruit and vegetables from bits and pieces of trash about them, holding handfuls of Knuts, running spells through their heads and itching for a piece of the fallen Dark Lord.

"You have five hours," the Auror said. "Make them last. And don't you go unconscious until they've had their fill."

"Wouldn't want to deprive them of the satisfaction of their violent revenge," Voldemort said. He jerked his head back as the Auror spat upon him, marking the beginning of his humiliation.

Voldemort had been right. A few dangerous curses came through, and although the Aurors removed the casters from the crowd, they still had their hands full. It was only in a matter of an hour that Voldemort was covered in juices, trash, semen, spit, and blood. The initial pain settled into steady throb after a while – pain without comparison ceases to be pain. He slumped in the pillory long before he lost consciousness two hours into the torture. The Aurors Enervated him when they saw his mouth slacken so that he would suffer every bit of fun that the crowd had at his expense, every inch of pain that he had inflicted upon the wizarding community.

He found that after three hours, he stopped caring. He could drift again. The Auror whispering obscenities in his ear, telling him of his defeat and what was going to happen to his Death Eaters now, what was going to happen to him, meant nothing. He could not care less about the nails raking between his arse or the blood dripping down his thighs. It was not there. The crowd became nothing more than static, grimacing creatures that did not speak his language.

He fell into a stupor of serpents – it seemed that Harry had not stripped him of his Parseltongue, it was whirling through his head in a symphony of sibilant hisses. Within the confines of his mind, it occurred to him that because he still carried that beloved trait, it meant that the ability he prized so highly was not magically linked. Underneath the grime and wetness, his face went white. The Parseltongue that ran through Salazar Slytherin's veins was not unique to wizards. Heaving, Voldemort emptied the meager contents of his stomach. It was thrown back in his face, and Voldemort drifted again.

At noon, the Auror next to him reluctantly put up a shield around Voldemort, and the Aurors and Law Enforcement Officers began to clear the Alley. It took longer than three hours – the people wanted blood. They wanted to see him writhing under Cruciatus, they wanted to see his body limp under the Killing Curse, just as the Dark Lord had always done to them, just as they were always afraid to see when they came home.

Voldemort's eyes were open, but it was clear he was not there. The remaining Aurors kicked him, but he did nothing but blink.

"Look at you now," one of the Aurors muttered in something that resembled admiration. "You're not even a shadow of what you were. Are you what we were afraid of?"

"I had to be stripped of my magic before any of you could even touch me," Voldemort whispered beyond the refuse coating his throat. "It is nothing for you to be proud of. This holiday was a transformation: my Death Eaters and me into them, and they into us. Nothing to be proud of."

"You can hardly talk to us about morals, Voldemort," another Auror said, undoing the shackles, opening the pillory, and Levitating Voldemort's disgusting body from them. No one wanted to touch him, and they said his name freely, as though they had never feared it. "But you understand revenge, don't you?"

And the Aurors had their way with him until he was a mass of bruises, a smear of crimson, struck by every curse in their extensive repertoire. Unlike his humiliation before the crowd, Voldemort screamed, and despite all his attempts, he could not drift.

"What is going on here?" bellowed a voice full of power, authority, and outrage. Voldemort recognized it instantly through the haze. He never thought that he would be relieved to hear Albus Dumbledore's voice.

"A few hours, I said," Dumbledore continued, toning down his volume, but not his fury. "To placate the community, to siphon their frustration and their liberation, but this… look at him. He can't lift a finger against you. He's vulnerable as a child, and you…" Dumbledore's voice caught. "Away. Get away. We'll handle him from here."

"We were given strict instructions," one of the Aurors said, but his hesitation betrayed his guilt.

"And I am countermanding them," Dumbledore said. "The Minister will always err in the side of extremism. We are responsible for his defeat. We will take care of him."

Voldemort heard the boots of Aurors walking away, mingling with the whisper of magic around him, reversing most of the curses and hexes and some of the physical damage, banishing the second skin of filth. He winced as he felt a hand grasp his shoulder. Another and another held his waist, and he winced as yet another curled around his neck. The hands helped him to his feet. He saw Order members, one the black Auror from the battlefield, others not quite so familiar, all adults. He accepted the small victory that the students, Harry, Ron, Hermione, were not there to witness his weakness.

Dumbledore came in front of him, offering him an open palm. Voldemort gathered what moisture he had left and spat. Dumbledore sighed.

"It was not meant to be that way," he said. "I did not expect…"

"Fool," Voldemort hissed. Several of the hands on his naked body tightened. "You're a fool if you believed that they would listen, that they would be satisfied with anything less. And you are a fool if you think I'll willingly accept any help from you."

"You brought it upon yourself, Tom, I told you that," Dumbledore replied.

"No," Voldemort said. "You could have killed me. But that was not enough for you any more than it was enough for me. We were two sides of the same coin, even if you never wanted to admit it. You had to change me into this… this helpless creature, and that can never be forgiven. Perhaps, in time, when people become weary of taking revenge on me, they will turn to you and realize what a monster you really are."

"It was not my idea, Tom," Dumbledore said gently. "It was Harry's, and his friends'. Not me."

"Voldemort," Voldemort said. "I'll never be Tom again, no matter how hard you wish."

"You have always been Tom to me," Dumbledore murmured, stepping away, nodding at the Order.

They did not have to take him far. There was new structure built against the front wall of Gringotts. Bars lined the wall facing the plaza, but behind the bars was a thick purple curtain. The Order members led him into Gringotts, and one of the goblins took out a key and opened a door into the structure.

"I'll take it that security will improve beyond a key," Dumbledore said.

"Of course," the goblin replied. He did not bow or respond deferentially. The insinuation was that he would… because the price was high enough. "They are working on the new door as we speak. It should be in place by tomorrow morning. The jurisdiction shall be yours to enter and to anyone whom you specifically allow."

"Very good," Dumbledore said before walking into the structure with Voldemort and the Order members.

"This will be your new home," Dumbledore said. "It is completely furnished, under top security, and there are highly advanced wards placed beyond the bars. In the morning, the curtains shall open, and in the evening, they will close."

Voldemort narrowed his eyes.

"Yes, Tom, you will be on display. There are certain things that I cannot stop the Ministry from doing, and this is one of them. I can, however, make the arrangements in order to keep things as humane as possible when the Ministry forgets."

Dumbledore beckoned for the Order members to loose him. He bent forward where Voldemort fell to the ground.

"Although you may never forgive me, Tom," Dumbledore whispered. "Know that I forgive you and that I am truly sorry about this."

Voldemort hissed, Parseltongue sliding from his tongue in a series of curses. Dumbledore jerked back, surprised, but then his eyes crinkled in a slight smile.

"So you have one thing left," he muttered. "I'm glad. Goodbye, Tom, and good luck."

And Dumbledore followed his Order members out the door that shut behind them, leaving Voldemort to his luxurious prison.