Chapter Twenty-One
The Queen of Hearts
Harry stood, disguised and looking out over the main street of Diagon Alley, the mid-afternoon sun streaming down in torrents across the asphalt, lighting up the various shoppers, their children, making their autumn robes shine in the brilliant light. Occasionally, he spotted a recognizable figure, some friends, others acquaintances, others enemies. He even spotted Marcus Flint slipping into Madam Boudoir's Love Boutique on what Harry imagined was his lunch break, and he spotted Lucius Malfoy turning a corner into Knock Turn Alley. He had come out to that particular balcony, which was an extension of an unused third floor flat, on several occasions, often to think, to ruminate on some of the deeper philosophical questions that had begun plaguing him during his self-imposed training regime over the last few months. He wasn't sure when it had all started; it seemed like such a long time ago. Maybe it was the day he fell into that other world - it seemed like a pivotal turning point for many things, or maybe it was the day he had been tortured by Tom and Jack deep within the bowels of Riddle Corp. Certainly that day had opened up a whole new world of magical potential for him, though he had discovered shortly thereafter that whatever flow of power that he could apparently unleashed came often unbidden. It had been something that he knew he could do intellectually, but had not quite been able to imprint in his intuitive faculties. It had manifested itself again the day he had found out about his parents, the day he had stolen a world-class racing broom, and since, he had found his spellwork to be competent, mostly because he had thrown himself into his work, had driven himself to succeed in attempting again and again some of the most complex magic that was out there, even though he lacked much of the educational background to execute them. Oddly enough, he had achieved tenuous, working results. He could produce a small null field with relative ease, though anything too complicated eluded him; certainly nothing on the scale of the Fidelius. The other spells, including the Chameleon transfiguration and the Transfiguratus were within his grasp. The light spell remained out of his league, though he wasn't exactly bothered by that, since the book didn't really give him a very good explanation on what the spell was. The authors didn't even seem to know themselves, and Harry suspected that their understanding of the Fidelius had come from second-hand accounts; they themselves probably hadn't been able to execute it.
What's the point of it all? he wondered, not for the first time. So what if I kill a Dark Lord in my world? There's apparently billions of them, all working in their own little world, each one as indistinctive as any other. In primary school, they had learned about the vastness of space, had even watched a Canadian documentary titled "Universe", which talked about all kinds of planets out there, and the huge distances between them, and how desolate everything was, and the composition of comets and asteroids, the only thing Harry remembering about it was that a lot of it was made of ammonia ice, apparently, not that he was entirely clear what that was. The term had just sounded cool to him at the time, and so it had stuck. Still, Harry had taken comfort in the knowledge that, no matter how big the rest of the world was, or the solar system or the galaxy or the universe at large, the things that went on around him were still important, because he was a unique individual; a special, beautiful little butterfly, and that gave his life meaning. Even the stupid fringe worlds couldn't take that away from him.
But this place; the idea that two Harry Potters could exist, that there could be two Tom Riddles, or, well, fourteen, as it were, the idea that there were more Rons and Hermiones, all of whom could take the place of his best friends, just boggled his mind. It made him wonder what the point of saving himself and his friends was when there could be a hundred other Rons running around being maimed and tortured. All in all, things sucked.
If Harry had been a little more self-reflexive, or perhaps older and wiser, he would have realized that the quagmire of existential ruminations did not revolve around himself, or his friends or the fates of Dark Lords or all the nameless, faceless innocent people out there who would suffer at the hands of vengeful people. No, they didn't. They, in fact, revolved around only one person; a person who, in his mind, he had come to deify or, more aptly, angelify in his mind's eye. A certain, red-haired, green-eyed witch with a radiant smile, an unwavering sense of justice, a natural skill at charms and a boundless love for her children. A love which had saved his life many times.
It would take you less than five minutes to find her, he told himself, staring down at the people below him. Not five minutes, just to go see her again, to watch her from the cover of a disillusionment charm, to find out more about her. About a woman who could have been your mother, who shares your blood, your genes, your eyes. Once latching onto the idea of seeing Lily Evans Potter, Harry could not shake it off, and found himself convince to go after her within less than a minute of internal conflict. And so, under disillusionment, Harry apparated with the typical popping sound, disappearing from Diagon Alley and reappearing in muggle London outside what looked, to some people anyway, to be a shabby old, abandoned warehouse.
Inside, the place looked exactly as it always had, people milling about in the waiting area, often restless, concern for their loved ones spilling out in a torrent of anxious phrases, making people jittery, causing them to pace endlessly about as others coaxed them into taking a seat and trying to remain inconspicuous. Keeping to the shadows, which was difficult with the preponderance of fluorescent lights, open spaces, blinding white walls and floors, upon which his shoes would have made a resounding clicking sound if he hadn't hit them with three silencing charms, Harry carefully traversed the main area, coming out into a large hallway, the antiseptic calm hitting him full on as the music from the wizarding wireless in the waiting area faded into the background. Here, the lights weren't quite so bright, the magic stronger, the air thick with the noxious taste of cleaning charms. An orderly with a small white cap passed by, stopping and glancing curiously in his direction causing him to stop in mid-step and hold his breath until she shook herself as if clearing her mind from a headrush and then proceeding onward to wherever it was that she was needed. Dumbledore could use her in the Order, he mused. She's clearly being under-utilized here, if she can really sense a disillusioned person like that. Harry shrugged and moved on, not giving it another thought. For all he knew, she was an auror trainee just working at St. Mungo's part-time, not having any clue what was involved with being an orderly or whether it was a profession all on its own.
Harry was content to spend time merely ghosting about the complex that was St. Mungo's drinking it in, absorbing the layout, the feel, the patches of silence and of chatter, much of which was centered around the cafeteria. For him, it was like enjoying an appetizer before what he knew was going to be an excellent main course; just like it was back on that warm, summer evening at Godric's Hollow.
"They're expecting another spike in victims this Halloween," a nurse said, chatting away to a doctor friend of hers as they exited the cafeteria.
"It's always the case now," the doctor replied, sighing. "You-Know-Who's got a funny way of showing sentiment, given that this is the night he was... well, you know." The doctor had looked suddenly uncomfortable making the claim that the Dark Lord had fallen, or had been vanquished. Funny, Harry thought, amused, given that they were in fact being overheard. Harry decided to follow them, for no particular reason, except that they had a purpose, and he was content to glom onto their sense of motivation. Briefly, it occurred to him that Halloween, even in his own time, tended to be wrought with strife, often at the hands of Lord Voldemort. In his first year, it had been the troll incident, which was Voldemort's doing, in second, it was the Chamber. Again, Voldemort. In the third, well, that was Sirius black. The fourth? Harry couldn't remember, and the fifth was the Umbridge plague. Maybe Halloween's cursed, he mused, just like the DADA position. Heck, even Snape hadn't survived.
The doctor and the nurse ascended to the third floor via an elevator, which Harry only barely managed to make it onto, thankful that they had used a freight elevator for staff members, because it afforded him a great deal more space.
"Did you hear about the Weasley kid?" asked the nurse, who, upon receiving a head shake from the doctor, continued, "Apparently he got a howler from his baby sister for generating a spawn with a - I quote, 'mudblood'."
The doctor rolled his eyes. "Good grief," he said. "A howler, in the bloody maternity ward. I had heard a bit about that. The only thing I could think was - how the hell did they let it past security?"
"Apparently the envelope had been charmed white so no one noticed, and the bird that dropped it off was a Malfoy falcon, so nobody dared touch it."
The doctor nodded. "Ah, well, if it came from Lucius, that pretty much explains it. Especially since he single-handedly financed the magical nursery."
The elevator doors opened and the two exited, Harry remaining behind and elevating himself to the mental ward, deciding he had had enough of perusing around and instead heading off in search of Lily Evans Black. When Harry came upon her, she was spooning food into Alice Longbottom's mouth, all the while chattering away about various current affair topics, maintaining a cheery disposition, continuing her banter as though she were in the midst of a dialogue. Alice, all the while, quietly ate away, munching on the peas and mashed potatoes and Shepherd's pie, appearing to the world as though she were listening intently to the monologue, occasionally, her disposition betraying her mental incapacity with her wandering gaze, her peculiar expressions that suggested she were reliving a long since forgotten memory of her own. Harry silently watched from a corner, his body half-obscured by a thin curtain, the Janus ward eerily silent except for the sounds of slurping and his mother's words. The ward was squirreled away in a particularly isolated area of the hospital, being closed off by a large, sound warded door and having little traffic passing by as it were at the end of an isolated hallway that led to a dead end.
As Harry watched his mother interact with the cruciatus victim, Harry felt both a pang of admiration for his mother, who willfully took on what he imagined to be an incredibly taxing and thankless job that required her to be constantly thinking of others, and also a pang of resolve to bring an end to Lord Voldemort's reign of terror, a resolve he had made before, a vow undertaken on so many occasions where the suffering of so many had been crystallized into one catalyzing event, like Dumbledore's death, or Sirius's or his parents. Once again, he swore to himself that he would make sure people did not suffer the way the Longbottoms had, Neville included.
Lily stopped talking and glanced upward, her expression turning curious as her eyes searched the ward. Harry wondered if perhaps she were sensing him, possibly through some rudimentary legilimancy, as he was aware he was currently being a beacon of thoughts and emotions, or because she could detect the sounds of human activity, his breathing, his warmth, his magical aura. Did she use perimeter charms? he wondered, realizing that she may have adopted a paranoid attitude like Moody. Certainly the wards on her home told of such a story.
"Hello?" she asked aloud, her voice carrying flatly in the ward. Harry held his breath, hoping against hope that she wouldn't ask again, that she would just go back to whatever it was that she was doing, feeding the Longbottoms, chatting away. Then, she said in a softer voice, though not looking in his direction, "Harry?"
Harry felt as though his heart had stopped at that moment. Did she recognize him? His scent, or his aura? Was it something else? Some sort of indefinable quality, some intrinsic relationship that a mother had to her child? He didn't know. All he knew for certain was that he wanted to cancel the disillusionment charm and show himself to her, subject himself to her scrutiny, to be proven for once in his life that he was worth their love, for them to embrace him in their arms, to undo all the damage that the Dursleys had inflicted upon him. But, just as quickly as it had come, Lily shook herself and returned to her work, berating herself for being so foolish as to think her son was in the room with her.
But I am, he thought, willing for her to come and find him, to break through his defenses and drag him into her arms, to hold him, let him taste the scent of her skin, of soap and sweat and whatever other smells made her who she was. Unfortunately, she didn't do that, though, after another minute, she looked up yet again, her eyes once more searching the empty ward, many of the patients sedated and unobtrusively sleeping their lives away.
At first, Harry wondered if she had yet again sensed him, he himself still wavering on the cusp of revealing himself to her. But then, after a minute of quietly sweating away, he took a moment to discern her expression, and what he saw there troubled him. There was concern, apprehension, sobriety, and, worst of all, a tinge of fear in her eyes. She was searching for something, all right, and Harry began to realized that, whatever it was she was searching for, it was no longer him.
"Mom?" he choked out in a dead whisper, his voice too quiet for her to hear. She seemed to react to it, regardless, though before either of them could do anything, the door opened and a sudden, ominous feeling began to grow in the pit of Harry's stomach. A young adult of medium height entered, a white orderly's cap crowning a head of short, cropped black hair that was neatly combed backwards. His body was lean, though not scrawny, telling of an inner strength. He walked with an incredible poise, a grace that Harry had seen too many times before, but always with just the one person. he had the most incredibly bland features; he was a pretty boy, with good looks and endless reams of charisma, his black boots clicking lightly on the tiled floor as though he could walk on water. And his eyes, Harry realized, staring into those fathomless orbs, were a jewel-tone red, deep and rich and penetrating and telling of a great sorrow and a great pity.
Oh my God, Harry thought, his entire body racked with paralysis. It can't be. Immediately and without realizing it, he erected the strongest Occlumancy shields he had ever managed to produce, his entire body coiling with anticipation.
The door closed behind him with a loud click and a whooshing sound that gave Harry the feeling that they were now locked in with this creature of doom, that there was no escape, that there would be no rescue from Dumbledore, or others. Lily, Harry noticed, had slowly climbed to her feet, her stance one that was tall and surprisingly regal, her eyes sharp and keening the environment, as if assessing every bed, every table, every bedpan for signs of weapons and shields. Never before that moment had Harry ever realized just how incredibly daunting his mother could be, her entire being screaming of a dangerous beast gone crazed from destitution, and having come out of it with an endless, icy calm.
"Lord Voldemort," she said in a tone that had no trace of fear.
"Mrs. Black," said Lord Voldemort, nodding in her direction. "We meet again."
"It's been a long time," she said neutrally, her fingers now just inches from her wand.
Lord Voldemort adopted what could have been a warm yet mildly hurt sort of look between two old friends and proceeded to say, "well, I did try and visit you on occasion, but discovered, to my dismay, that you have warded your home very well. By the way, congratulations, for being the first witch ever to successfully ward against a null field without actually using a null field yourself. Most impressive."
"Thank you," she replied, still in that neutral tone. "Impregnability was my main concern."
"That you have done, my dear. If it weren't for the fact that my followers would revolt, I would offer you a position in my inner circle." Lord Voldemort made a show of looking around, his gaze soaking up the sight of the half eaten potato mush and the peas that had fallen on the floor. "You could still join me, of course. As a silent partner. After we prove your brilliance to the others, I'm sure they would see reason and accept you. Who knows, perhaps you could effect some changes amongst some of my more conservative followers."
"I don't think that's really an option, Lord Voldemort," Lily said carefully. "I can't really condone violence in any form and against anyone. Certainly not muggles."
Lord Voldemort sighed. "Ah yes, it is a chronic problem with my platform. I can't tell you how many times muggle-born witches and wizards have refused me simply because of the muggle issue. If only you knew them the way I knew them."
"If only you knew them the way I knew them," she countered swiftly, throwing his own words back at him.
"Indeed. That will always be the crux of the issue," Lord Voldemort replied, unperturbed by Lily's persistent defiance.
"What do you want here, exactly?" Lily asked, keeping her fingers close to her wand but still not drawing it. Harry supposed that she was wary of starting a firefight in a room full of defenseless people, not to mention the fact that she was clearly outmatched.
"You may relax, Mrs. Black," Voldemort said, giving her a beatific smile. "I am not here for you. In fact, I would prefer not to start a fight with you, at least not now, given that you have shown to me just what a Slytherin you can be. No, I am not here for you at all."
"Then who are you here for?" she asked, now obviously curious. Harry too, wondered just who amongst the members of the Janus ward would be of interest to the Dark Lord.
"It's quite simple," Lord Voldemort responded, taking a moment to draw out the suspense. "I am here for your son."
A dead silence fell over the room, Lily taking a deep breath and absorbing the information as best she could. Lord Voldemort simply seemed to be waiting for her to do this, taking his time, casually looking about, curious himself as to just who ended up in that abysmal place. Harry meanwhile, was going nuclear, at least in his mind. The little residents inside his head who had always spoken to him during his times of trial, who accused him of bringing his friends to their death at the end of fifth year, the ones who were borne out of necessity from long days spent locked in a dark cupboard under the stairs, those timeless friends of his were all running around ripping out their hair, shrieking like little girls, objects and structures in his mind exploding spontaneous, shattered glass and concrete crashing against the cobbled streets, smoke billowing about, the entire scene reminding him of the clowns from Dumbo. Only, this time, it seemed he was the one trapped in the burning building, and his mindmates did not have one of those trampoline things with which to break his fall. Oh, crap.
Dimly, he heard his mother saying, "I don't know what you're talking about, or what kind of sick game you're playing at," her voice clearly indicating that she was shaken by Voldemort's words. "Harry's not here. I haven't seen him at all since his supposed return."
You know the jig is up, one of his mindmates called to him from the ground. You know you're going to have to quit hiding and just jump, safety net or no safety net, Harry. It's time. Resignedly, Harry knew this to be true. Lord Voldemort knew he was there, probably knew his exact location, courtesy of perimeter charms, and there was really no point hiding anymore. All it would do would be to keep Lily wrong-footed as she tried to figure out what the Dark Lord was talking about. Vaguely, Harry knew that Lord Voldemort was amusing himself with them, toying with them, waiting for Harry to break his self-imposed silence, enjoying it as yet another victory. So, it was with a heavy heart that Harry tentatively raised his wand and cancelled the disillusionment charm. At first, Lily did not see him, his body still partly obscured by the fabric of the curtain, her gaze riveted to the Dark Lord. Harry took a step forward, acutely aware of the precarious position he and his mother was in. "I'm right here," he said in as confident a voice as he could muster.
Lily whirled around so fast, Harry felt sympathy pains of whiplash.
"Harry!" she exclaimed, her eyes wide with surprise as she drank in the sight of him. And then, in a whisper, as if not quite prepared to believe it was true, she whispered in a cracked voice, "Harry."
"Yeah, it's me," he said, turning to face her squarely, his eyes locking with hers, feeling in his gut that Lord Voldemort would not take that moment to strike, that not even he would be so cruel, at least not unless there was something tremendous to be gained from it. Instead, he simply watched, content to amuse himself with the drama that was unfolding before him.
"You're alive," Lily said in a strained voice. "My God, Harry..."
"Yeah, I'm alive," he said, nodding, the feeling of lead weights dragging his gaze downward.
"I didn't want to believe," she said sadly, reaching one hand out to him as if to stroke his cheek, even though he was a good five paces away. "It was like it was too much to hope for. You've returned."
He nodded, not really sure what to say. It all felt so wrong, all of a sudden. He wanted nothing more than to go to her, to let her hold him in her arms, and suddenly, he wished he had taken Sylvia up on her invitation, to have gotten this conversation out of the way long ago, for he knew that he could not do that now. He could not go to her; not in front of Lord Voldemort. He wished he had just abandoned all his duties and climbed up those few steps into the old Potter home in Godric's Hollow, basked in their love, told his story, listened to his mother's voice for days on end, just sitting there, with the sun shining in through the kitchen windows as she prepared lunch on a lazy Saturday afternoon, all the while looking up into her beautiful face adoringly, his head resting in the palms of his hand, keeping silent, just soaking her in, filling the empty space of all those missed days of childhood.
It was as though it were all being taken from him again, the chance at a decent life, the chance to just know something about his mother. He felt it all slipping through his fingers, and it made him really, really angry.
Turning to Lord Voldemort, he spoke, his voice thick with fury, "I won't let you harm her."
"As I said," he replied. "I have no intention of harming her. You, on the other hand, are another story."
"You want to fight me?" Harry asked incredulously, though in truth he was hardly surprised. "Why the hell do you want to do that? What have I done to you?"
"Mostly it's because you've besmirched my name, tricked the wards at Hogwarts, are running amuck doing things that, quite frankly, I don't really approve of," he replied calmly, explaining the reasons that Harry had to die.
I'm so not hearing anymore of this, he decided. Like the bastard would tell you the truth anyway. In some ways, Harry had been waiting for this day since the end of his fifth year, when he had seen Dumbledore and Lord Voldemort duel. He had been waiting, ever since Sirius's death to just get it over with, to duel him to the end, however quick and painful it might have been, and to just go to his parents. So, it was with his usual practiced ease that he dodged the first spell that came his way.
"Avada kedavra."
Pah, Harry thought irritably, dodging to one side as the spell whizzed by at lightning speed. Couldn't you at least open with something more original? Hell, it was the same spell he had started off with when they dueled in the cemetery. I suppose he doesn't think I'm worth employing any actual dueling tactics against.
"Expelliarmus!" Harry said, casting a spell just as he collapsed to the ground to dodge another spell, which flew by overhead.
The battle began in earnest. Without even breaking stride, Harry cast the immobilizing charm on his mother, the same spell that Dumbledore had used to incapacitate Harry atop the Astronomy Tower. Unlike the full body bind, it didn't take control of your limbs, so it didn't have the effect of disorienting the victim of the spell after it was removed. In that way, Lily would be fully ready to fight the second the spell was broken, which would occur upon Harry's incapacitation or his death, making it ideal for his purposes.
In a moment, Harry found himself crouching on top of a sleeping mental patient and rolling out of the way of four rapid fire reductor curses, throwing out a medley of stunners and reductors himself, taking note that Voldemort didn't even waste his time batting the stunners away, since they apparently had no effect on him. The reductor curses blew a hole out of the side wall, and Harry made a mental note to keep well clear of them, for they were clearly very powerful.
"Protago!" Harry shouted, finding himself pinned between two beds with four more reductors en route. To Voldemort's surprise, his shield held despite the brutal onslaught, the only sign of strain the slight flickering as each spell impacted. without missing a beat, Voldemort discharged yet another reductor, though this time, he aimed it at the bed to Harry's right, Harry realizing too late that the reductor curse was aimed at the patient, who promptly exploded in a fit of blood and meat chunks, gastric juices and bone bits spraying Harry, who flinched, dropping his shield and being forced to throw himself into the mix of gore, the patient coming alive at the same time and feebly flailing as she died right then and there. Harry, in a desperate, pitched attempt to deflect an unknown dark curse, hurled the severed arm of the now dead patient in the path of the spell, rolling off the bed and falling to the floor, discharging two reductor curses as he hit the ground. Voldemort must have been surprised by the innovative use of the cadaver and also by the speed at which Harry retaliated with the two reductor curses, because one of them managed to slip past his defenses and hit him squarely in his arm, shredding his robe and causing a large purple welt to form, which in turn seemed to momentarily surprise him yet again, as though he couldn't believe that the spell had caused that much damage. He even stopped and watched as blood trickled down his arm from the bruise, giving Harry a moment to recuperate and lament that the reductor hadn't done nearly as much as it was supposed to.
As such, Harry found himself switching to much more serious curses, as did Voldemort, who realized that there was more to Harry than meets the eye. "Sectum Sempra," Harry whispered, not entirely confident that he could pull off the more serious curses silently. The sound of the spell snapped Voldemort back to attention, and he immediately erected a solid, black shield that absorbed the curse. "Sectum Sempra," Harry said, this time even more quietly, discharging another spell, though this time Voldemort was ready and, instead of maintaining his shield, he dropped it and sidestepped the curse, firing another spread of reductors, chased by a curse with a familiar purple light, Harry collapsing himself yet again to the ground to avoid them, sending the same curse again, this time two of them in rapid succession. Voldemort batted them both away, and, before Harry could stand up, sent the exsanguination curse and two bone shattering curses, neither of which Harry was particularly prepared to shield against, given that they both looked incredibly strong. As such, he disapparated to the other side of the room, springing to his feet as he reappeared and dodging yet another Mudblood curse and sending off the Sectum Sempra curse yet again, while, at the same time, wandlessly summoning a bed from the other side of the room, silently apologizing to whoever was in it for pretty much signing their death warrant. he made sure to keep up a stream of curses to retain Voldemort's attention, all the while employing some of the craziest footwork both Voldemort and Lily Evans had ever seen. Only at the last second did Voldemort seemed to sense what Harry had done, barely turning around before the bed smashed into him full on, knocking him over and collapsing over top of him, Harry already whispering, "Sectum Sempra," aiming for the bed because he knew, without a doubt, that Voldemort would be standing in an instant. Sure enough, the bed was blown to bits and Voldemort seemed to be standing there, as though he had never even been knocked over. However, he did not have the time to raise a shield, thus taking Harry's lethal curse full on in the chest, his robes being slashed away by the spell, a long red gash forming across his chest. For a moment, again, all time seemed to stop as Voldemort looked down at the streams of blood that were running down his chest, staining his tattered clothes, all the while, again, Harry lamenting that the spell, while doing far more than the stupid reductor, did not do nearly the damage it was supposed to.
Damn, damn, damn, he thought angrily, apparating out of the way of another hex, only to have to erect a shield the moment he reappeared.
"Avada kedavra," said Voldemort, discharging the killing curse, which travelled at high speed toward Harry, who apparated out of the way yet again, this time coming up behind a potted plant that he absently noted was devil's snare. Funny thing to have in a mental ward, he mused, levitating a nearby bed and banishing it in front of Voldemort, who shattered it with an unknown spell, Harry meanwhile, casting a gale force wind to throw all the bed fluff and shrapnel from the shredded frame Voldemort's way.
There was a wailing sound from nearby -one of the patients had awoken. Voldemort absently sent a killing curse at the middle-aged male, but Harry, summoned the person clean out of their bed and guided them to the floor.
Within the blink of an eye, Voldemort transfigured the bed into a tiger, which Harry responded instantly to by casting the imperius and sending it after Voldemort, who dispatched it with a killing curse.
Both combatants took an instinctive step backward, Voldemort eyeing Harry with a speculative look, Harry remaining tense and coiled for action.
"You are rather powerful for your age," Voldemort noted, a hint of curiosity in his voice. "You are an occlumans, which is surprising in and of itself. Not much of one, to be sure, but enough for dueling purposes. And you can cast wordlessly, and have strong wandless capabilities, both of which are unusual. You are practiced in the use of the imperius., which is arguably the most difficult of the three unforgiveables. You are magically above average, have strong, focused spellwork, and you can cast multiple spells simultaneously." Voldemort stopped speaking and continue to eye Harry with that same, speculative look.
"Well, thank you for the appraisal, Tom," Harry said in as calm a voice as he could manage, despite the unnerving way that Voldemort was now considering him, noting with some satisfaction the surprise and irritation that crossed his features at Harry's use of his muggle name.
"I see, you will never join me," Lord Voldemort finally said, his voice tinged with regret. "It's a pity. You could have been great. You could have been my top lieutenant."
"I know," Harry replied, smiling a sad sort of smile. "It's funny that way. We both grew up abused by muggles, and, if I were truly honest with myself, I have to admit I seriously considered turning to the dark arts, but, in the end, I couldn't bring myself to do it. That is the very thing that now defines me."
"But you use them still," Lord Voldemort said. "That is what surprises me above all else, for, in my experience, to use them is to be consumed by them, much as I have been consumed."
It was now Harry's turn to be surprised, more by the admission of the wizard who purported himself to be the greatest, to be admitting to having been overwhelmed.
Lord Voldemort merely chuckled at Harry's expression. "I see that you're startled that I would show humility, or that I would recognize weakness. I would have to be a fool to think I am greater than magic itself. Dark Lords may be properly described as evil, but that does not mean they need be stupid, Harry."
"You're right. The last thing I would want to do is underestimate you," he said.
"As I have been doing with you. Alas, I shan't any longer. Prepare yourself, Harry Potter, for this will be our final battle. You have been a most intriguing adversary. I wish you well."
Harry nodded, accepting the sentiment, but not quite willing to return it. Again, Harry adopted a standard dueling posture, and, this time, so did Lord Voldemort.
Harry, for the first time in his life, cast the killing curse. "Avada kedavra," he said, green light lighting up Lord Voldemort's features for the first time that day as the curse that had been the death sentence for so many sped towards the Dark Lord, who, strangely enough, was altogether preoccupied by something else, absently stepping out of the curse's way without even looking at it, while Harry began to send multiple curses at Lord Voldemort. "Sectum Sempra," he said, chasing the dark curse with a volley of reductor curses, Many of which past harmlessly by. One reductor hit Voldemort in the chest, but he still didn't seem to notice, and so Harry continued pummeling him, many of his curses being dodged or wandlessly blocked as Lord Voldemort continued a whispered chant under his breath.
And then, in a flash, and a ripple of dark light that swam to all corners of the room, momentarily disorienting Harry, Lord Voldemort was done.
"What the hell?" Harry asked, scanning all the edges of the room and looking to figure out what had happened.
Voldemort merely smiled the cold, dangerous smile that had quelled the courage of so many Gryffindors who dared stand before him; the same smile that Marv had used when breaking Sylvia's will just weeks prior. "Sectum Sempra," Harry said, again, shooting off the curse, but it was to no avail, for Lord Voldemort blocked it with a crescent-shaped shield, through which he also sent off a medley of reductor curses, some of which Harry dodged and some of which he blocked with a basic shield.
This is useless, Harry thought. I can't break him like this. However, before he could act, Voldemort made a wide, sweeping gesture with his wand, transfiguring all the bed posts and support beams into rattlesnakes, generating twelve of them, all of whom were converging on Harry. Simultaneously, Lord Voldemort pressed the attack, hissing and discharging one spell after the next.
A reductor curse clipped Harry in the arm, forming a long gash, and another grazed Harry on the side of the head, causing a large swelling to form. Harry, meanwhile, transfigured the snakes into birds and sent them fluttering into the air, many of them going to their deaths as they connected with several spells, meanwhile, Harry pulled the same trick as Voldemort, transfiguring many of the room's objects into large snakes, and then, to Voldemort's momentary surprise, hissing at them to go forth and attack, which they did, now putting Voldemort, for a brief moment on the defensive. Harry, however, did not let up, instead hissing to Bono to attack. "Bono," Harry said urgently, wandlessly shattering all the lights in the room and sending the glass fragments at Voldemort, simultaneously plunging them into darkness, making it more difficult for him to defend against the oncoming snakes.
In a flash, Voldemort raised an illumination charm and transfigured all the snakes into spiders that were scurrying at Harry, who transfigured them all back, avoiding another killing curse and quietly whispering to Bono, who complied and slithered off his arm, taking position in one corner of the room so that he faced away from Lily, waiting all the while for Harry to get in position.
Voldemort, irritated at Harry's ability to continue surviving despite his formidable efforts, transfigured the four remaining snakes into puffs of air that quickly dispersed, while, simultaneously, sending two reductor curses at Harry, who made to apparate out of the way, only to discover, to his dismay, that he couldn't. "Wha-fuck?" he cried out, falling backwards, but not before one of the reductor curses blew apart his arm, leaving a large bloody stump in its place as he collapsed to the ground, his wand skittering to one side. NO! his mind shouted out, DAMMIT, NO! All the while, blood poured like a river out of his body, marching him slowly but inevitably towards death.
He took a moment to wandlessly cauterize the wound, searing his flesh, knowing he had no choice if he wanted to survive at all, his enduring silence amidst the agony a testament to his hard life.
Voldemort shook his head pityingly at Harry, who lay panting on the ground, his face contorted into a look of suppressed torture. "So, you have come to your end. It is most curious, your fortitude, Harry. I wonder how long it truly lasts. How long can you survive under the brutal onslaught of my wrath? How long before you pass out from the pain?" And, with that, Voldemort knelt down and brushed the hair from Harry's forehead, looking almost lovingly at his eyes, glancing only with momentary curiosity at the lightning shaped scar on his forehead, the scar that had marked him as Lord Voldemort's equal, one of the central, defining characteristics in his life. Then, just as swiftly, he stood and took a step back. "It was something of a bonus that you didn't realize I had erected an anti-apparation jinx. Curious that there would be such a lacuna in your otherwise formidable education." And, with that, he turned to Harry, raised his wand and said in a tight, controlled voice, "Crucio."
If the pain from his arm weren't so bad, Harry could have laughed. "You don't really think-" Harry managed to say before the amber light connected with his body, throwing him into a place of... well, mild discomfort. Again, Harry wanted to laugh. He had survived so much in his short life; the vast majority of his days filled with pain of one sort or another, whether it be the chronic starvation of his childhood, the mental and emotional suffering that forged his iron determination, cruciatus at the hands of Lord Voldemort at the end of the Triwizard Tournament, the oppression under the reign of Umbridge, not the least of which was the liberal use of the blood quill, the solitude of that cold hour or so of darkness when he lay on the Hogwarts Express, his nose broken, blood dripping down his face, tickling the stubble on his chin as he lay paralyzed under his invisibility cloak, and then, of course, days under torture at Tom's hand.
And so, Harry, under the effects of the most violent torture known to wizards, being administered by the most powerful wizard on Earth short of Albus Dumbledore, simply began to laugh, a full, rich sound, the fire on his nerves unable to penetrate the dragonhide-thick calluses that testified to his enduring strength; it was a deep belly laugh, punctuated by shrill fits of giggles, the sounds of which had the effect doing what nothing else in the world had ever done to Lord Voldemort. It scared him. It was an unnerving, sort of fear that made his spine tingle, that made him feel utterly cold and helpless and want to run away and crawl under the blankets of his warm, four-poster bed and curl up in the fetal position. And so, Harry laughed, bloodied and full of pain, he laughed, Voldemort unable to believe what he was seeing, his mind not able to process it, his body unable to disconnect himself from the manic image of his supposedly defeated adversary.
Abruptly, Harry stopped laughing and instead focused his attention strictly on Lord Voldemort, his head raised, his rich, emerald eyes now blazing with energy as he looked clean into Voldemort's red ones, and Harry smiled a manic, triumphant, 'I know something you don't know' sort of smile, a gleam in his eyes.
"It can't be," Voldemort whispered, not understanding how it was possible that anyone could shrug off the most excruciating of all tortures, his voice telling a story of confusion and fear and awe. Not even, he, mighty Lord Voldemort could shrug off the curse the way Harry had done; not even after all his transformations. Frankly, there was nobody on the planet who could do such a thing, and certainly not laugh in the face of it.
Lord Voldemort finally broke the curse, and, after standing there for a long time, merely asked in a desperate, demanding sort of voice, "How?"
"You'll never understand, Tom," Harry replied, the smile slipping off his face, memories of his life flashing before his eyes as he thought about all that he was, the things that made him Harry James Potter, Boy-Who-Lived, the Chosen One.
For the first time that day, Lord Voldemort lost all his composure. His eyes, once a gleaming red, were now clouded with a haze of rage. "If I can't torture you directly, then I will get at you through her." Voldemort whirled around, the vestiges of his robes still managing to billow, his wand now pointed at Lily Evans Black, who was still paralyzed, her eyes having taken in all that had transpired during that long, painful battle.
"NO!" Harry shouted, summoning his wand instantly to his fingers, as he shouted out, "BONO! NOW!"
Voldemort was completely unaware that Harry had switched to Parseltongue, not being able to distinguish the difference between the two languages. As such, he was not prepared for the intense yellow gaze of the basilisk as it materialized in front of him, it hissing, "I will kill you, Lord Voldemort. I have watched as you attacked my master, and now you will pay with your life." Lord Voldemort seemed to understand only at the last minute what the significance of the snake in front of him meant, but he did not manage to close his eyes in time, the gaze of the deadly creature boring into his own.
Yes! Harry shouted in his mind, all his little mindmates dancing around the streets naked and happy crying out, Eureka! Eureka! That is, until it slowly dawned on him that Lord Voldemort was not dead. It could be said from his expression that he was in pain, yes, but dead? Not a chance.
No, he thought miserably, dragging himself to his feet, all the while Bono continually engaged in some sort of magical mind war with the Dark Lord. Eventually, to Harry's horror, Bono looked away, clearly defeated.
"Fucking hell!" Harry yelled, on the cusp of throwing a tantrum. "WHAT THE FUCK DOES IT TAKE TO KILL YOU! YOU GODDAMNED BASTARD!" Harry was on his feet now, staggering toward the Dark Lord, his wand raised, but not to curse him. No, Harry had, quite frankly, lost it. Voldemort turned around, still dazed and recovering from the basilisk, not quite able to focus on Harry who, to Lily's surprise, took the point of his phoenix feather and holly wand and rammed it clean into Lord Voldemort's left eye, skewering the eyeball like a pork medallion on a shish kebob. He jammed it as far as he could jam it. "Just die already!" Harry ground out through clenched teeth. Still awash with insane fury, Harry yanked his wand from Voldemort's eye, greyish slime splattering outward in little globules, only to drive it back into the same now deformed eye socket. Still not satisfied with the pus and blood drizzling down Voldemort's cheek, Harry began twisting his wand from side to side, grinding up the gore in Voldemort's brain, intent on making as big a mess of his face as he could manage. Voldemort's eyeball, which had been partly skewered the first time, now dangled limply out of his head, lolling about and staring idly at Harry and Lily.
Lord Voldemort seemed to move as though he were operating through a drunken haze, Harry not one foot from him as he grabbed the boy by his shoulders and forcibly lifted him into the air, demonstrating inhuman strength. "You," he managed, his voice slurred, his head lolling about, the wand still jutting out of his eye, his posture slack, his body swaying as he tried to crush the life from Harry's torso with his bare hands. Harry, meanwhile, was still recovering from blood loss, his body woozy, the adrenalin pumping through his body not quite able to keep him going given all that he had suffered, his hands caked with a combination of his own blood and with the blood of the collateral victims in the ward.
"Yeah, it's me," Harry said, ignoring the pain Voldemort was inflicting on his chest, a manic glee still in his eyes. "How do you like them apples, motherfucker?" Harry then reached out to grab his wand, intent on coring out his arch-enemy's other eyeball with the same enthusiasm, the same relish, the same sadistic pleasure. Voldemort, realizing that he didn't have the strength to kill Harry by collapsing his chest cavity with his bare hands, and not wanting to be completely blinded, threw him bodily in the direction of his mother, his form crashing against her, both of them tumbling to the ground, Lily's limbs coming up to grasp him as they came to a halt, her paralysis having been effectively broken.
"Oof," she said, Harry's shoulder slamming into her chest, knocking the wind from her.
Harry, meanwhile, scrambled to his feet, collapsing as he toppled over, having overbalanced due to his missing arm, and landing squarely on his butt, looking up at Lord Voldemort, who had managed to regain his composure, his good eye once again brimming with focused rage. Harry watched as the Dark Lord slowly and carefully extracted the wand, now smothered in gore, smoking ganglia hanging from the tip like vermicelli noodles. Once having pulled it from his mutilated eye socket, the Dark Lord, to Harry's horror, snapped it clean in half, carelessly throwing the pieces to either side.
Harry gulped, knowing that his time may very well have come to an end. He wondered if there was a prophesy in this world too.
Voldemort cleared his throat, a manic smile on his face. "Enough of this," he said, his voice reduced to a sibilant hiss. "It's over for you, boy." Lord Voldemort then raised his wand and incanted in soft, deadly tones, "Avada-"
"Expelliarmus!" Lily cried out, having regained her equilibrium and gotten to her knees, her wand in hand. The spell struck dead on, Voldemort having been completely unprepared for the speed at which Lily had drawn her wand. However, just as so many curses before them failed, so did this one, Voldemort turning his one eye to her and smiling his cruel, twisted smile, as he said, "Crucio."
Harry watched helplessly as his mother was hit with the curse and began writhing on the ground, her limbs flailing about right next to him, her screams ringing out in the otherwise silent ward. She cried, she wept, she trembled and jerked about, Harry watching mesmerized, transfixed by the torture of his angel-mother. No, no, no, he thought fiercely in his mind's eye, reaching for her wand and picking it up and turning it to Voldemort. Of all the things he was willing to withstand in his life, seeing his mother suffer like that was not one of them. His rage still swirling in him like a hurricane, Harry "swiftly and easily called together enough dark emotions to incant the killing curse. Avada kedavra," he whispered, the death spell shooting out from his mother's wand. Sensing its swift approach, Voldemort cut the connection to Lily and tried to maneuver out of the way. However, Harry had managed to discharge the curse at incredible speed, giving Voldemort only enough time to twitch before the curse struck him directly in the chest.
All time seemed to stop.
It was only then, at that moment, as the spell impacted with Lord Voldemort, that Harry began to truly understand just what it was about the Dark Lord that people feared. Just why it was that people were beset by the most irrational fear that even saying his name would bring death upon their heads. Just why it was that the sight of him, his name even, struck terror into the hearts of people. Why it was that people no longer thought of him as a man, that people like Hagrid had said back before his first year that he reckoned there wasn't enough human in him left to die, for, as it was becoming painfully clear to Harry, Lord Voldemort wasn't really alive at all. The dreaded killing curse, the curse that cut one's soul from their body, had no purchase on the Dark Lord. He was, for all intents and purposes, six-sevenths dead, already.
You have lost, child, a new voice inside his head said quietly, gently chiding him for his reckless persistence. There never was any stopping the Dark Lord like this. You had been bold, and reckless and proud, and it has cost you dearly, and, this final time, it will cost you yet again. I pray this is your last lesson. Go forth, feeble child. Reap what you have sown.
Lord Voldemort had turned his attention back to Harry, this mere child who had become a thorn in his side, once again forgetting about Lily Evans Black, who was slowly but surely dragging herself to her hands and knees. "So, now," said Lord Voldemort, relishing his victory, tired and worn out as he already was. "Now comes your demise, Harry Potter. Go gently into that good night." And, with that final parting, he incanted yet again, "Avada kedavra."
Harry merely sat and watched, dazed, beaten, broken by the knowledge that he deserved death. It was as though a pall had descended over him. In the brief time that it took for that green light to cross the short distance between the Dark Lord and himself, he reflected on the nature of love, how it had the power to make you incredibly vulnerable and incredibly strong at the same time. He supposed it was that vulnerability that Lord Voldemort abhorred. All things have opposites, Harry mused. He supposed the degree of vulnerability was proportional to the degree of strength it afforded. The longer and harder you fought, the more desperate you became when acting out of the purest selflessness, out of love for another, the more power you summoned, in one form another. So strong was it, that few could control it, few could permit themselves to open up like that, like a faucet being turned up to the maximum, letting energy flow through you like water. It was one of those key differences he had always noticed between ordinary folk and Dumbledore. When Dumbledore dueled, he had always remained perfectly calm, perfectly poised and relaxed, as though he were enjoying a massage and not fighting for his life and the lives of his friends. Accepting love means accepting death, he thought, that phrase striking a chord within him, speaking to him on some deeper, visceral level that he could not describe. Accept death, and you shall live.
And so, Harry came to accept death. He looked curiously up into Voldemort's gruesome visage, his gaze locking with Voldemort's one good eye, suddenly aware of all the aches in his body, the distinctive feel of his mangled arm, taste of burnt flesh, the feel of dark magic in the air. Come and take me away, he thought, no longer terribly concerned about the prophecy or saving lives, or finding true love. God and life are a wheel. Another soldier will rise out of Voldemort's rule, Harry knew. Another saviour. It was the way of things, and it gave him hope to know that souls were immortal, and, more importantly, eternity was not engendered in the first one hundred years of one's existence.
Therefore, it came as a distinct surprise to him when his mother, who, still shuddering uncontrollably from prolonged cruciatus exposure, her entire body trembling, her arms and legs twitching and supporting her weight through sheer force of will alone, crawled jerkily in front of him, shielding him from death for a few precious seconds longer. It took a moment for Harry's brain to process what he was seeing. Her face was still twisted into a grimace of pain, probably exacerbated from having to drag herself to her hands and knees to make her way those short few steps. Still, he could see a look of contentment stealing over her features too, which was odd, he thought, since she was about to die. Perhaps she too understood what death really meant, or perhaps she simply felt that it was worth her life to spare her son a few more seconds, even knowing that it would do little to increase his chances of survival.
The crushing realization of Lily Evans Black's sacrifice seemed to sever the already tenuous connection between Harry's mind and his body, so that Harry felt as though he had become a disinterested spectator in the events unfolding around him. Curiously he watched, exactly as he had done when he was a baby, when Lord Voldemort had murdered his mother and he had had no clue what was going on, burbling about contentedly while his happy life came crashing down around him.
Suddenly as though it happened in a flash, it was over, her body stripped of life, not a mark on her, her body collapsed in a heap at his feet. Distantly, Harry heard Lord Voldemort muttering about wasted talent. Harry felt himself reach forward, much as his mother had reached out to him earlier. This time, however, they were close enough to one another that Harry could run his sweaty palm against her cheek, which, his mind noted absently, was flushed from her recent exertion. He brushed a stray lock of red hair from her eyes, as though concerned that it might bother her during her otherwise peaceful repose. Something huge was giving way in Harry, though neither his mind nor his body seemed able to process it.
Mother, he thought, his gaze transfixed by the sight of her corpse. Mother...
The Dark Lord incanted the killing curse for what would be his last time, though Harry did not take notice. Instead he was filled with a feeling that was both warm and cold, that sought to burn him and freeze him all at the same time. Touching his fingers to her cheeks was like touching a live wire. It sent jolts through him; jolts which were both invigorating and painful, like what he imagined defibrillation to feel like. Harry remained consumed by a vast blankness of thought for a long time, his body remaining motionless, his eyes still gently roaming over his mother's features. His hands making repetitive stroking motions on her cheek. Even as the killing curse sped toward him, he remained oblivious, his mind still detached from his body. He was lost in a sea of indistinct emotions so deep that, even when the dreaded green light from his childhood nightmares struck home, the spell landing squarely atop his lightning-shaped scar - even then he felt nothing except the energy that flowed between himself and his dead mother, the dam of emotions that he had built up over the years, his staunch resolve never to show weakness having been utterly vapourized. In a flash, Lord Voldemort was no more, but Harry never noticed, his gaze never straying from his mother's form.
Mother, his mind called out yet again, tears slipping down his cheeks for the first time in nearly fifteen years. Mother...
People came and went, orderlies happening upon the weeping child and the healer, many of them shocked, some running away, some transfixed by the carnage in the Janus Thickey ward, some going to get doctors and aurors and news reporters. Time passed, Harry was taken away, still in a state of near catatonia.
