Two Suns in the Sun Set
Summary:
Harry meets Voldemort on a cliff side that over looks Hogwarts for a final time with the final message.
Notes:
My attempt at a one shot idea. I don't take credit for the lyrics of Pink Floyd used nor for the Harry Potter world itself as it all belongs to JK Rowling. Just the story line is of my creation as brief as it is. Hope you all enjoy.
Harry slowly took in a steady breath of the cooling summer breeze as he slowly let his resigned green eyed gaze fall over Hogwarts Castle in the distance.
School was out so he feared little at being discovered here, but truth be told there was very little he feared these days if he were to be honest with himself.
An owl's screech broke his focus as he looked up to see Hedwig swoop in to land at which Harry put up his arm for her to perch. Even as her talons bit down into his flesh he didn't flinch all too happy at the sight of his only true friend and familiar.
If her happy screech and affectionate nibbling was anything to go by the feeling was definitely mutual.
"It's good to see you too, girl" He told his familiar as he scratched and petted her in her favorite spots that he could remember which made her croon joyfully.
Giving a little laugh at her antics before she turned and took off once more not going far though as she hovered near the edge of the cliff as Harry went to follow her, but stopping short to plop down in the soft grass with a worn out huff as he leaned back to observe the clouds floating by.
Harry was in his 2nd hand Gryffindor house robes, but cared little about dirtying them at the moment, more than happy to bask in frolicking with his familiar while he still could.
Hedwig hooted before landing above his head where she seemed to give a halfhearted sigh at her Masters antics before playfully grooming his untamable nest of hair.
Harry giggled under the ministration, but relaxed knowing she wouldn't purposefully hurt him …unlike so many he had come to know. A sudden spark of pain shot though him causing him to suddenly jerk forward, and alarming Hedwig in the process who hooted worriedly up at him.
Flashes of horrible images he refused to acknowledge flashed before him, and he was unsure how much time passed before he could ground himself again. As he did a coughing fit over took him racking his body with trimmers.
Blood rained over some nearby white trumpets growing oddly nearby before Harry could bring himself back. After a few minutes he laid back down again bringing his breathing back under control after which he tried to reassure his familiar with slightly shaky hands.
"It will be okay girl soon you can lead me home again, but ….just a little longer" Slowly leaning up he let his gaze take in the beauty surrounding Hogwarts, and the happier memories he had there. The sun was falling a bit from its position across the sky, and the air was cooling a bit now.
Hedwig gave a solemn hoot as her bright golden eyes filled with resigned sorrow for her Master.
Harry was brought from his musing over fonder memories of fonder times by a loud crack of apparition. He didn't respond just stealing his gaze to the beauty before him as the sun slowly made its way closer to the direction of the horizon.
"Harry Potter!" Voldemort exclaimed as he pointed his wand at his enemy ready to face off and finish what they had started in the graveyard at the end of the boys previous school year. Yet, all he met with was the back of his enemy unmoved by his declaration.
Slowly he slightly lowered his wand after a few uneasy moments of silence passed between them, as he then moved forward curious as to why the boy was not reacting. Even the boy's magic wasn't reacting the way he remembered as it seemed to caress his own as one would a lost friend.
It didn't feel right, and put Voldemort more on edge.
"It's beautiful isn't it, Tom" The boy suddenly spoke, but never moved his gaze from Hogwarts and its grounds beyond. It unnerved Voldemort to see the boy like this, and he stomped forward in order to grab the boy and force him to look at him to respond.
Spooking the boy's owl into flight once more.
However, the moment he touched the boy he noticed how his hand had changed looking as they did back in his days as a student. Young, pail, and inviting unlike the hands he had grown so used to seeing since his resurrection scales, claw like nails, and intimidating.
It was as if by touching his enemy he had reverted to his former body, but as his former teen school boy form instead of a grown adult, very interesting he thought past his slight surprise. Though he knew not how the boy acquired such magic he would be sure to force the answers from the boy before ending him, for that he was sure.
"Tell me Potter, do you always ask your enemies to come to such picturesque places to battle?"
"Or are you trying to lure me here to play towards my humanity as it were?"
Voldemort responds finally as he looks beyond the boy to the school he had once called home so long ago. For now playing along with the brat in order to figure out the child's true goal for calling him here this cooling eve, but ever ready in case battle or escape were needed. He wasn't a fool by any means, and if the boy planned to play him for one he would be in for rude awakening.
The boy gives a rough laugh before answering still unbothered and unassuming.
"No, but I figured this an appropriate place for us to end things close to where our lives both truly began, wouldn't you say?"
Voldemort gave a side long wary glance at his enemy who still refused to look at him, and it was beginning to grate on his nerves.
"Ever the Martyr aren't we, Potter, and what of your little friends?"
The boy gave an uncaring shrug and huffed while muttering as he let himself fall back into the grass again.
"They are free now I guess you could say….Monies' off to Australia with her parents by now, and Ron along with the rest of the Weasley's might head somewhere out west. I was never really that great with all this magic casting and stuff so I guess is up to it where everybody ends up at this point, but I do know given my luck it will at least be worthwhile I suppose."
The boy brought up a hand to his face and turned it over to look at the scared words there, a blank expression on his face.
"What makes you confident they are safe from me?"
The boy seemed to startle as if having forgotten he had company before seeming to come back to himself.
"Keeping them out of your domain, and oblivious seems to be all that was required from my understanding, but I wasn't holding out much hope on that to be honest."
Crimson eyes widened at that statement, and the uneasiness was growing. It was time to end this farce. The sun was gaining closer to the horizon now.
"Why did you really summon me here, Potter?"
Yet, the boy doesn't answer merely gets up, and dusts himself before finally turning to face the youthful Dark Lord who was brought back a step by the emerald eyes met with his own crimson orbs.
The once brilliant eyes had died somehow, and it was as if he was facing death itself. So jarred was the Dark Lord he had his wand in his hand with the curse on the tip of his tongue, but stopped when the boy expression still dead raised his hands and brought from thin air the horcuxes he had so pain staking hid.
"I wouldn't do that, Tom, you will only hurt yourself." Potter scolded, amused by it all though his eyes stayed cold and lifeless.
Gritting his teeth Voldemort, but lowered his wand once more.
"I merely called you here so that you could collect what isn't mine is all, and the sun will see to that." Stated the boy cryptically as he once again sat down in the grass looking out onto the now setting sun.
Voldemort, no more near answers than before, tried to summon his horcuxes to him, and then just killed the boy and left. However, he was met with more trouble as none of his horcuxes responded, some even sending off harsh shocks towards him for trying.
It was the most bizarre situation the Dark Lord could fathom being in, and he had been around the block a time or two. He did notice how chillingly picturesque the boy looked in the diadem and ring, a feeling of different possessiveness seemed to fill him.
Some part of him was saying take the boy and run from this place, but before he could the boy began to speak. It wasn't towards him, but towards the setting sun it seemed at which the Dark Lord went to grab Potter again.
In doing so this time he found himself brought to an unfamiliar scene of horror. The boy beyond skeletal coughing up blood holds a very dead owl snowy white owl in his arms in a room with a door that holds nothing but cat flap, and a room that holds nothing but destruction in his wake. The sun is rising, but Voldemort now seems to put together what the boy was trying to say a bit from before, but listens as he watches tighten on the actual boy before him observing the scene with him.
In my rear view mirror the sun is going down
Sinking behind bridges in the road
And I think of all the good things
That we have left undone
And I suffer premonitions
Confirm suspicions
Of the holocaust to come.
The scene suddenly changes to a kitchen where the boy and a walrus like man are arguing, a horse woman is screaming as the man suddenly takes the boy by the throat, and just quick the boy is motionless on the ground, eyes unseeing.
The wire that holds the cork
That keeps the anger in
Gives way
And suddenly it's day again.
Voldemort's blood was now cold as true realization sunk in. He couldn't bring his grip away though he tried. The scene rushed forward where the boy's body is thrown into a tarp then a trash bag, and finally hulled into the back of the family car. They all rush to get in and drive off as the sun is oddly once again rising.
The sun is in the east
Even though the day is done.
Two suns in the sunset
Hmm
Could be the human race is run.
As the car sped off into the horizon Voldemort found himself back on the cliff side with the boy again. The sun was just about to fully sink below the horizon when said boy grabbed him, and kissed him hard bringing their foreheads together.
The shock kept him from reacting, but he found himself engaging readily once he could feel as if something had clicked and brought the world together in his full control.
It was short lived though as the boy ripped from his grasp breathing heavy as the diadem and ring fell from the boy onto the ground now between them. A whole new life to his haunting emerald eyes now as the view around them is suddenly playing out a busy highway somewhere in London. He notices the car with Potter's muggle relatives coming up at high speeds as a light comes up and a huge tractor trailer is passing through.
Potter is looking fully at Voldemort now as he snaps his fingers with a cruel grin on his face. All he can do is watch as it all unfolds before him.
Like the moment when the brakes lock
And you slide towards the big truck
"Oh no!"
"Daddy, Daddy!"
You stretch the frozen moments with your fear.
And you'll never hear their voices
And you'll never see their faces
You have no recourse to the law anymore.
As the flames on what used to be his muggle relatives vehicle the scene cuts back to the sun that is about to fully set. As it does an ominous green light sweeps through.
Fear makes the Dark Lord hit the ground to avoid it, but the boy just opens his arms to welcome it like an old friend. As the green light washes over Potter his form slowly begins to catch fire, but he doesn't scream or yell. He barely even reacts before turning to face his more than slightly disheveled enemy with a look of peace and acceptance with just a hint of sadness shining in those now sparkling emerald depths.
And as the windshield melts
My tears evaporate
Leaving only charcoal to defend.
Finally I understand the feelings of the few.
The boy seems to laugh sadly before letting himself fall over the edge. Quickly Voldemort finds himself scrambling over to the edge to see if anything of the boy remains only to watch as an ebony phoenix rises up before him surrounded by those same emerald flames that took the Potter child. One last time that haunting emerald gaze holds the dark lord's crimson as the whispers of the boy's voice fills his ears before that screech of the forgotten white owl draws the creature's attention away.
"POTTER!"
The creature lets forth a sorrowful trill in response as flames brighter than the death curse as it flies to meet up with the snowy owl in the distance as they fly towards the… Rising sun in the west? Voldemort is left stunned, and a deep feeling of a void in his being takes hold as he screams the boy's name again and again.
Nothing answers, and the one warm feeling the boy brought is now growing cold. Confused and angered he turns to leave this place only to be faced with the sun to the east.
Ashes and diamonds
Foe and friend
We were all equal in the end.
Voldemort abruptly bolted upright with his worried familiar in front of him. He felt like a Hippogriff and Dumbledore had attacked him at the same time.
"Master what has happened?! You are all fleshy again, and your beautiful scales are gone, but your eyes are bleeding salt water." Hissed Nagini most distressed at her master's more human appearance.
Confused he brought a hand to his face pulling as he felt the trail marks of tears. It had been centuries since such a thing had occurred, and it confounded him as he pulled away his hand to observe the wetness that was indeed present.
Wandlessly he cast a mirror spell so as to also confirm the rest of what his familiar said.
It was true.
Looking back at him in the mirror reflection was Tom Riddle almost an exact copy of his hated muggle father though looking more in his early 30's if not for the still remaining crimson gaze that gave him some solace in his appearance.
"What had the boy done?!"
Notes:
Cross Posted this from my AO3 since it had the best reviews. Giving it a shot on this platform now hopeful its not a bad start.