Chapter 145:
For a moment, they balanced on the knife edge of confrontation, frozen, none of them saying or doing anything. Harry felt himself be tugged back from where he'd edged in front of Tom. Voldemort's head tilted back, as he surveyed them both.
"Now, now, there's no need to be so hostile," he murmured. "I wish neither of you harm currently."
Harry's eyes widened in disbelief. What?
"Why should we believe you?" Tom hissed, his voice equally cold. Their voices sounded the same, everything about them seemed the same…except for their attire.
"Well, you have no particular reason to believe me I suppose, so you can keep pointing your wands at me if it pleases you so…" Voldemort sneered. "Not that it's very threatening considering you both seem about to collapse from magic exhaustion." The Dark Lord prowled around them, robes dragging softly on the ground. Harry twisted to keep him in view, pride be damned. "Look at you, bless, you didn't actually think that you could beat me? Oh you did, that's adorable."
"What do you want?" Harry demanded, unnerved. Tom's eyes were sharp upon the other, though glazed slightly from sheer tiredness.
"Right now? I want Tom here to give me the time spell he's no doubt worked on…that was your plan, wasn't it? Go back in time and destroy me." Voldemort's tone darkened, vicious, hating. "Almost bad as Potter's with his infernal time loop."
Tom stiffened. Harry felt idiotic, not getting the ulterior plan yet, and narrowed his eyes.
"You want to go back in time?" he verified, frowning. But that worked, that….oh. Crap. "And change history. You'll just start over with all your future knowledge."
Voldemort's eyes glittered.
"I always said you weren't stupid, darling."
"Don't call me that!" he snarled.
If Voldemort went back like this, with his memories, the future would be obliterated for a new reality, and the two of them along with it. Voldemort would just pick up Tom's life and go from there and Tom…would cease to exist as the timeline wasn't kept the same like in his plan. "Over my dead body are you doing this."
"That could be arranged," Voldemort said lazily. "But…I think not."
Tom hissed next to him, savagely.
"You don't get to keep him!"
Voldemort smirked.
"And how are you going to stop me, child? You can barely keep your eyes open, what are you going to do, faint on me?"
Keep him…?
"Why do you want me to come?" Harry demanded, bewildered. Voldemort's expression turned ugly.
"Just because I'd grant Tom the non suffering way out, doesn't mean I'd offer you the same, Potter."
"You said you didn't mean us harm," Tom stated flatly.
"Well, you won't be harmed, you just won't exist. And I don't mean him harm currently, indeed, I dare say I'll save his life first so I can actually have the pleasure of taking it at a later date."
Harry could feel nausea rising in his gut.
"I'd rather die with Tom than live one second with you!" he spat. Voldemort looked at him, expressionless.
"I'm counting on it."
Tom's grip tightened on his arm, a burning, crushing point of feeling and pain, pulling him back further, away from Voldemort. Harry looked to the side, almost startling when one those hands closed around his throat, a finger brushing against his pulse almost gently.
Harry's stomach lurched.
"I'll kill him before letting you have him," Tom stated, very calmly, deadly.
"T-" he began. Voldemort laughed, wildly.
"Snap his neck then, if you have the strength left to do it."
Tom's gaze flicked to him, seeming absolutely torn. He inclined his head slightly. He'd meant what he said. He'd rather die than go with Voldemort, for an eternity of torture, that had been his object to torture.
Those few seconds seemed to last forever.
Then a wand was pressing into his temple, the hand keeping him from jerking his head away, not that he was planning on. His mouth felt dry. There was something in Tom's eyes…
"Avada Kedavra."
For a moment, he stared at Potter and his younger self.
He hadn't expected Tom to actually do it, perhaps ridiculously. He'd been sure he wouldn't. They may have both been incredibly petty and possessive, but he hadn't…
There was an odd feeling in his stomach. He didn't understand it. Tom didn't look at him, gently lowering the slack body to the floor, fingers carding through the boy's hair, head bowed over the corpse. He couldn't believe it. Had…no…he…
"You killed him," he stated, numb.
The Boy Who Lived….dead. He couldn't believe it. He sought out their connection, but it was completely black, gone. Dead.
"I told you I would," Tom replied.
His brow furrowed. He started forwards, only for his younger self to nearly fly at him, despite his weak state, the unforgivable seeming to sap him off his last remaining strength. If he cast even a 'wingardium leviosa' now, he was sure Tom would die from the depletion of his core. Easy pickings.
He raised his wand again instead.
He just wanted to get this over now, enough of Harry Potter Evans, and of this Tom Riddle who had goaded and taunted him at every turn. He hated the child. He was pathetic, the epitome of everything he'd sought to avoid when he first decided to make Horcruxes.
Tom's eyes were still fixed on the dead hero, before he rose to his feet, staggering with exhaustion, falling again the first time.
They finally stood facing each other.
Alone. So alone.
His enemy was slain at last. A smile began to pull at his lips, a laugh bubbling in his chest. The chosen one was gone.
"Congratulations," he said softly. "You just won the war for me."
"You've won nothing without him."
He laughed at that. What a pathetic a thing to say! How absurd!
"I always knew you'd break him in the end."
Tom's jaw tightened, rigid, his eyes flashing. He laughed again, before halting his amusement. He felt very strange, it was odd having his full soul again.
There were so many emotions he was no longer used to, and his mistakes seemed so much clearer. Maybe he'd only make one this time round, while searching for a new way of upholding his immortality. He raised his wand, pointing it at the other's chest, summoning the time spell from Potter's pockets.
Tom's eyes widened.
"What are you doing?" he took a stumbling step back.
"Why would I want to ever be you again?" he sneered. "Enjoy 1942."
"-You'll be destroyed, I'd never become you-"
"-You'd never become me with Harry there," he cut over his counterpart, watching Tom's features froze. "But you've got rid of the only thing keeping Tom Riddle from being Voldemort…and you may say now that you'll avoid becoming me, but you won't. You'll split your soul and destroy your humanity, spiralling until you wake up with red eyes in the mirror."
Tom would become him, and he, alone, would be left standing here. A loop-de-loop of time completed, to which he would now continue.
"I don't even need to make you forget, you'll do it yourself, and become me willingly, because you know that's the only way you'll ever escape the memories of this year and everything that would make you want him alive-"
"-Because you don't remember them, you don't remember this year and everything that happens between us."
"Exactly," he pronounced with satisfaction.
To his shock, Tom suddenly smiled, mockingly, sadly, viciously, his whole posture changing.
"The fascinating thing about the killing curse is that, like with all the unforgivables, you have to mean them for them to work."
He paused, staring at the other, with a horrible sense of dread, realisation. No…NO!
"I promised I would never let him go…right Harry?"
He spun round, wand in hand, only to fall into blackness with the whispered words.
"Obliviate."
Harry lay on the floor, utterly shocked, eyes shut. He wasn't dead. He'd felt the spell hit, but he wasn't dead. He felt Tom lower him to the floor, fingers threading through his hair, an impression of a voice against his ear.
"Play along…"
Then Tom had leaned away from him again.
He kept his features utterly smooth, slack, noting Tom hadn't manoeuvred him such a manner that his face wasn't immediately visible.
He listened to them talking, his fury rising as Voldemort revealed his game plan.
Bad move to say his Tom would ever become Voldemort.
He cast the barest notice-me-not charm on himself, almost passing out as his head spun from magical exhaustion, and rose, watching Voldemort as he was absorbed in his victory, laughing.
He angled his wand, very carefully, knowing he only had one shot and couldn't afford to miss.
Tom's eyes slid to his finally, so very, very alive, dazzling.
He should have known the Slytherin Heir would never kill him like that. It was far too much like surrender, and the young Dark lord had gone to such lengths to keep him alive. It was just so easy to doubt that anyone would care enough and so intensely as Tom did, even if he felt the same.
"I promised I would never let him go…right Harry?"
"Obliviate."
Voldemort fell to the floor between them. He felt the last of his energy sap out of him, and nearly landed on top of said, fallen Dark Lord.
In the distance, he could feel his friends starting to sprint towards them, with a group of Death Eaters oddly enough…too little, too late.
Typical. He had Tom though. All he needed.
The other sunk into the grass next to him, eyes almost completely shut now, exhaustion prevalent now all immediate threats and adrenaline was depleted.
"We make a pretty amazing team," Harry murmured, with a small smile. Tom smirked in response.
"I've been telling you that all along, darling."
Blackness descended.
Albus Dumbledore paused above the sight before him, taking it all in.
Tom…or rather, Voldemort Tom going by the robes was lying across the floor, wand a short distance from his hand.
Riddle and Harry were about a metre away, unconscious too with the clear signs of magical exhaustion, curled towards each other, close enough to each other that he knew full well that they hadn't fallen like that.
They both looked battered, and his heart swelled with horror at the pentacles and remnants of Dark Magic that ravaged the grounds around them.
He decided quickly, ignoring as Miss Granger and Mr Weasley, as well as the original Death Eaters and then some current, crowded around the duo - the latter hovering more, frightened to get too near, eyeing him warily.
It was too perfect to miss up.
He'd play Tom up as Voldemort and send him back to the past where he belonged (memories wiped so he didn't come back) and kill Voldemort. They were too dangerous to be allowed to live.
But Harry…did Harry have to die? The boy probably had the mind of a one year old round about now, to dispose of him would be unnecessary.
He'd de-age the boy and give him to Sirius and Remus so he could have the good, happy, light childhood deserved. He was only a pawn in the machinations of Mr Riddle after all, and could have no blame placed upon him.
The Horcrux was gone after all, and he could always deal with the child later if he seemed about to succumb to such shadowy temptations again without the influence of the young Dark Lord.
Yes, it was settled.
He raised his wand, only for it go spinning out of his hand. He turned, about to reprimand and get it back, before he stilled.
Wands.
Wands, dark and light, young and old, pointing at him from all directions. The Gryffindors looked uncertain, but, to his horror, took their leads from the Slytherins, and remained resolute. House unity couldn't come at a more inopportune moment. The Death Eaters and order members stood together.
The world had gone crazy!
"Get away from my Godson!" Sirius snarled, Remus looking every inch the wolf next to him - the mild mannered man, gone!
"You've interfered with them enough!" Alphard Black said firmly.
"-If you were going to attack that poor child!-" Minerva. The accusations grew louder, more frenzied, furious, dangerous.
"You know," Abraxas Malfoy said coldly. "I once knew a boy called Cygnus Lestrange. He tried to interfere with Tom and Harry too."
Prince smiled, almost manically.
"Did you ever hear about what happened to him?"
Some discoveries came too late.
A/N: Thank you for all the reviews, and for sticking with me through this story - this has been an amazing experience for me, and I hope you guys have enjoyed it too. :)
Next chapter, if there's no epilogue, should be the last...
Wow.