Hi ! I'm amazed that so many people read and liked the fic in so little time, so thanks a lot to you who favorited and followed this little story !
A special Thanks to decadenceofmysoul for your lovely rewiews.
I'd also like to ask something to Savage23 : could you expand a bit on your review ? Maybe you could give me some pointers, you know, to improve, make it more stinkier perhaps ? Otherwise your review is not very constructive.
So, this is the last chapter, fairly short. I'm still french, and I don't have a beta, so every mistake is my own. If a sentence looks weird or an expression is not quite correct, don't hesitate to tell me, otherwise I might do the same mistake over and over again.
I'm very happy to have posted my first full story in english.
Have fun !
To Die or not to Die
Harry was in a world of pain.
No. Harry was pain. His body was in fire, every nerve spasming with the worst Cruciatus ever cast. Somehow, Voldemort had felt the destruction of the diadem, and was showing his displeasure through Harry's scar.
After an agonizing time, the curse ended. Fleur had cushioned the floor so he wouldn't hurt himself in his trashing. He looked up, in between tremors, and saw Hermione frantically searching her bag.
Voldemort was furious. Part of Harry was still seeing through his eyes. He was cursing Death Eaters around him. Some of them were already dead from his ministrations. Harry didn't think Tom knew he had opened his mind to him, so lost in his rage. It was hard to think, between his body hurting and his nemesis thoughts intruding his own.
"Drinks this!" Someone urged him. He downed the vial. His muscles relaxed. He downed another one, and another one. The pounding in his head receded a bit, only leaving the sharp pain of his scar.
"What happened?" Hermione asked when his gaze went to her.
"He knows. He is not happy. I can see him right now. He felt the diadem." Harry grunted, trying to sit.
"How?"
"I don't know! He didn't feel the other ones. He's leaving." Harry added, wincing. Voldemort left the manor to check on his horcruxes. "He'll know we got to them soon. What do we do?"
"We can start by leaving this place." Fleur stated calmly.
"Yeah." Bill whistled loudly, calling back Anya and Ashan. They came running not ten seconds after.
"What's going on?" Anya asked, getting up after a spectacular roll out of the Salazar's mouth.
"Voldemort knows." Hermione answered simply. She had momentarily forgotten about the taboo.
She shouldn't have.
"He's coming! He's coming! He knows I'm here!" Harry frantically yelled.
"Shit!" He heard someone say.
They run back to the bathroom, jumping on brooms at the foot of the slide. As soon as they passed the entrance, Bill put his wand to his throat. Harry's hand stopped him.
"Voldemort only knows I'm here. He thinks Ron and Hermione are with me, but he doesn't know about you guys. I think I should bait the Death Eaters while you evacuate the kids. He's already in Hogsmeade." Harry informed him.
Bill nodded.
"I'm coming with you" Hermione eyes were fierce.
"Ok." He said. He would find a way to ditch her later. He needed to be alone to face Voldemort. No one would die uselessly today.
He put his own wand to his vocal cords. "Sonorus" he whispered.
"Listen everybody!" His voice reverberated all around them. He hoped it reached the twins, and the one named Carrow. "Voldemort is coming! Stay in your common rooms, someone will come to evacuate you!"
"We are Harry Potter and Hermione Granger!" Hermione imitated him. "He is coming for us! We'll wait for him outside of the Great Hall. Do not go outside by yourself!"
Harry cancelled his sonorus.
"Why did you say that!" He admonished her.
"The twins will know to avoid that area, and we won't have to search for Death Eaters. They will be there too." She answered, smug.
"You know you're stupidly brilliant sometimes." Harry said. "Come on, hop on my broom, we'll get there faster."
She hesitated before sitting behind him.
"Hold on tight, I'll be fast." He warned her.
Going at break neck speed in the corridors, Harry cursed himself. He just ruined a perfect chance to ditch her and meet Voldemort by himself. Adrenaline was pumping in his veins. The freedom of riding his broom at top speed was exhilarating. More so that he knew it was the last time.
They dismounted at the entrance doors. They opened silently for them. Harry gave his broom to Hermione, and used her distraction to petrify her.
She stared at him, frozen like a statue, her wand in one hand and the broom in the other. Outside, Voldemort was facing them.
"I thought I would have to search for you." He smirked. It was terrifying. "How nice of you to come to me. Do you think that by incapacitating your friend, I will spare your life? How naïve. I will take great pleasure to take care of the mudblood after I kill you."
The grin on his face was atrocious. Harry focused on his absent nose. He took his moleskin pouch and opened it, while descending the steps towards him.
A drilled diary. A cup. A broken diadem. An open locket. He put them all on the floor, slowly. The Dark Lord was staring at them with so much focus that Harry's scar started to bleed.
"It's over." Harry stated.
Voldemort laughed. The sound was awful, as if he didn't know how and was learning from a broken record. It was too high and distorded.
Harry relaxed all of his still raw muscles, and opened his hand. His wand was tucked in his pocket. He didn't want to be tempted to use it. Dying was harder than he thought. He thought that he was prepared, that he was ok with it.
He'd been wrong.
He breathed deeply, hardening his resolve. He tried shut down his thoughts, all of the things hanging around telling him to live. It didn't work. As Voldemort was still laughing, he understood. Every reason he had to live, were the reasons he had to die. For every breath he drew no more, another would. For every... The list was long. He could see Hermione nagging and hugging him. He could see Bill putting his hand on his shoulder with his trademark half smile. He could see Fleur teaching them how to make croissants. He could see them naked, offering him the best they had, freely.
Voldemort's laugh felt even more distorted. He never understood, and never would. Harry was certain. It was the right thing to do. Prophecy or not, while Voldemort rejoiced, his friends would have time to empty the school, protecting the children. He felt the love he had for his friends fill his heart, burning in his lungs. Allowing them, and all the one he didn't know, to live and love again was worth it.
"It's over. Death is coming." Harry stated. Voldemort stopped laughing in an instant. Nagini, his snake, slithered in the grass at his foot.
"You will welcome it as it bows to me!" A cruel rictus tore his face. "Avada Kedavra"
Harry saw the green lightning coming at him. At this distance, he could have dodged. He didn't.
Thump.
His body fell lifeless on the ground.
/
Hermione hated him. She hated him so much she could feel her blood burn in her vein. She was sure he would try to do something stupid. But she didn't think he would right now.
So, she hated herself even more. The prophecy. He'd been stupid enough to think he had to fulfil it.
She was petrified, not by anger, but because her friend, the one who'd saved her life and life she had saved, had cursed her. She saw him walk to his death, unable to do a thing. Did he feel like she was feeling right now when he witnessed Dumbledore's demise? She fought harder than she ever did against the magic freezing her. She saw him talk, she saw Voldemort mocking him.
And she saw the green light going straight at him. Even before he fell, she wanted to scream, to charge at the parody of a man standing in the grass. She knew Harry wouldn't move, she knew he would die to protect them. Her heart broke. As it collided with her best friend, she saw two flashes of silver impaling the snake.
Suddenly, she fell onward. The spell was gone. Harry was dead. She heard a screech and a thud.
She got up, her nose bleeding from its contact with the floor. Nagini laid, pierced by two daggers. Voldemort was on the ground too, unconscious. She run.
"Harry!" She screamed, kneeling next to him. She took his body in her arms and cried.
"Hermione, get up! He's recovering." She heard someone say next to her. It took a moment to register, as the voice repeated itself. Hope welled in her chest. She shook Harry, but his body was still limp in her arms.
"Not him" the voice said sadly, "Tom."
Hermione dropped Harry and marched to the Dark Lord.
"You," she screamed at him with narrow eyes. Any lesser being than Lord Voldemort himself would have recoiled under the righteous fury in her eyes. "You ! You will die ! Even if it's the last thing I'll do, you will see the fires of hell." She rose her wand.
The Dark Lord swatted her spell lazily. He smiled. He would play with her before giving her to Bellatrix. No one would ever be able to oppose him. The world was his.
In his haste to celebrate, he forgot to register two little, but very important details.
One, every single one of his precious horcruxes had been defeated. Nagini was dead.
Two, Harry wasn't.
So, when he got up to his feet, neither the player nor the played payed any attention to him. The two onlooker hidden behind the first floor windows, the ones that struck the snake with basilisk venom coated blades didn't notice him either.
He took his dagger out of his pocket, and downed his cloak. He walked quietly, occasionally dodging a stray spell, finding himself in his enemy's back.
As soon as he shrugged the cloak to have better freedom of movement, Voldemort turned around. Why he went for the disarming charm, nobody would ever figure it out. Harry's dagger went straight to his enemy's hand, blade first. Brief shock marred his features.
"A dagger? You thought you could vanquish me with a mere knife?" Voldemort mocked him. Green light left his wand. Harry dodged it easily, as his aim had been poor.
The poison was fast acting.
"Took out by the same beast you enslaved, Tom." Harry said. He internally winced, one more cryptic statement like that and he would start to resemble Dumbledore.
Lord Voldemort, ruler of Great Britain, died, shitting himself as his bowels released their content. Tom Marvolo Riddle died by his own hand, literally, at Hogwarts gates, where he first thought he could cheat life.
And Harry fell, again, this time tackled by a crying witch. Hermione wacked his arm while crushing him with her hug. She didn't know if she should kiss him or beat him, so she kept hugging him and crying on his shoulder.
Harry let her, happy. Voldemort was dead, the Death Eaters were dead, taken out when he took the killing curse. His best friend was laying with him in the grass, alive.
Life was perfect. The rest could wait for tomorrow.
/
The new Ministry of magic had been very insistant, and Harry just wanted to get rid of her, so here he was, with all the 'Hogwarts Team' as he dubbed them in his head. Three Weasleys, not the ones his classmates would have expected, his best friend, a veela and two strangers. They made quite a team, all standing shoulder to shoulder at the front of the stage.
"Lord Potter, how did you vanquish He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named?" the first journalist asked, almost bouncing with the excitement of being the one to ask.
"With love. Love is always the answer. Unless it's 42." Harry answered with a blank face. Then he turned around and left the stage, disappearing behind the door at his back.
The room froze. Hermione gaped at his now empty spot. Bill took one step forward and spoke into the microphone.
"Some things are too foul to be spoken freely. It is no surprise to anyone that Tom Riddle delved deep in magic best left alone. He thought they would make him invincible. Harry proved him wrong." He too, turned around, and as one man, his companions followed him through the back door. Hermione was the last one to walk the threshold, dodging a blue spell as she did so.
Harry shut the door and sealed it. The Aurors still in the Atrium could take care of the few unhappy citizens rioting.
Thus started and ended the only press conference they gave on the fall of Tom Marvolo Riddle.
/
I know, it's a bit of an abrupt end, but I like it like that. I'm not the kind of writer who tieds everything up at the end of a story. I prefer to leave a bit of space for everyone's imagination. Also, once I had the idea of Harry's expanation about Voldemort's defeat, I had to do it. It's too funny to pass up. I hope you enjoyed it !
Eli