81

Voldemort just had to call Harry the-boy-who-refuses-to-die, didn't he? Harry could just hear the hyphens in the title. Other than that, it reminded Harry of his old title, the-boy-who-lived. These people really needed to come up with better names –– even if they were true.

"Well now, Harry. Shall we duel?" said Voldemort, who got into a battle stance, ready to start their duel.

Harry got up from his kneeling position that he was in after the rush of memory, and stood straight, facing the dark wizard.

"Now you should know the rules, or do I have to remind you?" Voldemort said mockingly.

If Harry hadn't had that memory rush he would have not understood what the snake-faced man was talking about, but thanks to the one snippet of flashback he saw and heard how a duel works for the most part. They had to bow to each other, which was something Harry was not willing to do with this madman.

Apparently Harry was silent for too long because Voldemort started telling him the rules anyway. "We must first bow down." As he said this, he bowed down below the waist.

Harry didn't follow his example.

Voldemort noticed and gave him a sneer. "Oh come now, Harry. Surely you remember what happened last time when you refused to bow when you're supposed to, right?" He chuckled. "But then again, I guess you wouldn't."

Oh, Harry remembered, he was just too prideful to care about any oncoming pain, but whoever said that he would allow the curse to hit him?

Harry just continued to glare at the man with hate as Voldemort lifted up his wand with a sadistic grin.

"Crucio!"

A red beam of light shot out from the tip of Voldemort's yew wand and went straight for Harry, but the younger male jumped out of the way.

Just as Harry landed on back onto the ground a second later, he cast a curse of his own. "Rupes!" A path of giant, jagged, sharp, pointy rocks shot out of the ground and made their way toward Voldemort.

Voldemort cast the explosion curse, bombarda, to blow away the stones. Now that they were rubble, the Dark Lord transfigured them into sewing needles and banished them back at Harry, who wasn't fast enough to put up a shield. Luckily for the green-eyed wizard, Zeref was fast enough to set up a shield around him.

"Thanks, Zeref!" Harry said in relief to his new friend, but he returned his focus back onto Voldemort afterward. "Aer Figito!" he cast.

Voldemort didn't see the spell, but he did feel it. It was like he was being punched by air, which explained why he couldn't see it. Not only that, but the spell meant 'air jab'.

Fawkes decided to join in on the fight by dive-bombing down at Voldemort in his flame form. He hit his target, but he wasn't done. Fawkes then left a trail of sparks behind from his tail feathers and then sang to activate the explosion.

Voldemort let out of high-pitched yell of pain, which caused Harry, Zeref, and Fawkes to cover their ears from the pain of the piercing voice; although, Fawkes had a hard time covering his ears since he had to fall out of the sky just to cover them with his wings. The scream stopped, allowing Harry to run up and catch his familiar before the phoenix hit the unforgiving ground.

As the dust cleared to reveal Voldemort, who is covered in burns, a loud BOOM! shook the whole island. Harry and the others snapped their heads in the direction of the source, and what they saw shocked Harry, Fawkes, and Zeref to their core, but made Voldemort gleeful.

The Tenrou Tree had fallen.

Bits of wood were still falling from the sky, and there were dust and debris clouding the air. All of a sudden, Harry felt his magic begin to drain from his body. He remembered what his master told him about the Tenrou Tree. The tree protected all those who bore the mark of Fairy Tail. Without the tree, their magic would weaken and they would be almost defenseless.

Harry fell to his knees. He could hardly move now.

Zeref, seeing what was happening to both Harry and Fawkes, made the quick decision to take Harry's place in the fight against Voldemort. He got in between the two of them and faced the snake-faced man.

"You know..." said Voldemort in his whispery voice, "That is not a part of the rules in a duel. If you are his second, then you must wait till I kill him before you take his place."

"I'm sure that he can be considered defeated in his current condition," said Zeref, not making any move to get out of Voldemort's path. "The rules of duels nowadays say that if one partner is defeated then the second one can switch places with them. I'm not sure if that is how it worked where you come from, but that is how it works where I'm from." Zeref lifted up a hand, and a fireball formed there. He pulled his hand back and let the ball of burning fire fly toward Voldemort. 'Don't worry, Harry. I made a promise to protect you, and that is exactly what I'm going to do.'

Now that the tree had fallen, Ultear knew that once she left here, she should be able to get Harry all the easier. If she could find and sneak up on him without Zeref noticing her, then she could use Harry against the dark mage, and drag them both to the little boat she and Meredy saw on their way here to this island. First, though, she had to sneak away from Gray somehow.

Zeref threw a ball of death at Voldemort as hard as he could, but the ball still moved too slowly, and the snake-faced man was still able to dodge it. Zeref wasn't sure if he should be grateful that he had yet to be able to kill the evil wizard or not. He knew that a man like this was too far gone and bloodthirsty to just let roam around, but he still had no desire to take his life. Even if he reminded the black-eyed mage of the first man he had ever killed. It had to be the eyes. They are just as red and insane as that guy that killed his family.

Zeref didn't notice that Harry was no longer behind him until Voldemort fired that same green light from 400 years ago at the same-shade-of-green-eyed male. Zeref was about to teleport to get to Harry and take the hit himself, but he was too late. The spell hit Harry, but all it did was make the young wizard cry out in agony.

Harry had seen the killing curse flying at him, and even though he knows he's immune to death magic, he can't help the urge to attempt dodging the attack. He made to dive for it, but before he could lunge himself to the side the curse hit him. He felt burning white, hot pain travel to his very soul, or at least that is what it felt like.

Zeref was beside Harry in seconds to check on him. Besides being in pain, Harry appeared to be fine. 'He'll live,' Zeref thought before turning back to Voldemort. The snake-faced man was shocked at what he was seeing. Sure, he joked about Harry Potter refusing to die, but he was hit full force with a full intent-to-kill killing curse. How was Potter still alive?

"I guess you didn't know," said Zeref. "You see, Harry is immune to death magic. So you will just be wasting your time using it on him."

Voldemort's eyes narrowed into slits. "Is that so...?" Voldemort lifted his wand again. "In that case...I'll just try this. Fiendfyre!" A snake made of fire formed out of the Dark Lord's wand and started to burn everything around it.

Harry heard the spell that Voldemort cast, and so tried to counter it with his own. The only problem was he didn't have enough magic energy to even try to summon Hihebi.

Zeref saw that Harry tried to cast a spell, but failed. He was glad that Harry was still trying to do something to protect them, but he should just sit there and let him worry about it. Zeref put his hands together and a swirl of crystal clear water appeared. He shaped the water into a giant sea serpent and the battle of the elements commenced.

The water serpent wrapped around the fire one, causing something interesting to happen. Steam flowed around them, and the fire snake hissed in pain while the other didn't react. After a few seconds of this, the snakes exploded. Thanks to the steam, Voldemort didn't see the dark mage coming at him. Zeref had run up as a blur to Voldemort and aimed a punch to the man's noseless face. He followed it up with a kick to the side of the head.

Voldemort Disapparated away from the onslaught of attacks and reappeared again a few yards away. He glared at Zeref. He was starting to hate the brat as much as Harry, but he still needed to know how he became immortal, so he couldn't kill him –– not like he could anyway if he wanted to.

The Dark Lord saw that there was a little bit of water on the ground, but it was not enough. He cast the water charm on the ground, causing a small flood. Now that he could see his reflection in the water, he transfigured his body into his animagus form.

Both Harry and Zeref watched on as their enemy transformed into a large serpent. They both recognized the breed, but Harry and Zeref didn't know if the other knew. So Harry warned him of not looking the beast in the eyes, and at the same time, Zeref closed his eyes with his face down. Harry had also made sure to look away or else he would die or be petrified if he looked down and made eye contact with the basilisk's eyes in the water.

{Switch with me!} Fawkes ordered Zeref, who knew that phoenixes can take care of something like this since they were immune to both the gaze and venom of the basilisk.

Zeref jumped back towards Harry, and Fawkes made a mad dash past him, making headlong toward the snake's eyes. Basilisk-Voldemort moved to the side, dodging the phoenix's talons. He then swung his tail at the bird, but Fawkes flapped his wings to boost himself up more, allowing him to narrowly miss being hit.

Fawkes decided to go back into his flame form and make himself bigger. A lot bigger. Now he was the size of Voldemort, and that made it easier to try going for the eyes again. If he could take those out, then Zeref could rejoin the fight; however, he needed to get to them quickly. His magic energy was lowering at an alarming rate thanks to the Tenrou Tree being down.

He managed to grab Basilisk-Voldemort with one of his talons, but the giant snake hardly twitched. Instead of being stunned by the pain, Voldemort wrapped his body around the firebird and bites down. Fawkes cried out, which made Voldemort let go due to the high-pitched sound, and made Harry and Zeref cover their ears for the same reason.

"Fawkes!" Harry called out in worry. He didn't know what would happen to a phoenix when they were bitten by a basilisk. He remembered Fawkes curing him of a bite once, but he didn't know if those healing tears would be able to work on the phoenix.

{Don't worry, Harry. I'll be fine,} said Fawkes.

"He's right, Harry. Phoenixes are immune to basilisk venom. So that bite in nothing more than just an injury," Zeref said reassuringly. Harry nodded his head gratefully at the news.

All of a sudden, Harry and Fawkes started to feel their magic power rise again. They didn't understand how that was happening, but who were they to complain?

Harry grinned joyfully. "Looks like I'm back in this fight," he said. He lifted up his wand, aiming for the basilisk's eyes, and cast a spell he learned from one of the books he read while he was cleaning out Flourish and Blotts. "Opertis!" A thick, black cloud hovered over Voldemort's eyes, blocking his sight, as well as protecting Harry and Zeref from his deadly gaze.

Harry also silenced their movement, so the Dark Lord turned snake couldn't hear them. Voldemort's tongue flicked out to try and smell them, but thanks to the burnt trees and water everywhere, he couldn't pick up on their scent. Knowing that if he wanted to get out of there alive, Voldemort would have to retreat for now. This angered him greatly, but what choice did he have? Harry may not have tried to kill him, but there was a chance that either the phoenix or Zeref would.

Voldemort transformed back into his human form and Disapparated away from the battlefield.

TBC

I'm going to have to make sure the final fight with Voldemort is a lot better than this one. Other than that, how many of you guessed correctly about the basilisk being Voldemort?

Natsu: Why didn't you turn Harry into his animagus form?

Enj/Dark: He might have destroyed everything around him just by turning. He is just too big, so he has to be careful. Don't worry, you'll see what it is when Acnologia shows up.

Voldy: Why?

Enj/Dark: Because he will be big enough to handle him. That is all I'm going to saw on the matter.

Harry: If it helps any, she hasn't even told me what I am transforming into. :(

Zeref: Must be good then.

Enj/Dark: It is something I wish someone did a long time ago, but it never happened so I'm doing it.

Natsu: That is just like you. Writing a story based on what you wish would happen, but never does, so you do it yourself.

Harry: Even though this fanfiction started out as someone else's idea.

Enj/Dark: One that I adopted. Now Zeref, I believe it's your turn.

Zeref: Please review! :3