"Impossible!" Voldemort hissed in disbelief as he took in Harry, who was now standing right in front of him with his two new, unusual and unfamiliar wands.

Voldemort's opinion was shared by many others, who were muttering quietly, since not only had Harry been struck with the killing curse, he had also been borderline emaciated and physically resembled a corpse. But no longer, suddenly Harry Potter appeared as physically healthy as he had been before his imprisonment in Azkaban, except his robes made him appear like a tramp who'd been out sleeping in a dirty ditch.

"How did you survive?"

Harry just stared back at Voldemort, before a smile spread across his face. There was something, certainly unnerving about that smile.

"Why don't you answer me, Potter? How did you survive, I just hit you with the Killing curse?!"

"You don't expect me to answer that, do you?" Harry frowned with genuine curiosity. Surely Voldemort was not that naive to believe he would speak.

"Just answer me, Potter. How did you survive?"

"You didn't hit me with the curse."

"What?" Few things could shock the Dark Lord. But that did. "What are you talking about?"

"Look down at the ground," Harry said.

Voldemort looked down, and he jumped back with a gasp. Lying on the ground, were a collection of burnt and gnarled remains, half crumbled, sitting among the pebbles and sharp stones littered around the beach. "A golem?" He lifted his head and looked at Harry in surprise.

"Yeah, I always suspected the magical world would betray me later, so I looked for a way of keeping out of it. If they could throw my reprobate godfather into prison, then they could do the same to me, so I created a few golems," Harry waved his wands and his clothes changed, becoming a black overcoat topping a white button-up shirt and black trousers.

It wasn't as easy as that.

Harry had endured many betrayals and heartbreaks in his life, and they had only increased as he had gone to Hogwarts. He had never felt safe inside the castle, not once. Between the bullying of the students, the agendas of Dumbledore and the teachers, the stupidity of the Ministry and the spectre of Voldemort over him, Harry had used the Chamber of Secrets library and the books he'd found in the Room of Requirement to look for ways of protecting himself.

Learning how to create golems was something special; a created artificial body that could mimic him in both looks, imbued with his knowledge and personality, and nobody would be able to tell the difference unless an in-depth check was made.

Harry had created a golem and sent it to the castle, powered by his magic while absorbing the magic of Hogwarts to keep going. He had made the golem take his place in certain classes, while he had secretly hidden himself in the classes of Ancient Runes and with 'Harry' in public, he was free to go into places Dumbledore didn't want him to go.

He hadn't anticipated the sudden frame-up, and he had fled the school before they could find him, and he had been hiding in the muggle world ever since.

Voldemort noticed the transfiguration at once, but he was more intrigued by what Harry had done. He could ask about the unnecessary transfiguration into the prison garb, later. "When did you create the golem?"

"Before my 6th year. I wanted to create a decoy or two, so I could study forms of magic Dumbledore refused to let me study by myself, without some precautions," Harry replied. "With the golem, I had an alibi."

"And the prison garb?"

"I had to arrive discreetly; I took the golem's place, and nobody was looking at it."

Voldemort chuckled at him. "My, my, that is very Slytherin of you."

Harry smirked.

"I had considered going to Slytherin, but I knew I would be under a great deal of scrutiny. I couldn't have that," Harry shook his head ruefully, thinking of the what-ifs for a moment. "I was in the Chamber of Secrets at the time when my golem was captured; I didn't know what happened until I emerged and heard the news. I was in the courtroom at the time, and I fled afterwards. I went into the muggle world."

"What did you do?" Voldemort was curious but he wasn't surprised by Potters's actions; with the whole country up in arms against him, the boy would have nobody to turn to, if he ever did, and if he'd been believed a murderer and imprisoned he could come and go as he wished so long as he took steps to avoid anyone who knew him.

"A lot," Harry said.

Voldemort recognised he wasn't going to get answers, regardless of his curiosity. "Why did you transfigure your clothes like that?"

"So nobody would notice me coming; when I arrived I transfigured my clothes and apparated in the same spot of my copy, and here I am. I've been keeping a close eye on the magical world, waiting for a moment like this, or if I would have a chance to get close to you," Harry replied.

"Very clever, Potter," Voldemort remarked, and he was telling the truth. "I never knew you had it in you."

"Well, I do. It served its purposes," Harry's eyes flickered downwards at the golem's remains. He turned and smirked at the Light. "I've also been keeping an eye on them. It wasn't difficult. I also know of their plans for my replacement, young Jenny Smith," he added and turned to the frightened trio. "Don't be scared. I'm not going to hurt you, but hopefully, this will prove a useful lesson; don't trust an old man who pretends to be wise, and is charismatic."

The Smith family were already aware of that fact. Harry turned to Voldemort and held his wands. They were relatively new, a third-generation pair of wands; he'd bought another custom wand a while back and while he had it, now was the best time to fight off Voldemort. But he was worried; he hadn't expected Voldemort to go so far to get him out of the way, but with the two wands he should have a chance.

Harry turned to Voldemort. "Any other questions?"

"I would ask you to join me, Potter. You have no reason to work with the Light."

Harry nodded, "No, I don't. I hate the Light side; they are weak. Their dependency on things like prophecy clouded their judgement and their reality. Instead of using force to deal with you and your followers, they instead used spells that allowed Death Eaters to recover, and they kept on fighting. Dumbledore could claim it was because he didn't want them to be as bad, but the reality is it showed many they could join the Death Eaters, and nothing of consequence would happen to them. They fail to learn from their past. They allow themselves to be wasted away by their pathetic little prejudices and views, they spend lifetimes refusing to let go of their pasts. They waste time and energy talking about a problem without doing anything about it. They stick their heads in the sand whenever someone has a troubled life, and they allow it to fester and waste time cursing themselves in hindsight for never doing anything about it. They fail to see the future, to see what could be, what must be."

Voldemort was becoming more and more intrigued. His calculating mind was starting to see an opportunity. "Then join me, Harry. Think what we can accomplish."

As he spoke, Voldemort realised he had made a mistake. Harry's expression became cold, blank.

"What makes you think I would join you when you are just as bad? You are weak yourself, but you can't handle the truth," there was overwhelming disdain in Harry's voice. "You and the pathetic idiots who've joined you. Gellert Grindelwald may not have had your calibre of power, but he saw the future. He saw the value of words. You wasted the opportunities presented to yourself to showcase how muggles were destructive when you had lived through the Second World War, and how the muggles had decimated countries in petty disputes. And those disputes are still going on. You prefer to focus on yourself, and your power. Your life is wasted by your refusal to let go of your past, and how you wasted it by lying to your followers. You don't care for the pureblood supremacist agenda, you merely saw it as a stepping stone. You heard them ranting about how muggle-borns were destroying their golden society and heard their rather pointed views. You used them as a punchline. You keep looking backwards, desperate not to be drowned out by the weight of history. I said a moment ago the Light side fails to see the future, to stop what must be; you are just as bad, you created Horcruxes to become immortal. Oh yes, I know about them," Harry smirked when he saw Voldemort's face, which had been growing increasingly angry as he heard that part, "and you merely prove my points about you. I know everything about you, Tom Marvolo Riddle."

"That is no longer my name!" Voldemort hissed, breathing in and out rapidly.

Harry stood silently for a moment, his expression blank before he smiled once again but this time it was a sinister smile.

The smile belonged more to a corpse than a living breathing man.

"Let's finish it, then," he said simply, holding out his arms invitingly. "Let's finish this boring fight, the fight I never wanted in the first place. No dramatics, no speeches, just…us."

Voldemort tensed and shifted himself into a duelling stance, but Harry surprised him when he let out a terrifyingly loud cry of whooping glee and triumph; the sheer shockwave he let out knocked Voldemort and his followers and everyone else for 6. In the aftershocks, Harry flicked his wand and the Death Eaters had their masks and hoods torn off, revealing their faces. The Light were not surprised when they saw Draco Malfoy, Pansy Parkinson, Francine and Theodore Nott, Blaise Zabini, Daphne and Astoria Greengrass; in their shortsighted minds, they were from Dark families, but they were stunned when they saw Cho Chang, Ginny Weasley, Percy Weasley and Terry Boot among the ranks, but nobody had a chance or an opportunity to anything when Harry and Voldemort exchanged curses.

Voldemort flicked his wand, creating a massive ball of fire, of uncontrollable flames, but Harry created his own ball of fire, that was just as uncontrollable. The two balls collided and they were dispelled in Voldemort's direction, but Harry sent several older Death Eaters flying head-first into the flames, screaming to their deaths.

It was only blind pot luck Voldemort was able to dispel it in time, and he lashed out with a spell chain which made use of blasting curses, a blood-boiling curse, and an acid curse, topped by a killing curse. Harry waved the wand clutched in his right hand, and one of the rocks lying on the beach flew over to him, growing bigger and bigger and flying in the way. The rock became badly chipped by the resulting curses, and the killing curse shattered it, and it was blown towards Voldemort, followed by a spell chain from the two separate wands. The advantages of the two wands became clear to everyone; with one wand, he could use one chain, while he used the other.

The first wand transfigured stones and rocks on the beach into mirrors, forcing Voldemort to fight in multiple directions. Voldemort was finding it extremely difficult fighting Harry because he used the age-old tactic of using low-powered spells and charms instead of the high-powered spells so many favoured because they foolishly believed highly powered spells won fights, instead of using the wisdom to see patience was more practical.

Harry had used this technique before, but Voldemort had been thrown by the second wand.

Voldemort concentrated on siphoning power from his followers, but he was thrown off when Harry suddenly slammed his hand on the ground, and the pebbles and rocks on the beach rose, levitating off of the ground.

The Dark Lord barely had a chance to react when the debris shot towards him and his followers like a hail of bullets, and he stumbled back as many of them slammed into him before he got a shield up.

By the time the hail stopped, Voldemort again did not have a chance nor the time to stop the next spell from hitting him. The Dark Lord shrieked when he suddenly went up in flames. The spell was so powerful that it blackened the pebbles he was standing on.

When the cone of fire went out, everyone was surprised Voldemort was still alive, but his magical defences had managed to hold out and keep him alive, even if his robes had been destroyed. His blackened and blistered body collapsed to the ground.

But when he looked up, Voldemort's eyes widened in fear and horror when he saw that Harry had grabbed hold of one of the Death Eaters, and was rubbing his suddenly bloodied hand across the Dark Mark.

"You made a mistake, my friend, marking your followers, but it was your second way of gaining immortality. You mark your Death Eaters and create a link between yourself and them, and you can keep yourself anchored," Harry said as he held the paralysed Death Eater up, just as Voldemort struggled to regain his strength, knowing he had to stop this as he recognised what Harry was doing. "That's how you survived all those years ago when you tried to kill me and my mother stopped it from happening. Did you think my mother would get out of the way, save herself…especially for that slimy, piece of shit? You never understood a mother's love, and you don't know me at all, Voldemort. I haven't been idle, these last few years. I've been looking for your weaknesses and I've found them. I know you stopped making Horcruxes after number 2, seeing them as dangerous and not satisfying, so you then used your followers to keep you anchored. But you made a mistake. I've studied thaumaturgy like you did, and when you took my blood. Bad move," Harry smirked before he shoved the tip of his wand into the bloodied Dark Mark. "CRUCIO!"

The results were dramatic and terrifying; all of the Death Eaters had backed away, suddenly feeling out of their depth and scared, especially by what Potter had been saying, but now they were writhing on the ground, screaming their heads off as the torture curse washed over them. Voldemort, who was likewise linked to the network, was just as affected, and his screams joined those of his followers.