"HRRAAAK—ghhk!"
A jagged sound ripped from the man's throat as he lay, downed from a single, unexpected attack. His hand gripped the stump that had used to be his arm, applying pressure to attempt to prolong his life for just a moment more. As the blood flowed freely, his mind hazed, the lull of death muting the sounds around him. He gazed up at the spiraling abyss of grey and black, an abyss that had once held the sun and the sky. Yet now, all that remained was nothing, and soon too would nothing not exist.
"Blrrghk—"
The man would not scream again. He couldn't. Blood poured from his mouth, a symptom of the damage that had been dealt to his internal organs. He glanced at the ruins around him, the remnants of the last bastion, his home for the last decade. What once were towers of crystal that had stretched to the sky had become smoking heaps, the house itself lay all but disintegrated in front of him. The man let his eyes drift back towards where he had just been standing, not even a minute ago.
Before him, a figure whose bleached skin shone in the light of the event horizon that had become of the sky. The figure stood tall, unbroken, and impossibly calm. He held no wand in hand, held no need for one. Yet the figure held a name. A name that had once struck fear into the hearts of the Magicals of the world. A fear that had held strong, even decades after the beings supposed defeat, a fear that had lasted - until the need for fear was outstripped by power.
Voldemort.
The name had persisted, but the man himself had changed. Twice defeated, yet still he stood. But what had risen was not the same evil man as before. What had returned in his place stood a being, unfettered by death, life, magic, or even fate.
When the world lay shattered under his own gaze, only one man was aware of what had happened. One man who truly understood how everything had gone wrong.
The man that currently lay dying.
The man that had bested this creature twice before.
The man who Voldemort refused to lose to thrice.
Harry Potter.
Voldemort stepped forward, no haste visible in his actions. Each step slow, methodical, timed to the unheard rhythm of destruction that he so enjoyed. His face held no triumph, no rage, no glory. Just a mask of cold indifference to the world, and to the end of his greatest victory.
"Three times you have stood before me. Twice you have bested me. I will not let it happen again."
His voice pierced the silence that assailed Harry. The crimson glow emanating from the man's eyes illuminated Harry's vision, tinting the world with the same color as the blood that flowed forth. Voldemort's eyes flickered towards the missing limb and river of blood.
"Harry Potter. Once, you won the battle. Now, you have lost the war. You have lost your world. And soon, you will lose your life."
The indifference struck Harry. Voldemort was not giving an opinion, nor was he enraged. He spoke as if simply stating fact. The piercing ruby eyes once more laid upon the pallor face of the boy who lived. The gaze was not one of hatred or sentiment, but one of curiosity, like how one would regard a dying unicorn- something beautifully tragic, but ultimately inconsequential.
"You clung to hope. To your bonds, to love."
Voldemort regarded Harry with the slightest head tilt.
"Did you think those would last? That in death they would matter?"
Harry attempted to speak, yet all he could muster was a bloodied wheeze. Voldemort raised a single bleached palm- not to strike or cast, but to gesture.
"I did not win due to hating more, Harry Potter."
Voldemort moved gracefully between the fallen remnants of the home, seeming to glide over the ground.
"I won because I became more."
The words fell with the weight of an anvil. They settled in Harry's mind, like dirt in a grave. Yet the weight of these words seemed to arouse a memory from the depths of Harry's mind. The memory of a single spell, one that he had read, but never attempted. His fingers twitched. Not towards his wand-for it was long gone- but to etch a spell into his very being. He may have no magic remaining, but he knew its feeling. He slowly expanded his senses to the world around him, pulling on the few remaining natural energies of the world. Harry's body shook with pain, the magic of the very world tinted, corrupted by the man standing nary 3 feet away. Yet Harry pushed through, clenching his fist as he forced the magic to run through the damaged pathway that was his body.
Voldemort paused. His expression shifted minutely- if at all- as he stared down at the seizing wizard. He had sensed what the boy- no, he was definitely a man now- had been doing, but had paid it no mind. After all, who in their right mind would take the energy of the world itself. Even for him, having transcended human limits, it was a risk he had only taken once. Now, with the world itself shattered and corrupted by his own hands, the magic itself was poison.
Harry, however, was not in his right mind.
He was dying.
He had nothing left to lose, nor anything to give - except all that he was.
His whole body trembled, barely containing the great magic that now flowed through him. The corrupted nature of the energy corrupted his soul, and he could slowly feel his mind shattering under the weight of a planet's full power. The magic fought back, biting, searing, piercing- rejecting the path he forced it down. But Harry held fast, not with will, not with power, but something simpler.
Understanding.
This was a man who had spent the better part of a decade dedicating himself to magic, to attempt to strengthen himself beyond that of a mortal to combat one who had ascended past that.
Voldemort watched, still and silent, with an almost reverence.
"You would…" he murmured, not as a question, but more as a vocalized thought. "You would rather break yourself to defy me than to submit to defeat."
Harry shuddered once more, a herculean effort going into moving his hand to his chest. He drew upon the last minutes of life he held, all in one final desperate attempt at victory. His hand grasped down, piercing skin and bone alike, as he clutched his own heart.
Harry spoke. Not aloud, no, his throat had long been too destroyed to allow that. He mouthed words, yet magic had heard him.
"Sanguinem Tempore."
Light burst from beneath his skin- raw, wrong, roaring as it pierced the heavens above. The corrupted mana he had held under forced submission now buckled reality around him. The air split. Time screamed. The world reeled.
The mana coursed through him like venom, raw and seething, a language not meant for human flesh. It did not obey—it resisted. Fought.
Every strand of it whispered impossible truths, fragments of space and time tangled together.
It showed him everything.
Not in sight or sound, but in structure—the very blueprint of the world unraveling and reforming in his mind.
And still, he reached deeper.
He knew it would destroy him. He also knew it might remake him.
Voldemort took a step back. Not out of fear- no, that emotion was long gone- but out of a grudging respect.
"So be it."
He turned to face the incoming wave of destruction, nary but his body and robes on him.
"Cleave-"
And the sky inverted.
Not with thunder, not with fire, but silence.
A breath, drawn backwards.
And Harry Potter-
-vanished.
The breath ended.
Air rushed back into his lungs- fresh, whole, real. His body lurched upright, gasping as he clutched at his chest.
Except there was no pain.
No blood.
No missing limb.
Harry blinked again as the sunlight spilled through the window.
The warmth of life felt odd. The quiet, blasphemous.
He knew this room. He knew this smell.
The squeak of the faulty mattress beneath him, the slightly too short mattress that had him curl up every night, the pillow that was slightly more lumpy than he had preferred.
Private Drive.
He flung off the covers, his hands moving quick, wild. His arms- both arms- grasped the air as he stumbled towards the cracked mirror nearby, nearly tripping over a lone sock. He grasped the sides of the mirror to steady himself, and nearly froze when he saw the reflection.
A boy stared back at him.
A thirteen year old boy.
Harry stumbled backwards, legs like jelly, his heart pounding so hard it hurt.
He hit the edge of the bed frame, sinking to the floor. His breathing was shallow now, fast. His mind whirred, a mixed sense of panic and disbelief that had floored him.
'What did I…?'
He ran his hands over his chest. No scarring, not cuts, no grooves. The burns from battles past, and the wounds from battles present no longer marred his body. His right hand twitched, reflexively.
The one that shouldn't exist.
Both arms remained. Both legs.
But his mind-
Harry gasped, and the world around him shifted. Not visibly. Not physically, but magically.
Something rippled just behind his thoughts, a pressure, like the air itself had a skeleton. He could feel.. Distance. The curve of space between his fingers and the far wall. The shape of silence.
He reached out, shakily. The air between his fingers bent. Not immensely, but just enough to feel.
His magic had never behaved like this. Magic didn't… behave. It was wild, slippery, and had to be restrained by the casters own will.
Now it was present, constant, waiting.
Like it saw him too.
Harry lowered his hand, letting his eyes flicker along the wall until something caught his attention. A calendar.
July 31st, 1991.
His birthday.
45 years ago.
He took a shaky breath, holding in the maniacal, unhinged laughter that bubbled up his throat and threatened to wake the house's other occupants. Instead, he let out a giggle. A soft, broken sound.
"I- I did i-"
"BOY! UP, NOW!"
It was too much. Too normal.
Too alive.
As Harry looked at his shaking hands, he realized something.
The war hadn't started yet.
The world wasn't broken.
Yet.
And Harry Potter had one final chance.