This is it. The end. It took more than half a year to write this story and it's the longest and most work-intensive piece of fiction I've ever written. It's not as good as I'd like it to be, there are still many flaws, but it was a learning experience - and I feel satisfied. I'll miss writing about these people!
Thanks to everyone who reviewed! :-)
This chapter is dedicated to rambkowalczyk, my beta. Without her this story wouldn't exist.
Chapter 32 - Face to Face
Harry's lips tasted salty, like seawater. He was cold and there was wet sand clinging to his arms and the back of his neck. His head was fuzzy and his legs still numb. Something was touching his right upper arm.
But nothing hurt. His scar didn't hurt and his head didn't hurt and his body was alive and he could hear the blood rushing in his ears. He breathed.
Although there was no pain, he felt strange. It was as if his body had become taller than it used to be, as if there was more space inside his head, as if he was missing something essential.
There was a rustle of cloth near him and the cold touch on his arm went away.
He opened his eyes. What he saw made no sense: blurry grey shapes at a great distance above him. At first he thought they were smoke and wondered where all that smoke came from in the Ministry. Was there a fire? But then he realised that he wasn't in a room anymore, he was outside, somewhere where the air smelled of saltwater and ashes and where a cloudy sky loomed above him. It wasn't a good place.
He turned his head. Moving was much harder than it should have been. He was weak as a kitten and even though he wore his glasses, his sight was badly blurred. He thought he saw a long stretch of dirty ground and a dark stone wall rising high into the air and a lump of something black – clothes? – lying a few steps away.
Harry turned his head into the other direction. Someone was kneeling there, half bent over him and he instantly recognized the long white hair and beard of Professor Dumbledore.
A few steps behind Dumbledore stood someone else, tall and clad in black, a bone-white face framed by the black hood of a cloak. Harry blinked, sure that he wasn't seeing what he thought he was seeing. He wanted to warn Dumbledore, but then the hooded figure averted its face, turned around, retreating quickly.
Dumbledore's touch on his forehead brought Harry back to reality. If Dumbledore was so calm, everything was alright and this couldn't have been Voldemort standing behind Dumbledore.
"Harry, can you hear me?" the Professor asked gently.
Harry's sandpaper-dry throat turned his reply into a hoarse wheeze. He nodded instead. Dumbledore smiled. Harry thought he looked exhausted, there was a smear of something grey over his left cheek, right under the golden wire of his glasses, but the smile was brighter and happier than anything he had ever seen on the headmaster's face. Something extraordinarily good must have happened. Harry returned it weakly.
Dumbledore conjured a glass of water and held it to Harry's lips so he could drink. He instantly felt much stronger. "Thanks," he croaked.
Dumbledore helped him sit up. Harry noticed a number of things: he was in a place where he'd never been before. It looked like the inner court of an especially dark and dreary fortress. The ground around him was strewn with bodies; almost all of them clad in black Death Eater robes. But closest to him lay the crumpled form of Dumbledore's brother Aberforth. Fawkes was next to him, glowing magnificently red and gold.
"What happened?" Harry asked.
Dumbledore's smile didn't waver. "I'm sure you want to know everything, but that can wait. Right now all that's important is that you are alive, Harry, and Lord Voldemort has been defeated."
There was simply nothing Harry could say. Dumbledore didn't look like he expected him to answer. He took off his cloak and wrapped it around Harry's shoulders, then he got up and checked his brother.
"Nothing Poppy can't cure," he said cheerily and then walked over to another group of fallen bodies. Someone had bled a lot in the sand over there. Only when Professor Dumbledore very carefully turned around one of the cloaked men, Harry realised that it was Snape. Every part of his body was covered in blood and Harry couldn't tell if he was still alive. Dumbledore no longer smiled. Fawkes hopped over to rub his head against his master's hand, chirping sadly.
"Is he – is he dead?" Harry asked with wide-eyes .
Dumbledore gravely shook his head. "He lives, but barely. I don't know whether he can be saved." He moved his wand in a half-circle above Snape and an orb of shimmering bluish light settled on the fallen wizard. "This will suspend his vital functions until we can get help, but I can't do much more for him."
"Where are we?"
"Azkaban," Dumbledore replied, looking around. Then he took a piece of parchment from a pocket in his robes and tapped his wand onto it. Fawkes flapped his wings and gracefully landed on Dumbledore's outstretched arm, taking the parchment into his beak. "Minerva, Poppy and then the rest of the order," Dumbledore said to the bird. Fawkes vanished in a burst of flame.
Dumbledore started walking around the court and putting Binding Spells on the Death Eaters who weren't dead. It was eerily quiet except for his steps and the sound of the sea beyond the walls of the prison. When the headmaster returned, Harry asked another urgent question.
"There was someone else here when I woke up. He looked like –"
"Like Voldemort, yes," Dumbledore said gravely. "I'll clarify things as soon as we get this sorted out. Perhaps he will return and explain some things himself."
What was that supposed to mean? Wasn't Voldemort vanquished?
"Why did he leave?"
"I think he was aware that his looks might be a bit shocking to you," Dumbledore replied mildly. "And he was afraid of your reaction to some of the things you'll be finding out about soon."
Not much later dozens of wizards and witches from the Ministry arrived. Dumbledore had to make sure that the surviving Death Eaters were arrested and Harry couldn’t ask any other questions. Then suddenly there were reporters from the Daily Prophet who tried to take pictures and interview Harry and anyone else who looked like they might tell them anything. Already there were rumours about Voldemort's final defeat by the Boy Who Lived. He was saved by Remus Lupin, who came with Tonks and Moody and led Harry away from all the people. Remus asked some questions as well but Harry could answer none of them since he didn’t know what had happened during the last few days. He didn’t even know how long he had been gone! But Remus told him it didn’t matter as long as Harry was okay.
Remus brought Harry to Professor McGonagall who looked like she was ready to have a heart attack. She was cursing Dumbledore and the Ministry under her breath and at the same time she had a strange gleam in her eyes as if she wanted to cry or laugh or both. When Dumbledore came into sight, she hurried over to him, seized him by the sleeve of his robe and Harry could hear her say: “Is it true? Is it really over this time?”
Dumbledore’s eyes fell on Harry for a second and then he looked back at her. “The war is over, Minerva. Now if you could be so kind and take care of this mess? I have to have a word or two with Harry.”
Remus came along with them as they left Azkaban. They went by boat and Harry got a short glimpse of the whole fortress before it vanished behind a cloak of mist. He thought of Sirius. His memories from the time behind the Veil were getting faint already, like a dream paling in the light of day. But Sirius’ promise that they would meet again had settled deep into his heart. He knew he would never forget these words until the day he died.
From the shore they Apparated and Remus accompanied them up to the stone gargoyle that led to Dumbledore’s office. There he shared a silent look with Dumbledore and then smiled at Harry. “See you later. I’ll go and tell Ron and Hermione the good news.”
They rose on the stairs to the office and as he opened the door, Dumbledore said to Harry: “Now finally there is time to explain everything to you over a cup of tea –“
But Harry had stopped dead in his tracks. His hand shot to his wand. Dumbledore turned his head to see what he was looking at.
In front of the windows behind Dumbledore’s desk, dark against the warm afternoon light, stood Lord Voldemort. His black hood was drawn and he watched them calmly.
Dumbledore put his hand on Harry’s shoulder and made him lower his wand. “It’s alright, Harry. Tom is not here to harm you. In fact it was he who saved your life.” He led Harry into the office and the door fell shut behind them.
“It’s Lord Voldemort,” Harry protested, staring transfixed at the Dark Lord. Voldemort was not carrying his wand; his white hands lay on the backrest of Dumbledore’s chair. He, too, was not taking his red eyes off Harry.
“I’d prefer to be called Tom,” he said softly.
“You said Voldemort was gone!” Harry exclaimed. This was too much; his mind couldn’t comprehend what happened. Had he gone mad? Did Dumbledore really just say that Voldemort had saved his life?
“He is gone,” Dumbledore confirmed. “This isn’t the Lord Voldemort you have met before. This is Tom Riddle, the man who created Lord Voldemort twenty-seven years ago as his alter ego. I would introduce you, but you have met before.”
Voldemort – or Tom Riddle, but Harry wasn’t yet able to think of him as that – nodded.
“But you told me that Tom Riddle is Lord Voldemort! You told me so after I defeated the Tom Riddle from the diary! You called him Tom when you fought him in the Ministry!”
“I know, Harry. For long years I believed it to be true, but I was mistaken. Perhaps you would care to explain, Tom?” the headmaster said smoothly.
Voldemort took a long moment before he began to speak. His voice was the same voice Harry remembered from the graveyard and the Ministry, high and thin and not entirely human but his tone had changed. The menace and arrogance were gone. Something about the fall and rise of this voice was strangely familiar to Harry, as if he had known it all his life. It was almost soothing.
“You have met my sixteen-year-old self before, Harry. You know what I was like when I grew up. I was a fool who knew nothing about the truly important things in life, whose sole goal was to achieve power and immortality. I misspent my life on these empty desires and in my quest for immortality, I turned myself, my body and essence, into the thing you see now.”
His last words were wistful and laced with disgust. “I know what I look like through your eyes,” he added.
“How could you know that?” Harry asked angrily. But at the same time the tone in which Voldemort had said it scared him. What was he hinting at?
“Because I’ve seen this body through your eyes and from your perspective and I agree with you. You see, it wasn’t enough for me to create a body that was almost indestructible. I had to make sure that my mind would prevail as well. I tried to get rid of my human soul, thinking it would make me immortal. But instead I created a duplicate of myself, Voldemort, equal to me in all aspects, except for a human soul, which he lacked. Voldemort took over my body while I was caught helplessly inside my own body for years until it was destroyed by the curse that was meant to kill you.”
“Are you saying that you’re innocent? That all the people you murdered – that it was a monster you created that you had no control over?” Harry shouted. He couldn’t believe that Dumbledore was still listening to this. "THAT'S A LIE!"
Voldemort laughed mirthlessly. “Innocent? Not at all. Don’t forget I killed long before I became the Dark Lord. I was responsible for Myrtle’s death, and I killed my father’s family when I was about as old as you’re now. In the years that followed I killed many more. It was the murder of my friend Alphard that should have completed my immortality.”
Harry didn’t doubt for a second that Voldemort’s friend was the same Alphard he had met behind the Veil. So that was why Alphard was so interested in the Dark Lord and so well informed about him!
“But my responsibility doesn’t end there,” Voldemort went on. “It may not have been me who became the Dark Lord, but Voldemort was my copy in every aspect but the soul. What he did I would have done, so in the end it makes no difference which one of us did those things. It wasn’t I who killed your parents… but had I been in his place, I would have done the same.”
Voldemort hadn’t once averted his eyes while he said this, but then he looked down as if it pained him to look at Harry, who stared at him with wide eyes. This was Voldemort, who had tried to kill him so many times, who knew no mercy and no compassion, whose cold wrath and hatred Harry had felt through the connection in his scar … but if it had been anyone else Harry would have believed that his confession was honest. Even so Harry's doubts wavered. Wouldn't Dumbledore know if Voldemort was lying?
“I’m sorry. I wish I had never killed your parents. If there was anything, anything at all I could do to undo these murders, I would do it. But I can’t. All I can do is to say I am sorry. I regret it more than anything in my life.”
Harry clenched his hands into fists. Every muscle in his body felt unbelievably tight. “But why? Why are you sorry now?”
“Because they deserved to live. Because they loved you and their love saved your life and mine. Because they should have been there for you all those years. Because I miss them as much as you do.”
Harry shook his head, afraid to hear what else Riddle had to say. He was starting to anticipate what would come and it terrified him because there was no reason why he should know what Riddle would say. "No," he breathed. "Stop it."
“That night when Voldemort went to your house to kill you, his own curse rebounded on him and destroyed his body. He continued to exist as the soulless bodiless creature you have seen. But I, my soul and my memories were transferred into your body. I was overwhelmed by this, cleansed by the love that was written in your very blood from your mother’s sacrifice. I forgot who I was. Fifteen years I spent in your body, living your life, thinking I was you.
"I shared every single one of your thoughts, your feelings, your dreams and fears. I have lived your life together with you. When I look at you now I see myself as I should have been during my own life. You gave me a second childhood; you taught me love and friendship.
When your soul left your body to travel through the Veil, I was left behind in your body. Once the knife was removed, I woke up. Soon I started to remember bits and pieces of my own life, the past I had forgotten for so long. I was horrified! You have to imagine: I believed I was you and suddenly I learned that I was Tom Riddle, I was Lord Voldemort!”
Harry could imagine only too well what it must have been like for Riddle, because he was just as horrified by the revelation that he had shared his body with Voldemort all those years. He couldn’t deny it though, because it explained all the similarities between them, all the powers they shared, everything. It even explained why he had felt so exposed and lonely ever since he no longer shared a body with Riddle. But did that mean that he missed Riddle's soul …?
Voldemort sighed. “That is why I am sorry for everything I did. Because I thought they were my parents and in a way I still think of them that way. I know I have no right to love your parents or your friends, Harry, but I love you. That’s the reason why I had to destroy Voldemort: to protect you.”
“You did it?” Harry asked wonderingly. “You destroyed him?”
“That is why Tom is wearing his old body now. He came up with the plan that not only destroyed Voldemort, but made it possible to return you to your body and capture almost all of the Death Eaters. Thank you for that, by the way, I believe that the Aurors would have had a much harder time if you hadn’t stopped them from fleeing.” Dumbledore said with a bright smile and twinkling eyes. Unlike Harry, he seemed extremely pleased with the outcome.
“What about the prophecy?” Harry wanted to know. It was getting easier to breathe and his heart was beating less quickly.
“It is fulfilled,” Riddle said in a very decisive voice. “The Dark Lord has been vanquished. I destroyed him, but you enabled me.”
Silence reigned. Dumbledore walked to the fireplace and lit a fire, turning his back on both of them. They didn’t need the fire at all, since it was in the middle of summer, so he probably wanted to give them privacy. Harry was still too shocked and confused to feel relieved. He couldn’t help but stare at Tom Riddle though. It was disconcerting to know that Riddle knew everything about him while there was so little Harry knew about him.
“Did you meet Sirius?” Tom suddenly inquired, taking Harry by surprise.
Harry had almost forgotten his adventures behind the Veil. But Riddle sounded as if he truly cared. Dumbledore hadn't even asked him that much. It was impossible for Harry to think of this man as Voldemort. Voldemort was a monster, cruel and evil. Harry didn't yet know who Tom Riddle truly was, but he was someone else and he had destroyed Voldemort for Harry and he cared for Sirius. In Harry's opinion that counted more than what Riddle looked like or what he had done in the past. It wasn't enough to forgive him, but it made it impossible to hate him.
“Yes,” Harry said. “I met him. It’s a very strange place… but he’s alright, I guess.” He was unable to explain more clearly, but he remembered something else. “He’s with his uncle, Alphard.”
Riddle blinked and then he smiled. “I really was a fool to be so afraid of death, wasn’t I?” He murmured to himself.
Another awkward pause followed. Harry felt compelled to say something. “So, you’re not, um, going to try and become a Dark Lord again? What are you going to do?”
Tom didn’t answer at once, maybe because he didn’t know it himself, but Dumbledore threw a handful Floo Powder into the fire, colouring it bright green.
“I suggest you leave. We’re not going to be alone for much longer and while there is a time to face the law, this is not it. It’ll be hard enough to convince the Ministry not to sentence your followers to the Dementor’s Kiss, but in your case my persuasive abilities might not be enough,” Dumbledore said gravely.
Tom nodded and went to the fire. Before he gave a destination, he looked at Harry one last time.
“There’s still a lot I’d like to say,” he said. “You needn’t answer my letters and if you don’t want me to return, you will never meet me again. But as long as I live, I will protect you.”
He didn’t wait for an answer. Instead he called out a foreign sounding destination and stepped into the green flames. In a whirl of fire and soot he was gone.
The fire became normal again but Harry still stared at it for a long moment.
"He's not evil anymore," he said and it was only half a question.
Dumbledore sat down at his desk with a sigh. "No, he isn't. I believe Tom isn't even quite the same person he once was. His choices have shown that. You needn't forgive him, but you should try to understand him.
“But forget it for a few days. Go to your friends and tell them that the war is over. I’m sure they’ll be delighted to finally leave school.”
Epilogue
And so he did. Harry returned with Ron, Ginny and Hermione to the Burrow where for the first time in his life he had a really great birthday. For weeks, everyone seemed to celebrate. A wild variety of people visited them all the time.
Dumbledore was still negotiating with the new Minister of Magic. Arthur Weasley told them that Amelia Bones was much more likely than Fudge to quit the Ministry's alliance with the Dementors and close Azkaban. A new prison would be installed and new laws against the use of the Dementor's Kiss as capital punishment would be written. Hermione was extremely impressed by the new Minister and suddenly considered a career in the Ministry.
Of course the newspapers annoyed everyone in the Weasley family trying to get an interview from Harry since they believed him to be the one who defeated Voldemort. He never told them the whole story, he only said: “I didn’t do anything – I wasn’t even there." Disappointed, they started to just invent stories. Harry accepted his fate and let them write what they wanted.
The only ones who he told the full truth were Ron and Hermione. He originally feared their reaction to being told that he had shared his body with Tom Riddle's soul for all his life. But then he remembered they had reacted much better to the prophecy than he originally thought. Also he reminded himself - Riddle's soul was gone now. Still, it was more awkward this time and involved a lot of staring from Ron and penetrating questions from Hermione.
After two days of this annoying behaviour, he lost his patience and shouted at them: "Just forget it, okay? I'm only Harry now. Not a piece of Riddle left." This seemed to break the tension and it appeared as though things were returning to normal.
Once, on a quiet evening when Ron had to help his mother cleaning, he asked Hermione a question that was still bugging him: "Have I changed since, you know - ?"
She looked critically at him, narrowing her eyes and pursing her lips like Aunt Petunia did when she observed the neighbours garden. "You laugh more and worry less, but everyone does that these days. You don't shout as much, which I'm very glad about." She raised her eyebrows and smiled. "Your scar's gone."
But everything else was still the same. He was Harry, with or without Riddle's soul, and that was good.
He didn't feel too small for his body anymore. Only once or twice he had that dream again, where he was walking over a huge empty plain, sinking knee-deep into snow and ashes on the ground. In those dreams he was no longer carrying a bright light with him, but each time before he woke up he reached firmer ground where the plain ended.
Sometimes, when Harry woke up late at night, thinking that it all was a dream and that something so good couldn’t have happened to him, he stole out of his room (they had given him the twin’s room at the Burrow) and into the bathroom. There he looked at his face in the mirror and his smooth forehead, which showed no traces of any scar. It was undeniable proof that it was all true, that Voldemort was gone and Harry was free.
Four weeks after Voldemort’s defeat, he was staying up late into the night and reading one of is school books for next year. Snape had survived his injuries but quit his job as Hogwarts teacher and so they would get a new Potions teacher as well as a new Defence Against the Dark Arts teacher. Suddenly a huge colourful bird landed on his windowsill, carrying a roll of parchment.
Harry knew whom the letter had to be from before he opened it. Since their short meeting in Dumbledore's office he had not heard from Riddle. Harry wasn't exactly looking forward to it, but he was getting more curious with every day. What was Riddle doing? Over the last few weeks, a number of escaped Death Eaters and supporters of Voldemort had been caught in remote hideouts and delivered to the Ministry. Kingsley Shacklebolt had told Harry that no one knew who captured those Death Eaters but whoever it was always included undeniable proof of their crimes. There was a lot of wild speculation on the identity of the Ministry's mysterious benefactor. Harry had a strong suspicion that it was Tom Riddle, hunting down his own followers.
The handwriting on the parchment was familiar and yet new: it was somewhere between his own sloppy scrawl and the elegant letters in Tom Riddle’s diary.
“Dear Harry,
Dumbledore tells me you are well and I am sure you are, considering how everything turned out.
I am far from Britain and will not return for a while and if you have been following the news, you know that I have been busy.
You need not answer this letter, and if you do not, I will not send you another one. But if you ever have questions or want to tell me something, anything, I will be glad to hear from you.
Yours sincerely,
Tom Riddle.”
Harry looked at the pretty, colourful bird and suddenly he was reminded of the time after his third year, when Sirius had been on the run and his letters from faraway countries had been delivered by birds like this one. He smiled.
He wasn’t sure yet what he would write but he knew he would send an answer.