Interlude: The-Boy-Who-Left
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“Potter,” spat the pale and bloodless lips, curling downwards in a grimace of hate and anger. Two crimson eyes met twin orbs of brilliant emerald, uniting together in both fate and in finality.
The lord of darkness retrieved his wand with angular and spider-like fingers, brandishing his weapon and smirking with spite at his opponent. For his part, the face of the man opposite him betrayed nothing, silent and simply determined in the dim light around them. Below them, at the base of the hill, the sounds of battle reverberated and climbed upwards to them, curses and spells flying in the air below.
The man of the light held his wand out before him, meeting his weapon’s sibling in mid-air. He grinned suddenly, though it held no mirth, only a grim conformation. “This is your end,” he whispered, green eyes shining brightly, the strength and courage born from years of suffering revealing themselves.
“You are mistaken, child,” hissed the evil of a thousand names, the one who incited fear in the hearts of every wizard and witch the world over, and who had thrown all of the lands into a second great war. He was the man who destroyed all who rose up against him, merely casting them aside and gaining more power.
Until this moment.
In this moment, the Boy-Who-Lived finally felt it within him, felt the truth of the fate that had controlled and dictated his life from his infancy. The fate that had robbed him of his parents, his godfather, his mentor; the fate that had shattered his heart and aged him too quickly and too severely. In this moment, he ceased to be the Boy, but became the Man, the Man-Who-Lived, and the Man who could- and would- save the world.
Harry Potter closed his eyes briefly, for smallest measure of time, then struck his first blow: “Expelliarmus!” he cried, and the Dark Lord swayed out of the way, returning the attack with one of his own.
The Final Battle had begun.
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Below, underneath the hill where the future of everything lay in the outcome of a fight between two men, another battle waged. Dark-minded wizards unleashed their fury upon the army of the good, Death Eaters pitted against the Order of the Phoenix in the ultimate confrontation.
Ginny Weasley ducked yet another Cruciatus curse, pushing her body down into a roll and rebounding to her feet in an instant. Eyes blazing with a fervent fire, she shot off a spell immediately, taking her attacker by surprise and knocking back with a sudden blow to the chest. “Pertrificus Totalus!” she commanded, and her wand obeyed, contorting the body in front of her into a rigid and immobile form. Satisfied, she turned and moved on, spotting her best friend before her, sparring with a gangly and incredibly tall man that still somehow managed to evade most of Hermione’s attacks.
Red hair flying behind her, Ginny leapt into action, blasting the Death Eater with a vicious “Sectumsempra!” Dozens of crimson lines appeared onto his body, as the blood began to seep out onto his robes. She had long ago abandoned any thought of remorse for her actions: she was at war, and war was a terrible and gruesome thing.
Hermione nodded her thanks to the younger woman, and together they moved onwards, between the tandem team of Neville Longbottom and Luna Lovegood, past the determined figure of Nymphadora Tonks, and finally up to the struggling form of Ronald Weasley, locked in an intense battle with the cackling Bellatrix Lestrange.
“Aww, the wittle weasel is trying so hard!” taunted the heavy-lidded woman, her black hair shading her face and making her look all the wilder. “Time to end our dance, little boy! Crucio!” she cried, and Ron fell to the ground, his body seizing horribly as pain overtook him. He screamed in that instant as he began to writhe on the ground, and before Ginny could stop her, Hermione rushed forward and cried out a curse of her own, a curse that she had never used before.
“Crucio!” cried the young woman who had felt the sharp pang of hatred strike her when Bellatrix had begun to torture the man that she loved. The curse hit the unsuspecting witch, and she fell to the ground beside her former victim, crying out as the spell stimulated every pain receptor in her body, overloading her nervous system and contorting her body into an unnatural form.
Hermione froze the right hand of the Dark Lord into place, flattening out the protruding limbs in a moment and solidifying her into a harmless state. She reached down then, and grabbed Ron’s hand, pulling him up and throwing herself into his arms. They embraced quickly, and then separated once more, looking at the battle around them.
The Death Eaters had been almost completely obliterated. Their frozen, bleeding, and in some cases, lifeless forms were strewn about the field, testament to the fight that had just occurred. Several others had escaped, Apparating away to safety, running like the cowards that they were. Slowly, Hermione and Ron turned to look up to the top of the tall mound before them, and to the two figures that were still locking in their epic and fateful clash. One of them stumbled to the ground, his tall figure illuminated in the spell’s fading flight, and the red-haired woman beside them started.
“Harry,” breathed Ginny, and the young woman was gone, sprinting up to the top of the hill, determined to help the man she loved.
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The young man rose to his feet, body bruised and broken, as the newly carved gashes in his body bled profusely, staining his clothing and the ground beneath him. He would not -could not- afford to fail, not now, not when his victory and the victory of world was so close at hand.
“Goodbye, Tom Riddle,” he muttered with eighteen years of pent up hate, anger, grief, and iron resolve.
“Avada Kedavra!” he screamed, and in the same infinitesimal moment, Voldemort cried out his final curse. An explosion of green light covered them both, and two bodies fell down towards the earth, fallen angels in the pale moonlight.
And as Harry fell, clutching the Portkey he had hidden in his left pocket, he could hear the woman he loved cry out into the night, as all the sadness in the world gathered in her voice:
“Harry!”
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“Harry!”
Harry James Potter awoke suddenly, drenched in a cold sweat, as the echo of Ginny Weasley’s anguished tones rushed through his mind. He closed his eyes and sighed, wishing nothing more than to go back to the world where he belonged; to the woman he knew he should be with.
“Damn,” he swore softly to himself as he rose out of his bed, rubbing his temples gingerly as the vestiges of his chronic nightmare faded away. He grabbed a pair of pants that had fallen to the ground in his cramped and deteriorating apartment, as outside the morning sounds of a stirring city began to sound. He wouldn’t be here long, he knew: he had barely stayed for a fortnight in Berlin before he had left, and he had been in Prague for perhaps two months, at the most. And before that, before that he couldn’t even really remember, because he had simply kept moving, always going somewhere, never waiting for the Death Eaters to catch up to him.
Soon. Soon, he would be able to return. When the last of his wounds had healed, when the last of the Death Eaters had been defeated, he would be able to go back to country of his birth, back to the people who loved him.
“Ginny,” he whispered softly, remembering the love that he had abandoned. He shook his head slightly, ignoring the pain that the action caused, and pulled a shirt over his head, dressed and ready to face another day.
He moved across the hall into his garishly decorated kitchen and grabbed an apple to eat, too lethargic and too apathetic to prepare anything substantial. Is this what he had been reduced to? He had gone from a man who had once been a hero to someone who could barely extract himself from his bed every morning, dreading every waking hour. For that is what it truly was; he could not stand to be awake, for it reminded him of everything he had ever lost, and everything that could have been his.
A knock on the door interrupted his self-pitying reverie, as his well-honed reflexes took over. He grabbed his wand from his front pocket (never the back), and moved swiftly without a sound to the door of his flat, silently cursing the fact that he had never invested in a Foe-glass. He paused, waiting.
“Harry?” called a soft voice, and he was surprised, not only for the fact that someone had found him, but that he recognized the voice. He unlocked the door cautiously then, and stood up, still clutching his wand, prepared for anything.
For almost anything, it turned out. As the door swung open and revealed the young woman on his doorstep, his heartbeat quickened in shock, and his grip on his weapon faltered slightly, as he studied not the woman before him but the small child in her arms, silent and curious.
“Hello, Harry,” she said softly, smiling sadly as she met very shocked emerald eyes. “May we come in?”