[Salutations, my friends. First of all, let me offer my profound apologies for my dearth in writing for the last three weeks. As I was afraid, the excessive rain caused a minor flood, which took a week to clear up. The water disappeared just two days before my B. Ed. semester exams, which were unfortunately not postponed.
As I'm writing this chapter, I still have 3 more papers left. Plus, I still have to go and teach at my other college or my salary gets cut. As you can probably imagine, I'm extremely busy right now. The only reason I'm wringing out the time to write is because of your unconditional and unwavering love and support. It made me really happy to see you continue to send power stones even though I failed to update the story for a while. Thank you all, and please enjoy the story]
2 Days Ago
Headmaster's Office
"... And either must die at the hand of the other for neither can live while the other survives..." Harry muttered with knitted eyebrows. "What does that mean?" he asked the headmaster. "Do I have to be the one to kill Voldemort?"
All of us, students and adults, were gathered in Dumbledore's office, discussing the final leg of Operation Vold-no-more. With all the horcruxes gathered and ready to be purged, Dumbledore had decided that it was time, and told Harry why Voldemort had gone after his family in the first place. The boy-who-lived seemed to accept most of the prophecy, but the last part appeared to be troubling him.
"Divination is an extremely imprecise art, Harry," Dumbledore stated diplomatically, seated in his high-backed chair with his fingers steepled in front of him, "and prophecies are almost always impossible to the decipher until they come to pass." He sighed.
"However, everything in this particular prediction seems to point to you and Voldemort. You, who were born at the end of July, to parents who escaped Voldemort three times. Your mother laid down a protective charm on you - a power that Voldemort knew not. And by attacking you, Voldemort gave you the gift of Parseltongue, thereby marking you as his equal," he explained.
"Yeah, I am not sure I would call it a gift," scoffed Harry, absentmindedly running his fingers over his scar. "I am trying hard not to think about his little bits and pieces Voldemort left inside me." He looked away with a clearly troubled expression
Sirius laid his hand on Harry's shoulder with a sympathetic look. "Why can't one of us do it instead?" he asked Dumbledore. "Once the horcruxes are taken care of, Voldemort or whatever's left of him, would be mortal, right?" he said, as if stating the obvious. "Hell, I could probably wipe out the Dark tosser myself!"
"It's not that simple." Dumbledore shook his head.
"Why not?" protested Sirius.
"Because true prophecies, as this one happens to be, are self-fulfilling," Dumbledore said in a heavy voice. "They come true because fate and magic conspire to bring them to fruition. One might spent years trying to avert it, only to later realise that their actions contributed to the realization of that which they tried to prevent."
"So, there's nothing that can be done?" frowned Remus. "Harry has to be the one to do it?"
"Not exactly. Fortunately for us, we have some leeway," said the headmaster, leaning back into his chair. "Prophecies are predictions based on the interaction of variables inside a closed system, that being the universe. The only thing that can weaken the constraints of a prophecy, or even outright unravel it, is outside force. Which in this case, would be Ben's visions," he explained, gesturing towards me. "Thanks to him, we are now reliably informed about all the variables, and thus control the outcome," said Dumbledore, turning to Harry. "The only thing left to consider...are the consequences."
"Consequences?" frowned Harry.
"You don't have to be the one to destroy Voldemort, Harry," said Dumbledore, much to Harry's visible relief as well as everyone else's. "Once all the horcruxes are gone, anyone could do it. However..." Dumbledore sighed, "if you choose that path, the prophecy remains unfulfilled."
"So?" shrugged Sirius.
"So, true prophecies are self-fulfilling," I reminded them. "If the right conditions are not met, the prophecy remains in play. Which means somewhere down the line, maybe years, decades or even centuries from now, events will align themselves to give rise to another Dark Lord, who will mark another young boy, and the two of them will fight...until the terms of the prophecy are fulfilled, and only one of them survives."
"Hence, the consequences," Dumbledore repeated in a bitter voice.
Silence descended upon us as everyone ruminated upon the ramifications of the coming choice. The gazes being directed towards Harry were complicated. All of us here cared for him and didn't want him to go through the mental anguish of killing someone, even if that someone was Voldemort. Yet, the thought of another child going through all the pain and suffering that Harry did, didn't sit right with us either. After several long moments, Harry stood up, looking resolved.
"Harry..." Sirius started, looking crestfallen.
"It's alright, Sirius," Harry managed a weak smile at his godfather, before turning to the headmaster determinedly. "Let's get this over with."
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Present day
Ritual Chamber
The air in the ritual chamber felt charged - as if the very stones were bracing for something monstrous to be unleashed. The runes on the walls and floor pulsed with silvery light, humming in anticipation. The four spires surrounding the central dais thrummed louder than ever before, the spiralling glyphs along their lengths glowing with a fierce, almost blinding intensity.
The cause of it all - an ugly black doll placed at the center of the silver pentagram.
Presently, the lid of the grimhold came off and a pulse of black mist surged out like a breath exhaled from Hell itself. The temperature plummeted. Shadows twisted unnaturally. And then the wraith emerged.
It was a horror made manifest - a swirling vortex of black smoke and blood red flame. Voldemort's fractured soul constantly shifted shape, its presence bent the air, made the light recoil. A piercing scream rang out into the chamber, a sound that seemed to scrape at our very bones. The wraith floated above the dais, shrieking in fury, eyes - if they could be called that - blazing with hatred and fear.
"Finally!" It screamed, rising about 5 feet above the black stone dias. "Now..."
Before the twisted apparation could say another word, the spires reacted.
Each one fired a beam of pure, searing light. The rays crossed in mid-air, converging directly upon Voldemort's mutilated soul, weaving themselves into a brilliant net of magic. The wraith shrieked again, writhing and twisting as the four beams lanced through its incorporeal form. The magic reacted to its resistance - the beams pulsed, synchronised and bound the wraith into a swirling sphere of magical energy hovering above the pentagram at the centre of the dais.
"NO!" Voldemort yelled in outrage.
Within the sphere, he began clawing madly, battering the edges of the magical prison. But every time he struck, the runes flared brighter and the beams strengthened, adapting like living magic. Heedless, he continued ramming the cage until he heard that old familiar voice speaking in that infuriatingly calm manner.
"Hello, Tom."
The struggling ceased and silence filled the chamber. The smoke shifted and blood-red eyes focused upon the three of us. A voice - cold, sibilant and laced with fury answered.
"Dumbledore," spat Voldemort.
Dumbledore nodded serenely. "How have you been?" he said conversationally. "It's been a while since we last met."
"Well, hello to you too, you bothersome old coot," Voldemort hissed back. "I should have known all this was your doing." His eyes shifted to Dumbledore's right. "Good evening, Harry. Been on any interesting adventures lately?" he smirked at his fated nemesis, before turning to me.
"And you, Benjamin Carter. I applaud you. You achieved the singular feat of catching Lord Voldemort unawares, even though I was distracted and you employed subterfuge, but still," it was difficult to tell, but I think he slightly dipped his smoky head, "admirable, nonetheless. An even bigger feat was being in my vicinity for months, and never once letting out a whiff of your true intentions. Shall I take it that the old codger has been giving you lessons in duplicity?" he whispered, his eyes roving searchingly to the headmaster.
"Actually, no," I replied cheerfully. "I realised early on that when dealing with psychopathic megalomaniacs with a penchant for legilimancy, it is best to carry around some protection." I tapped my glasses.
"Smart boy," Voldemort nodded. "You should be rewarded for your resourcefulness. How should I reward you?" he mockingly mused. "Ah yes, I shall reward you by killing everyone you have ever loved or cared about! That will be your reward, wretch..." he snarled menacingly,"...for meddling in the affairs of Lord Voldemort."
"You are very kind," I said blandly. "Alas, you will be no position to hand out any rewards after we are done here tonight."
"And why is that?" he asked politely.
"You would be dead, you see," I answered.
"Really?" Voldemort said amusedly. "And pray tell, who exactly is going to, as they say, domein? You? Your decrepit old master?" his eyes glossed over us, before fixing on the far wall, "Or perhaps one of the sheep I sense hiding over there?"
"Guess again," I offered, my eyes flickering towards Harry.
"Ah, so you have decided to put your faith in the prophecy," Voldemort said in realisation. "You hope to match the powers of Lord Voldemort against the fabled boy-who-lived," he sneered. "Understandable, yet so predictable."
"So, what's this? Some sort of tribunal?" Voldemort's smoke-like face moved inside the glowing sphere, sneering at us. "Come to judge me for my sins, eh?"
"The judgement has already been passed, Tom," Dumbledore said quietly.
"Well, that doesn't seem very fair," Voldemort said gleefully, playing along. "I didn't even get to make my case."
"You and your Death Eaters murdered thousands of innocent people!" yelled Harry.
"Yes, those were good times." The wraith's features twisted into a sadistic smile. "We did our fair share of killing, with a healthy side-dish of pillaging and torture. But it was all above board. After all, it's not like the ones we punished were actually people," voldemort sneered, "just muggles, mudbloods and their like."
"Is that what my parents were?" Harry demanded with barely suppressed fury.
The sneer seemed to drop from Voldemort's visage and a look of remorse took its place.
"No, your mum and dad were good people," Voldemort said softly. "I didn't want to kill them, it was you I was after. They didn't have to die...they just wouldn't get out of the way." He locked eyes with Harry and a glimpse of contrition could be seen in his blood-red eyes. "I took your parents from you, Harry, and for that...I am truly sorry."
Harry blinked, caught off guard. The words didn't feel right, they didn't fit. Before he could say anything, the quiet, false tone shattered into a jagged, high-pitched cackle - venomous and unhinged. The illusion dropped in an instant, and the smoke twisted back into the cruel, angular face everyone rememberd - not of a man, but of a monster who enjoyed being one.
"Was that what you wanted to hear, Harry?" said Voldemort in a mocking tone. "That I regretted killing your mum and dad? That they were special? No, boy, there was nothing special about your mother and father. They were no different than all the other defiant little ants that eventually met their end under Lord Voldemort's boot!" The shadowy apparation pronounced in a menacing voice. "The only regret I have, is that I didn't torture your mudblood mother before killing her for what her sneaky little spell did to me."
Harry clenched his hands so tight that his knuckles turned white. His entire body trembled with fury, faced with the guiltless laughter of the author of his misery. He closed his eyes and took several deep breaths. When he opened them again, there was no anger there, only firm resolve.
"Thank you," he said, looking straight at his destined enemy.
The words were so unexpected that the mocking grin unconsciously slid off Voldemort's face.
"What?" he said confusedly.
"I came here to kill you today," confessed Harry. "Even though I knew you killed my parents and a whole lot of other people, I was still feeling a bit uncomfortable about it. Thanks for showing me that I will not be killing a man, but removing an evil that will only bring more pain and suffering."
Voldemort smirked. "Well, you are right about one thing - I am not a man. I am Lord Voldemort, the greatest wizard this world has ever seen. I have knowledge you can't fathom, powers you can't imagine. Even death itself has no hold over me. So tell me, Harry," hissed Voldemort,"how are you going to kill me?"
It was now Harry's turn to smirk. He reached into his satchel (a christmas gift from me) and took out a black leather journal with a ghastly hole running through it. "With this," he smiled, holding up the ruined diary.
The wraith went completely still. A flicker of doubt passed across Voldemort's face. Doubt, and fear.
Harry laid the punctured diary on the stone dais and took out another object from the satchel - a cracked golden ring, dull and lifeless. "And this," he repeated.
"Impossible," Voldemort's voice was barely a whisper, sharp with confusion. His eyes were narrowed into slits, watching Harry in trepidation.
In quick succession, Harry pulled out Slytherin's locket and Hufflepuff's cup, much to Voldemort's growing horror. The wraith had begun to struggle again, trying to escape the magical prison at all costs.
"And finally, with this," Harry held up a silver diadem, the blue sapphire at the center shining brilliantly with reflected light, "your so-called immortality is undone. Any last words?" he asked.
"NO! NO! NO!" Voldemort was thrashing around the cage like a frenzied animal. "You can't kill me! I am Lord Voldemort! I am beyond death!" he screamed.
I looked at my friend, as did the headmaster. With twin nods of understanding, we took a few steps back, leaving Harry to pull the curtain on this show.
"Goodbye, Tom," said Harry, sparks of lightning beginning to dance along his fingers.
"Wait! WAIT!" Voldemort cried in desperation. "Listen to me, Harry. You have just entered the magical world. Everything that you see around you, everything that looks oh so great and wonderful now, is nothing but mere parlor tricks. After 7 years in this place, you will be little more than a middling wizard at best, forced to conform to their rules and regulations," he scoffed.
"I can help you there. I have travelled the length and breadth of this world. I have unearthed ancient magic long since thought lost. I have delved deeper into magic then any other wizard alive," Voldemort said proudly. "I can teach you how to turn stone into gold, how to bend the strongest minds to your will, how to make the earth rise and the skies fall to do your bidding. With my help, there is nothing you can't do. Money, power, women - you can have it all," he offered.
"Even immortality is not beyond your reach. Horcruxes are merely one way of cheating death...I know several. Together, you and I, we could create a better world - a world shaped in your image. Please, Harry...let me help you," he pleaded.
Harry regarded everything he had just heard. Voldemort, who was watching the boy closely, heaved a metaphorical sigh of relief when the spell Harry was preparing to cast, faded out of existence.
"You make a compelling case, Tom," started Harry, much to Voldemort's hidden glee. "You're right, you can be very useful to me. But there's one thing that makes me just not give a damn." He looked straight at Voldemort, eyes burning with righteous fury. "You killed my mum."
Lightning Bolt
Streaks of pure white lightning left Harry's palms and connected with Voldemort's spirit trapped inside the containment sphere; the burning lightning piercing through the layers of magical light like a blade through silk.
Voldemort screamed.
It was not the scream of a man or even a ghost - it was a howl of something unnatural, being torn into what it never wanted to be: nothing. The lightning wrapped around it, not burning it the way fire does, but rather unraveling it - dissolving every twisted strand of Voldemort's fractured soul.
The sphere flashed brilliant silver - the spires surged in unison - and then with a deafening crack like thunder striking stone, the wraith detonated with a force that sent a shockwave through the chamber, knocking Harry off his feet.
Luckily, Dumbledore and I were there and kept him from falling down. Harry lowered his hands slowly, and together we looked at the center of the room.
No smoke. No ash. No trace.
Just silence.
The chamber turned quiet, the runes dimmed, the light faded to a warm, neutral glow. The door to the room opened and everyone who had been watching the show from outside, flooded in.
"Is it over?" Harry asked, turning to me.
I thoroughly examined every nook and cranny of the chamber with Magesight, while everyone congratulated Harry on taking out the Dark Wanker. Finding nothing amiss, I turned to the headmaster, who had also just finished his own inspection and gave me a relieved smile.
"Yes, Harry," I patted my friend on the back over a job well done. "It's finally over."
Thus ended the tale of Tom Marvolo Riddle, a.k.a. Lord Voldemort.