The morning of the duel dawned cold and grey. Godric's Hollow was not the quiet, sleepy village it had been. It was the center of the wizarding world. A powerful ward, erected by Dumbledore and the Ministry, kept the crowds of onlookers at a safe distance on the surrounding hills, but thousands were gathered, their wands lit like stars in the pre-dawn gloom. Reporters from every magical newspaper on the planet were present, their magical cameras poised. This was not a secret battle; it was a public execution of a reputation.
In the center of the wide, open plain opposite the graveyard, Ariana stood alone. She was dressed in simple, dark, functional robes, her honey-blonde hair tied back, her expression as calm and serene as the still morning air. She was a solitary, poised figure against the vast, empty landscape.
As the first, weak rays of sunlight pierced the horizon, he appeared. Lord Voldemort Apparated to the far side of the field with a sharp, angry crack, his tall, skeletal form a slash of darkness against the rising sun. His red eyes burned with a furious, malevolent fire. He was radiating an aura of immense, uncontrolled power.
They stood facing each other, a hundred yards of dew-kissed grass between them. A profound silence fell over the watching world.
Dumbledore himself sat before a small table. On it rested the final obsidian sphere containing the last piece of Tom Riddle's soul. He held a Basilisk fang in his hand. He watched the scene in Godric's Hollow through a long-distance viewing charm. He saw Voldemort raise his wand. He knew it was time.
With a whisper of profound regret for the boy Tom Riddle once was, he plunged the fang into the sphere.
In Godric's Hollow, Voldemort felt it. A sudden, horrifying, soul-deep wrench. A feeling of absolute, terrifying vulnerability. This weakness, there was only one thing that can inflict such weakness in him, the anchors that had tethered him to immortality, the ones he had clung to as his ultimate secret, were gone. For the first time in over fifty years, he was mortal.
A flicker of pure, animal panic crossed his snake-like face. He looked at Ariana, at her calm, knowing expression, and he understood. This had all been a trap. She knew.
But his arrogance, his immense pride, would not let him flee. He was Lord Voldemort. He was more powerful. He would kill this girl, and then he would find a way to make more Horcruxes. He raised the Yew wand.
"You will pay for your insolence, girl," he hissed. "Avada Kedavra!"
A jet of sickening green light, the color of death itself, shot from his wand.
The duel began. And it was, as Ariana had intended, a brutal, one-sided, and utterly humiliating takedown.
She did not meet his Killing Curse with one of her own. She simply took a graceful side-step, the jet of green light flying harmlessly past her, her movement so fluid and economical it looked as though she were merely avoiding a puddle.
"Your aim is poor, Tom," she said, her voice calm and carrying across the field. "Perhaps it is a symptom of your failing magical integrity."
Enraged, he fired another, and another. Each time, she moved with an unearthly grace, deflecting, shielding with a flick of her wrist, or simply sidestepping the deadliest curse in the wizarding world as if it were a minor inconvenience.
"Is this the only spell you know?" she asked, a note of genuine, academic curiosity in her voice. "Your magical vocabulary seems remarkably limited for a self-proclaimed Dark Lord."
The mockery, delivered so calmly, so logically, was more infuriating than any counter-attack. He abandoned the Killing Curse and unleashed a torrent of dark, complex magic—curses that would flay the skin, boil the blood, shatter the bone.
Ariana met them all. She did not just block them; she dismantled them. She transfigured the bone-shattering curse into a flock of harmless butterflies. She caught the torrent of Fiendfyre on her wand, spun it into a contained, fiery lariat, and then extinguished it with a casual flick, as if snuffing out a candle.
She was not dueling him. She was playing with him.
She began her own offensive. It was not an attack designed to kill, but to humiliate.
"Expelliarmus," she said, her voice almost bored. The Yew wand flew from Voldemort's hand.
Before he could react, she summoned it to her own. "A poor grip."
"Levicorpus," she murmured. Voldemort was hoisted into the air by his ankle, his robes falling around his head, his pale, skeletal form dangling ignominiously.
"Liberacorpus," she said, dropping him to the ground with a heavy thud.
As he scrambled up, furious and disoriented, she hit him with a series of minor but deeply insulting jinxes. A Bat-Bogey Hex. A Jelly-Legs Jinx. A spell that made his ears wiggle uncontrollably.
The crowd, which had been watching in terrified silence, began to murmur. Then, a few nervous chuckles were heard. Then, outright laughter. They were not watching a duel between a Dark Lord and a young witch. They were watching a schoolyard bully being systematically, comically, and completely taken apart by a vastly superior opponent.
Voldemort's rage finally boiled over. He let out a shriek of pure, unadulterated fury and lunged at her, abandoning magic for a physical attack.
Ariana sighed. "Pathetic."
With a final, silent, powerful spell, she slammed him back, bound him in ropes of pure silver energy, and levitated his now helpless, struggling form to the center of the field.
She turned to the stunned crowd and the frantic, scribbling reporters. "Tom Marvolo Riddle," she announced, her voice ringing with finality. "Defeated. Mortal. And no longer a threat."
The victory was absolute.
She handed the bound, powerless Dark Lord over to a stunned Amelia Bones and a triumphant Dumbledore. The final disposition was decided quickly. Azkaban was not secure enough. A trial was a pointless formality. The Killing Curse was too merciful.
They took him, under heavy Auror guard, back to the Ministry, to the chamber Harry had seen in his dreams. To the room with the ancient, tattered veil that fluttered on a stone archway.
Dumbledore looked at Harry. His face was grim, but his eyes were clear. "The prophecy said that one must kill the other. It did not specify the method." He nodded towards the whispering veil. "This is a gateway from which there is no return. It is a final end."
He looked at Harry, at the boy who had carried the burden of this prophecy his entire life. "It is your right, Harry. To be the one to finish it."
Harry looked at the struggling, pathetic form of the man who had murdered his parents, the man who had caused so much pain and suffering. He felt no hatred. He felt only a great, weary pity. He raised his wand.
With a simple, powerful Banishing Charm, he pushed the bound form of Tom Riddle through the archway. For a moment, Voldemort's eyes widened in a final look of shocked, terrified understanding. Then, the veil fluttered around him, and he was gone.
A profound, final silence filled the room. It was over.
The prophecy was fulfilled. The Dark Lord was vanquished. Not in a blaze of glory or a tragic sacrifice, but through a cold, logical, and systematic campaign orchestrated by a quiet, brilliant girl who had decided to rewrite the story on her own terms.
Harry Potter, the Boy Who Lived, had survived. But it was Ariana Dumbledore, the girl who had mastered the logic of magic, who had truly won the war.