𝐋𝐚𝐝𝐲 𝐢𝐧 𝐑𝐞𝐝 {𝐇. 𝐆𝐫𝐚𝐧𝐠𝐞𝐫}

106

"They're all gone," Johnny heard his Aunt Lily's voice in his head. "The Horcruxes, this is your chance, Johnny."

Johnny awoke on the cold, hard floor of the Great Hall. A battle was going on around him as he sat up, confusion written on his face. The last thing he remembered was getting hit by the Killing Curse, so how was he alive? Johnny didn't have time to figure out the answer, as he saw Voldemort in the centre, aiming his wand at Molly Weasley.

"Protego!" roared Johnny, and the Shield Charm expanded in the middle of the Hall, and Voldemort stared him down.

The yell of shock, the cheers, the screams on every side of: "Johnny!"

"HE'S ALIVE!" were stifled at once. The crowd was afraid, and silence fell abruptly and completely as Voldemort and Johnny looked at each other, and began, at the same moment, to circle each other.

"I don't want anyone else to help," Johnny said loudly, and in the total silence his voice carried like a trumpet call. "Especially not Harry. It's got to be like this. It's got to be me."

Voldemort hissed.

"Potter isn't here, as you see, besides, Grindelwald doesn't mean that," Voldemort said, his red eyes wide. "This isn't how he works, is it? Who are you going to use as a shield today, Grindelwald?"

"Nobody," said Johnny simply. "There are no more Horcruxes. It's just you and me. One of us is making it out alive, Tom."

"One of us?" jeered Voldemort, and his whole body was taut and his red eyes stared, a snake that was about to strike. "You think it will be you, do you, the boy who has survived by accident, and because Dumbledore was pulling the strings?"

"Accident, was it, when it was you who killed the wolf inside, not the human?" asked Johnny. They were still moving sideways, both of them, in that perfect circle, maintaining the same distance from each other, and for Johnny no face existed but Voldemort's. "Accident, when I decided to fight in that graveyard? Accident, that I didn't defend myself tonight, and still survived, and returned to fight again?"

"Accidents!" screamed Voldemort, but still he didn't strike, and the watching crowd was frozen as if Petrified, and of the hundreds in the Hall, nobody seemed to breathe but them two. "Accident and chance and the fact that you crouched and sniveled behind the skirts of greater men and women, and permitted me to kill them for you!"

"You won't be killing anyone else tonight," said Harry, stepping out to stand beside Ron, who clapped him on the back, just as continued Johnny and Voldemort circled, and stared into each other's eyes, blue into red. "You won't be able to kill any of them ever again. Don't you get it? Johnny and I were ready to die to stop you from hurting these people-"

"But you did not!" Snapped Voldemort, taking his eyes off Johnny for a second.

"-We meant to, and that's what did it. We've done what my Aunt Lily did. They're protected from you. Haven't you noticed how none of the spells you put on them are binding? You can't torture them. You can't touch them. You don't learn from your mistakes, Tom, do you?" Spoke Johnny, in a low cold voice. "Everyone standing in this room, my fiancé and my child can't be harmed by you."

"You dare-"

"Yes, I dare," said Johnny. "Harry and I know things you don't know, Tom Riddle. We know lots of important things that you don't. Want to hear some, before you make another big mistake?"

Voldemort didn't speak, but prowled in a circle, and Johnny knew that he kept him temporarily mesmerised at bay, held back by the faintest possibility that Johnny might indeed know a final secret....