꧁ʙᴏʀɴ ᴛᴏ ᴛʜᴇ ᴘᴜʀᴘʟᴇ꧂

ᴇᴘɪʟᴏɢᴜᴇ

꧁✧✧✧꧂

𝐍𝐢𝐧𝐞𝐭𝐞𝐞𝐧 𝐲𝐞𝐚𝐫𝐬 𝐥𝐚𝐭𝐞𝐫...

"𝕳arry Potter is dead!"

The pinnacle of evil announces, his voice orotund, his red eyes rich with the power his craving was so intense, so fanatical for, he stopped at nothing to possess it. Warnings laughed off, condemning, corrupt sacrifices and permanent side effects no deterrent. And well within reason, look where it got him, The Boy Who Lived, The Chosen One, the prophesied hero who possessed the power to vanquish the Dark Lord, lying at his bare feet, done, defeated.

Dead.

Harry Potter is dead.

The entrance courtyard, marvellous magic brought to the ground, wrecked to dusty rubble and scattered remains and immortal memories in valiant battle silences at the disgustingly smug proclamation, at the final loss of hope for a Wizarding world full of love, of balanced light and dark chosen to be acted on morally, of beautiful magic that makes the even oldest of folk giggle and whisper in unbridled awe like infant children opening an enchanted chocolate frog from Honeydukes sweetshop for the very first time.

Bellatrix Lestrange skips forward from the outnumbering gang of Death Eaters facing the survivors, happily hopping from broken boulder to boulder piled at the side, cackling her head off with something that's reflected in Voldemort's triumphant smile. He lifts a pale, bony hand, lightly stroking the scaly head of the softly hissing snake coiled around his robed shoulders like a royal mantle. An authority symbolic garment for lords, kings, rulers like him. No threat, no danger is posed to him now. Not while Harry Potter is dead.

"Come forward and join us!"

The unease, the fear from the Hogwarts crowd is palpable and Voldemort laughs, swinging around to his grotty followers like a school boy that's tormenting a poor first year purely for the fun of it and seeking an approving reaction. Some laugh along with him, some don't. He can't bring himself to care. He's feared and invincible and he's laughing, bouncing on his feet practically, an action his body is rather unfamiliar with. A feeling his body is rather unfamiliar with.

Happiness.

For the very first time in his preternatural existence, he actually feels something that others born naturally, conceived out of real emotion, describe as happiness. So much of it, that he's led to believe he's started to be deluded by it, hearing things that aren't there. Seeing things that aren't there. His vigilant gaze charges through the hushed and still army, dips to analyse the lifeless body flopped face down directly in front of him.

Harry Potter is dead.

But he's made the mistake of thinking that's the case before. Thinking that deaths have been finalised. Real.