Dark Pasts { A Harry Potter Story }

Chapter 116 - The Final Duel

Silence reigned in the Great Hall as everyone watched Harry and Voldemort circle each other. I took a step forward, but a hand on my arm stopped me. Ron held me back, his eyes filled with anxiety. I turned my eyes back to Harry, wanting nothing more than to protect him, but knowing I could do nothing but stand and watch.

"I don't want anyone else to try to help," Harry said as though sensing my inner turmoil. His voice made me shiver with relief and fear all at once; I thought I would never hear that voice again.

"It's got to be like this. It's got to be me," he added. 

Voldemort hissed.

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

"Nobody," Harry said. "There are no more Horcruxes. It's just you and me. Neither can live while the other survives, and one of us is about to leave for good. . . ."

"One of us?" Voldemort repeated. "You think it will be you, do you, the boy who has survived by accident, and because Dumbledore was pulling the strings?"

It will be you, Voldemort, I thought. It has to be you.

"Accident, was it, when my mother died to save me?" Harry asked. "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!" Voldemort screamed. "Accident and chance and the fact that you crouched and snivelled behind the skirts of greater men and women, and permitted me to kill them for you!"

I gripped Ron's hand tighter, feeling more anxiety than I had ever felt rush through me.

"You won't be killing anyone else tonight," Harry said, as he and Voldemort still circled around each other. "You won't be able to kill any of them ever again. Don't you get it? I was ready to die to stop you from hurting these people —"

"But you did not!"

"— I meant to, and that's what did it. I've done what my mother 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, Riddle, do you?"

"You dare —"

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

There was a pause, then Voldemort spoke again, a mocking smile etched onto his snake-like face.

"Is it love again?" he sneered. "Dumbledore's favourite solution, love, which he claimed conquered death, though love did not stop him falling from the tower and breaking like an old waxwork? Love, which did not prevent me stamping out your Mudblood mother like a cockroach, Potter — and nobody seems to love you enough to run forward this time and take my curse. So what will stop you dying now when I strike?"

"Just one thing," Harry said.

"If it is not love that will save you this time," Voldemort said, "you must believe that you have magic that I do not, or else a weapon more powerful than mine?"

"I believe both," Harry said.

Shock etched itself onto the dark wizard's face and I gulped nervously. But then Voldemort began to laugh and I jumped slightly.

"You think you know more magic than I do?" he said. "Than I, than Lord Voldemort, who has performed magic that Dumbledorehimself never dreamed of?"