‘…either must die at the hand of the other…’

Those words echoed in Harry’s head like a badly tuned record player, but in his bones, he knew if it weren’t for those words, he would’ve never been able to stand and face what someone else had—either purposely or unwittingly—deemed his destiny.

A short, stocky fellow with a quivering silver hand, stood slightly before Voldemort on his right, his wand raised and pointing. “Now, now,” Voldemort kept his malicious smile in place. “Let the children have a fair chance. Let them keep their wands.”

Ron was pale beyond belief, as was Neville, and vaguely in the back of his mind, a dry voice told Harry that he was the only one among the group that had ever truly faced Voldemort. The others had always been off somewhere else.

Lucky them.

Hermione and Ginny’s faces were unreadable behind their mask and darkness, respectively, but Harry had the impression that it was the same—except Ginny. She’d face Voldemort before, his younger self mind, but still she had.

“Tell me Potter,” Voldemort continued, his voice talking as if they were old chums. “Do you like the irony of it?”

“Of life, Tom?” Harry asked snidely as the Death Eater’s shifted about him. “No, not really, life’s just toopredictable to be ironic anymore.”

Voldemort narrowed his red eyes somewhat. “Of the dates, Potter, of the dates.”

“I’m sorry,” Harry briefly bowed his head, feigning sincerity. There was laughter from the Death Eaters, until Harry looked up again, eyes glinting. “I happened to have erased all the dates from my calendar, therefore I don’t know what the date is, nor do I care.”

That was a lie. He knew it was Halloween, but then again, didn’t mean he knew the date—just the day.

“Though, I do know it to be Tuesday, and if you anything into Lewis Carroll it would be my Un-birthday, oh,” Harry pretended to have hit a realization. “And your un-birthday too. Imagine that.” Harry smiled sweetly at the demon.

The monster had to take a breath briefly while the Death Eaters growled and murmured threats from beneath their masks. They were contained from acting, however, until Voldemort gave them word.

Such loyal puppies.

“Cheeky, Mr. Potter, cheeky,” Voldemort tilted his finger back and forth; tutting like Harry was a naughty boy. “I don’t approve of cheek, especially from those I’m going to kill. I prefer,” he tapped his chin, sardonically. “Groveling.”

“Then get on your knees and grovel,” Harry shrugged. “Get your kicks wherever you can, doesn’t bother me.”

There was a bellow of holy rage from the Death Eaters as they all made to surge forward, and Voldemort’s eyes narrowed so darkly that the red light of them gleamed lowly to an even more unearthly, devilishly glow.

Yet, just as he whipped out his wand, his lips perched on the perfect spell, Hermione’s whip cracked down, breaking his right cheek.

“He’s not alone,” Hermione growled. “Don’t be foolish to forget that.” Blood trickled from the cut of the whip down Voldemort’s cheek, while the surging Death Eaters froze in shock.

“Her-Hermione,” Ron whispered, voice quivering in shock.

“Suck it up, Ron,” Hermione hissed, eyes still locked with Voldemort’s. “Won’t do yourself, nor Harry’s, any good to piss your pants in fear—fight,” she smiled lopsidedly, at Voldemort not Ron. “And fight ‘till they grovel.”

Having never heard Hermione speak like that, everyone but Harry—who had never been there—was shocked out of the dumbfounded, horrified stupor, and their bodies straightened up for a hell of a battle.

The end maybe, even, possibly.

Then, Hermione cracked her whip this time, hitting Voldemort’s other cheek, and that was that.

Not many in history would ever believe that it was Hermione Granger, whipping the whip of her Halloween Costume, that started the battle, but it was true. And all those present or who knew Hermione and really thought about it knew it was true.

And as the resounding crack of the whip echoed around, it was the teenagers, lured into the trap, that truly started the fight. Shouting out spells in unison, stunning and shocking the dumbfounded Death Eaters, who didn’t react until Voldemort recovered enough to wave them along.

He, however, was watching Hermione with the deepest lust—not of love, but of blood. Wiping his hand across his cheek, smearing the blood, he joined the fray of the battle, something he rarely did, his eyes only for Hermione.

She wouldn’t get away with that…

Harry, engulfed in a plague of Death Eaters, fighting them off quickly, skillfully, looked wild-eyed around, attempting to place where Voldemort was heading, suddenly had a sickening jolt to his stomach.

“Hermione!” he hollered, fighting off the hands that attempted to grab him and shielding the spells. “Hermione!” she was fighting with her wand and whipping her whip with the other, while Ginny, not but a few feet away did the same thing with her scythe.

The bushy-haired girl looked over, distracted for the briefest of seconds, and found Harry wildly gesturing around, but frowned, not understanding.

Swearing a low word, the boy rammed the nearest Death Eater in the stomach, and sprinted forward, pumping his arms, feeling his breath hot on his lips, his wands damp in his palm, but he ran.

Ran to a premature badly with Voldemort—to save his friend…

“Tom!” Harry hollered just as the monster raised his wand, to curse the unprotected back of Hermione Granger. “Your fight is with me.” The man didn’t look at him, just drew his lips back in a lethal curse.

Harry ran faster, skidding and cursing Death Eaters out of his way. “Tom!” he screamed about. The monster was listening.

How annoying.

Gasping for breath, Harry did the only thing he could think of. Tipping his wand to his throat, he murmured “Sonorus.” Then, he took the deepest breath he could. “Oy!” his voice boomed out. “Tom, you bloody whore, your fight is with me…”

That got Voldemort’s attention, who turned to him in such a deadly spin that half the Death Eaters about him froze in fear. But Harry was moving too quickly and his tennis were worn to the point that he couldn’t stop.

He careened forward, unable to stop, and Voldemort, unsuspecting, wasn’t able to move out of the way as Harry crashed into him, attempting in vain to get away from the monster of a man, only to get entangled in his limbs, tackling him like an American football player.

Fancy that. Harry Potter tackled Lord Voldemort. Now that was a headline.

Smashing head over heels, and the Death Eaters too preoccupied with their battle to do anything, the hero and the villain smashed their faces heavily into the dirt, slipping down the side hill that rolled toward the basement of the Manor.

Finally slowing down, they flipped off each other quickly, their bodies burning from the contact, Harry’s forehead naturally bubbling painfully. Yet, before the boy could fetch his fallen wand, Voldemort had attacked.

He lunged forward, wrapping his hands about Harry’s neck, and pressing in darkly.

“I can’t,” the pale monster panted as the fight in the front yard raged, unknowing of this single battle. “Beat you with magic, it seems, so I’ll do it the muggle way. Imagine that.” Pressing his thumbs down, he broke into Harry’s windpipe, causing the boy to gasp and grope blindly at his hands.

Writhing, he pried and shoved at the hands, his lungs begging and burning for air, while throwing out one hand in an attempt to grab the discarded wand. Yet it was feet away from his fingertips.

Nothing like the movies, eh?

Tears streamed down his emerald eyes, his face reddening painfully, even his lips tingling, and slowly his thrashing against the ruthlessly grinning demon died down, his lungs pumping the oxygen that was already in his body hurriedly and panicky.

He was dying.

It was ebbed in his bones, his blood, his failing limps and breath, he was dying. He was going to die, Voldemort was going to succeed.

The Prophecy would fall through on the worst of the light and he was going to die…

His hands fell limp at Voldemort’s grasp and he stared at the man’s pale face, seeing that large smile that wasn’t really a smile, and the red eyes that he had once witnessed a-raising from a cauldron.

He’d been the man’s first death, then he’s rebirth, and now it was his time to die. Yet, when he, Harry Potter, died, it would only be once.

Voldemort was chuckling now, pressing down even harder, and Harry felt his eyes droop.

Death…

Painful in the sense of what he was leaving behind…

Then, suddenly, the hands were ripped off his throat, and oxygen flooded with mouth such extreme force that he erupted in hacking, burning coughs, rolling over as spittle rolled from his mouth and blood drained weakly with it.

Vaguely, he could see the blurred shape of two men fighting, with fists, not wands, and as his focus came back, he groaned with a hoarse coughing hack. Yet, he could just barely make out his savior through the shadows, he felt familiar, but who…

Then there was a jet of colorless light and his savior went flying backwards, landing rather ungracefully on his arse. Harry blinked dumbly for a second.

Professor Snape.

“You don’t think I knew it wasn’t you, Snape?” Voldemort hissed, stalking forward with Severus’s wand in hand. His and Harry’s still lay discarded a few feet away. “I knew you were the spy the whole time—but I used you to make Dumbledore feel safe, like he had control.”

Voldemort flicked a glance at Harry, narrowing his eyes. “You were so useful to me, I was really hoping to get you back under my wing. Taunt you with the things that you loved so much when you first joined, but…” he shook his head sadly, raising his wand. “I failed, I see.”

“Dogs don’t like abusive masters, that’s all,” Snape bite out, blood trickling from the corner of his mouth. Voldemort’s mouth twitch, but nonetheless he kept his wand raised.

“Goodbye, old dog,” he said, almost gravely, before setting his mouth to the lethal curse. Yet, before Harry could act, someone else did.

She swung out of nowhere, like Death himself, and brought her already bloodied scythe straight into Voldemort’s chest—barely damaging him for the force of the swing was weak from her angle—and caused the man too stumble backwards, trip, and fall onto the rotten doors that led into his basement.

As the crash of splintering wood echoed up, taking Voldemort from view, Harry blinked up at Ginny, startled.

“Are you all right?” she asked, looked between the two startled men.

Snape seemed to snap himself out of his stupor the quickest, and climbing haphazardly to his feet, he gestured to Harry, indicating Ginny should help him. “You two hurry leave these grounds and go around to the lightning struck tree. It’s a left turn, you can’t miss it.”

“What about you sir?” Ginny asked, tentatively.

“I’ll get the others.” He turned a hard eye onto them. “I said GO!” Instantly Ginny jumped forward, just as Harry swooped up the wands.

“Sir,” he called out and the man turned to him, glaring. “Here.” He tossed him his wand. “My wand—I’ve got Tom’s,” he waggled the Dark Lord’s wand. “My will be more willing to accept your hand at use…trust me.”

But before Snape could question the ‘trust me’ part, there was a sudden flare of black light from the basement and Voldemort leapt out like the devil himself. Swearing, Snape instinctively slid before Harry and Ginny, urging them to go with hisses.

Ginny grasped Harry’s arm, to help support the breathless boy, and made to lead him away, stealthily into the night, when they froze, dead in shock. Voldemort hadn’t paused in his leaping pounce, but had dived forward, straight at Snape, who engaged him quickly in a countering battle that consisted of fists and magic this time.

They were fighting in a circle, fists pounding into already made wounds, and spells making fresh ones. They seemed to titter in their own clash of magic, stalking and fighting blatantly in a vertical angle that inevitably took them back to the basement’s shattered doors.

Just as they almost lost their balance over the doors, Voldemort lashed out, slamming Snape’s whole wand straight into the man’s gut. Ginny and Harry weren’t too naïve—they knew the sharp, pointed wood pierced the man’s flesh.

He hunched forward, gasping, and almost gently Voldemort stroked his head.

“You were such a good servant—spy or not,” the man seemed to coo. Breathing heavily, eyes hot in anger, Harry gripped Ginny’s arm till it hurt her.

“When it’s clear,” Harry whispered as Snape was slowly lowered to the ground by a crouching Voldemort. “Use that spell Hermione taught us, that stabilizes blood wounds on Professor Snape, understood?”

“But Harry…”

“Understood?” he barked and she nodded, confused.

With that, Harry broke her grasped, and ran forward, his whole body side-tackling Voldemort, who had just drew out Snape’s wand from the man’s gut. Surprised by the attack, they flipped over the basement’s brim, straight into down the stairs littered with shards.

Breathlessly, they struggled for a moment, attempting to overpower the over, until Voldemort once again gained the upper hand, but Harry was ready for it. Curling his fist about a shard of wood, he slapped it upside the man’s head, sending him reeling to the side, and rolling over, he took advantage of the man’s defenselessness.

It would never happen again.

“Can you really kill me, Harry?” Voldemort asked quietly as the boy dug his wand into the man’s temple, seething. Voldemort laid out beneath him, gingerly coxing his fingers to where Snape’s wand lay discarded.

“You’ve killed so many,” Harry rasped hoarsely, fighting with morals. He couldn’t kill could he? “You killed my parents,” his throat was so raw. “You killed Sirius. You might’ve killed Snape. You killed Cedric. That other old man, the keeper of your house. YOU DESERVE TO DIE!”

Voldemort chuckled, his longer fingers still reaching for the wand. “Yes, I have killed, but Harry, can you?

‘…either must die at the hand of the other…’

Harry’s breath tightened in his ill-used throat and water stung his eyes. Could he? He twisted Voldemort’s wand a bit, palms sweating. Could he kill?

The man’s wiry fingers laced about the wand, a ruthless smile brimming his face.

“I thought as much,” he breathed softly. “You can’t kill, Harry, but I…”

A scream erupted from outside. Harry’s insides boiled. His friends were in trouble. They might die. Die…

Because of Voldemort.

“Avada Kedavra!” Harry shouted it with all his heart, the injustice of all those that died at Voldemort’s hand flaring into his emotion, his love for those that died spilling his bones, and the green light of the lethal curse broke the evil wand, straight into Voldemort’s head.

There was blaring, sickening moment as Voldemort’s life was knocked form him, but once it died down, Harry gazed down at the body of his dead foe.

He glanced at the wand, still driven into the man’s temple.

‘The wand chooses the wizard…’

The wand kills the wizard too…

Tears washed Harry’s face, as the rumbling of the building above him, having taken the force of the killing curse and Voldemort’s last and wordless curse badly.

Wood rained down on his beaten body, and the dead body, and as Harry looked up, blinking, he frowned to himself.

They weren’t both supposed to die…

888

The Death Eaters knew their Master was dead the moment he died—their arms burned like fiery ash and the mark vanished…for good this time. They ceased their fighting, stunned, and the teenagers fighting them stared at them dumbfounded.

Then it clicked. And they too knew.

Yet there was no time for questioning or rejoicing—on the teenagers’ part—for the Riddle Manor suddenly shuddered darkly before collapsing in on itself, pouring in like some impounding fist had punched it from above, slamming the roof down and collecting the rest of the house on the way down.

It was a beautiful scene, really.

Yet it was ruined as the Death Eaters began to flee and the four Hogwarts students shot off spells, stunning and binding them. Once most of them were caught and the Riddle Manor was settled, they heard the yells.

“Ginny,” Ron gasped in panic, and despite his numerous wounds, he took off running, his feet smacking out from beneath him. Hermione, Neville, and Luna hot on his trail. Skidding down the hill, they slide to a halt at the scene of Ginny and a very groggy Severus Snape.

Ginny had tears streaming down her face and was ruining her hands as she feverishly dug through the rubble of the house, and Professor Snape watched her, his mouth dry, his hands itching to help her.

“Wh—what’s going on?” Hermione asked, fearful.

Ginny looked at them, her eyes washed out in tears. “Harry’s in there.” She croaked. “In the basement—under it all…”

There was nothing else to say, for suddenly everyone dived forward, wands ablaze, flinging off wood and worked in a fervor to get to The-Boy-They-Hoped-Lived…better known as their best friend, Harry.