Change Comes From Words

All previous disclaimers apply.

“You invite me to attack you,” Voldemort’s voice was low, questioning as he looked at his greatest enemy, so eager for this battle that had been building between them since that fateful night so many years before, “Are you so eager to die, Harry Potter? Some might question your sanity.”

“They can question all they want,” Harry could not keep the anger out of his voice no matter how he tried, “Perhaps I am insane. Then again, perhaps so are you. We’ll see when it ends who is dead and who lives.”

“Oh, Harry,” Voldemort shook his head and clucked his tongue as if he was speaking to a slightly slow twelve-year-old boy, “Didn’t anyone tell you? You can’t kill evil.”

“Resorting to cliché?” Harry spat back, “Somehow I thought you were much more clever than that. Do you plan to talk me to death, Voldemort?”

“Lord Voldemort!” The Dark Lord drew himself up to his full height and his capes billowed out behind him as the physical power of his magical energy caused the air around him to stir, “I was merely giving you time to say goodbye to your pathetic existence, Potter. My patience with you has now reached it’s end, boy.”

“Bow, Voldemort,” Harry fixed his blazing eyes on Voldemort’s frame. For a moment Voldemort felt pressure on his back, forcing him lower and lower into a slight inclination, as he had once forced Harry to do, “We must respect the pleasantries.”

“How dare you, boy! Crucio!”

Harry couldn’t help it. He screamed as he fell to his knees, the white hot pain searing through his body. He felt the seizures that came with the curse begin as he fell onto his back. He waited for it to end, prayed for it to end. Voldemort was much too arrogant. There would be no way that he would kill him without first speaking again, Harry knew as much. And he had to get him closer. He needed him to be closer. He felt his body go limp and took in deep, gasping breaths as the curse was released. Voldemort was waiting for him as he rose first to his knees, then back to his feet.

“You’ve grown much stronger since the last time we fought, boy, I will give you that. Crucio!”

Harry fell to his knees but did not fall onto his back this time as the tremors took him. He couldn’t breathe around the pain, couldn’t see. Just when he thought that maybe his own plan had been a stupid idea and he was truly frightened that he would die in this graveyard and never see Ron open his eyes again, Voldemort ended the curse again.

“Did you honestly ever believe that you could beat me, boy? Me? The most powerful wizard to ever walk the earth? I should think you would have learned by now. No matter what you do, I always return. Getting up again? My, my, but you are a stubborn one, Harry Potter. Why are you not fighting back, boy? Fight me! Don’t just let me kill you. Where is the fun in that?”

“Fun?” Harry gasped as he struggled to keep his vision straight, his wand held at the ready, “Is that what you call what you do? Fun?”

“Oh yes. Crucio!”

He was toying with him, Harry knew, as he fell to the ground once more, the pain shooting up and down his body an unbearable agony. Voldemort came to stand just over him and the pain let up just a little. So that he could hear everything Voldemort was going to say. Pretentious bastard.

“Harry, why must we fight? You are no small magical power yourself. Imagine what we could do together. We could rule the world. With you by my side, pretty one, there would be nothing that we could not do. I must say, even as the idea of your death makes my blood sing, there has always been a certain something in my mind that calls for you. A prophesy is just a prophesy, Harry. Prophets don’t know everything. We could change history.” Harry spat on the hand that stroked his cheek and screamed when the pain of the spell intensified again. Then, Voldemort dismissed the spell again and walked a little further away. No! Harry got to hid hands and knees, gasping. He watched as Voldemort raised his wand again, prepared to say the spell that would end everything.

“I must say, this is a terrible disappointment.”

“You,” Harry forced around his pain, knowing that in his arrogance Voldemort would have to listen, “You have taken everything from me! A good life with people who loved me! The man who became like my father! Dumbledore! You even took my first lover! Without a second thought you had that snake Wormtail kill him like he was nothing! Like he didn’t have thoughts and dreams and plans! He was only seventeen! And you’ve tried to take my Ron. You think I’m going to let you win when I know that if I kill you he’ll open his eyes again? Oh no, Voldemort. I am not as weak as you think! When I was fighting for a whole world, everything seemed hopeless. But now . . . now I fight for one thing. To see him open his eyes! To tell him I love him! I will kill you, but not before you tell me how to break the spell you’ve put on him!”

“You think you have just been toying with me, don’t you, boy?” Voldemort looked at him with question in his eyes.

“I know I have,” Harry responded, a smile crossing his face, “Expelliarmus!”

Voldemort moved quickly out of the way of the spell, “Do you really think that you can defeat me with such childish spells, Potter? Crucio!”

“Expecto Patronum!” The large stag that Harry had gotten well used to seeing during the war bounded out of his wand and stood as a protective shield between himself and Voldemort’s torturing spell. For a long time Harry had thought that the Patronus could only be used when he was fighting dementors, but Lupin had explained not long into the war that it was a purely defensive spell and, depending on the strength of the attacking spell, could repel and reflect most of them. Harry watched as Voldemort was struck with his own Crucio and writhed for a moment before falling to one knee. Unfortunately, his spell had been strong enough that Harry’s Patronus evaporated into thin air.

“You hurt me, boy,” Voldemort growled as he stood up, “You will not live to do it again. Avada Kedavra!”

Harry dodged the curse and gasped as the headstone that had been directly behind him exploded in a glory of flame. He hid behind a large statue, trying to catch his breath, preparing himself mentally for what had to be done.

“Come out of hiding, boy! Don’t be a coward, face your death like a man. It’s painless, Harry. Just a flash of green light and it’s over. And don’t worry. You won’t be alone for long. Right after I’m done here, I’ll go finish off the little red haired whoring blood traitor lying in that bed. You’ll be with him, and your parents, and soon enough your friends will all join you one by one.”

“You will not touch any of them!” Harry screamed, losing his temper. He jumped up from his hiding place and pointed his wand at Voldemort’s face, “Crucio!”

Voldemort stiffened for a moment, but soon relaxed, “Is that all you have, Potter? Such a weak little spell. Don’t you have any hate in that brave, noble heart of yours? After all, I took your parents, Black, Dumbledore, that ridiculous Diggory, so many of your friends, oh, and one more thing. The man you love. That spell, Potter, a new one I was working out. I never imagined that it would work so well. There is no way to reverse it.”

“You’re . . . you’re lying!”

“Am I? You still haven’t answered my question, Potter. No hate at all? Nothing to back an Unforgivable Curse?”

“No,” Harry whispered. It was a realization even to him, “I don’t hate you, Voldemort. Despite all you’ve done to me, to people I love, I can’t hate you. We’re not so different, you and I, are we? Two lost boys, natural leaders, waiting for friendship, for love. Sometimes I see him, you know, looking out through your eyes.”

“Who?” Voldemort’s voice was dangerously low. Harry recognized the fact, but he couldn’t stop himself now that he’d started.

“Tom. He’s still in there somewhere, just wanting love. Who rejected you, Voldemort? Not just Daddy, oh, no, someone else. I suppose it doesn’t matter. A mixed blood, wasn’t he? Yeah. No, Voldemort. I can’t hate you. I pity you.”

“Pity me?” Voldemort asked, “Damn your pity, Potter!”

Harry felt his body being lifted by invisible hands from the neck and gagged as he tried to pull air into his lungs. He stayed, suspended in midair until Voldemort walked over, threw down his wand, and put his own hands around Harry’s neck, suspending the young man just two inches off the ground. Harry saw dark spots in front of his eyes and dropped his wand.

“I’m going to watch the light leave your eyes, Potter. Then, when you’re dead, I’m going to go down to that hospital and ravage that little blood traitor Malfoy until he’s begging for death. Then, on to your sweet little Weasley. His body will be tight, if unresponsive. Maybe I’ll see if I can find a spell to reverse the one I cast on him, keep him around for a while. Or maybe the mudblood bitch you call your friend. Maybe both of them. I told you before, Potter, you could never hope to beat me. I am the strongest wizard that ever lived.”

“Maybe . . .” Harry gasped, each word a battle, “But, you’re not . . . the strong . . . strongest man who . . . ever lived!”

Voldemort’s eyes went wide, then dull, as Harry pulled the long dagger he had begun to carry months ago tucked at an agle in the back of his jeans from it\'s leather sheath and thrust it straight into Voldemort’s chest. Voldemort held him for a minute more, then dropped him suddenly, staggering backward, his mouth opening and closing with no actual words coming out in shock. Harry rolled over, coughing, and saw Voldemort’s wand. Just as the Dark Lord fell to his knees Harry got to his, grabbed the wand, and snapped it in half. Voldemort looked as if he wanted to cast a nonverbal curse. But, it had been years since Voldemort had been remotely hurt in any way and now he was dying. Harry knew there would be no way he would be able to concentrate enough to form one. Harry crawled over to where Voldemort lay, his head resting on shattered tombstone, his arms and legs moving on their own as his nerves fired randomly.

“Can you hear me, old man? Listen to my voice as you die. I figured it out months ago. I could never hate you, so I could never kill you with a curse. So, what to do? You expected magic, didn’t you? Well, here’s the thing about muggles . . . they create the most simple, yet effective, things to make up for their lack of magic. One of the first being the knife. Good thing I was raised muggle, isn’t it? Know as you die, old man, that a muggle object killed you. No spells, no potions. A knife. A muggle creation. With you gone, we’ll hunt down all your army. But, this time you aren’t coming back, old man. Because it wasn’t magic took your life. Know also as you die, that I don’t hate you, Voldemort. I don’t hate you, Tom. But, I hope to heaven that you burn in hell.”

With his last words, Harry drove the knife home, straight through Voldemort’s chest. Harry watched the light go out of his eyes, the blood run from his mouth down his chin. For good measure, Harry pulled the dagger out, plunged it back in, right into Voldemort’s heart. Then, remembering what he had said about Ron, Harry pulled the dagger out again. With a cry of pure pain he brought it down across the dead wizard’s throat, pushing as hard as he could until the head was severed from the body completely. Then, he dropped the knife and began to sob.

Over. It was finally all over. So many years, and so many losses, and Voldemort was finally dead. The task was not complete until the army was hunted down and he knew that the wizarding and muggle communities would call for them all to be killed instead of imprisoned this time and he wasn’t sure if he was going to oppose it or support it yet, but . . . Voldemort was dead. He had fulfilled his destiny. And he would never see Ron open his eyes again. Was it worth it? Could it be worth it, to survive when the one that he loved would lie in an eternal sleep? Harry fell onto his side on the hard ground, not caring how much it hurt his weakened body even as he felt a couple of ribs crack. He curled around himself.

Just let me die, he prayed, just let me die. Every breath was a struggle as he sobbed around pain both physical and emotional, but he didn’t care. I want to die.

Don’t even think it, a voice whispered in his mind, I love you, Harry Potter.

Not caring if the voice was real or imagined Harry whispered, “I love you, Ron Weasley.” Then, he closed his eyes, and knew no more.


Author\'s note: Is anyone still reading this? Should I even bother to finish?