A War at the End of the World

Doesn’t it go without Saying that I don’t own the characters of Harry Potter and anything associated. Well I don’t. I’m depressed now. Where’s a fruit cup.

Please bear with me through the first couple of chapters. I want to write a good story and some smutty glory so give me a couple of set-up chapter and i promise you won't regret it. Promise. Thanks ^-^

Chapter 1: The Two Men Meet

Voldermort had been surprised. More than surprised really, but mostly just surprised. The man started to pace the room again, an office, not a throne room. Displays of power were all well and good, but the Darklord preferred simple comforts. Still, it was a large office with a huge fire place along the wall and lanterns filled with wisps provided light, chairs and couches were placed casually about as best suited the room and the man’s mood; which were often far more pleasant than not. Not that many knew that.

Voldermort didn’t think that being a Darklord meant he had to be a stick in the mud.

Paintings had been hung about the room, witches and wizards from long—and not so long—ago. Darklords. Each and everyone. More than anyone had ever guessed at. Far more than anyone knew about to be sure. Some of them snored away in their paintings while others watched the most recent lord stalking his office like a nervous animal. Watching him was what had put some of them to sleep in the first place. Still it was better then when he began stalking the halls of the castle, forcing one or more of them to slip into other portraits to keep track of him. Paintings or not, it was beneath the Darklords to have to endure portrait after portrait dedicated to magical creatures in their natural habitats.

And Esmerelda still shied away from leaving her own portrait after her encounter with fauns in the second floor portraits.

Voldermort paused in his pacing and once again stared at the message that lay on the large mahogany desk near the fire.

‘We should meet.’ It read simply, nothing overly special about the message really. There had been no fireworks when he had read it or encryption charms, just an elegant scrawl on nice letterhead. That it had come by way of the Phoenix, Fawkes, and that he recognized the letterhead as being from Albus’s personal stock, well…

It was a most special message indeed. The man turned away and started his pacing again. The two men had at one time been close. Close as the founders had been. Or at least that was what Voldermort had liked to believe. And why not? He was the heir of Slytherin, Albus, the heir of Ravenclaw. There was no reason that they shouldn’t have been close. No one could understand either man the way they understood each other, unless of course he was an heir himself.

But still… To meet after all this time. There was such bad blood between them. What once had started as a shared dream to protect the wizarding world had turned into a crusade, one that looked as if it would lead to one if not both of their deaths.

Voldermot looked at the sheet of paper again. Maybe there was still some hope.

The man who had once been Tom Riddle moved decisively to his chair behind the desk. The paintings of the former Darklords watched him, hoping that they were not watching their latest incarnation make a truly tragic mistake. Tom picked up his quill and on the same sheet of paper wrote simply: ‘Agreed.’

Before Tom could sign his name beneath his response the parchment flashed a dull orange before being consumed by fire. Tom watched as the paper burned through a rainbow of colors before settling to a warm reddish glow. Just as the last bit of parchment turned black the fire in the hearth turned green, there was a roar that was followed by the figure of Albus Dumbledore as he flooed into the Darklords lair.

Albus looked around at the not bright, but adequately light room with a look of appreciation before the twinkle in his eye brightened suddenly after falling on the portrait of a middle-aged woman with a permanent blush on her cheeks.

“Ah. Esmerelda Dinch. I always suspected.” Albus smiled kindly at the portrait of the previous Darklord, causing the portrait to deepen the blush that had already been in place on her cheeks, before turning to the current one.

“Tom,” the headmaster said, inclining his head.

Lord Voldermort sat back in his seat, his hands steepled in front of him. “Albus,” the name said neutrally, not a greeting or a warning. “Have a seat.”

One of the chairs in front of Voldermort’s desk slid of slightly in invitation.

Dumbledore moved to the chair saying thank you as he took the seat.

Picking a crystal dish up off of the desk with a barely a thought, Voldermort floated a small white piece of candy into his own hand before sending the entire thing over to Dumbledore. “Peppermint bomb?”

Dumbledore took the offered candy and waited while his former student set the dish back down. “So what do I owe the pleasure of this very abrupt visit?” The Darklord asked calmly, special emphasis placed on the abrupt. He had thought he would have to wait for Fawkes to come and claim his response, but with the headmasters sudden arrival Voldermort was beginning to question the security of his wards and castle.

Dumbledore chuckled softly at his former student’s not so obvious discomfort before taking pity on the man. “Still so much to know Tom. Too much. Always. Even for me, but I assure you, I do not now, nor will I or any other person be able to discover the location of,” Albus paused and looked around, “your home. You have my word.”

Slightly mollified Voldermort relaxed a bit.

“As to what I am doing here,” Albus continued. “Well. It seems that I may have made a bit of a mess of it.”

Red eyes rolled slightly. “And while I have been waiting years to hear you say that, I have to say that I’m not surprised.”

Tom watched as the headmaster sat up a little straighter his back stiff, and his mouth quirked angrily.

“No need to be peevish now.” The headmaster glared at the Darklord sternly, a bit of his twinkle gone.

Tom had his own chuckle, a bit more sinister than the older man’s, but no less amused. “Of course not. Forgive me,” he said, his smiling widening as the headmaster rolled his own eyes. Voldermort popped the peppermint bomb into his mouth. “So would you like to clarify what you meant by mess?”

The headmaster took in a small breath and let it out slowly. He knew this meeting would not be easy. It had been more than ideological differences that had placed a wedge in the two men’s friendship. Not that Albus ever alluded to it. But sometimes Tom was simply just a jerk.

“Would you like the long version or the short version?”

“Short. I will make my decisions from there.”

“The ministry is preparing to kill Harry,” the headmaster said gravely.

The irreverent mood that had been filling the air died suddenly. Had there been warning Voldermort would have dropped the smile from his face, now it seemed strange and out of place. He had a moment to wonder if he looked now as insane as most of his followers and the general wizarding populace thought he was.

“Why?”

“Many reasons. Too many of them my own fault.” Albus took the glasses from his face and began cleaning them with the sleeve of his robe. “That the heir of gryffindor is not fully human may have been the final flake on this avalanche.”

“Potter isn’t human?” The Darklord questioned. He knew the boy was an heir, but for the heir to also be mixed with a magical creature. Well… “What kind of creature.”

Dumbledore sat silent for a moment. “Fae. Woodland Fae.”

To say that Voldermort was speechless would have been to say that the Malfoys were well off. Fae were dangerous. Dangerous and powerful. Once, when he had gone by the name Tom Riddle, he would have even called them scary. The fae were not so much magical creatures as they were creatures of magic. Water fae, earth fae, fire, wind, metal, they were all quite dangerous to the point where any interaction with them at all had been outlawed by the ministry hundreds of years earlier to avoid “disagreements” that could end in the death of hundreds of wizards and muggles alike. Not that the fae saw a difference. Human was human. Magical or not. To be a member of any of the elemental fae would have made the boy dangerous, but to be woodland fae.

“Potter’s practically magical royalty,” the darkload said drolly. “How?”

“The Evans family,” Dumbledore replied. "Lilly’s family. I thought them muggles, squibs at best; but somewhere in the Evans line there was a wizard or witch that mated with a fae.” Not that the headmaster knew that for sure. All of his research had only hinted at the prospect. There had never been any conclusive evidence. None that he could find at least. But that didn’t matter, he had all the hard evidence he needed in Harry. Though only if he had seen it sooner.

“The fae blood may have been dormant for generations,” the headmaster continued on. “It could have been waiting for the right circumstances or it could have been waiting for”

“Potter,” the Darklord finished.

“Harry,” Dumbledore affirmed. “His fae blood is dominant, whether it was triggered by the gryffindor blood that James passed on to him or simply through chance,” the man shrugged, “ it is hard to say. What I do know however is that Harry is by far the most powerful wizard living to date.”

“Then why kill him?” Voldermort asked quietly, realizing at that moment that all of his plans, all of his dreams for the wizarding world had been doomed the minute Harry Potter was born. It should have been clear the minute his killing curse bounced back at him. No one survived a killing curse. No matter how much their mother loved them. “They have their perfect weapon. Why try and kill him.”

Albus’s face dropped even lower than it already had been. “That, I’m afraid, is also my fault. When I believed that it was Lilly’s sacrifice that saved Harry from your curse Tom, I forced him to grow up in the muggle world with his muggle relatives. I thought it would keep him safer. But he suffered.”

“And why does that have the ministry out for the boy’s blood.”

“Because Tom, when Harry transitions it will bring every fae in Europe to our front door. And protective does not begin to describe what the fae are like with one of their own. They will seek revenge on the boy’s behalf. Whether he wishes it or not.”

Voldermort nodded finally. “So they think if they kill him before he transitions the fae will never know and the wizarding world will be just that little bit more safe. Fools. And you wondered why I wanted to expunge the dirt from our world. Kill Potter now…”

“And every fae in Europe will still be on our doorstep,” Dumbledore picked up the train of conversation.

“And this time they won’t be looking for payment for an abused fae, but retribution for a fallen fae.” Voldermort closed his eyes and shuddered slightly. It seemed that even the Darklord Voldermort still feared the fae as much as Tom Riddle once had.

“It would be a blood bath. I doubt even the American Ministry of Magic would be safe then. Not from the fae. No one has ever killed one of them before. And to do so now…well they would see it as an abomination.

“Well,” Voldermort said, his voice strained. “It seems that there is only a hard and a hard place.” He leaned forward and took another candy from the dish. “Short of killing him is there any way to stop his transition?”

“That in itself would kill him.”

“Then we are all going to die,” Tom said softly. “When the ministry kills him or when he transitions, the wizarding world is doomed. Good to see that you were wrong at least and it wasn’t me who brought the end of the world.” The man stood up from his chair and walked over to the fireplace where he added another log to the fire. “Ironic how it’s your saviour though, eh?” Voldermort’s voice held a little of the humour it had lost earlier, but it was obvious that he was forcing it.

It had never been his intention to destroy the wizarding world. Take it over yes. Weed out the weak, the foolish, the Weaseleys, yes. But no matter what he planned he knew that there would be regrowth. And in his eyes a better future. A brighter future. Now it seemed as if there were no future at all.

He regretted killing the Potters now more than ever before. They were enemies, but they had strong magic and were the shining example of what he hoped the wizarding world could become. That their deaths at his hand had triggered the situation was not something that he would allow himself to think about. While he wasn’t the criminally insane monster the Ministry believed him to be, he knew that thinking too long about the possibility that he was in fact indirectly responsible for the end of the world was not something Tom was ready to comprehend.

“There is still a chance Tom,” Dumbledore said from his seat. “The ministry informed me that they planned to take care of this business in a few days time, but knowing Shacklebolt as I do, it will be sooner. We must prepare. If we plan this right we will be able to save Harry and the wizarding world and put off the apocalypse for a future date.”

Voldermort laughed from where he stood in front of the fire. “Put off the apocalypse. Albus, you’re growing soft. There was a time when you would have already figured out how to deal with this matter, defeated me, and had tea planned out before you even arrived here.”

Dumbledore smiled wanly at his student. “I’m getting old Tom. Old and tired. I’m afraid the best I can do is solve the issue at hand and orchestrate your defeat. Tea is entirely up to you.”

The Darklord’s eyes burned just a bit brighter than the fire in the hearth. “My defeat! You are old headmaster. Old and insane. You come here looking for my help and speak of my defeat in the same breath. Why should I not let them have your golden child?”

Dumbledore stood from his own chair and moved near the closet thing to a rival he had ever had. “Because Tom, if you let the ministry kill Harry there will be no wizarding world. Because what I propose will mean an end to this light and dark nonsense, there will be no more sides, our war will be done.”

The last of the Riddles watched his former headmaster with glowing coal eyes. To propose an end to the war where no side won, it was a compromise. Dumbledore didn’t compromise. If he did there never would have been a war in the first place. “How were they planning on killing a boy who has already survived a killing curse, headmaster?”

“They removed Excalibur from its Gringotts vault.”

Voldermort drew in a hissing breath. They had never even considered removing the sword from the vault to deal with him, but for the heir of Gryffindor, for a woodland fae. “Well then let’s hear this plan of yours.” Voldermort started back to his chair. “It will probably get us both killed.”

Dumbledore followed Lord Voldermort back to the desk. “That would be a best case scenario.”

Tom Riddle paused before lowering himself back down into his seat. “Well than lets see if there isn’t anything we can do to change that in our favors just a bit.”

The old man smiled and the twinkle he had lost appeared back in his eye. “I had hoped you would say that.”

The portraits on the wall listened on, some straining to get closer to the two men as the Darklord Voldermort and the Headmaster of Hogwarts planned to save the wizarding world and Harry Potter.