Disclaimer: Not mine. I wish it were so we would have had HHr, but alas it's JK Rowling's.
A/N: My reply to the challenge issued by PJ, you can find it here: http://talk.portkey.org/index.php?showtopic=26635 . This story will start right after fifth year, and it will involve sex, some blood, and such, so this is why it is rated NC17. I hope you'll enjoy it, I think this is the most complex challenge I've ever dared to reply to, so I sincerely hope I'll be able to pull it off well.
Thanks to my beta Gingercat!
Harry Potter and His True Sixth Year
Chapter Twenty-nine: The Battle of Hogwarts, Part II
"Harry Potter, we meet again"
Harry turned, and found himself facing no one else than his life-long nemesis, Lord Voldemort, emerging from the Forbidden Forest.
"Tom Riddle" Harry greeted back, taunting him. He could see the monster's nostrils flaring.
"Do not use that name, boy!" Voldemort snarled.
Harry shrugged. "It's yours, why not?" he said, tightening his grip on his wand.
"I. Am. Lord. Voldemort!" the Dark Lord shouted, and many cowered but not Harry. The boy knew Dumbledore would probably intervene soon to stop a possible confrontation between the two, as the old man deemed Harry still not ready to face Voldemort and come out victorious.
Harry agreed.
But Voldemort was no fool, and his plan was well detailed. At his appearance, all the most vicious Death Eaters had centred their attention on the Headmaster, keeping him occupied, as Dark Creatures attacked him too, and the other Death Eaters did their best to stop the Order members and the Aurors from helping him.
Harry would have to face Voldemort on his own, this time, and find a way to at least force him to leave, if not destroy him for good.
The two rivals started circling each other, Voldemort knew of Harry's wand connection with his own, and not even he was good enough to cast a wandless Killing Curse. His only hope was to catch the boy by surprise.
"Are you ready to face Death, boy?" he taunted Harry, who shrugged.
"Should be used to it by now with all the times you and I faced each other, but strangely I never got to meet her" Harry called back, reminding Voldemort of his previous failures. "Why should this time be different?" he smirked then.
"Because this time I'm going to kill you, your Mudblood whore, and all those who oppose me, this is why!" Voldemort shouted.
Harry's eyes flashed with anger at the way he had addressed Hermione.
"Never. Insult. Hermione. In. Front. Of. Me" he hissed, slashing his wand through the air. Voldemort was caught by surprise, he didn't expect the boy to start the duel.
He barely managed to wandlessly erect a shield strong enough to protect himself from the Lacero Seorsum curse Harry had used. He didn't want to be trapped in a Prior Incantatem again. As well, Harry had no intention of [Author ID1: at Sat Apr 19 00:19:00 2008 ]stalling the inevitable duel[Author ID1: at Sat Apr 19 00:19:00 2008 ].
The way Voldemort had addressed Hermione had made him feel it again, the power within his veins, pulsing to get out, to be unleashed. It was slowly building, and for the first time Harry felt completely serene while duelling the Dark Lord.
After that first skirmish, the two resumed circling each other. Harry was searching for an opening to attack, not just waiting to see what Voldemort's move would be.
"Crucio!" suddenly Voldemort shouted, but Harry rolled away from the path of the curse, sending one of his own back to keep his enemy busy enough to get back on his feet.
"You're not imaginative, Voldie" Harry taunted him again. "You only use the Unforgivables"
He could see from the flash in those red eyes that Voldemort was definitely pissed now.
"What, are you upset because I mocked you?" Harry called in a childish voice, shielding himself from another Cruciatus Curse.
"Shut up!" Voldemort roared, sending a Killing Curse flying his way. Harry knew he couldn't shield himself from it, and while he was pretty confident his Blood Shield would stop the curse, he didn't want to risk it if he could avoid the situation.
He conjured a rock in the path of the green light, which collided with it provoking a small explosion and stone debris flying everywhere. It seemed that the duel was going to be a draw, if something or someone didn't intervene soon, and when they cast the next curse at the same time, their spells collided, creating the golden cage of the Prior Incantatem. Harry knew he should hold on to keep it going, this would force Voldemort to stall, but he wanted victory, not another draw. He felt powerful enough to do it, the throbbing in his veins increasing now, and so he snapped his wand away from the connection, and both opponents landed with a thud on the ground.
"You're a fool, boy. That was your only chance to stop me today, and you threw it away" Voldemort sneered, but Harry shrugged.
"It would just have let you escape again" he explained, firing another curse at Voldemort, who swiftly conjured a shield to protect himself.
"Ignis Flagellum!" Voldemort shouted next, and Harry raised his eyebrows, while letting the curse hit him to test his Blood Shield.
Voldemort's smirk of triumph was quickly morphed into an expression of rage, when the burned flesh of Harry's arms was immediately regenerated.
"You're a werewolf!" Voldemort cried, his snake-like eyes wide.
Harry chuckled. "No, I'm not. But I'm not going to tell you how I achieved this" he said smugly, before vanishing the Fire Whip curse and attacking back with a spell of his own.
Dumbledore had by now managed to disable most of his attackers, although dealing with the Lycans on Voldemort's side hadn't been easy, and would soon be able to join Harry in the duel with Voldemort.
"Resist just a bit more, Harry" he thought, while duelling with Dolohov, Rockwood and the two Lestrange brothers at the same time.
Neville wanted to go help Harry too, but he was stopped by Malfoy, who challenged him.
"You better move from there, Malfoy" Neville growled. "I have not time to waste with you"
"You think you can beat me, Longbottom?" Malfoy sneered, and cast his Killing Curse. Neville jumped out of its way and sent a Lacero Seorsum curse at the Slytherin, whose eyes widened at the advanced spell Neville had perfectly cast, and while rolling on the ground too!
Malfoy's moment of indecision cost him his arm, which was ripped open in many places by the curse.
"Told you I had no time to waste" Neville said, standing up and shrugging the dirt away from his robes before he mercifully stunned his opponent, so that he wouldn't feel the pain.
He then looked around to see where Luna was, and in doing so his eyes widened.
"Bugger!" he swore under his breath. A Death Eater had managed to capture Hermione and was bringing her to Voldemort. "This is not going to be good" he thought, watching with baited breath what would happen next.
--
When Voldemort spotted his minion bringing him Hermione, he smirked. He just had to keep the boy focused on him a little longer and then things would get interesting.
And he was right. He just had no idea how much interesting things would get.
As the Death Eater threw a bound Hermione at Voldemort's feet, Harry's eyes widened.
"What, you surprised to see your little whore here, Potter?"
"Leave her out of this, Tom. It's between me and you" Harry spat, feeling the throbbing within him accelerate even more. He didn't know where all that power rushing through his body came from, but he was having a bit of a problem keeping it bottled up. Since he didn't know what would happen if he let go, he thought it was wise to control it, but that was proving difficult to do right now.
"I don't think so. Crucio!" Voldemort cast, and Hermione writhed in pain, her screams muffled by the Silencing charm the Death Eater had placed on her. Voldemort lifted it, and everyone on the grounds could easily hear her cries of agony as the curse lingered on her body.
Voldemort was watching with amusement as Harry clenched and unclenched his fists.
"Not so bold now, uh, Potter?" he taunted. He then turned to look at Hermione, and spat on her face as her eyes clearly begged him to stop her torture.
"You will get much worse, Mudblood. I'll have you crawling on the ground begging for me to kill you, and then I'll give you some more of this" Voldemort cruelly told her. He knew if he didn't stop the curse soon, she would end just as Longbottom's parents, but he honestly didn't care. He wanted to enjoy watching her going mad, and so he never looked back at Harry.
That was the Dark Lord's mistake.
Harry was now circled by a golden aura, pulsing around his body. His eyes were glowing green, and he finally let go of the power building up within him. Raising an arm toward Voldemort's curse, a golden beam interrupted it.
The Dark Lord hastily turned to see who had interfered, and his red eyes met Harry's burning ones.
"You've had it your way for too long, Tom Riddle. It's time you meet your destiny" Harry said in a voice that wasn't his own. He started walking toward Voldemort, who fired curse after curse at him. All were absorbed by his Lycan Blood Shield.
When the green light of the Killing Curse impacted with Harry's chest, it fizzled for a moment, but the boy kept advancing. Voldemort was scared now, and fired another killing curse at him, hitting the boy on the shoulder, causing another fizzle and black mark to appear there, nothing more.
Now Harry was too near for Voldemort to cast again, and Harry grabbed his wand arm, snapping the thin piece of wood.
Then, he placed his outstretched hands on Voldemort's chest, with the Dark Lord unable to move as some force was keeping him rooted to the spot.
Everyone watched with fascination as Harry kept extracting something black from Voldemort's body, the Dark Lord screaming in pain, before he collapsed on the ground, unconscious, and Harry vanished the big black sphere he had extracted from his nemesis' chest.
"I have never seen anything like that" Neville whispered, as Luna hugged him. The Death Eaters were too shocked to keep fighting and were easily bound, to be later transported to the Ministry.
The Order members still standing watched as the golden aura around Harry subsided, and he kneeled on the ground to gather Hermione in his arms.
Dumbledore was beaming at his two favourite students, while many others looked at him, silently asking for an explanation of what had happened.
"I do not exactly know either" he started, answering them. "I can only guess that Harry finally found that "power he knows not" and put it to good use, and if my guess is correct, his love for Miss Granger is at the base of this newfound power. I am sure he will share with us more when he has rested and recovered his strength[Author ID1: at Sat Apr 19 00:19:00 2008 ]"
"And what about Voldemort?" Sirius asked.
"We bind him in the dungeons. I want to check if my theory is right before we send him to Azkaban. If it is, then Harry has truly learned my lesson about some things being worse than death" he said with a chuckle.
"Do you always need to speak in riddles, Albus?" Minerva McGonagall said, giving him a mild glare, and the blue eyes of the Headmaster twinkled. "I fear this is how I am, Minerva" he vaguely replied before starting to walk toward where Harry was still cradling Hermione in his arms.
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