Chapter 16 “ Duel at the House of Riddle
No one noticed the eight broomsticks flying overhead as Harry, Moody, Garrison, Dumbledore, and four other Aurors soared towards where their sources said Voldemort would be. They knew not to Apparate, as that created noise and sudden movement. Brooms were a more subtle approach and gave them the advantage of silence. While the Aurors and Healer were pleased this nightmare could be over this night, Harry was overjoyed. He had the chance to get his life back. Though he was barely able to handle an Auror one-on-one at the present, he felt luck could be with him tonight against the Dark Lord.
The grassy hills gleamed in shades of silver from the moon’s light as the wizards drew closer to their destination. With each passing moment, Harry’s nervousness grew. Not only were they getting closer to the place where Voldemort was headed to, but it was a place that looked eerily familiar to Harry. When they landed, Garrison and Moody had to catch him to prevent him from crashing. Not here, Harry thought. Not again.
The eight were standing in the middle of a graveyard. A mist was hovering amongst the group, glowing a dim blue. Harry walked silently towards one of the tombs, fearing the name he hoped he would not see. Sure enough, as his hands brushed away the cobwebs, the name was exactly what Harry dreaded: RIDDLE.
“So we’re back where it all began,” said Aberforth quietly under his breath.
“What better place to end this evil,” said one of the other Auror, whose comments were followed by nods of agreement from his three peers.
“How do you want to approach this?” asked Moody, his wand already out and magical eye wandering everywhere.
“We have to assume Voldemort is not alone,” said Garrison.
“Quiet!” whispered Aberforth. All this time, Harry was walking towards the house of Riddle. He felt almost in a trance, looking at the building where so many horrific events had occurred in the past. In his mind, no matter what his team decided, it would end tonight. One way or another, someone would die tonight.
“Now then, what we need to do is make sure we’re always backing up Harry. He’s the one who has to…Harry? Harry! NO!”
Aberforth was still whispering, but he now noticed Harry walking ahead several hundred meters and ducking beneath the fence standing around the house. All eight wizards immediately silenced when they heard a popping sound and saw Voldemort Apparate not ten feet from where Harry was standing! Harry held his breath, knowing he could not engage the Dark Lord now and expect to win. He had to find that Horcrux first and destroy it. There could be no mistakes tonight.
Voldemort walked briskly through the main gate and around the building. When Harry started to move, he noticed movement to his side. Aberforth was trying to tell him to come back, but Harry refused. No sooner had this happened when several more popping sounds were heard and Aberforth disappeared. The Death Eaters had arrived! Quickly and quietly, Harry climbed over the fence and jogged to where he had seen Voldemort walk. He had to practically slam himself into a wall when he noticed the Dark Lord coming back. He had obviously heard the noise, as he sneered in the direction of the graveyard before turning back and running. Harry followed, remaining a safe distance away. He had his wand out, ready to make himself invisible at a moment’s notice should things go awry.
Voldemort walked up to a solid wall, shouted something in Parseltongue and waited. Harry held his breath, expecting a door or something to appear. Instead, nothing happened. Voldemort said something else, and still nothing happened. Yet the Dark Lord seemed undeterred. He said a third statement in the ancient language, and Harry unconsciously gasped. Luckily the hissing from the wall covered his sound. No door appeared, nor did the wall disappear. Instead, a horizontal slit appeared in the middle of it before the two sides parted in opposite directions. Voldemort walked in quickly, turning the corner and going deeper into the house.
When Harry reached the wall, he noticed how unusual it appeared. It looked like a snake’s mouth, with the two fangs hanging from the top. As he stepped forward, he noticed the opening starting to shrink. Quickly, he ran at the wall, diving just as the mouth closed. While flying through the air, he whispered a spell to silence his fall as he landed. Remembering what he learned from Ricky before he left, he rolled to his feet with his wand ready.
Harry stood still for a moment, listening for any movement or attacks. When he heard none, he started walking through the dark hallway. At the end, he noticed two staircases, one on the left, and the other opposite it. They both led up. There was a curious looking snake carving on the wall between the two. Perplexed, Harry said, Open in Parseltongue and the wall silently sank into the ground. As soon as Harry stepped through, it rose again behind him, sealing the exit. This set of stairs led down. Harry followed them. He found it curious that he did not have to light his wand, as there was a light coming from the direction he was going.
At the bottom of the staircase was a miraculous room. It had portraits of the four founders of Hogwarts, among other powerful figures of the past. None of them moved. Instead, each was frozen in place, looking almost terrified. No doubt this was one of Voldemort’s private chambers. Harry continued through the room, seeing sculptures and artifacts made from gold and other materials that looked almost transparent. Some rugs hung from the ceilings, similar to what the Great Hall did at Hogwarts. The difference was these rugs glowed with their own light: a pale green that illuminated the entire room. Through this light, Harry saw an exit at the opposite end of the room. Feeling uncomfortable, he quickly made his way there. This doorway led to another wooden staircase, this one spiraling upwards. Harry started to climb the stairs, pausing for a moment. He heard someone above him climbing the stairs as well. He was catching up.
Trying to avoid making a sound, Harry placed a spell on the stairs that avoided creaking. Unfortunately, since the stairs were so disjointed, he had to cast it on every plank. Harry stopped for a moment, scanning his memory quickly for any other spell he could use. He remembered the levitation spell, but he hadn’t mastered it yet. He could only go a small distance before losing control. Harry heard a door open at the top of the staircase, telling him that he was almost out of time.
“It’ll have to work,” he told himself as he whispered the spell. He watched as his feet were lifted from the ground. He tried to aim for the gap in the center of the spiral staircase, so he could go faster. Keeping a watch on both his movement and the stairs passing as he ascended, he felt the spell give out about a third of the way there. Just as he was about to fall, he cast the no-sound spell again, landing silently on the stairs nearest him. Confident he could get to the top rather quickly this way, he continued. After two more spells, he reached the end of the staircase, and the door. Wand directly in front of him, he opened the door with caution.
Voldemort was no where to be seen. He searched the room, but could not find the Dark Lord anywhere. Desperate, he looked out the window. There were several bodies lying in the graveyard, motionless. Harry almost shouted in anguish, but managed to hold his pain inside. The sooner he found Voldemort, the sooner he could exact revenge for everything. He looked down, seeing how high up he was. His gaze followed the side of the house up, noticing it went beyond where he was standing to a window a floor higher. There was another room above him! Quickly backtracking, he looked frantically for a trap door or hidden staircase. He found nothing. He ran back into the room and searched everywhere. There was nothing out of the ordinary, save for a tapestry hanging over an old closet. Sighing deeply, Harry put his hand out, expecting to feel wood on the other side of the giant cloth. Instead, the tapestry gave way.
Harry stopped himself from falling, climbing the steep stairs beyond the cloth carefully. He stopped at the half-opened door in front of him, holding his breath. He heard nothing on the other side, yet something told him not to move. After a few more seconds of this standstill, he heard someone walk towards the door. As silently as he could, he whispered the Invisibility spell just as Voldemort opened the door all the way and looked around. He looked straight at Harry, who wasn’t moving. Voldemort looked down the stairs, back at the door, and finally went back into the room.
Harry slowly allowed air to fill his lungs again after a few more seconds. He leaned forward to look around the corner, seeing the Dark Lord on his knees before a black box. It had six sides, making it unique in both appearance and dimension. This chest was surrounded by thick, heavy chains, which shared the box’s color and its foreboding, impenetrable feel. These chains were padlocked at every juncture and wherever the chain overlapped itself. Harry could only imagine the magic that surely guarded it as well. Wondering how Voldemort was going to undo everything, Harry sat silently. His head whipped behind the wall as he saw Voldemort start to look his way. Only when he heard his enemy fiddling with the chains again did Harry dare to watch.
Voldemort put his wand in an almost invisible crevice between the chains on the top right corner, saying an incantation that lasted a full two minutes. The top of the box seemed to disappear, a beam of red light shooting from where the metal had been. A folded vest levitated out of the chest, floating up the light as if it were a fountain. Harry looked on in wonder as the Dark Lord delicately placed his fingers around the object. Suddenly, the light then encompassed Voldemort’s entire body. This force, whatever it was, brought the Dark Lord to his knees, his grip on the vest tighter than ever. Though he seemed greatly weakened, Voldemort started to speak.
“I am Lord Voldemort. I will “”
Before he could finish what he was saying, he started convulsing as the red light surrounding him grew brighter. Several beams of light shot through his body, making him scream loudly. It took several seconds for him to calm himself and rid the look of anguish from his face. Again, he tried to speak.
“I...I am Tom Movolo Riddle. My mother was Merope Riddle, the original owner of this vest, which she left to me when she died. Seventeen years ago, upon the death of an enemy, I put a fragment of my soul into this cloth and locked it in here, guarded by the most complex and dangerous of spells I could create. Tonight, I reclaim it. Veneficus Eximo Confundo Maledictio!”
The light brightened again, taking the wind out of Voldemort. The Dark Lord and the vest both began to hover, connected by the red light still emitting from the chest. Voldemort screamed as the vest was wrenched from his hands and wrapped around him. It wasn’t the cloth on him that made him scream, but it looked to Harry as though the vest itself was passing through the body of the Dark Lord.
Finally united, the light disappeared, dropping Voldemort to the ground. He did not move for a few seconds. The Dark Lord himself was glowing now. The aura of the powerful spell slowly dissipated as Voldemort started breathing again, and the beam of light emitted from the chest disappeared. Once everything was still, Voldemort opened his eyes. He stood to his full height and turned towards the door. Harry dodged the glance again, but something caught his eye. Voldemort’s eyes were no longer yellow: they glowed red.
Harry tensed up, waiting for the right moment. The Dark Lord started laughing maniacally, tilting his head back with his eyes shut. This was it. No turning back now. Tonight, Harry Potter would end this destructive conflict by taking out the one wizard who was the cause of everything bad that happened in his life. He silently undid the Invisibility spell. Gathering as much anger as possible, Harry stepped into the doorway. He froze for a second when Voldemort started to speak.
“You couldn’t find this one, Potter, and now you never will!”
“Damn, I guess I’ll just have to take it from you, then, won’t I?”
Voldemort’s eyes shot open as Harry ran full speed into him, driving his shoulder into the Dark Lord’s body and sending him to the ground. As Voldemort gasped for air, Harry started clawing at the vest around his adversary’s chest, trying to pry it loose. Voldemort pulled his wand out, ready to perform a curse. Harry, thinking on his feet, knocked it out of his hand and kept pulling at the vest. He heard his foe laughing.
“This vest cannot be removed from my body,” he taunted, bringing his knee to Harry’s stomach. Harry hunched over, rolling off the Dark Lord, whose wand shot back to its owner’s hand at the response of a spell. Seconds later, Harry felt pain igniting all over his body as the Cruciatus curse overtook him.
“You truly thought you could take this from me? You are more foolish than I suspected.”
Voldemort’s taunts were barely heard as Harry writhed in pain on the ground. He felt himself be levitated to Voldemort’s head level. The Dark Lord’s tone changed to one of faux compassion.
“Let us end this, Harry, tonight. Haven’t you suffered enough? Isn’t the pain too much to bear? The world criticizes you, insults you. They don’t care about what you do for them. Why are you still fighting? What do you have left to prove to them? Is it not time you stopped trying to be a hero and face the fact that you’re merely a boy who’s living a bad dream? Let me end it for you. You don’t have to do this any longer. Who needs this agony? Just give up. You’re no match for “”
Voldemort never finished the sentence, for while he was talking, Harry was scanning his mind for the Cruciatus countercurse, which he executed perfectly. The torture curse shot back at Voldemort, sending him into a fit of convulsions on the floor temporarily. After Harry fell to the floor, he shot another curse at Voldemort, sending him into a pile of old wooden furniture. The force which the Dark Lord hit them broke the pieces apart. The next thing Harry had to do was dodge the flying splinters, as Voldemort exploded the wood in all directions away from himself. His eyes only showed hatred.
“Your skills have improved since our last meeting,” he said, no more humor in his voice. “At last, you’re ready to fight me.”
Voldemort shouted one of the curses Harry hated. Luckily, he reacted in time and was able to block it. He continued to block what Voldemort shot at him time and again, giving him more confidence. His opponent now looked irate, and Harry then felt as though his head were on fire. He dropped his wand and fell to his knees, his eyes watering furiously.
“I bet you didn’t know this one, did you?” said the Dark Lord. “This little curse I came up with myself. What do you think of it?”
Harry could barely comprehend what was being said. The only thought on his mind was to get to his wand as fast as possible. But his mind was being invaded with thoughts that weren’t his own. He saw members of the Order in the worst sort of torture imaginable. He saw his parents dying all over again. He saw Sirius being physically abused with curses. He saw Hogwarts in flames, followed by London. He opened his eyes, straining to see through the tears. Though he could not see much, he did, however, notice Voldemort was standing right next to him. Once more, he remembered Ricky’s lesson and swept the Dark Lord’s legs from under him. The spell was lifted, and Harry started for his wand. He heard the Killing curse being shouted just as he was about to reach it.
Quickly, Harry leaped and rolled, dodging the curse by mere centimeters. He grabbed his wand and shot out a curse of his own. Voldemort’s cheek was cut open and started to bleed profusely. Harry dodged two more curses before using the Levicorpus. The Dark Lord was turned upside down. Harry wasn’t able to hold him there for long, however, as Voldemort turned himself upright while still hovering in the air. He pointed his wand directly at Harry’s scar and started shouting an incantation.
Harry couldn’t move. He felt himself almost passing out. The pain was too horrendous to describe. Harry felt as though he was dying. He had no way of blocking this. Suddenly, his vision was taken away, and his world turned black. The pain remained, coursing through his body. He now felt blood trickling from his scar, matching the wound on his opponent’s cheek. His arm snapped in two, the bone piercing the skin. Then he was brought to his knees. Harry’s world became silent, with only the sound of him screaming in pain.
“Beg me for mercy and I’ll end it now,” he heard in his head. When he refused to answer, his pain doubled and the thoughts of his friends being tortured returned to his head, making him feel as though he were extremely dizzy. He heard Voldemort’s voice taunting him as well, describing in explicit detail how he would torture and kill all those Harry loved. He felt his mind being searched for those he cared about. Voldemort was using Legimancy against him, and he was powerless to stop it. He saw Ginny keeled over in agony. The image was so real it was as though it was happening right in front of him. Her eyes locked with his, tears pouring down her face. Harry was so enraged he shouted the first thing that came to his mind.
“Crucio!”
Everything stopped as he heard Voldemort collapse. Harry now had to choose between torturing his opponent and freeing himself from the curses that had been applied to him. He kept the Cruciatus curse on Voldemort a little longer before releasing it and reversing the blinding spell, which returned his vision. He Healed his broken arm and the puncture wound before using the Disarming spell, sending Voldemort flying against the wall once more. His opponent was fast to recover, though, and started sending curses at him again in a blur of movement. Harry was countering each of them, occasionally sending a few of his own. He even countered a few of Voldemort’s countercurses, surprising the Dark Lord. The two continued to move closer and closer to each other, finally meeting in the center of the room. They were separated by less than a meter.
Harry threw a curse at the same time Voldemort did. To block it, he wrapped his wand arm around that of his adversary and pulled, bringing them face-to-face, only inches apart. There were no signs of pain or regret: just sheer and unadulterated hatred. The only sound was breathing for a few seconds as both combatants regained their energy.
“You fight well, boy, but you won’t last. You can’t beat me.”
“Not yet,” Harry said, straining to keep the Dark Lord’s arm entangled with his for just a moment longer. “But you’ll find I have a few more surprises up my sleeves.”
With that, Harry started reciting the spell to release the soul fragment from the Horcrux around Voldemort’s chest. The Dark Lord started shouting, trying desperately to send thoughts of pain and other spells into Harry’s mind as a way of distracting him. This time, though, Harry had only one thought, and he wouldn’t stop. Reaching the end of the spell, he released Voldemort’s arm and kicked him square in the chest, which pushed him back and revealed the Horcrux.
Harry shot the spell at the vest. He heard his opponent scream again as an orange replicate of himself emerged from the piece of cloth. Harry waved his wand in the motions he now knew by heart, shouting the final spell. But Voldemort would not give up without a fight. He sent a curse at Harry, which interrupted him and sent him to the opposite side of the room. Harry watched in horror as the Dark Lord started a chant of his own, the orange silhouette slowly gliding back to the vest, which now looked as though it was on fire. Determined, Harry started speaking as fast as his mouth would allow, waving his wand once more in the pattern needed. He launched the spell straight at the vest just before the last part was reunited with the material. Sparks flew everywhere and light overtook the two as the last Horcrux was destroyed. Harry heard a scream of utter rage. When he could see again, Voldemort was standing with his wand pointed at Harry once more, the Killing curse already rolling off his tongue.
Harry stared at the tip of the wand, which now started to emit a green light. There was no countercurse for this spell that he could use, and there was no where he could hide. So it really will end tonight, he thought to himself. But just before Voldemort could finish the spell, the nearest wall exploded, sending wood fragments everywhere. A piece of wood hit Voldemort’s arm, sending the Killing curse through the roof. This filled the air with more splinters. Before Voldemort could recover fast enough to shoot off another spell, Dumbledore, Moody, Garrison, and three Aurors flew through the hole in the wall and landed between Harry and the Dark Lord. Each was already shouting a curse. Looking more enraged than Harry had ever seen him, Voldemort bellowed in fury as he raised his wand into the air and Disapparated, narrowly avoiding the host of spells hurled where he was standing.
The Aurors turned to Harry, who was shocked he was still standing. Not two seconds later, he heard a pop as an arm wrapped around his neck and a wand pointed at his chest. Voldemort had Apparated behind him, prepared to take his life right at that moment. Harry dropped to the floor just before the curse was finished, allowing the Aurors to execute their curses, which sent the Dark Lord flying through the wall and out of the house. He Disapparated in mid-air before he hit the ground. Garrison and Dumbledore helped Harry to his feet. Harry, who was now shaking, avoided eye-contact from anyone.
“Harry, did you destroy the Horcrux?”
Harry feebly nodded, which was followed by a loud cheer from the Aurors. Moody and Garrison both exchanged looks before making Harry look them in the eyes. There was no hiding it: Harry had changed during that duel.
“Now you know,” said Garrison as he grabbed Harry’s arm and helped him Apparate with the group from the House of Riddle.
Harry Potter & The Silhouette Of Eternal Benevolence by JourneyJosh
Chapter Notes: Harry and a team of Aurors fly to where the tip-off said Voldemort would be. Harry goes into the House of Riddle alone to face his ultimate challenge. With the last Horcrux within reach, will Harry succeed in destroying it, or will the Dark Lord beat him to it?