“No, oh no,” said Despereaux. “There is no knight in shining armor; it’s all make-believe, just like happy endings.” The Tale of Despereaux ; Kate DiCamillo He stood upon the dais in the Department of Mysteries with his back to the ragged curtain, eyes narrowed in concentration. Invariably, he lapsed back into Parseltongue. “Come, now, Tom, surely you can do better?” The scarlet eyes facing him were reduced to annoyed slits at the use of the long-forgotten name. “You dare besmirch the sacred tongue of Salazar Slytherin, you filthy half-breed?” Harry smirked. Always, always, it came back to the half-breed remark. He deflected curse after curse, impervious to his opponent’s attacks. He advanced forward, and stepped off of the dais. Voldemort’s blurry, waxy features were tinged with the tiniest bit of fear”and perhaps respect. “You’ve improved, Potter,” he said coldly. “What can I say? I have people to avenge.” He knew what Voldemort was thinking, knew exactly what was running forefront in his thoughts without using Legilimency. You fools who love are all the same, he would be saying to himself. Always out for vengeance for someone else, always worried for the safety of others. I’m not the same. Harry sensed Voldemort weakening, buckling beneath his spells. Hermione would have been proud. Hermione. He remembered every second of that hazy afternoon with piercing clarity. The incredible thrill as they ran anywhere and everywhere, all three of them, exchanging knowing looks full of pride and happiness, bursting to shout at passerby the news”two Horcruxes gone, two Horcruxes gone! The sense of accomplishment, of knowing they had done it. He remembered being cornered by Lucius and Draco, cornered because of their own unwitting happiness and forgetting to cover up their tracks. Remembered Draco’s wand hand shaking, trembling so badly he looked as though he might have a seizure at any moment, his pale face whiter than usual. The annoyance in Lucius’s face as he shoved his son aside”the careless remarks” “You’re such a softhearted fool, Draco”can’t you do anything right?” Harry remembered the brilliant flash of green light, the sudden sound of of a rushing, speeding winged creature…and then Hermione, crumpled in a heap upon the ground. Eyes blank, not breathing. Opening his mouth but not hearing himself saying anything, and Draco standing before him the same way, both faces filled with nausea and horror and shock. Lucius, smirking as he stowed the wand away. And Ron, Ron who looked as though he might suddenly die and leave Harry too, from a broken heart. He remembered every second so clearly, but he did not recall how they had escaped. All that he knew was that Ron had been separated for him from a while. And Lucius Malfoy found dead the next morning, beside his son, who could not”would not”speak. Harry knew, but he never said anything. After all, he might have done the same in Ron’s place. “So tell me, Potter,” Voldemort said, “How did you find out about my Horcruxes?” He spoke as though it was a throwaway question of no real importance, but Harry heard the burning curiousity behind the cold indifference. “Dumbledore.” No more was needed. Harry advanced a little. “Ah, I see. No matter, I can always make more. How have you fared in your travels?” He smiled. He couldn’t help it. Harry loved how Voldemort tried normal conversation. As though they were friends. As though they weren’t trying to kill each other. “I’ve been well. Glad to know you care.” He was powerless to stop the stream of Parseltongue emerging from his lips. It irked him, it bewildered him. He should not be speaking in Salazar’s tongue. The memory flashed upon him suddenly. Ron missed his family. Wanted to see everyone again. How could he deny his best friend this? It was his fault that they were on this overwhelming thing anyways, that Hermione had died, that everything horrible and miserable had happened to them. Grimmauld Place. The home that Harry had sworn to stay away from ever since he’d inherited it suddenly became a haven they looked forward to, a delicacy they savored on their tongues. “When we’re back in Grimmauld Place, we’ll…” A sanctuary, they thought. Returning triumphantly to the house”to find it silent and musty. Dark and dank and gloomy. With a peculiar smell, too. In the kitchen”bodies. Tonks, Lupin, Kingsley, Mad-Eye. Bill. Fleur. Mr. and Mrs. Weasley. George. Fred. Charlie. Ginny. Cold, dead, lifeless bodies. Dead a long time. He remembered touching Ginny’s face, pushing her silky red hair away from her eyes. Then his vision blurred and her face was wet with tears, but they couldn’t be his tears because he couldn’t be crying, could he? Could he? And he would never forget Ron’s face at the moment when he stood in the doorway of the kitchen and saw his family with all the warmth and life gone out of them. Would never forget what he said. “Just kill me now, Harry.” “Get on with it, Potter. Or are you afraid to kill me?” He closed his eyes. He counted to ten. The feeling of rage in the pit of his stomach only grew stronger. “I’m not afraid,” he hissed through clenched teeth. “Then why do you hesitate? You haven’t used the Killing Curse on me yet.” He smiled, a smile filled with nothing at all. “I like to save the best for last.” Ron, dead. Gone. And for what? To destroy a stupid, stupid, worthless locket. The very first Horcrux that had been so tantalizingly out of his reach was Ron’s end. How was he to know that the curse was so powerful? Harry didn’t want to be alive anymore. The rage that had been building inside him reached a fever pitch and exploded. He took faster strides towards Voldemort now, somehow liking the way his opponent shrank back from him”enjoying how the powerful Dark Lord stumbled backwards over his dead servants. He would defeat Voldemort. That was the reason for all these sacrifices, all these tears and deaths and heartaches. That would be the end. Or would it be the beginning? No longer was he certain of anything at all. “You once told me that there was no right and wrong,” he whispered, and his voice carried as clearly as though he had screamed it. “But only power, and those too weak to seek it. You want to know something?” Voldemort didn’t respond. “You were right all along. Is it right to sacrifice your best friend to destroy evil? Is it wrong to hurt a girl to protect her? Do you know the answers?” Very slowly, he shook his head. “No one knows, Tom. But I really thought I did.” They stared at each other for the merest of seconds, hating each other with intensity neither could put into words. And then Harry uttered the words. Just like that, one of the greatest Dark wizards to ever live was gone. Harry felt nothing as he saw the figure slumped against the wall. No joy. No sadness. Not even anger. He’d never felt so empty. A sudden sound brought him back from nothingness. He turned. The curtain fluttered gently, and he heard whispering voices in it like he had before”had it really only been two years? He remembered Luna staring at him with protuberant eyes, telling him defiantly that there were people in the curtain. It was another lifetime ago. He stepped towards the dais. He walked up the stone steps and paused before the archway. He turned back for a moment, looked over his shoulder at the door leading back out into the Ministry building. What was there for him? Praise, fame, fortune. Harry didn’t want praise, fame, or fortune anymore. He wanted Hermione and Ron and Ginny and Sirius and his mum and dad and everything he’d been denied, everything that had been taken from him. None of that lay outside of the Chamber of Death. As he stepped through the curtain, he thought he heard a dog barking joyfully in the distance, and a faint, flowery scent overtook him. The curtain trembled as though buffeted by high winds”and then fell silent and still.