Bound. They were trapped within each other. A battle of wills took place either within Harry’s head or Voldemort’s, neither could tell which was which. There were two voices screaming glass-shattering wails, yet they sounded as if they came from miles away. The pain was unbearable, but the two souls fought for life: Both boy and monster fought this battle for nearly twelve hours, and a victory for one or the other was soon at hand. Harry went into this battle knowing for certain that his death was imminent, but he prayed he might be able to prevent any future deaths. He had lost hope for his own life because he had failed to learn Occlumency and so he knew the Dark Lord would possess him again like he did years ago. Harry also knew that he was incapable of murder, regardless of the fact that the one he was to face was the bane of the wizarding world’s existence, for Harry realized that he felt too much pity for the man. Harry tried “ oh how he tried ” to accumulate more and more reasons to hate him, as if the murder of his parents, godfather, mentor and countless others was not enough, yet the more he thought about him, the more the scenes from Dumbledore’s Pensieve haunted him. He sympathized with the young orphan who wanted so desperately a reason to feel special yet to belong. Harry knew what it was like to feel unwanted by family and to miss your parents so much it hurt. The screams continued, yet the tone changed. From screams of physical agony, they changed to screams of emotional agony.
The more Harry thought, the more the memories flooded his mind, yet there were more memories, memories he was quite sure he had never seen in the pensieve. Memories of the young Tom Riddle being rocked to sleep by a nurse in the orphanage. Memories of songs being sung to the children in a dim, comfortable room. Memories of dreams of an angelic, but plain, woman, a woman Harry recognized as Tom Riddle’s mother, embracing her baby and rocking him to sleep. Visions of the same woman’s face looking on the scene with such disappointment etched in her face filled his mind as other visions flashed before him: scenes of Voldemort’s murders, of the men and women he had tortured, of the fear he instilled in people. The screams died as suddenly as they started and the silence filled the room with a bang.
When the scene began, Harry and Voldemort stood at opposite sides of the room, their wands pointing at each other. After what felt as short as a moment yet as long as a year, they both found themselves in the same position, and again Harry thought his moment to meet his parents was about to arrive. Too weak to continue the fight, he dropped his wand, closed his eyes and prepared to meet his parents, Sirius, and Dumbledore on the other side. Yet instead of the inevitable, the unfathomable happened: Voldemort, instead of trying again to murder Harry, dropped to his knees as his wand hit the cement. His eye-slits were strangely devoid of malice. Indeed, he looked as if he wanted to cry, but he didn’t have enough of a soul left to conjure the healing powers of tears. Muttering, “What have I done? What have I done?”, the remnant of the man picked up his wand, turned it on himself and muttered the words he had been most feared for up until yesterday, “Avada Kedavra.” It was a feeble light, but enough to destroy the last remaining bit of soul left within the Dark Lord.
Harry let out another scream, this one more violent than the last screams combined. His head was torn in two, he knew it, and he vaguely felt his body hit the floor. Even from a distance, the lightning bolt scar that identified Harry as “The Boy Who Lived” blazed through the dampness and shadows as it seared Harry’s forehead for perhaps the last time. Again, Harry imagined that his death was imminent, that he had misjudged the way Voldemort held his wand. For surely, this was death, painful and slow. And as suddenly as the pain racked his every nerve, so too did blackness and calm.
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The dull shuffling of feet and the faint sound of whispers. There was a dull brightness. Harry’s eyelids felt like lead. A hand gently stroked his forehead, another was entwined with his own. “I think he’s coming to!! Quick!” A voice as if from another dimension called, and as he struggled to open his eyes, a wave of red flashed before him. Blurred because he did not have his glasses on but unmistakably brown eyes, freckles, long red hair: his soul mate was slowly coming into focus. He felt so weary, drained, and all he could manage was a smile. Ginny was crying but grinning, her look of relief was in the same mold as that of someone who had just experienced a miracle.
Slowly, he began to focus on more of the room. The blurred images of Ron, Hermione, Mr. and Mrs. Weasley, Lupin, Tonks, Neville, Luna and “ could it be? -- The Dursleys huddled together slightly away from the rest of the crowd. The sight of them all there, rooting for him, caring for him, gave him strength, and he whispered, “Thank you.” It was all he could manage at the moment as he felt as though every limb and muscle was weighted with lead. Still, a small smile dressed his lips as he fell back to a peaceful darkness. Ron told him later that he slept for another three days after that.
Discharged from St. Mungos, Harry James Potter faced a new life that, for the first time since age 10, did not include the threat of murder or the compulsory fight against the dark arts. He had found freedom at last, a freedom that had been hard won and not entirely expected so soon. As he walked out surrounded by Ron, Hermione, and Ginny, he half expected to be setting off on another adventure. And in fact, he was. For, Harry knew Dumbledore would have agreed, there is no finer adventure than that of life.