Harry was exhausted.
In a 24-hour period, he had travelled from Australia to California to Hogsmeade. Admittedly, with magical travel, he didn't have to worry about jet lag. However, that period was also filled with him listening to his elderly travelling companion being unable to go for long stretches without succumbing to his desire to talk Harry's ears off. So, the longest stretch of sleep Harry had achieved was about four 15-minute naps.
He would be more annoyed if he wasn't feeling a small portion of the excitement that Albus was clearly experiencing.
The pervious day, after a long day of underwater training where Harry had finally figured out how to shoot a spell over a distance through the water, he had come back to his room to find Albus standing there. It wasn't unusual for Albus to be in his room, as it was currently just the two of them left in Australia. Sirius was with Remus on the man's final few weeks of quarantine before being declared as cured, and the next set of volunteers would be allowed to begin their treatment. Dobby was in Egypt visiting his… Harry wasn't sure if Dobby and Liz had defined what their relationship was, and Dobby always blushed and became evasive when the subject of his goblin pen-pal came up. Either way, it was just Harry and Albus. A very excited Albus.
When Harry had met up with Albus, the older man was bouncing on his heels like a kid on the night before Christmas (it being the 23rd of December, Christmas was on Harry's mind). At first, Harry had assumed the excitement was because it was the US Premiere of a movie that Albus had been raving about for weeks. Instead, it was because of a simple letter he had received.
Albus had received a letter from his extremely estranged brother, Abe, asking Albus and Harry to come visit him for dinner on Christmas Eve (the next day). The letter making it clear that the man needed Harry to be there as a buffer. It was the first time in decades that his brother had reached out to him, and the opportunity had filled the man with an uncontainable excitement.
And so, the following hours were filled with Harry listening to story after story about Aberforth Dumbledore. The only break he had received was when they had travelled to Los Angeles to watch the movie Albus had been excited to see. Of course, after the movie completed, the conversation was a mixture of stories about Aberforth and exaltations about the brilliance of the movie.
Which is what brought Harry to standing outside the Hog's Head Inn listening to Albus's increasingly nervous voice talking.
"Oh! Perhaps I should invite Abe to come back to California with me to watch Mr. Julia's performance. I think he would appreciate the subversion of expectations, where the so-called ordinary people are using their above average skills to fight evil instead of each other. Or maybe he would prefer…"
Harry sighed. "Albus! Why don't we have dinner before inviting your brother to travel around the world to watch a horrible movie?"
Albus's hand paused in mid-air as he reached for the door, his face aghast. "A horrible movie!? Harry, did you watch the same masterpiece as I did?"
"Albus, even in a world filled with infinite possibilities and magical wonders, there is still no possibility that you will ever find a 2nd person who will agree with you that Street Fighter is a masterpiece of cinema."
Harry smiled internally as the nervousness left Albus's voice as he opened the door to the Inn and began a full defense of the film that they had just watched earlier that day.
He let his mentor's words wash over him as he was led to a table in the corner. As Albus blathered on, Harry looked down at the filthy table, with a small spreading puddle of a foul-smelling liquid (foul even when compared to the normal stench of cheap wizarding alcoholic brews).
Taking the time to practice his new ability, he dipped his finger in one corner of the puddle and focused on trickling the magic for a lumos spell into the puddle. He watched with delight as the magic jumped from one drop of liquid to the next. After lighting the puddle up fully, he then focused on building a pattern of spiraling light in the cheap booze.
He had yet to figure out how to cast a spell without touching the target (without a wand, of course). However, the previous day he began his training after cleaning his room in preparation for their imminent departure and realized that he was able to clean a room by just touching one spot and letting his magic travel. He was touching one spot on the wall, and that spot on the wall was touching another spot, and another, and… And water was simply one drop of water touching another.
While the puddle was certainly less pleasant than water, it was still drops touch drops. And soon he was drawing simple pictures of light in the puddle, where he was so absorbed that he only barely noticed Albus's defense of the acting choices made by Jean-Claude Van Damme trail off into an awkward silence.
"Hello Abe, you look…"
Harry looked from the hopeful look on Albus's face to the man who had just approached the table, holding a mug on a plate. Roughly placing the plate in front of Harry, while not bothering to look over at Albus, which seemed to cause Albus's hopeful expression to droop slightly. The familial resemblance between the two brothers was clear, despite the extreme difference in expression. Where Albus looked like a scared yet hopeful puppy, Aberforth seemed like an emotionally distant goat.
As Harry reached out for the mug, he pondered the man's motivations. He had invited Albus, and yet now he wasn't even gracing his brother with the barest of glances. In fact, he looked like being in the same vicinity as Albus was a great strain, as his expression was tight with a line of sweat beading along his forehead. His eyes, instead of looking at either Harry or Albus, were instead unfocused and pointed in the general direction of the mug on the plate.
As Harry's fingers reached the mug, his exhausted mind pulled up one of his lessons. Wasn't a strained expression and unfocused eyes a sign of someone fighting hard against an Imper…
It was dark.
No…
It was… too dark to be dark… did that make sense?
It was definitely dark, but why did that seem to be wrong?
Harry tried to concentrate, but it was so difficult to focus.
"Breathe deep and determine something you know to be true."
A voice of an old man came from nowhere. It sounded nice. Harry breathed in deeply and exhaled slowly. He was in a dark room… maybe… was he in a room? He wasn't sure.
"The simplest truth will do. Breathe deep and dig."
Another breath, and… he was in the dark… right? Maybe he was blinded, who knew?
"Breathe deep and dig."
Another breath. OK… he was breathing, so that was true… except…
"Dig!"
Another breath… but he couldn't feel air passing along his lips… he couldn't feel his lungs filling or emptying… Was he breathing?
"DIG!"
Another breath. He was alive, so… he must be breathing… but he can't feel it… what if he wasn't in the physical world? Would that mean he was inside his mind? If so, then he should be able to…
He reached out his left hand and flicked his finger up, revealing he was in his mind's bowling alley. His finger touching a light switch. Why would a light switch work inside his mind? Why was the room filled with a dense fog? He was so confused.
The fog was so annoying. No… not annoying… offensive! His alley shouldn't be foggy. It should be removed immediately! But how would he blow the fog out? He needed something… like a…
A blinking switch appeared next to the light switch, labelled "Exhaust Fan". Without thought, Harry flipped that switch up. With a burst of internal magic, the fog disappeared.
As he felt the confusion curse dispel, Harry felt an immense amount of gratefulness for the intense training that he received from Albus, as the man had been adamant that Harry should build automatic defenses for dealing with magic designed to muddle thinking.
With his thoughts now clear, he now could figure out what was happening. He had just been reaching for a mug when everything went dark. So, obviously the mug had been cursed. Why would Abe curse him… right! The unfocused eyes… so there was a chance the man had been fighting an Imperius Curse. Which indicates Harry was in potential mortal danger, and the fact that Albus had not woken Harry yet means…
Harry shivered and tried to ignore the darker interpretations that his mind conjured, and breathed deeply as he hoped Albus was safe. For now, his training was clear. He needed to escape his current danger before worrying about the safety of others. Which meant he had to leave his mind and wake up. With a command to his subconscious, he forced himself awake… and crashed back to the floor of his alley.
Looking around he realized there was an angry red shield encasing the room. Of course! Of course there had been a stunning spell involved. Harry needed to focus and pay closer attention. This was not a training exercise. Reaching out with his right arm, his hand grasped on a bowling ball pulsing with blinding blue light. This was his defense for rousing himself from a full force Albus stunning spell, and now was not the time to hold back. With an impossibly strong throw, the ball went flying down the alley into the wall of red light, which spiderwebbed upon impact and then…
Harry's eyes snapped open.
"Impressive, Potter."
A man stepped away from where he had been bent over Harry's hand, to stand in front of Harry. The man had pale, slightly freckled skin, fair hair, and a deeply lined face. And he sported a smugly evil smirk. Oddly he was also holding a needle looped with thread. Looking around, Harry could see they were in a cemetery, with a massive cauldron sitting above a fire. The sound of a bubbling liquid came from the cauldron, which seemed ominous.
"My master was so pleased to hear of your encounter with the Goblet of Fire, Potter. Of course, he rightfully punished me for my failure to keep you enrolled in the tournament, but he was still pleased. Without the old fool there, it was child's play to control the current headmaster to put your name in the Goblet and then wipe his memory of doing so. But your impressive counterattack, where you showed yourself far above the rabble in skill and power, was a satisfying surprise. My master told me that at one point he had thought that your mudblood mother had, laughably, invoked some ancient love-based magic. As if someone like her could achieve anything that would be of any threat to my master. But, realizing that you are chosen by magic, just like my master, that made it clear that fate simply needed you to come into your own before the true final battle can take place. Of course, it only makes sense that magic itself would deem my master worthy of a custom-made nemesis. My master is eager to face a foe that is worthy of being on the receiving end of his endless skill and power."
One of the first lessons Harry was taught was to not be idle while your enemies are bragging. So, while he took in the words being said, he went through all his escape scenarios. He tried a Jump, but he felt like his body slammed into a wall while he remained unmoved. He saw his wand tied down to a slab on the ground and tried to summon it to his hand. But his magic seemed to not want to respond to his commands. He could feel it welling up, but then fizzling out.
Moving his hand to point towards his wand, he realized it was immobilized. Looking down, he realized his head was also immobilized. Looking down with his eyes only, he could see his left arm stretched out and that it was wrapped in some sort of furry covering. His entire arm and hand were covered, except for the tip of his index finger. Based on the stitching, it appeared that the man had stitched up the wrapping by hand. So, probably some sort of magic resistance was involved in the bag. Assuming he was wrapped in it entirely, and how quickly he roused himself, it was likely the rest of the bag was pre-stitched and there was only some work that was needed on the arm. Shifting his body, he was unsurprised that his entire body was immobilized.
Pulsing his magic to shred the bag in some way was ineffective. His magic would not focus anywhere enough to let him get any effect.
A chuckle came from the man.
"Do you like your wrappings, Potter? They are made from the skin of a rare creature known as a Screeching Fleshrender. I would not expect you to know of it, but it has remarkable properties, as you likely have discovered already. It cost nearly the entirety of my family's fortune, but any cost is worth paying for my master. I suppose I should thank the old fool before my master kills him, after all if he had not had my father arrested for imprisoning your blood traitor Godfather, I would never have been able to throw off the Imperius he had kept me under and return to my master's side. Speaking of my master…"
The man stepped away from Harry to tend to the cauldron. Clearly preparing some sort of potion.
OK… this was… this was bad! It didn't take much effort to deduce who the man's master was, and from the way he was talking… it seemed like it would be best if Harry was gone before the potion was done.
What did he know about Fleshrenders? Magic and teleportation abilities were largely ineffective. But it could be chunked by conjured razor wire. That would be helpful if Harry could get his magic to focus properly, but the fur against his skin must be causing problems. The only part of him that was exposed was the tip of his index finger, without enough wiggle room to bend the knuckle. So… he was scr…
Nope! Albus taught him to keep trying and let himself feel pessimistic afterwards. The steady stream of pessimism got shunted off to a shelf in his mind labeled for later processing, no matter how much the situation stank, there had to be a way. Right!?
Falling back on training, he let his mind wander for a moment. When you have run out of options, let your mind wander, and breathe for a moment, to give your subconscious a chance to work on the problem.
The foul odors from the potion wafted through the dust filled air of the cemetery, making Harry greatly miss the bubble head charm he had learned that first day after leaving Hogwarts. Of course, that also came with the risk of liquifying his body if the magic was improperly channeled, but…
Oh!
Activating his ability to see the flow of magic, he began picturing his index finger swirling. Turning his eyes inwards, he could see his body's magic starting to move. Despite not being able to move the tip of his finger, his magic was responding as if it were. The swirl began to increase in speed, forming a funnel reaching down his finger, down his hand, down his arm, into his chest. The funnel branched off in every direction. He some funnels destabilizing, and he tilted the swirls around until they restabilized. Soon enough, he could see all the magic of his body funneling into the tip of his finger.
Harry heard a cracking sound. Glancing over, he saw the man pointing a wand at a grave where the ground had split open and dry bone came floating out.
"Bone of the father, unknowingly given…"
CRAP!
With his magic funneling into the tip of his finger, he focused on a stunning spell. He could see a red spark sizzling at the tip of his finger, but cruelly refusing to leave his finger.
The man pulled out an exceptionally sharp-looking knife.
"Flesh of the servant, willingly given…"
DOUBLE CRAP!
Come on, magic! He could feel the spark increasing in intensity, as his fingertip was now glowing bright red without any need to look at the magic directly. But…
A loud splash made him look up to see the man now missing a hand, smiling with an insane joy. The man then locked eyes with Harry. Idly, the man's dead eyes reminded Harry of playing fetch with his Great White Shark, especially with dust floating through the air reminding him of when his tail swishing would cause the sand to float up from the ocean floor.
Wait…
The man started walking towards him.
"Blood of the enemy…"
If air could hold dust in it, then… didn't he hear somewhere that air was a fluid, or something like that?
"forcibly…"
So, if he just thought of air as full air drops that are touching each other…
"taken…"
As the man neared and raised his knife, the world filled with an intense flash of red and the deafening sound of thunder. A stream of what appeared to be a red electric bolts boiled out of Harry's fingertip and pored directly into the chest of the man, the force of which lifted the man off of his feet and threw him a dozen feet away and slammed him into a gravestone. The man did not rise.
"NOOOOOOO!"
A loud and wispy voice screamed, coming from a bundle of blankets near the cauldron.
TRIPLE CRAP!
Eyeing the knife on the ground near the man, Harry focused his magic again. A stream of white electricity shot from his fingertip and wrapped around the knife's handle. The knife came flying back to him, stopping when it arrived at the wrapping. Shunting off the thought that he should not have enough finesse for what he was about to do, he put his faith in magic and directed the knife's blade and swiftly sliced through the Fleshrender skin, freeing his arm from its confines.
As he tried to move again, he realized his body was still immobilized. Moving his hand, he felt metal chains holding him where he was. Now funneling his magic into his full hand, with a single thought the metal transfigured into sand and Harry fell to the ground. Quickly he grabbed the knife and cut through the remainder of the skin to fully free himself, partially rolling his eyes when the sheath to his sword was finally freed. It would have been much easier if that hadn't been wrapped up with him.
As he sat down to finish freeing himself, he felt a disturbance behind him, and he rolled out of the way. The head of a large snake flew into where he had been sitting, its jaws snapping where Harry's neck would have been.
Kicking off the last of the Fleshrender skin, Harry performed a Hyper Jump out of the graveyard and bounced off a solid wall of wards, landing back where he had been. Looking over at the snake as it prepared to attack again, Harry reached for his sword.
Harry sat on the ground, his sword balanced on a rock, its point held inches from a very ugly baby thing. A headless snake lay on the ground near a statue of an angel.
He was not sure how long it had been since the fight, but it felt like hours. Realistically, he would be surprised if it had been a full hour since he was abducted. He was just so exhausted. He had tried so many ways to escape the wards, but they were so far beyond him that he didn't know where to begin. He couldn't even get a Patronus message out.
And then, an oppressive power filled his senses. Looking to his side, he saw Albus striding towards the wards, his robes billowing with an absent wind. The man pulled out his wand, caught Harry's eyes and touched his ear. Harry put down the sword and covered his ears. And then, Albus Dumbledore's eyes filled with a shining golden light and then a ball of prismatic rainbow light flew out the tip of his wand. The ball grew from the size of a bludger, to Hagrid's hut, to the Burrow. It was still growing as it collided with the wards and then completely blanketed the entire dome and dug into the ground to deal with the underground protections. A loud screech, like nails on a chalkboard, filled the world as the wards dissolved, sizzled, and shattered all at once. The magic of the wards was then sucked into the prismatic light, which then resolved back into a ball which shot into the air and exploded hundreds of feet in the air, turning the night into day for several seconds.
As the ball did its work, Albus never broke stride. He simply walked through the ward line with a supreme confidence which… which Harry supposed was well deserved.
"Harry! My boy! Are you well? What happened?"
Harry smiled as he could tell that Albus's body language made it clear that he wanted to give Harry a hug but was on high alert for danger.
"I'm fine Albus, it's a bit of a story…"
As Harry told the story, Albus relaxed. When Harry demonstrated his new magic by grabbing the knife off the ground with a line of magical electricity, Albus chuckled and looked down at the baby.
"Well, Tom, I bet you never knew of the power of the Sith."
Harry huffed in amusement, while trying to affect a disapproving face. "I'm not a Sith!"
"As you insist… Emperor Potter."
Harry smiled and then frowned when he looked down at baby Tom. "What do we do with him?"
Albus looked down at Tom in thought, and then his eyes widened in shock.
"Harry… the tendrils… look."
Once again turning on his magical vision, he was shocked to see two tendrils coming off Tom. Each tendril was strong and connected directly to Albus. Albus then moved out of Tom's field of vision and placed the Locket and Cup on the ground. A solid triangle of tendrils connected the three.
"I thought there were three tendrils."
Albus looked over and stared meaningfully at the corpse of the snake.
"Harry, with your permission, I think you should hand me the sword so we can…"
Harry nodded and handed the sword off as he stared at Tom, to keep watch.
He listened to the screaming of one horcrux rise, fall, and the one tendril disappeared. Then the same happened with the second tendril.
Albus handed the sword back to Harry, who set it back on the stone and kept the point inches from Tom.
"The tendrils are gone. But… Albus, what do we do with him?"
"What do you want to do, Harry?"
"I… need a moment. Can you give me a hand and watch him?"
Albus sat to take control of the sword as Harry stood.
Albus adopted a curious expression. "I would have expected Tom to be a bit more vocal during all of this, and yet he hasn't spoken a word."
Harry shrugged as he started to pace in thought. "Oh, I put a silencing spell on him. I got tired of the death threats."
Albus twisted in surprise to look at Harry. After a moment he began to laugh lightly, much to Harry's amusement. After a few seconds, the laughter ceased. "I suppose he was not happy with that."
Harry smirked. "Well, I didn't hear him complain."
With that, Harry spent several more minutes pacing under Albus's watchful eye. Finally, Harry gave himself a decisive nod and walked back to Albus.
"I… don't want to do it, but I am not sure what else we can do but I think… Albus?"
Albus frowned in confusion as he turned to look at what Harry was staring at.
Harry was staring at Tom. A very still Tom. A very still Tom with a fresh cut on his forearm, clearly delivered by a basilisk venom infused sword. A very deceased Tom Riddle.
"Albus… I asked you to give me a hand, not to kill him."
Albus stared at Tom's body in shock. "I assure you Harry, I didn't mean… I must have accidentally shifted the sword when I twisted around. I was fully intending to… be the hand of the other…"
Harry narrowed his eyes in confusion. "That's a weird way of saying it."
Albus shook his head slowly before looking back at Harry and standing up. "Yes, I suppose it is."
Harry stared at Albus with suspicion for a few moments, before deciding that Albus is sometimes weird like that and moving on with the conversation.
"So, is he gone for good now?"
Albus looked down, before pulling out his wand.
"Yes, that is the last of Tom Riddle. Shall I clean up the scene?"
Harry nodded, and Albus began the process of removing all traces of anything having happened in the graveyard. Within two minutes, all evidence was gone.
"What did you do with the guy I stunned?"
"I sent him to the Ministry with an anonymous note. He will be sent back to Azkaban once they figure out how to wake him from that stunning spell. Until then, I vibrated the House Elf link he has, so he should be well cared for."
"And… Tom?"
"That is his father's grave. I put Tom's body in the coffin embraced within his father's arms."
"I don't think he would have liked that… so that works. Should we tell authorities what happened?"
"I don't see why, there is nothing for them to do. And Barty already has a life sentence, so there is no need for any further criminal proceedings. As for Tom, everyone believes he is gone already, so telling them that he is still gone is a touch redundant."
Harry frowned. "Alright… it just…"
"What?"
"It all seems a bit anticlimactic."
Albus gazed at Harry with an unreadable expression for a moment. "Well… we know where his body is. I can look for some necromantic ritual to bring him back and help him come back to full power. Then, we could have an epic battle of good versus evil, with hundreds dying on both sides. Shall I get started?"
Harry rolled his eyes. "Sure, it sounds silly when YOU say it. I just never thought that it would end this way."
Albus gently squeezed Harry's shoulder. "It's ended for him, not for you. For you, it is just a continuation of your beginning. Up until recently, I have never had the words to describe my hopes for your life, and Tom's role in it. But now I do."
Harry looked up expectantly.
"For Tom, the day that you graced his presence, was the most important day of his life. But for you, it was Tuesday."
Harry stared at Albus in disbelief, and then started to walk away from the graveyard.
"That's it! You lose your movie picking privileges for the next month."
"As you command, my master."
"I'm not a Sith Lord!"
"If looks like a duck, and shoots lightning like a duck…"
"Can we just go see Remus and Sirius now?"
"As you wish!"
Harry looked back at the man and smiled softly. "I love you too, grandpa."
And without a glance back to the graveyard, Harry and Albus disappeared. On to a new adventure.
THE END