A/N: Here's the neter! Which also means the four chapters are up on my Patreon for early access as well as the ce to vote on the dire of the story!

  Poor Voldemort...

  -x-X-x-

  For over a decade, Voldemort had suffered indignity after indignity following his ignoble defeat at the hands of… an infant. Reduced to little more than a shade of his fht and magic, the Dark Lord had plenty of time to stew in the events of that night a, it wasn’t until Harry Potter’s First Year and his failure to secure the Stohat Voldemort had finally learly what had gone so dramatically wrong that night.

  It was he boy. If anything, his epithet was so much more fitting than anyone realized. ‘The Boy-Who-Lived’… because in the end, that was all that Harry Potter had done. As a one year old infant, that was all he COULD do. No, the one who had truly undone Lord Voldemort… was the mudblood.

  Lily Evans Potter. It was her magic that he’d run afoul of. Her ritual that he’d pletely missed. Voldemort did not oft times admit he was wrong, not even in the privacy of his own mind. Nor did he admit to hubris very easily either. Was it hubris when he recisely as powerful as he cimed to be?

  But… no. In this case, his hubris had in fact id him low. Killing the boy’s father had been easy. Killing the boy’s mother had been even easier. If she’d stepped aside, Voldemort would have spared her as he’d told Severus, but she hadn’t. She’d begged him to take her instead, shielding her infant spawn with her body to the very st sed.

  So Voldemort had killed her. And in doing so, the Dark Lord had sealed his own fate. The mudblood had pulled a fast one on him, trig him into effectively signing a magical tract with her when he’d ‘accepted’ her sacrifice by killing her as she begged for her son’s life. And in doing so, she’d put a singurly powerful prote on Harry Potter, ohat was as narrow in its focus as it was mighty in its strength.

  Put bluntly, if Voldemort had simply called on his closest Death Eaters to do the killing, everything would have been fihe prote was only from Voldemort himself. And the Dark Lord had walked right into the trap by casting Avada Kedavra on a seemingly helpless baby.

  Lily Potter was to be admired, in a way. If she weren’t dead, he would happily take revenge, but because she was dead, Voldemort could respect the way she’d tricked him. That did not mean, however, that her son would be spared his wrath. In the end, it turned out to be as simple as killing two birds with oohe same ritual that would resurrect him to his flory would also let him get around that pesky prote the mudblood had granted her son.

  Everything had been going perfectly. Potter had been coaxed into winning the Third Task of the Triwizard Tour and had been whisked away to the site of Voldemort’s resurre he wiser. Wormtail had captured the boy and performed to… adequate standards. Voldemort had been reborn… and with the exact same prote that Lily Potter’s death had veyed to Harry transferred over to him.

  He could touch the boy now. He could kill the boy. And so he’d set to making a spectacle of things, summoning those of his Death Eaters who would attend and f them all to bear wito his triumphauring aside whatever had happeo Lucius, Voldemort had been on top of the world and closing in on killing the o remaining threat to his rule, ond for all.

  … So then how had it all gone s so fast? He was the Dark Lord Voldemort! Aside from the tricks, aside from the treachery, there was nobody more powerful than he! Even that old bastard Dumbledore was slowly but surely dwindling as he aged! A… a…

  “An iing spell, the Killing Curse. Great for killing your enemies, obviously. But also such a sublime, pure form of Death Magic.”

  All an act. It was all just an act. Voldemort was beginning to realize that even as Harry Potter transformed from a defiant but weak little whelp to someone who felt he could lecture a Dark Lord in the middle of a duel to the death. No, more tha… this new Potter COULD lecture him in the middle of their duel and there was seemingly nothing Voldemort could do about it.

  Snarling, he pushes with all his newly restored might against the e between their wands… but to no effect. Whatever Potter is doing, he’s already wrested trol of that e and Voldemort’s efforts are batted down with ease, like they’re little more than a childish tantrum.

  “Of course, I couldn’t have dohis without you. You just had to use me as part of your resurre. Couldn’t just quietly kidnap some minor enemy and use them. No, it had to be me.”

  Of course it had to be him! Potter was the oh prote from his bsted mudblood of a mother! If it wasn’t him, then Voldemort would have forever been uo kill him with his own two hands, his own magic!

  “And then, of course, yht all of your most loyal followers here for me as well. Thank you for that too.”

  Out of the er of his eye, the Dark Lord sees the massacre happening and grows even angrier. He’d felt the anti-portkey and anti-apparation wards go up, but locked in this standoff with Potter, he couldn’t do anything about it… nor could his followers, the useless lot they were. Betrayed from within and attacked from behind, they were falling faster than Voldemort could blink. In fact, it was already done. Only two were left standing… one of them Narcissa Malfoy, and the other, he couldn’t say who she was.

  The two witches move with purpose though. They haven’t killed a single Death Eater, Voldemort betedly realizes. They’ve left his followers alive and are now ripping the arms of their shirts off, exposing their Dark Marks and drawing a lihrough each with a ritual bde.

  … What were they doing? What were they pnning? No… what was Harry Potter pnning?! Turning his full attention bato the boy who was clearly no boy, Voldemnashes his teeth and narrows his red eyes into slits.

  “You would challenge me Potter? You think you go toe to toe with a Dark Lord when it es to Dark Magic?”

  Because it was obvious by now that that was what the younger wizard must have done. He’d gone down the same path that Voldemort had, dabbling in magics that most others would sider taboo or forbidden. It wasn’t enough to know the intation if you wao cast an Unfivable Curse. You had to mean it. And when Harry had matched Voldemort’s Avada Kedavra with his own, he’d very much meant every bit of it.

  It would have been funny if the situation wasn’t turning so dire. Voldemort would have loved to see the look on Dumbledore’s face when the old bastard realized that his precious Boy-Who-Lived had gone dark. But that would have to wait until he figured out a way out of this bsted mess.

  “Toe to toe? Is that what you think I’m doing? Because from my perspective… I’m pletely dominating a Dark Lord at his own game right now.”

  Voldemort seethes in e at the brat’s cocky tone. But Harry isn’t done speaking.

  “Remiom… what was it that Pettigrew said again?”

  What? Before Voldemort respond, the rat-like man himself suddenly speaks up.

  “H-Harry, I-!”

  Truth be told, Voldemort had fotten Wormtail was there. So had Harry, from the look of things. If anything, the coward would have beeer off staying quiet.

  “Shut up, Peter.”

  With a simple flick of his eyes over in Wormtail’s dire, Harry does away with the rat. Not something Voldemort found all too disagreeable in spite of Pettigrew’s loyal service, but the method by which Harry kills the other man is… decidedly disquieting.

  Put simply, that single gnce is all it takes for Wormtail’s new silver hand, the hand that Voldemort had just given him, to act like it has a mind of its own and snap up, ing itself around Wormtail’s ned steadily choking the life out of him.

  That… was not something Potter should have been capable of. That was a feature Voldemort himself had included in the juration by design of course, in the event that Wormtail ever grew enough of a spio betray him. Much like the Dark Marks though, it was locked to Voldemort’s magical signature and his alone. Unless…

  “Now, what was it he said? Ah yes… blood of the enemy, forcibly taken. Tell me, Tom… how important was the ‘forcible’ part? Because I’m thinking it retty important. So important, in fact, that if your enemy were to know all of your pns ahead of time and willingly let themselves be captured and allow their blood to be taken knowing full well that they could have stopped it… well, that might just mess things up a bit.”

  Voldemort’s mind races as he processes the ramifications of Potter’s words. In a way, it would certainly disrupt things, but… this was far more than should have been possible with just that.

  “Of course, that was just one piece of the puzzle, wasn’t it?”

  Gritting his teeth at the unbearable, insufferable smugness permeating through the brat’s voice, Voldemort snarls.

  “What have you done, Potter?”

  For a brief moment, Harry Potter pauses in thought. Then, he smiles and shakes his head.

  “Mm… no. I’m not going to tell you.”

  Before Voldemort respond to that impudence as he would prefer to, Harry raises his wand… and everything bees pure pain. The Dark Lord’s jaw ches so hard he very nearly bites his tongue off as he finds himself uo so much as speak anymore.

  It takes a sed to realize what’s happening. This isn’t the Cruciatus, which is what Voldemort’s first assumption would have been. No, rather… it’s raw magic. Pure, raw power, flowing through him at rates that it was never inteo. Voldemort’s eyes widen as he gnces over to his downed followers aheir magic flowing out of the sshed Dark Marks and into him.

  However, Potter wasn’t actually making him more powerful or anything like that. He was using him like a duit. Just as soon as his followers’ magic was entering Voldemort’s body, it was flowing right back out of him and into Potter. The brat wasn’t eveiher. He simply stood there and took it, abs all that power like it was nothing.

  How?! How was this possible? Voldemort had spent years perfeg his Dark Mark. It was the greatest pieagic he’d ever achieved, his ing aplishment. It gave him plete access to his followers’ souls, so he supposed yes he could rob them of their magic if he so chose.

  But the Dark Mark was supposed to be impregnable by all but Voldemort himself. It was supposed to be ironcd, locked down tight, and impossible to alter or ge or remove by either those who wore it or anyone else. Only the Dark Lord could affect the Dark Mark. That was how it was supposed to be.

  But Harry had used Voldemort’s resurre ritual te a e between them. And then he’d used that e to usurp trol of the Dark Marks. It didn’t make any sehough. The e was ohing… but where had the brat gotten the power he would have o pletely overwhelm Voldemort’s own magical might like this?!

  Finally, the flow of magi his incapacitated followers to Voldemort himself ceases. The very st drop of their magic has been drained from ead every one of them. But the flow… the flow from him to Potter does not stop. It keeps going. Voldemort’s eyes widen in horror as he feels magid soul being drawn from… much further away.

  “Those pesky horcruxes of yours would have been a real pain in the ass to go and grab again, even if I kly where they all are from st time. Luckily, I don’t have to bother.”

  Again? Last time? The boy sounded insane. A… Voldemort feel his es to each of his soul anchors vanishing, one by one. Until… only one e remains. And it’s standing right in front of him. Voldemort’s eyes flick up to Harry’s forehead as suddenly, everything bees so, so much clearer. He finds his voice again, now that the pain isn’t quite so unbearable.

  “You…”

  His true enemy all along. The reason Harry Potter had seemingly turo Dark Magic. It wasn’t Harry. It wasn’t the ‘Boy-Who-Lived’… that night, the Avada Kedavra hadn’t been fully rebounded by Lily Potter’s prote. Something had bee behind. A piece of Voldemort’s soul… lodged ied baby’s forehead!

  “You’re me…”

  It all made so much sense now. How long? How long had it taken even a fragment of Voldemort’s soul to subsume an infant child and take over it’s body? Most likely only days, weeks… months at the test. And all this time, a piece of Voldemort had been lurking in Harry Potter. Had it been like that even ba Harry’s First Year? Had he just been hiding his true nature, all this time?! No, more than that…

  “You dare betray me?! I am yreater whole! You would usurp the Dark Lord Voldemort, you filthy… fragment?!”

  His own horcruxes betraying him was not something Voldemort had ever thought possible. But to be fair, he also hadn’t inteo make a living horcrux ive any of his soul anchors a body either. Here they were though all the same…

  ‘Harry’, or rather his soul fragment, looks at him bnkly for a long moment before letting out a bark of ughter.

  “Aistical maniac to the very end Tom. To the very end.”

  Voldemrowls and struggles all the harder as the green of their mixed Killing Curses finally starts to close in on him. The fool! So long as his st horcrux remained, he could not truly die! This was merely a setback, he would-!

  The Dark Lord’s eyes bulge out of his skull as the e between him and Potter suddenly snaps, the soul fragment in the boy’s forehead dissipating with a scream. But before he process what that would even mean… all he sees is green. And then… nothing.

  -x-X-x-

  Harry pauses, just enjoying the moment as Tom Riddle, in his demise, increases Harry’s power by quite the substantial amount. Not just the power of a Dark Lord himself, but also the power of every st one of his followers stupid enough to e here tonight. Heh, he did so love it when a pn came together.

  That said, it was time to decide what he was doi, Harry supposed. Unfortunately, he probably had to do the responsible thing and use the Champion’s Cup to go back to Hogwarts. That said, he should probably decide how exactly he wao frame the events of tonight, this time around…

  -x-X-x- The Vote: [X] Return with Voldemort's corpse and tell everyone of his victory - 53%[ ] Return alone and banged up, cim Voldemort is bad they o rally together - 23%[ ] Return alone and in perfect dition, pretend the portkey just took a strange amount of time to transport him - 24%

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