Lightning Strikes Twice Ch. 64 (Harry Potter) (Patreon)

A/N: Poor Voldemort...

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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 former might and magic, the Dark Lord had plenty of time to stew in the events of that night and yet, it wasn’t until Harry Potter’s First Year and his failure to secure the Stone that Voldemort had finally learned exactly what had gone so dramatically wrong that night.

It was never the 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 completely 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 was precisely as powerful as he claimed to be?

But… no. In this case, his hubris had in fact laid 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 last second.

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, tricking him into effectively signing a magical contract 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 singularly powerful protection on Harry Potter, one that 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 fine. The protection 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 one stone. The same ritual that would resurrect him to his former glory would also let him get around that pesky protection the mudblood had granted her son.

Everything had been going perfectly. Potter had been coaxed into winning the Third Task of the Triwizard Tournament and had been whisked away to the site of Voldemort’s resurrection none the wiser. Wormtail had captured the boy and performed to… adequate standards. Voldemort had been reborn… and with the exact same protection that Lily Potter’s death had conveyed 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 forcing them all to bear witness to his triumphant return. Setting aside whatever had happened to Lucius, Voldemort had been on top of the world and closing in on killing the one last remaining threat to his rule, once and for all.

… So then how had it all gone so wrong 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! And yet… and yet…

“An interesting 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 than felt… 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 connection between their wands… but to no effect. Whatever Potter is doing, he’s already wrested control of that connection and Voldemort’s efforts are batted down with ease, like they’re little more than a childish tantrum.

“Of course, I couldn’t have done this without you. You just had to use me as part of your resurrection. 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 one with protection from his blasted mudblood of a mother! If it wasn’t him, then Voldemort would have forever been unable to kill him with his own two hands, his own magic!

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

Out of the corner 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 belatedly realizes. They’ve left his followers alive and are now ripping the arms of their shirts off, exposing their Dark Marks and drawing a line through each with a ritual blade.

… What were they doing? What were they planning? No… what was Harry Potter planning?! Turning his full attention back onto the boy who was clearly no boy, Voldemort gnashes his teeth and narrows his red eyes into slits.

“You would challenge me Potter? You think you can go toe to toe with a Dark Lord when it comes 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 consider taboo or forbidden. It wasn’t enough to know the incantation if you wanted to cast an Unforgivable 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 blasted mess.

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

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

“Remind me, Tom… what was it that Pettigrew said again?”

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

“H-Harry, I-!”

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

“Shut up, Peter.”

With a simple flick of his eyes over in Wormtail’s direction, 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 glance 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, wrapping itself around Wormtail’s neck and 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 conjuration by design of course, in the event that Wormtail ever grew enough of a spine to 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 was pretty important. So important, in fact, that if your enemy were to know all of your plans 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 can respond to that impudence as he would prefer to, Harry raises his wand… and everything becomes pure pain. The Dark Lord’s jaw clenches so hard he very nearly bites his tongue off as he finds himself unable to so much as speak anymore.

It takes a second 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 intended to. Voldemort’s eyes widen as he glances over to his downed followers and sees their magic flowing out of the slashed Dark Marks and into him.

However, Potter wasn’t actually making him more powerful or anything like that. He was using him like a conduit. 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 even sweating either. He simply stood there and took it, absorbing all that power like it was nothing.

How?! How was this possible? Voldemort had spent years perfecting his Dark Mark. It was the greatest piece of magic he’d ever achieved, his crowning accomplishment. It gave him complete 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 ironclad, locked down tight, and impossible to alter or change 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 resurrection ritual to forge a connection between them. And then he’d used that connection to usurp control of the Dark Marks. It didn’t make any sense though. The connection was one thing… but where had the brat gotten the power he would have needed to completely overwhelm Voldemort’s own magical might like this?!

Finally, the flow of magic from his incapacitated followers to Voldemort himself ceases. The very last drop of their magic has been drained from each and 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 magic and 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 know exactly where they all are from last time. Luckily, I don’t have to bother.”

Again? Last time? The boy sounded insane. And yet… Voldemort can feel his connections to each of his soul anchors vanishing, one by one. Until… only one connection remains. And it’s standing right in front of him. Voldemort’s eyes flick up to Harry’s forehead as suddenly, everything becomes 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 turned to 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 protection. Something had been left behind. A piece of Voldemort’s soul… lodged in the blasted 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 latest. And all this time, a piece of Voldemort had been lurking in Harry Potter. Had it been like that even back in 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 your greater 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 intended to make a living horcrux or give any of his soul anchors a body either. Here they were though all the same…

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

“An egotistical maniac to the very end Tom. To the very end.”

Voldemort growls 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 last 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 connection between him and Potter suddenly snaps, the soul fragment in the boy’s forehead dissipating with a scream. But before he can process what that would even mean… all he sees is green. And then… nothing.

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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 last one of his followers stupid enough to come here tonight. Heh, he did so love it when a plan came together.

That said, it was time to decide what he was doing next, 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 wanted to frame the events of tonight, this time around…

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A/N: Just as an aside guys, this story is probably about 60-75% complete at this point. I expect it will probably be finished within 20-40 chapters, and there will likely be either a series of timeskips or one large timeskip coming up that transitions us to Post-Hogwarts.

That said, please let me know the things you all think need to happen for sure before this story ends, because my memory is pretty bad and I can't promise I remember every plot thread. I remember some, but don't think just because it's something you've been waiting for that I definitely remember it lol.