Chapter 366: Chapter 365: "Fate’s Final Clash"
With an inhuman roar of pure, unrestrained rage—a sound that mirrored the island's death throes—Voldemort unleashed his full power. There was no longer any semblance of control, strategy, or even survival. It was raw, blinding fury, destruction for its own sake.
The island's amplification magic—ancient, malevolent—answered his madness, feeding his frenzy, magnifying his spells into forces of cataclysmic annihilation.
Harry met the onslaught head-on, a storm colliding with another. Light against darkness. Chaos against order. Destiny against desperation.
Sword and wand moved in perfect, terrifying harmony—extensions of Harry's power, his intent, his will. The air ignited around them, shimmering, distorting, and combusting as their magic clashed. Reality itself frayed at the edges, straining under the unbearable weight of their combined power.
Below them, the sea churned into a frothing maelstrom, twisted by the storm and their unleashed magic. Stray spells struck the ocean's surface, boiling vast swathes of water into clouds of scalding steam. The rising vapor mixed with black smoke and volcanic ash, turning the landscape into a swirling miasma of chaos and destruction.
They fought above the disintegrating island—two gods of war locked in a final, desperate struggle, neither touching the crumbling ground. Their magic and sheer will kept them aloft, suspended above the abyss.
Every clash sent shockwaves rippling outward, distorting the water's surface and triggering seismic tremors that splintered the dissolving rock below. The very elements bent to their will—fire erupted in columns, lightning crackled and danced between them, wind howled in spiraling tempests. Even darkness itself seemed to twist and solidify, obeying their thoughts, reshaping the world in their image.
It was no longer a battle. It was the end of an era—an unstoppable force meeting an immovable object, tearing the world apart around them.
Then Voldemort, consumed by blinding, all-devouring rage, unleashed his signature curse—the ultimate expression of his dark mastery. The incantation synonymous with terror, with death, with his very name.
"Avada Kedavra!"
The sickly green light of the Killing Curse—the color of poisoned emeralds, of festering decay, of absolute oblivion—ripped through the apocalyptic chaos. It illuminated the swirling smoke and molten lava in an eerie, ghostly glow, painting the battlefield in hues of death and finality.
Harry watched the jet of lethal green magic hurtling toward him. In that fleeting second, a flicker of déjà vu stirred—a ghost of memory, an echo from another timeline, another battle, another ending. His mind flashed with fragments of a life not lived.
Instinct took over. The instinct honed by countless battles, by years of relentless training, by the ingrained knowledge of paths not taken. His right hand, gripping the Elder Wand, moved almost unconsciously, reacting faster than thought, faster than fear.
The urge to cast Expelliarmus flared. The disarming charm. The signature spell of the other Harry, the canon Harry. For the briefest moment, it felt as though fate itself demanded he cast that spell, to carve out the iconic moment once again.
But Harry—Hadrian Ignotus Potter—rebelled. A scream of defiance echoed in his mind.
No. Not him. Not me.
He was not the weak, hopeful boy from canon. He had long since shed that identity. He rarely used Expelliarmus now, refusing to let that spell define him.
He would fight this battle on his terms. He would end this battle with his strength.
With all his will and power, he cast the spell that had become his signature—one born of lightning and fury.
"Fulgur Lancea!"
A spear of pure lightning erupted from the Elder Wand, a concentrated lance of blinding energy that crackled with raw power. It tore through the air, illuminating the darkness with the light of a contained storm.
It met the sickly green jet of the Killing Curse in mid-air. The collision erupted in a soundless explosion of light and raw energy—violent and unstoppable. The world seemed to hold its breath as arcs of lightning split the sky, twisting and lashing out with a fury of their own, bending reality around their clash.
The two spells collided, locked in an invisible struggle—a battle of wills fought on the ethereal plane of magic. A clash of destinies, played out in a single, incandescent moment.
The intersection point shimmered and crackled with raw, untamed energy. A swirling vortex of pure magic, where light and darkness wrestled for dominance. Life and death hung precariously in the balance.
For a breathless, timeless instant, they remained locked—two beams of light, purple and green, frozen in eternal combat. It was a visual manifestation of the war itself, the fate of the wizarding world suspended between them.
Then, slowly, almost imperceptibly at first, the purple light began to push back. To advance. To surge forward with unstoppable momentum. It overwhelmed the sickly green, pushing it back, consuming it, devouring it in a tide of righteous power.
The green of the Killing Curse flickered, faltered, weakened. Its malevolent energy dissipated, dissolving, fading into insignificance against the relentless force of Harry's spell.
And then, with a final, agonizing shriek – a sound that echoed the death throes of the island itself – the Killing Curse shattered. The death spell however did not disappear, its malevolent energy was consumed by the relentless force of Harry's magic, absorbed and transformed, feeding the already devastating spell and making it stronger, deadlier.
The purple beam, now unopposed, surged forward. A lance of pure magical energy, striking Voldemort full in the chest with the force of a physical blow. An impact that resonated through the very air, through the very island.
The Dark Lord's crimson eyes widened. Pupils dilated in shock, in disbelief, in a dawning, horrifying realization. A flicker of understanding, of bitter, ironic comprehension, dawned in their depths.
He recognized the impossible, the unthinkable. He, Lord Voldemort, the most powerful Dark Lord of all time, was being defeated. Defeated by the very boy he had sought to destroy. The boy he had underestimated. The boy who had become his ultimate nemesis.
A silent scream tore from Voldemort's lips—a soundless cry of anguish and despair. His body convulsed, twisting into unnatural angles as the magic ripped through him. The lightning consumed him from within, while the devoured death curse did its work, tearing apart the fragile remnants of his shattered soul.
The dark magic that had sustained him for so long unraveled. His form, already a grotesque parody of life, began to disintegrate. His wand fell from numb fingers, clattering against the crumbling rock before vanishing into the abyss. His body lost its form, its substance, dissolving into dust even as he fell.
Voldemort's lifeless body plummeted—a ragdoll of decaying flesh and bone—into the fiery chasm that had split the island's heart. He disappeared into the molten lava below with a final, hissing splash, a sound quickly swallowed by the roaring flames and crashing waves.
The lava churned and roared, consuming him, erasing him. Burning away the last vestiges of Lord Voldemort—of Tom Marvolo Riddle—until nothing remained. The Dark Lord who had once terrorized the wizarding world was reduced to ashes, to memory, to nothingness.
Harry stood on the edge of the crumbling island, his breath steady despite the raging chaos around him. The wind whipped through his hair, the salty spray of the sea stinging his face. He watched in silence as the lava glowed and the island shuddered in its final death throes, sinking beneath the waves.
With it went the ruins of the manor, the echoes of battle, the ashes of Voldemort, and the weight of a world finally, truly free.
The fight was over. The war was won. The prophecy, in its own twisted, unexpected way, had been fulfilled.
As dawn broke over the horizon, the iron-grey sky softened to hues of rose and pale gold. Hadrian Potter—the boy who was not supposed to be the hero, the Knight who had risen from the shadows, the wizard who had defied fate and forged his own destiny—stood alone above the ruins of Grindelwald's isle.
The rising sun cast his shadow, long and solitary, across the turbulent waters below.
The world was safe. For now, at least. The darkness had been pushed back. Banished. Extinguished.
And now, finally, it was time to go home.