Caducus

The despair settled and drowned out everything; it's tenacious grip left a ringing noise in Harry's ears, that, amid the chaos, was more terrible than anything. The horror, however, of the battle raging around him, and the ringing in his head was his very lowest concern at the moment. His full attention was held elsewhere.

Whether by some curse that was uttered, or some unseen force, or perhaps even by some hidden magic unbeknownst to anyone hidden where Godric's Hollow once stood, time had slowed. Harry felt it. All of his surroundings seemed to be caught in suspension. Even his movements felt sluggish, not unlike being in the depths of a nightmare. Sound had become immaterial. He breathed, and felt his senses increase tenfold. He stood.

Blood trickled into his eyes, dripped from his nose, and drenched his clothing. The air was more than acrid, more than just a foul stench of dead bodies, smoke, and tarnished earth. It was unbearable. But he stood.

Not more than ten feet in front of him cowed the very thing which had brought him through seventeen years of heartache, despair, and bloodshed. Right in front of him cowed the thing that, though his own foolish mistakes, had made the man who Harry was now. Right in front of him cowed Voldemort, and he was, without a doubt, severely frightened.

Thoughts raced though Harry's mind; how, so suddenly, had the tables turned? why here, of all places? was everyone else all right? had Voldemort ever been frightened before?

But one thought slowly emerged and then suddenly overwhelmed him above anything else.

Hate.

It was a white, burning, pure hate, that, had he been in a more secure state of mind, would have frightened him deeply. With every slow second ticking by, it grew and became a steady, even flow, coursing through his veins, and pounding in his head, relentless. His breathing became labored, and his vision swam. As if looking through another time and another world, he saw without seeing a violent spasm of air shimmer around him. His anger and his fuel from every horrible thing that had happened in the years past needed an outlet. It made him want to scream, to curse his enemy until he was a pile of ash, to rip him apart with his bare hands. But he stood.

Voldemort was frightened. It made him want to laugh horribly, loudly, coldly, and taunt him like a child. It made him want to put that damnable wretch through everything that he, Harry, had been through, and so much worse. Right and wrong simply had no meaning at this point. It was Voldemort and him, and that was all that mattered.

An ember of a thought flicked to life in his brain. It was the object of perfection. It had the desire, and it had the purpose, more of a purpose than anything in his life ever had. The ember grew, and with it, a sense of power. Impeccable power, the likes of which he had never felt before. It was beautiful and terrible and staggering. For one fleeting second he wondered if this is how it felt to be Voldemort; to own the power to dangle one's fate in front of one's face and without a second thought otherwise, the ability to crush it. It fueled him further.

The nerves along his wand arm began to tingle. Every reprehensible thing that Voldemort had caused in his miserable lifetime found its end here. In his mind, Harry saw glimpses of thoughts he had tried so very hard to shut away into the deepest parts of his brain all these years, but they tumbled out in a torrent of anger and hate and sorrow. Sirius's face as he fell behind the veil, the years spent in the cupboard, the utter helpless feeling of seeing Cedric's body on the ground, I must not tell lies, the regret of never ever being able to come home to his parents during the summer, telling the tales of the woes and happiness of school, Dumbledore....

He could stand no longer.

Already the words had formed in his head, but had not yet touched his lips. The hate and power had reached it's zenith; it needed an escape, or else he would surely explode.

The tingling of his arm grew more intense. He felt a surge of ultimate power that seemed to come from his head, down his shoulder, exploding into his forearm, and finally to his fingers and wand. He felt his blood turn cold, and the air being sucked out of his lungs.

The words were said.

Sound rushed back with a force, but it seemed that all had gone silent. Harry dared not look around. He kept his eyes on the mangled body sprawled on the ground, but everything had slid out of focus. He dropped to his knees and swayed; a horror on the wind whispered in his ears, filling him with a numbness that he could not explain.