No Going Back

Author's note: As you might be able to tell, this story is currently undergoing a pretty massive overhaul. I guess I just got tired of having it around like a thorn in my side, pricking me with it's plebeish writing. I also wanted to be the story to be canonical up to OotP, so all spoilers for up to there apply. As for the usual disclaimers- I do not own anything, I am a worm, yada yada yada. I also have a fairly heavy schedule with work and school, so updates will probably be... erratic. Sorry. Oh, and sorry if the formatting is wonky. ff.net likes to chew it up a bit.

Chapter 1:The Abyss

The woman's scream was swallowed up by the night, sucked up and away to the void between the stars where such things are meant to go. Her eyes reflected that void- empty and black, staring without sight into the face of the one who had put that emptiness there.

He was glad for her emptiness. Perhaps now she understood what she had done to him.

The life of Bellatrix Lestrange was not the first Harry had stolen this night. Somewhere deep inside where he could recognize the emotion, he hoped her's wouldn't be the last.

The wind whispered unholy things, chasing a shiver across the bare skin of his arms. It was well in to the month of May, but the air was bitter, and Harry could taste it on the back of his tongue like something astringent and metallic. Even the blood that trickled down the side of his face felt cold, as if everything inside of him had been robbed of it's warmth by a Dementor's Kiss. He gazed down at the body of Bellatrix and idly wondered if it was possible to feel this cold and not be dead. The thought tumbled around in his thoughts like a snowflake on the breeze and drifted away without an answer.

The sound of clapping brought Harry's gaze up, up over the bodies of Bellatrix, of Lucius Malfoy, of Percy Weasley, of Peter Pettigrew. His green eyes locked on the reptilian face of Voldemort, and he was no longer aware of the cold, no longer aware of anything except the band of hate that constricted so hard around his chest he could barely breathe.

The Dark Lord brought his hands together a final time, and the mocking applause ceased. His own gaze drifted over the litter of carnage at the sixteen year-old's feet, but the glassy ruby eyes revealed nothing. His voice emerged dry as desert sand, hissing slightly on the sibilants. "I seem to find myself deprived of an inner circle of Death Eaters, Potter. A pity. Though I found it amusing to watch your successful use of the Cruciatus curse on Bellatrix. You've been practicing it, haven't you?"

The Boy Who Lived only returned Voldemort's stare defiantly, chin slightly tilted up as his robes and hair were tossed about by the frigid wind. It curled its' icy fingers through his clothes, stealing away the meager heat of his body, pulling it from his mouth in clouds of white vapor. Harry had indeed increased in ability since their last encounter in the halls of the Ministry. He had spent a full year willing himself the power. His grades had suffered. He'd been kicked off the Gryffindor Quidditch team. Classes and Snitches had simply fallen to the bottom of Harry's priorities. All his friends, even his professors had pleaded with him-- but their pleas had fallen upon deaf ears. Only Dumbledore had seemed to understand. Every time those knowing eyes behind their half-moon spectacles had fallen on Harry, there had been a look of weary resignation in them. For Harry, there had been no other choice, no other path but the one that had led him to this graveyard in Godric's Hollow, to this night.

The corpses that lay strewn at their feet were strewn amongst ancient and crumbling tombstones. Markers of other deaths, other lives lost. Perhaps in wars similar to this. Harry's own feet were planted firmly on a patch of ice-slicked dirt, less than a yard away from a hauntingly beautiful marble angel, whose base was engraved with the epitaph: "James and Lily Potter. Beloved Friends. Devoted Parents." Harry had looked at it, briefly, but he hadn't really seen it. He hadn't seen anything but the Death Eaters that had barred the way between him and their master.

And now the way was clear, nothing between he and his enemy but icy wind and open space. Harry tried to summon up the satisfaction he knew he should feel, the triumph at having made it this far, at having defeated four Death Eaters- Voldemort's closest, Voldemort's best. He felt nothing except his bitterness of his anger and the cold. He had wanted to teach Voldemort this lesson, to rob him of the lives he valued, as he had done to Harry all his life. But it was a futile wish because the Dark Lord valued nothing except that which brought him power and now Harry only wished for him to be dead. Dead and gone, so horribly dead that even the worms wouldn't gnaw at his corpse.

Harry brought his arms up, raising his wand to dueling position. Then he searched his mind for a spell, a spell that would teach this creature who had returned from death time after time a new meaning of pain. But he couldn't think of it, he knew there must be such a thing but there wasn't, the spells he knew- they weren't enough. There wasn't a single spell in his repertoire that could embody the sense of hopelessness, of rage, of anguish, of weakness, of agony that would be needed to keep the Dark Lord from clinging to his shreds of life, to immortality.

If only Harry knew a spell that could let them trade places, that could let Voldemort sink inside Harry's head and run screaming through the darkness there.

Lord Voldemort had watched Harry move to the offensive stance, but had taken no counter-position. He tilted his skeletal head to one side, the hairless flesh glinting pale like bleached bone in the moonlight. His dry voice came forth like salt in a wound, intended to burn. "Do you think you are ready, Potter? You brought about my downfall when you were just a toddling child. Then you contributed to my resurrection. Do you think that life will bring you full circle? That you will conquer me tonight, once and for all? Think you that it is. . . inevitable?" Voldemort laughed sharply, once, the sound holding no mirth except for the perverse joy in afflicting hurt.

The fingers that wrapped around Harry's wand were trembling, a side-effect of the effort it was taking not to launch himself bodily across the distance between them and start beating in Voldemort's head with the nearest muddy rock. Harry tasted blood in his mouth like copper pennies, and he spat, wiping the trickle of blood and saliva from his chin with the back of his hand. He'd inadvertently bitten his tongue. His eyes never left Voldemort's face.

The Dark Lord watched this little morbid display, and the silence grew heavy as Harry still refused to speak. He continued with his speech, and in some small part of Harry's brain that wasn't occupied with fury, he wondered if Voldemort had rehearsed all of this.

"You're the other side of my coin, Harry. . . such differences we have, and yet such similarities. Everything that you are, I have shaped to my design. You are my tool and my toy and my enemy. Along with your blustering courage and misguided bravery, you have the more practical traits of cunning, resourcefulness, ambition--" Voldemort's eyes flashed like blood-red rubies. "Did you really think Parseltongue was the only gift I left within your mind?"

At Harry's glare of revulsion, the Dark Lord smirked provokingly. "Your hate," he breathed now. "Your hate belongs to me, too. I have taught you anger, rage. I know all about your secret darkness, Harry. The side you keep hidden from your friends. . . the side that dreams of blood and death, fantasizes about murder and killing-- yes. . . that is mine, as well."

Harry finally broke his silence, his two raven-black eyebrows knitting together as he sneered. His voice rasped, heavy with disgust. "Did you plan on killing me with words? Or maybe you thought you could bore me to death." He didn't want to stand here and bandy insults over the bodies of the dead. He wanted to see an end to the Prophecy-- now, tonight. Only one of them could continue to exist in this world.

Voldemort's arm swept out in a grandiose gesture. The mottled, sallow skin seemed stretched like paper over too-long bones, and Harry was struck by the thought that the Dark Lord had somehow shaped himself into some forsaken mix of snake, human, and Dementor. "Are you so eager to die, Potter?" The Dark Lord answered, his inhuman features twisted with malice and spite. "Tired of the daily torment of existence? Longing to see your dead parents again? To hear more of their voices than their dying screams?"

At last, Harry lowered his wand, his left hand going to the collar of his robes, jerking it down in a violent movement, exposing his neck. The cold fury had been replaced by an emotion that looked strangely lucid upon the young black-haired boy-- a mixture of wild desperation, crazed anger, and animosity.

"What are you waiting for, then?" Harry half-yelled, half-snarled. "End this now, if you could gain so much. DO IT!"

Voldemort did not respond, except for a brief flicker of surprise which he instantly masked. A bitter, choked laugh escaped from Harry. He spat out very syllable with manic recklessness, his earlier silence now seemingly shattered by his stream of furious words.

"Didn't think I'd make it so easy for you? I spend six years dodging your attacks, and now I practically gift wrap my life and hand it to you. I have no loved ones here now to die for me, to protect me. You saw to that yourself." His face could have been carved from adamant, so perfect was it in it's rage and contempt, the expression there dazzling through like fire sparks that lit up the night. Only one of them could stay. Harry didn't know when it was that he stopped caring which of them it was. He only wanted it all to stop- the machinations, the plots, the pain. Why wasn't it happening? Why were they both still here?

"What the fucking hell are you waiting for, Riddle?"

Silence, except for the whistling of the arctic wind. The cold air helped the numb the graveyard's stench of ancient things, the tang of spilt blood, sweat, and the heavy musk of reptiles.

Harry's fingers slowly released their white-knuckled grip on his collar, his hand limply falling back to his side. Something malevolent and not quite sane lurked behind his eyes, like the shadow of a beast just under the surface of dark water. He spoke again, but this time the words tripped out of his mouth slowly, haltingly, as if each were a piece of razor-edged glass. "You don't care, do you?" It was Voldemort's turn to hold his silence, his face an expressionless mask, devoid of the signs of humanity. Harry faltered on.

"Even if I take you down, you've still won. Because. . . you've made me into something I never was before. . . I'm a killer. You've taken everything that I thought was good and you've twisted it, or murdered it. . . you've made me fear myself. I don't know the limits of what I'm capable of, anymore. I have nothing left but my hatred. . . you took everything else. . ."

In spite of his tight hold on self-control, Harry slipped for a second, his voice wavering a bit on his last words, before he scrambled to rein in the flood. He straightened imperceptibly, bringing himself to his full height. His irises seemed to dance like independent green flames in the darkness, caged behind the veil of resignation that had suddenly blanketed him like a shroud of cobwebs and shadow.

"I won't tell you what a monster you are, what a travesty you've made of your life and mine. You already know, I think."

For a long moment, the Dark Lord said nothing, but his red eyes shifted to the wand held loosely in Harry's clasp, and a fleeting breath of a smile touched his mouth. "No going back now, Harry." He answered the black-haired youth, softly. The youth who reminded him of his own younger self, in so many ways. "We've both gone down this road too far," Voldemort went on. "We've both tasted of the Hell that lies beyond. Send me there, then. . . I'll take a part of you with me. And you'll never be free. For the rest of your miserable life, you'll have the memory this night with you, tormenting you. . . you'll despise it and you'll cherish it. It'll be the splinter in your mind, slowly driving you mad. . . and you'll wonder, and wonder. . . will you turn out like me?"

The Dark Lord laughed sadistically, the same laugh that Harry had heard in his head night after night in his dreams, the laugh that chased him down black hallways till he came upon dead ends and threw himself upon the walls, scrabbling for a way through till he woke up gasping, his arms bleeding from deep scratches.

The Dark Lord stood so still, he could have been molded of stone. The wind that tore at Harry seemed to flow harmlessly around him, like clouds cut by the peak of a mountain.

"You are correct, Potter. I have won. So do it. Kill me."

There was a buzzing in Harry's ears, like static. The white noise filled his head, blocking out everything but his hate. He didn't question it. He didn't have enough rational, logical thought left in that moment to begin questioning the Dark Lord's offer, or his motives. Somewhere inside, he just knew it to be true. Like instinct. Like a whisper into his ear that said nothing. His fingers held no trace of unsteadiness as they curled around his wand. His blazing green eyes had hardened to chips of raw emerald.

Harry aimed his wand unfalteringly-- straight at the pulse that drummed faintly at the base of the Dark Lord's throat, pumping whatever mockery of blood within him throughout his body. The blue veins stood out like lines of ink against the paper whiteness of the clammy flesh.

With a smile that sang of triumph, Voldemort mockingly mirrored Harry's gesture of earlier, pulling down the collar of his robes to expose the heartbeat further. His own wand, twin to Harry's, was held loosely in his other hand, down at his side. He could have used it to oppose Harry, to trigger the same sort of impasse they'd reached at their first confrontation. But he didn't.

Everything in Harry's life had centered around this exact moment in space and time. He had forgotten anyone but the two of them existed. He had forgotten about Ron and Hermione, Hagrid and Sirius. Even forgotten about Dumbledore. He didn't consider what any of them might have said to him in that moment, if they could have seen the look on the face of the boy they'd all loved and admired for his integrity.

It was a look that had nothing to do with integrity. And it was a moment that had nothing to do with friends or family. It was a moment for Harry and Voldemort alone. They were locked in hatred as well as understanding.

The words of the curse fell from Harry's lips like aesthetic poetry, sparking with depths of power that would have frightened him were he not already past the point of feeling anything but hate. His voice was one that he hardly recognized as his own-- but it didn't matter. He didn't recognize any part of himself, anymore.

"Avada Kedavra!"

The familiar of inferno of blinding green light. The high, shrieking, maniacal laughter from Voldemort, just like in Harry's recollection of his mother's murder. Except this time Voldemort was laughing at his own death. Laughing at his final victory.

The laughter shattered whatever was within Harry that hadn't already broken. The light and laughter built to a mind-breaking crescendo. . . and then they were gone. The Dark Lord, the nightmare-given-flesh, was nothing more than a crumpled heap on the ground. Harry didn't have to check to make sure he was dead. The shattering had proven that. Voldemort's words echoed inside him still, as they likely would for all eternity.

Send me there, then. I'll take a part of you with me.

Harry didn't realize he was sinking to his knees until he felt the cold ground underneath his legs. He didn't realize he was crying silently till the scalding hot tears fell on his hands, which were laying limply on his thighs. But as soon as he knew he was doing it, he stopped, shutting off the flow of tears like throwing a switch. He had nothing to mourn for.

He'd done it. Killed Lord Voldemort.

He was done.

Harry felt tired, weary in a way that went far beyond muscle, bone, or sinew. He felt the fatigue in his soul, and he knew he'd carry this weight with him forever, just as Voldemort had said. No matter how much rest he got, even if he slept for a hundred years.

Then suddenly strong callused hands were gripping his shoulders, holding him tightly, almost desperately. Harry felt nothing but his exhaustion, and did not return the embrace. He found himself looking up into the face of his old professor, Remus Lupin, whose eyes held nothing but worry for Harry. Looking over the other man's shoulder, Harry glimpsed more Aurors running into the graveyard, their way finally unbarred by the advent of the Dark Lord's death, the shielding spell broken and it's pieces scattered to nowhere. Among them were Arthur Weasley, his friend Ron's father, and even Alastor Moody, his magic eye rolling wildly. Conspicuously absent were Tonks and Severus Snape-- murdered just a few weeks back by Voldemort's favored Death Eater, Lucius Malfoy. Harry remembered with a tight flash of satisfaction that he'd killed him, too. His hands were well and truly coated with blood. But he'd done what he'd come here for, hadn't he?

"Harry," Lupin was saying slowly and deliberately, and Harry realized belatedly that he'd been saying it for some time. "Harry, are you alright? What happened? What happened to Voldemort?" Lupin pressed the questions upon him one at a time, his hands firmly gripping Harry's shoulders as if to keep him from drifting away on a gust of wind.

Harry's gaze flicked briefly to the corpse, before he answered dully. "I killed him."

Lupin's own eyes did a brief sweep to Harry's forehead. The normally composed professor's jaw fell open in shock. "Harry! Your scar. . . it's gone!"

That news sent a jolt of surprise tripping through Harry's nerves, ripping him forcibly out of his progressing state of catatonia. His hand flew to his forehead, fingers tracing the now-smooth skin under the strands of hair that fell in his eyes and stuck to his sweaty forehead.

The scar was gone, the lightning-bolt scar, the remnant of the event that had shaped his life for fifteen years. The scar had been a part of him, his identity. It had always been the first thing people saw about him, and had proclaimed him to the world. It had defined him. Made him Harry Potter, the Boy Who Lived.

Harry felt a wave of conflicting emotions wash over him, among them a sense of relief as well as loss. The intensity of them made him shiver. Lupin was still gripping his shoulders, dawning joy in his expression that Harry felt no echo of within himself. "It's over, Harry," Lupin murmured, almost wonderingly. "It's over."

Harry stood up abruptly, breaking out of the werewolf's grasp. He had only one thought in his mind, and he did not doubt it's truth-- an uncommon occurrence. . . he had doubted so much, of late. . . but not this.

More voices in his head. And you'll wonder, and wonder. . . will you turn out like me?

He wasn't going to allow even the slightest, most infinitesimal chance of such a future to exist. Firmly clutching each end of his wand, Harry exhaled his breath in a sharp grunt as he snapped the fragile wood over his knee in an almost vicious movement. A small golden cloud escaped, and that was that. He heard people gasping in shock all around him, but didn't pay them any attention.

Harry let the broken halves of his wand slip from his hands, breathing heavily as if he'd just run a marathon. He felt as if he'd been gutted, and yet with an innate sense of satisfaction. The two pieces fell on the frozen dirt, somehow looking forlorn, accusing.

"No, Professor." Harry declared. "Now it's over." He was looked around, his gaze moving coolly over each person in the graveyard. When he spoke, it was a command for all of them.

"When you go back to the Ministry, you must tell them what happened. Tell them that Harry Potter died. Died while defeating Lord Voldemort."

The shock at that pronouncement was almost palpable. But Harry didn't stay to hear any of them make the promise. He turned and walked towards the exit to the graveyard, side-stepping around his parents' tombstone without so much as a downward glance.

Lupin tried to follow him-- wanted to desperately-- but he just couldn't. His hand stretch out as if of it's own accord towards Harry's retreating form, then slowly wilted back to his side, still and helpless. He knew. Somehow, he knew that the boy had not lied.

Harry Potter, for all intents and purposes, was indeed dead.

~*~

The wizarding world was in mourning.

The terror of the Dark Lord had been vanquished at last, but this time there were no feasts, no swarms of owls, no gleeful toasts, no showers of shooting stars. No celebrations.

There was only a funeral.

It took almost a month for the Ministry to arrange it- setting up portkeys, location wards, countless other little preparations. It was a larger event than the Quidditch World Cup. Thousands attended, and thousands still grieved there, as if the pain of the loss were still fresh, even weeks after the fact.

Albus Dumbledore gave the eulogy. And Dumbledore was, ironically, the only wizard who knew the truth besides Lupin. Arthur Weasley, Moody, and the other Aurors had all willingly submitted to Memory Charms, allowing the knowledge of Harry's abdication to be erased from their minds, so that his decision could be better protected. But even so, for the two who knew where Harry had really gone, the sense of bereavement was in no way lessened.

On the day of the funeral, the sky was appropriately heavy and gray with clouds. A light, cold drizzle poured down upon the black-shrouded mourners who'd come to bid farewell to the empty casket of a boy they'd barely known, but still adored.

Dumbledore's speech was brief but eloquent, outlining all of Harry's finer qualities. The steady sound of crying filled the place as the old man recounted everything that Britain adored about their young champion. Through their tears, the crowd heard about Harry's fierce loyalty, his bravery, and his compassion. All qualities of a true hero. Harry Potter had been awarded more posthumous medals and commendations than anyone in the Ministry's history. They'd even named one after him. The Harry Potter Badge of Valor.

But Dumbledore was a man who, above all, honored truth. So he told it.

Harry had never seen himself as a hero. He was just a young boy who'd felt shaped and driven by circumstances beyond his control. And yes, he'd resented it. But he'd accepted it nonetheless, because he hadn't wanted to disappoint the people that loved him, who were counting on him.

That's when, to the amazement of all, the great Dumbledore- Headmaster of Hogwarts, Order of Merlin, first class; Grand Sorcerer, Chief Warlock, and Supreme Mugwump-- had stood before them, silent tears rolling into his white beard, and confessed that he felt if he'd perhaps loved Harry more, been less selfish, less scared. . . it might have saved his life. And perhaps he was even right.

The shining mahogany coffin had then been lowered into the freshly dug grave, as the procession of people walked by and rained their flowers down upon it. So many flowers that it was blanketed by them, and the moist scent of earth and stone and rain was masked by the cloying perfume of roses.

Hours later, the cemetery was all but deserted, the flower-filled grave just waiting for it's cap of packed earth and patched grass. Waiting for the headstone that was a twin to its neighbor. Waiting for the marble headstone which read: "Harry James Potter- Devoted Friend. Beloved Son."

There was, however, one person left who had yet to pay his respects. He stood at the edge of the open grave, looking down silently, the rain plastering tendrils of his white-blond hair to his forehead and soaking through the cloth of his finely-tailored black suit. He didn't seem to notice or care.

At first his etched aristocratic features had been set in stone, but gradually they'd softened, becoming pensive. After an indeterminable stretch of time he spoke, his tone low and quiet, for once not it's usual sneering and sarcastic timbre.

"Six years is a long time to waste on hatred," the boy had said. "You, of all people, should know that." His liquid silver eyes flickered and darkened with unfamiliar emotions. He spoke as if Harry could hear him. And he spoke with a level of sincere intensity that Harry would have been amazed to hear. "Hate is what killed you, after all." He murmured.

Reaching his hand into his trouser pocket, the pale boy withdrew a small rounded object, about the size of large marble. Within it, white mist swirled and pulsed, shifted by an invisible force. He went on speaking to the empty grave, the drops of rain that slid down his face looking like the tears he would never shed. "Never let it be said that I can't learn from your mistakes."

The young man's long slender fingers curled around the object, enfolding it completely in their grasp as he concentrated on it. Slowly, under his intent gaze, the mist swirled faster, and turned crimson red, as if tinted with splashed blood. "There," the boy breathed in subdued triumph, an expression of half-awe, half-consternation on his face. His shoulders straightened almost unconsciously, as if a weight had been removed from them. "I've forgotten."

So saying, he released the glowing Remembrall from his hand, letting it tumble down into the grave, and it quickly became lost from sight amongst the pile of roses.

"Now, maybe I won't end up like you, Harry."

Having finished what he came to do, the boy turned sharply on his heels, his long charcoal-colored trenchcoat flaring around his knees.

And he walked away. He didn't look back.