Harry stood up from behind the grave marker he was using as a shield. "Wow Tom, I would ask if you kissed your mom with those lips, but well, you don't have a mom so I guess it is all right for you. I would take offence at what you said about my parents, but then again, my mother wasn't so ugly and inbred that she had to either marry her brother or potion a muggle squire to love her blindly, the operative part being blind." Harry noticed that his opponent was speechless with rage and so he continued while moving himself into the proper position needed to succeed in the end game that Luna and his advisors had planned for this night.
"I am sure that you know as well as I do that this can only end badly for one of us, and I am sure that a certain manipulative old fool wants us to duel each other in a righteous until we are both almost spent before you kill me, and then he will step forward and defeat you, thereby establishing himself as greater than even Merlin; but really, why should he get anything from either of us since it was him who caused us to be who we are. There are some things you should know before we fight Tom, so I would appreciate if you would hear me out before we commence to the battle royale."
"I am listening Potter, but do not expect my mercy or patience to last, the only reason I am allowing you to speak is because I am curious as to what Dumbledore's golden boy has to say about his mentor."
"Well Tom, it all goes back to two prophecies, one you know about as it was partially passed on to you by Severus Snape; the other being given before you were even potion ingredients in your mother's cauldron. The one you know is thought to be about you and me and if true, means that it will be either you or me as one of us is destined to kill the other."
"You say that as if you believe that the prophecy is not about the two of us. Do you know the whole prophecy or is all of this prattle just mere speculation?"
"I will get to that in a minute Tom, but first I want to tell you about a prophecy that was given to two young men who were the best of friends, so close in fact that they often shared the same bed to 'keep warm,' if you get my meaning Tom. One day, the two of them were planning their path to world domination, all for the greater good of course, when the younger sister of one of them went into a trance and began to speak in a voice unlike her own. She was a special girl born from a long line of seers and having been adopted by the wizard's parents when her own were killed in a tragic fire, and not having any known family in the area."
"Her prophecy went as follows;
Two will come who believe that the world should be theirs,
One determined to rule by force, one to rule through control,
Both will be dark, though one will cloak himself in light, and both will pursue power,
The world will pay in blood; the dreams of the two will war,
But only one will come to victory, for in time will come others,
One who will challenge all in hate, the other will survive with love.
Many years will pass before the world can one day be balanced,
The ruler will fall by the cunning of the chimera and his fold,
And the world will enter a new age like no other before."
"Now, the thing you have to understand Tom is that the little girl who gave the prophecy was born from the direct line of descent from the Oracle of Delphi and it was not the first prophecy she had given, though they had been hidden from her adoptive brothers. The two young men who heard the prophecy given each felt that they were the hero of the prophecy, and they wanted to keep her near in case she made more prophecies so they could use them to their advantage. They began to argue with each other about who would take her, and their tempers flared as the argument became more heated. It was only when the other brother came in that violence erupted and the young seer was killed in the ensuing fight. After the fight, the two young men split their paths and the world moved on."
Harry paused for a moment to lock gazes with the evil Rowan Atkinson look-alike to make sure he had his attention before continuing with his tale. "Many years later, a seer from a lesser family made a small prophecy while trying to acquire a job and the dark wizard who cloaked himself in false light saw it as his opportunity to make fate turn out his way. He erased her memory, and then sent her to a tavern to be interviewed again where the prophecy could be overheard. Unfortunately for everyone involved, the meddlesome drama queen couldn't leave well enough alone, and so he Imperioused the young seer to spout a heavily modified prophecy with certain embellishments he added to help himself in his quest to rule all. He made sure that one of your followers was there outside the door to hear the false prophecy, but his brother caught the eavesdropper and threw him out before he heard it all. The spy went running back to you with his information, and soon after that, the rat was sent to you to join your ranks so that you would attack the family that the old manipulator wanted you to."
"I am no one's puppet, boy; I am the most feared Dark Lord in history. Your story is interesting, but I think you are telling it to me to buy yourself time to work out a way to escape from meeting your fate at the end of my wand. Enough of this Harry Potter, it is time for you to die."
"Okay Tommy, I tried to tell you what was going on, but I guess being Baby-mort for so long, you haven't got the temper tantrums out of your system."
Lord Voldemort's face became red with rage, and he screamed out his curse at the insolent boy before him. "Avada Kedavra!"
Harry watched the curse fly toward him, a smile on his lips until just before he was struck by the green light. Dropping his right shoulder back as he bent his knees allowed the acid green curse to fly past him into an area clear of any of the robed figures that surrounded them. If any had been paying close attention, they would have noticed the distortion of light behind Harry, which held someone disillusioned and waiting for their moment to come. The curse struck the hidden figure dead center, and to everyone's shock, it was the figure of Albus Percival Wulfric Brian Dumbledore that hit the ground with no life in his eyes. It was even more shocking for Lord Voldemort when a shade rose from the body and began to curse at himself and Harry Potter.
"You couldn't just follow the plan and die like a good little sacrifice, could you Potter. Years of planning and manipulation ruined because of the hormones of a teenage boy. Tom was always such a good boy, following the path I set him on without fail, but Harry Potter just had to do things his way, and now I will have to have you killed and start all over."
"I am no one's puppet, old man. Everything I have done has been by my own design. I became so great that not even you, the defeater of Grindelwald, could beat me in battle." Riddle screamed like a guilty school boy.
"Tom my boy, use the intelligence you have to think for once. When you were in school, who do you think arranged for you to get all that extra tutoring about magic, politics, and the wizarding world? Who do you think put the books about methods of immortality on that little hidden bookcase you found in the Slytherin study room? Who made the head of Slytherin answer your questions about making horcruxes by blackmailing him about his activities with first, second, and third year boys? All of the elicit knowledge you gained at Hogwarts, and all the old family libraries that opened to you after were all by my command. I needed you to scare the populace so they would allow me to shape them in the way I wanted. It was my design from the first moment we met that led you down the path to being a dark lord. Face it Tom, in all that matters, I am your father and the one who has guided you through every step of your life."
Tom Marvolo Riddle, aka Lord Voldemort, was stunned speechless at the revelations that he had just heard, and his prodigious intellect was busy going over his entire life step by step and realizing that it had all been a lie. He had never been in control of his own destiny, and the scope of the manipulations that he had been a mere piece of was staggering in their grandeur and ambition. His thoughts were interrupted by the disembodied spirit who had been for all intents and purposes his master for most of his life.
"It is time for you to finish this Tom, and then I will tell you how to remove the knowledge of tonight from the minds of your followers using your brand. Kill Harry Potter and I will reveal to you magic that you never even dreamed of in all your travels and quests for power." By now the spirit form of Dumbledore had moved over and was hovering in the air next to his puppet, waiting for him to play his part in the next stage of his grand design.
With a shrug of acceptance, Tom Riddle turned to do the old man's bidding and end the Line of Potter once and for all, only Harry Potter, last of the Ancient and Noble line of Potter, was not intending to let either of the evil beings get away with their plans for global domination.
If Dumbledore had still had a face to wear the enchanted spectacles he was notorious for, he would have seen that streams of magic were pouring in from every direction and charging the runes of the warded ritual circle that Harry now stood in the middle of.
-Flashback-
Last Hogsmeade Weekend before the Final Task
"Luna, are you sure that this is where I have to stand for the plan to come about to completion?" Asked Harry as he stood in the open without any type of cover nearby.
"Harry, you have to trust in Luna and her plan, we all do." Hermione stated; having become one of Luna's biggest supporters after the young seer Ravenclaw had led her to a hidden library that had once been the personal library of the warrior mage Godric Gryffindor.
"If you want everything to end the way it should, then you will have to stand here and let old Baldyfarts fire a killing curse at you, without firing back. Just make sure to drop your right shoulder back and down and you will be fine. The death eaters will all have been snagged by our runic snatch stones while you taunt Tommy, and those loyal to you will be in their place. Once the curse goes by, you will need to activate the runic array and the power draws for the ritual."
"Luna, what happens if the draws don't work?"
"Well, you might have enough power on your own to activate the ritual, but it will leave you as a squib at best, and most likely dead at worst." Luna said with no more inflection than if she had told him about the weather. Harry decided to make sure he had the sequence for the ritual perfected by the time he was fated to be here in the graveyard.
-End Flashback-
Tom Riddle, the newly revealed puppet, fired a killing curse at the boy standing completely still in front of him, only to be stunned once again when the curse seemed to swirl around him before being absorbed into his body. Determined to break through whatever protection Potter had and kill him, Riddle began to fire off every curse he could think of, all to no avail. Every dark curse imaginable flew at the young man, and the only effect on him was that his eyes began to actually glow green with the power he was absorbing. By now the dark spirit of Albus Dumbledore was screaming in his ear to destroy the impudent brat before them, whipping Tom to greater and greater feats of magic, all with no more effect than a lumos.
A wind sprang up that surrounded the grave yard, going from sporadic gusts to ravening howling storm intent on ripping the flesh from any who would brave it. Magic began to crackle in the air, like the static build up before a lightning strike, pulses going outward from Harry in tune with the beat of his heart, destroying gravestones and markers as they fed the wild magic surrounding them.
"Stop giving him power," screamed the shade of Dumbledore. "If he gets too powerful, we will both have to start over, as both of us will need followers to give us a new body."
"What should I do? I have sent every draining spell and curse at him, and he just absorbs the magic and the power around him becomes greater." Voldemort questioned as he watched the whelp become as powerful as a god.
Before Albus could answer, Harry began to whistle, click, and chant in a language not heard on earth in several millenniums outside of a few families known for ritualistic magic. Some scholars would have said he was speaking in Oromo or Amharic, but they would have been wrong since what he was speaking was the pure language of the divine as spoken to man by the Creator at the origin of life. As the chant grew louder, the magic began to solidify, freezing all in place be they embodied or disembodied, and collecting in coronas of power around each soul there.
With a scream, Tom Riddle arched back as if in great pain and a piece of him came racing into him from a shack a few hundred yards away. He kept screaming as one by one his anchors gave up their fragments and the magic called them to join with their owner in an attempt to make him whole.
If Albus Dumbledore had been in possession of a body at that moment, he would have been smirking at the knowledge that his soul containers were contained within runic circles of their own, and so he believed that he was safe from what Harry was doing to his puppet Tom. He was supremely confident that he would survive this moment to rise even greater than before, at least until he noticed that a piece of his soul was now floating next to him in the graveyard and another was just coming into the trap from the North, passing within feet of Harry Potter. Now, his only hope was that the magic surrounding them would not be able to bring the body with his last soul piece here to this place of judgment.
When Lord Voldemort had attacked Harry's parents that fateful night, it had been with the intention of making Harry his sixth horcrux, which the magic would keep in stasis for the time when his body was destroyed or just ran out of time. It was a ritual that had been created and used successfully by Albus Dumbledore using a first year muggleborn to make sure he would never be without a body. Using blood rituals, he had made his living horcrux into an exact clone without the aging that could wear the body out. When Voldemort's spell backfired on him because Harry's core was greater than his with the boost his mother's sacrifice had given him, the process was incomplete and failed.
It terrified the two dark lords when Harry's chanting began to raise in volume, his song and melody joined by the song of the newly freed phoenix, Spiral, who Dumbledore had enslaved and renamed Fawkes as a joke. The phoenix flew in an ever tightening circle, before flashing out in a pillar of fire, only to appear moments later with the clone of Dumbledore clutched in his talons. The clone and last horcrux of Albus Dumbledore, dark lord who masked himself as light, opened its eyes and began to scream as it and the other pieces of Dumbledore's soul were forced into one whole.
As one, the death eaters who were surrounding the three pawns of destiny threw off their robes to reveal the fact that they were all supporters of Harry Potter and began to chant their parts of the ritual that now had trapped the two dark souls. Faster and faster the chant progressed, rising in volume and force in harmony with the voice of Harry and Spiral. Albus and Tom could only look on in hopelessness and fear as Spiral landed on Harry's shoulders and began to glow with a white flame that spread until it surrounded Harry as well. As the crescendo of the melody was reached, Harry and Spiral threw their heads back in an unheard scream, the magic of the chant turning the two into something not seen since the heady days following shortly after the creation of the world, when beings with the power of the divine walked the earth among men; a being of purifying flame and flesh, called upon to judge the souls of men.
Eyes that shown with the purifying light of a thousand suns turned to focus on the two dark lords, the gaze peering deep into their souls revealing all of the darkness within them. With a deep voice that seemed to be filled with the voices of a heavenly throng, the being before them spoke.
"ALBUS PERCIVAL WULFRIC BRIAN DUMBLEDORE, TOM MARVOLLO RIDDLE, YOU HAVE BEEN JUDGED AND BEEN FOUND WANTING." Power rolled over them in waves as the being spoke to the two. "Your pursuit of power and your greed have led you down a path that only leads to the further blackening of your hearts."
The voice emanating from the being that Spiral and Harry had formed was like a chorus from heaven to those who were from the side of the light, uplifting and empowering to those with a clean soul. To those who were on the side of the darkness, their souls stained with the blood of the innocents that they had caused the demise of, they heard a voice straight out of the deepest pits of hell, making their blood chill in fear and the faces and fears of their victims flashing before their eyes. The pause in their judge's invocation did not free them from reliving their crimes, but only made it more intense as there was nothing else for either of the dark lords to focus on.
"You, the self-styled Lord of the Light Albus too many names and titles Dumbledore, you have been found guilty of harming the innocents in your pursuit of what you claimed was the greater good. Oh wait, there is another who needs to be here as well, your friend and lover who you sacrificed Nicholas and Prenelle Flamell so that he could hide from the world while you accomplished your goals."
Harry lifted his glowing eyes to the sky and raised his hand. "GELLERT GRINDELWALD, I SUMMON YOU TO BE JUDGED!" A beam of light shot to the sky and then flashed to the north, revealing to those watching that the dark lord behind the atrocities in World War 2 was neither dead, nor in the prison in Germany that he was rumored to have been placed in by Dumbledore. Moments later a man came flying into the graveyard, along with two soul pieces that joined with him as he landed next to Dumbledore.
"Now that the three of you are here, it is time to face your judgment. Gellert, you are responsible for the murder of hundreds of thousands of magical beings, along with millions of mundane in the war and death camps you helped initiate and establish, along with your best friend and lover Albus. It was only when it was obvious that with the American's entering the war, both magical and mundane, that your side was going to lose and your idea of pureblood Wizard Rule through force was going to fail, that the two of you came up with the idea of your epic battle to end the war, so that Albus could try to manipulate everything from the side of the light. It really was a brilliant plan, bringing your lover back and getting him a job by replacing the one who had the position so that the two of you could manipulate the next generation into the sheep you wanted, grabbing the most talented over the years and making them look up to you or owe you favors. When the two of you came up with your plans to make another dark lord to give the people something to fear, the blood he spilled became part of your true legacy to this world."
The new man fought through whatever power was holding him, trying to get a word in. "My legacy and the legacy of Albus are for the good of the world as a whole. Look at what the muggles are doing to each other and the world in general. They are polluting their own world with their machines, technology, war, and especially the idea that they are dominant on this world. Their greatest achievements and their greatest accomplishments were when they followed us as the gods we are compared them. It is said in their own academia that when the gods walked among men, guiding them in their endeavors, there was peace across the known world."
"So you claim to be a god, knowing that you are mortal and are held to the standard of the infinite by the maker himself. Your arrogance is astounding, even at your judgment; you still claim that you have the right to rule over your fellow man. It is time for you to learn that the only reason you were put on this earth, was for the betterment of your fellow beings. Your task in life is to leave the world a better place than when you came into the world, and all three of you have failed."
Now it was Tom who broke the silence. "Harry, I am as much a victim as you are here. It was Dumbledore who set me on the path my life took from the day he came to get me at the orphanage and learned that I could talk to snakes. It was the two of them that taught me about Slytherin, about dark magic, about rituals, and about the chamber of secrets. Just like he did you, Dumbledore shaped me from the moment I entered the magical world, manipulating everything about my life until I was able to escape him. It is not my fault that I became a dark lord; that is what they created me to be, just like they made you a weapon to defeat me because you were as powerful as me, even before you were born. You frightened them and so they came up with a prophecy to get me to kill you and your parents. I wish it had been different, but I was following the path that was set before me by their plans."
The being that was Harry and Spiral combined looked at Tom, and it seemed for a moment as if time stood still as Harry's eyes focused on the eyes of Tom and looked deep into his soul. Tom met Harry's gaze as long as he could, but he soon broke down into sobs as his inner-depths were bared of all the lies he had used to excuse himself for what he had done, but it was all a self-deluding lie. He had eagerly jumped into the darkness with his headmaster and then his head of house. He was one of the few students who realized when Horace Slughorn was replaced, and who the imposter really was. He was overjoyed at the new access he had to some of the darkest of magics both in the form of books in Dumbledore's private library, and also through the man posing as his head of house. He was always motivated to learn and be the best, but now he became a sponge, learning all that the two dark lords would teach him, doing everything they asked in the hope that they would see him as their apprentice and eventual successor. It was after he graduated, that he realized that the two of them had no intention of sharing their power with him; he was just the boogey man, there to frighten the sheep so they would be begged by the people to take over and allow them to rule the wizarding world.
He had made his first horcrux with the death of Myrtle by Slytherin's basilisk under the direction of Dumbledore, but his second was made in secret when he killed his biological father in his final year during winter break. After leaving Hogwarts, he went to work at Borgin and Burkes at the urging of his two mentors, using his position to search for certain artifacts that were needed in ancient rituals for gaining power. It was when he found the Locket of Slytherin and the Cup of Hufflepuff that he decided to pursue his own path. He framed the elf of Hepziba Smith for killing her, took the founder's relics from her home, and disappeared from England for the next decade. When he came back, it was to become the monster that Dumbledore and Grindelwald wanted him to portray, but he was most definitely not acting.
Lord Voldemort became the boogey man of Europe, raising his fame and reputation to the level of Rasputin, Baba Yaga, and even Morgana, to the point of causing people to even fear speaking his name. He gathered together the purebloods by giving them an enemy, playing on their fears of the muggleborn changing their society and taking their power away from them. In truth, Lord Voldemort cared little for the agenda he preached, it was all about power just as his mentors had taught him. The rituals he had spent years finding made him more than a match for the great Albus Dumbledore and he was one step away from conquering England and taking it away from the two hidden dark lords. Then one of his followers heard a prophecy about the one who would have the power to defeat him, and the rest they say was history. Now here he stood before the one who had defeated him as a small child, and once again Tom Marvolo Riddle knew that he would be defeated by his foe.
In a moment of clarity and regret, Tom realized that all his schemes, his underhanded dealings, and his pursuit for power and immortality at the cost of anything and everything that could stand in his way; it all meant nothing in the grand scheme of things. With a sigh and a shudder, Tom spoke to his judge, jury, and executioner.
"Harry, I know I do not deserve mercy, and I am not asking for it after what I have done to you, and to the world as a whole, but if it is okay, I do have one request before you judge me." It was a shock to all those watching, both Harry's group and the bound and petrified Death Eaters, to see that the once proud dark lord was sincere in his acceptance of his judgment.
"What is it you wish, Tom Riddle?" Spiral/Harry asked in that weird oscillating tone he spoke with.
"I only ask that the two men who helped mold me into the monster I have become be judged before me that my soul might know that they came to justice as I move on to my punishment for all the pain I have caused."
Spiral/Harry stared into the eyes, and through them, the soul of Riddle, and found what he was looking for. "Tom Riddle, in your moment of judgment you have shown true remorse for your actions. While this does not absolve you of your crimes, I will do as you request so that in this area alone, you will have peace."
Spiral/Harry then turned and summoned the two other men before him. A bright white light seemed to expand out from his core, surrounding the two dark lords and enveloping them in brightness. In that light, the two could be seen writhing and screaming silently in pain as the light revealed the darkness in their souls. "Albus Percival Wulfric Brian Dumbledore, Gellert Grindelwald aka Horace Slughorn, You have been judged for your actions, and you have been found bereft of the goodness that the maker placed in you. You have willfully chosen to squander the gifts given to you so you could help your fellow man, and instead you used those gifts to pursue dominance over those you felt beneath you." Spiral paused to let his words sink in, and those observing saw the tears stream down the two evil old men's cheeks as their short comings were revealed to them without the ability to lie to themselves about their decisions being for the greater good.
Spiral/Harry continued. "It is with a heavy heart that I sentence you, Albus Percival Wulfric Brian Dumbledore, and you, Gellert Grindelwald, to the eternity your actions have earned you." Spiral flashed between the two former dark lords, placing a hand on the top of each of their heads, and their screams grew as divine fire sprang from the ground and consumed them, the fire covering them from their feet up, but not allowing either of the evil men to be consumed until it had reached their heads. Their screaming finally ended when they were pillars of refining fire, their bodies turned to ash and their souls pulled into eternity. The silence that followed seemed deafening in its totality.
Spiral/Harry then turned to Riddle. "Tom Marvolo Riddle, you have been judged and found wanting in the eyes of magic and the maker. You could have been a beacon of light to the entire world, leading magical and mundane into a brighter future full of hope and destiny. Instead, you chose to follow the whims of two evil men, and the path they drew for you. See for yourself, all that you gave up in your pursuit of personal power and control." Tom was then subjected to a vision at the prompting of his supernatural judge.
He saw his time at the orphanage before Dumbledore came to get him for Hogwarts. He saw that he had friends and had always helped all who asked. He encouraged the other children to behave so that they could find loving families, and he humbly told the head of the orphanage that he would not be adopted until all the other orphans had good homes. It was in his last years there, when the kindly old couple who had run the place had to retire for health reasons that things took a turn for the worst. The new head did not care about the children; he only cared about stealing money from the funds given him to care for the kids. Tom began to take things from the director and sell or trade them to feed the other kids, and he continued to get the younger children to go to families who would love them. It came time that he was left with older kids that the new director brought in to bolster his numbers, kids who were part of the infamous London youth gangs; allowing them to use the orphanage as their base of operations. Tom began to display his magic as it protected him from the worst of the new abusers, and he began to think that making people fear him was the only way he would be given respect.
It was a complete surprise to the newly eleven year old Tom, when an old man named Dumbledore showed up the day before he intended to run away and told him about magic. Tom had spent months planning, and had gathered things that he could sell or trade for food and with a wave of a stick, the old man had set his treasure on fire, as a lesson of course. Tom decided he would go with the old man and learn all he could about magic so that no one could make him feel helpless again. It was at this point that the vision deviated from the way his life had progressed.
At Hogwarts, Tom Riddle had been sorted into Hufflepuff, because he insisted that that was the house he belonged in to the hat, even though the hat wanted him in Ravenclaw or Slytherin. By his second year, he was friends with people in all houses, and had become one of the leaders of Hufflepuff. He excelled at his studies, and was constantly seen helping others to be the best they could, gaining his the respect of all. When his potions professor was replaced by a doppelganger that shone with darkness in Tom's newly developing mage sight, he began to investigate. When he gathered enough information on the new Headmaster/war hero Dumbledore and his friend 'Horace Slughorn,' he went to see Lords Potter, Longbottom, Bones, Greengrass, and Weasley, all warriors of the light, and he presented his evidence. It took two years of investigation, but the day came when over a thousand Aurors from all over Europe descended on Hogsmeade, where Albus Dumbledore and his good friend Horace were having lunch, and they attempted to arrest the two dark lords. Dumbledore and Grindelwald fought with a fury none had seen, and the casualties were staggering.
It was Tom who had reached out to the squib brother of one of his friends for help in case things went really bad. Tom and Lord Potter and Longbottom had hunted down the horcruxes of the two men with the help of the goblins, and that day was the day for the two dark lords to die. The fighting had made its way all the way to the gates of Hogwarts, and once past the gate, they would not be able to defeat Dumbledore since he controlled the wards. It was as all hope was lost, that the bushes around the gates revealed that they were in fact mundane OSS officers, who without warning, opened fire with heavy machine gun fire which tore through the two former dark lords, ending their reign of evil.
The magical world was stunned that the so called leader of the light was in fact a dark lord in league with his companion, Gellert Grindelwald, and had intended to rule the world, all for the greater good of themselves. It was a week later that the court of King George VI called Tom Riddle before him and knighted him for his service to king and country. There he met Elizabeth, who a few years later would become Queen, and soon became one of her advisors on the magical world. It was in the 1960's that the queens chamber began to search for ways to bring the two worlds back together. It was determined that the best way would be to first bring the magical world up to the level of the mundane, and then to use science to study magic and determine what it really was. Over the coming decades, more and more people became aware of magic, it becoming sort of an open secret among certain circles.
It was in the late seventies, that three brilliant young women who had recently graduated from Hogwarts and had moved on to Merlin's College at Oxford, along with their husbands, discovered that magic was an energy matrix that could be detected, and that Magic users were just individuals born with the ability to manipulate it. All around the world, scientists celebrated the new branch of science coming from the minds of Mrs. Lilly Potter, Alice Longbottom, and Anastasia Greengrass, formerly Romanov, along with their patron Lord Riddle, and their Husbands. Twenty years later, it was Harry Potter, Hermione Granger, Parvati and Padma Patil, Susan Bones, George and Fred Weasley, and Luna Lovegood who made the next great break through by finding a way for technology to manipulate the underlying power of the universe, which everyone used to call magic. In almost no time, the world had come together as one to solve its problems. Devices could be found in every former desert on earth, which created water using sand and air as its fuel. Houses were built smaller, and often underground since space expansion was a part of everyday life, miles and miles of surface becoming gigantic public parks and nature preserves. Teleportation gates became ubiquitous, moving cars to the realm of sport and leisure. Magic had allowed the world to become what philosophers had dreamed of, and the beings of the earth, magic and mundane, turned their gaze to the stars.
Tom Riddle fell to his knees, his body wracked by sobs as he went over what could have been. Spiral walked over to him and placed his hand upon Riddle's head. Before the fire of divine judgment could consume Riddle, Harry Potter spoke.
"Tom, I have hated you for as long as I have known about you and what you did to my parents and the world. It has been my goal to see that everyone you killed or hurt got justice, and it began to consume me. I want to tell you Tom, that before you are judged by the maker, you should know that I forgive you for what you did to me. I know how good that old man was at manipulation and control, and I hope that someday, your soul may find peace for what you have done." With that said, the vivid green eyes once more became the divine light backed eyes of Spiral/Harry and judgment was passed.
Just before his body was fully consumed, Tom Riddle looked at those surrounding him, and he whispered, "I'm sorry."
When the shaft of divine flame consumed him, it split and moved to all of his marked followers, casting judgment on them since they were willing slaves, branded by their master to his will by their own souls and magic. Unlike before, none would get off by claiming imperious, as the divine fire measured their worth and found them lacking in their humanity. The light in the graveyard in Little Hangleton was so bright as all of the followers of Lord Voldemort were consumed in judgment that the surrounding countryside appeared to be as bright as a summer s day in the noonday sun. In nearby towns and villages, people came out of their homes, businesses, and the local pubs to see what was happening, and soon every road toward Little Hangleton was packed with the curious and the media. Helicopters from the news agencies diverted their flights from evening traffic coverage toward what was happening in the south, and the militaries of nations across the globe mobilized at the first sign of what appeared to be a bomb of some kind going off in southern England.
The light lasted for five whole minutes before it streaked toward the heavens in a massive column fifty yards wide, and one hundred miles high, before dissipating into the ether. Spiral/Harry sank to the ground on bended knee and once again became Harry Potter and Spiral, the flames receding until there was just a boy and a phoenix where before there stood an avatar of the divine.
As always, it was Luna who put everything into focus for the others. "Well Harry, you did well and succeeded where all others have failed. Now it is time for you to get ready for your next adventure, as it is time that the worlds of magic and mundane come together as a whole, united under the Creator and his plans, for there is more to this universe than one small blue green planet at the far end of a minor galaxy, and the destiny of all the species of Earth are held in the far reaches of space and time. Now clean up yourself so you make a good impression with the media, and hurry it up. The sooner you are done, the sooner we can all go looking for Crumple-Horned Snorcacks."
Luna looked around at all those who had become part of Harry s council of advisors, and after taking a mental tally, she turned back to Harry. So Harry, while we are waiting I have a question that I need to ask you and this is very important.
You know that I will answer any question you have Luna, after all it is you that have guided me through the danger and peril I have faced in this tournament and I am grateful to you and everything you have done for me and all of our friends.
Thank you for your kindness Harry, it has been wonderful having friends. Now, and I want you to think about this really hard Harry, because it is really important for the future. Harry, have you ever heard of a collective?"
Two male groans sounded out from behind where Harry's core group had gathered around Luna and him, causing some in the group to go for their wands before a voice they recognized spoke up.
"Just great," Cedric said to Victor in a only slightly joking manner. "Bloody Harry 'I Am The Savior Of The World and All Women Swoon Before Me' Potter is forming a collective. Thats it, I am moving far away from England, maybe somewhere on the West Coast of America."
Luna looked over at him with a look that no one was sure about said, "Shut up Edwar, I mean Cedric. You have your own destiny and you should just be glad that Harry likes smart girls and not angsty, melodramatic loners or I would send Harry to go get one more for us. Now why don't you stay over there in the back ground and work on your sparkling personality, or sparkly something at any rate. Now Harry, I, and I believe most of the people here are waiting for their reward for helping you. Now kiss me like you mean it and we will explain the details to you later."
Harry had not hung around the smartest girl of her generation, the greatest seer since the Oracle of Delphi, nor been the son of the brightest witch of the previous generation without learning when he should shelve his own questions and just go with where the women in his life were pointing him. Harry James Potter, savior of the world from the darkness that was Tom and Albus, swept Luna into an embrace that had her bent over backwards in delight, and proceded to lay a kiss on her that had all of his focus and attention centered on her lips.
Luna was not sure where this new Harry came from, but she sure liked it. That was the last coherent thought she had for a while as Harry's laser like focus pushed all thoughts from her head as she became the center of his world, and her world turned black with blissful overload and Harry laid her unconscious form carefully on the ground.
Everyone around was shocked at what they just saw, and Hermione was about to berate Harry for what ever he had done to Luna. Alas, she didn't get the chance as from her left, a French missile was headed in toward Harry, and from her right a normally subdued Professor from Hogwarts brushed past her, determination in her eyes and a cry of "My Turn!" On her lips.
Harry only had a moment to think before the next set of lips crushed into his, and a phrase he had heard from a movie Dudley had watched that seemed to fit popped into his head. "It's good to be the King!"
The End?