Disclaimer: HP belongs to JKR/OCs belong to me.

Chapter 79: Epilogue: The One Armed Man

1st May 1998

Voldemort knew what Harry was planning from the moment he had cannoned into him. Voldemort rarely felt frightened, but now he was hit by fear unlike anything he had ever known. He could do nothing as Harry looked at him and uttered the words that he knew were going to be the last he would ever hear. "I am the Boy Who Lived."

As Voldemort entered the archway, his arm wrapped around Harry's neck, he tried to scream out but could make no sound. All of a sudden, they came to a halt. Even though they had abruptly stopped, Voldemort could still feel something trying to pull him into the dark void that now surrounded him, and he tightened his grip on Harry's neck. His lifeline came to an abrupt end a short time later as pain lanced through his arm, and he watched as Harry vanished and he was sucked into the void, being tumbled head over heels as he hurtled backwards.

Voldemort wondered if he would spend eternity that way but the motion ceased as he was spat out of the darkness and on to a hard surface. As he rolled over and on to his feet, the pain in what was left of his arm reminded Voldemort of what Orion had done to him. Voldemort knew that only one knife could have cut through his arm like that, and that there was no magical way of stopping the bleeding. Unless he wanted to die, he knew that he would have to use a Muggle method to save himself. After first casting a numbing spell, Voldemort cauterized the wound, his stomach heaving at the smell of burning flesh. Once he had dealt with his most imminent problem, he looked around.

He was surprised to find himself standing in what appeared to be the same Death Chamber he had left from, only now it was devoid of anyone. Behind him, the veil fluttered gently as if in a breeze. Suddenly the rest of his arm shot out of the veil to lie at his feet. Even though he was shocked by the sight of the arm, Voldemort decided to remove the one thing of any value to him from it. With a little difficulty, he slid the ring housing the resurrection stone off the finger that held it before destroying the arm. He knew that he would never be able to reattach it. Just as he finished destroying it, Voldemort looked up as a man opened the door to the room and called out to him to stop.

Not confident of how long he had been lost inside the void of the archway, and not wanting to tackle anyone while he was at such a disadvantage, Voldemort tried disapparating and was surprised when it worked. The man who had opened the door turned around to his dark-haired commander. "The alarms were right about the room being breached. There was a man in here, Sir. Unfortunately he ignored my warning and disapparated."

"Did you recognize him?" the head of Auror Division asked.

The man shook his head. "No, Sir."

"Keep this room under surveillance. I want to know if anything or anyone tries to get in again." The man knew that no-one had ever been able to figure out what the archway was. Only certain individuals in the Ministry even knew it existed, the door to the room where it resided always being kept locked. The man wondered how the intruder had known that the room even existed, let alone managed to get inside it.

The first man knew he would have to assign a team to stand guard outside the main door. "Is there anything else I can do, Sir?"

"No, thank you." Sirius Black then closed the door and left to file a report.