Delusional

Jessylane318

Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter or Lord of the Rings. Both belong to J. K. Rowling and J. R. R. Tolkein respectively. No profit is made from this story.

Author's Note: I am the original author of this story under a new name. I accidentally forgot my old account name, so I made a new one. Anyways, I was reading this story over, and while I am glad so many liked it, the ending was too rushed and I have problems with my own portrayal of the characters. There's too much drama, and I want to add more light-heartedness to it. I hope you enjoy. Thank you so much for your time.

Prologue

Harry Potter watched on with a muted sort of disinterest at the scene before him: Tom Riddle, a handsome man with a rigid face, seemed to sway and distort in the dim light, frosty brown eyes glinting despite the darkness. They almost seemed to bleed crimson, like the girl. The girl below him... She laid sprawled, a burning halo contrasted like good and evil. Like dying embers... with pale skin so deathly wan that her chocolate freckles appeared like great spots of sickness.

Breathe... whispered what was left of his conscious.

He tried, but his lungs burned, his body felt like lead, and everything seemed to be spinning and swaying... like one of those circus mirrors, around and around and around again. Faster and Faster... shorter and shorter...

Breathe...

But he couldn't.

Overhead, he felt the air currents waiver. A bird with the most beautiful red and gold plumage fluttered near. Fawkes, he thought slowly, headmaster Dumbledore's phoenix. He tried to smile at it, but the muscles just wouldn't move. He couldn't move. He needed to move, to get up, to stand, to fight!

You need to breathe, never forget to breathe...

"Ah, Harry Potter, now look how far you've fallen. Truly, it is miraculous that a child such as you ever had a hope to defeat such a powerful wizard as I. Ha! What miserable and wretched existence to lead. What? Why look now, even Dumbledore's pet cries for you? Don't you see? Even this beast know you're going to die!"

The well-to-do image of Tom Riddle laughed loudly. The sound echoed hollowly.

Harry clenched the bloodied sword in his hand numbly, just barely feeling the warm metal still hot with blood. He managed to glimpse the bulking corpse of a giant snake as his vision blurred, probably for the last time. Was this the end?

Breathe...

Was this how everything would end? His body left to decompose at the bottom of the Chamber of Secrets, while his friends were all picked off one by one? Would Ginny survive? Would Hermione? Ron?

"Every year she makes us a sweater" said Ron unwrapping his own parcels, "and mine's always Maroon."

"You know what this means?" he finished breathlessly. "He tried to get past that three-headed dog at Halloween! That's where he was going when we saw him-he's after whatever it's guarding! And I bet my broomstick he let that troll in, to make a diversion!"

"Nearly Headless? How can you be nearly headless?"

Was this what it was to die?

To disappear and leave all of his friends behind?

If he could, he might have frowned or maybe glared at the almost substantial image that stared back, but as it was, he had no strength left to do anything more than stare. Finally he let go to the inevitable, the blur of colors colliding together as the tides of blackness washed over him.