The Final Duel (HP SI Draft)

Harry Potter

There’s a weird sort of peace that comes when you know you’re about to die.

Not the dying part, obviously, that bit’s bloody terrifying. It’s more like… once you realise there’s no way out, everything else just kind of stops mattering. All the choices, all the panic, all the what ifs—they just fade. Because whatever you do next, you’re still going to end up dead. 

It’s almost freeing, in a really messed-up way.

Harry had that thought as he stood in the middle of a dark graveyard, surrounded by thirty Death Eaters and one very smug, very alive Voldemort. His knee hurt from the Acromantula attack in the maze, his wand hand was shaking, and his brain was still trying to catch up with what was happening. 

There wasn’t any way out of this. Not this time.

This wasn’t like first year, when he could just touch Quirrell and let mum’s magic finish the job for him. Or second year, when Fawkes had swooped in like some feathery miracle. Or even third year, when everyone thought Sirius was the big bad and it turned out the real villain had been napping in Ron’s pocket for twelve bloody years.

No, this time was different. He wasn’t on Hogwarts grounds, there were no professors nearby, and no hidden help. Just him, his wand, and thirty people who’d happily tortured a Muggle family for fun over the summer hols.

He was going to die.

So he figured he might as well do it like his dad; on his feet, wand raised, fighting until the very end.

“You have been taught how to duel, Harry Potter?” Voldemort said softly, red eyes glowing like coals.

Harry’s lips twitched into a tired grin. “The basics. Though, I’m pretty sure both people have to agree to duel. Don’t suppose if I say you win, I get to go home, do I?”

Voldemort laughed, a deep, horrible sound that made Harry’s skin crawl. It wasn’t the laugh of someone amused; it was the laugh of something pretending to be human.

“Hilarious,” he said, wiping an imaginary tear from his eye. “Your father was quite the jokester too. Sadly, I didn’t get to enjoy his humour before I killed him. But no, Harry, you don’t get to go home. If you forfeit, I simply kill you where you stand. You won’t even have the chance to fight back.”

“Figures,” Harry muttered under his breath, gripping his wand tighter. His mind raced. He couldn’t waste time on flashy spells—no Expelliarmus, no Stunners. Voldemort would swat them away like flies. He didn’t know any lethal curses, either. So that meant his best bet was something sneaky—spells that didn’t light up in the air, or spells that could hit more than one target at once.

“We bow to each other, Harry,” Voldemort said, giving a stiff little bend of his back but keeping those snake-like eyes locked on him. “Come now, the niceties must be observed. Dumbledore would like you to show manners… bow to death, Harry.”

Harry rolled his eyes. Behind Voldemort, the Death Eaters snickered like idiots at a bad joke.

If he was going to die tonight, at least he wasn’t going to do it politely.

Harry started to bow, slow and wary—then snapped back up and shouted,

 “Incendio!”

Flames exploded from his wand like a fire hose gone mad. A roaring stream of fire and smoke blasted straight toward Voldemort, and Harry whipped his arm back and forth, trying to turn it into a wall of heat and chaos. The smell of burning filled the air. Death Eaters shouted, stumbling back in surprise, their voices echoing through the graveyard. For half a second, Harry dared to think he might’ve actually hit him—

“Ventus.”

The word was calm, almost lazy, and then a violent gust of wind slammed into him like a giant’s punch. The flames vanished, scattered to nothing, and Harry hit the dirt hard. His chest ached, and his glasses were hanging off one ear, but somehow his wand was still in his hand.

He couldn’t see much through the smoke, but the moonlight glinted off those creepy silver masks. 

Close enough. 

He swung his wand toward them.

“Diffindo! Diffindo! Diffindo!”

The spells cracked through the air, slicing blindly into the haze. He heard screams this time — short, sharp ones — and the ripping of cloth. Good. He didn’t know much about Voldemort personally, but he knew the man’s ego. No way in hell the Death Eaters would be allowed to hurt him, not even to defend themselves. They’d just have to take it.

But then the hairs on the back of Harry’s neck rose, and he realised—

Voldemort wasn’t in front of him anymore.

“Crucio,” came the voice behind him, almost cheerful.

The pain hit instantly. His body went rigid, and then it was like his skin was being peeled away with burning knives. He couldn’t see, couldn’t think, couldn’t even breathe through the screaming that tore out of him. Every nerve was on fire; every muscle felt like it was splitting apart. He thought, just for a second, that he might actually die from pain alone—

—and then it stopped.

Harry hit the ground gasping, curling up for a moment before forcing himself to roll and scramble to his feet. His whole body shook like he’d been electrocuted. His lungs burned with every breath, but he still had his wand. That was something.

Focus, Harry. Come on. Just focus. If you’re going down, at least make him bleed first.

“Depulso!” he snarled.

The spell shot past Voldemort as he sidestepped effortlessly, not even looking rattled. The blast instead slammed into one of the masked Death Eaters, sending them flying into a gravestone with a crunch.

“Well, well, well,” Voldemort said with a smile that made Harry’s stomach twist. “Harry Potter actually has some bite. I’m impressed. You’ve already done more than your father ever did.”

He lifted the edge of his robes, showing where the hem was singed and curling with smoke.

“You burned my robes,” he said mockingly. “Your father never even managed that much. Live another two minutes, and you’ll break his record entirely.”

Harry let out a short, wet laugh that turned into a rough cough. He tasted iron in his mouth and spat red into the dirt.

Harry spat another bit of blood into the dirt and gave Voldemort a shaky grin.

“I’m… I’m kinda hoping to recreate my mum’s record, actually,” he said, wincing as his split lip stung. “You know, the part where I die, but you get blown up and end up as a creepy ghost again for another eleven years? Seems like a solid plan, yeah?”

Voldemort’s grin only got uglier, stretching across his face like a crack in glass.

“Not a bad goal,” he said softly. “Your mother, in one single act, did more harm to me than all my enemies combined — and that includes Dumbledore. Her blood may have been as filthy as the dirt beneath your feet, but I can admit, she was a genius.”

His tone darkened. “It’s a shame you didn’t inherit her intelligence. Or your father’s, for that matter.”

Now.

Harry didn’t wait for him to finish gloating. “Reduc—”

He didn’t even get the spell out before Voldemort flicked his wand. A blast of invisible force hit Harry square in the chest, throwing him through the air like a rag doll. He crashed into a gravestone, the stone exploding beneath him, pain tearing through his ribs. The breath was knocked clean out of him.

Everything hurt — his back, his ribs, his head. His ears were ringing so loud he couldn’t even hear himself groan. He tried to curl his fingers around his wand, but they only closed on dirt and grass. It was gone. Voldemort had blasted it right out of his hand.

That was it, then. Game over.

He heard soft footsteps coming closer — bare feet against the grass — and he forced his head up. Voldemort stopped right in front of him, staring down with that same unreadable look he’d had when Harry first saw him rise from that damnable cauldron. 

“I’ll tell them you were brave, Harry,” he said in a voice that was almost gentle, almost pitying. “That you died fighting, just like your father. Take comfort in that, at least.”

Harry’s throat tightened. He could feel the sting of tears at the corners of his eyes. It wasn’t fair — none of it was. 

Voldemort had ruined everything. 

Killed his parents. 

Stolen his childhood. 

Made him live in a cupboard. 

Made him a freak with a scar that everyone stared at.

And now, after everything,  all the near-deaths, all the fights, all the people who’d died because of this bastard, he was just supposed to die here too?

He hadn’t even finished school.

He hadn’t even driven a motorbike.

He hadn’t even kissed a girl.

What a bloody waste.

But instead of crying, instead of begging or screaming, Harry did the one thing he knew Voldemort wouldn’t understand, the one thing he knew would get under his skin.

He laughed.

It hurt to do it — his ribs felt like they were splintering with every breath — but he laughed anyway, breathless and hoarse and defiant. It wasn’t loud, it wasn’t brave, but it was his.

And the look on Voldemort’s face — that tiny flicker of confusion, that flash of irritation — made every second of pain worth it.

Harry laughed like a complete lunatic, even though every breath made his ribs ache and the world tilted around him. He wasn’t going to give in, not now, not ever. If Voldemort wanted him to beg, he was going to be waiting a long bloody time.

“You know it’s not gonna end here, right?” Harry rasped out, his voice hoarse but steady. “You and me, our story’s not over. Go on then, kill me. I’ll come back, same as you did. This time, I’ll be the one haunting you. I’ll be the name people whisper when they talk about you. I’ll be the face in your nightmares, the one that never goes away. You’ll never be rid of me.”

He coughed, tasting more blood, but kept talking. “From the time I was one, I’ve been beating you. You think this’ll be any different? Go on, then. Do your worst.”

Voldemort’s expression shifted as Harry spoke — calm and smug at first, then twisting, tightening, until his red eyes blazed with fury. The tip of his wand glowed that sickly green Harry had seen before, the one that had ended so many lives.

“Avada Kedavra.”

The green light shot forward, fast as lightning.

And Harry Potter — the boy who lived, who laughed at death itself — was gone.