Harry Potter: Fiendfyre and Love

Voldemort stepped forward, and the show began. Harry watched the events unfold rapidly before him. The Sorting Hat burned on Neville's head for a moment, then—flash!—Nagini was decapitated, her lifeless body falling to the ground. Voldemort screamed in fury, while Fragment muttered bitterly beside him about how disappointed it was.

Dumbledore, in Harry's body, began to act. He leapt from Hagrid's arms, disappearing under the Invisibility Cloak. Dumbledore wielded Draco's wand masterfully, casting a Shield Charm between Neville and Voldemort before the latter could raise his wand.

"HARRY!" Hagrid bellowed. "HARRY! WHERE'S HARRY?"

"Why not Disillusionment Charm? Saving strength?" Fragment asked himself, and then hissed with a shock and excitement. "Oh, can't believe, Dumbledore, you had that in you."

Harry watched, not believing what he saw. Dumbledore, hidden under the cloak, pushed one Death Eater in such a way that he died from the Killing curse casted by Voldemort. This was Dumbledore-the one who always was against from killing. Or was he just not liking someone's should watch him.

No one even saw it. No one could.

Everyone were too busy fighting. To them, Death Eaters had just been unlucky. Dumbledore casted quite simple spells. Death Eaters fell, trampled to death by others. Chaos erupted, when Grawp stomped on someone's head, and brains splattered everywhere. A herd of centaurs surged from the forest, a tidal wave rushing toward the castle.

"Idiot, where are you going?" Fragment exclaimed, watching Voldemort retreat into Hogwarts.

Inside, he was met by a swarm of house-elves. There were too many of them, forcing Voldemort to veer into the Great Hall, cornering himself.

"To battle! To battle!" Kreacher shouted. "To battle for my master, the hope and savior of house-elves! Strike down the Dark Lord for brave Regulus! To battle!"

The chaos continued. Kreacher lunged at a Death Eater, driving a kitchen knife into the man's eye. Harry watched in horror as Dumbledore, still cloaked, killed another enemy, but not in person—he had simply redirected someone's curse as if repositioning a chess piece. Another Death Eater screamed in pain for losing leg. Blood pooled across the Great Hall floor.

Harry swallowed hard. His pulse pounded in his ears.

"You should be proud," Fragment murmured, watching him closely. "This is how you should've fought. Efficient. Precise. No wasted movements. No mercy. Isn't it beautiful?"

Harry's eyes stayed locked on the battlefield, watching Dumbledore methodically struck down more enemies. Deep down, a part of him was wondering—if he had fought like this, how many lives would he have saved?

The Death Eater aimed his wand at Ginny. Harry's heart lurched—

But Dumbledore was already reacting. His wand was aimed elsewhere, and for a brief moment, Harry thought it would be too late. But with a swift motion of his free hand, Dumbledore cast a spell without his wand. A surge of magic rippled through the air, and the Death Eater's arm snapped with a sickening crack.

The Killing Curse veered off course, sailing past Ginny by inches.

Voldemort was fighting McGonagall, Slughorn, and Kingsley simultaneously.

"Use your magic with your hands, you fool!" Fragment shouted like a fan watching from the stands.

When Molly killed Bellatrix, Voldemort seemed to finally take his Fragment's advice, exploding with rage. An invisible wave flung McGonagall, Kingsley, and Slughorn aside like ragdolls.

Meanwhile, Dumbledore completed a complex series of protective spells. There was only one thing left to do.

"Protego!" Dumbledore shouted.

Shield Charms split the Great Hall in half. Harry winced as he watched, inwardly realizing that this was how he should have fought the Death Eaters—ruthlessly, quickly, decisively.

There were no victims from the allies.

"Let no one try to help me," Dumbledore said loudly, taking off the Cloak. In the dead silence, his words rolled through the Great Hall like a trumpet's call. "This is how it must be. I must do this alone."

"Don't use the wand!" Fragment shouted. "Idiot, just create a wandless spell!"

But Voldemort couldn't hear the advice from his fragment. He was captivated by Dumbledore's speech about the Elder Wand. Harry himself was struck by the performance—the sheer hypocrisy with which Dumbledore spoke as though he were Harry. He recounted his supposed mistakes, but Harry was beginning to suspect they weren't mistakes at all.

"How did he calculate everything? How did Dumbledore make this happen?" Harry asked himself.

"And how would I know?" Fragment retorted, full of irritation and pain. "I've seen only what you've seen, Potter."

At that moment, crimson and gold light suddenly spread across the enchanted ceiling of the Great Hall—the brilliant edge of the rising sun shining through the eastern window. Voldemort and Dumbledore cast their spells simultaneously.

"Avada Kedavra!"

"Expelliarmus!"

The crack was like a cannon shot. Golden fire erupted in the center as the spells collided. Harry saw Voldemort's green flash merge with Dumbledore's red beam, and the Elder Wand soared upward, black against the backdrop of the dawn. It twirled beneath the enchanted ceiling, like Nagini's severed head, and streaked through the air toward its true master. The wand refused to kill him and fully submitted to his power.

Dumbledore, in Harry's body, caught it with his free hand like a trained Seeker. In the same instant, Voldemort fell backward, arms outstretched, the slitted pupils of his crimson eyes rolling back. On the floor lay the mortal remains of Tom Riddle—a frail, shriveled body, unarmed white hands, a blank and vacant expression on his serpentine face.

Dumbledore stood holding two wands. His expression was triumphant, a self-satisfied smile creeping across his young face—the face new for himself, but so natural for the others.

Harry remembered a conversation with Dumbledore, or at least how he had once remembered him—in the glow of candelabras, his glasses glinting, a sly smile on his lips. "I can imagine things far worse than death," Dumbledore had once said. Was this what he meant? Should Harry become a witness to Voldemort's death, only to spend eternity watching Dumbledore live in his body?

"I told him not to use the wand," Fragment sneered beside Harry.

Harry was stunned by how indifferent Fragment was to the death of part of its own soul. Or had it grown accustomed to such detachment, having watched through Harry's head for so long?

Then Ron and Hermione ran toward Dumbledore, embracing him, completely unaware of the imposter they clung to.

Harry wanted to scream that it wasn't him, but he knew it was futile. All he could do was watch with hatred as his body was surrounded by Dumbledore's triumph and the crowd's jubilant cheers.

Soon, new trio followed by Harry and Fragment—the final fragment of Voldemort—made their way to the Headmaster's office. Harry had hoped that Hermione might notice something off when the gargoyle obediently moved aside, but there was no reaction. He caught the subtle twitch of a smile on Dumbledore's face as he spoke to his portrait in the office.

When Dumbledore placed the broken pieces of Harry's old wand on the desk, Harry didn't immediately understand what he was doing. A spell shot out from the Elder Wand, and to Harry's wonder, the wand with the Phoenix core healed itself. Red sparks flew from the tip, and for a split second, Harry thought he heard Fawkes' cry echo around the room.

Harry pushed his hate aside, but it lingered, gnawing at him. He couldn't forget that the part of Voldemort that had killed his parents was here, so close with him. Dumbledore had somehow hurt the Fragment with magic—so magic could still be conjured in this place. Should he ask directly? No, that would be stupid. Show himself a naive fool? Maybe that would work.

"How would Voldemort have won without a wand?" Harry blurted out, hoping to hear the answer.

"Sometimes one wave of a hand's better than a dozen spells with a wand," the Fragment rasped, its voice lazy.

Harry didn't argue. He'd seen it—Dumbledore saving Ginny.

"You make it sound easy," he said.

Fragment let out a sharp, derisive snort, one long, crooked finger jabbing in Harry's direction.

"You're just as thick as the rest of them," it sneered, its voice dripping with mockery. "Wizards don't need wands to perform magic. I was working magic long before I got my first. Moving objects with my mind, bending people to my will. Of course, it's messy—burns through magic faster—but it stretches your limits. A wand is just... efficient. Convenient. Bigger range. A crutch, but unfailing aid."

Harry nodded.

"Why are you even telling me this?" he muttered, narrowing his eyes.

Fragment grinned, teeth gleaming sharp and unnaturally bright in its distorted face.

"Oh, I'm bored. But more than that, I want you to know how utterly insignificant you've always been. Do you even realize how much raw power you wasted as a child? Remember when you levitated yourself onto the school roof? You convinced yourself it was the wind! The wind, Potter!"

It broke into cackling laughter, high and grating, but there was something there, just for a moment—envy?

"Shut up," Harry hissed much calmer now.

"Or what?" Fragment purred, leaning closer, its crimson eyes glinting with malice. "Do you think that I don't know your thoughts? I watched you all your life. I've been always with you. If you want, you can try to kill me with a Disarming Spell, like Dumbledore." Fragment chuckled, and then the ugly face twisted in disgust. "I'm sure you didn't even get why did it worked. But I can tell you… if you ask me nicely."

Harry turned away with silence.

No, he wasn't Tom. He wasn't Dumbledore, who understood magic at its core. But that didn't matter. He had never seen things so clearly before.

He would kill it and Dumbledore. He would kill both of them.

He didn't know how yet, but he would.

He just had to wait. The answer would come.