Chapter 156: The Clash of Legends
"This was foolish," Dumbledore said quietly, his voice carrying easily across the shattered chamber. "The Aurors are on their way. You should have stayed hidden, Tom."
"Before they arrive, I'll be gone." Voldemort's red eyes glittered with malice. "And you—and that boy behind you—will be dead."
He didn't wait for a response. His wand slashed through the air, and another Killing Curse erupted—not at Dumbledore this time, but at the wooden framework behind him. The old wood exploded into flames, showering the chamber with sparks.
Dumbledore moved.
Elian had never seen anything like it. The old wizard's wand traced patterns in the air that seemed to leave afterimages, and the power that radiated from him was staggering—a pressure that pushed against Elian's chest even from across the room. This wasn't spellcasting as Elian understood it. This was something older, deeper, more primal.
Voldemort's wand wove its own pattern, and a golden barrier materialized before him, absorbing whatever Dumbledore had sent. But Elian heard it—a strange, almost musical sound, like crystal vibrating at the edge of breaking. The barrier held, but barely.
"Not a Killing Curse, Dumbledore?" Voldemort's voice dripped with contempt. "You meant to capture me. Torture me, perhaps? How very like you."
"We both know I won't use Unforgivables lightly." Dumbledore walked forward as he spoke—slowly, deliberately, as though Voldemort were simply a difficult student rather than the most dangerous dark wizard in a century. "But I must admit, Tom, for you... simply taking your life would not satisfy me."
Voldemort's composure cracked. "You've never known darkness, Dumbledore! Never spent decades in the shadows like I have! If you had, you'd understand—there's nothing worse than death! Nothing!"
"And that belief," Dumbledore continued walking, inexorable as time itself, "is your eternal weakness."
Elian started forward—he couldn't help it, the urge to protect, to intervene—but Sirius's hand clamped down on his arm.
"Trust Dumbledore," Sirius breathed. "Just... trust him."
"Death is easy, Tom." Dumbledore's voice was gentle now, almost sad. "Surviving—truly living—is far harder. You've never understood that. So no, I won't simply kill you. I want you to understand that for some people, living can be far worse than dying."
Something in Voldemort's expression shifted—and then a red light erupted from behind his barrier, streaking toward Dumbledore's face. It vanished inches from its target, dissipating against nothing Elian could see.
Dumbledore's wand rose.
Flames erupted from its tip—not normal fire, but something alive, something with intent. They wrapped around Voldemort's barrier, surrounding him completely, cutting him off from the rest of the chamber.
Sirius's jaw dropped. "What is that? I've never seen—"
"Is he caught?" Elian couldn't believe it. Voldemort, trapped? Just like that?
But even as he watched, the flames changed. They writhed, twisted, and suddenly they weren't flames at all but a massive serpent of living fire, its scales shimmering with heat, its eyes fixed on Dumbledore with malevolent intelligence.
It struck.
Dumbledore dodged—barely—as the serpent crashed through the space he'd occupied. Voldemort was gone, vanished from within the flames, and when he reappeared, it was directly above Dumbledore, wand aimed at the old wizard's back.
"LOOK OUT!"
Elian was moving before he finished shouting, tearing free of Sirius's grip, launching himself across the chamber. Another serpent—green this time, made of something that looked like liquid poison—was already forming from Voldemort's wand, streaking toward Dumbledore.
Elian met it mid-air.
His hands closed around nothing solid, but his will pushed, and the green serpent shattered like glass, its fragments raining down as harmless mist. Behind him, he heard Dumbledore's wand sing, and the red serpent exploded into black smoke that curled upward and vanished.
Voldemort was already moving again, landing in the center of the chamber where the enchanted horses had once stood. Elian didn't hesitate—he dove after him, cloak streaming behind him—
A wall of water erupted around Voldemort.
Not a thin barrier, but a sphere of liquid, perfectly formed, completely enclosing the Dark Lord where he stood. Elian skidded to a halt inches from its surface, staring.
"What is this?" he demanded.
Dumbledore smiled faintly, but said nothing.
Inside the sphere, Voldemort thrashed. He hurled himself against the water wall, once, twice, three times—but it held. He tried to Disapparate, but the magic rebounded, leaving him gasping. He raised his wand to blast through, but the water absorbed the curse without so much as rippling.
Finally, he stopped. Drew himself up. Stood perfectly still in the center of his liquid prison.
And smiled.
"Master!" Lucius Malfoy's voice cracked with desperation. He'd been watching from the shadows, forgotten, useless. "Master, please—"
"Tom Marvolo Riddle." Dumbledore's voice had lost its gentleness. "It ends here."
Voldemort's smile widened. "Oh, Dumbledore. You still don't understand, do you?" His red eyes slid past the old wizard, past Elian, past Sirius—and fixed on something none of them could see. "If death means nothing... then let this child die instead."
Elian's blood turned to ice.
Harry.
HOGWARTS - THE SAME MOMENT
Harry had been holding on.
Through the flight to the Ministry. Through the terror of seeing Voldemort face to face. Through the chaos of battle and the impossible relief of Dumbledore's arrival. He'd held on.
But now—
Now his scar was splitting open.
Not physically—he could feel his forehead with trembling fingers and find it smooth—but in every way that mattered, the wound was tearing apart, and through it poured everything. Voldemort's rage. Voldemort's triumph. Voldemort's presence, flooding into him like poison into a wound.
Harry screamed.
He couldn't help it. The pain was beyond anything he'd experienced—beyond the basilisk venom, beyond the dementors, beyond Uncle Vernon's belt. It was like his soul was being peeled.
And then he was there.
Not at the Ministry. Not in the chamber with Dumbledore and Elian and Voldemort. He was somewhere else—a black hall, vast and empty, with nothing but darkness stretching in every direction.
And wrapped around him, coiling tighter and tighter, was a serpent.
No—not a serpent. Voldemort.
The Dark Lord's form was indistinct, more shadow than substance, but his presence was overwhelming. He surrounded Harry completely, pressing against him from all sides, and Harry could feel their connection like a physical thing—a cord of fire linking them, pulsing with shared pain and rage and hunger.
"Stop!" The word tore from Harry's throat. "Stop it, please—"
"TOM MARVOLO RIDDLE!"
Dumbledore's voice, distant but unmistakable, echoing through the darkness.
And suddenly Harry could see. Not just the black hall, but through it—glimpses of the Ministry chamber superimposed on his vision, Dumbledore's face tight with fury, Elian frozen mid-motion, Sirius reaching for something Harry couldn't see.
Voldemort was using him. Using their connection. Using him.
And there was nothing Harry could do to stop it.
DEPARTMENT OF MYSTERIES
Elian saw Harry's face appear in the air between them—not really there, a projection, a vision—and his heart stopped.
The boy was screaming.
His scar bled light, red and gold and something darker, and wrapped around him like a second skin was the spectral form of Voldemort, his red eyes blazing with triumph.
"NO!" Sirius lunged forward, but passed through the image like smoke. "HARRY!"
"Beautiful, isn't it?" Voldemort's voice came from everywhere and nowhere. "The connection we share. So much more intimate than any of you understand." His spectral form tightened around Harry, and Harry's scream rose in pitch. "I've waited years for this moment. Waited to use him properly. And now—"
"You will not."
Dumbledore's voice was ice.
He raised his wand, and the water sphere around Voldemort's physical form contracted. The Dark Lord's eyes widened as the pressure increased, as the water began to crush inward—
But his spectral form only tightened further around Harry.
"Kill my body if you wish," Voldemort whispered. "I've survived worse. But the boy—the boy will die with me. And then where will your precious prophecy be?"
Elian moved.
Not toward Voldemort's body. Not toward Dumbledore. Toward Harry—toward the vision, the projection, the connection.
He reached out with everything he had—every ounce of mystic energy, every shred of will, every lesson the System had taught him—and he grabbed.
The world twisted.
For one eternal moment, Elian existed in three places at once: his body in the Ministry chamber, his consciousness reaching toward Harry, and somewhere between—a space that wasn't space, a moment that wasn't time, where the cord of fire linking Harry and Voldemort blazed like a wound in reality.
He saw it clearly now. The Horcrux. The fragment of Voldemort's soul embedded in Harry's scar, clinging to the boy's spirit like a parasite. And through that fragment, Voldemort was pouring—forcing his consciousness into Harry, trying to take control, trying to become him.
No, Elian thought. Not while I'm here.
He raised the Eye of Agamotto.
The relic around his neck blazed with green light—the last remnants of the Time Stone's power, saved for exactly this kind of moment. He didn't know if it would work. Didn't know if he could affect something as fundamental as a soul-bond.
But he had to try.
"Elian, what are you—" Dumbledore's voice, distant.
"Stop him!" Voldemort's roar, closer.
And then—
Time moved.
Not backward. Not forward. Sideways. The space between heartbeats stretched into eternity, and in that stretched moment, Elian reached into the cord of fire and pulled.
Harry screamed one last time—and went silent.
The vision vanished.
The cord snapped.
Voldemort's physical form shattered the water sphere, exploding outward in a spray of liquid and fury. His red eyes found Elian, and for the first time, Elian saw something new in them.
Fear.
"What did you do?" Voldemort whispered. "What did you do?"
Elian's hand dropped from the Eye, now dark and dormant. One use left. Now none.
"I reminded him," Elian said quietly, "that he's not alone."
From the doorway, a voice—weak, shaking, but alive.
"Elian?"
Harry stood there, supported by Hermione and Ron, his face pale as death but his eyes clear. The scar on his forehead was red, inflamed, but no longer bleeding light. No longer connected.
Voldemort stared at him.
Stared at Elian.
Stared at Dumbledore.
And for the first time in decades, Lord Voldemort retreated.
Not gracefully. Not strategically. He fled, Disapparating with a crack that shook the chamber, leaving his Death Eaters—those still alive—to stare in disbelief.
Lucius Malfoy looked at the space where his master had stood. Looked at Elian. Looked at Harry.
Then he, too, fled.
The chamber was silent.
Elian let out a breath he hadn't realized he'd been holding and crossed to Harry, gripping his shoulder.
"You absolute idiot," he said. "Coming here alone?"
Harry tried to laugh, but it came out as a sob. "You first."
And despite everything—despite the danger, the fear, the impossible thing they'd just survived—Elian smiled.
"Fair enough."
(End of Chapter)
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