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The Fiendfyre was drawn from Ian's core magic, refined through battle and tutelage in the Twilight Realm. It would not be banished by schoolboy spellwork.
Beads of sweat began to form on Voldemort's borrowed brow. He grit his teeth, his expression contorting with effort. Desperate, he turned to something far darker.
"Descend into the Abyss!"
With that incantation, a wave of black mist burst forth, spreading like a malignant fog throughout the Chamber. Within it, the shapes of countless wailing souls writhed and clawed their way forward, forming a shield of the damned.
Dark magic, true dark magic, had a unique trait. It could produce devastating effects even without vast magical reserves, so long as it was willing to draw from twisted sources.
The sacrifice of others. The corruption of souls.
This was its nature.
And Voldemort, who had long discarded morality, did not hesitate to pay the price. His own soul, already fractured and threadbare, meant little to him now. A horde of tortured spirits charged toward the Fiendfyre, shrieking with fury and pain, their spectral claws flailing as they tried to stall the advancing flames.
Yet, Even this was not enough.
Fiendfyre, Ian's most refined magic, was no ordinary fire. It devoured everything. It judged everything. It did not fear dark magic, it consumed it.
Even at his height, Voldemort had failed to suppress it. Here and now, weakened and bound to another's body, he stood no chance.
"Roar! Roar! Roar!"
The black mist shrieked as the Fiendfyre met it, flames crashing through the soul-shield like a battering ram of wrath. Each time the blue fire met a spirit, it erupted in a burst of howling agony, and black smoke billowed into the air. The souls twisted, burned, dissolved, until nothing remained but ash swirling through the cursed wind.
The so-called defense fell apart instantly.
But Voldemort did not panic.
No, this had never been a counterattack. He had known from the start that Ian's strength was absolute.
He only needed time.
And the moment the flames slowed, if only slightly, he took it.
He lunged.
Straight for Pansy.
"Do you intend to reduce your classmate to ashes too?" He shouted, grabbing the stunned girl's limp form and yanking her upright. "This innocent little witch, are you going to burn her with the rest of us?"
The implication was clear: a plea to Ian's conscience, a gamble on compassion. He pressed Harry's wand against Pansy's neck, the tip glowing ominously green. A Killing Curse, barely restrained.
This was a bet.
A final wager.
That Ian, like most Hogwarts students, valued loyalty, friendship, and sentimentality.
But Ian only narrowed his eyes.
"Tch. Do you think I care about some random Slytherin who means nothing to me? Do you honestly believe that could stop me? What does her life or death have to do with me?"
His tone was cold, deathly cold.
"You've never understood me, Voldemort. You thought I was like the rest of them. But this girl? She's nothing. Just another footnote in a larger spell. Disposable. Insignificant."
And the fire did not stop.
The Fiendfyre roared closer, curling behind Voldemort like a wave preparing to crash.
"You don't care about her?" Voldemort snarled, eyes flashing. "Then what about Harry Potter? The so-called saviour of the wizarding world! If you kill me, he dies too!"
He was rattled. He hadn't expected Ian's unwavering cruelty. Now he played his final card. The true host. The Boy Who Lived.
Surely that mattered. But Ian didn't flinch.
"It's a necessary sacrifice," He said coolly. "And I think Harry would agree, with the right framing. For the greater good."
He snapped his wand downward, and the Fiendfyre surged once more. It overwhelmed Voldemort's last defenses, engulfing the chamber in sapphire flame.
"I'll make sure he receives a dignified ending," Ian said, his voice distant, like someone reciting a prepared eulogy. "He died fighting you. With this little Slytherin girl at his side. Side by side in the final battle against evil."
"Tomorrow's Prophet will publish the story. A heroic end. Maybe I'll even receive an Order of Merlin for it, 'for avenging the fallen,' they'll say."
His face was still as if it had been carved from frost as he spoke.
Yet his words cut deep, calculated barbs, aimed with precision, every syllable designed to pierce Voldemort's fractured pride. Seeing "Harry" with disbelief written all over his face, Ian pressed his advantage, his tone calm and cruel.
"Tom, we were born of the same world, shaped by the same magic... how are we not the same kind of person?" As he spoke, Ian flicked his wand, and the Fiendfyre turned sharply, rushing toward the unconscious Pansy without hesitation.
The eerie blue flames surged and danced. They played along the edge of Voldemort's already-fraying nerves.
"No! You can't do that! You shouldn't be this twisted!"
Watching Ian destroy a fellow student so coldly sent a jolt of terror through Voldemort's fractured soul. For the first time, he felt the depth of Ian's darkness, and how utterly wrong his previous assumptions had been.
Indeed.
He, too, had worn a mask at Hogwarts, charming, clever, charismatic. But the boy before him wasn't pretending. Ian wasn't some sanctimonious white-robed duelist. No, this young wizard was capable of killing the Boy Who Lived, without so much as a flicker of hesitation in his eyes.
The Fiendfyre cracked Voldemort's protective enchantments further. He had no doubt now. Ian meant every word.
"Clever of you!" Voldemort snarled.
And just as his magical shield shattered entirely, "Harry" could take no more.
He saw Ian lift his wand again. The same, unmistakable hue of the Killing Curse flared, aimed at Harry's heart.
He began shaking the limp, half-conscious boy violently, voice rising in sheer desperation, as if shouting upward, through the Chamber ceiling, toward the school above.
He prayed, screamed, for Hogwarts itself to intervene. That some remnant of ancient magic, some guardian enchantment still lurking in its bones, would save him as it had once before.
Once before?
The newly-awakened Harry Potter blinked in confusion.
He was lying in ankle-deep water, his robes drenched. A few feet away, Ian held another sodden figure, an unconscious, pale-faced witch.
The Boy Who Lived could only gape. His first thought wasn't gratitude for survival.
It was bewilderment.
'Why was he on the ground… and why was Ian carrying someone else?'
'Was it because he wasn't Harry?'
His muddled mind couldn't quite grasp what absurd thoughts were beginning to surface.
"Oh, I might've forgotten to mention, last year, I defeated Voldemort too, just like you. Love and all that. But this time, it's nothing so poetic. This year, it's raw, overwhelming, magical force."
Ian regretted not having enchanted a Pensieve crystal to record the battle; if he had, he might've projected his heroic image in every Hogwarts corridor, on loop, twenty-four hours a day.
"The power of love…"
Harry struggled to rise, shaking his pounding head with all the strength he could muster. Just as Ian stepped forward, ready to offer a full explanation, Harry suddenly paused, a flicker of recollection flashing across his face.
His complexion drained to a ghostly white, and his eyes brimmed with pain and confusion.
"Are you alright?"
Ian, unsure, moved closer, concern evident in his tone.
And then, without warning, Harry collapsed to his knees, clutching at his skull as though something unspeakable was clawing its way through his mind. His eyes clouded, catching flashes of distant, fragmented images.
It was a side effect of the lingering connection to the Horcrux, though now severed, its remnants flickered like shards of shattered glass, slipping through his thoughts.
(To Be Continued…)