Silence

By Big D

Disclaimer: Not Mine. No Profit. No Shit.

Noise.

The noise of battle. An unrelenting wall of sound that thunders through my brain and shakes the ground beneath me.

The battlefield that was once the city of London was littered with the broken bodies of the dead and dying, and more were joining them by the second. The sharp, rapid report of heavy machine gun fire sounded off in the distance, along with a thunderous bellow that could only belong to an angry mountain troll, presumably the fresh recipient of a belly full of hot lead. The muggle soldiers had quickly learned that anything smaller than .50 caliber rounds wouldn't do much more than piss the things off.

The idea of war had seemed so strange, once. During Voldemort's first rise, war had been such a quiet thing, fought in the night with fear and secrecy, rather than in the open. There had still been deaths, I of all people knew that, but the killing had always had a deeper purpose behind it. To terrify, to inspire, to simply make a point, but never merely to kill. Now it was different. Killing was a means unto itself. The war had grown beyond deciding who would rule. Now it was all about who would survive.

I made my way across the rubble-strewn landscape, sticking to the shadows, avoiding any open spaces. Here, I was in just as much danger from the light-sided forces as I was from the Death Eaters and their allies, maybe more. The black hooded robe I wore wasn't all that different from the one's that Voldemort's followers did, and friendly fire would make me just as dead as the other kind. Not that I had any friends. I was dead, and dead men didn't have any friends.

As far as the rest of the world knew, Harry Potter and his family had died in a fire at Number Four Privet Drive five years ago. Faking my own death had been surprisingly easy, once I put my mind to it. The key had been making it seem real. I knew that Voldemort wouldn't be fooled by something simple, so I'd had to go the extra mile. Four people were supposed to have died that night, and four people did... the three Dursleys and another person I had dosed with Polyjuice Potion nicked from Slughorn. Draco had given me the idea, so it seemed reasonable that he should be the one to take my place. It had taken a few quiet questions in dark places and several large sacks of galleons to find him, but it was worth it, if only for the look on his face when he'd realized what I was doing. And the best part was that, as a wanted fugitive, he would never be missed.

There was a flicker of motion to my right and I threw myself sideways. Sharp claws yanked at my robes, but I was able to get a hand on the nine millimeter automatic holstered at my waist and brought it to bear on a creature that resembled a cross between a large goblin and a spider. It hissed at me and tried to spit some sort of foul-smelling and certainly poisonous liquid into my face, but I dropped it with four shots to the chest and two to the head. It howled and flailed with all eight limbs, but soon collapsed and went still. I shot it several more times, just to make sure. It wouldn't be the first time one of them had decided to play possum.

I felt a disgusted look cross my face. This monster was one of Voldemort's nightmarish creations, a magical hybrid with nearly unmatched strength and speed that was almost totally spell resistant... hence the need for bullets, and a lot of them. They had appeared two years ago, and had since spread to every corner of the globe, to the point where I had begun to suspect that the Dark Lord had lost control of them and they were now breeding on their own. This wasn't the only kind, either. They came in many forms, from huge flying demons with twenty foot wingspans to maggot-like creatures about the length of my hand that had a nasty habit of crawling into people's beds, chewing a hole through their skulls, and eating their brains.

I sighed and replaced the clip in my gun with a fresh one. I didn't have time for this. Voldemort was here somewhere, and this might be my only chance to stop him. With the world believing me dead, I'd been able to dedicate myself full-time to tracking down the lost Horcruxes. I had destroyed the last one over a year ago, but that had been the easy part. Finding their maker had so far been an exercise in futility. The war had broken all lines of communication, even within the wizarding world, and Voldemort's movements were erratic, at best. Combined with the fact that he seemed to have the ability to apperate across entire continents, it meant that I often arrived at a place he'd been long after he had already gone.

Moody had once told me that the best way to follow someone was to get where they were going before they did, so I began spreading galleons around. Not to find word of Voldemort himself, but to seek out something that would catch his attention. It had been sheer luck that I'd found a high-ranking auror in Scotland with a loose tongue and a heavy drinking problem. He had told me about a meeting between what was left of the remaining wizarding governments, here in London. I knew that Voldemort would find out, and I knew that he wouldn't be able to resist the chance to behead the leadership of his last remaining enemies on the continent. Now it was just a matter of making it across a raging battle to cut him off.

The meeting was supposed to occur at the old Gringotts building, in Diagon Alley. The goblins had cleared out a while back, some retreating into their deepest caves to wait out the war in safety, many others joining up with the Death Eaters to once again try to achieve equal rights through force.

When I finally made it to the Alley, evidence of a massive battle greeted me. There were corpses, human and otherwise, strewn about the street thick enough to walk on without touching the pavement. What was left of the Leaky Cauldron had been utterly destroyed, blasted apart as if it had been hit by a missile, leaving a gaping, fiery hole that opened up into the formerly secret magical district of London.

My steps quickened. Voldemort had moved faster than I expected. He might already be in the bank by now. I couldn't care less if he killed all the Ministers, but I needed to catch him before he was able to leave the building. Once he was outside of its powerful wards, he would be able to apperate away again, and I'd be back to square one.

The empty storefronts flashed by as I broke into a run. I passed the burned out husk of Weasley's Wizarding Wheezes, Fred and George's charred bodies still laying within its walls, without giving it a second look. Nothing else mattered except finding Voldemort and killing him, nothing. I had murdered my own family to get to this point, stood by and allowed people I'd once called my friends be raped, tortured, and killed for this one chance to end him, once and for all.

The formerly chalk white stone of the Gringotts building had turned a dirty grey, stained by soot from the many fires that had engulfed the Alley and its environs over the last five years. I took the steps two at a time and strode through the open door, pistol in one hand, wand in the other. More battle damage. More bodies. No Voldemort.

I closed my eyes and extended my magical senses, searching for him. There. A dark spot in the etheric, like a black hole in the fabric of magic itself. I melded with the shadows, creeping towards him. The only way out was through me, so I could take my time. The black hole led me to a large meeting room of some kind, deep within the building. It was pretty obvious that Voldemort had enjoyed his time with the Ministers. The room looked like the inside of a blender into which someone had thrown about two dozen bodies. Blood, gore, and tiny bits of bone were everywhere. I hardly noticed. All my attention was on the tall figure in the center of the room, his back to me, reading some of the papers that the Ministers had left behind.

My hand wanted to tremble in anticipation as I raised my wand, but I forced myself to focus. “Avada Kedavra” I whispered. The green light streaked towards him like a bullet, but the Dark Lord was even faster. He darted to the side like a blur and the curse slammed into the table, shattering it like glass.

For the first time since the Ministry atrium, I looked into the eyes of my enemy. Hellish, blood-red eyes that burned with all the hate that man was capable of. I could feel the same hate reflected in my own as I reached up and lowered my hood, showing him my face. For the first time in all my encounters with him, he looked surprised. It only lasted an instant, before comprehension dawned and a small, approving smile graced his thin lips.

He opened his mouth to speak, but I had no interest in talking. The roar of gunfire filled the room as I opened up on him with the nine millimeter. He sneered and flicked his wand, knocking the bullets aside, but I was already casting my next spell. A lightning bolt the thickness of my arm leapt from the end of my wand. Voldemort raised his hand and the lightning slammed into the same silver shield he'd used against Dumbledore. The force of the magic pushed him back several steps before he was able stop it. He made an odd pulling motion with his hands, then twisted and spun, sending it back towards me.

I dove to the side, firing a gout of liquid flame at him. The intense heat turned the room into an oven, but all Voldemort did was make a circular motion with his wand that caused the spell to part on either side of him. He swung his wand like a whip and I felt something grab me by the ankle and send me flying into a wall. There was a sick pop in my ribs and pain flooded through me. He gestured again and I went flying towards the other side of the room. I raised my wand and shouted “Ascendio”, breaking my momentum and pulling me up towards the high ceiling. I was about twelve feet in the air, but managed to twist and fire a second Killing Curse at him. He was clearly caught off guard and had to drop to his belly to avoid it.

I landed in a crouch less than five feet from him, losing my wand in the process. He raised his wand again and I dove for his arm. A sickly purple spell shot by my ear as I grabbed his wrist and twisted with all my strength. Bones and ligaments gave way with a wet snap and Voldemort yelled, his wand dropping to the ground. I hooked his now-broken arm into mine so he couldn't get away and slammed my other elbow brutally into his face. Once... twice... three times. He didn't have much of a nose to break, but the blows staggered him and opened up a large bloody gash on his cheek.

He shook his head and bellowed like an angry dragon, then heaved with his entire body. I felt myself lift off the ground and hang in the air for a split second before I came crashing down to the stone floor, his body on top of mine. I was still holding onto his arm like a pit bull, and he reached for my face with his free hand. Before I realized what was happening, I felt his thumb and forefinger plunge into both my eye sockets. His clawed fingers dug cruelly into my eyes and the whole world went black. I heard a distant, primal scream and realized that it was coming from me. Voldemort laughed his sick, high-pitched laugh and twisted again, destroying my vision forever. I felt his fingers pull out of my ruined eyes and wrap around my throat.

“How does it feel, boy?” he hissed, gripping my throat harder. “How does it feel to know that, despite everything you've done, despite all you've sacrificed, you have still failed? How does it feel to know that you're about to die, blind and alone, and there's nothing you can do about it?”

“You're wrong.” I wheezed. Lack of oxygen was starting to take effect. My grip on his arm was weakening. He didn't need to strangle me. All he had to do was wait until I let go of him. Blinded, it was now impossible for me to cast even the simplest of spells.

He laughed again. “There's the stupid little Gryffindor I remember. Tell me, what am I wrong about?”

“I'm not going to die alone.”

The only thing I regret was not being able to see the look on his face when I opened my robes to reveal the magically-enhanced explosives strapped to my chest.

Nothing mattered except finding Voldemort and killing him...

Nothing.

For the barest instant, it was as if a piece of the Sun had touched the Earth. Both of our bodies were destroyed in a microsecond, to the point where even our very molecules were ripped to pieces. The blast pushed outward, scouring everything in its path, leaving only a thick sheet of melted glass behind. By the time the sound of the explosion had reached the nearest ears, the face of the planet had been altered. Where the City of London had once stood was now a vast crater that stretched twenty five miles wide.

In its center, on the spot where two mortal enemies had faced each other for the final time, nothing was left.

Nothing but silence.