Work Text:
It was Ron, really, who saw the answer; though, he didn't know it at the time, and he wouldn't understand until months later that his off-handed comment was the reason his best friend had died in the battle against Voldemort.
Such a small comment. Who could have expected that it would mean so much?
"Geez, you could almost feel sorry for the bloody git. The freak never had a chance."
A derogatory comment about an enemy really shouldn't have meant so much, at least that's what Ron tried to convince himself of as he tossed back his tenth firewhiskey.
But, it had meant something… at least to Harry. He hadn't understood what at the time, when he saw his friend go still with a look of anger comprehension on his face. At the time, he'd been certain that Harry was pissed at him for seeming to show sympathy for their opponent. But, the anger had softened in Harry's eyes as he leaned back against the castle wall and wiped sweat, blood, and grime from his face.
"No," Harry answered quietly on a whisper hoarse from screaming orders to the other DA members caught outside the castle by Voldemort's surprise attack. "You're right; you almost could… I can. Maybe," his eyes shadowed as his voice dropped, "Maybe, I'm the only one who can."
"What?!" Before he could ask if his mate had been hit too hard by that last hex, Harry did something unfathomable: he cast a thick bubble shield and stepped out from behind their cover to scream, "Tom, I'm sorry."
In the sudden silence that fell as everyone watched what he did, Voldemort turned appearing shocked, but quickly recovered.
"Harry, what is it you apologize for? Your arrogance at thinking that you have the right to use that name?" (He wouldn't even acknowledge it as his own even though he was aware that several of his death eaters were aware of that fact.)
"For your continued failure to thwart my return? Or, for your mere existence? Tell me, child, what are you sorry for?"
"You."
Harry's comment enraged Voldemort, who rapidly shot off a powerful cruciatis curse as he screamed, "For me? You have the arrogance to pity me?"
Harry's shield barely held, as he lifted up a hand, unconsciously strengthening his barrier.
"No, I'm sorry that you were pushed to this." Harry stepped ignored Ron's attempts to grab his leg and pull him back to cover.
"I'm sorry that you weren't given the respect and attention that you deserved." He began again as he walked forward, "I'm sorry you weren't protected when you needed to be. I'm sorry that you never got to know Merope's love for you."
To everyone's astonishment, Voldemort backed down from Harry as he approached. If he had been capable of hearing his death eater's challenges and taunts, he would have stood his ground, but Voldemort couldn't.
As Harry had been approaching, Voldemort had made the mistake of looking into the boy's eyes. Instead of the fear, hatred, disdain, or even worse – pity he'd expected to see in the Gryffindor's eyes – he saw shared pain and understanding. It was hypnotizing; in his whole life, Voldemort had never felt for even the briefest moment that he was understood.
Worshiped, pitied, feared, yes... all... but understood? No... never, never understood. His astonishment at that feeling held him more tightly than anybody bind ever could as Harry stopped less than a foot from him.
"I'm sorry you were rejected. They shouldn't have done that. No one should have made you feel that way."
Then, Harry did something that astonished even Voldemort, he stepped forward and wrapped his arms around his enemy's shoulders, pulled the stiff man into a careful embrace that Voldemort tried but somehow found himself unable to break. He could feel, resounding through the link, the waves of pain that Harry was forcing on himself to touch him and wondered what the boy had thought he could hope to accomplish.
But even as he thought that, he remembered his own craving to have the boy's blood as a part of his rejuvenation. He had been absolutely repulsed by the thought that he had become so inhuman that he couldn't even touch the boy without pain. It had been a lingering pain to know that to survive, he would have to kill Harry, who, like a unicorn was so pure that he was beyond physical contact.
None of his death eaters had understood his lack of rage when their wands had connected preventing him from killing the boy. Just as none of their onlookers seemed able to understand what they were seeing now. Looking out at them all, at their aghast faces, he sneered at their ignorance and relaxed into the comfort of Harry's embrace, somehow satisfied to know that he wasn't beyond touch. As he relaxed, he realized that he'd missed some of what Harry had been saying.
"I know how much it hurts to feel you can't rely on anyone. I'm sorry you've were called and treated like a freak, and I'm sorry you felt you were alone."
The last comment drug something of a surprised admission out of Voldemort, "I hate being alone."
"I know. Maybe that's why we were linked." Harry's voice was filled with speculation as he stepped back, running his free hand down to Voldemort's, Harry briefly wondered if that's why he had been left handed so that their wand hands were on the same side and he could lift the man's hand with blocking the wand.
"I don't want to be alone," Voldemort whispered again exploring a discomfort that he had avoided looking at all of his life, before shaking his head and snarling, "but one of us has to die."
"I know." Harry's simple answer and acceptance, as he lifted their linked hands, confused him.
How could he be doing this. No one did this. Ever.
Suddenly, as if the spell of Harry's actions broke, Voldemort shook his head like a rabid dog, baring his fangish teeth, and glared at the boy.
"Do you think your pretty words are going to keep me from killing you?"
"No."
Damn the boy, he wasn't supposed to be this accepting. He wasn't supposed to be holding his enemy's hand like they were best of friends… like they understood each other. If he killed Potter… No, when he killed Potter. This display of sentimentality wasn't going to change that. When he killed Potter… he'd be alo… No, no. That didn't matter.
Forcing a vicious smile, Voldemort raised his wand and aimed at the boy, grimacing when the boy did nothing to stop him but say, "I'm sorry" for his last time.
But, Voldemort was too experienced with all of the vileness that life had to offer to let that stop him as he cast the death curse.
In the silence that followed his harsh whisper, the wait for the result of the spell seemed like an eternity, but eventually, Harry did crumple and fall to the aghast gasps on the light side.
Accompanied moments later, by the angry, confused cries of the death eaters.
In the months that followed, speculation ran rampant about why Voldemort was killed as well. Only Ron had been close enough to see that instead of aiming directly at Harry, Voldemort aimed at their joined hands with the intention of killing them both, or the spell would not have worked. Only Ron had been close enough to see that Harry had let his protection drop.
Only Ron had realized the fact, which he was desperately trying to submerge in the haze of fire whiskey, that it would never have come to this if anyone in the wizarding world had shown two discarded boys the compassion and love that every child should know.