Work Text:
Even in the afterlife or something like it, Professor Dumbledore's fashion sense was as mortifying as his aura was grand-fatherly.
"Don't worry, Professor," Harry said, keeping his gaze focused on Dumbledore's green and purple tie. It clashed horribly with his blue robes and his bright orange hat. "I have a plan."
This was a partial lie. Just because he had a plan, did not mean it was a good one. Hermione would slap him if he ever got out of this alive, whereas Ron would find it hilarious. Dumbledore's ghost would begin to cry, probably.
It was official, his plan was shit and he was going to die.
-----
"You know," Harry said to Voldemort, wand in a steady hand as they face one another down, "I'm honestly not as scared as I thought I would be right now."
Voldemort raised a non-existent eyebrow.
"I've seen death," Harry continued, taking advantage of the minute expression of interest on the malformed face. Voldemort believed Harry would die here, and being a fascist dictator with delusions of grandeur, Harry knew his final words would be permitted in order to stoke the Dark Lord's ego in the light of his supposed victory. To give them hope and rip it away. Harry was counting on that for his strategy to work.
"I remember my parents, falling limply to the ground like puppets with strings cut in bursts of green light. Begging, pleading, helpless, and denied all final mercies. Quirrell burned to ashes at my touch. It was an accident, but it was still my first murder, at age eleven. I watched Cedric Diggory's body cooling in the grass less than five meters away from me while trapped in an abode of traitors, thieves and murderers, bound to the derelict headstone of a murdered man, the preparation for a dark ritual marring the ground in front of me."
Harry took a step forward.
"Dumbledore, felled by a beam of unforgiving green light, the product of his own machinations. Snape, the bravest man I have ever known. Dobby, Tonks, Lupin, Fred, and all the others who have perished in this very castle."
His audience was silent, rapt with attention. He fought the corner of his mouth down as he threatened to smile. His plan was, unbelievably, working perfectly. Harry continued on, taking advantage of the eyes on him.
"I have faced death and walked away, you have witnessed me do so. I still have a scar from when I stared into the mauled eyes of an ancient basilisk as its fang punctured my upper right arm. I have been submerged in angry crowds, frozen lakes and burning gold, and come out alive and kicking."
He smiled a sarcastic smile. "For six months, I carved the words 'I must not lie' onto the back of my hand as punishment for telling the truth."
"I have more than enough scars to showcase my exploits. But those will fade with time, and pain exists in every flavour imaginable. It was agony to learn that my Godfather was supposedly both a traitor, a mass murderer and the one to condemn me to a life of misery. It was possibly even more painful to learn that it was all a lie, and that there was a chance he could rescue me. All this, only to watch his death in slow motion, completely helpless except for the weight in my heart that told me that this was the result of my own pigheadedness."
He laughed self-deprecatingly.
"I was naïve to think that was the worst it could get." He took another step forward.
"It was even worse to learn that all my pain has come from words trapped in a glass bottle. How my entire life has been shaped by something out of my control before I had a choice in anything, how all my pain was predestined and necessary for the 'Greater Good'."
"I would rather be put under the Cruciatus again than learn how many people I supposedly trusted thought it was necessary to manipulate me for their own purposes." One foot in front of the other, Harry gradually approached the Dark Lord.
Even though he was currently acting, Harry fought the urge to snarl. "They conditioned me, my entire life, to become a damn martyr." The wound the realization had inflicted was still raw and bleeding. The admission of Dumbledore's betrayal made rage bubble up in his stomach and Harry dug his nails into his palm, trying to calm himself.
"And I fell for it, hook, line and sinker."
He thought he heard a muffled sob from behind him. A small thrill of vindictive pleasure shot up his spine.
"And I haven't even mentioned dementors yet. Mere exposure makes you relive every painful moment of your life, and when your life has been as difficult as ours have been, it's agony."
Voldemort sneered at him, wand still raised aloft. "You know nothing about me." He doesn't break eye contact.
Harry took a gentle step forward once again.
"We’re alike in more ways you think." Harry gently admitted. And so, he gave Lord Voldemort a sad smile and explained in excruciating detail, what it felt like to starve locked in the darkness of the closet under the stairs, less than ten metres away from his abusive relatives who were supposed to be caring for him. How everybody saw Harry Potter, the 'Boy Who Lived' and so-called 'Chosen One', and not Harry Potter, the muggle-raised half-blood who was honestly just a normal guy who was out of his depth and in desperate need of support.
Voldemort laughed, a cruel, cold hacking laughter that echoed in his ears and the hall. "What, so the Gryffindor golden boy had a terrible childhood as well?" He sneered at Harry, who is barely three steps away from him, wand partially lowered in a relaxed hand. "I do not forgive and I never forget. Dumbledore's notions of love cannot stop me from taking this path."
"No." Harry's smile was icy and razor-sharp. "I'm not a hypocrite. I can't tell you to forgive or forget any of those who hurt you, because honestly? I could never do the same thing myself. I use those memories to fuel my rage, and I use my rage to fuel my ambition, and my ambition to fuel my determination. I think we all know I have determination in spades."
While he spoke, he took a step forward before slowly taking another, placing him less than a meter away from the Dark Lord.
It had to be gradual so that Voldemort wouldn't be alarmed and blast him with the Killing Curse. Harry was aware he was literally a walking, talking 'fuck you' to the generally accepted laws of magic, but he wasn't sure he could survive being hit with an Avada Kedavra a third time from point-blank range.
Harry was so close to success, he just needed to keep on bullshitting about something dramatic for just a little longer.
"I know very well I'm getting revenge. But then, I've heard the best revenge is a life well-lived. Since they've tried to make my life hell on Earth, rather than returning the favour I think I'll aim to die old and satisfied, surrounded by a makeshift family of my own creation having traveled the world and seen every sight under the skies."
"And after all this time, you know what?" He leaned in closer, the Dark Lord's wand just centimetres away from the centre of his chest. He kept eye contact, vivid green piercing into crimson before moving.
He suddenly pivoted on one foot, spinning under the Dark Lord's outstretched arm as vivid green streaked over his head, narrowly missing his right ear. With a move worthy of a muggle action movie, he used a foot to hook around Voldemort's ankle and jerk him off balance, simultaneously knocking away his wand with his own, and moved without even a split second's worth of hesitation.
And promptly nailed the Dark Lord where the sun doesn't shine with a spinning fist.
Voldemort involuntarily made a strangled squeaking noise in the back of his throat.
Harry immediately followed up with a right hook to the jaw that would have made Dudley proud.
Voldemort dropped like a stone with a rather significant concussion.
Within milliseconds he had yelled "Incarcerous! Stupefy!" and Voldemort became an unconscious rope-flavoured Dark Lord burrito in the middle of the remains of the Great Hall.
He panted for a second before comprehending what he had just done.
Holy shit. Harry gaped. That had just happened.
"Did I just defeat Voldemort by monologuing?"
It was an open question, and judging by the shock on the faces in the surrounding crowd, they would not be answering anytime soon, because yes, he, Harry Potter, the Boy-Who-Lived, the Chosen One, Undesirable No.1, etcetera, etcetera, etcetera, had just taken down the greatest Dark Lord of their time by monologuing.
Holy shit to the second power.
Before anyone else could come out of their shock, Neville ran past Harry, brandishing the Sword of Gryffindor and bellowing out a war cry, and promptly decapitated Burrito Voldemort.
The still-catatonic crowd stared as the defeaters of Voldemort eagerly high-fived above his cooling corpse.
Harry snorted. It looked like Neville could have also been the Boy-Who-Lived all along.
The sun rose over Hogwarts.
-----
"HARRY JAMES POTTER, WHAT THE BLOODY HELL WAS THAT?" The pitch and volume Hermione's voice was threatening the structural integrity of the remaining intact windows. His ears were ringing.
Harry guiltily raised his hands in mock surrender and fought the urge to look anywhere but his irate best friends. "Hey. I let him have his dramatic monologues. It was about time he extended the same courtesy to me.”
"Bloody hell mate, that was utterly stupid. What in the blazes were you thinking? He could have just blasted you while you were talking!" Ron said to him, completely exasperated with a hint of underlying panic, before taking Harry's shoulder in his hands and shaking him hard enough to feel his brain rattling in his skull. He honestly deserved, it so he let Ron vent.
"I knew that he wouldn't," Harry said once Ron had let go, sighing. He scratched his nose awkwardly. "Voldie's too egotistical to let me die without a fanfare, so I knew he would let me talk." He shrugged. "Anyway, it worked perfectly."
Hermione's face was turning an interesting colour and he was pretty sure she was at least ten seconds away from spontaneous combustion.
Harry began to inch away from her before the inevitable eruption. "Oh. My. God. You are without a doubt the most stupid person I have ever met. You, Harry James Potter, have the self preservation of a carrot and right now I am so furious I need to go and punch something."
Ron, the traitor, who was now sheltering behind a cowering Harry from the danger that was an angry Hermione, quickly threw Draco Malfoy under the bus by pointing him out as a potential punching bag.
Harry then slapped Ron upside the head, and proceeded to gently wheedle Hermione back into calm, which took a good part of the morning. Harry still had a lot of lingering respect for Narcissa Malfoy and he felt that as unpleasant as her son was, Malfoy Jr. probably deserved a break after this shitstorm.
-----
Wizarding society was rebuilding slowly but surely.
Veritaserum was used liberally to figure out who was at fault, and who was under the Imperius Curse. This was mainly because the Ministry was rather embarrassed that they nearly fell twice to a psychopathic dictator using what amounted to a poorly directed game of Imperius Curse Chinese whispers, and wanted to regain their reputation. As such, it was very easy to distinguish who was a Death Eater willingly, why they were a Death Eater, and whether rehabilitation was possible.
It helped that Harry was glaring over their shoulders and making sure that every person who was arrested got an honest trial. He didn't want a repeat of what happened with Sirius.
The atmosphere of the entire wizarding world in general had improved, which was understandable. After all, Voldemort was dead, and this made lots of people happy.
On the other hand, his followers were very sad for differing reasons, being either:
Oh no My Lord is dead whatever shall I do I have depression and no cause in life
Oh no I am going to Azkaban for decades and dementors suck
Oh no my reputation, job and money are gone and now all I have is my inbred extended family
Oh shit the public is going to castrate me with rusty blunt knives if they ever manage to track me down.
The general population were also happy that the Death eaters were sad. Schadenfreude was a great thing in the wake of a decades-long war.
It became custom for previously convicted Death Eaters or those from darker families known to be in league with Voldemort to wear muggle cricket crotch guards wherever they went out. It was a rather amusing practice from the perspective of the majority of the population, but it was necessary for those wizards if they wanted to continue their bloodlines.
Hogwarts was currently under construction for the intake of eleven-year-olds the next year. Not much was being changed, apart from the physical education classes now offered as part of the curriculum, in addition to the standard repertoire for a magical education. Muggle martial arts became the new trend in the wizarding world, and suddenly extra respect was given to the muggleborns or half-bloods with black belts in karate or taekwondo.
Harry was now globally known to be an absolute badass, and was more popular than ever.
However, this came with many disadvantages.
-----
Harry walked through Hogsmeade a month after Voldemort's defeat wearing sunglasses and a cap, Invisibility Cloak tucked in his pocket, desperately praying to whatever deity was up there that nobody would notice him.
To be honest, he was even more scared of being found out to be Harry Potter now than when he was Undesirable No.1.
He will never underestimate the power of fangirls ever again. They were honestly scarier than Death Eaters at times, and were way more effective at ferreting out personal information from god-knows-where.
Since Voldemort's defeat, he hadn't settled down at all. With Dumbledore dead, every single person who had known about Grimmauld Place had become Secret-Keepers. Which meant that Mundungus was probably the one responsible for the hordes of fangirls showing up at his front door, which was supposed to be a secret.
It didn't take much questioning from Harry for them all to admit that they had paid quite a bit of money to a dodgy looking wizard who had supposedly claimed he knew where Harry Potter lived. Given the amount of people showing up on his doorstep, Harry was now quite sure that Mundungus Fletcher was now richer than him.
Hermione vehemently promised that the next time she saw that pathetic excuse of a wizard, she was going to use his oesophagus as a scarf. Harry compromised with her by setting a delighted Kreacher after him.
Harry moved around quite a bit after that, trying to find a suitable place to settle down. Any place he was going to live in was going straight under the Fidelius with him as the sole Secret-Keeper as soon as he could find someone strong enough to cast it, no doubt about it.
If not, the fangirls would find him in under three days flat.
Which they had. Repeatedly. Harry swore that they all should become private investigators or something, because honestly, the speed they tracked him down was terrifying.
He would rather it be Death Eaters chasing after him, because then he could at least respond with lethal force.
But in the end, what will be will be. Lord Voldemort was dead and - wow, are they still going on about it in the Daily Prophet? He was sure they would all be bored to tears of the news by now.
Slinging his hands in his pockets, Harry whistled nervously as he walked closer to the small newspaper shop through the bustling crowd. The sheer number of Notice-Me-Not charms he had placed on himself, from his sunglasses to his shoes ensured that unless they were specifically looking for him, the eyes of the shoppers and tourists in the Alley today would just pass right over him. However, with his current celebrity status, he was pretty sure that just interacting with another human being would mean discovery.
The ability of his fangirls to show up at the front doors of each of his hideaways was terrifying, so Harry was taking no chances.
He was very apprehensive that he would be recognised for a very good reason.
The newspaper shop itself was rather unassuming despite the range of random wizarding refreshments, gadgets and souvenirs it was selling. The witch at the counter looked bored out of her mind, and the only two customers inside seemed to be arguing about whether it was better to buy a silver trinket emitting cyan or hot pink smoke as a gift. By the exasperated look on her face, it seemed that the pair had been arguing for a while.
Walking in with his head down, Harry casually picked one of the many copies of the Prophet beside the counter, and threw the lady a sickle, which was more than enough.
With a muttered, "Keep the change," Harry was gone before the lady at the counter could realise what had just happened. Done.
And now, the only thing left was to hightail it to the Apparition point and out of there before anyone recognised him.
As he speed-walked away, he glanced down at the copy of the Prophet in his hand.
Over the past month, the only main headlines had been various things about Voldemort's defeat, which was understandable, but really, Harry thought as he stared at the newspaper stand, isn't this a little too much?
The headlines of the Prophet hadn't been very diverse over the past month, but he did mentally give Rita Skeeter kudos for her creativity, as he had found them kind of amusing to read.
As of now, his favourites were:
YOU-KNOW-WHO KICKS BUCKET?
HE-WHO-MUST-NOT-BE-NAMED DEFEATED BY NUTSHOT
POTTER PUNCHES DARK LORD
HE-WHO-WAS-DEFEATED-BY-MONOLOGUING?
And some other variations of the sort.
It was quite obvious Rita Skeeter was having the time of her life reporting on this subject. She appeared to be enjoying the freedom to write what she wanted after writing propaganda at wandpoint for over a year, and it showed in her writing.
The headline of the Daily Prophet issue he held still read: 'POTTER'S PREDESTINED PUNCH' and went on to describe his entire personal life including the damn prophecy, of all things. He was sure the writer was either Rita Skeeter, a fangirl, or someone who had enlisted aid from one. Who else could find out what had happened at the Department of Mysteries, for Merlin's sake?
Next thing you know, they would start writing about the details behind his first kiss with Cho or something - oh wait, they had already detailed that on Page 4.
Harry wondered who they had bribed to get that information. But then again, fangirls. That was an answer in itself.
They fortunately hadn't found much on his early life, which was great, because that meant there was no chance of the Dursleys being lynched by an angry mob with pitchforks anytime soon. Harry had forgiven them for (mostly) everything almost a year ago. Dudley wasn't too bad once he grew up.
In his distraction, he accidentally shoulder-checked a witch, causing her to stumble and glare at him.
Shit.
He walked away at an even faster pace, ignoring pleasantries in favour of getting out of there.
Now, he estimated he had about ten seconds until she realised that there was only one guy who would wear sunglasses, a scarf and a cap in the middle of a hot day while buying a newspaper in Diagon Alley.
Screams and pandemonium broke out behind him and Harry thought, "Screw this," and full on sprinted to the Apparition point. When he finally made it, there was an entire crowd chasing behind him, and Harry had never Apparated away from a place so fast in his life before.
Bloody fangirls.