The air in the courtyard was thick with the scent of ozone and the copper tang of blood. Voldemort let out a guttural, inhuman roar as he finally shattered the Mirror Dimension loop, his magic lashing out like a wounded animal. He stood amidst the rubble, his breathing heavy and jagged, looking less like a god and more like a ghost that had stayed too long in the sun.
But the final blow to his ego wasn't the spatial trap. It was a sound that cut through the din of the battleāa wet, heavy thud followed by a dying hiss.
****
Near the ruined bridge, Naginiāthe Great Serpent, the final repository of Tom Riddle's soulālunged for Ron, her fangs bared. But she never reached him. Neville Longbottom didn't hesitate. He stepped into the snake's path, the Sword of Gryffindor gleaming in his hand with a lethal, silver light.
With a roar of pure, unadulterated defiance, Neville swung the blade in a wide, shimmering arc. The silver, impregnated with Basilisk venom, sliced through the serpent's neck as if it were parchment.
A jet of black, oily smoke erupted from the severed head, screaming with a thousand overlapping voices before dissipating into nothingness.
Voldemort's head snapped back. He clutched his chest, his red eyes bulging as the last tether to his immortality was severed. He felt the void open up inside himāa cold, terrifying emptiness where his safety had once been. For the first time in fifty years, Tom Riddle was just a man. And he was a man who was out of time.
*****
Panicked and sensing the end, Voldemort gathered a massive ball of dark, necrotic energy between his hands. The light around him seemed to be sucked into a vacuum, the very stones beneath his feet turning to grey ash.
"I will burn this entire castle to the ground!" Voldemort screamed, his voice cracking with desperation. "I will kill every soul in thisā"
He didn't finish. Ethan appeared in front of him in a blur of golden light, moving so fast that time itself seemed to stutter. He didn't punch Voldemort. He didn't use a spell. He simply reached out and gripped Voldemort's wrist.
The necrotic energy vanished instantly, snuffed out like a candle in a hurricane.
"You're pathetic," Ethan said, his voice quiet, cold, and carrying through the sudden silence of the courtyard. "You've spent decades bullying children and calling it 'greatness' because you're afraid of the dark. Well, look around, Tom. The dark is finally here. But I'm not the one who's going to send you there."
Ethan stepped back, releasing the Dark Lord as if he were something unclean. He looked over his shoulder at the gathered defendersāDumbledore, standing tall with the light of a hundred suns in his eyes; McGonagall, surrounded by her stone legion; and Harry, holding the Sword that Neville had just passed him.
"He's all yours," Ethan called out, casually walking away from the center of the fray as if he were exiting a boring theater performance.
"What are you doing?!" Ron yelled from behind a pillar, his face covered in soot. "Finish him, Ethan! He's right there!"
"Not my world, not my kill," Ethan replied, leaning his back against a half-broken statue of a gargoyle. He reached into his pocket, pulled out a ripe, fuzzy peach, and took a large, juicy bite. "This world needs to know it can stand on its own two feet. If I do it, you're just trading one 'all-powerful' guy for another. You guys need to be the ones to tell the story of how the monster died."
****
Voldemort, seeing Ethan's back turned, let out a scream of pure, undiluted ego. He lunged for his wand, the Elder Wand, intended to strike the sorcerer down.
But the wand didn't obey. It vibrated violently in his hand, the wood resisting his very touch. It recognized its true masters standing right across the courtyard.
Dumbledore and Harry stood side-by-side. The old master and the young student, two generations of the same fight.
"For my parents," Harry whispered, his green eyes steady.
"For the future," Dumbledore added, his Elder Wand (the real one in his mind, and the spirit of the one in Voldemort's hand) humming in resonance.
A combined blast of lightāa fusion of Harry's pure, defensive Expelliarmus and Dumbledore's ancient, blinding elemental magicāhit Voldemort squarely in the chest.
There was no explosion. There was only a quiet, rattling sound. Ethan watched as the Dark Lord's body didn't just fall; it began to flake away. Without the soul-fragments to hold his mutilated spirit together, the magic that sustained his physical form evaporated in the morning breeze.
Piece by piece, like burnt parchment caught in a high wind, the being formerly known as Lord Voldemort turned to ash. His final scream was lost as the flakes drifted upward toward the dawn sky, disappearing until there was nothing left but the smell of burnt air and the silence of a war finally ended.
Ethan took another bite of his peach, the juice running down his chin. He looked at the cheering students, at Dumbledore's weary but triumphant smile, and at Harry, who finally looked like he could breathe.
"Nice shot, kid," Ethan muttered.
[Mission: 'The Phoenix's Final Song' ā COMPLETED]
Assessment: SSS Grade (Perfect Execution) Casualties: 0 (Absolute Victory)
Significant Fates Rewritten:
Albus Dumbledore: Alive
Severus Snape: Alive
Fred Weasley: Alive
Remus Lupin & Nymphadora Tonks: Alive
The Malfoy Family: Stabilized (Defection secured).
Completion Rewards:
Legendary Item Box (x1)
Skill Gained: [Dimensional Anchor] (Allows the user to mark a world for return).
System Points: 50,000 (Bonus for Zero Casualty run).
Template Update: [Albus Dumbledore] ā 100% Synchronization Reached.
One random template ticket has been sent to inventory
Side Mission Status:
Master the Hallows: PENDING.
Invisibility Cloak: 0/1 (In Harry's possession).
Resurrection Stone: 0/1 (Lost in the Forbidden Forest).
Elder Wand: 0/1 (In Dumbledore's possession).
Author's Note:
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