Harry slowly opened his eyes and blearily looked around. He seemed to be in what looked like a blank white space. However, the more he looked at it, the more details became visible.

A floor suddenly appeared under his feet, walls materialized around him, forming a vast hall. A large glass dome appeared overhead, casting bright sunlight into the hall, illuminating the entire place. Benches, pillars and counters started appearing one by one until it looked extremely realistic.

Harry kept looking around until he noticed a place with a dark fog hanging around it. The presence of that fog felt unnatural. Something told him that the fog shouldn’t be there.

He looked down for a moment and realized that he was standing there naked. Harry frowned and thought to clothe himself and clothes appeared next to him, so he grabbed it and quickly dressed himself.

Having clothed himself, Harry walked towards the dark fog to check what it was. Harry approached the fog and his sense of foreboding increased, getting stronger and stronger till he was standing at an arm’s length of the fog.

Harry peered into the depths of the fog when he heard a voice that still haunts his nightmares.

“What do we have here? Did you finally ‌make your way here, Potter?” A creepy voice resounded throughout the entire space.

Harry jumped back, away from the fog, reaching into his back pocket on instinct only to realize that he had no wand. He tried to imagine getting a wand like he did with his clothes, but that didn’t seem to work either.

“No need to be so on edge. I’m sure you know who I am.” A figure slowly emerged from the fog. More snake than human. With his pale skin and slit-like nose, Harry could recognize that face wherever he saw it.

“What are you doing here, Voldemort!” Harry yelled.

“Sad child, you do not even know where ‘here’ even is, do you?” sneered Voldemort.

Voldemort walked slowly towards Harry. Startled, Harry stumbled back, causing Voldemort to sneer once more.

“I watched,” said Voldemort, “I watched as you destroyed my plans again and again, until you were finally in my grasp but you still got away from me in that graveyard.”

“What do you mean, watched?” Stammered Harry.

“I suppose I should explain the bare minimum.” said Voldemort, “Wouldn’t want you dying without knowing what even happened now, would we?”

Voldemort stopped advancing, as he stared deeply at Harry.

“We are currently in your mindscape. A region of your mind that is both corporeal and incorporeal,” said Voldemort.

Voldemort looked at Harry and sneered at his apparent confusion.

“You still don’t understand, do you?” asked Voldemort. “Truly pathetic!”

Harry grit his teeth and was about to retort when Voldemort continued talking.

“What that means is even though this place is not real, anything that happens here would have very real consequences,” said Voldemort, a vicious light in his eyes.

Harry felt a tingle run down his spine, “But that would mean…”

As Harry trailed off, Voldemort raised a brow.

“You understood what I meant with that?” he asked. “Maybe you’re not as slow as I imagined.”

Voldemort raised his hand and pointed it towards Harry.

“That’s right. If I kill you here, you’ll die out there as well,” laughed Voldemort.

A bolt of green shot out of his hand towards Harry, causing Harry to dodge out of the way.

Voldemort cackled as he kept shooting green bolts at Harry.

“How many can you dodge?” he laughed. “It’s time I finally finished what I started fifteen years ago!”

Harry desperately dodged from side to side. He faced many near misses. He even tried to create objects like he did with his clothes to block the attacks, but the bolts just passed through those objects as if they didn’t even exist.

Several minutes passed by as Harry kept dodging the bolts. He tried to shoot his own, but he couldn’t concentrate hard enough to cast a spell. Harry felt the exhaustion catch up to him. His movements became sluggish, and he was having a much harder time dodging the attacks.

Just as he dodged an attack, Harry stumbled. His legs got entangled, and he crashed into the ground.

“It seems like this is the end of the road for you, Potter,” said Voldemort with satisfaction. “I’ll at least hope that you don’t have to cross me in your next life.”

Voldemort shot another bolt straight at Harry’s face. Seeing the green bolt close in on him, Harry shuddered helplessly, feeling despair creep up. He just closed his eyes in fear and pushed his hand up to block the bolt, however little that might even help.

Harry waited for several moments. However, nothing came.

He tentatively opened his eyes, only to be astounded by the sight in front of him.

An enormous wall of fire stood in front of his eyes. The wall of fire burned furiously, but Harry could feel no heat from it.

Harry watched in a daze as the fire wall burned for several moments before it slowly dwindled away. Seeing his only protection disappear, Harry panicked and jumped to his feet, backing away from Voldemort as far as he could go.

He eyed Voldemort and noticed that Voldemort was in a daze as well, muttering loudly to himself.

“That can’t be. People can’t use magic of this scale this easily,” he muttered, “Especially wandless. If that was possible, I would have been able to do it years ago.”

His musings were enough for Harry to realize that he was the one who had created that fire wall. How he did it was something he himself didn’t know.

“No matter,” said Voldemort.

He raised his head and looked at Harry. “I just have to kill you before you can use that again.”

Voldemort increased the intensity of his attacks, many more green bolts shot towards Harry. However, Harry felt much more composed this time.

He raised his hand and imagined the fire wall protecting him again. An enormous wall of fire materialized again.

Elated, Harry waved his hand, and the firewall disappeared. Harry tried again just as he saw a few more green bolts fly towards him and a smaller wall appeared this time, though it was enough to cover Voldemort’s attacks.

Several such volleys took place. Voldemort would shoot more and more projectiles to attack Harry, but to Voldemort’s dismay, Harry would block them all.

Every time that Harry blocked, the firewall would become smaller and more precise. It reached a point where multiple small fire shields appeared floating in the air, positioned precisely to block each of the attacks.

Harry shook with excitement as he watched Voldemort’s frustration. He could finally pay him back for all the trouble he caused.

Harry started his counterattack. Small balls of fire shot out in between his shields, dodging the green bolts and shooting towards Voldemort.

“How are you doing this!” screeched Voldemort. Forced to erect a shield to protect himself, but to his horror, his shield broke after just three shots.

Several shots flew towards him and he could just watch in horror as they approached him as quick as could be. He watched as the fireballs flew into his body, causing an unimaginable pain.

“Ha!” laughed Harry. “Not so arrogant now, are you?”

Harry approached cautiously. “Like you said, everything in here is corporeal and incorporeal.” said Harry as he stopped at a safe distance from Voldemort, who was writhing in pain.

“If I kill you here, then that would obliterate you completely.”

Harry raised a hand, ready to finish Voldemort off. Harry stared deeply at Voldemort, the source of all the suffering he had to go through all these years. Voldemort just sneered through his pain.

“I’m just a fragment, Potter. Killing me would do nothing but rid you of a slight headache now and then.” Voldemort coughed violently, the fire still burning him, “You will still die by my hands.”

Harry scoffed and shot several more fireballs at Voldemort. A wail rose as they covered Voldemort in the fire. An unearthly shriek was all Voldemort could manage before his soul completely collapsed and turned to dust.

Harry heaved a sigh and slumped to the ground. He had utterly exhausted himself. This was not a battle he had expected to have. However, the exhilaration and excitement soon caught up to him. He almost had the urge to stand up and dance.

He had won.

Even though Voldemort was just a fragment of himself but this time around, he only had himself to rely on. No magical hands that burned Quirrell, no bumbling Quirrell that just hindered Voldemort more than helped. No resonance with Voldemort’s wand.

Nothing of the sort. He, himself, had beaten Voldemort. A weakened Voldemort, but ‌a Voldemort who could fight properly. If you ignore shooting fireballs out of his hands, that is.

Amid his jubilation, Harry didn’t notice a flash of green leave Voldemort’s smoldering remains and fly towards Harry.

‘Huh?’

Harry watched wide-eyed as the flash of green light flew straight towards him. It looked nothing like the Avada Kedavra spell ‌Voldemort had been using so much of. It was incomparably faster, so much so that his mind could comprehend it, but his body just couldn’t react. He so badly wanted to dodge, he wanted to put up a shield and protect himself. Alas, all he could do was watch as the light flew towards his chest.

Even if his mind wanted to do what it could to protect itself, his body simply couldn’t react in time.

Harry watched in horror as the green light flew into his chest, a sharp cold sensation invaded his body and in the next moment, Harry could feel his vision darken.

‘Oh crap,’ was all he could think before his consciousness slipped away again.