A Soulless Angel

Xxxx

Harry Potter shivered as he sat in the grimy cell, contemplating the bowl of soggy bread which passed as a meal in Azkaban. The bread came at least twice a day, and after having the Dursleys for 'family,' he had learnt the hard way how to ration how much food he actually ate. He had just never had to do it in the magical world.

Or at least he was sure it was bread, he had never truly discovered the answer. He had been in this cell for so long, eating the same filth that he was positive his taste buds had died, and he was even more positive the Dementors had caused even more damage to his mind, to say nothing of his body, but because he hadn't been out in the open for….Merlin knew how long, but he had no idea how bad the deterioration had been. He had only met one former prisoner of this horrible place (he would not think of Sirius; the memory of their last meeting was one of the worst meetings he had ever endured, and he had relived it so many times already), and he had always felt prolonged exposure to Dementors was akin to a waxwork standing near a really hot fire, the wax melting so much that the end result was unrecognisable.

Harry had never been vain, but he had come to like being seen as James Potter's clone despite its ups and downs, to say nothing of what he'd inherited from Lily. Thinking of his parents only served to make him more depressed. Would they have betrayed him in the same way as everyone else, or would they have stood by him?

Even now he didn't know the answer. In truth, Harry had never known his parents and while he did love looking at their pictures, nobody had really told him about their personalities and after the decade of being force-fed the poison from the Dursleys, he was more apathetic towards them than what others assumed.

He closed his eyes suddenly when he felt the presence of the Dementors near his cell.

What was that?

He suddenly thought he had just heard voices. For a moment, Harry wondered if the Dementors had dredged up some of his nightmares; after spending god knew how long in this cell, exposed to the Dementors at every hour and forced to relive every horrible moment in his life from recalling his parent's deaths, the abuse he'd gone through at the Dursleys, the humiliation Dudley had forced on him, before his show trial and then having to watch every single one of Voldemort's atrocities since the Dark Lord's return to power, he had lost all sense of time until every single second seemed to feel like an eternity.

But the coldness which he always experienced from the Dementors receded and he realised the voices were real, and they were very close. Harry lifted his head and blinked as he tried hard to see in the almost perpetual darkness of the prison; Azkaban was so dark anyway that it was almost physically impossible for him to tell night from day, but there was enough light for him to see something just as bad as the Dementors; two Death Eaters in full regalia as they opened the door to his cell. For a moment Harry wondered if he was dreaming or not, but when the Death Eaters roughly pulled him to his feet, Harry knew it wasn't an illusion.

"This can't be the right cell," one of the Death Eaters said; Harry recognised the voice as one of the Inner Circle Death Eaters who'd answered Voldemort's call in the graveyard, but he couldn't place the name. A moment later he realised he didn't care who he was.

"It is the right cell," the second Death Eater replied.

"But it can't be!" The first one insisted to his friend. "This doesn't even look like Potter."

Harry tried not to react as the Death Eater spoke. What did that mean?

The second Death Eater sighed. "Well, then check for his scar."

The first Death Eater roughly grabbed Harry's face, and he barely reacted as his head was pushed back. The Death Eater grimaced as he pushed aside the filthy matted hair, and found the infamous lightning bolt-shaped scar. The Death Eater nodded.

"Yeah, it's Potter, alright," he said.

"But..what happened to his hair? Its turned white!"

"Who cares? We need to get out of here. Let's go before the Dark Lord is displeased by the delay."

The first Death Eater took out his wand, swirling it around and Harry felt himself being levitated and guided along the corridors before they got out of the prison he came to a crowd of prisoners being helped into a boat by a small party of Death Eaters. Some of them had their heads bowed, others were muttering to themselves, others were stroking their forearms, and he guessed they were Death Eaters themselves. Harry was dropped into the back of the boat and was quickly hit by a body-binding curse. The Death Eaters who'd taken him out of his own cell guarded him, but Harry didn't pay them any attention. He was taking slow but deep breaths as he was exposed to the cold, salty air which wasn't contaminated by the filth and muck of Azkaban.

As the boat crossed the sea, the temperature shifted from bitterly cold to relatively temperate and as the boat left the island, Harry was relieved to be away from the Dementors. While he still heard the leftover screams from his mother and the countless victims killed by Voldemort, who had poured through their connection every single atrocity imaginable; every rape he had overseen which was done for 'entertainment' and involved muggles and muggle-borns of both genders, every torture, and every murder; Harry could feel the screams recede in his mind, and as they did he closed his eyes and tried to summon what was left of his occlumency barriers.

He had been halfway to being called an expert in the mind arts after he had found a book on the subject in the Chamber of Secrets, which he'd gotten shortly after he'd killed the basilisk when he was 12, and he had gone through the book extremely carefully since there were so many warnings of what could happen if you played around with them; his barriers had been working perfectly before going to Azkaban and while they had kept his mind relatively undamaged by the Dementor's exposure, the horrors he had seen from Voldemort's return along with all of his other bad memories had worn them down, and now he was having to check the damage.

As the boat arrived at the shore, Harry saw the large crowd; the beach was full of Death Eaters, their black robes were so distinctive they could not be anybody else, but there were other people there in the red robes of Aurors.

"It's the Dark Lord! The Dark Lord is back!" One of the prisoners in the boat whispered before shrieking loudly, like an excited kid off on a trip, only the similarities ended because the speaker was a woman who'd clearly once possessed great looks, but now they looked like they had worn off, and she sounded crazy.

"We always knew he'd return!"

"Praise the Dark Lord!"

Harry ignored the prisoners as he looked at the crowd; now the boat was nearer, and he could see the Death Eaters had surrounded the Aurors. As they got closer, he spotted a few bodies on the shore itself. There had clearly been a battle, but it looked like the Death Eaters had won. Harry didn't care. He was trying really hard not to react as he felt his heart throb in his chest as he realised this was it.

It didn't take long before he saw a number of familiar people. Harry recognised Voldemort, flanked by a few Death Eaters; on the other side was the distinctive form of Albus Dumbledore, Arthur Weasley, Sirius Black, Remus Lupin, Fudge himself and Amelia Bones who was the Head of the DMLE.

The newly freed prisoners jumped out of the boat and, using the energy they were likely surprised by, ran towards Voldemort, throwing themselves to the ground and kissing the hem of his robes.

Voldemort raised a hand. "Welcome back, my friends," he said in his usual calm and cool manner and measured low sibilant tone. "For those of you who are not marked, you will be given the chance later. For now, I have other business to attend to. I have waited a long time for this moment. Bring him out of the boat."

Surprised the Death Eaters had been ordered to wait until the introduction was finished, Harry was dragged out of the boat and thrown to the ground in front of the crowd. He winced as the skin on his hands and knees was cut by the sharp stones, and the impact winded him.

"Who is this? You fools, I told you to bring me Harry Potter, not this pathetic old man!" Voldemort's angry voice washed over him.

"But My Lord, it is Potter," one of the Death Eaters said.

A gasp went through the crowd. "That can't be right," Voldemort's voice was full of irritation, and Harry realised the Dark wizard was walking over to where he was lying on the ground. "Potter is a young boy of 15, he's not like this."

Harry sensed someone crouching down next to him, and he felt a clawed hand grip his chin roughly and pick him up off the ground - it was either that or have one of his favourite body parts being wrenched off - and he found himself looking into Voldemort's face.

Voldemort had grabbed Harry by the chin and was looking probingly into his face, pushing aside the matted and filthy white hair, turning his face upwards and he found himself staring at the emerald green eyes and the lightning bolt-shaped scar.

"It is you," Voldemort said, "This really is Harry Potter. At last, our saviour is here, the Boy Who Lived," Voldemort added in contempt, showing his real thoughts about Harry's fame, "but of course, you all know it was not him who defeated me and made me lose my powers all those years ago, don't you?" Voldemort added as he stood up, dropping Harry to the ground again. "It was Lily Potter. Sweet, clever, powerful and dangerous Lily Potter, who used a combination of Blood Magic and Runes to defeat me. She created a sacrifice to save her only child. I should have seen it coming, really. Oh, I wish she and her husband had seen sense, and joined my cause. But no, she didn't. Harry gained his fame for nothing but lies."

Voldemort glided along the beach, escorted by some of his followers while the others were content to just watch. "See what you have done to your precious saviour? Oh no? You refuse to look at him?" Voldemort asked mockingly when more than a few of the Aurors and members of the Order of the Phoenix refused to even look at Harry's body on the beach. His voice hardened as he began infusing his magic into his voice before he gave the command. "I, Lord Voldemort, Heir of Salazar Slytherin order you to look at your saviour!"

One by one, unable to resist the magic lacing the command, and they looked down at the still body of Harry Potter. For many of them, seeing the young, all-too-thin boy with white hair tore their hearts to shreds.

"Look at what you've done to your saviour," Voldemort went on. "Abandoned for a crime he never committed. If you had any common sense, you would have realised he had never cast the curse. You all did my bidding, and you abandoned him to his fate. And look at him now; malnourished, weak, and the trauma of his time has been so much, his hair has turned white. The poor, poor thing," he finished mockingly.

Harry decided he was done lying on the ground. He closed his eyes and slowly marshalled his strength - which was not much - and he got to his feet. He struggled with the task. Noticing the movement, Voldemort turned to face him.

"Well, Harry, are they worth the bother or the time saving? Are you going to bother saving these fools all around you, the same fools who spat on your parent's last wishes for you to remain safe? Oh, I'm not ignorant, Harry," Voldemort added with a smirk, "I've been in your mind. I know you don't truly revere your parents; oh, I know you love them, but because you never knew them, you find it hard to really care about them." Voldemort chuckled as the gasps echoed through the crowd, most notably from Sirius and those on the Light side.

Harry got to his feet, grinding his teeth with effort as he stood up. He didn't care anymore about them knowing about what he really thought about his parents. "Lily and James Potter were my parents. I do love them. But I never knew them. I never found out their favourite colours, or what they liked doing when they were kids. After a while I stopped caring; it's hard to care when you're told your mother is supposedly a whore, told by her jealous, shrew, filthy muggle sister. And when I heard their story, the only thing I felt for them was contempt. If they were smart, then they should have left Britain when they had the chance. If they'd done that, they might still be alive," he said without any emotion. "I don't know if they even cared about everyone in the magical world."

"What about you, Harry? Do you really think these people deserve to live?" Voldemort asked, his eyes glinting manically while everyone gasped at what he said.

Everyone turned to Harry, waiting to see his reaction; those who knew him expected him to act like a Gryffindor, but those who didn't have any idea knew how he'd respond.

"I don't care what you do anymore. Oh, and if you're thinking of persuading me to join you, you'd be wasting your time," Harry waved a hand dismissively. "I don't care anymore."

If everyone was stunned, then Voldemort was surprised by Harry's lack of emotion, and for a moment he was unsure how he should react. He took a good long look at the boy, considering; he had conquered a large amount of the country anyway, and he saw no need for a malnourished, ill, boy who'd been badly tortured by his time in Azkaban, but at the same time he had always offered Harry Potter every opportunity to join the real winners. While Voldemort had the prophecy which he had heard so long ago in mind, he knew that prophecies could be cancelled out by the choices of those involved. Besides, he had already achieved a vast amount on his own in a short span of time, but with a boy like Harry Potter, he could have accomplished so much. And with the prophecy nullified then he would have been safe.

A part of him wished he had forced a potion down Harry's throat, one to make the boy his biological son with all of Lily Potter's traits, but the magical world had been demoralised by the supposed betrayal of the Boy Who Lived. Did he really need the boy around now?

"Well," Voldemort decided at last, "since you've decided your final fate, I see no reason to keep you alive."

"You can't do that, you coward!" An Auror in the crowd shouted before he began screaming under the force of a Death Eater applying the cruciatus curse on him.

Voldemort turned to Harry speculatively. "A coward, am I? How many times have I attacked the Ministry in person? Or Hogsmeade? Diagon Alley? St Mungo's, even? I've attacked so many places so many times in person. I no longer see the benefit of hiding my presence. Still, I wouldn't want any so-called brave, noble Gryffindors who hate the thought of the dark so much if anyone does something you don't like you destroy them so easy to think I am a coward."

Voldemort strode up to Harry, a second wand appearing in his hand as he did. He gave Harry the wand. Harry looked down at the wand and then back into Voldemort's face. "Another duel?" Harry asked wearily.

"You were a good fighter the last time; I wasn't expecting those darker curses you used, but you were certainly capable," Voldemort said.

"Was I?" Harry's response surprised the audience. They had expected the two wizards who were mortal enemies to be sniping at one another, not speaking as if they were old friends.

"Yes. And I mean it, Harry. I have so few worthy enemies who are worth my time. When they go, I always miss them."

"So, what about Dumbledore? How come that old bastard's still alive?" Harry asked curiously.

Voldemort laughed at the insult. "What makes you think I'm afraid of him? I always kept him around to make everyone think that I was scared of him. I never was. He may have set fire to my possessions when we first met," he scowled at the reminder, "but I swore to make him regret it. I've always wanted to torture him into insanity and then kill him. Now, shall we?"

Harry held the wand in his hands for a moment, but then he nodded. "Alright, fine. But under one condition."

"What's that?" Voldemort asked curiously, tilting his head.

Harry walked slowly towards Voldemort, ignoring the Death Eaters who raised their wands. "Don't be stupid," he told them. "I'm not going to hurt him until the duel starts."

When the young wizard was close to the older one, he said clearly. "I want you to kill me, no matter what happens," he said, horrifying the crowd and surprising the dark wizards and witches witnessing the whole thing. "No dramatics, no speeches about how powerful you are; I'm not interested. Just do it, but give me a good fight first."

Surprised by the request like everyone else, Voldemort tilted his head. "I accept, but you wouldn't want to live, get your revenge?"

Harry scowled. "Let's get on with it."

"Very well," Voldemort said, but then he did something that took many by surprise, including his followers; he held out his hand. "Harry Potter, I will always remember you."

Harry wanted to spit at him, but he held back the urge. Instead, he decided to be polite. "Lord Voldemort," he said before he and Voldemort clasped their hands and shook. Harry didn't bother squeezing although he was tempted, Voldemort did, but somehow Harry was able to hold back the urge to flinch at the strength of the grip.

Voldemort smiled back, one of genuine regret before walking off to give himself some distance from Harry. "We can begin now."

Harry nodded, but he winced as he shifted himself. "One minute," he said as he pointed the wand he was holding at his legs, hissing in parseltongue as he chanted the spell- to the crowd, the sudden use of parseltongue and parselmagic was both sinister and unexpected, but for the Death Eaters who hadn't even known the Boy Who Lived was a parselmouth was a revelation.

Many of the crowd didn't understand what Harry was chanting, but Voldemort did. The Dark Lord's eyes were soft and almost misty-eyed as he looked at his younger enemy. "That was a parsel healing spell; a powerful one. You've been in the Chamber of Secrets library, haven't you?"

"Yes," Harry saw no point in telling him he'd also found the Room of Requirement and he'd found a number of spells there as well, breathing normally again and feeling more strength in his atrophied legs; if he was going to duel, he'd like to be ready for everything and anything. "I went down there after I killed the basilisk. I wanted to know what was down there, and I soon found the library there, and I smuggled two of the books out; a few of the spells were fascinating. Anyway, shall we begin?" Harry added.

With his eyes glinting in anticipation, Voldemort nodded and he got into a duelling stance; Harry did the same thing. "And now…we bow," Voldemort said.

Harry bowed but he didn't take his eyes off of Voldemort once, remembering the last time he'd refused to bow. Voldemort remembered too, and he chuckled. "Ah, you have a good memory, Harry," he said. "Well done."

Harry twirled the wand in his hand, his mind going through the myriad of spells he had in his arsenal while he felt the parsel blessing do its work. He could feel his lungs working slightly better than before, and his arms and legs and chest felt much stronger. Harry began slowly circling and Voldemort did the same, neither wizard taking their eyes off of the other as they adjusted their duelling stances. Finally, Harry decided to begin.

Silently he cast several blasting curses and a few ordinary charms and transfiguration spells to test Voldemort's defences. Voldemort blocked most of them.

"Very good, Harry," he complimented before he cast several dark curses and the killing curse. "Not bad for someone who hasn't duelled in a while."

Harry effortlessly dispelled the curses, quickly conjuring a very large stone wall which he banished right into the path of the killing curse, which shattered the stone wall into little bits; Voldemort laughed as he jumped out of the way. "Oh, such ingenuity despite hearing how you are so mediocre from people like Severus and other agents at Hogwarts. Oh, Harry, I have missed you so much! It's been so long since I've had a fight with someone who isn't set in their ways!"

"I'll pretend I didn't hear that," Harry muttered to himself before he spoke louder, "AVADA KEDAVRA!"

Harry had always known he had the capacity to use many dark spells once he had gotten into the Chamber of Secrets library, and the biggest trick was knowing that he had to want to hurt people, to hate them. It had taken a short time for him to master that particular quirk, but since he hated so many people, it was easy. The hatred he felt for so many people including Voldemort gave him the power to use the spell.

Voldemort only just managed to conjure his own wall, but when it shattered under the forces it was subjected to, the Dark Lord was not there.

Harry sighed when he looked around and even behind himself. "Voldemort, I'm not in the mood for your games," he said before he cast, "Homenum Revelio," all around him… he barely managed to avoid being tortured by the torture curse, and he retaliated with another spell chain.

Harry had been connected to Voldemort for a long time. Azkaban had merely served to make the connection stronger and more powerful. He knew one of the biggest weaknesses of many a wizard or witch in a duel was to use high-powered spells and curses. But that came with too high a price because many of them under or overestimated just how powerful their bodies were and how much they could cope with.

Harry had learnt the best way to win a fight was to let the other wizard wear themselves down, using ordinary spells to serve as countermeasures before using more dangerous spells in the mix. But as he fought on, he began feeling weaker. Harry had been a good and natural duelist before his imprisonment, and his time in Azkaban had atrophied his muscles despite the spell he'd used, which he was burning through. But he was trying to keep himself from using too-powerful curses.

Voldemort had learnt that lesson as well, and so the pair of them quickly discovered they were both evenly matched, and since Harry was openly using dark spells and parselmagic, he was giving Voldemort a lot of work to do; both of them conjured mirrors to bounce spells off, but Voldemort did the same.

"You know, Harry, there's one thing I've always wanted to know," Voldemort began. "One I wanted to ask for a long time."

"Yeah, well if you're going to ask if it's okay to put your hand on my knee, it won't go well."

"Why did you refuse my offer to join me when you were 11?"

Harry was surprised by the question, but he saw no reason why he shouldn't reply. "Because I did."

"I offered you a place in my ranks; you impressed me in your first year, Harry. I knew just from my observations you were not the little pawn Dumbledore wanted. I know you were breaking into the library during the night, especially after you received your father's invisibility cloak. But I never understood why you never joined my cause."

Harry hissed. "You know about what I was doing?"

"Of course. I know many ways of using invisibility, and I was fascinated about you when I saw the signs you weren't the puppet so many thought," Voldemort replied.

Harry narrowed his eyes, biting his lip for a second before he nodded. "Do you remember the Mirror of Erised? It was right there in the room we were in when you made that offer to me. I saw them, an image of my parents. I was tempted, really tempted to give you the Philosopher's Stone."

"So why didn't you?" The question encompassed both points. "I thought you didn't care about your parents."

"I don't. I viewed them with contempt for not doing the smart thing and getting out of the country to avoid you, but when you made your offer their image vanished and when I saw that, I knew you had no intention of giving them back," Harry said.

Voldemort said nothing, giving Harry the opportunity to go on. "I checked the necromancy books in the Chamber; there's no way of resurrecting the dead. That's a muggle belief. In reality, there's no way of doing it. And I didn't want my parents to become inferi."

The duel resumed, but as the pair of them got into it, Harry was breathing harder and he cursed, realising he was taxing the magic of the parsel chant. Sensing weakness, Voldemort vanished…

…and reappeared behind Harry.

The teenager shrieked in surprise and agony when he felt the cutting curse slash his back, but he growled through the pain, and he silently stabbed Voldemort in the chest with a spark jinx, making the Dark Lord jump back in pain before Harry got up, ignoring the blood and the way he was breathing more heavily.

Using his advantage to the highest, Harry jabbed Voldemort again, "CRUCIO!" He snarled.

Voldemort didn't scream, but he gasped as he felt the waves of pain wash over him while Harry held him under the torture curse before he pulled back and lowered his wand.

Voldemort panted over the aftereffects of the curse. "I was not expecting that," he said, gazing up at him in surprise.

Harry held out his arms, breathing hard as he felt more of the parsel blessing wear off. "I'm already condemned to life imprisonment for mass murder; a few unforgiveables aren't going to make any difference." There was a bright flare of light from the tip of Harry's borrowed wand, and it was so bright and washed over them, taking everyone by surprise. The next thing everyone was aware of when the light began dissipating was there was a cloud of thick noxious gas. Voldemort was confused for a moment, wondering if Harry was playing a game himself, but then he heard a cry from one of his Death Eaters. And he quickly waved his wand, dispelling the clouds.

To his surprise, Harry was kneeling down next to a Death Eater, who was on the ground unconscious - Voldemort had no idea if he was alive or even dead, but he didn't care - but what surprised him was what the boy was doing. The boy had ripped the sleeve off of the Death Eater, exposing the Dark Mark, but then he had smeared the Mark with blood cut from his own hand, which made every Death Eater scream in agony, and even made Voldemort gasp and flinch in discomfort, but it was too late for him to do anything about it. His mind was racing; he had created the Dark Mark using a combination of spells combining soul and parselmagic with thaumaturgy. How the hell had the brat realised it?

Harry jabbed his borrowed wand into the blood-smeared Dark Mark. "CRUCIO MAXIMA!"

Voldemort hadn't screamed before, but now he fell to the ground, shrieking in agony as the curse washed over him; dimly he was aware of the other Death Eaters, who were just as overcome as he was himself. And it ended.

Harry watched the Death Eaters and their leader dispassionately as they rolled around, writhing on the ground, thinking idly that it never failed to amaze him; no matter what happened, Voldemort was so bone dead stupid. Oh, he claimed to see his mistakes, but he rarely learnt from them. Voldemort was a fool to use his blood for the resurrection ritual. Using the blood had given him access to the protection Lily Potter had granted him through blood magic, but it had also worked both ways and now he had access to the Dark Mark network.

Bad move.

Harry had learnt of the ritual Voldemort had planned to use after seeing it in his mind, and he had prepared for it, but he hadn't been able to deal with the Dark Lord because Voldemort had countered his every move in their fight before he had decided it was pointless and he would have to try again some other time…but that was his mistake; he should have summoned a Death Eater and then escaped instead of fucked around and given Voldemort the chance to curse the Triwizard Trophy with the same dark curse which massacred so many people on the other side at Hogwarts.

Harry closed his eyes, jabbing the wand into the Dark Mark, and he began chanting, sending commands over the Dark Mark network. As he did, he felt his awareness of the other Death Eaters crossing his mind.

Voldemort gasped suddenly as he realised something was badly wrong. He was feeling weaker, and after a few moments of thought, he realised what was happening.

His magic… was being drained.

"No, don't!" Voldemort ordered as he tried to get up, but he couldn't. He was paralysed.

Desperately he tried to stop the drain. He called upon all of those whom he'd marked. But he wasn't sure when his followers realised their magic was drained, but when he did he looked in horror at Harry, who had opened his eyes, the magic swirling around him as his body began to regenerate from its lifetime of pain and woes. His malnourished frame regained its original swimmer's physique and the haggard, pale pallor of his flesh became healthier and his dulled emerald green eyes started sparkling with power although they were still dark and cold as ice. Only his white hair remained; his mind was too washed in horror for it to be changed back.

Harry grinned mockingly back at him, the rotted teeth in his mouth turning back to white as they regained their former health as his body became more robust. Voldemort stared back at the boy who'd proven to be a thorn in his side for a long time, a boy who was just like himself, a boy who could have been so much more if he had thought hard about his actions.

"You're….you're just like….me, Harry…Potter," he said as his vision darkened. Quickly he checked his connection to the Horcruxes, and he was horrified when he realised that, like himself, they were losing their magic as well. "No, this…cannot be right… I am Lord Voldemort…!"

And then his eyes went dark for the last time, but before they did, he saw himself standing watching proudly as a young teenage boy duelled his best followers. The boy turned and Voldemort saw that despite the superficial resemblance to James Potter, the boy looked more like himself, but with emerald green eyes and he realised this was a dream of a Harry Potter whom he had blood adopted during his resurrection and had trained and twisted until he was staring up at him with devotion.

What a son Harry could have been; powerful, determined, ingenious, and possessed a cunning intellect. Such a wasted opportunity.

And then…Lord Voldemort knew no more before he could even contemplate his missed opportunities.

Xxxx

Not taking his eyes off the body of the man who'd taken so much from him, Harry stood up slowly, letting the magic swirl around him until he absorbed what was left. As he stood up he felt stronger than he had done before in a long time. All the decay, all the deterioration his body suffered from the time he'd been in Azkaban - how long had he been in that shithole? - had gone, and as he stood upright, he felt the fatigue and the atrophy his legs had suffered from being hunched and slumped against a wall in Azkaban vanish. In fact, he felt as if he were a few feet taller than he had been before.

Slowly he walked over to Voldemort's corpse, ignoring the bodies of the other Death Eaters and regarded the snake-like face blankly for a moment, his own face an emotionless mask.

All around, the Light side gazed at the boy with awe and guilt as they took in his pure white hair and Azkaban robes which still hung off of him.

Harry pointed his wand at Voldemort's corpse. "Avada Kedavra," he said.

The green light hit the corpse.

"Why did you do that?" Amelia Bones asked, unsure how she should approach the boy they'd failed. She had been good friends with Lily and James, and she felt awful for what she'd allowed happening to their child.

"Just felt like it," Harry replied before he turned to her, and she shuddered when she saw the burning ice in his emerald green eyes. "What now? Am I going back to that shithole? I mean I have committed mass murder, again?" He spat at her.

Bones was horrified the boy was so jaded and cynical and believed his good deeds would go punished like this. "No. You were found innocent only a few days ago," she replied. "Barty Crouch Junior, Severus Snape, and Peter Pettigrew were found and they revealed your innocence. However," the personality of the no-nonsense Head of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement reasserted itself, "you will have to undergo a trial for your acquittal."

Harry stared at her coldly for a moment before he looked down at the corpse. "And then what, you'll give a pat on the head?"

"No," Amelia wondered where he was going with this. "You're not under arrest, Mr Potter. You're going to be released. Dumbledore pushed for it. I think after everyone learns you've killed…him," she shakily pointed down to Voldemort's body and gestured for the other Death Eaters for good measure, "and stopped a magical terrorist organisation like the Death Eaters, many will want to reward you."

That was the wrong thing to say.

"Well, I don't want it," Harry's head shot up, making her jump. Out of the corner of his eye, Harry noticed Sirius and Dumbledore approaching rapidly. They looked desperate, even Dumbledore, he noted. They would probably be demanding forgiveness. He waited until they were within earshot. "I don't want any awards. I want to leave the magical world, and when that happens, I never want to hear from any of you ever again. I want you to leave me alone. My family and I are done with this world and its inability to cope with problems of your own making."

Sirius shook with agony as he looked at his godson as he listened to what he had to say, seeing the way he held himself like he was on the verge of trying hard not to explode, but the sight of his pure white hair tore the Marauder's heart to shreds. "Harry-," he began, but he stopped when Harry gazed at him with a blank look before he turned to Amelia. "Can we get this trial over and done with, please?"

Suddenly Harry let out a breath. A moment later a swarm of Dementors appeared, but Amelia and Dumbledore drove them away from Harry while they supervised the recovery of the surviving prisoners. Many of them swore and cursed Harry as they were dragged back to the boat to ferry them all back to Azkaban, but Harry barely reacted. Bones told the Dementors Harry was going with them, that he was free.