Harry didn't feel like eating today, which wasn't surprising considering his bleak thoughts.
That must have been the signal his body had been waiting for, because just as he realised that, his hands had grabbed an apple and a knife, and he slowly began devouring the fruit. This occurrence had repeated every single time before one of his Quidditch matches.
Just like all the previous times, he didn't notice it until he finished the apple.
'Damnation. I still can't get how this happens without me noticing,' he thought, wondering if that meant he was slowly going insane. 'But that'd mean that I was always crazy…'
His possible madness aside, Harry put down the apple with an affronted look—'there's definitely something wrong with the apples here'—and smiled ferociously at his two friends.
"So, tell me, Neville," Harry started saying, his eyes, which were previously on Hermione, now on his friend. "You and Hermione are still a thing, right?"
Neville gulped audibly the food in his mouth, and threw a desperate look to the girl, who shook her head in resignation.
He sighed in defeat and nodded.
"Good lad," Harry said, the smile still on his lips. "That means you are like what, half a year together, or is it more?"
He didn't wait for a reply. "Now, correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't that about the time when couples start getting much more intimate?"
At this point, Neville was flushing red, and Hermione, despite her valiant efforts, wasn't falling behind.
"What I'm getting at it, is this: Did you guys have sex yet?"
Harry may have forgotten to put up a privacy charm around them, and when he finished, there were too many—more than he would have guessed—blushing faces around.
Hell, there was a fourth-year girl in Slytherin that had heard him. 'I'm surrounded by master eavesdroppers,' he concluded dumbstruck.
"I'm just teasing you," Harry reassured his friend, after letting his squirm for an appropriate amount of time, and proudly noted that he was about to say 'yes'.
It was his duty as Hermione's older brother—she was almost a year older than him—to make sure that her boyfriend felt awkward. He only hoped that her father wouldn't mind him taking his responsibility.
Harry let the blushing kids around him whisper freely, and he turned to look at the professor's table.
His smile, which had been plastered since the moment he saw Neville, quickly disappeared as he made eye contact with Dumbledore-not-really.
'Hello Tom,' Harry said easily.
It was surprisingly easy how two master Legilimens could talk with one another. One had to but barely broadcast the words he wanted, and the other would immediately pick them up. Particularly skilled practitioners of the art could hold a normal conversation that way, and could even ramp up the speed.
Unsurprisingly, Tom, instead of answering a greeting like any sane person would, tried to attack Harry's mind.
'Oh, my. You've gotten better at this,' Harry said and concentrated on fending off the attacks. After a few seconds of doing so, during which he defended his mind from countless assaults, he finally grasped the new way of Tom's attacks. His Dragon Eyes were handy like that.
Harry allowed himself to briefly wonder how far Voldemort, and he in turn, could progress in the mind arts if they continued these battles indefinitely.
'Too far,' he guessed, and thanked Merlin that it wouldn't reach that stage. He'd make sure of it.
As suddenly as the assault had started, it stopped.
'Why have you come back this time?' Voldemort asked conversationally. Harry had to resist a mental snort.
'Why, to see you, of course, Tom! Don't tell me you've grown bored of me already?' he asked in a pained tone. Harry had to admit that rilling up the Dark Lord was one of his favourite pastimes. Perhaps there was a little craziness in him after all…
'You mistake me for someone who could ever enjoy your company,' Voldemort replied, his mental tone as sharp as a knife's edge. 'You are an irritation—a buzzing insect I cannot quite crush. And don't get me started on your pesky attempts to stop me in the Wizengamot.'
'Oh, that's flattering,' Harry said cheerfully, keeping his expression carefully neutral. Despite their talk, there was still a battle of minds going on, and he was constantly weaving shields and triple-checking every word that he heard from Tom, lest he tried to sneak in some sort of curse. Harry didn't know if that was even possible, but you can trust a persistent Dark Lord to find a way. 'I was aiming for overwhelming, but I suppose irritating will do.'
Dumbledore's face—no, Voldemort's—remained serene, the faint twinkle of false warmth in his blue eyes betraying nothing. Harry knew better. He could feel the dark amusement simmering beneath that calm surface.
'You grow confident,' Tom said, tone like velvet lined with venom. 'Confidence is dangerous, Harry. It makes you reckless. It makes you predictable.'
'Predictable? You wound me,' Harry replied, forcing a grin. 'But yes, today I've come with nothing but confidence and a challenge to battle. That is, if you're not afraid.'
He caught a faint ripple of irritation from Voldemort's mind—so small most would have missed it. Harry didn't. His grin widened.
'It's simple, really. I bet you've noticed how your magic is deteriorating,' Harry said slowly.
Suddenly, Voldemort's presence disappeared from his mind, and Harry braced himself for the attack.
Hundreds upon hundreds of tendrils tried to sink through his Occlumency shields, and mental rams slammed on his weakest points, trying to break through. However, Harry was resilient.
He quickly formed a smoke-like ocean on top of his defences, effectively nullifying the probes, and simply batted aside the rams.
However, nothing as simple would stop a relentless Dark Lord.
Since the normal probes didn't work, Voldemort changed them on the fly, creating something else that'd penetrate the smoke. And Harry would respond. Then Voldemort would adapt.
The cycle continued for more than a hundred iterations, a few seconds in the real world, until Voldemort, having poured a considerable amount of magic in his attacks, got a powerful response from Harry.
Neither was hurt, not in the slightest; however, Voldemort saw something he wouldn't have thought even in his wildest dreams.
'WHAT HAVE YOU DONE!?' the Dark Lord's furious voice reverberated in Harry's head.
'Oh, you noticed that, didn't you?' Harry asked, a little angry at himself for showing Voldemort that.
That earned him a pause. A cold, deliberate silence that pressed at the edges of his consciousness like the calm before a storm. Then—
'I could end you in an instant,' Voldemort whispered.
'You could try,' Harry countered, leaning back and pretending to examine his knife. 'Anyway, if you want to end this, meet me at Little Hangleton's graveyard in one minute. No surprises, it'd be just you and me.'
For a heartbeat, the mental connection shuddered—pure, restrained fury seeping through before Voldemort's presence abruptly vanished. The silence that was left behind was almost palpable.
Harry exhaled slowly, setting the knife down. His hand trembled just slightly before he steadied it.
"Harry?" Hermione asked carefully, noting something off about her friend. "Are you all right?"
He turned to her with a grin that didn't quite reach his eyes. "Peachy," he said. "Just lost my appetite again."
He rose from his seat, ignoring Neville's worried glance and the still-whispering students nearby. His gaze flicked once more toward the head table—toward Dumbledore's serene, unreadable face.
"Hermione, you do know that you are my bestest friend, right?" he asked with a smile, and flashed away.
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Chapter 131: It's Finally Over