With Harry's strength, there was no way he could sense Voldemort's presence.
But that did not matter.
All he needed to know was that on this chaotic battlefield, as the situation tilted more and more in Hogwarts' favor, the one growing most anxious was Voldemort.
Just as Dumbledore was worried about how to destroy Voldemort completely, Voldemort himself was also worried about how to surpass the top strength on Dumbledore's side while preserving as much of his own forces as possible.
Otherwise, once Grindelwald finished clearing out his followers, even if Voldemort successfully absorbed Harry's soul, he would be left utterly alone. And if he failed then, he would truly vanish from this world forever.
So this was a gamble.
A gamble with life itself at stake.
"Well, well, Harry Potter..."
Voldemort appeared sinisterly at Harry's side, looking at his strange outfit with a mocking smile.
"So this is the final weapon Tver Fawley left you? What a pity. This little thing won't change anything, just like his foolish life..."
"You have no right to talk about him!"
Harry gritted his teeth and flung a sharp spell at him. To be precise, this was the first proper dark magic he had ever used.
"Sectumsempra!"
"Oh?"
Voldemort dodged in surprise, looking at Harry with genuine astonishment.
"That is... Severus's magic? No wonder... he would do something so foolish..."
He vaguely sensed that something was wrong.
When Severus had come to see him early that morning, his movements had already seemed strange. If Voldemort had not been alert, he might have fallen victim to some bizarre magic.
Now, it seemed things were not going as smoothly as he had expected.
Or rather, they were going so smoothly that it felt as if a great invisible hand were pushing him forward.
That unease made Voldemort impatient. With a sweep of his hand, Harry's spellcasting was disrupted.
"Potter, did Dumbledore never teach you manners?" He abruptly raised his wand, his blood-red eyes fixed straight on Harry.
"Crucio!"
Harry's heart clenched, and piercing agony instantly spread from it through his entire body.
"Aaah!"
He collapsed weakly to the ground, his wide eyes bloodshot from the terrible pain. Only meaningless gasps escaped his mouth, like air leaking from a punctured balloon.
The surrounding students were terrified. Sirius's eyes nearly split with rage, but he was at the very front and had no way to get over.
Even Dumbledore, watching from a distance, frowned deeply at the sight.
Was it still too much to ask Harry at this stage to face Voldemort directly?
If Voldemort intended to absorb Harry's soul as well, then even if the Horcrux problem was solved, Harry would not survive.
"Can you imagine it, Potter?"
So close to success, Voldemort's face twisted with excitement. He held his wand loosely and walked toward Harry step by step.
"Your mother begged me not to hurt you. Severus was even willing to attack me for your sake."
"When I tortured your father, he had the same look of pain on his face. Until the moment he died, he could only struggle helplessly like an ant."
"Tver Fawley walked alone into a trap I had spent a year preparing, just to save you."
"And yet, despite so many people offering up their foolish lives, they still could not stop your destined death."
With a flick of his wand, Harry was lifted like a puppet, hanging limply in the air and panting hard.
Seeing the fury in Harry's eyes, Voldemort frowned.
For some reason, he did not dare look straight at him.
And in that moment of panic.
"Sectumsempra!"
Voldemort was startled and quickly took a large step back, barely avoiding the spell.
With his soul so incomplete now, he did not dare take any magic lightly, especially dark magic.
When he saw that the attacker was nothing more than a blond student about Harry's age, Voldemort immediately felt humiliated.
"A Slytherin student?"
Voldemort frowned at the green pattern beneath Draco's vest.
Not only was he a student of Slytherin House, he even regarded himself as an heir of Slytherin.
With so many Gryffindor students around who had not dared to step forward, he had never expected a Slytherin student to be the one to stand up and defy him.
"To be precise," Draco said, still not daring to relax as he watched Voldemort's every move, "I'm a student of Hogwarts."
"Heh..."
Voldemort gave a soft laugh, his smile full of disdain for Hogwarts.
"Considering you can use such a spell at such a young age, I can mercifully allow you to surrender and offer me your loyalty."
He had always regarded Slytherin students as future Death Eaters. Once Dumbledore was defeated, he still expected these students to serve him in the future.
"All right, since you put it that way..."
Draco sighed and walked over step by step, as if he meant to shake Voldemort's hand.
"Then I'll be merciful too and send you to meet Death!"
Draco's wand fired another spell, and then he lunged forward, reaching Harry's side and trying to pull him down.
This time, Voldemort was thoroughly enraged.
He had still been considering whether Draco might be some relative of one of his Death Eaters, worried about damaging their already fragile relationship.
But after being provoked again and again, even if Draco were his own son, Voldemort had only one thought left.
"Avada Kedavra!"
Draco had barely tugged twice when he sensed the danger coming. He quickly rolled aside with no concern for dignity.
The Killing Curse blasted a small pit where he had just been, and the dirt it threw up stung his face.
But that was nothing compared to his violently pounding heart.
As a student, he had experienced many battles in class before, even simulated battlefields.
But this kind of danger, where one careless moment could truly mean death, made him realize how brutal a real battlefield was.
Panting heavily, Draco finally understood why the professor had said that although his strength was clearly considerable, he was often too rational and lacked a touch of Gryffindor courage.
Only, it seemed he had understood a little too late, and a little too cruelly.
"Do you feel fear now, little brat?"
Voldemort looked at Draco coldly. He had seen that terror on countless faces, countless times.
"What a pity. You'll pay for that fear with your life."
He snapped his wand, and a green light flew out instantly.
"Avada Kedavra!"
Yet under Draco's astonished gaze, a figure suddenly broke free of his restraints and threw himself in front of him without hesitation, spreading his arms wide.
"No!"
"No!"
It was not only Draco. Even Voldemort stared with eyes wide in horror as Harry's powerless body collapsed, feeling as if the world before him had shattered.
Everything spun.