Power He Knows Not by Imouto Kitten

Tom Marvolo Riddle, the self-styled Lord Voldemort, was having a bad 
day, quite possibly the worst since that cursed Halloween in 81. The 
Dark Lord found himself in a situation that had gone horribly wrong for 
him in several impossible ways.

The first impossible thing was that, throughout the long battle that had 
lead up to this moment, despite his killing curses repeatedly hitting 
their mark, not one of his opponents had fallen.

The second impossible thing was that he had been surrounded on all sides 
with no apparent avenue of escape.

The third impossible thing was that the particularly dense grove of 
forbidden forest at his back, trees too close together for even his 
skeletal frame to squeeze between seemed immuned to any attempt he made 
to cut, drill, or blast his way through.

The fourth impossible thing was that he was flanked from his left by the 
Order of the Phoenix, including several members he knew to be dead or 
permanently maimed, Dumbledore, James Potter, and Sirius Black at the 
front of that line of opposition.

The fifth impossible thing, on his right, he was flanked by his own 
Death Eaters, several supposedly dead witches and wizards among them, 
the taint of dark magic, including his own Dark Mark, cleansed from all 
of them and the three leading that line, Lucius, Bellatrix, and Severus 
looking braver, Saner, and Happier respectively than the Dark Lord or 
anyone else has ever seen as his former followers all have their wands 
trained on their former master.

The sixth impossible thing is the group of mere students, Dumbledore's 
Army and those they could recruit from the rest of Hogwarts, only a 
handful of them of age standing opposite of Voldemort, the mudblood 
Hermione Granger flanked by the Blood Traitors Neville Longbottom and 
Ron Weasley, three of Potter's closest allies at their head.

And the seventh impossible thing, the thing that completes the magical 
septet of impossibility, the thing that would have Voldemort cowering if 
he knew how, is Harry Potter himself, standing in the clearing between 
the cornered Dark Lord and the unified force of traitors, rebels, and 
students allied against him, but it isn't the awkward seventeen-year-old 
that Voldemort expected to face. Instead of the short, messy black hair 
the Boy-Who-Lived is known for, this version of Potter has tresses that 
cascade down his back and seem to glow with the same ephemeral, silver 
light of a corporeal patronus. Instead of a boyish face framed by 
glasses and the lightning bolt scar the Dark Lord had given the boy as a 
baby, was the face of a man who had witnessed ages without seeming to 
age with no sign of scar or wrinkle and piercing green eyes that glow 
brighter than any Avada Kedavra. Instead of the simple black robes of 
the Hogwarts uniform or ill-fitting muggle clothing, Harry was wearing 
robes of purest white, the jeweled hilt of Griffindor's Sword gleaming 
from his belt, and to top off his wardrobe, the Cloak of Invisibility 
was draped over his shoulders, the Resurrection stone embedded in the 
clasp holding the cloak cinched around the Wizard's neck. To finish the 
imposing look, Harry was dual-wielding his Hooly and Phoenix Feather 
Wand along with what Lord Voldemort had deduced to be the Legendary 
Elder Wand, the wand that had once belonged to the Dark Lord Grindelwald 
and by Dumbledore, the one who had ended said Dark Lord's Reign of 
Terror.

Speaking in a voice that demands attention, Harry speaks to the cornered 
Dark Lord, "So Tom, it has come to this. You stand alone before the 
combined might of Wizarding Britain's Finest, those who opposed you from 
the beginning, those who once followed you in your delusions, and those 
you would have robbed of the option, including many who had fallen to 
your wand or the wand of a former follower, but are now again among the 
living and able."

"With the help of Hermione Granger, Brightest Witch of her Generation, 
and a muggle born that your ideiology would force you to either dismiss 
or admit hypocrisy, we were able to find a spell for slowing time to 
give us the decades of research, experimentation, and practice we needed 
to catch up to you. We delved deep in to the dark arts, perhaps even 
deeper than you dared to go, but with each other's support, we didn't 
let it consume us, and in doing so, we were able to see the light hidden 
in the deepest darkness that one as tainted as you would be blind to and 
unable to wield if you could see it.

We untwisted the threads of the darkest curses, cleanse those threads of 
all taint and wove them into holy charms of such magnitude even Merlin 
himself would think them the work of God. We forged spells to counter 
the Unforgiveables: The Liberty Charm, which so reinforces the target's 
free will that it casts off the Imperius and oall lesser forms of mind 
control, renders the target a natural occlumens, and restores all 
memories while purging the body of all taint of Dark Magic, even healing 
damage due to ritual sacrifice. The Euphoria Charm, which instills as 
much raw pleasure as the Cruciatus instills pain, and even a charm, that 
coupled with the resurrection stone, can bring the dead back to life, 
and true life, not just as a shade or a golem."

"We even succeeded in reverse engineering the Horcrux ritual and improve 
upon it. We figured out a way to, instead of tearing the soul asunder 
and housing the torn fragment in an external vessel, link two souls, both still whole, so that as long as one soul remains in this world, both shall."

"Tom Marvolo Riddle, you went further than any wizard in pursuing 
immortality for yourself, creating not one horcrux, or even the six you 
originally planned, but seven, but my friends and I have gone further 
than any human in pursuing immortality for all! We've brought back every 
loved one slayed in your name, healed everyone maimed in your name, 
freed those enslaved to your name, and set off a chain reaction linking 
the soul of every living human to the soul of every living human they 
care for! If Hermione's calculations are correct, every human, wizard 
and muggle alike who loves or is loved by another living person is now 
immortal, and the ties that bind us to each other and to life itself are 
so strong that only something capable of wiping out humanity all at once 
could kill any of us. As a bonus, it turns out that linking the souls of 
two wizard causes the magical core of the weaker wizard to slowly grow 
stronger without weakening the stronger Wizard, and linking the soul of 
a Wizard with a muggle or squib causes a magical core to form within 
that muggle or squib. Within a decade, every human will be as magically 
powerful as Dumbledore!"

Spreading his arms as if to give Voldemort a free shot, Harry concludes 
his monologue, "So Tom, any last words before I finish things?"

Defiant to the last, Voldemort aims his yew and phoenix feather wand 
directly at Harry's chest and hisses, "Avada Kedavra!" As the Green bolt 
of death flies forth, Harry makes no attempt to dodge or block and the spell splashes harmless off the Master of Death's robes.

Sighing heavily, Harry replies to the latest attempt by the Dark Lord to 
curse him to death, "You never learn, do you Tom." With that, Harry 
starts to close the distance between him, Voldemort continuing to 
futilely fire killing curses at Harry even as the aura of purity 
radiating from the young looking yet ancient man forces Vodemort to his 
knees.

When Harry reaches the defeated Dark Lord, he snatches the yew and 
phoenix feather wand from the snake-like creature's hand as he towers 
over the kneeling shell of a man.

Speaking again, Harry declares, "Voldemort is finished, but perhaps it 
will be Tom Riddle's saving grace that as Master and Vanquisher of 
Death, I am unable to kill you, but I am able to heal the damage you've 
done to your soul."

And with those words, Harry grasps the Twin Wands and Elder Wand in one 
hand as he places his freed hand to Voldemort's forehead. As the Master 
of Death pours purifying magic into the Dark Lord's golem, Voldemort 
opens his mouth in a silent scream as blinding white light pours from his mouth and eyes.

The on lookers are surprised when three artefacts thought long lost to 
the sands of time materialize in midair as the in tact Horcruxes, 
Hufflepuff's Cup, Ravenclaw's Diadem, and Slytherin's Locket are 
summoned so that the soul of Tom Riddle may be made whole once more. The 
Founder's Artefacts orbit the Dark Loard and Vanquisher of Death in a 
perfect circle, each a third of a turn from the other two as a serpent 
of black smoke emerges from each and flies up into the sky. The Serpents 
spiral together and as their tails break free of their vessels, the 
artefacts fall to the ground, purified of the taint placed upon them by 
the Horcrux Ritual. The Resurrection stone glows as four more smokey 
serpents are summoned, the fragments of soul that departed with the 
destruction of the Diary, Ring, Scar, and Nagini brought back to the 
mortal plane. Once all seven of the intangible serpents have braided 
themselves into one, the part of Tom Riddle's soul that was cast off in 
the man's quest for immortality plunges to earth, diving down 
Voldemort's throat, the glow of magic engulfing both Harry and the Dark 
Lord and forcing those gathered to look away.

When the light subsides, the barren ground where the pair had their 
final showdown has become a bed of flowers in full bloom, Harry Potter 
kneeling over not the human-snake hybrid that Voldemort had turned 
himself into, but a handsome, dark haired, middle aged man.

As Tom Riddle blinks his eyes open, he says in a tone of bewilderment, 
"It's gone, the hatred, anger, and bitterness I've felt all my life, 
it's actually gone. Potter... Harry, what did you do?"

"Welcome back, Tom." Says Harry, smiling down at the former dark lord as 
he helps the man to his feet. "All I did was put your soul back 
together, cleansed the taint of all those dark rituals, and heal the 
emotional trauma that sent you down that path in the first place. In 
short, I've given you, those who followed you when you were Lord 
Voldemort, and all of your victims a second chance. You're currently one 
of the few humans who are still mortal since all of your horcruxes have 
been either destroyed or unmade and there is no one you love or loves 
you enough to link your soul into the web the binds all humanity to 
life, but you are now capable of expressing love, and a side effect of 
the soul linking is that no one can muster enough malice to deliberately 
harm another human anymore."

With those words, Harry approaches Dumbledore's Army only to be 
surrounded in a group hug by his friends while Tom approaches 
Dumbledore.

Speaking in a grandfatherly tone, Dumbledore says to his old student, 
"Nice to see you looking like yourself again, Tom my boy."

"It feels great to be myself again, or I suppose, more accurately, it 
feels great to be myself without all that anger and hatred I never let go of from my childhood."

"Yes, young Harry has performed many miracles this day, bestowing you 
with the capacity for love and purging your inner darkness not least 
among them." Replies Dumbledore, stroking his bread thoughtfully. "I'm 
not sure it will be needed if what Harry says of nearly all humanity 
being immortal holds true, but I hear the Defense Against the Dark Arts 
position will be vacant for the fall term, and I have a hunch you might 
have sincere interest now that you've been brought into the light."

"Perhaps," Replies Riddle, "But I think I might want to spend some time 
exploring the world and seeing the wonders I was too busy seeking power to enjoy the first time around."

"Yes, that is definitely a worthwhile idea." replies Dumdledore. 
Glancing over to the happy Reunion between Harry, the Marauders, and 
friends and family, the old wizard adds, "Regardless, I believe the 
future is looking brighter than it ever has."