Nexus (The Demigod Wizard) Part 2

The Flaw in the Plan

"Nobody. There are no more horcruxes. It's just you and me. Neither can live while the other survives, and one of us is about to leave for good," Harry announced. His face was a picture of calm that Percy knew pissed Voldemort off.

"One of us? You think it will be you, who has survived by accident?"

"Accident, was it, that my mother died to save me? Accident that I fought in the graveyard? That I am related to the Greek Pantheon through their strongest half-blood in history? Accident that I didn't defend myself tonight, and still survived, and returned to fight again?"

Voldemort sneered but his red eyes spoke a different story. Worry flickered in their depths as his gaze jerked to Percy for a moment, the fear palpable.

"No one else will die tonight. You don't learn from your mistakes, Riddle. Want to hear some of them?" Harry taunted.

"Is it love again?" Voldemort snarled. "Love dies, boy. So what will stop you dying now when I strike?"

"Just one thing," Harry breathed, this last secret between them.

"If it is not love, then you must believe you have magic I do not, or else a weapon more powerful than mine?"

"I believe both," and those three words had Voldemort cackling. Harry waited patiently.

"You think you have more magic than I? I who have done more than Dumbledore himself dreamed?"

"Oh he thought of it. But he was cleverer than you. A better wizard, a better man."

"I brought about the death of Albus Dumbledore!"

"You thought you did. He is dead, yes, but you didn't have him killed. He chose his own manner of death months before, arranged all by the man you thought was your servant."

"What is this?" Voldemort hissed.

"Severus Snape wasn't yours. He was Dumbledore's from the moment you started hunting my mother. He loved her, but you knew that." Harry cocked his head. "You were simply too foolish to understand what that meant."

Voldemort looked unconvinced.

"The Elder Wand isn't working for you still, is it not? You killed Snape, but he was not the true owner of it."

"Snape killed Dumbledore!"

"Yes, yes," Harry sighed impatiently. "But he didn't defeat him, don't you see? Dumbledore planned his death. He meant to break the power of the wand."

"But he didn't, did he?"

"Yes. The plan failed. Because before Snape could kill him, he was disarmed. By Draco Malfoy."

"But what does it matter? After you are dead, if you speak true, I can simply attend to Malfoy."

"But you are too late. I got there first. I disarmed him at Malfoy Manor. So it all comes down to this. Does the wand in your hand know that its last master was disarmed? Because if it does...I am the true master of the Elder Wand."

"So what? I am much older and more powerful than you. This means nothing!"

"Does it really?" Harry smiled softly. "Truly, do you think this is all coincidence? That everything fell into place for me so perfectly? Do you actually believe that it means nothing that the most powerful demigod of all time is the first half blood wizard?"

He gestured at Percy. "Percy has defeated far worse than the likes of you. He has won against titans, giants, gods, and primordials. He survived Tartarus. You brought him to death but the gods refused to let him die. He was Dumbledore's right hand man. All these months, he has been leading us to destroy horcruxes and has saved my life repeatedly. That sounds like a coincidence?"

Voldemort jeered, but his heart wasn't in it.

Harry caught that. "I do not for a moment believe that you are not scared. Of Percy. You are nothing to him; you know that, right? You are a mortal. We are mortals. He is half god."

Suddenly, the room was streaked with a golden glow from the break of dawn. The orange sun warmed the room. In that moment, something passed between the Dark Lord and Harry. Both raised their wands and shouted.

"Expelliarmus!"
"Avada Kedavra!"

Twin beams of light shot forth, colliding. Voldemort's wand spun out of his grasp, and Harry jumped up to catch it with his skill as Seeker.

Voldemort stared, frozen, and Percy made a split-second decision. The Dark Lord was still alive, he knew—he could feel the blood pumping through his veins. The killing curse, contrary to expectation, did not rebound from the collision. For a milisecond, Voldemort was alive.

Because the killing curse had not rebounded. It had that night in Godric's Hollow when Lily's sacrifice protected Harry. But there was no sacrificial protection now. Voldemort would not be killed by Harry's disarming jinx...

...But ending Voldemort would split Harry's soul. He was not a killer. It would break him.

Before the wizards realized that Voldemort had not been killed by the spell, Percy clenched his fist.

Voldemort's body exploded in a gruesome display, his blood vaporized.

The whole thing happened in a second—too fast for anyone to notice that anything abnormal had occurred. The wizards cheered and swarmed Harry, reaching out and hugging and crying—all trying to touch the Boy Who Lived, the reason it was over at last.

Only Nico noticed Percy relax his fist and flex his fingers, shaking.

What he had just done was not natural. Percy knew that no half blood should have his power. Gods, this power if it had been in the hands of Luke...Yes, Percy could control poison and blood, but to kill someone with that power...

It had been horrific. But necessary. And Percy could not promise not to use it again.

Maybe that made him a monster.

Percy turned to the son of Hades as the wizards cheered behind them. He couldn't speak for the wound in his neck, but an unspoken understanding passed between them. No one could ever know that Harry Potter had not defeated Voldemort.

No one could know that Percy had that much unchecked power.