Stars.
Whether in a world of magic or of technology, they were always a realm filled with secrets.
The celestial spheres converged, the constellations shimmering.
John rotated his wand in his left hand, forming a closed Möbius ring.
The blade in his right hand absorbed starlight, dazzling and brilliant.
Woosh!
Wings spread from his back as stellar power flowed through them and into his body.
When John opened his eyes again, chaotic light flickered within them. In his vision, everything turned into stark black and white.
"I have gone farther than you when it comes to taboos."
"Tom!"
John roared. A chilling crack echoed in Voldemort's ears.
He looked down to see a dog at his side, jaws wide open, lined with serrated fangs as it bit down viciously.
Those teeth, as if inlaid with titanium alloy, sliced cleanly through Voldemort's ankle.
Pain flooded Voldemort's mind in an instant.
"Arrg! Damn it!"
With a violent shake, Voldemort flung Tom away.
At the same time, John controlled the golden Möbius ring, forming a sealed domain.
Voldemort realized that no matter what he did, he could not leave this domain.
It was like a revolving lantern. No matter how he walked, he always ended up back at the starting point.
"Time magic?"
Voldemort had once wanted to delve deeply into time magic.
But as if it were some kind of cruel joke, he possessed no exceptional talent in it.
Though he was versed in countless Dark Arts, when it came to time, he was far inferior to John, who had gone much farther down that path.
The wand in John's hand could no longer withstand the immense power and snapped apart without warning.
Amid the fragments flying through the air, a silver-white soul fragment woven of gold and silver floated silently.
John gripped his sword with both hands, his chaotic vertical dragon pupils locking onto Voldemort.
"Anima reliqua errans, ad corpus legitimum reverte.. Reverte.. Anima.. Ad... Reverte!!"
As the ancient, sinister chant echoed, the soul fragment intertwined with gold and silver was swallowed by the Silver Wick Sword.
Voldemort felt that, somewhere beyond perception, a force had locked onto him.
It was a power he could not evade.
With the soul as its prerequisite, even Voldemort could not resist his own soul being drawn back to him.
John's vitality was being drained rapidly, his black hair turning white at an alarming speed.
Stellar power poured into the Silver Wick Sword, and the red magical gem on the hilt converted that energy into magic John could control.
"Tom, this strike—you cannot evade it!"
Like Death itself pronouncing a sentence, John raised both swords high.
The scene was dazzling beyond words, impossible to look away from.
Trapped within the time loop, Voldemort went mad trying to escape.
"No—!" The terror of death stripped Voldemort of all dignity.
He tried every method he could think of, unleashing powerful spells again and again with the wand in his hand, bombarding the domain.
When there was truly no other option, he hastily conjured more than a hundred silver shields, stacking them in front of himself.
As though that could grant him a sense of safety.
Yet John closed his eyes.
The Silver Wick Sword traced a gentle, graceful arc of silver light through the air.
"Redi ad me, o anima."
A single strike, imbued with Voldemort's remnant soul and time itself.
Accompanied by that soft sigh.
In no more than a single breath, it crossed the distance past more than a hundred shields.
At the level of taboos, John had gone far too deep.
So far that he could perform an act that defied the heavens.
This strike gathered power so vast it shook heaven and earth.
Yet when it fell, it was light and soundless.
Harry did not see world-shattering destruction or catastrophic collapse.
All that remained was the Möbius domain dissolving into beautiful, dreamlike grains of golden sand that drifted away.
The silver shields vanished without a trace. Voldemort stared blankly at his own hands.
"Wind?"
For no clear reason, Harry felt a breeze brush past him.
He looked up again.
John still held the posture of bringing his sword down, yet his hair had turned white in that instant.
Voldemort moved. That breeze stirred his body, and a dark red line of blood appeared over his heart.
Move.
Move!
Move.. you damn body...
The instinct to survive screamed wildly in his mind, Voldemort's expression growing increasingly twisted.
The dark red line stretched longer and longer, a sign that Voldemort's death was drawing near.
In a daze, Voldemort seemed to see a figure in a black cloak standing not far away.
Under Harry's horrified gaze, that bloodline actually stopped.
The sudden turn of events filled Voldemort with wild delight.
His mind spun at breakneck speed as he grasped the reason.
And so he made a decision—one that would allow him to live on.
Voldemort looked at John with a twisted expression. "You truly amazed me. But unfortunately, you were wrong."
He raised his wand, his voice sharp and chilling.
With boundless hatred and madness in his tone, he enunciated each word slowly and clearly: "Nox. Pompa. Centum. Daemonum."
Crushed beneath the weight of death, he chose to turn himself into a monster.
Under the spell's effect, Voldemort forcibly reshaped his own soul.
John could not move even a single finger now.
The power of the stars, time, and soul had drained his body completely.
He watched as Voldemort's soul gradually turned pitch black before his eyes.
The sword slipped from his hand and stabbed into the ground.
"Neahahaha—" Voldemort had gone completely mad. He stared at John with venomous malice. "You should have aimed for my head."
"You used my soul to strike me. I must admit—if it were my former self, I would already be dead."
Voldemort continued, "But it's a pity. You forgot one thing."
Seeing that John no longer had the strength to fight, Voldemort spread his arms and laughed wildly. "Do you know why I insisted on starting the war this year?"
"Because of love."
"Yes—love!"
He answered his own question, turning his gaze to Harry. As Harry stood there utterly confused, Voldemort continued, "The love that came from Lily Potter!"
"Impossible!"
Harry's pupils shrank violently as he shouted, "That's impossible!"
"Have you forgotten, savior?" Voldemort said, pushing beyond his limits and evading a blow that should have been fatal. "My body carries your blood. And with it, the magic of your mother continues as well."
Remembering that Voldemort had been resurrected using his own blood, Harry found it impossible to accept.
John's expression darkened.
"That's right!" Voldemort reveled in the collapse of his greatest enemy and spoke with exhilaration. "If it weren't for your mother's love, if it weren't for my soul being used as the medium of the attack, I would already be dead. Neahahaha!!!"
Everything had come down to a single misstep.
Voldemort had once revived himself using Harry's blood. Within him flowed the same bloodline as Harry's.
Lily's magic of love protected Harry from Voldemort's harm until he came of age.
And John had happened to use Voldemort's soul.
The coincidence was too perfect.
It was as if even the heavens themselves were helping Voldemort.
"Dumbledore was right," Voldemort said. "Love can transcend death!"
The one who understood love the least, the one who trampled upon it, was instead protected by love.
How utterly ironic.
"Eternal life to the Dark Lord!" Voldemort proclaimed wickedly. "And the so-called nemesis of the Dark Lord is nothing more than a stepping stone."
Harry fell into complete despair. Neither Dumbledore nor John had been able to defeat Voldemort.
Then who else could?
The savior?
Gritting his teeth, Harry forced himself to his feet and ran to John's side.
"Oh?" Voldemort looked at Harry raising his wand and sneered. "So you're still dreaming of being the savior."
"No, I just…" Harry took a deep breath. "I want to protect Hogwarts."
John looked at Harry, not expecting him to stand in front of him.
But...
"There's no need for a savior here, Harry."
John was unusually calm as he said, "Step aside."
"John, you'll die!" Harry couldn't bear to watch John throw his life away.
"In the end," came the cold response, "you're still too naive."
John gave a slight shake of his head, forcing himself upright, and looked up at Voldemort, who was preparing to eliminate all future trouble.
He said calmly, "Nemesis? Voldemort, it seems you've misunderstood one thing."
Behind Voldemort, in the dim, lightless darkness—tap.. tap..
Someone stepped forward.
"From beginning to end, I was never the nemesis spoken of in your prophecy."
"Your true nemesis," John said with a soft chuckle, "have you forgotten?"
"Those two boys."
Just like in their first year, Voldemort's right hand was severed by a single sword strike. He turned around in disbelief.
Neville stood there, gripping a dark-golden greatsword, the muscles in his arms bulging.
The blade, imbued with demon-breaking power, cleaved straight through the monstrous body formed by the Night Parade of a Hundred Demons.
"Haaaaaaa! For my old friend, for the Constellation Society, for my king!"
Neville roared, "I WILL KILL YOU, VOLDEMORT!"
He gripped the sword with both hands and drove it forward. The blade pierced through Voldemort's chest, dark red blood spraying outward.
This strike went straight through Voldemort's heart.
That heart was completely pierced through.
Neville roared and kicked Voldemort away with all his strength.
The thin black robes now seemed to fade in color, becoming almost transparent.
Voldemort stared in disbelief.
This time, there was no magic of love protecting him.
Having willingly fallen into becoming a great demon of the Hundred Demons Night Parade, Voldemort had lost the right to be loved.
The boy born in July—Neville Longbottom.
The one foretold as a possible savior.
The Dark Lord had marked his nemesis, yet Voldemort's true enemy had long ceased to be Harry Potter. It had become the Constellation Society.
And so...
Voldemort, Tom Riddle.
He staggered backward from the kick, his remaining left hand spreading open. In his blood-red eyes, the thin pupils rolled upward.
He collapsed to the ground.
Felled in the way he least expected, by the person he had always looked down on.
The most powerful Dark Lord now lay like a mere mortal, his body slack and twitching.
The death and weakness brought on by blood loss filled him with terror.
A pale hand stretched toward the mirror.
This time, it was no longer beyond his reach.
John had not lied to him. His soul was the key to opening it.
The golden Grail appeared within the mirror.
Beyond the glass, the Grail was right there.
Driven by a desperate will to survive, Voldemort reached out with utmost devotion and touched the object he had pursued his entire life.
"So close… I can't die.. It's so... close!"
Voldemort's body was gradually dissipating, like ashes after a fire, scattered by the wind.
In the final moment...
he touched the Grail.
Eternal life. Immortality. Rule over the magical world.
It all seemed within reach.
A smile spread across his face.
However—
"I forgot to tell you. I grafted onto it the curse from the opal necklace that killed nineteen Muggles."
John's voice drifted over faintly.
Voldemort's smile froze.
What he thought was hope instead delivered an even stronger curse through the Grail itself.
___
Damn...
o(*￣▽￣*)ブSupport and Read 12 Chapters ahead: Patreon/Dragonel
Note:
Yo Guys!
Sir Harry Mann (A patreon member) asked if Hogwarts John Wick is at its climax.
I understand most of you must have a similar question.
So, here is me addressing it:
Nope, lol—not even close!
Even if Voldemort gets defeated, we still have the 'Best Dark Lord' Grindelwald to deal with. Remember, Dumbledore couldn't even take him down in his prime, and in this story, Grindelwald is now youthful and has the Elder Wand.
On top of that, Death is displeased with John, so we'll be taking the fight to Death eventually. Between that and all the magic John still has to learn, this fic definitely won't be ending this year, heh. 😁😁