Sometimes we write strange things instead of book reviews.
The Final Confrontation Between Harry and Voldemort, as Written by Ursula Le Guin*
When Harry pushed through the last of the branches, through the last of the dark before the clearing, Voldemort was waiting for him, his wand raised.
“Come to die, Potter? A worthless sacrifice for your friends.”
“No, Voldemort.” Harry straightened. “I have not come to die, and I have not come to kill. I have come without a wand, because I need none.”
Voldemort raised his hairless brows and hissed his contempt. “Fool, great fool. How do you mean to defeat me?”
“I understand you.”
“What?”
“You created me, and I created you. Don’t you see?” Harry gestured to the still-raised wand. “Our wands the same, our destinies linked by prophecy, and all the while we both thought our destinies were to kill each other, but that isn’t it at all. We’re linked because we are one and the same. I created you, and you created me.”
Voldemort’s sneer did not light, but his wand wavered lower. “Has the fear of facing me driven you mad?”
“You know I’m right. When I exercised my petty jealousies against Draco, my pretty pride against Snape for daring not to like me, I created you. When I used my friends as tools, as human utilities I could control through their affection and loneliness, I created you. When I let my quests drive me at the expense of common sense, when I abused, ignored, or dismissed my classmates, I created you. When I let my house, my reputation as the Boy Who Lived, as if living were not a gift given to you as well as me, fuel my arrogance, I created you.”
“And what use would I have for a nothing like you?”
“Easy,” said Harry with a flick of his hand. “I live the life you wanted. You were unsatisfied with the network of terror you had to weave to keep your followers in line, so you created me to find friends. I had the mentor relationship with the headmaster you admired and feared. And let’s be honest. A whole lot was handed to me that was never handed to you. I was famous. My hatreds were lighter because I was less desperate and less hated. I was the golden child, the chosen one. You were that uncomfortable twist on the edge of darkness, and you had to steal and lie and kill to get where you are. So you created me.”
Voldemort frowned, a deep crease in his snake-like face.
“Neither can live while the other survives,” Harry said, low. “But that doesn’t mean death. I claim you, Voldemort. I claim you as my darkness, my loss, my spite born of sadness. Claim me and no one dies tonight. Not you, not me, not your men, not my allies.”
And they say that only one walked from the depths of the woods that night. And it was Harry and not, a Harry wholer and sadder, perhaps wiser. And there was loss in the joining, but gain as well, and life and death proceeded much as it had before. Save, in Hogwarts, there were no more houses and no more distinctions based on predictions of personality, on gradations of ambition and loyalty and courage. The shadows were no longer expelled to grow apart from the light.
The end
*Assuming Ursula Le Guin relied on a ton of dialogue, was a considerably worse writer, etc.