He'd hardly taken the headphones off since he'd managed that bit of magic. Music forced his mind to focus on something, and had let him try and figure out other ways to apply the runes he was learning in the test and see method.
Of course when he'd tried the same rune structure on a television in a muggle motel, it had managed not only to blow out the wiring on the television but melted the wiring in half of the motel as well. But, the activity as a whole kept him focused on something besides waiting for Voldemort to stick his head up again. He wouldn't go so far as to say it kept him sane, but it helped him from going completely round the bend.
Even Hedwig seemed to have favorite songs because there were several where she'd land on his shoulder when they played.
Okay… maybe it just kept him from going further around the bend.
He stopped for a brief moment. Taking a few moments to organize his thoughts so that he wouldn't be entering the fight in a whimsical mood. Who knew what half-brained trap Voldemort was trying to come up with this time.
Harry often wondered why Voldemort continued. Maybe it was just out of habit at this point. There was no more wizarding world to rule.
He could clearly sense himself getting closer to Voldemort, who now obviously lay in wait ahead of him. He glanced up at Hedwig but she gave no warning or sign that there was anyone but Voldemort ahead of himself. That in and of itself was suspicious. He began stretching his senses out warily preparing in case any of the few remaining Death Eater's had prepared an ambush.
As he approached the ruins he saw that some of the rubble had been cleared out, and there was Voldemort, standing and waving his wand in the air, clearly casting at a tall thin object, though he couldn't hear the words. Voldemort was surrounded by different piles of rocks and rubble, though nothing that completely interfered with Harry's line of sight.
Harry moved closer more warily now. It wasn't like Voldemort to leave himself wide open like this. Harry stepped forward preparing to call out, there really was no point in trying to sneak up on one another; they could always sense each other.
He took another step only to get blown back twenty feet. He rolled onto the ground springing to his feet out of the roll, most of his weight going onto his good leg which compensated for his bad one. He had his wand ready to snap forward a shield to protect himself, expecting a follow-up attack from Voldemort. But there was nothing.
A ward. Voldemort had taken enough time to set up a physical ward, and then hadn't tried to attack when Harry had been caught off guard. He looked around closely, and tried to stretch out with his senses in an attempt to sense the area around him, for any Death Eater's waiting to spring forward and trap him.
Harry frowned. Something was very wrong with this picture.
He flicked his wand slightly and cast a quick bludgeoning hex at the shield, the shield flickered into the visible spectrum as it absorbed the spell.
Harry frowned as he saw Voldemort glance over toward him, and then quite blatantly look away, turning his attention back to whatever he was doing. Not bothering to order an attack, or even banter with him.
Well. That was never a good sign.
Harry quickly used a finger to trace a rune in the air with his magic sending it forward to hit the shield. It fizzled there, but it showed that the shield was a complete dome around Voldemort. Not that he really had expected anything less. As both Harry's and Voldemort's power grew they had taken to using runes and ward schemes when they needed decent shielding since even protego's required attention.
Harry had been the one to come up with a portable shield rune set up. It had taken him 3 months to perfect the concept. Voldemort had shamelessly copied him and managed to come up with the same one in a month. It was convenient because if either had thirty seconds time, they could set up the ward, and those wards could repel anything. And since they weren't shields or spells, they were able to stop even unforgiveables, at least one before collapsing.
Harry let out a visible sigh and then lifted his empty left hand as he once more reached forward with his magic, he felt out the ward in front of him and began to take it apart. The rune he had cast continued to burn against the shield, keeping the dome in the visible spectrum. One of the two downsides of the ward schemes was that they could be taken apart with a minute and a half or so of work. The other is that they worked both ways. Spells couldn't go in, but they couldn't get out either.
It wasn't anything extremely complicated, Voldemort hadn't had time to set something like that up. It was nothing like the wards that had once guarded Gringotts, or Hogwarts. Those wards took a long time to set up and could take weeks or more for a single person to unravel. Clearly it was just supposed to delay Harry long enough for Voldemort to complete whatever he was doing.
Harry moved his fingers unconsciously as he worked at unraveling the strings of magic that held the ward together. Years of experience now with breaking through wards made it a relatively simple task, just slightly time consuming by necessity. The movements of his fingers were wholly unnecessary but something he did more out of habit than anything. His wand was held in his hand at his side, forgotten for the moment.
When unraveling wards, where there were no set counter curses or spells, Harry had always felt it more of a hindrance to focus his magic through the wand, rather than attempt to feel it and manipulate it directly. The first time he had told Bill that. Bill had promptly forced him to stop using his wand and drilled him mercilessly at runic warding and cursebreaking.
He frowned, diverting his concentration slightly to note that even as the ward began to fray, Voldemort seemed to finish his incantation and focus a large amount of energy directly from his wand into the object in front of him.
The ward frayed and with an audible crack, like the sound of breaking glass, the dome, which had remained visible broke apart. It was as if it had been made of china that had just shattered. He strode forward, wand spinning in his hand, his walk and expression was cautious though his voice was nothing but insolent. "What on earth are you up to this time, Tommy-Boy?"