Disclaimer: Except for a few characters borrowed with permission from whydoyouneedtoknow, this is Jo Rowling's beach, and she has been kind enough to allow persons such as myself to play here. All I'm laying claim to is the design of this sand castle.
Note: The first bit of this is an alternate ending to chapter 17 of WWS. The rest is obviously an alternate ending of the whole story. Anne, you and your AUs of AUs, you're rubbing off on me...
When the Wind is Southerly
by MercuryBlue
Alternate Chapter 18: As Sparrows Dismay Eagles
—vaguely aware that he was sitting against the wall but not caring about that either because there was so much green magic and he was smothering and where is it all coming from there wasn't that much of it a minute ago and it was being used up but there wasn't any less of it—
—he reached into Voldemort's mind for the answer and found himself fighting on two levels at once, three if you counted the physical struggle over which way his wand was pointing, Voldemort had a good enough hold on his left arm that Harry could barely tell it was still there, but Harry was right-handed and Voldemort wasn't and Harry wanted his wand back so he was basically arm-wrestling himself—
—he broke through on the mental level—I'd be impressed, except that that's killing me—need to keep him from doing anything with all this—damn it's hard to hold him down—(Sirius help NOW—)
"Stupefy!"
Blessed darkness.
A moment later, blue and brown figures leaning over him came into focus. Harry pushed himself the rest of the way away from his body, curling around the comforting cool blue with a mental sigh. (That was weird.)
"Feeling all right, Harry?" Letha asked, feeling Harry's body's forehead.
(Being awake while unconscious is bizarre.)
"I'll bet. Is he out?"
(If he wasn't, I'd be too busy wrestling him to talk to you.)
"Point. Doesn't look like you took any harm from him walking around in your skin, except here on the left cheek—"
(That would be where my face met a rock on Saturday.)
"Somebody botched the healing, then. I don't think this would have scarred if it'd been left alone."
"Ah, that would be me," Sirius said sheepishly. "Sorry. But with this thing here—" He tapped the scar on Harry's forehead. "—who's going to care about any other scars?"
Here comes the hard part. Harry steeled himself—he had a feeling they were not going to like hearing this. (About that. I may not have been completely truthful before, when I said how many Horcruxes we had to find. Because we didn't have to find the one that's right here.)
Silence.
"Fu—dge," Sirius amended at Letha's glare.
(I think it'd be best if you killed him now,) Harry hurried on, (cremation's probably best, that way we're sure the Horcrux dies too, and I'll stick around like this and hang out in Alex's head so no one realizes he's not me, which isn't fair to him but it'll keep you off the hook for killing me—) but I can't stay long, not and be sure nobody will die because of me possessing them—
(DON'T YOU EVEN THINK ABOUT DYING ON ME HARRY JAMES POTTER!) Ginny yelled.
"There's a better way," Sirius said firmly, gathering up Harry's unconscious body and standing. "We just have to find it."
xXxXx
"I see your mission was a success," Remus remarked.
"Define success," Aletha said with a sigh, looking up at him. "How'd yours go?"
"Danger nailed two Death Eaters and got sexually assaulted by the third. He should be waking up outside a charity hospital around now, minus a couple important body parts."
Sirius pointedly crossed his legs. Aletha snickered.
"There's more," Danger added. "Remus wrote on his back, and I quote, 'I tried to rape a cute girl. Her girlfriend kicked my arse.' Unquote."
"Is there something you haven't been telling us, Remus?" Aletha managed to say between laughs.
"Yeah, this I want to hear," Sirius agreed.
"Oh, come off it. Aletha, what do you mean by 'define success'?"
"Nice segue. We've got a problem." Aletha brushed the bangs off Harry's forehead. "Behold Horcrux number six."
Remus swore.
"We've still got the same basic problem, don't we?" Danger asked. "Getting Voldemort out of Harry's body? We just have two bits of soul to worry about now, not one."
(And removing him by brute force isn't going to work,) said Harry's voice. (Already tried that. Wasn't fun.)
"Harry's opinion," Sirius said pointedly, "is that I should put some form of cutting spell through that scar, with enough force to kill."
"Don't," Danger said as Remus said "What?"
"That was my reaction."
"Wait," Danger said. "Voldemort could abandon Harry's body if he wanted to, right?"
(It'd hurt him a bit, but if he decided getting out was better than staying in, he wouldn't care.)
"And as long as we've dealt with the last Horcrux first," Remus picked up, "and I've got an idea about that, then while he's midjump there won't be anything holding him here..."
"So he flies away to Neverland and we never have to worry about him again," Sirius continued, grinning.
"We hope," Aletha said.
Danger grinned. "So we just have to make it worth his while to leave, don't we?"
xXxXx
Darkness. Pain.
I had forgotten this disadvantage of corporeal form.
He opened his eyes.
But the advantages far outweigh the disadvantages...
A gasp beside him. He glanced over to see the brown-curly-haired girl whom Potter's memories identified as his Mudblood friend Granger. I am obviously no longer among the Death Eaters, I seem to be too exhausted to stand, and I may not have a wand. Pretending to be Potter seems advisable.
"Hey, H'mi'ne," he whispered.
"Harry, thank God, I was so worried—" Granger jumped up from her chair beside his bed and ran to the door. "Healer Freeman! Harry's awake!"
I must be in St. Mungo's, then. The look of the room seemed to support that conclusion, though he had never himself entered St. Mungo's and therefore could not be certain.
Footsteps outside the room, and a vaguely familiar black woman dressed in lime green robes entered and took Granger's chair. "I'm glad you decided to wake up. We were getting worried." She drew her wand. He tensed, but her spell was one he knew to be a basic diagnostic. "How do you feel?"
"Hurt all over."
"I thought so. We aren't sure we dare give you any pain-relieving potions yet. We don't know how they'll interact with the potion Healer Gallagher is giving you. How does this feel?"
"Like my hand's burning," he said truthfully.
"Good, that means the potion's working. I think." Under her breath, she added "We may save you yet..."
That is worrying. He stretched out with Legilimency, only to discover a complete inability to connect with her mind. That is doubly worrying. "What d'you mean?"
The Healer sighed. "You were hit with three spells at once. One was bungled. It combined with the others to create an effect none of us have ever seen before. Your magical capability has been severely depleted, and is continuing to shrink. My colleague Kelly Gallagher figured out a potion that has slowed the effect to a crawl, and she and several others are trying to find a way to halt or reverse it, but if they don't find it soon..." She looked grave. "Best-case scenario, you live your life with barely enough magic to light a Lumos."
That would be...inconvenient. "Worst-case scenario?"
"Worst-case, you die of magical exhaustion." She put one hand on his. "I'm sorry, Harry. We're doing the best we can to keep you alive and magically capable, but...we're not all-powerful."
He remained silent.
"Well, you're all right for the moment, and I have other patients to attend. I'll check in on you in twenty minutes or so, and I'll bring another dose of Healer Gallagher's potion. Ring if you need anything." She indicated a silver dome on the bedside table.
Granger and two redheads were in the room as soon as the Healer was gone. He endured their excited babblings, making appropriate noises in response, but there was only one thought in his mind.
I am dying.
xXxXx
(He buys it.)
"Thank your lucky stars," Remus advised, staying quiet even though odds were against someone speaking in the kitchen being overheard from someone in Meghan's hastily remodeled bedroom.
"Individually and by name," Danger added.
Sirius glanced at the ceiling. "Thank you, Mike. Thank you, Allison. Thank you, Jim. Thank—"
(Shut up.)
xXxXx
Potter's friends had finally been evicted by the Healer, who had given him a dose of a periwinkle potion and suggested he try to sleep. The peace gave him time to think, and to reach a conclusion.
The risk of permanent damage—or worse—from remaining in this body is far too high. The benefits of appearing to be Potter do not outweigh the risk. I should therefore claim another body in the same way that I claimed this one. Granger, perhaps. She seems the most powerful of Potter's friends, Mudblood or no...she is also very likely to be in close proximity to me very soon...
The sooner I can transfer myself from this body, the better.
xXxXx
(Hermione, he's wanting to steal your body now.)
Hermione shivered. Ron put a hand on her shoulder.
"You'll be fine," Meghan whispered.
"Thanks. I think I'll wait, oh, ten minutes, then sneak in to talk to Harry..."
xXxXx
The door opened and closed. He glanced over. Granger. How convenient.
"Hi, Harry," she said quietly, coming to sit next to the bed. "I'm not supposed to be here—they're stretching the rules enough to let us stay overnight—but I had to see you again. Healer Freeman's not optimistic...for all I know, you could die tonight..." She took his hand, teary-eyed.
He gripped her hand tightly, so she could not escape, then reached into himself and tore loose the cord binding him to this body—
No—there's nothing holding me here—
He grabbed for the cord, but it was held by another presence—there was bright light—
NO! I will not, I CANNOT die like this! I am the Heir of Salazar Slytherin! I am the greatest wizard in a hundred years! I am—
"You," Granger said, laughing, "look ridiculous."
"I feel ridiculous," said a familiar voice just behind him. He turned.
Potter grinned at him. "Hi. Would you kindly go away? I feel like my insides are frosting over..."
He looked down. His silver-white, translucent body stood in Potter's midsection, taking up about as much space as a house-elf, if a house-elf had ever left a ghost...
No. No! I refuse to believe what I am seeing! It is not true!
"I think it's safe to say that didn't go quite as anticipated," said the Healer's voice from the doorway. "Harry, you all right?"
"Aside from the ghost standing in me?"
"He's wisecracking, he can't be too badly off," Granger said dryly.
"Hey, Coldyshorts," said another voice.
He looked. The room was filled with people, the Healer, the Weasley brats, a brat who looked like the Healer, an oddly familiar-looking brat with Granger's hair, a woman with Granger hair, and two men, one light-haired and one dark with a resemblance to Bellatrix.
"Yeah, you, Voldemoron," continued the second man. "The one with the self-mutilation fetish. I have to say thanks for trying to kill Harry the other day. We'd never have managed to kill you otherwise."
"How?" he demanded.
"The protections on the Horcruxes weren't worth jack, by the way," said the lighter man. "The diary should have been resistant to basilisk venom. So should the cup. Which your pet killed months ago, I should add. The curse on the ring is presently improving the lives of all the gardeners in the general vicinity of that hut you hid it in. The spells on the Fountain of Knowledge didn't do anything to prevent Sirius sticking his face in the bowl and getting the locket with his teeth."
"Regulus beat me to it anyway," said the dark man, who must be Sirius Black, with a grin. "Left you a note, too. I don't remember the exact wording, so I'll paraphrase: I figured out your secret and I don't like you anymore, so I'm stealing your toy and I'll break it first chance I get. Nyah."
"He didn't get a chance to," the Granger woman continued, "but that's all right, because smashing it flat with Aletha's frying pan was incredibly satisfying."
"And your wand's made of wood," said the Granger boy. "Wood burns."
How is this possible? How did they find out?
"Then we just had to deal with Harry's scar and you," the Healer went on. "The scar was easy once we figured it out. Remus and I cut out that whole piece of flesh while you were out, and he burned it while I healed the hole. I even made another cut shaped like the scar and healed it up so it would scar, for cosmetic effect."
"It doesn't look quite right," the Weasley girl said, leaning over Potter. "The angle's wrong. But it's not wrong enough for anyone to notice if they're not looking."
"And then there was the fun part," added the Weasley boy. "Tricking you into leaving."
"Wasn't fun, having to act like you're my friend," said the Granger girl. "But it worked, so I'm not complaining."
"See, we knew you didn't have anything keeping you alive but what you had tying you to Harry's body," the dark-skinned girl piped up. "So we just had to make something up convincing enough to make you let go of that."
"That actually was fun," the Healer interjected.
"But how did you know?" he demanded.
"You know how you were poking around in my head looking for interesting stuff?" Potter said lazily. "I poked back. Learned a lot of stuff I could've lived happily without knowing, but I found out how to make sure you stayed dead when we killed you. Now go away, will you? I'm going to be a living icicle at this rate."
"You could go to Hogwarts," the Weasley girl suggested. "I bet Myrtle would like a friend to play with."
"Or you could stay here, I don't care," Black said, dodging people to get to the bedside and pick Potter up. "I wouldn't particularly mind being able to taunt you for the rest of eternity. My daughter might want her bedroom back, though."
"We've got all sorts of cute nicknames for you," said the Weasley boy. "Harry likes making them up."
Potter shrugged. "I just got sick of you lot twitching every time I said Voldemort, and saying You-Know-Who or He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named gets old. So I started thinking of funny ways to say the same thing without actually saying the name."
"Lord-He's-Ugly," Black said. "Baldimort. Lord Skeleton Man."
"Moldy-smarts," the Granger woman said. "Because your brain's gone moldy from disuse."
"My personal favorite is Voldemoron," said the Granger girl. "Because you are."
I cannot take this anymore!
xXxXx
Once the micro-ghost had fled, Sirius laid Harry on the bed, then proceeded to fall apart laughing. So did everyone else.
"I never dreamed," Aletha said when she had enough breath back, "that the tale of the most feared Dark wizard of the century would end with people laughing at him."
"It's not over," Harry predicted. "He'll be back. And then we get to laugh at him some more."
Sirius grinned. "I have to admit I'm looking forward to it."
xXxXx
Aletha smoothed her white robes nervously, her hand lingering over her midsection. Please God don't let me get morning sickness during the ceremony.
The hired musicians started to play Pachelbel's Canon in D, and Aletha walked into the wedding hall, head held high. She glanced over the wedding guests, then Hermione, Meghan, and Danger dressed in pale yellow bridesmaid's robes, Alex, Harry, and Remus in black, Dumbledore officiating in gray and blue, who hung the mistletoe? I suppose it makes sense, since it's Christmas Eve and there's traditionally a kiss during this ceremony, and her fiancé, still far too thin for her taste but still looking handsomer than she had seen him since Lily and James's wedding.
Sirius smiled at her. His eyes widened. A slight movement drew her attention to his hand, which had one finger extended towards her—oh no he did not just—
Behind you, he mouthed.
Aletha glanced back, and found herself fighting laughter.
The World's Smallest Ghost has gate-crashed my wedding.
Aletha turned her eyes forward again. He can't do any harm.
Besides, this might just be the worst way to end his story that he can imagine. He's dead, and he's completely irrelevant to the world.
And I have my own happy ending to get on with...
The End
A/N: Reviews are good. Flames are bad. Praise is nice. Constructive criticism is preferred. Questions are welcomed. Proper grammar is appreciated. Email addresses are required if you want a reply. Clear enough?
Personal note to my brother (he who is of the opinion that I cannot finish a story): This may not be the intended ending to When the Wind is Southerly, but if you read the first seventeen chapters of that story until the point at which this one begins, then read this, it is still a complete story. I therefore feel fully justified in saying this to you:
:-P