Disclaimer: Harry Potter does not belong to me. It is the rightful property of J.K. Rowling.
This is a rip-off of the Marriage Law Challenge by WIKTT. It's stuffed with spoilers from the Half-Blood Prince, so please, don't complain and tell me that you haven't read it yet and I ruined it for you. Such is life.
The news spread like wildfire throughout the country.
You-Know-Who, He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named, Lord Voldemort, Tom Marvolo Riddle, whatever you cared to call him, he was dead.
No one knew how, no one could offer a solid explination of how the antagonist's demise was met. Only a very small group of people knew the truth and even then, they did not know the whole of it.
If they could, they probably would have asked the illustrious Harry Potter, or his accomplices Ron Weasley and Hermione Granger. But such a conversation was not to take place, for an indeterminate amount of time, at least. All three were in some kind of a cursed coma, which healers at St.Mungo's were at a loss to explain, let alone cure.
But what was one of the biggest shocks of the whole event was that Draco Malfoy was in the next ward with a similar condition. The foursome were found in a muggle graveyard, everyone around them dead except for those four.
As far as anyone could piece together, after having found the rest of the Horcruxes, Harry Potter sought Voldemort out, ready for the final showdown. Hermione Granger and of course, Ron Weasley were at his side, despite his pleading for them to leave. But they would not, could not leave their Harry. Not after all they'd been through, and most certainly not after all they've done.
The details of the event were impossible to verify, as many had taken to over exaggerating or adding their own details during their retelling of the epic, as if the actual event had not been interesting enough. But the one conclusion that everyone could come to was that Harry Potter had seemingly given up his life, his ability to interact with the outside world, in order to save the Wizarding World.
And for that, he was a hero.
While witches and wizards everywhere celebrated, the Order of the Phoenix staggered into the reality of what happened. Ronald Weasley was missing his right arm, thanks to a well-aimed sectumsempra. Hermione Granger had been hit by a curse that they had been yet unable to diagnose. She lay in the same ward as her two friends, heavily drugged into a peaceful sleep, as they all unknowingly awaited their fates.
But they were by no means alone. Everyone from Molly Weasley to the Minister of Magic Rufus Scrimgeour crammed into the ward, much to protest of the St. Mungo's healers, to mourn and revere these three.
The wizarding community had lost so much recently that although the threat of Voldemort was gone, the aftermath dealt a heavy blow to them. After the death of Albus Dumbledore, the Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry had never reopened. Instead, the Board of Directors had elected to close it for an indefinite amount of time.
The professors had taken their own separate routes. Some, like Professor Horace Slughorn and Professor Trelawney, had gone into hiding. Others, like Professor McGonagall, Madam Promfrey, Professor Sprout and Professor Flitwick had joined forces with the Order and tried to lessen the attacks of the Death Eaters and provide support for those who had been hurt. And lastly, there was Professor Snape.
He was sore subject, as he should be. A letter, left strategically in the third drawer on the left hand side of Albus Dumbledore's desk had been found a few months after his death. In it was a detailed contingency plan, a plan that outlined what Albus wanted to happen if there should need to make a choice.
It gave Professor Severus Snape permission to kill him, should the need arise.
Many speculated that the letter was a fake, a ruse planted by the former Head of Slytherin in an attempt to save his own sallow skin. But upon further analysis , experts concluded that the document was indeed authentic, much to the shock and horror of the populace.
Although this discovery allowed Snape to walk free, he was generally despised by all. Even his old colleagues could no longer look him in the eye. No one knew where he is now, and honestly, no one much cared as long as he wasn't around them.
Rufus Scrimgeour turned away from a sobbing Ginny Weasley, looking slightly put-off. He had only tried to comfort her, how was he to know she would be so touchy? He didn't have much time to contemplate it, because before he knew it, several prominent St. Mungo's Healers who seemed very anxious to have a word with him, were escorting him from the ward.
They ushered him into of the customary bland offices littered around the hospital and sat him down. They had been requesting a meeting for months, and Scrimgeour had been deliberately evading them. After all, he had much bigger things than a bunch of healers complaining about budget decreases. There simply wasn't enough money to go around, there wasn't anything he could do about that. The war took most of the funds that they did have left.
But it turned out, they had much more they wanted to discuss than budget. Scrimgeour gazed out of the small window out into the crowded streets below, with a glazed expression on his face. He couldn't quite believe what he was hearing.
A/N: This is my first fic, be merciful, I beg you.
(edited July 31st 2005)
--Azalea