The rain was steadily falling from the dark sky as two hooded figures purposefully walked down a muddy forest path. A flash of lighting darted across the sky revealing a boy with a jagged scar on his forehead and a plump faced boy walking beside him. The fierce determination burning in their eyes would have scared any mortal man to his early death, but what they we're against were not mortal and were certainly not men. The only word that could describe what they faced was nothing but pure, indescribable fear.
A change in the wind brought on the smell of salty sea air. Both knew that they were getting closer to their destination, but nether spoke. The time for speaking had long since passed, they had to be on their utmost guard if they wished to survive the terrible ordeal they knew stood before them.
Suddenly the path broke past the edge of the forest revealing a narrow peninsula. Both boys stopped to take in the site their eyes beheld. The path continued to travel between jagged cliffs with water spraying up on all sides. Dark thunder clouds towered to inconceivable heights and the never ceasing winds caused waves of unimaginable force to crash onto the shore. But none of these startling images could compare to the site which the path lead to.
A black fortress with jagged towers and impenetrable walls towered luminously above the scattered mountains that circled the peninsula. The many towers did not contain stairs, rooms or windows, but ended with a no walled platform guarded by a figure clothed in black robes. The walls served as the base for the towers and were topped with walkways. A dark, iron gate stood thirty feet tall in the middle of the main wall facing the forest from wince the two boys came.
"Great, just great, how are we going to get past that?," asked the plump faced boy.
"That isn't any ordinary gate, no normal spell will break it," replied the boy with the jagged scar.
"Well this just keeps getting better and better doesn't it?!" said the other on the verge of hysteria.
"Neville, calm down. We can do this, we'll get them back."
Neville took a deep breath before continuing. "I know Harry, I know. It just seems that this war keeps getting worse and worse. You-Know-Who is winning battle after battle, it's like there's no end to his power."
"The moment we stop believing there is hope is the moment that Voldemort has won. We must believe Neville, we must!" said Harry with the determination in his emerald green eyes burning twice as fierce, there was no mistaking the passion that burned in his heart.
As Neville looked back at the boy, no the man standing before him, he was encouraged. He knew that as long as Harry Potter still drew breath, there would be hope for the forces of light.
"Alright, like I was saying, this is no ordinary gate, or fortress for that matter. No ordinary spell will breach the walls. When Voldemort created this castle for his dementors, he fused metal with the fear and sorrow drained from the soulless bodies of his minion's prey. What we need to do is summon patronuses so powerful they will break the gate."
Harry heard Neville gasp beside him. He knew that Neville never mastered the patronus charm, but he knew the circumstances were exactly what Neville needed to push back his fear of failure and fulfill the great potential he had within himself.
Harry turned to face Neville looking intently into his eyes, daring him to look away. "Neville, you can do this. Remember what Voldemort took from us? Our parents, our friends, the people we hold closest to our hearts. He stole everything that can make us happy, and unless we make a stand here and now I doubt that anything will ever be able to stop him. Unlike our parents, Neville, we can save the others. They are waiting for us just beyond those walls. Only we can save them. Use that knowledge to fuel your passion, let it consume you. Muster the happiest thought you have, and say the spell. I know you can do it Neville, I know it."
"I don't know Harry, Gran says-"
"Forget what your grandmother says, you are your parents son, and nothing she ever says can change that. I'm not who I am because of what people say-"
"But your Harry bleeding Potter! You have become so much more powerful over the past year, going wherever you go with Ron and Hermione! I can see it in your eyes, just being around you at times gives me shivers of awe. I'm not that kind of person, I'm not one to be respected by others or talked highly of because of my potential."
"Neville, I have accomplished the things I've done because I don't care what others think of me, if I did I wouldn't be standing here, fighting to save my friends. Move past what your grandmother says, think of Ron, Hermione, Ginny! Think of Luna! The girl who loves you for who you are. I'm not fighting in this war because people respect me or think the world of me, I'm doing It because I know what is important. Protecting the innocent, getting rid of evil. If you don't decide right here and right now that you're going to be less self-conscious and use the courage and bravery that is in your heart, then you will lose Luna forever!"
It fell quiet between the two as Neville looked out at the sea, taking in the words that Harry had just spoken. Harry could almost hear the chains turning in Neville's head as he was working out what to do. Suddenly he turned to Harry with eyes of renewed determination.
"I've been needing to hear that for a long time Harry, thank you," he held his had out towards Harry.
Harry reached out his hand and they grabbed each others forearms. "Don't be thanking me two fast. We still need to save our friends and make sure we don't die in the process."
"We'll be okay Harry, you're one of the most talented students Hogwarts has seen in a while."
Harry grinned as he heard Neville's words. "Its because of my friends that I do alright in school. Besides your just as powerful as me, Neville."
Neville looked skeptical at Harry's words, "You've already boosted my self-conscious enough, thanks though."
"No really," said Harry allowing himself a grim smile, "it's not a coincidence that we were the only ones who escaped the Death Eaters raid on Diagon Alley."
Both fell silent again. What took place on that day was horrible indeed. The war had been escalating and the Minister of Magic wasn't meeting Lord Voldemort's demands. He threatened to attack and bring utter chaos to a village in London, but no one expected it to be Diagon Alley.
It was the third day into the Easter Holidays of Harry's seventh year. Hogwarts had reopened come September, and Harry realized he still had much to learn, and he thought Dumbledore would have wanted him to return. It was the day after Harry, Ron, and Hermione found and destroyed Voldemort's fifth Horcrux. They left school a week early when they discovered that Voldemort once visited a place in the Artic North, an island off the northern coast of Greenland. It was once rumored that on that island an extremely dark and evil wizard was hunted down and destroyed by Merlin, the greatest wizard ever to live. The battle between the two lasted two long days, and when Merlin finally delivered the fatal blow to the dark wizard's body it caused a massive explosion, sending his evilness to spread across the island. Naturally, the darkness of the place attracted Voldemort.
Harry, Ron, and Hermione could feel the sense of evil the moment they arrived on the island. They could feel it grow stronger the farther they progressed and it soon took every ounce of strength they possessed to continue walking. Finally they reached the center of the island were a lone mountain stood. They found Helga Hufflepuff's goblet in the heart of the mountain standing on a pedestal, got past its barriers, and destroyed it.
Once their task was complete it was already the second day into Easter vacation, so they apparated to the Burrow. After receiving a severe scolding from Mrs. Weasley, they rested. Everyone knew that the three were completing an important task given to them by Dumbledore, and they knew it was pointless to try and discover what it was.
After resting, Neville and Luna came over for a visit. Luna lived on the far side of the village right outside the Burrow and Neville was staying with her for the holidays. Mrs. Weasley needed to go to Diagon Alley and Ron, Hermione, Harry, Ginny, Luna, and Neville decided to go. Harry didn't feel much like going seeing as he tried to avoid Ginny for the entire year so far, but Hermione's nagging finally won and he tagged along. Harry still loved Ginny, and everyone knew that Ginny still had feelings for Harry. She denied every boy that had asked her out since Harry broke up with her, and one could see the heartache in her eyes when she looked at him. But Harry was still standing strong in his belief that pushing Ginny away would protect her.
A shiver ran up Harry's back as he remembered an icy conversation he and Ginny shared before he left to travel to the island. He had just fastened his traveling cloak around his neck and slung his pack over his shoulder as he ran out of his room's door and nearly collided with her on the landing between the boys and girls dormitories.
"Oh, hey," Ginny had said, caught of guard by his sudden and unexpected appearance.
"Er, hello Ginny," was his awkward reply and he was about to turn and leave, but unfortunately his emotions got the better of him. He didn't want to be rude or hurt Ginny anymore than he had.
"So how is your term going?" he reluctantly asked, knowing full well that it was a pathetic stab at conversation.
"Oh pretty well, school isn't nearly as hard without the constant dreading of upcoming O.W.L's like last year. And having the captaincy of the quidditch team definitely helps take my mind off, erm, other things."
It was an uncomfortable silence. Harry had to give up being team captain of Gryffindor's quidditch team, or playing the game he loved at all for that matter, because of his frequent trips away from school, which he was sure was the 'other things' Ginny was talking about. Over the year he, Hermione, and Ron left classes for weeks on time to gather information or destroy the Horcruxes.
"Yeah, well you are doing a better job than I ever did," said Harry laughing uneasily.
"That's not true," she replied earnestly, "the team definitely respected you much more, and I don't think a few of them are to keen of the fact of being led by a girl."
Truly laughing this time, Harry said, "Well you could just Bat-Boogey a couple of them, I'm sure that will demand the proper respect you deserve." Ginny joined her laughter with Harry's, and he marveled at how things could seem like they once were, as if this past year hadn't even occurred.
But as Ron's call drafted up the stairs and ringed in Harry's ears, any thought of old times was drowned out with a sudden rush of reality.
"Well Ginny, I need to get going-"
"You are leaving again, aren't you?" She whispered, staring at her hands. Her words sounded as if they were saturated with hopeless sadness between every syllable.
Feeling like a judge announcing his verdict of guiltiness on an innocent criminal, he took a deep breath and quietly answered, "Yes."
As she looked up at him, gazing into his eyes with blazing emotion, it was all Harry could do to keep his knees from shaking to violently.
"Stay safe Harry, don't come back like you did last time." He could tell that she longed to say something more, as did he, but nevertheless Harry allowed himself a rueful grin as he thought of the time he returned from his last little outing, bandaged and bleeding.
"I promise." And with that he turned on the spot and descended the stairs, cloak billowing behind him.
With an uptake in the wind's force, Harry was stirred from this memory and contemplated the task before him. But thoughts of the past few days soon forced themselves to the forefront of his mind.
As the group that left the Burrow to go on their outing to Diagon Alley was walking down a road that lead to Weasley's Wizarding Wheezes, Death Eaters apparated on all sides and started hexing everyone in site. Within seconds buildings caught fire and thick smoke obscured vision, screams of desperate mothers and cries of lost children drowned out the explosions coming from the Death Eater's wands.
Stepping from the nearest wall of smoke, Bellatrix Black saw who was standing in front of her and she shot stupefying jinxes barking orders to other Death Eaters. Only Harry and Neville were quick enough to block her, but no sooner had they blocked the jinxes than five other Death Eaters came from nowhere and disapparated with Harry's and Neville's unconscious friends. Bellatrix was laughing maniacally and said that their friends would be left soulless and without cheer where they would be going before she apparated off. Harry and Neville managed to stupefy a Death Eater before he could escape, and they forced him to reveal that their friends had been taken to 'The Black Fortress' located at the edge of a forest that was thought only to exist in myth.
Harry and Neville then apparated to Hogsmeade and ran to Hogwarts' library scouring through books of fairytales and legends until they found mention of a mythical forest located off the northern coast of Asia, Identical to that of the Death Eater's description. Harry sent a patronous to Mr. Weasley telling him what happened, where they were going, and to bring reinforcements. The two then apparated to the forest and traveled through it for two days until they stumbled across the worn path that led them to where they were standing. It was now five days into Easter break. Harry and Neville were exhausted from their journey, but the determination that possessed every ounce of their being pushed them on.
"Harry…how do we know the dementors haven't kissed them yet?"
"Because dementors like to make their prey suffer, and Voldemort wants me to suffer."
"How do we know that Voldemort isn't waiting for us in there with all his Death Eaters"
"Voldemort thinks only he and a select few Death Eaters know the location of this fortress, we were lucky the one we stunned knew of it. And…and he didn't think we were capable of doing to that Death Eater what we did."
Indeed, Harry and Neville made that Death Eater suffer until he finally told them what they wanted to hear. They had no time to get veritaserum and the ministry would have just thrown him in Azkaban. Even though they hate themselves for doing it, they had no choice. Whether what they did was just or not, his cries of pain still haunted his dreams every time he closed his eyes to allow his body to rest.
Harry took a deep breath before he spoke again. "Neville, there's a good chance that back up won't get here in time, and I know that there must be at least two hundred dementors in there. We need to get to the prison cells fast and get our friends to safety."
"Harry, maybe we should wait for Mr. Weasley and the Aurors before we attack,"
"No! I need to save Ginny, I need to let her know that I still love her. I couldn't live if something happened to her. I've been ignoring her this whole year thinking it would protect her, but obviously I was wrong. I love her Neville, she needs to know."
"Mate the way you talk about her, I think the whole world knows you love her."
"That won't help if I can't save her. Okay, we've wasted enough time. Remember, this place is like Hogwarts. You can't apparate in or out. We need to get everybody to the forest before we can escape."
"But Harry there is five people we are trying to rescue and only two of us, and I think it's safe to bet that they will be to weak to even walk."
"Yes, you're right. Okay, once we get to the forest you will apparate them out one at a time. I'll stay back and fight off the dementors with my patronous. Now lets go."
Both boys took out their wands as they turned to face the castle. They nodded to each other as they started to run up the path towards The Black Fortress, side by side. They did the wand movement and simultaneously yelled "EXPECTO PATRONUM" as loud as they could, letting the full extent of their love and passion infuse their words. A silver stag erupted from Harry's wand and he prayed that Neville's charm had worked. He looked over just in time to see a silver lion emerge from Neville's wand tip. He smiled to himself as he heard Neville shout in triumph.
"Focus Neville! Stay strong! Fight for your friends! Fight for Luna! We are Gryffindors! And Gryffindor's will not except defeat!"
Wait for me Ginny, I'm coming for you was the last thing Harry thought before he focused completely on breaking through the gate.
The rain began to fall heavier as the two Gryffindors ran towards The Black Fortress, but as the skies darkened their patronuses grew brighter. Hope in the darkness. Candles in the night.