A Different End
Disclaimer: I don't own Harry Potter.
NOTE: Felt like writing this. My only comment is: Meh… Most of it is just a rewritten and slightly tweaked version of the latter half of the last chapter, plus more at the end. Inspired by Harry's self-deprivation of happiness. I had a hard time coming up with a title too.
The little man in black had stopped speaking at last and resumed his seat. Harry waited for somebody else to get to their feet; he expected speeches, probably from the Minister, but nobody moved.
Then several people screamed. Bright, white flames had erupted from around Dumbledore's body and the table upon which it lay: Higher and higher they rose, obscuring the body. White smoke spiraled into the air and made strange shapes: Harry thought, for one heart stopping moment, he saw a phoenix fly joyfully into the blue, but the next second the fire had vanished. In its place was a white marble tomb, encasing Dumbledore's body and the table on which he rested.
There were a few more cries of shock as a shower of arrows soared through the air, but they fell far short of the crowd. It was, Harry knew, the centaur's tribute: He saw them turn tail and disappear back into the cool trees. Likewise, the me people sank slowly back into the green water and were lost from view.
Harry looked at Ginny, Ron, and Hermione: Ron's face was screwed up as though the sunlight was blinding him. Hermione's face was glazed with tears, but Ginny was no longer crying. She met Harry's gaze with the same hard, blazing look that he had seen when she hugged him after winning the Quidditch Cup in his absence, and he felt at that moment they understood each other perfectly.
When he told her what he was going to do now, she would not say "Be careful" or "Don't do it", but accept his decision, because she would not have expected anything les of him. And so he began to say what he had known he'd have to say since Dumbledore's death.
"Ginny, listen…" he said very quietly, as the buzz of conversation grew louder around them and people began to get to their feet. Ginny turned to Harry, those brown orbs he had loved to stare into met his green ones. "I can't be involved with you anymore. We've got to stop seeing each other. We can't be together."
Ginny smiled a twisted, bitter smile at Harry. It was one of the most heartbreaking things he had ever seen in his life. Had he not been so determined on what he had to do, he would have embraced her, kissed her, anything.
"It's for some stupid, noble reason, isn't it?"
"It's been like… like something out of someone else's life, these last few weeks with you." said Harry mournfully. "But I can't… we can't… I've got things to do alone now."
She did not cry, she simply looked at him. She stared into the eyes everyone told him he got from his mother. She stared hard into them.
"Voldemort uses people his enemies are close to. He's already sued you as bait once, and that was just because you're my best friend's sister. Think how much danger you'll be in if we keep this up. He'll know, he'll find out. He'll try and get to me through you."
"What if I don't care?" asked Ginny fiercely. In all honesty, she didn't. She'd go to hell and back for Harry, and he would do the same. She could see it in his eyes.
"I care…" said Harry softly, lifting her chin up to look at him. "How do you think I'd feel if this was your funeral… and it was my fault…"
She looked away from him, over the lake.
"I never really gave up on you." she said, a soft breeze picking up her flaming hair. Harry thought the sight was oddly serene. "Not really. I always hoped… Hermione told me to get on with life , maybe go out with some other people, relax a bit around you, because I never used to be able to talk if you were in the room, remember? And she thought you might take me a bit more seriously if I was more - myself."
"Smart girl, Hermione…" said Harry wistfully, failing terribly at an attempt to smile. He couldn't. "I just wish I'd asked you sooner. We could've had ages… months… years maybe…"
"But you've been too busy saving the Wizarding world." said Ginny, half laughing. Harry knew all Ginny's laughs well by now, and this was a sad one. "Well… I knew this would happen in the end. I had this small hope, this really teeny one it wouldn't happen… But I knew you wouldn't be happy unless you were hunting Voldemort. Maybe that's why I like you so much…"
Harry could not bear to hear these things, nor did he think his resolution would hold if he continued to sit next to her. Just one look in her eyes, one second to long, and he wouldn't be able to do it. He'd just hug her and never let go. Ron, he saw, was now holding Hermione and stroking her hair while she sobbed onto his shoulder, tears dripping from then end of his own long nose.
With a miserable gesture, Harry got up and left.
Harry really didn't feel well. He had just had a run in with Rufus Scrimgeour, and he had been already upset with his talk with Ginny as it was. He couldn't even imagine the look on his own face, but he supposed it wasn't a very happy one.
Ron and Hermione were running towards Harry, Scrimgeour going in the opposite direction. Harry turned and walked slowly onward, waiting for them to catch up. They eventually caught up to him under a shade of a beech tree, under which they had spent happier times. Hermione looked a bit worried, and Ron somewhat annoyed.
"What did Scrimgeour want?" whispered Hermione
"Same as he wanted at Christmas." shrugged Harry. "Wanted me to give him inside information on Dumbledore and be the Ministry's poster boy."
Ron seemed to struggle with himself for a moment, then he said loudly to Hermione "Look, let me go back and hit Percy!"
"No." she said firmly, grabbing his arm.
"It'll make me feel better!"
Harry laughed. Even Hermione grinned a little, though her smile faded as she looked up at the castle.
"I can't bear the idea that we may never come back." she said softly. "How can Hogwarts close?"
"Maybe it won't." said Ron. "We're not in any more danger here than we are at home, are we? I'd even say Hogwarts is safer, there are more wizards inside to defend the place. What'd you reckon Harry?"
"I'm not coming back even if it does reopen." said Harry dully, and he saw brief flash of brown eyes and red hair, but shook it off.
Ron gaped at him, but Hermione shook her head sadly. "I knew you were going to say that. But then what will you do?"
"I'm going back to the Dursleys' once more, because Dumbledore wanted me to. "But it'll be a short visit and then I'll be gone for good."
"But where will you go if you don't com back to school?"
"I thought I might go back to Godric's Hollow." Harry muttered. He had had the idea in his head ever since the night of Dumbledore's death. "For me, it started there, all of it. I've just got a feeling I need to go there. And I can visit my parents' graves, I'd like that."
"And then what?" said Ron.
"Then I've got to track down the rest of the Hocruxes, haven't I?" said Harry, his eyes upon Dumbledore's white tomb, reflected in the water on the other side of the lake. "That's what he wanted me to do, that's why he told me all about them. If Dumbledore was right, and I'm sure he was, there are still four of them, and then I've got to go after the seventh bit of Voldemort's soul, the bit that's still in his body, and I'm the one who's going to kill him. And if I meet Severus Snape on the way, so much better for me, so much worse for him."
There was a long silence. The crowd had mostly dispersed, the stragglers giving the monumental figure of Grawp a wide birth as he cuddled Hagrid, whose howls of grief were still echoing across the water.
"We'll be there Harry." said Ron.
"What?" Harry turned to face Ron, his face blank. He hadn't understood.
"At your aunt and uncle's house." said Ron. "And then we'll go with you wherever you're going."
"No-." Harry said quickly; he had not counted on this, he had meant them to understand that he was undertaking this dangerous mission alone. Again, he thought of that red hair he often had stroked and those brown eyes he wanted to stare into for hours.
"You said to us once before." said Hermione quietly. "That there was time to turn back if we wanted to. We've had that time, haven't we?"
"We're with you whatever happens." said Ron. "But mate, you're going to have to come round my mum and dad's house before we do anything, even Godric's Hollow."
"Why?" questioned Harry.
It wasn't Ron that answered him, nor was it Hermione.
"Bill and Phlegm are getting married, remember?" Harry looked behind the tree, and there was Ginny, leaning against it. "And after that, we go save the world."
Harry was completely dumbfounded. He was going to go alone, and had been ready to allow Ron and Hermione, but…
"Ginny, you can't come, I already explained it to you…" strained Harry, his resolution hadn't had any time to recover from his last encounter with the youngest Weasley child. "You'll be in too much danger if you come with us…"
"There's nothing you can really do about that though…" said Ginny, smiling sadly.
"What do you mean?" questioned Harry.
"Snape would know. He saw us plenty of times, remember? He'd tell Voldemort. I'd be in danger anyway… If I were with you…" Ginny trailed off, and she looked at Harry expectantly.
His resolution was crumbling, Harry could feel it. There was no way he'd leave Ginny alone if Voldemort would in fact come after her. He turned helplessly to Ron, expecting the protective older brother to refuse and tell her to stay home.
"You know, she's got a point." said Ron thoughtfully. Harry sighed and looked up at Ginny.
"… So we'll pick you up at the wedding then… We can't miss that…" Harry laughed in spite of himself. The very idea that something as normal as a wedding could occur during all this madness, seemed incredible and felt wonderful.
Ginny smiled brightly at Harry, tears dripping from her eyes. Harry embraced Ginny and hugged her like he'd never hugged her before.
On the way back to the castle, Harry's hand closed around the fake Horcrux in his pocket. In spite of everything, in spite of the dark and twisting path he saw stretching ahead for himself, in spite of the final meeting with Voldemort he knew must come, whether in a month, a year, or in ten, he felt his heart life at the thought that there was still one last golden day of peace left to enjoy with Ginny, Ron, and Hermione.
The End
End Note: I feel a compelling to continue this.Anything is possible...