Long Road To Ruin
"From Yesterday"

Confused, Harry found himself disapparating from the small wooded clearing in the forbidden forest, and apparating back towards the small cottage where the little old wizard and Hermione were. His face was paler than pale, looking as though he'd just seen a ghost.

"What is it?" Hermione was bouncing on the balls of her feet. "Do we need to contact Professor McGonagall? Who is it? Harry, are you alright? You look like you just saw the dead."

Harry was grasping his chest and breathing heavily. "I don't think it was a ghost, Hermione."

The little old wizard frowned at the two of them. "Well! Ain't you gonna do nothin'? If it's You-Know-Who or what have you, I don' want no part of it! You better get back in there and take care of it, Harry Potter, if you 'da had any decency!"

"I don't know if this is something you can just 'take care of,' sir." His brow was beaded with sweat. "This… this can't be real at all." Hermione grabbed his arm, and he quickly used side-along apparation to take them back to the clearing.

Hermione screamed as they set foot back on land, holding her wand close to her heart and tightly in her hand. Her wandlight shone on the figures before her, still dazed and naked. "Harry! What…? Oh no, oh no." She moved to stand behind Harry as James Potter walked towards them. "HARRY! That's… that's not your father, is it?"

Instinct took hold of Hermione, and she grabbed Harry's arm and quickly disapparated out of the clearing and back to the old wizard and his wizened cottage. They swiftly grabbed their broomsticks, placed them between their legs, and kicked off, setting off towards Hogwarts School Of Witchcraft and Wizardry.

Neither could speak – words were failing them both. How could the dead be back? They didn't look like Inferi, and one of them had spoken to the old wizard, answering back vaguely to his intense questioning. Harry didn't understand what was going on. He'd never experienced something as serious, as mind boggling. Dumbledore had once told him that in truth, the dead could not come back to life. Dumbledore had been wrong before, though… hadn't he? Harry's palms were sweating, and he found it difficult to hold onto his broomstick. So many things were swimming through his head.

For the first time in 18 years, he, Harry, had been able to look into his father's eyes… and this time, they were real and staring back at him. For the first time in 18 years, James Potter was back on this earth – though how he got there was a complete mystery. And there were other faces there, other people. Lily Potter was there. Vaguely, some of the other faces looked familiar, but Harry had barely noticed any of them. He was focused mainly on the two faces that he had waited nearly two decades to see.



Hermione, for all of her fear of flying, was speeding through the sky like a maniac. Her hair whipped around her, and Harry was unsure of how she could actually see around her. They sped towards Hogwarts and after what felt like a lifetime, touched ground in front of the main doorway leading into the castle. They ran up the stone stairs and towards Headmaster McGonagall's office. Harry shouted the password at the Phoenix guarding the passageway into her study, and they dashed up the spiral stairs together, taking the steps two, three at a time.

Together they pounded on her study door and an angry voice yelled back at them, telling them to come in. They stepped into the study, not so different from when it had belonged to Snape, and Dumbledore before him. The Headmaster's portraits lined the study walls, and the eerie silvery glow of Dumbledore's stone pensive shone from behind cabinet doors. Her desk had silver framed photographs on it, animated and lively with people that Harry had never seen before. It was odd, thinking that Professors had lives outside of Hogwarts, even now that he was a Professor himself.

Her hair was pulled back in its usual tartan bun, lined now with more silver than before. Her glasses were perched precariously on her nose, threatening to fall off after she turned her head sharply to see who had so rudely knocked on her office door.

"Potter? Granger? What is going on?"

"Professor… You need to come with us. To the Forbidden Forest. I don't know what's happened, what it is, if I'm just seeing things, but you need to come and confirm this for me." Harry was out of breath and annoyed at his surprise.

"We received a letter from a wizard in Hogsmeade about something strange – mist, a voice, light in the Forbidden Forest. Harry went into the wood and… I don't know, Professor. We saw… James. Lily. Alive again. And others! All people that've died –"

Professor McGonagall's lips thinned and her eyes widened. "You know very well that the dead cannot come back to life. This is ridiculous! I've had my hands filled with the Collins twins and I could use a little bit of rest and –"

"Minerva!" Professor McGonagall stopped speaking midsentence and stared at Harry. He never called her by her first name. "You need to come with us." He stepped over to the fireplace, threw in a pinch of Floo Powder, and set off for the old wizard's cottage near the edge of the Forbidden Forest. McGonagall and Hermione were close behind.

They entered the clearing in the forest and McGonagall screeched. The normal rosy color in her cheeks had faded, and her face was as pale as a Hogwarts pillowcase. The naked figures that Harry and Hermione had first run across were sitting on the forest floor, huddled around one another for warmth. The red hair of Lily Potter was easily visible through the crowd. Many of the naked people had wands in their hands.

Where had they come from?



"You see?! This is real… but how? Right there! That's my mother. And she's been dead for 18 years, but there she is, flesh and blood, right in front of us."

"Cedric Diggory? Gideon Prewett? James, Lily? Mad-Eye?"