Chapter Fourteen

Impossible.

It was impossible.

And yet…

It was all too possible.

At the realization, my heart was leaping with hope. If Dumbledore was back, that meant that Voldemort didn't stand a chance. Everyone, for a moment, stood still. In disbelief, in fear, in joy, in awe…

I dragged my attention to Harry's face, and I could barely describe it. His expression was strangely blank, but in it I could see his hidden traces of shy hope, silent admiration, and tears in his eyes threatened to fall.

His hero was back.

Voldemort was at a loss for words. "H-how…how could this be?" he wheezed.

"Let the girl go, Tom," Dumbledore's voice shone with authority, but there was something different about it. He took a step closer, wand drawn.

Voldemort seemed to collect himself a bit, but it didn't hide his panic. "You'll never win now, Dumbledore!" he said with a slight tinge of hysteria. "I've already won!"

Dumbledore shook his head wisely. "You have no Horcruxes left, Tom. You only have one- seventh of your soul left- the one still inside of you."

Voldemort tried to resume his original cold and cruel composure. "That's where you're wrong, Dumbledore." He walked over to the bundle that was Ginny, and he kicked it, earning a gasp of pain from her and a snarl of outrage from Harry.

"I know what you're thinking, Tom."

"Don't!" Voldemort hissed. "Don't call me Tom." He said the word like he was describing the foulest thing on earth. "I am no longer Tom. I haven't been in decades."

"I'm afraid that to me, you will be forever Tom. Hiding behind a new name does not allow you to hide your fears and doubts."

"Do not patronize me! Lord Voldemort is not to be patronized!"

"Honestly, Tom, you're acting like quite the child. I you would only let Miss Weasely go…"

"You're a pathetic old fool, Dumbledore."

"She is of no use to you. But you won't kill her now. You might believe that there is a piece of your soul left in her that-"

"That is where you're wrong. You see, during her first year, I created a Horcrux in her, and I knew that none of you muggle- loving soft hearted fools would ever do harm to her, assuring the ever- present survival of at least one piece."

Voldemort's eyes narrowed at Dumbledore in hatred, and then in disgust for Harry. His pale lips formed a devilish grin. "I've always told you fools. Love!" his tone turned violent. "Love is a weakness! Go on and try to kill her! You cannot, can you?"

Tears streaming down her face, Ginny squeezed her eyes shut and shook her head. As she and Harry stared at each other, everyone could feel their heartbreak. Harry, however, stayed where he was, on the ground. If he had not been wounded, and if Dumbledore had not bee there, I had no doubt that he would have crawled to her pitifully, crippled, if only to spend his last moments with her.

Dumbledore stayed silent at this time, waiting for him to continue.

Voldemort laughed. "And because you can't kill her, you can't kill me. For if you do, I will have no choice but to possess her," he knelt down to lift Ginny's finger with his slender, worm-like finger, causing her to squirm under him, "and there is nothing more painful than a takeover," his eyes flashed manically, "by Lord Voldemort. Her soul would die. Leaving plenty of open space for me."

"Bastard!" Harry spat angrily. He spit up blood.

Dumbledore said calmly, "Does this mean you have no intention of harming Miss Weasely? For if she is so vital to your survival, why were you, only a few moments ago, threatening to murder her here in front of Harry?"

This put Tom on the spot. Everyone knew the reason why he couldn't kill her now- because Dumbledore was here. Because Dumbledore was here, his victory was no longer assured. Before he arrived, Voldemort had no doubt that, in the weak state that Harry was in, he could defeat him.

Before Voldemort could come up with a response, Dumbledore continued.

"Tom…Miss Weasely, in fact, does not contain your last Horcrux."

"Enough with your mind games, old man," sneered Voldemort, without a trace of doubt. "I know for certain that within the girl is a piece of me."

He placed his face right next to Ginny's. "Don't you ever wonder why you have nightmares? It is not only from your first year rendezvous with my sixteen- year old self." He chuckled. "Oh no…I am a part of you, Ginerva."

She shivered, leaning away him.

"That is where you are wrong," Dumbledore said as if nothing had interrupted him in the first place. "Again and again, I have told you this. But you always fail to listen to me.

"You say love is such a weakness, and I suppose it can be. It all depends on the way you view it. When you follow through on love, when love goes all the way and it is deep and it is strong, it will conquer anything less than it, which is everything."

As I listened to him, his words fed my heart. However, something was so different about him, that it had to be assumed that much happened to him while he was supposedly dead.

He stepped a bit closer. "Ginny carries no Horcrux, Tom. Perhaps she once has…but she no longer does.

"She was, and is, loved wholly and unconditionally and purely. It is a deep love that penetrates anything she did and still does, and in that way, it protects her. And anything so evil as a broken fragment of your soul cannot preside in someone where such a love was so present. And over time, it disintegrated."

"It is impossible for a Horcrux to simply disappear, Dumbledore!" yelled Voldemort, who was shaken by this possibility. "A soul is not so easily destroyed, especially not one such as mine!"

"Perhaps there is a miniscule seed in her that still contains some kind of essence of Lord Voldemort, but it wouldn't be enough for you to survive in her for over a few minutes. In those few minutes, you would wither away and die, and although she would go through immense pain, Mr. Potter will hold her hand, and I have no doubt in my mind that she will live through it."

"Then, if she is no use to me, I should kill her now!" Voldemort lunged viciously at Ginny, kicking her to her side and pointed his wand at her. "Avada Kedavra!"

"NO!" cried Harry.

Ginny fell limp, and Harry pushed himself up to stumble toward her. He covered her body with his, shaking in sobs. "Ginny…no…please…no, this can't be! I'm sorry…"

She was dead.

Like a mourning lion, he threw his head up and yelled in the most heart wrenching agony, "GINNY!"

I fell to my knees. I couldn't take this in. Harry and Ginny…they were so close…they were so close to making it…so close to being happy.

"Was that what you hoped to push me into doing, Dumbledore? Was that the point of your little sermon?" asked Voldemort amusedly. "Well done…now your golden boy's heart is mortally broken. That is the result of love."

Dumbledore showed no emotion, which was uncharacteristic of him at a time like this. However, he did say something undeniably cryptic. "You have no idea what miracles the broken heart can stir- as long as the will lives on."

Voldemort looked over the weeping boy and his dead lover. "There is nothing there, Dumbledore. Look at him! A blubbering mess of grief and uncalled for sorrow. Pathetic. Once I have broken him, the damage is unable to repair. All I need to do now is completely destroy him.

"But first, I must destroy you. This has been a long time coming now, and you are not the able wizard you once were. Today, my fears will die once and for all."

"Come then, Tom."

And there began the battle. Only it was not the battle I had imagined originally, for it was between Voldemort and Dumbledore, and there was no blood. Each dodged each spell, blocked it with a counter spell.

I was afraid for Dumbledore. For Voldemort was right: although his dueling was striking and strong and irrepressible, none were gaining advantage.

No one moved to help either party. If they were to, they would surely die. We barely breathed.

"Sectum- Sempre!"

"Protectore!"

"Cilio-periamea!"

"Reflecto-narcide!"

It kept going and going. No one got injured, and but they were becoming ragged and tired. It was frightful to watch, with every move going closer and closer to each target. Unbelievable skills.

But then, Dumbledore was hit.

A gasp ran through the crowd as he skidded on the floor and lay there.

No, I thought. No- please get up. Please. Save us all. Please be alive.

He didn't get up.

I could not comprehend this. We had only just had Dumbledore back, and he was taken from us again. With no answers, with no closure. No hope.

I didn't understand. How could Dumbledore have fallen?

Was Voldemort stronger than we realized? Or…

Or was Dumbledore just not as strong as we all thought? The thought was knee- buckling, like a religious person thinking silently that their revered god was not as powerful as believed when the god fell.

Voldemort himself even looked surprised at his abrupt victory. Even he felt the somberness in the situation. Unsmiling, he kicked over Dumbledore's body so his face turned toward the sky.

"You have ensured my victory for definite, Dumbledore," he murmured softly. "This has left no trace of doubt in my very being. I shall conquer."

With slight malice, he chuckled dryly. "Thank you for your blessing." He kicked Dumbledore again, rolling him on his side. I couldn't bear to see the great man being handled so carelessly and disrespectfully, as if he were an overused rag doll.

Just when I thought the sun had set on all of us, a piercing ray of red and orange fury shone from behind Voldemort.

Harry, still crouched over Ginny's body, was rising.