Disclaimer

The Harry Potter universe and all the characters in it belong to J. K. Rowling. I get nothing out of this except enjoyment.

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Part 6, Ending, and Beginning – Letter 19

December 20

Dear Ginny,

I have to let this out or I'm going to go mad. It's over Ginny! We did it! We killed him! But Ginny, I don't know if I can bear it. Harry's hurt really bad. He's in a coma and they don't know if he's going to live. Oh God, Ginny what am I going to do? I don't think I can live without him. He's my whole life! If he doesn't come through this I think I'll just curl up and die!

I'm sorry - I've got to try to pull myself together. I hope I didn't smear the parchment too much. Let me try again.

The three of us are here in this hospital. I don't know where it is though. It's a secret location Moody set up for us. Ron is unconscious but will be all right. I'm injured, but okay. Harry is …

I'm sorry, I lost it there again. Harry was hurt so badly that they don't know if he can recover. He killed Voldemort but not before Voldemort almost killed him. Please tell all of our friends at Hogwarts that it's finally over, but don't tell everyone about Harry. Just those you can trust to keep quiet. There are still some Death Eaters about and we don't want them coming after him. Hedwig is the only owl who can find us, and the wards here won't let her in if she's carrying anything but a single scrap of parchment, so you can send a short reply with her but that's all. And no one can come and visit us either. I promise to let you know as soon as that changes. Be sure to tell your mum that Ron will be all right.

Is everyone celebrating like the last time? I read that back then they were toasting the 'Boy Who Lived' for days. (Did you know how much Harry hated that nickname?) And meanwhile there was Harry, who had just had both of his parents murdered, being dropped off on the doorstep of a couple who would hate him all of his life. It makes me cry every time I think about it. But now I'm living that all over again. I just can't even think about celebrating now, not while Harry is like this.

I'm afraid I'm going to go mad with worry. I think it will help if I have someone to tell it to, even if it's only a letter, so I hope you don't mind if I ramble on a bit. Writing seems to be helping me calm down.

I'll try to start at the beginning. The big secret that we couldn't tell you before was that Voldemort made himself immortal by splitting his soul into seven pieces. Six were placed into various objects and the seventh was him. Dumbledore figured this out and told Harry about it last year. That's what they were doing in those private lessons he had.

Oh, I need to go back even further than that. You know that prophecy that we found at the Department of Mysteries? The one that smashed so no one heard it? It was about Harry and Voldemort. It turns out it wasn't completely lost because it was originally given to Dumbledore and he remembered it. He told it to Harry right after we got back from the Ministry that night. Harry told it to Ron and me the summer before sixth year. No one else knew about it, not even anyone in the Order or any of the other professors. What it said was that Harry would have the power to destroy Voldemort, and that one of them would have to kill the other. That's why he tried to kill Harry as a baby and he's been trying to kill him ever since. Harry's been living with that for a year and a half now. I hope you can understand why he didn't tell anyone else. Now that I've told you, you're the only one besides the three of us that know it.

Anyway, that's the mission we've been on since June. Since Harry was the one who had to kill Voldemort, he felt that he was also the one who had to destroy all the pieces of his soul. And he had to do that first. That's what those 'magical objects' were that he wrote to you about last summer. Oh, by the way, the first one was the diary from your first year. That's how Tom was able to possess you. No one knew that at the time though. By the end of the summer we had found and destroyed all of them but one. The last one was Voldemort's snake, and we killed it on Halloween. Since then we've been training to go after Voldemort himself, and learning spells to use against him. We finally found a way get him by himself without any Death Eaters with him and went after him last night.

Oh Ginny, it was so horrible. I'm sure I'll have nightmares about it for the rest of my life. I had spent most of my time learning how to block unforgiveables. I know they're supposed to be impossible to block, but Harry discovered that marble stone would stop them, so I've been practicing conjuring those as fast as I can. So I was able to stop Voldemort from hitting us with killing curses, but I couldn't stop all his other hexes. Ron and I were set up on either side of Harry behind a low wall where we were mostly protected, but Harry was out in the open. Ron got in several good shots and managed to hurt Voldemort quite a bit before he got knocked out.

Harry held his own with our help for a long time, but finally Voldemort wore him out. He just knew too many different curses and was too powerful. I just couldn't block them all! If Harry dies it will be because I wasn't good enough!

I'm sorry, I'm getting all wound up again. I know Harry won't blame me and he would probably yell at me if he heard me say that, but I just feel so helpless right now. I failed him because I couldn't stop everything. And then Voldemort managed to petrify me and I had to watch him try to finish Harry off.

Oh Ginny, it was the most awful experience of my life. Harry tried to hold him off, but he was hurt so bad. I've never seen him suffer so much but he never gave up. Then, when Voldemort had him down and bleeding all over the place and with I don't know how many bones broken he hit him with Cruciatus. I couldn't stop screaming, Harry was in such agony. Finally Voldemort stopped it and walked up to him to finish him off. That's when Harry somehow pulled himself together and blocked out the pain enough to get up to his knees. Then he looked at me and I could see in his eyes that he knew he was going to die. I tried to send him as much strength as I could.

The next part was incredible. Just when Voldemort had his wand to Harry's head and was about to cast his final spell the sword of Gryffindor appeared out of nowhere in Harry's hands and he grabbed it and thrust it with all his strength right through Voldemort's chest. There was a bright light and a horrible scream and then he collapsed and his body disintegrated. I think it was because it was being held together by magic. As soon as that happened Harry collapsed too and he passed out. I almost think he decided he had accomplished his task and felt like it was all right to die now.

But he can't die, Ginny! He just can't! I need him so much!

I can't write any more. I'm going to go back to see him again. Sometimes the Healer lets me lie down beside him and hold him. I think it helps. I know it helps me.

I'll write more as soon as we learn anything about him.

Love from,

Hermione

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