Disclaimer: I don't own the Harry Potter world... If I owned Remus Lupin, I would definitely be doing something more interesting than writing some fanfiction. ;)

VERY VERY IMPORTANT NOTICE!: If you read the last chapter before I added on to the ending, you need to go back RIGHT NOW and read it before you go any further. If you remembering it ending with Tom about to curse Voldemort, you have missed a big chunk, and I'm sorry because that was my fault! If not, ignore this very, very important notice haha.

Chapter Twenty-Nine

I don't even have enough left inside of me to blink open my eyelids, was my very first thought when I sensed that I still had eyelids. Where ever I was, it felt a lot more confusing then where I could remember being. I couldn't move my body, or even really feel much of it; I just had a vague consciousness of it being there. I felt sort of weightless and I could feel my body swaying, as if softly cradled. Parts of me were hot, and parts were cold, but I couldn't really tell you which was which. Light flickered on my eyes causing bizarre patterns in the darkness. And there was a curious noise, but muffled and distant. I remembered seeing an awfully sad picture show in Muggle Studies about young children in a world where adults couldn't speak the same language. The noises sounded like that murmuring, wobbling noise they made instead and I couldn't possibly figure out why anything should ever sound like that. The more I focused, trying to attach any sort of meaning to it, I could almost swear I could understand snatches of it. I thought I heard my name, but it was choppy, indistinct. I thought another word sounded kind of like 'gone' which made sense, because I was pretty sure I wasn't anywhere. I finally could pick out separate strings of what were most definitely words.

"Arthur, not my baby. Not my baby girl!"

"Ron, there was nothing you could have done."

"Without her, we wouldn't have been able to―"

"Charlie, you should find the rest of your b-brothers."

"What about Harry? Is he a-alright?"

So many names, I knew them all well as they were very dear to me. But the snippets of words didn't make any sense. Nothing much did. Each voice sounded so familiar.

"Severus is caring for him now, Hermione's with him."

"Albus, what―?"

" ―it's too late."

"Should we―?"

"―things are complicated."

There was another voice. It sounded different, closer, almost on top of me. I wanted to move towards the soft warmth I recognized in the sounds of this voice.

"Ginny, no, you can't be dead. Why didn't you move?" this voice repeated in a painfully heart-wrenching, rhythmic daze. I was comforted though, realizing that it was the explanation I'd been search for.

"So I did die," I replied softly, answering out to the voice in the darkness. But as the prickling feeling of nerves beginning to fire awoke a consciousness inside my dormant body, my eyes blinked open and the darkness began to melt away. There were shadows, smears of colour: oranges, reds and grays. An indistinct silhouette above me began to take form. The rocking sway stopped and my body stilled. For a moment I thought my hearing had been taken away as all the voices ceased to continue.

The shadows began to finally clear away and I was staring into the depths of those familiar eyes on that familiar face. "Remus," I said with a soft whisper and a smile, barely moving my lips.I so nearly didn't have enough strength to move my throat but I was simply so happy to get to look on his loving face again, "what are you doing here?" I could only stare into those beautiful, tearstained eyes; my body unable to do much else.

"Ginny?" he asked, his voice catching as he tried to continue, so he cleared his throat to cry out in shocked disbelief. "You're alive?" he whispered, as if putting the question to reality itself.

"I am?" I asked with a laboured breath of absolute amazement. I was pretty sure that that couldn't have been possible. I wanted to lift an arm to feel his face in my hand, but it was weak and my hand could only raise high enough to grab onto the front of his shirt.

"Ginny!" he exclaimed with a start, giving me a slight shake in the process. "You're alive!" he cried, lifting my decidedly inert body closer to him. A great clamour of voices erupted behind me. Too many to discern from another.

"I am?" I ask again, more desperately, voice wavering as I began to accept the possibility that my whole world and everything I knew may not have been ripped away from me. But how? "Remus?" I sob as he leaned in, planting a kiss on every little surface of my face repeating a 'thank you' between each, his tears mixing with my own. I wanted to pull him close and return every single one but no part of me was willing to listen.

"You're alive," he whispered again, pressing his forehead to mine as he closed his eyes, blinking tears of his own onto my already tear stained face.

I'm alive, I thought, not quite understanding. This shouldn't be. I reached out in my mind, searching for Tom, wanting him to explain, wanting to not be so lost anymore. I reached out inside, wanting to touch against the link that connected us both, but when I pressed in... nothing. There was no link, no connection. Nothing. No one. Tom was gone. My mind was empty. I was alone.

I opened my mouth to cry out in alarm, but my heart was fluttering, I tried to take in deep lungs of air, but couldn't seem to bring in enough. It was just too much. Remus moved his head back, sensing something was wrong. "Remus," I breathed, weakly trying to get the words out. The world was swimming around me, lights flickering in front of my eyes. I was going to faint. "I can't... I need to―" Remus' face drowned in concern as my vision died and I was lost in a world of fog and forgetfulness. Someone new was leaning to my other side, but I was already gone by the time they began to speak.

...

I awoke once more on a soft surface, feeling much better than I originally had. The world came back to me quite suddenly, memories ordering themselves right up until I thought I should have died. I was not in the hall of the final battle anymore, but in a sitting room of sorts. I was lying on a couch in the middle of the large room filled with many other casualties of the battle. Make shift stretchers and beds were sporadically spread out on the floor. Witches and wizards who were still able we're tending to the wounded. I sat up as I became suddenly aware of someone tending to the wound on my leg. I was too surprised at the moment to question my renewed ability to move.

His head was bent over as he muttered soft spells of healing that I had never heard before, over my open wound. He did not seem to notice my awakening as he was deep in concentration. I did not need to see his face or even his magnificent white beard to recognize Albus Dumbledore. I opened my mouth to say something, anything, but no words came out. What could I say? I watched as the skin and muscle beneath his wand began to knit back together, slowly and painfully. I wanted nothing more than to reach down and itch my prickling flesh. We both stared apparently transfixed as the violent tear through my limb became nothing more than an angry red mark across my thigh. The itching still remained though and it took all of my will not to reach down and claw at the new layers of skin.

"It will take some weeks before full mobility returns to this leg, but it will be good as new," Dumbledore explained suddenly, giving me a fright as he turned to look me in the eye. I hadn't thought he knew I was awake. I didn't know what to say in response, but the relief must have shown on my face. Ever since I'd first fallen from the blow, I had not wanted to think of the possible permanence of the damage. "Your paralysis from the toxin on Voldemort's blade has been cleaned from your system," upon seeing my bewildered expression he retrieved a miniscule glass phial from inside his robe and held it up for you to see. "Not everyone is able to draw a tear from a phoenix, Miss Weasley, but Fawkes gave up three when he sensed your ailment. For a while there, we did not believe we had gotten to you in time," he continued. I felt a warmth of emotion spread through me at the thought of his beloved phoenix. I looked down at the slash in my chest and was a little surprised to see that the phoenix tear had not healed the wound itself. Once more, Dumbledore had the explanation ready.

"The blade was doubly cursed, Miss Weasley. It will not heal by magic or remedy. Only time will mend a wound of that sort. Lucky for us, it was not a mortal injury and now free of poison, will also heal." I was relieved as well by this news, but my expression turned to a flinch as the air was riddled with shrieks of pain from a young woman being tended to on the opposite end of the room. Dumbledore's eye's never left mine.

"What happened?" I asked softly, with hesitation. There was so much that I wanted to ask, but I had to fit it all into that one question. Where is my family? What happened to Harry? Is Voldemort alive or once and for all dead? Where is Tom? How am I still alive? These thoughts all raced through my head, but Dumbledore looked at me with complete understanding. Where is Remus?

"Voldemort has been destroyed, he has met his final end," Dumbledore began. "When you allowed the Avada Kedavra curse to consume you, do you know what happened, Miss Weasley?" I wasn't surprised at all that he knew it had been me that stayed Tom's hand at the last moment. I shook my head though in response to his question, I still couldn't comprehend what had happened next.

"Am I right to think that you can no longer feel Tom Riddle's presence inside yourself?" I didn't have to react for him to know this was so, but for some reason my eyes began to tear up and my lip trembled. I didn't trust myself to speak, so I nodded in confirmation. He looked on me with great sympathy and continued.

"When the curse approached, the piece of Tom Riddle that resided within your body tried in one last futile attempt to flee. Though his soul was now bound so closely to your own, he could not release himself. As his spirit was pulling as hard as it could away from your body, the killing curse struck, ripping him, eager to be gone, away from you. You very likely would have felt the actual moment when this happened." I remembered it, the feeling as if my mind had been torn into two. "As his essence was pulled away, it sent your own careening back into your body. Souls are very strongly attracted to their bodies, Miss Weasley, so at the moment when it was empty of Tom's extra presence, your spirit clung ever more tightly, being alone in its proper place for the first time in five years," Dumbledore paused for a long moment, giving me time to absorb what he was telling me. "When the bit of himself left in you was destroyed, Voldemort was greatly weakened; much to his absolute horror, you can imagine. Harry and he duelled very briefly until Harry gained the upper-hand and shot the final curse, ridding the world, at last of Lord Voldemort," he concluded and remained in a calm silence, waiting again for me to come to terms with all that had happened before I'd regained a consciousness. I felt a blazing pride for Harry having done it at last.

"I knew Harry would manage Voldemort once Tom and I were gone. There was no way I could have put it on him, or anyone to have to destroy Tom when Voldemort was defeated," I murmured, putting reason to my actions, mostly for myself. I looked back up and caught something I couldn't identify in his gaze. "Now that he's gone completely, you don't have to put it on yourself either," I added with a hitch in my voice as I tried not to look and sound too mortified at what Tom revealed my Headmaster had been planning on doing all along.

"What do you mean to say, Miss Weasley?" he asked with a steady voice, but there was still some caution lurking in those luminous blue eyes.

I had to swallow a few times before I could continue and elaborate. "Tom told me what you've been keeping from me. What you forbade Professor Snape and McGonagall from telling me that morning in your office." I had to look away once more as I didn't want my tears to fall. I was having a lot of trouble keeping my emotions from overflowing; it was hard for me to be talking about this. Albus Dumbledore and I may have had some trust issues this past year, but he was still a man I'd always revered. He was my leader and teacher since I was a little school girl. He was like a distant great-grandfather. To learn of his premeditation of my death for the greater good had hurt worse than any blade could cut, poisoned or not. The sacrifice was necessary, I understood that or I wouldn't have made it myself, but to have it so painstakingly kept from me... it was a betrayal.

"You believe that I was going to kill you," he exclaimed softly, with a deep pain in his voice. My eyes meant to simply flicker over his, but as I saw my own tears mirrored back in his eyes, my gaze was held. His entire face was weighed down with guilt and wretchedness. My throat started to ache as I held back the tide of grief that threatened to overtake me. "Ginevra, I am so sorry for everything you have gone through this past year, past five years. I can't begin to show you the remorse and shame I feel now over the decisions I have made. You we're right to loathe and criticize me for withholding my suspicions from you until this October. Again, your anger on the night of Halloween was also deserved as you discovered that once more I was keeping something from you. Whatever emotions or accusations you still have for me when I'm finished letting you in will be more than welcome, but for now please here me out," he gave a world-weary sigh after his plead and for the first time ever I began to see Dumbledore as an old man. It was sometimes easy to forget that Dumbledore had had to grow into the man he was now and had not simply arrived on earth, formidable and wise. I gave a quick sign to continue.

"Ginevra, whatever Tom Riddle had convinced you of, I assure you that I have never meant you harm, Tom or not. In October when I first became aware of how strong he'd gotten, thriving inside of you, I knew at once that he would begin searching for his other half, wanting to become one once more." I nodded in agreement, knowing from experience that this was true. "From what you told me, Tom believed Voldemort was searching him out, looking for a way to bring himself back together as a whole. When I found this out my withholding began once more. I knew immediately that Tom was mistaken. Voldemort did not want to rejoin with Tom Riddle. He despised that piece of himself more than any other on earth. He wanted to destroy it, going so far as to cut a piece of his very soul out of himself when he was a young man."

"You knew that Voldemort only wanted Tom and me to kill us? Why did you let him continue his belief? I don't understand," I admitted, suddenly feeling a renewed exhaustion take over my body. I couldn't remember the last time I'd eaten or slept. I wanted Remus back by my side. I wanted to go home. But all these wishes had to wait because I knew what Dumbledore was telling me weighed as heavily on his heart as it did on mine.

"How did Tom react when he finally found out the truth?" he inquired, thought I suspected he already knew.

"I've never felt such rage," I admitted freely, "All he wanted was vengeance, to end Voldemort once and for all." I began to understand what Dumbledore was trying to tell me. "You knew he would want retribution."

Dumbledore stared at me frankly, reaching up to adjust his half-moon spectacles. "Ginevra, I knew that when Tom learned of Voldemort's intentions, he would grow powerful with a lust for retribution. I knew that he would be able to exert his control over your body once again as he had in your first year and he would seek out his other half. It was my belief then that Tom would be subdued with the knowledge that his own other half would be searching him out. Remaining impassive inside of you, he would be leaving you under my protection within the school. I grossly underestimated Voldemort's longing to be rid of this last shred of Tom Riddle. I did not expect him to make his move so soon, especially not under so many watchful eyes on the Hogwarts Express. The greatest fault here lies in my own misjudgement," he concluded humbly, looking to me for a reaction. Perhaps forgiveness. It all made sense and I did not have it in me to doubt his words. I felt ashamed again at how easily I'd allowed myself to mistrust those who tried to protect me.

There was a flurry of activity going on behind Dumbledore's shoulder and I had to concentrate with every fibre of my being to push the moans and wails of pain from fallen combatants to the background of my mind.

"The spy in the school," I exclaimed suddenly, having forgotten through all the distractions, "it was Stephen Claude. He made to show me a gift for Hermione, but it was a Portkey bracelet."I remembered the moment with shame; I had been so easily taken in by his falsehood. I didn't know how much they already knew, but I figured Snape must have had some idea about what had happened or they wouldn't have been here in time to save my sorry self. I was amazed again to see the deep expression of sorrow covering his face.

"Yes, we found out what had happened as soon as the both of you left the train. There are wards on board that sound an alert upon any unexpected passenger boarding or departing. Claude must have been aware of these because he did not dare risk attempting to Portkey back onto the train after his task had been completed." I thought about this for a long time. I knew that I wanted to see him again, talk to him face to face. I had a strong need to understand why he'd done what he did. Why...

"Ginevra, I do not believe there is a single soul on Earth who would be able to make clear Stephen Claude's motivation," he interjected, as if having read my thoughts. I realized that he must have done so, but did not have it in me to care at the moment for these were not thoughts I cared to make private and I knew that Dumbledore understood that. "The part of him that carried out these actions against you was buried deep inside, somewhere he kept apart from the rest of himself in a place no person could reach. Not even his closest friends, or his Head of House or even I would have been able to breech that dark, secret corner," he finished remorsefully. I recognized the pain that he felt. Dumbledore believed in the inherit goodness of every individual and no person could ever deny the love Albus Dumbledore held for his students. It was a great blow to the man, especially from a student he so clearly believed in and trusted. It was, after all, his decision to appoint Stephen as Head Boy above all other students in their final year.

"Where is he now?" I asked quietly, wondering what would happen to the boy.

I was able to read the words in his eyes before he even spoke them. "His body was found amongst the dead." I had to bite my lip to stop the tears from falling for the boy I thought I knew who never really existed. But my pain would be nothing compared to those of others.

"Does Hermione know?"

"Yes, she had taken in the knowledge with great difficulty but your brother has been a great comfort and friend for her these past few days." We shared a brief knowing smile that lasted but a moment.

"What of my family, are they... are they alright?"

"They are well and dearly wishing to see you, but I have asked them to give me a few moments with you so that I would be able to answer any questions you have and heal your wounds." I let out the breath I didn't know I'd been holding. "But your brother George," he continued and my heart nearly stopped. What happened to him! "He suffered from a cutting curse and lost an ear." I felt sick.

"Is he...?"

"Otherwise, he is fine. In fact, of your whole family, he seems the least concerned by his injury. He thought your mother would be pleased for now she will be able to tell him apart from Fred." I had to smile, he's going to be alright. We all are. It was almost a shock just thinking those words.

"Professor?" I began, hesitating for a moment. He looked at me inquisitively but I sensed he knew what I wanted to ask. "Where is Remus?"

Albus Dumbledore sighed.

TBC

Author's note: Well hey there. I know that was a lot of dialogue to read, but it all had to be said eventually! I hope you liked this one and it clears stuff up for you guys! Thanks so much for all the reviews, it's getting to be the end of the story, I can only imagine maybe one more chapter. Love you all! Please be kind, lovely people and tell me what you think! Until next time, folks!