The Final Battle: Part Two

Ginny brushed the tears out of her eyes and wiped her cheeks on her sleeve. "We've got forty-five minutes to determine the best plan of action," she deadpanned.

"It's already decided," sniffed Hermione. "Harry's got to give himself up."

"What?" Ginny looked up sharply. "No!"

"I have to, Ginny," said Harry. "People are just going to keep dying. I can't let more people die for me."

"They aren't dying for you, you big idiot," seethed Ginny. "They're dying so that we can have a better life. So that we won't have to keep dying. If you give yourself up—"

"You don't get it, Gin," said Harry, standing up. "I'm the last horcrux."

"But that means—"

"Yes. I have to destroy myself."

Ginny opened her mouth as if to argue but was shushed by Hermione. "It's no use. We can't kill You-Know-Who until all the horcruxes are destroyed. And if Harry is a horcrux, then You-Know-Who can't be killed until Harry is destroyed."

"But if Harry is destroyed, who's going to kill Voldemort?"

"You've got to trust me on this one, Ginny," said Harry. "I don't know how, but we are going to kill him." He looked around at the sorry crew surrounding the bodies of dead loved ones. "We have to. For Fred and for Lupin."

Ginny grabbed Fred's limp hand. "I'll back you up, Harry. What do you need me to do?"

"Make sure that Nagini gets killed before I get to the forest."

"How much time do we have?"

"Forty minutes. But you better do it within half an hour."

Ginny nodded. She placed Fred's hand neatly over his heart and offered her now empty hand to Hermione. She offered her other hand to Ron, who shook his head. "I'm staying with Harry on this one."

"We need to draw their fire," said Ginny, collecting students from throughout the hall to join her in her current mission. "They may have declared a ceasefire, but I'm sure if we go out there and start attacking, we'll get their attention. With any luck, Voldemort will send Nagini—that's the snake—to investigate and we can just kill her right away."

Ten students looked back at Ginny and nodded.

"We have to do this so…" Ginny chocked. "So that Harry can finish it."

The group strode out onto the grounds.

"Where's Draco?" Hermione asked Ginny under her breath.

Ginny shook her head.

Hermione knew better than to press the issue. If Ginny thought that she'd already lost everything, she wouldn't hesitate to fight to the death. Hermione didn't want to be responsible for pushing her over the edge.

There were still Death Eaters on the grounds, collecting the bodies of their dead. Ignoring the ceasefire and all of her morals, Ginny attacked the nearest one. A dead body fell out of his arms as he gave a shout and fell to the ground, blood streaming out of his back. The cry gathered the attention of others on the field, who immediately stopped what they were doing and ran towards the commotion, wands already firing spells at the Hogwarts students. There was no sign of a great snake. Ginny motioned for Neville and Luna to sneak around the perimeter and try to find the snake on their own.

A man who must have been part giant caught Ginny off-guard in that he didn't attack her with magic. Instead, he had crouched low and tackled her rugby style. She went flying and landed hard on the ground, wand just out of reach of her outstretched arm. The man was advancing. He was at least seven feet tall and seemed to be made purely of muscle. She could see the ripples in his arms as he clenched his fists, ready to knock her teeth out and break her nose. Ginny waited until he was within reach and then kicked with all of her strength. Ginny grinned. A man is a man, and can always be brought down without magic. She rolled to her side, dodging a stray spell, and grabbed her wand. She looked down at the whimpering form. "Sectumsempra."

Ginny looked around wildly. Her companions were all locked in battle with various Death Eaters or werewolves or giants, but there was no sign of a giant snake and neither was there a sign of Luna or Neville. Ginny whirled back around. Someone had screamed! She ran to the nearest battle and joined Parvati in battling a particularly ferocious werewolf. No sooner would one of them launch a spell than the werewolf would dispel it and lunge at them with one of his own. Ginny found it almost mindless, launching and shielding, over and over again. Her mind began to wander.

She saw her opponent, but she wasn't really seeing him. She felt the whoosh of the spells as they flew past her face, but she didn't really feel them. She tried to push the battle into the forefront of her mind, but something else kept taking its place: Draco. Where could he possibly be? Voldemort wasn't one to take captives, though he might make exception for a traitor and torture him until he died after the battle. Ginny pictured Draco's body, limp, covered in blood and pus, lying on the floor of the stone dungeon while Voldemort laughed over it. She pictured Draco trying to be brave, not making a sound when Voldemort inflicted pain…

"GINNY!"

Parvati's voice brought her out of her reverie. Ginny had less than a second to register the red light flying at her chest. There was no time to raise her wand or to jump out of the way. Ginny stared at the speeding jet of light. She blinked. Everything went black.

She was speeding through a jet black tunnel. She couldn't breathe. She opened her mouth and gulped, receiving no air in return. Her lungs were burning. She flailed out her arms, trying to get out of the tunnel. She just wanted to know where she was. She wanted to stop burning. Ginny closed her eyes only to see the same tunnel in her mind. Her body was shooting through the tunnel, spiraling out of control. She tried to open her eyes, but they felt as if they'd been pinned shut.

Slowly, Ginny realized that she wasn't dead. She could, in fact, breathe. Her lungs were burning. Her body felt heavy, but she could just barely feel the grass beneath her fingers. Her eyes still didn't want to open, so Ginny tried to make do with her other four senses. The grass told her that she was still laying on the Hogwarts grounds, probably left for dead. She took a shallow breath. Fire. Something was on fire. She thought fleetingly of Draig. She twitched her fingers and toes. Good, she wasn't paralyzed. She tried to sit up, but her shoulder was immediately pushed back down.

She felt a hand on her neck and a voice hissed into her ears. "Don't move. You're better off playing dead."

Ginny concentrated on taking the shallowest, slowest breaths possible. If she was to be dead, she certainly shouldn't show any movement.

"She's dead, my lord," said the woman, removing her hand from Ginny's neck and walking away from the body.

"Good. Have you received any word of your son?" asked the Dark Lord.

Ginny held her breath.

"We have not yet found his body, my lord."

"The traitors must die," said Voldemort. "Come along, Narcissa. I want to find the person who killed Nagini. She was a favorite of mine."

Ginny felt the footsteps fade away and breathed a quiet sigh of relief. Nagini had been killed and Draco wasn't confirmed dead. These were two very good pieces of news. Now, if only she knew when it would be safe for her to sit up. She listened to the sounds of battle all around her and tried to pick out individual voices. She could hear Bill somewhere off to her right, and she thought she could hear Hermione and…Blaise Zabini.

She heard the cries of "avada kedavra" and "sectumsempra" much more often than she heard "protego." She couldn't tell if and who was dying, if the Order was making any progress, or whether Harry had sacrificed himself yet. The voice she wanted to hear more than anything seemed to be the one voice that wasn't making any sound.

The cries and shouts of battle quickly turned to terrified screams, "Run!" and "Get out of its way!"

She felt the ground shake as people ran past her in all directions, no one stopping to take notice that she was there. Ginny heard a giant roar and felt the hot wind that occurs when fire is projected into the air as Draig joined the fight, and tried to suppress a smile. A smiling "corpse" would be a little suspicious. She hoped that the dragon had enough sense to avoid setting her on fire. A premature cremation was not something that she had any desire to experience. She giggled and unconsciously slapped a hand over her mouth to stop herself from being heard.

Well, so much for playing dead, she thought. Ginny gently propped herself up on her arms and opened her eyes. She was greeted by the tear-stricken face of Ron. She grinned.

Ron opened his mouth and placed a hand over his heart. "Th…the…they said you were dead!" he gasped.

"You can't believe everything you hear, Ron," said Ginny, holding out a hand.

Ron helped her stand up. He stared at her for a few seconds before enveloping her in a giant hug. "I saw your body…and I just thought…I mean…Mum and Dad."

Ginny patted him awkwardly on the back. "Don't worry about me," she mumbled. "I'm always alright." She looked around at the grounds while Ron clung to her. Draig seemed to have set the entire Forbidden Forest on fire and was chasing Death Eaters out of the Hogwarts gates with bursts of flame. The sky was black, lit only by the flames licking up the trees of the forest. The eerie light played with the shadows on the ground, highlighting the unmoving bodies and making them appear grotesque. She disentangled herself from Ron's arms. "Is it over?" she asked. "Where's Harry?"

"I don't know. Everyone ran off. There was a big commotion in the forest, but I don't know what happened. We wanted to take advantage of the lull in fighting to collect the bodies of our dead. That's when I found you…" he trailed off.

"Have you seen Draco?" Ginny asked, not sure if she wanted to know the answer.

Ron shook his head. "I haven't even seen Hermione." He looked around worriedly.

Ginny frowned. "Let's do what you were sent out here for in the first place." She put all thoughts of Draco out of her mind. If what Narcissa said was true, then Voldemort hadn't found his body yet. If Voldemort hadn't found it, then that meant that Draco was still alive.

She and Ron set off for the nearest dark mass on the grounds. It was a Hufflepuff student whom Ginny didn't recognize. She grabbed the legs while Ron grabbed the arms and they set of for the door to the castle. Before they'd made it ten steps, Ginny dropped the student's legs.

"Oy!" shouted Ron.

Ginny's face was pale white. She gripped her wrist and sunk to her knees, moaning.

"What is it?" asked Ron, putting the student fully on the ground and running back to Ginny.

Ginny moaned in pain.

A green light shot out from the flames in the Forbidden Forest.

Ginny muttered a single word, "Gone."

Ron kneeled next to her in concern. "What's gone? Harry?" He cradled her head in his lap, keeping his eyes turned to the Forbidden Forest. He ran his fingers through Ginny's hair, trying to soothe her moans of pain, all the while watching to see which figure would emerge from the forest.

"No, you idiot," Ginny mumbled. She lifted her head and took her hand off her wrist. When there used to be a large, black tattoo was now a missing chunk of skin. He wound on her arm was bleeding and gaping, but there was no Dark Mark.

Ron's eyes widened. Not being particularly good with healing charms, he ripped a piece of his shirt and tied it around Ginny's arm. "He did it," Ron murmured in wonder.

"We knew that he would," said Ginny, still pale.

Ron helped her stand up and hand in hand they walked back into the castle, hearts slightly lighter than they'd ever felt before.

I hope you enjoyed this chapter-sorry for the delay. Please review and let me know what you thought!