Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter.
Chapter 38
A lot happened over the next few days at Hogwarts.
With everyone finding out the murder of Albus Dumbledore, everyone was in a complete panic. A large majority of students were taken away from the castle by their parents in fear that they were in danger, and I couldn't really blame them for doing that. In the back of my mind, I noted that our parents probably would have done the same with us if they were still alive. Then again, things might have been incredibly different if they were still alive.
Madame Pomfrey only kept me overnight and Neville was released from there soon afterwards. Bill was the only person that remained in the hospital wing for an extended period of time, but he seemed to be recovering despite his injuries. With Bill remaining in the castle, Fleur and the rest of the Weasleys stuck around for the most part as well. In fact, they were not the only guests that the castle had around this time.
The Ministry of Magic, now fully aware of what happened at the castle, was now more panicked than anyone else about the situation. Paranoia seemed to be spreading like a disease as everyone kept a lookout for any signs of further attacks from the Death Eaters.
Just as I suspected, there was no sign of Snape anywhere.
"He's going to stay hidden," Hermione said as she flipped through the Daily Prophet. "I doubt that we'll see much of him after what he's done."
"Of course that murderous traitor is staying out of sight," Ron scoffed. "He knows damn well that he is on everyone's hit list right now."
Even with what happened, there was still a small part of me that cringed whenever someone spoke poorly of him. Maybe it was just so engrained in my mind that it became a force of habit to want to defend every action he made. I guess it was just going to have to take some adjusting on my part to realize that I couldn't do that anymore.
"Did I ever tell you all that I found an article about his mother?" Hermione asked.
"Whose mother?" Harry asked.
"Snape's," she answered. "Her name was Eileen Prince and she married a Muggle named Tobias Snape. That's why Snape called himself the Half-Blood Prince – he must not have wanted to claim his father's side."
"Yeah, wouldn't want his master to know that he's part Muggle now, would he," Ron muttered.
With that, I stepped up from the table that we were sitting at and walked away. I just couldn't listen to it anymore. It was driving me mad and there wasn't anything that I could do about it. I just wasn't ready to hear what they had to say about him – it was almost like they were rubbing it in my face that I had been wrong and lied to all of this time.
Instead of listening to them, I decided to go take a walk around the school to clear my mind. Part of me crumbled inside when I realized that I wouldn't be running into Snape this time to talk. We wouldn't ever have that happen again because of what he had done. All those talks we had in the hallway seemed to flash before my eyes and my heart sank when I realized that it was all an act.
But why?
Why did Snape go through all of those unnecessary motions with me? Was it to gain my trust like he did with Dumbledore? I guess the more people he had on his side, the less suspicious he would look to everyone else. Or maybe he was just trying to collect information about us to tell Voldemort and I had fallen for his trap.
It didn't seem like a trap then. All of those talks we had seemed to have meaning and he really seemed to care about helping me through everything. He genuinely made me feel comfortable in everything that I did and he was always there for me when I needed help. He made me feel like I had someone that I could count on when nothing else in the world made since and guide me through all of the mess that was laying in front of me.
Snape made me feel like I had a father.
Now, it was all ripped away from me. There was nothing there – no one to count on when I needed help. I had Harry and all of my friends, but it just wasn't the same.
"Emily?"
I looked over and saw George walking over toward me from a corridor that I had just passed by. It really wasn't that I didn't want to talk to him, but just needed some time to clear my mind before I could regain my sanity enough to have a decent conversation with anyone. I guess for now I would just have to keep a happy face on to hide what was really going on in my mind.
"Hey," I said with a forced smile. "How's Bill doing?"
"Better," he told me as he walked next to me. "Madame Pomfrey said that the scars are going to be permanent, but he'll be okay."
"Has he woken up yet?" I asked.
"Yeah, but it wasn't for that long," he said. "He was told that he needs to keep resting and taking more potions so he can heal faster."
I nodded and figured that was how it was going to be. Honestly, Bill was lucky to have made it out of that alive. Those wounds were pretty bad and would probably take a good while to get over the pain from the attack.
George and I were silent for a little while as we walked casually by the painting that all seemed to be quieter than usual. I guess that they, like most of the people in the castle, were in shock and were mourning the loss of our headmaster.
"How are you doing?" he asked cautiously, as if fearing that I would break down on the spot.
"I'm fine," I said, obviously lying.
"You aren't," he said. "I heard about what happened, Emily – you saw everything happen."
"What exactly is it that you want me to tell you?" I asked, sounding somewhat bitter. "That it hurt me? Of course it did – that doesn't mean that I want to continue to retell the story to every single person in this castle."
"That isn't what I was asking," he said.
For a minute, I felt bad that I snapped on him like that, but I just didn't want to have to say everything that I was feeling again. It wasn't like he didn't know that all of this hurt me more than anything else – he saw me on the field, he shouldn't need to ask.
"I know how much you cared about Snape," he said. "And I just wanted to know if you needed to talk to someone about it."
"What is there to say?" I asked. "I was wrong about trusting him, you all were right – he was a traitor that was using all of us."
"There's something that's confusing me about it all though," he said, sounding a bit skeptical.
"Everyone's confused," I said.
"No, it's not about that – it's about you," George said.
That caught me off guard and I just looked at him like he had a third eye.
"What are you talking about?" I asked.
"I don't think that he was acting with you," George said. "He really cared about you – he wasn't lying."
"Yes he was," I said firmly. "He was just trying to make himself look less suspicious by befriending me – that was it."
"I just don't know," he said. "You were different to him, I could tell."
"Why are you telling me this?" I asked irritably. "Are you trying to make me feel worse?"
"No, I just don't want you to think that you were being used," he said. "Or that all of it was a lie – "
"It was a lie, George!" I snapped. "How could he possibly have cared about me and then go off and do something like that – Snape never gave a damn about me!"
George just looked at me with a mixture of sympathy and confusion on his face. It took a lot of restraint to not continue to scream at him for what he was doing right now, but I kept my mouth shut in order to stop myself from saying something that I didn't want to.
"I'm sorry, Emily," he said. "I didn't mean to make you upset."
I didn't respond. There was nothing that I wanted to say and I wasn't sure if it was because I was upset or that I just didn't want to continue the conversation. It was probably both to be honest.
"Can we change the subject?" he asked awkwardly.
"Please," I said.
"What are you going to do next year?" he asked.
Of course that was what he would bring up – just another thing that I didn't really want to talk about at the moment. Honestly, I wasn't even sure what I wanted to talk about, but I knew that if he figured out what Harry and I were planning then he would just get angry or disagree with us. I didn't need him to hold me back.
I was silent long enough for him to make assumptions of his own.
"You aren't coming back here, are you?" he asked.
"No," I answered. "Harry and I are leaving – we can't stay here."
"Where are you going?" he asked.
"I don't really know," I said honestly. "We just have to take care of some things."
"He's going to come looking for you," he said. "You know that, right?"
"Of course we know that," I said. "That's why we can't be at Hogwarts – we have to start moving as soon as we can."
He nodded and the next words that came out of his mouth made my heart practically stop in my chest. I should have expected it to come, but it caught me off guard.
"Let me come with you," he said.
"W-what?" I asked.
He repeated himself and I just looked forward. There was a part of me that wanted to immediately say yes, but I knew better than that. It wasn't necessarily that I didn't want to be around him, because I did. More than anything, but it wasn't that easy. Having George with me would make things too complicated. If we were to be found by Voldemort, then he would know that he could get anything out of me as long as George was there – there wasn't a doubt in my mind that he knew all about our past.
It would hurt me too much to have George with us.
"I already know you're going to say no," he spoke up after my silence.
"Don't be angry with me," I said quietly. "I just don't want you to get hurt."
"But it doesn't matter if you get hurt?" he asked angrily.
"No, it doesn't," I said firmly.
"How can you say that?" he said heatedly. "Don't you realize what you mean to everyone – what you mean to me?"
"That's not what I'm saying," I said. "But this isn't your battle to fight."
"It's not just yours either," he pointed out. "Everyone is going to be effected now that You-Know-Who is back – not just you."
"I know," I said. "And that's why Harry and I have to do this. We're trying to put an end through this."
"So why can't I come with you?" he asked. "Why does it have to be just you two?"
"It's because Voldemort knows you're too important to me," I said. "If he were to find us, he would torture and kill you just because you are associated with me."
"You think staying here will change that?" George asked. "He'll still find me here and kill me anyway."
"That's not true," I said. "There are more people here to protect you – people who are more experienced at keeping themselves protected. We're going to be a target and he'll come directly for us."
"Which means that you'll need more people to help you," George said.
I just looked at him and wanted to cry. He wanted so badly to be with me and I just knew that there was nothing he could do to change my mind. There was no way that I could rest a single day knowing that he could be killed off because of me.
Without another thought, I slowed down to the point that we were walking and forward and pulled him toward me and kissed him on the lips. For a moment, he seemed so stunned by the action that he was frozen, but then he wrapped his arms around me and held onto me tightly. The kiss didn't last long before I pulled away and had to look down at the ground to avoid meeting his eyes.
"I'm sorry," I whispered.
"I know," he said. "I just don't want anything bad to happen to you."
"I know that," I replied. "But put yourself in my shoes…would you let me come with you?"
He didn't have to speak up for me to know his answer. If George were the one that was going off looking for Horcruxes, then there would be no way that he would let me go with him. It would be too dangerous. And that was exactly why I couldn't let him come with me.
Dumbledore's funeral was the next morning. So many people were crowded in and around the castle before it started and it was nearly impossible to navigate toward the door to get toward the area where the funeral was being performed.
To grant the wishes of Dumbledore, he was going to be buried on the castle grounds just around the Black Lake. That was where the majority of the people were going to be making there way moments from now. It was still somewhat early to walk out toward the service, but we felt that it would be in our best interest to linger around the area so we wouldn't have to push through the crowds in the castle. Harry, Hermione, Ron, and I all found an unoccupied area around a tree next to the Lake where we could stand by for the time being.
"Can you believe that Crabbe and Goyle are here?" Ron scoffed.
When I looked over to where he pointed, I was almost shocked at how out of place they appeared without Draco standing in between them. It was almost as if I had forgotten that they were individuals without him because of how often I saw them together. In fact, it was so rare to see them not following around in Draco's footsteps.
"I wonder if they had anything to do with it," Harry spoke quietly.
"It's hard to tell," Hermione. "They probably knew what Malfoy was planning, but I doubt that they actually helped with the process all that much."
It wasn't like I knew Crabbe or Goyle that well, but I couldn't imagine that they were really involved with the Death Eater's plans. Something about their demeanor suggested that they weren't the kind of people that would be capable of carrying out a plan like that. As usual, they were probably just following Draco around while he did all of the real work.
"I still can't believe that it was Malfoy that let them in," Hermione said softly.
"He didn't want to," I spoke without realizing it.
All of their eyes went to me with questioning looks. Maybe it was the way that I said it that suggested that this wasn't just an assumption.
"Do you really believe that?" Harry asked, sounding genuinely curious.
"Draco spoke to me earlier this year," I said while hanging my head. "He was upset about something, but I didn't know exactly what it was. All he told me was that there was something that he was being forced to do that he didn't want to be involved in, but there was nothing he could do to change it."
"Wait – Malfoy told you this?" Hermione asked in shock.
"I didn't know that this was what it was," I said. "But I know that going after Dumbledore wasn't his own choice."
"Why didn't you tell us this before?" Harry asked, sounding somewhat irritated.
"Would it have made a difference?" I asked. "How could I have possibly have guessed that it was something like this?"
They didn't have enough time to answer before we were signaled to join the rest of the congregation to start Dumbledore's service, but I knew that they would have said. It wouldn't have made that much of a difference if I had told them anyway, but it didn't matter anymore.
All of it was done and nothing could be taken back.
We found decent seats for the service and it didn't start long after everyone found their seats. Just before a man stood up to start the service, I looked around and saw all of the people that gathered together to pay their respects. I thought that there had been a lot of people in the castle before, but it was nothing in comparison to this. People came from all over the world to be at Albus Dumbledore's funeral.
When the man stepped up in front of Dumbledore's large white tomb in front of the Black Lake, everyone in the congregation went silent. It might have been disrespectful, but I found it difficult to listen to the speech that this man prepared. Instead, I found myself recalling every memory of this man that we were visiting today.
The first time I saw him was when he sat behind the high table in the Great Hall. At the time, I just thought that he was a man with a huge, white beard that looked like the most innocent man to walk this world. That was it. I didn't even consider how significant he was – I didn't realize how many lives he had touched.
Now he was about to be buried six feet under and I felt so lost. He had led us all so far and now we sat here not knowing what we were going to do next. All of this because he trusted the wrong person…
The service didn't last as long as I thought it would. When it was finished, everyone stepped up out of their chairs and slowly began to walk around to speak to some of the other members of the congregation.
While Harry went over to talk to Ginny alone, I stepped off to the side and walked over to a vacant area to wait for him. As I expected, my solitude did not last long as Neville walked over to me and stood next to me as we waited for the others to join us.
"Do you think they'll keep Hogwarts open?" Neville asked me after a moment.
"It doesn't make any difference to me," I said quietly.
Neville looked at me curiously, but he must have known that this was going to be coming around eventually. He knew what Harry and I had to do if anyone had a chance – it was all part of the prophecy.
"You're going to go looking for the Horcruxes, aren't you?" he asked.
"Harry and I have already talked about it," I told him. "We aren't coming back to Hogwarts next year and we're going to continue what Dumbledore started. We're going to try to put an end to this."
"You don't even know where to start," he said. "You told me that yourself."
"We have an idea," I said. "And that's all we'll need. We know that Voldemort is going to be coming after us soon and we can't just sit around and let him burn the world."
There was a moment of silence between us, but I knew that both of our minds were racing with what was to come.
"I'm coming with you," Neville said.
That caught me by surprise and it took me a minute to actually be able to respond.
"You can't," I said. "This is a job for Harry and me – we don't need to put anyone else in danger."
"So you think that staying here at Hogwarts is going to be that much safer?" he scoffed.
He had a point. I knew that being at Hogwarts was going to be horrible if it remained open next year. With Dumbledore gone, it was only a matter of time before Voldemort took over there and made everyone's lives a living hell. As much as I wanted to stay there and protect my home, I knew that the only chance of really being free from Voldemort was to find the Horcruxes. In order to do that, I couldn't be at Hogwarts where he was expecting me to be.
"Emily, you're my best friend," Neville said. "I'm with you no matter how dangerous this will be for me."
"What about Gran?" I asked him. "You can't just leave her here."
"Gran?" he laughed. "I would love to see the Death Eaters try to get a hold of her."
It was true that Gran had the appearance of a frail, old woman, but I know that I wouldn't want to be on her bad side. There wasn't a doubt in my mind that Mrs. Longbottom would fine, but I had my own questions about Neville.
"Emily, I want to help," he said. "Look what happened to my parents because of him – I need to do this for them. It's what they would have done."
That was it. That's what made him different than George – he had motivation to take down Voldemort. It wasn't that George didn't want to destroy Voldemort, but he didn't have a personal reason to want to go after him like Neville did. This prophecy affected Neville as much as it did us. His parents might not have been killed, but their condition wasn't any better than death.
"I can't convince you otherwise, can I?" I asked.
"I'm glad we have an understanding," he nodded.
It wasn't long before Harry, Ron, and Hermione caught up with us. Judging by the look on Harry's face, I had a feeling that he just had the same conversation with Ginny that I had with George the night before. There was no telling how she took it because I wasn't there, but I could imagine that her reaction wasn't all that different than her brother's had been.
"So I guess this is it," Hermione said.
"What do you mean?" I asked her.
"Hogwarts," Ron continued her thought. "It'll be the last time we see it for a while."
"You think it will be closed next year?" Harry asked.
"It won't make any difference," Ron said.
"We're not going back either way," Hermione smiled at us.
Harry and I just looked at them without the ability to respond. What had gotten into all of our friends? Were they all trying to get themselves killed?
"But – " I started.
"Save it," Ron said.
"We're all going," Neville smiled.
"And there isn't anything you can do to stop us," Hermione added.
Harry raised his eyebrows and looked at me. At this point, I wasn't sure if I should start to talk them out of it or be slightly amused by how confident they were with what they were saying.
"How long have you three been talking about this?" I asked, suddenly realizing something.
"We all knew that you two were going to run off eventually," Neville said.
"And we knew that we weren't going to let you do it alone," Ron said.
"So don't try and tell us how dangerous it's going to be," Hermione said. "We already know and we don't care. We're going to be there for you no matter what."
"You all are mad, you know that?" I said.
"Of course," Ron said. "And that's why we know that you can't stop us."
As much as I wanted to tell them that they had to stay behind and stay safe, I knew that they were the most stubborn group of people that I've ever met. And that's why they are my best friends.
We didn't say much more as we made our way back to the castle and grabbed our things before going to board the train to make our way back to Kings Cross Station. It was the last time that we rode the train to Platform 9 ¾ back to meet the Dursleys and I wanted more than anything for it to never end.
On the way back, I thought about this time last year. We had just lost Sirius and I didn't think anything would ever get worse than that. This year I lost Dumbledore and the faith that I had in someone that I thought I could trust.
All I could think of as I stepped onto Platform 9 ¾ was who I was going to lose next year and how much it was going to hurt me when it happened.
But for now, I was just going to have to make it through the summer and focus on finding the Horcruxes when the time came around.
Then maybe – just maybe – Harry and I would make it out of this alive.
Thanks for reading! I hope that you all enjoyed reading this book as much as I enjoyed writing it and I hope that you will continue reading with The Potter Twins and the Deathly Hallows.
- GryffindorGirl347