I'm really sorry this took so long . It wasn't because of the reviews, even though 17 reviews to over 100 hits isn't that much… My other computer, on which I wrote this, crashed, so I couldn't post this part. This wasn't really my fault…
There's some more notes at the end.
Just wanted to say I'm sorry.
Professor McGonagall looked out through a window. She saw the fellowship walk towards the castle. She hurried to the Entrance Hall, where curious students were already gathering, eager to know what had happened. "Everyone, go to your Common Rooms! You'll get more information then from the heads of your Houses!" she said. She then magically magnified her voice, and repeated the sentence. The words echoed in every corner of the school, but the students in the Entrance Hall didn't move. She clapped her hands. "Now, please!" Slowly, the crowd started to move. Professor McGonagall stepped out and closed the doors behind her. She saw four men, four litter carriers. There was someone lying on the litter. Behind them came three smaller figures, walking slowly in the snowfall. Last came a body (corpse?) flowing in mid-air.
It took a few seconds, before Professor McGonagall realized whom she saw. She saw what she had feared to see in five years, since the son of her two favorite students, James Potter and Lily Evans (Professor McGonagall had always trouble remembering that Lily had taken her husbands name) had arrived to Hogwarts. The body on the stretcher was Harry Potter. His expression was peaceful, his eyes closed, and his hands clasped on his chest. He was dead.
Professor McGonagall fought to keep her feelings in check. She could cry later, right now she would have to know what had happened and take care of the survivors, and find a way to inform her House about this.
She turned her attention towards the four men, she wasn't sure if she could look at the body of Harry Potter any longer without bursting into tears.
The men were Dumbledore, Sirius Black, Remus Lupin and Severus Snape.
She trusted Dumbledore, but this was a bit too much. "Sirius Black?" she said out loud. How on earth could Dumbledore have Sirius Black, the murderer of James and Lily, carrying Harry Potter's body? Furiously she opened her mouth, but couldn't think of anything she could say.
Dumbledore raised his free hand. Professor McGonagall shut her mouth, both because of Dumbledore's gesture and the look on Sirius' face. It was sadness, deeper and more unbearable grief that she had ever seen in anyone's expression. Dumbledore started to talk.
"Yes, Minerva, it's him. Fourteen years ago he was falsely accused for being a Death-Eater and sent to Azkaban, from where he escaped two year ago, and has been in hiding since. Could you please open the door?"
Stunned, Professor McGonagall obeyed. Sirius Black, innocent? Falsely accused? "But what…?" she started.
"We're on our way to the hospital wing, Minerva," Dumbledore said. "If you could please follow us? I will explain it to you soon. First, go and get Professors Sprout and Flitwick."
Professor McGonagall obeyed.
***
Cho Chang was lying on her bed, eyes closed. She pretended to be asleep. She didn't want any questions or any visitors. She had drawn the hangings in front of her four-poster. The room was too big, too bright. It was the largest of the rooms in the hospital wing. Cho would have preferred something smaller.
Cho heard the door open. She opened her eyes, and saw through the hangings the figures of first four, and then three more people. The first four seemed to be carrying on something heavy.
Cho's curiosity took the best of her. She sat up and peered through the hangings.
Cho saw three backs that screened the thing they had been carrying on from view. One of the backs she recognized immediately, it belonged to Professor Snape, and another strongly resembled her of someone she should know… Professor Lupin? Could it be him? What was he doing here? The third back seemed to belong to a fairly young man with black hair. Somehow, it felt kind of familiar, too.
Professor Dumbledore was standing on the opposite side. He gave Cho's four-poster a sharp look, and she drew her face away from the hangings. Soon again, she found herself spying on the scene, though.
The other three people were Ron, Hermione and Parvati. Cho felt happy for Padma's sake, but she also felt fear for Harry. Something dark and icy seemed to be holding her heart in a firm grip.
Professors McGonagall, Flitwick and Sprout entered the room.
"Ron, Parvati, your siblings are waiting to see you…" started Professor McGonagall, but Dumbledore shook his head. "Wait!" he said heavily. His eyes were sad. "I'd like you to stay here until we know exactly what happened. Sirius, could you tell us?"
Cho stifled a cry of amazement. Sirius Black? It couldn't be! And yet it was… She now realized why he had seemed so familiar.
Sirius started to talk. His voice was deep but quiet, and something in it made Cho just want to cry. Never before had she felt such sadness, it was like Sirius had lost something that he had loved very deeply.
"When I arrived to the cabin," Sirius began, "I must admit that I was angry with them. All of them, especially Harry. I had been so worried, and then, then he was, in perfect health [Cho felt her hopes rising] and didn't seem to understand that he was in any sort of danger. I wasted time on unimportant questions when I should have led them to safety. I'm so sorry…" His voice broke, and he put a hand in front of his eyes. Hermione walked to him.
"We shouldn't have been there," she whispered, with tears in her eyes. "It was our fault. I'm sorry, Sirius." She walked over to him, and laid a comforting hand on his shoulder. He didn't say anything, but hugged her tightly. Cho didn't know what to think. Where was Harry? And why was Hermione comforting a murderer?
"I stunned You-Know-Who, but I didn't think about his powers. He threw of the curse. Potter realized it in time…" Professor Snape said. Again Cho's hopes rose. "At least in time to move in front of Miss Patil and to save her life." he continued. Parvati began to sob quietly. Cho started to put together two and two. Parvati crying, the thing the four men had carried, Harry moving in front of…
"I should have thought of it," Professor Snape blamed himself. "I should have known…"
Dumbledore looked at each of them. "Do I understand this correctly?" he asked. "You, Severus, stunned Voldemort. He then threw of the curse, and tried to attack Parvati. Harry flung himself in front of her to protect her?"
Ron started to speak. He spoke like he was in a dream, his voice sounded like it was telling about something that had happened to someone else, somewhere else.
"He threw the Imperius Curse on all of us. Harry threw it of immediately. He then flung himself in front of Parvati, almost like he had known whom You-Know-Who would try to kill first. At the same time You-Know-Who shouted Avada Kedavra [Cho felt uneasy, and she saw Professor McGonagall, Professor Sprout and Professor Flitwick flinch at the words.] and then Harry fell to the ground and then Voldemort fell."
"I see," Dumbledore said. He walked to another room, and came back with two wands. "Thirteen and a half inches," he said holding up one. "Yew, and the feather of a phoenix." Then he held up the other one. "Eleven inches," he said. "Holly and the feather of a phoenix. The same phoenix, actually." He sighed. "Powerful wands, both of them. Powerful wands for powerful wizards." He put away the shorter one, and held the other one tightly. "Priori Incantatem!"
A head, then shoulders and torso a torso began to blossom out from the top of the wand. Cho shrieked, so did Hermione and Parvati. Sirius looked at the figure sternly. He let go of Hermione, whom he still had been holding tightly, and stepped in front of the shadowy form of Lord Voldemort. He didn't have time to say anything, though. Another ghost started to appear. The shadow of Harry Potter.
Cho felt shocked. She realized that this had to mean that Harry was dead. It didn't feel like anything, the knowledge of him being dead. It was just like an observation. The shock numbed all her feelings.
Then Dumbledore spoke again. "Cho," he said gently. "Please draw away the hangings. You will need to see and to hear to understand."
Cho felt everyone looking in her direction. Slowly she pulled the hangings aside, and lay back to watch. It felt like everything was just a dream, from which she would wake up any time now. There were not any feelings in the dream. It just - was. She couldn't describe it better. It just was, like a theater, played right in front of her eyes. This wasn't her. She was safe up among the clouds, somewhere else. This wasn't happening to her.
The solid-looking ghost of Harry started talking. "I tried to use Avada Kedavra," he said. "I couldn't. I couldn't say the words. I'm sorry…" his voice, which sounded like an echo from a distant place, broke. "Can you forgive me, Sirius? It was stupid of me, so stupid, to take them with me. It was stupid of me to leave the castle… I'm so sorry…"
Sirius looked at him. "There's nothing to forgive," he said. "But can you forgive me for all those things I said? I wasted time on unimportant things… I love you like a son, Harry; you know that, don't you? I'm so sorry."
"And I love you like a father, Sirius, even though I never said that. It's funny, it was only afterwards that I realized that I've never said that." Harry then turned to the others. "Bye, Hermione," he said. "Bye, Ron, bye, Parvati. Goodbye, Cho." Then he looked around. "Mom and dad say 'hi'," he added, looking on Professor McGonagall, Professor Lupin, Professor Dumbledore and Sirius.
It was quiet some seconds, before he spoke again. "I'm sorry. Goodbye." The echo of his words stayed in the room, while his and You-Know-Who's shadows disappeared. It was only now, that Cho realized, that You-Know-Who hadn't said anything.
It was quiet for a long time. Then Dumbledore spoke. "Voldemort's rebirth," he said. "He didn't think about that. He never thought that he would die, if he killed Harry. Harry - Harry's blood actually - gave Voldemort life. When Harry died, Voldemort couldn't live any longer." Two tears appeared in his eyes, from where they fell down to his cheeks, and rolled down to his long, white beard.
The reality started slowly to push through the shock Cho felt. The feeling of unreality started to disappear. She felt it first in her stomach; it was like someone clutching her insides. Then her lungs, someone was clutching them, too. And then her throat, it was a burning feeling, like she wanted to cry. Then her eyes, tears appeared in them, but she struggled to hold them back, she still hadn't realized why she was crying.
At last, the shock was wiped again. She suddenly understood that Harry was gone. She had known it before, of course, but it was now, that she really understood it.
Cho cried. First the tears came slowly, tentatively, and then they increased. She knew Dumbledore was looking at her, but didn't care. As through a thick glass she heard his voice: "… some Sleeping Potion to them all…"
Dumbledore, Sirius, Professor Lupin, and Professor Snape took hold of the litter on which Harry lay, and carried it to the other room. Madame Pomfrey came in, and Ron, Hermione and Parvati followed her to another rooms. Then Madame Pomfrey came back, and gave Cho a small goblet with purple potion. "Drink all of it," she said. Cho took the goblet and emptied it. She became tired, and fell to dreamless sleep.
***
Hermione had changed her clothes, when Sirius came in. He had a goblet, with something purple in it. He put it on the night table and sat then on the edge of her bed.
"Madame Pomfrey wants you to drink this," he said, "but I'd like to ask you something first. Is it true what Harry said? That he loved me almost like a father?" His expression was strange, it was grief, still, but somewhere under it there was joy, or something that strongly resembled of it.
"I think it is true," Hermione whispered. "You were almost like a father to him, you were something that he had never had before…"
"But what about his Muggle relatives then?"
Hermione laughed, but the laughter turned to weeping. "They didn't care about him, Sirius. At least he thought so… Somewhere, deep inside they might have cared, at least a little bit, but they never told him. You were the only one he had, Sirius…"
Sirius couldn't seem to find any words. He just took the goblet and handed it over to Hermione, who drank it. Her eyes shut, and she fell asleep. Sirius sat beside her a long time, stroking her hair gently, tears rolling down his face. Her words echoed in his mind. "… the only one he had…"
"He has his parents now," he whispered. "But whom have I got?"
***
Padma came in to the room, when Parvati had climbed to bed. She hurried towards Parvati, but Parvati turned away.
"What is it, Parvati?" Padma asked. Parvati shrugged. She couldn't talk, the words just wouldn't come. Padma looked at her twin. "Can I come and sit beside you?" she asked. Parvati nodded.
Padma took of her shoes, and climbed to the bed. "You know what Cho said?" she started. "About Harry…" she got no further, when she heard Parvati whisper something.
"What did you say?" she asked. Parvati looked at her. "Harry is dead. You-Know-Who is dead too."
Padma didn't know what to say. She just hugged her sister tightly. Parvati continued.
"He said that we - he and I - are friends. Then he hugged me. Then Voldemort woke up from a curse and put the Imperius Curse on us. Then he tried to kill me, but Harry protected me - and died…"
Tears were rolling down Parvatis face. Madame Pomfrey came in. She had one pajama and two small goblets, and she gave one of the goblets to Parvati. "It's a potion for dreamless sleep, she explained. You should drink it all." Then she turned to Padma. "Do you want to stay here, too?" she asked. "I could give you too some Sleeping Potion, milder, of course." Padma nodded, and Madame Pomfrey gave her the pajamas, and the other goblet. Padma changed to the pajamas, and climbed back to bed. Parvati emptied her goblet first, and fell immediately asleep. Then Padma drank her potion. She suddenly felt very exhausted, and drifted on to sleep.
***
Fred, George and Ginny came in to Ron's room. They looked all sad, and their eyes were red. Fred had a goblet. "You should drink this," Fred said, and handed it to Ron, who pushed it away. "I don't want it," he said.
"We know, what has happened, Ron," George said. "Just drink it, will you. It's for your own good. You won't feel better, if you refuse it."
"I saw him die. I saw my best friend die! I won't feel good anyway," answered Ron. Ginny walked to him, and hugged him.
"I thought we would never again see you," she whispered. Ron stared at the ceiling; he didn't answer anything.
"Please, drink the potion," said Ginny. "Madame Pomfrey and Dumbledore said it will help…"
"I wont!" said Ron sternly. "Go away! I want to be alone!" He tried to blink away the tears. Ginny climbed to his bed, and lifted his head to her lap. "Ron, please…"
Ron shook his head. "Go away!"
"Mom and Dad and Bill and Charlie and Percy are all coming," Fred told Ron. "They'll be here any minute. If you don't want to see them you'd better drink this."
It worked. Ron took the goblet, emptied it, and soon he was asleep, his head still in Ginny's lap. She stroked his hair gently. Fred and George sat down on two chairs beside the table. They both buried their heads in their hands, tears rolling down their cheeks.
Ginny suddenly stopped crying. It was like something had touched her, taken away the pain. She looked at Ron's face. He was smiling. Like from a distant place, she heard whispers. "Don't be sad, Ginny," they told her. "I'm feeling fine. I'm just on the other side of a curtain. You can't see me, but I can see you. Don't be sad."
Ginny looked around. There was no one except her, Ron and the twins in the room.
"I told you; you can't see me," the whispers told her.
So, this series is finally finished. If you liked this, maybe I will do another series. Here's just some notes about this part, and this series.
No, I didn't bring Harry back. There's two reasons, A: Magic can't bring dead people back. JKR has said so many times, and I'm not going to change it, even though this is only fan fiction. B: I just didn't feel like it. This is my story, if you don't like it, write your own.
I like sad endings. You can still write your own alternative endings. I haven't really killed Harry, he's still alive in JK Rowling's books. This is only fan fiction.
I asked for reviews, and got them, but I also got lots of flames, and I will get more for this. "You killed Harry, you moron. He can't die! First I liked your story, but now… How could you kill Harry? You moron, you idiot…"
Reviews are really funny, you know…
Be a responsible reader and review...