Disclaimer: ::to tune of Oscar Meyer Wiener song:: Oh I wish I could say I owned Harry Potter, yes that is what I'd truly love to see, oh I wish I could say I owned Harry Potter, cause everyone would be in love with me! ::POOF! Smoke fills screen for an instant. When the smoke clears, there's a hot dog on the seat where Nikki just sat. Hot dog blinks. Blinks again. Faint "Wrong song, you idiots!" is heard.::
Author's Notes: Well, a few mornings ago I was awoken by a song on the radio: "Gravedigger," by Dave Matthews. Not the most pleasant of songs, but it inspired this fic, and especially the first chapter. I'll be putting the lyrics to the songs that inspire me at the bottom of each chapter, in case you want to take a look. Otherwise… I love reviews!
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Chapter 1
Rage
Sounds of fighting everywhere—
Pain
—a shout of horror—
Hate
—flashes of light—
Revenge is sweet/
—smell of blood—
/a dish best served cold
—smell of death—
Determination
—anguished sobs from the living for the dead—
If I have to
—cries of pain—
if it comes to that
—spells from every direction—
I will go down with you
—hitting friend and foe alike—
as long as you go first
"VOLDEMORT!!!"
A low chuckle, from everywhere at once.
"Show yourself, Tom!" Harry ordered, stalking through the battleground at Hogsmeade, wand in one hand, Sword of Gryffindor in the other.
The chuckling morphed into a cackle, directly behind him. Harry whirled, wand at the ready. "I should think it was painfully obvious, my boy, don't you?"
Faced with his mortal enemy for what he swore was the last time, Harry didn't much care to think of a snappy comeback. Instead, he charged, the silver blade glistening like fresh blood in the sunset.
"What!" —
Berserk
—"No!" —
Madness
—Cedric—
Rushing
—Sirius—
Chaos
—Dean—
Screams
—Pavarti, Padma—
Roaring
—blade slicing through flesh—
Resistance
—wet sucking sound—
Satisfaction
—blood pouring from the wound—
Surprise
—laughter—
Fear
—both wands up—
Impossible
—Killing Curse from two mouths—
Panic
—one overcomes the other—
Pain
Painpain
PAINPAINPAINPAIN
—prayers to a god he thought didn't exist—
OhmyGodithurtssomuchpainpainagonyhelpmehelpmepleasemyGodanyonejustHELPME!!!
Silence.
Cold.
Am I dead?
Hands.
Dying?
Words.
Mum?
Light.
Dad?
Falling.
Sirius?
Still.
What?
Nothing.
Help me
Black.
Sounds—muffled.
Light—bright.
Scent—sharp. Astringent.
Pain—all over.
"Hel..."
"Shh, Harry, rest."
Oblivion.
His eyelids cracked open slowly against the bright lights. So I'm not dead. He'd been in that room enough to know it instantly, even without his glasses; the Hospital Wing. He turned his head and cried out in pain.
"Oh!" Madame Pomfrey bustled out of her office to his bed. "Try not to move, Harry, you're still not quite healed."
A raspy chuckle escaped his parched throat. "I noticed. How long was I out?"
"Twelve days. Actually... Petrificus corpus. And don't talk, either; save your energy." Harry didn't have the strength to argue. "Oh, you must be thirsty! I'll get you something to drink." He grunted in assent. It wasn't till after she was gone that he noticed something decidedly odd; for the first time in all of his seven years at Hogwarts, she hadn't admonished him for almost getting himself killed. Wait a moment... Almost killed. I'm not dead. But I heard the curse, I know one of them hit...
"Madame Pomfrey! Madame Pomfrey!" he shouted as loud as he could, which wasn't all that loud considering the state of his vocal cords.
"What? What?!" she shrieked as she ran out of her office again, wand at the ready.
"Voldemort! What happened?!" he whisper-shouted.
Pomfrey let out a sigh of relief. "Don't do that, Potter. I thought we were under attack."
"Where is he?" Harry demanded.
She hesitated. "Well... You see... That is..."
"He escaped." Words could not describe the grief he felt, saying those words.
"No! Not at all, no," she hurriedly corrected. Then she re-thought. "Well, not in so many words. You see—"
"Perhaps the explanation ought to be left to me, Poppy?" a tired-sounding Dumbledore asked as he shut the Hospital Wing door.
"Of course, Headmaster." Madame Pomfrey again disappeared into her office.
Slowly, Dumbledore made his way to Harry's bed, the cane he had taken to using clicking loudly on the tiled floor. With a sigh, the aging headmaster lowered himself to sit at the foot of the bed. "Do sit up, won't you, Harry?"
"Can't. Pomfrey petrified me."
"Ah, yes. Versatile charm, that. Useful for any number of things. But, I suppose she is the medi-witch, and we wouldn't want to disturb the healing process."
Harry cleared his throat meaningfully. He had learned long ago that any attempts at hurrying the Headmaster were useless; one simply had to wait him out or subtly remind him that he had been about to say something.
"Ah, yes. You wanted to know what happened to Tom—"
"Tom, you mustn't do this!" Dumbledore shouted over the din of battle.
"Oh, I mustn't?" Maniac laughter drowned out all but the harshest screams. "The time has come, old man—"
"Harry."
Abruptly Harry's eyes refocused. He would have shaken his head vigorously, if he had been able to move, but instead had to settle for a few rapid eye blinks. "Sorry."
"It's alright, I often find I do that myself. Comes with experience, you see." Dumbledore nodded sagely. "Of course, my experience came when I already had a bit more of it."
"Yes... but Voldemort?"
The headmaster hemmed. "I'm not quite sure how to put this so you won't overreact... So I'll just say it. Voldemort is not dead. His... essence, shall we say, is trapped. He is still technically alive."
A wave of fear swept through Harry's petrified body. "But... The prophecy... 'Neither can live while the other survives.' If he isn't dead, then—"
"Then the battle is not yet over," Dumbledore interrupted. "Patience, my boy. He is trapped—" he reached into the sleeve of his robe and pulled out with a flourish—"in this.'' He held out a silver ring, every part of it covered in layer upon layer of banishment and trapping spells, the most powerful carved into the ring itself. "Take it."
"I can't. Petrified, remember?"
"Ah, yes, well..." With a wave of his wand, he broke the spell. Harry gingerly eased himself into a sitting position and took the ring in his hands. "It was made by the experts on containment, the Gringott's goblins," Dumbledore explained. ''Many of the professors added their own, specialized spells, as did most of the Order. If necessary, that ring could hold Voldemort for years."
"'If necessary'?" Harry parroted, turning the ring over in his hands.
"Of course. We can't just leave him there; even the strongest wards can be broken, given enough time and determination. Unfortunately, Voldemort now has plenty of both."
"So what do I do?"
Dumbledore had to admit Harry's reaction surprised him. He was expecting a highly agitated response, perhaps a crazy, half-formed plan, not the calm determination exuded by the boy. Ah, well, he thought. Such is the way of a young mind forced to grow old... "You don't do anything, Harry, at least not alone. We, the professors, members of the Order, ministry officials, and others will be trying to come up with some way to defeat an almost immortal Dark Lord.
"In the meantime," he said as he levered himself off the hospital bed, "I believe you have some people who are anxious to see you."
Agonizingly slowly, the Headmaster made his way back through the rows of beds. "Professor, wait!" Harry called. "You forgot the ring."
"I didn't forget it, Harry. I'm entrusting you with its safekeeping. After all, who better to guard a dark lord than the man who defeated him twice?"
Harry looked despondently at the ring in his hand. "But... I didn't defeat him, not even once."
"No, Harry. You must never say that again," Dumbledore insisted forcefully. "Everyone believes he is dead, including the few surviving Death Eaters. If word were to get out that he is still alive, who knows what kind of chaos might ensue? No; the fewer people that know of this, the better."
Harry nodded his acquiescence. "But there're some people who've got to know. Ron and Hermione, of course, Neville, Luna, the twins, all of the Weasleys, actually—"
Dumbledore cut Harry off with a laugh. "The entire existence of a secret depends upon not many people knowing it! At any rate, the elder Weasleys already know."
Abashed, Harry revised his list. "Well, then just Ron, Hermione, and Ginny ought to know. After all, they've been in this from the beginning. They deserve—"
"—deserve to die! Anyone disloyal to the Dark Lord will die at his hands!"
"B-but my lord, they put me under Veritaserum! I-I had no chance!"
"Silence, Draco, and take your punishment like a man!"
"Father, I beg you—"
"'Crucio!"
Screams fill the abandoned graveyard, cries of unbearable pain shatter the still night. As suddenly as they started, they stop. "The master is here."
"No! NO! No, PLEASE—"
Harry gulped. "They should know."
Dumbledore gazed at Harry appraisingly. "Are you quite sure you're alright, Harry?"
He nodded, then winced in pain as the muscles in the back of his neck strained. "I'm fine."
For a moment, it looked as if the aging headmaster might press the point, but thought better of it. "Very well, then. I will let them know you are awake... But I wouldn't mention anything about Voldemort yet."
"Yes, sir, I understand."
"Good." By this time, Dumbledore had reached the oak door of the infirmary, and rested a hand on the doorknob. "Get well soon, my boy." The instant he turned the knob, a cacophony of voices assaulted him, and he laughed. "Yes, yes, he's fine. Come in, come in!"
Ron, Ginny, and Hermione struggled and shoved through the door, eager to be the first to reach the newly recovered Boy Who Lived. Harry could only watch in amusement as his three best friends roughhoused and teased, all shouting something along the lines of "Harry! You're okay!"
"Of course I'm okay, you gits! When am I ever not?"
"When you've got a Potions test you've forgotten about first thing in the morning?" Ron offered helpfully, plopping his lanky frame on the hospital bed beside Harry's.
"When you're diving headfirst at the ground trying to catch the Snitch?" Ginny asked, lounging comfortably in the chair near Harry's head.
"As I recall, you've done quite a lot of that yourself, Miss Weasley," he teased.
"Have not," she replied, indignant. "That was only the one time."
"Harry," Hermione said from his other side. He turned his head without thinking, and immediately regretted it. "Oh, Harry, you're not okay! You should be in a full body-bind, I don't know what Madame Pomfrey was thinking—"
"Honest, Hermione, I'm fine."
"Sure he is," Ron announced, sitting up to make room for her. "Only hurts when you move, isn't that it, mate?"
"Exactly!" Right, Harry thought, just keep them laughing and I won't have to answer any questions about Voldemort.
The diversionary tactic worked for a while, though Harry had a sneaking suspicion that the diversion was going both ways. After a nice dinner, courtesy of Dobby, Ron, of all people, announced that he and Hermione had homework that needed doing. Actually, his exact words were, "Uh, 'Mione and I are going to, um, go do some homework... Big test in, er, Care of Magical Creatures tomorrow. See you soon, mate. Bye, Gin."
Exactly .05 seconds after the door shut behind the pair, the remaining two burst into laughter. "They're going to snog, aren't they!" Harry exclaimed.
Ginny, red-faced and gasping for breath, nodded. "He could've at least come up with a decent excuse! Neither of them have taken Care of Magical Creatures since sixth year!" The duo burst into fresh rounds of laughter, but as the last of the giggling died down, an uncomfortable silence settled over them.
"Why don't you tell me what's really wrong, Harry?" Ginny asked suddenly.
Caught off-guard, Harry didn't have time to come up with a decent response. "What makes you think something's wrong?" Inwardly, he winced—it sounded lame even to him.
Ginny snorted, and counted off on her fingers. "For one, you're acting strangely, almost the way you did last year. For another, every so often, you get this far-away look in your eye, and your reactions make it seem not at all very pleasant. And of course, there's that ring you've been worrying at since we walked in the door." She leaned so close to him that he couldn't look away, hypnotized by her chestnut eyes. "Tell me what's wrong."
As he stared at her, it took all his self-control not to tell her everything, every little injustice he'd suffered since he was a year old. After all, weren't those part of the problem, too? But just before he spilled all of his secrets, Dumbledore's order came back to him and saved him from what would certainly been the most embarrassing moment of his life. "Not yet. When Ron and Hermione come back, I'll tell you all. It's not really something I want to say more than once."
She nodded in understanding, and gave his hand a quick squeeze. "Just so long as you tell us. No more of that sixth-year nonsense with the being a prat and all." Harry had to laugh at himself, though a hint of sadness tweaked his stomach, as he recalled his misguided attempt at shielding his friends from further harm by distancing himself from them. In the end, it had only thrown him into the depths of depression, and ended when Moaning Myrtle discovered him in the process of slitting his wrists in the prefects' bathroom and flitted all over the castle shouting for his friends.
"I'm really lucky to have you three, you know," he said, averting his eyes. "Thank you."
"Don't worry, Harry. Things are already better. Voldemort is gone, and—" Harry's face had abruptly closed, and she stopped.
"Can we… not talk about Tom for a while?" he begged, an anguished look on his face. "Just… please, can I be normal for a few minutes?"
Ginny was tempted to remind him that 1) even if he wasn't the Boy Who Lived, he still wouldn't be normal, and 2) normal isn't all it's cracked up to be anyway, but refrained. "D'you want to know how they got together, then?" she asked instead.
"Who, Ron and Hermione? Of course."
"Well," she began, as she settled herself more comfortably in her chair, throwing one leg over the armrest and the other to rest on Harry's bed, "it started the day after… you know… and we were all in here with mi—"
"Wait," he interrupted, "you were in here?! Are you alright, I mean, is everyone okay?"
"Minor injuries, I was about to say," she jokingly admonished. "Anyway, Ron was a bit worse off than Hermione or me, because the Great King Prat managed to trip over himself coming up the steps outside and get himself a concussion."
"'Great King Prat'… yes, that does describe him quite well, doesn't it?"
"I'm glad you like it. Now stop interrupting." Instead of answering, he simply motioned her to continue. "Right. So when he got out and back to the remains of the Gryffindor Common Room—" At Harry's startled expression, she stopped. "Oh. You don't know about that. Sorry."
"Doesn't matter. Keep going."
"Alright. So when he got back to the Common Room, of course Hermione was the first to greet him, because, well, you know. And then she yelled at him for making her worry, and he yelled at her for yelling at him, and everything was normal for about thirty seconds. After that, they weren't yelling anymore."
Harry chuckled. "I can see where this is going."
Ginny nodded happily. "You know it. They weren't yelling anymore because Ron was saying something to her that I couldn't quite hear—"
"You were listening?"
"Of course I was listening. If you were there, you would've, too." Harry nodded, a guilty expression on his face. "Now shut up and let me finish. So while Ron was talking, Hermione was getting all mushy, and after a few minutes they disappeared back out the portrait hole."
"So you didn't actually see them kiss," Harry stated, slightly disappointed.
"Honestly, Harry, have you no faith? Of course I did. I snuck up to your dorm and borrowed your Invisibility Cloak."
"Did you, now?"
"Well, I didn't think you'd mind. You are, after all, asking for all the details."
"Yes, alright, that's fair enough. And I suppose you used it for all sorts of other mischief afterwards, didn't you?"
"Of course I did," she answered, affronted. "What kind of Weasley would I be if I didn't?"
"Not much of one," Harry agreed.
They continued their pretense of happiness for another hour, until conversation ran out and Ginny stood to leave. As she drew closer and closer to the door, the overwhelming silence of the Hospital Wing beat heavily on Harry's ears. An irrational but undeniable fear settled over him. He knew it was crazy, but if she left, he wasn't sure he would ever see her again. "Ginny, wait," he called, his voice still raspy from the damage they'd suffered during the battle.
"Yes?" She stopped and turned three steps from the door.
"Gin, you can't… I mean, I don't…" He looked at her pleadingly. "Don't leave me alone."
"Oh, Harry… of course I'll stay." She returned quickly, and took his hand. Unconsciously, she turned it over and stroked the more recent scar that ran from mid-forearm to wrist.
"I mean, I hate to do this to you, but—"
"Harry," she interrupted. "I'm staying. Remember? I promised you forever, and I meant it."
Ginny could see the effect her words had had on him. The year before, after he had tried to kill himself, she had confronted him in the Common Room.
"What were you thinking, you great stupid prat?! Did you honestly think we were going to let you go that easily?" she shouted, unleashing the infamous Weasley temper.
"I was doing it for you!" he shouted back, just as angry. "For all of you! If I'm gone, you're safe! He won't have a reason to hurt you anymore!"
"Safe? Safe?! If you die, he wins! Automatically! And we're even closer to dying than we are with you here! Because you can beat him! Only you!"
"I know! Don't you think I know that already? It's driving me crazy, this scar, Voldemort, the war! I can't handle it, don't you understand?!"
Ginny quieted. "No, Harry, I don't. I don't understand what it's like to be you. But I do understand that you need a friend right now. And I know you've got Ron and Hermione already, but I just want you to know I'm here too. I promise. Forever."
"I remember," Harry told her, his voice soft. "I never thanked you for that, Gin. But it meant a lot to me, just knowing that you'd always be there. Even when it seemed like forever wasn't going to be all that long after all."
Madame Pomfrey chose that moment to make her reappearance. "Visiting hours are over, Miss Weasley, I'll have to ask you to leave."
The two teens squirmed, knowing that the last thing Harry needed was to be alone. Fortunately, Ginny's quick thinking almost saved them. "Er, well, you see, I'm not feeling all too well. A bout of flu coming on, I think."
Madame Pomfrey raised an eyebrow. "Well," she said, "a dose of Pepper-Up Potion should set you right."
"No, Madame Pomfrey, that's alright," said Harry. "She's fine. But… d'you think it would be alright if she stayed here tonight?"
The other eyebrow shot up, and she looked pointedly at the space where their hands were clasped. "And just why should I let her do that?"
"Because…" he began. "Because I don't know what I might do if she doesn't." Something in the tone of his voice must have convinced her, because she nodded once.
"That doesn't mean I like it. And you'll need to be petrified again, Mr. Potter. Honestly, who would lift the spell when I obviously put it there for a reason?"
"That would be the Headmaster," answered Harry, distractedly. Her mention of the spell and its removal had reminded him of the ring he still held tightly in his right hand. Before she could petrify him again, he slipped the ring on his middle finger, where it tightened to fit comfortably.
"Sleep well, Miss Weasley, Mr. Potter. And…" she hesitated, "thank you."
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Gravedigger
Dave Matthews
Cyrus Jones 1810 to 1913
Made his great grand children believe you could live to a hundred and three
A hundred and three is forever when you're just a little kid
so Cyrus Jones lived forever
Gravedigger
When you dig my grave
Could you make it shallow
So that I can feel the rain
Gravedigger
Muriel Stonewall 1903 to 1954
She lost both of her babies in the Second Great War
Now you should never have to watch your only children lowered in the ground
I mean you should never have to bury your own babies
Gravedigger
When you dig my grave
Could you make it shallow
So that I can feel the rain
Gravedigger
Ring around the rosies
Pocket full of posies
Ashes to ashes
We all fall down
Gravedigger
When you dig my grave
Could you make it shallow
So that I can feel the rain
Gravedigger
Little Mickey Carson '67 to '75
He rode his bike like the devil till the day he died
When he grows up he wants to be Mr. Vertigo on the flying trapeze
Nineteen forty to nineteen ninety.... two
Gravedigger
When you dig my grave
Could you make it shallow
So that I can feel the rain
I can feel the rain
I can feel the rain
Gravedigger
When you dig my grave
Could you make it shallow
So that I can feel the rain
Gravedigger
Gravedigger
Gravedigger
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