Chapter Eight: The Answer To My Questions

A/N- This is the last chapter :( I really hate to see it go, but everything that starts must end eventually, am I right? Well, I really hope you enjoyed this story. :)

"Oh, hey, Hermione." Harry said as he yawned. Ron gave him a strange look as he sat down beside him and Hermione at the table.

"Where were you last night, mate? We looked all over for you, but we couldn't find you." Ron clapped his best friend on the back.

"Yes, Snape and Filch said they saw a student out of bed last night. We thought it was you!" Hermione said. "I thought for sure you would have caught."

Harry shrugged his shoulders, trying hard not to smile.

"Oh my god, that was you?" Ron realized after a few moments of watching Harry smirk through drinking his pumpkin juice. Harry nodded and gulped down the remainder of the liquid.

"Sure was. It scared the crap out of me. I ran forever until I finally lost them. Then I found a door and..." Harry explained.

"What door?" Hermione asked. "Professor Snape said when he checked all of the corridors there was no door down the corridor where he lost you."

Harry stopped and looked at his friend, into her questioning eyes. There was no way he could tell her about what he saw in the Room of Requirement. He couldn't find the words to tell Hermione and Ron exactly what had happened, what he had finally discovered after years of pining for the answers.

"Oh, never mind." Harry told her. Then he went back to his breakfast. The memories of his parents and their friends will burned bright like the sun in his heart. He hoped the glowing would never cease so he could take those memories with him for the rest of his life.

"Can you believe it? In three days we'll be leaving this castle...forever." Hermione choked. Harry and Ron could see tears welling in her dark brown eyes.

"Yeah, it's still a shocker to me." Ron nodded his head. He had seen Hemione cry in their first year, and he didn't like the look of it.

"My parents would have been proud to see me graduate." Harry muttered. He thought no one could hear him. But he was wrong. Hermione and Ron looked up from their near empty plates and stared at him.

"Don't you mean they will be proud? You believe in Heaven, right?" Hermione asked him.

Harry shrugged his shoulders. "Yeah, I suppose so. It makes me feel better knowing my parents are looking down on me, and they'll see everything I do in life." He replied.

"When I was little and my grandparents died, my mother told me that no matter where I went, they would always be smiling down on me and guiding me towards the right things." Hermione said.

Harry thought about her statement. Was it by chance that Harry had ran into the exact corridor as the Room of Requirement? Or was someone pushing him towards it? It had been very dark in the corridor, he remembered. And it was very hard to find the room unless you wanted something so bad you would do anything to get it...

Harry continued to think about this through the rest of breakfast. He certainly hadn't run into the corridor on purpose. He was too worried about getting caught and expelled and losing points and having his house lose the Quidditch cup.

He was pulled sharply from his pondering by Ron's poking him in the back. It was time to go back to the Common Room. During their last week at school, the seventh years didn't have to go to any classes and they didn't have any homework or final exams. They were allowed to just lounge and relax.

The Fat Lady in the portrait was sobbing into her hankie when Ron, Harry, and Hermione reached the entrance. She muttered something about missing her students as she swung open the portrait and let the three people inside. Ron and Harry rolled their eyes, while Hermione softened, exited the Tower, and decided to sit outside and keep the Fat Lady company.

Back in the Common Room, Dean, Seamus, and Neville were shooting of fireworks. Parvati and Padma were trying to have a conversation over all the noise. A few of the other girls were crying in the corner as they remembered the good ole' days at Hogwarts.

Harry sighed and collapsed into an reclining chair by the window. He looked out onto the grounds. He remembered how he always used to sit by that window, and wish and wonder about his parents. Somehow, while Harry sat at the window for this particular time, he felt that the gap in his heart had been filled by the Pensieves.

Everything he had ever wanted to know had been found in those tubs of swirling smoke. Harry felt that his life was almost complete, and all he needed to do was to graduate from Hogwarts and then his life would be fulfilled.

Three days later...

"Harry James Potter!" Professor Dumbledore called out. The crowd in the Great Hall erupted into claps, cheers, and whooping(mostly from Sirius) as Harry, dressed in his school robes, came to the front of everyone.

He first shook Professor McGonagall's hand, who was tearing and yet smiling through everything. The he stepped towards Dumbledore, who handed him a plaque with his Hogwarts certificate framed inside.

The he walked down the long line of teachers and shook everyone's hands. Then, he came to Professor Snape.

"Professor." Harry said. He extended his hand towards his worst teacher.

"Potter." Snape whispered with disgust. But he shook the boy's hand anyway, without a smile or any sign of emotion.

After the ceremony, everyone crowded the front steps of the castle. Sirius clapped Harry's shoulder and stood beaming above his godson. "You did it! A chip off the old block!" He said. Harry smiled.

Then Remus Lupin came. "You can say that again." He said, smiling.

Harry was soon joined by Ron and Hermione. She had started to cry and was trying to choke back her tears. Mrs. Weasly was sobbing behind Ron, who kept rolling his eyes at his mother.

"I saw that, Ronald!" Mrs. Weasly gave her son a sharp cuff on the year.

"OW!" Ron shouted, rubbing his ear.

"You're parents are proud, Harry." Hermione smiled through her tears.

"Yeah," Harry replied, looking at the sky and smiling. "I know."

Update: Thanks to everyone who reviewed! You guys are the world to me!

Until next time,

Roxy Black