Disclaimer: I am poor, as I am making no money from this, which upsets me, as I am quite proud of it but what can you do?
AN - Lol I'm glad everyone is still enjoying this Fic as I love it to bits. It's explanation time which I'm sure your all glad about as I have been dragging it out a little but hey good things come to those who wait right? Well hopefully this will be wait worthy :D so enough of my mindless bantering and on with the story. Enjoy
"Well you did wake up to some surprises so sit back, try and relax and I'll tell you everything you need to know . . . "
Dean sat back one eye on his visitor the other on Dumbledore not daring to believe but hoping all the same.
Ron didn't dare move.
Neville refused to blink in fear he would reopen his eyes and find them gone.
Harry kept fidgeting glancing all around the room not knowing where to set his gaze he didn't want to stare but if he didn't he felt he couldn't believe his own eyes.
Seamus kept looking from his visitor to his family but they weren't giving anything away. Could it be?
Hermione smiled
". . . This must all be a little hard to take in but I assure they are real."
Dean broke in to a grin
"This isn't a dream and I can prove that to you" He lifted his wand and flicked it ever so slightly
Each of them yelped in turn as a sharp sting pricked their skin
Ron glared at Dumbledore "what was that for?" he asked
"Well the saying you can't feel physical pain in a dream is very true Mr. Weasley I'm sorry I couldn't think of a more creative way to prove this isn't actually a dream"
Ron grumbled some more while he rubbed his arm but all in all looked rather pleased that this wasn't in fact a dream.
"If this isn't a dream what's going on?" Hermione asked
Dumbledore smiled "An excellent question Miss. Granger. One I'm sure you'd all like to hear the answer to"
They nodded in unison still holding their breath
"Well I suppose I should start from the beginning really for you to fully understand," he said glancing at Madame Pomphrey who smiled and nodded encouragingly.
"Well when one Tom Marvolo Riddle attended this school he showed great potential in the art of magic. He was always top of his class and didn't let the fact that he was of Muggle heritage slow him down. He wouldn't be left behind just because he had been denied the magical upbringing his peers had, had. A little like someone else we know" Dumbledore said smiling at Hermione
Hermione wasn't sure whether this should be taken as a compliment or to be quite offended on the one hand he was saying she was clever and wouldn't let anything keep her from doing her best on the other he was comparing her to Voldemort. How did you take that?
"He was definitely the top of the class but he had a rather large chip on his shoulder to go along with it. At first we thought it was because of his background. As you know he was raised in a muggle orphanage and wasn't overly fond of his muggle father. But we soon found it ran much deeper than that. It wasn't until he left Hogwarts that we understood the full extent of his hatred"
Ron yawned when was the good stuff coming? He needed answers
"At Hogwarts Tom went out of his way to be the best no matter what it took. We found he was willing to go to extreme measures to get his point across and wasn't against playing dirty"
"Pardon me professor and forgive me for saying this but your story doesn't quite add up I mean Tom was made a prefect and was given awards for service to the school which were only recently labeled invalid" Hermione spoke up
Harry murmured in agreement
"Yes your right Miss. Granger the truth of the matter being that we didn't discover the truth of Mr. Riddle until it was to late. He was always a very cunning and manipulative young man and had the ways and means of escaping even the most perceptive professor."
"Even you?" Seamus asked
Dumbledore sighed "To some extent I am ashamed to admit yes even me"
Ron looked over at Harry who only appeared to be half listening. Glancing to and from his visitors seemed to be distracting him.
"When Tom left this school he took with him all the knowledge we supply. In the wrong hands any kind of knowledge can be a dangerous thing in this case it would turn out to be catastrophic. Its not like he went out and straight away became this all-powerful dark lord. First he started recruiting his followers and working on plans and the likes. I really cant go in to much detail purely because I don't know what happened all I know is that Tom Riddle was a very bright boy and used this to his advantage."
"How long did it take him? To become powerful I mean?" Neville asked
"Well no one knows for sure as no one knows what he did in the years before his uprising. All we know is that one day evil threatened our lives in a way none had threatened before"
Harry was beginning to get rather annoyed. He didn't care about Riddles childhood and he didn't care about the years before his claim to fame what he cared about right now was the explanation to their presence.
As if Dumbledore could tell they were becoming impatient he skipped a few details.
"In the beginning we thought Tom was killing people who refused to join his crusade. He was approaching very powerful wizarding families to aid him in his quest it appeared the ones who accepted lived and the ones who didn't well we presumed dead"
Harry was getting confused how could you presume someone to be dead they either were or they weren't.
"The fact of the matter is we never did find a body. Any body. For any of the people we thought dead. The evidence suggested there was no way they could survive but there was never any proof they hadn't."
"I saw my Dad die" Dean said his voice barley above a whisper "Well I heard it" This much was true in his dream Dean had in fact heard his dad die. He had definitely been dead so this there was never any proof theory didn't really ring true
"Yes you did Mr. Thomas and I'm sorry for that but where your out of state mind takes you is under no ones control."
Dean frowned why didn't any one explain things simply anymore.
"But you just said no bodies were found surely if Dean heard his Dad die then he died" Seamus spoke up
"Yeah and what about me every time a Dementor came near me I heard my parents die are you saying that that didn't really happen?"
"I'm really not explaining this very well am I?" Dumbledore said more to himself than his students
"Why don't you start again" Helena offered "From the important part" she added after several teenage glares were forced upon her
"What I'm trying to tell you is that yes your loved ones died and many other people died at the hand of Voldemort or his followers but we never found any bodies because there were never any bodies to find"
Neville raised his eyebrow only half following
Dumbledore seemed to be growing impatient with himself it wasn't often that he found it difficult to explain something
"When Voldemort was consuming unicorn blood in your first year I believe you were told why." He said trying a different approach
"It kept him alive" Ron spoke up
"Exactly Mr. Weasley. That's what we all thought. Voldemort was a broken man and had to live off another to survive you were told about the fact that Unicorn blood can keep you alive even if you are an inch from death"
Harry recalled the conversation in actual fact it had been between him and a Centaur called Firenze he didn't say this however for fear of putting Dumbledore off. It appeared he might be getting somewhere now.
"However Voldemort wasn't an inch from death. He'd been growing steadily stronger since his downfall. The ability to posses another is rather difficult one might say and can only be achieved with powerful magic. The possessors powerful magic."
"So Voldemort had to be strong to posses Quirrel then?" Dean asked
"Precisely" Dumbledore beamed glad they were following
"Well why would he want to live off another then?" Seamus asked "And why would he give himself a cursed life if he didn't need to. Why drink the unicorn blood if he didn't need it"
"All very good questions. The answer to all is to throw us off. We presumed that because he inhabited another's body and because he was drinking unicorns' blood that he was merely a shell of the man he once was. We believed he was trying to regain power when in actual fact he was practically at his full power."
"I'm really not getting this" Ron grumbled
"Voldemort was pretending to be all weak and everything to make us think he was so that he could surprise us with how powerful he was. He was throwing us off the scent basically" Hermione said offering him the cliff-noted version
"Well why didn't he just say that" Ron grumbled again
"Voldemort did however drink the unicorns blood for a reason. Unicorns blood is often used in returning the soul."
They all frowned even the visitors looked confused.
"Have any of you heard of the soul sucking curse?" Madame Pomphrey asked
They all shook there heads even Hermione
"Well this curse enables the caster to steal the soul of his victim. The soul is the most powerful part of you some say. A good pure soul is extremely powerful especially a magically pure soul. Voldemort used this spell to take the souls of his victims. But he had to show off with it. Instead of reciting it as your supposed to do he linked it in with his unforgivable. That way no one would be able to reverse it."
She paused to see if they were following and they appeared to be.
She continued "When a soul is taken you can still send it back as it were. Even if the person has been dead a long time."
"I thought you could live without your soul" Seamus said remembering a film he had watched once where the Devil had bought someone's soul in exchange for wishes
"Muggles can. We can not. Our souls are our magic without it we are nothing its kind of our lifeline"
They nodded in understanding
"So Voldemort was taking all these powerful souls. Other peoples magic basically. Once your soul is gone your body turns in to a powder like substance. Thus no body. When the soul is sent back if the person is meant to be alive then the powder reforms and the person is alive and well again if the person should be dead then there powder scatters. The more powerful souls a person has then the more powerful they are basically. "
"Ok so he was stealing other peoples souls where does the unicorn blood come in to this?" Harry asked
"Well like Professor Dumbledore said it is used in returning souls. Because Voldemort changed the spell however he used it for keeping souls. Tying them to his lifeline basically meaning that so long as he was alive the souls would be tied to him. Meaning if anyone figured out what he'd done they wouldn't be able to do a thing about it. He really was far to clever for his own good"
Hermione blushed something both Ron and Harry had told her more than once.
"The thing is Voldemort seemed to think that he was invincible that no one but a school boy could kill him. Even though he had challenged you countless times and still lost he didn't see you as much of a threat. He believed that in the end he would overthrow you. He of course didn't and when he died so did his lifeline, his soul meaning every other soul he had ever stolen was released"
"So the people who died before their time had their souls returned the moment you killed him meaning they are no longer dead" Dumbledore finished glad that Madame Pomphrey had been able to explain better than he had.
Harry couldn't wipe the grin from his face as he looked back and forth at his Visitors. His parents were alive.
"But my Parents weren't dead" Neville whispered
"No Mr. Longbottom they weren't but when they were tortured a part of them died and when Voldemort died that returned to them"
Neville beamed looking at his parents he couldn't believe they were alive and well
Ron looked at his Uncles smiling face "But Voldemort didn't kill you death eaters did"
"Yes but they use the same spell Voldemort did meaning I was still tied to him" his uncle told him.
Ron smiled just glad he was alive. He knew a dog couldn't kill his Dragon loving Uncle
Seamus hugged his cousin and Dean embraced his Father.
Harry could barley speak as his mother kissed him affectionately and his father ruffled his hair, reminding him of another Potter who had once done the exact same thing.
"I'm afraid we have some bad news though Harry" his mother said to him
Harrys face fell he knew it was to good to be true
"Are you kidding Lils he'll be ecstatic" his father cut in
"James they're like his family"
"Who needs enemies if that's your family" James scoffed
Harry laughed still a little nervous of what they were about to tell him but he couldn't help it he was just so happy. He'd never heard his parent's voices or seen their faces without terror etched across them. And yet here they were play fighting like a loving couple. He felt about ready to cry.
"The painful news your mother is talking about is that we have a new home out in the country. We thought we'd make some new memories instead of living among the old."
"It won't be like your first home but we figured you can only remember the bad things that happened there."
"And it won't be like your last as we figure well I do anyway that it'll be hard to find the good memories there as well"
Lily playfully pushed his arm and James laughed at the confused look upon his son's face.
"What we're trying to say," his mother said "Is that we have a new home and so do you out in the country by the only real home you've ever known"
"It's called The Ferns we've been doing it up since we well came back so to speak"
Ron whooped from the other side of the hospital wing waking Harry from his stunned silence.
"That's in my neighborhood" Ron cried happily "Harry we'll be neighbors"
Harry's face cracked in to a wide grin, as he understood exactly what they were saying.
Voldemort was dead. His parents were alive. He was leaving Privet Drive for good and moving in with his parents. He would be living near his extended family the Weasleys and his best friend Ron . . .
"And one more thing we should mention" James said a mischievous look in his eye that reminded Dean of the one Harry often possessed.
The doors to the Hospital Wing swung open as if on cue and in bound a large black dog.
"You have a dog?" Neville asked as it leaped over his bed on the way to Harrys
"No Harry does" his mother smiled at him as the dog bounded on to his bed and began licking his face
"What shall I call you?" he asked stroking the dog not fully understanding. That is until his hand caught something around the animal's neck. A collar and tag.
"Padfoot – The Ferns" he read
Hermione jumped from her bed "Is it really?" she asked Lily who nodded smiling at her
Harry looked from Hermione to his Mother to his Father to his dog.
Who was gone.
In his place was the smiling face of
"Sirius" Harry yelled
"Didn't think I was lying when I said you could come live with me did you?" he said laughing at his nephews astonishment
Dumbledore rose as the conversations got louder and louder. Everyone was asking each other questions better yet everyone was happy.
"I think we should give them some time to catch up," Dumbledore said to Madame Pomphrey. She smiled and nodded in agreement.
"It's been a wonderful day" she said the tears forming at her own happiness.
"It has indeed and it won't be the last"
He turned when he and the nurse were at the door he coughed loudly and smiled as everyone turned to look at him. "The Feast will begin at 9 I hope to see you all there"
And with that he closed the door.
The happiness inside could have filled a thousand hearts
AN – Well what did you think of that? Was it all you imagined or maybe more? Did you enjoy it? Was it boring hopefully not. Hopefully it was amazing and well worth the outstretched wait lol well you tell me. Hit the Review button and tell me exactly what you thought hopefully its all-good things but I suppose you never know lol. well as always thanx to all that have stuck with this Fic and Reviewed I love you all :D until next time