Words To Live By, Words To Love By!

By: JollieRancher

Chapter 3: They Died For Me?

Harry was awoken early the next morning by screaming and someone wacking him on the head with a wooden spoon. Both the screaming and the wacking were coming from Mrs. Weasley.

"Thief! Tramp! Scoundrel! Arthur do something!" Mrs. Weasley screamed as Harry threw up his arms and fell off the chair in an attempt to escape the onslaught of her blows.

"Molly, it's just Harry!" Mr. Weasley said grabbing the spoon from his wife.

"Oh dear! Harry, are you all right? I'm so sorry but you gave me such a fright. I wasn't expecting any one to be down here." Mrs. Weasley said as she helped Harry up and brushed him off.

"It's alright, I guess I fell asleep." He said fixing his glasses.

"Well, it's 5:30 in the morning why don't you go back up to Ron's room and get some more sleep dear." Mrs. Weasley said as she gently pushed him towards the stairs.

"Yes ma'am." Harry answered before mounting the stairs.

When he reached the room he found Ron sprawled out on his bed snoring loudly. Harry lay down and tried fruitlessly to go back to sleep. Between Ron's snoring, the crick in his neck from falling asleep at the table, and the bruises on his head and arms from Mrs. Weasley's attack he found sleep to be unattainable. As he lay there his mind drifted over the conversation he'd had with Mr. Weasley.

'If they didn't die because of me, which everyone agrees, did they die for me?' Harry pondered. 'My parents, I hadn't done anything at that point much less anything wrong. Voldomort would have killed my parents even if they had handed me over they chose to protect my life instead of their own. They wanted to die for me if it came to that.' This was the first time Harry had ever considered that his parents wanted to die for him if it would help. He had always known that they had died for him and that they loved him but he had never understood the extent and selflessness of their love till now.

Harry's thoughts became troubled. 'But what about Cedric? We were rivals and barely friends. He was killed because he fell into a trap that was meant for me alone. Well, he did choose to share the prize but he didn't know that it would cost him his life. When his shadow came out of Voldomort's wand he didn't seem angry just sad. And he told me to defeat Voldomort for him. He may not have known that his act of friendship would cost his life but afterwards he was not worried as long as I survived to warn the others and fight another day. His death will be the emptiest of all if I don't defeat Voldomort.'

Ron suddenly threw himself to the side and muttered something in his sleep. Harry watched his friend and his thoughts turned to that night at the ministry, the mistakes he made, and the good intentions behind them. 'I was so sure he needed my help and that I had to save him, but I was the one who ended up needing the help and the saving. Sirius, all of them knew or thought that I had been led into a trap by Voldomort yet they all came. They were all there, Sirius was there, to fight with me and to protect me so that Voldomort could be defeated.' Tears slipped silently down Harry's cheeks. 'That night when my parents died he was unable to help them or me and when he tried to expose the murderer he was sent to Azkaban. When he escaped all he could do was hide and feel useless. But that night at the ministry was different. He was able to protect me and he did it with everything he had.'

Harry sat up in his bed determined. "I can't let those deaths go to waste! I won't let them!" At this out burst Ron sat up in his bed and looked around with half closed eyes and then fell back onto his bed and resumed his snoring. At that Harry decided to leave before he woke his friend, besides he was too fired up to sleep anyways.