A/N – Okay, you've all been patient enough, I suppose... I hate to leave you with a cliffie like that... well, a cliffie LIKE THAT, anyhow(evil grin)... Maybe you'll like how these two chapters end a little better...
CQ
Chapter Twenty Eight: Reliving the Loss
Harry and Ginny took a portkey from the Room of Requirement directly to St Mungo's. Dumbledore accompanied them, and they met Remus Lupin in the lobby of the wizarding hospital.
Remus looked gaunt. Harry moved forward and took his hand to shake, and Remus, being Remus, pulled him close and locked his arms around him. Harry could feel the older man take in a shuddering breath as he held him.
After a moment, he pulled back.
"Are you okay?"
"I'm fine," Harry nodded. "You?"
"Fine... fine... I've already enquired... she's upstairs. Let's go."
Up the elevator two floors, then down a long green-tiled corridor. Harry swallowed nervously as they came to stand outside a closed yellow door.
"Harry?"
"She's in there?" Harry looked at Dumbledore.
"Yes. Go on, Harry."
"Remus?" Harry turned to the werewolf.
"You go ahead Harry... Idon't want her to suffer too much of a shock."
Gripping Ginny's hand, Harry pushed open the door and entered the room. There were tall windows letting in sunlight, and a thin, frail figure laying with her head turned towards the window.
"Hello..." she turned as she heard them enter. "Oh! Lily..." she tried to sit up, but couldn't. She stopped trying after a moment. "Dumbledore told me that you couldn't come... that..."
She paused, glanced at Harry. "Hello, James."
"Au..." Harry began, only to be silenced by a squeeze of Ginny's hand. Ginny shook her head and moved forward, pulling him with her. She sat down on the edge of Petunia's bed and took one of her hands.
"But..." Petunia looked oddly at Ginny, then up to Harry. "You...you aren't Lily... who are you? Who are you?"
"Relax... it's okay. We need to talk."
"But.."
"No one is going to hurt you, Aunt Petunia," Harry said in a low voice. "I promise. Not anymore."
"But who are you?" she whimpered.
"I'm your nephew... I'm James and Lily Potter's son, Harry..."
"But..."
"We need to talk... but understand... I'm going to take you home, and no one will ever hurt you again. Okay?"
Helplessly, Petunia Dursley nodded, and didn't resist as Harry sighed and took her other hand.
Later, talking to the medi-wizard in charge, Harry learned that she'd been badly hurt, that she would have to stay in St Mungo's for a week or more, but when she was released, shouldn't have any trouble gaining a full recovery.
When asked about how to tell her that she'd lost her husband, the medi-wizard shook his head.
"These things are different in every case. I just can't predict..."
"I understand," Harry nodded. "Thank you."
"Mr Potter?"
Harry turned back to the medi-wizard.
"She will recover."
Harry nodded again. "Thank you."
Turning back towards his Aunt's room, where Ginny and Dumbledore were with her, Harry spied Remus leaning against the wall.
"Remus?"
"Harry..."
"You okay?"
"I..."
"You don't want to go in."
"She's going to see me and wonder..."
"She knows, Remus... she knows she's lost twenty years... she knows my parents are dead... the sight of you won't be that big a shock. As a matter of fact, it might be a comfort to her."
"Comfort?"
"You'll be someone she knows."
"She doesn't know me," Remus denied softly.
"You're family."
Remus looked at Harry, then nodded. "That I am."
"Then let's go."
Entering the room, Harry looked over to see Petunia's eyes on him, her brow furrowed.
"Not James," she shook her head as though to clear it.
"No, Aunt Petunia... I'm not James... but you might remember..."
"Remus?" she cried.
"Hello, Petty."
"But... but... you... oh, Remus, what happened to you?"
"Am I not evidence enough that time has passed, Petty?"
"Oh..." tears came to her eyes. "It's true, then..."
"Yes, Petty. It's true."
"I had rather hoped..."
"Aunt Petunia..." Harry began. "I've spoken to the medi-wizard. He says you'll recover fully. There is no need to worry."
"But what about..." she frowned. "My parents are dead."
"Yes."
"And so is Lily... and James?"
"Yes."
"But where... where do I live?"
"With me," Harry said softly. "You live with me."
The following morning, Harry awoke and looked about his dorm. Ron, Neville and Seamus were all still snoring. Colin Creevy, whose bed had been moved in the day before with Dumbledore's approval, lay on his back staring at the ceiling.
"You okay, Colin?" Harry asked softly, trying to not wake anyone else.
"How do you do it?" Colin asked in a flat voice, his eyes not leaving the ceiling.
"What?"
"Deal with it... know that they killed your parents, and left you alone, and there is nothing you can do about it?"
"But there is," Harry said, sitting up.
Colin glanced over, and then sat up himself, his eyes not leaving Harry's face as Harry put on his glasses.
"What? What can I do? They're gone. Dead. It's just me and Dennis now..."
"You can avenge their death, Colin... you can do whatever it takes to make sure that others don't go through what you... and I... are going through."
"Is that what you've been doing?" Colin asked, his eyes boring into Harry. "All this time... when people called you a liar, and a crackpot... and... is that how you've held it together?"
"Yes," Harry said simply. "Yes."
Colin stared hard at him for a moment, then nodded. "Teach me, Harry."
"What?"
"What you know. I know that you know one hell of a lot more than you let on."
"Colin..."
"No secrets, remember?"
Harry nodded. "Okay. No secrets."
That day there were changes. After Dumbledore agreed to let the sixth year Colin share the seventh year boys' dorm, it seemed like other things just cascaded from there.
First, Harry assigned a regular night for the DA club and Quidditch practice. Thursday night DA meetings and Friday night and Saturday morning practices for the team were now the norm.
But the DA didn't stop there. Ron and Hermione had organized the student population into groups, each headed by a Prefect, and made it one of the Prefect's duties to teach and practice Defense with the students under them. Each Prefect had students from each house assigned to them, and whether those students showed up or not, they were to hold Defense practices at least one night a week.
Harry received owls from Mrs Granger, who was now staying at Potter Manor, on the continued progress his aunt was making. Hermione had been rather put out when she found out that her mother was owling Harry more often than she owled Hermione, but soon got used to the idea, and took to asking Harry if her mother had had anything to say to her. She never did, so Harry had to assume that Hermione was teasing. Sometimes it was hard to tell.
And their own classes continued. Potions with Snape, Transfiguration with McGonagall, Charms with Flitwick and, much to their delight, DADA with Remus, now all took place for the twelve students in the Room of Requirement. In addition to their other classes, and with eating both breakfast and lunch in the room, as well, the twelve students began to organize themselves into a cohesive, well-functioning unit.
Which was brought home to Harry one day as they sat, eating their lunch of sandwiches and tea in the back yard of the Burrow... or the Room of Requirement's version of it, at any rate.
"Um... Ron?" Susan Bones looked uncomfortable.
"What?"
"How... have you always lived here?"
"Yep. Mum and Dad had a flat in London when they were first married, but when Charlie came along, Mum told Dad that two little boys needed a yard to run about in. Good thing, I don't think we all would have fit in the flat."
"Did your Dad build it?"
Ron snorted.
"What?" Susan looked around, confused.
"Dad? Build something?" Ginny laughed. "You've apparently never met our dad, Susan."
"I..."
"Dad..." Ron snorted again. "No... Dad didn't build it. It was like this when they bought it."
"And they still bought it?" Seamus looked up at the tottering structure.
"It's home," Ron shrugged.
Terry Boot sighed and Susan Bones looked down at her sandwich, pushing it away across the picnic table.
"At least you've got one," Colin said softly. "I'd give anything..."
"Me, too," Terry said, swallowing.
Hermione, her eyes overflowing with tears, looked around the group. "We can do this, you know."
"What?" Luna asked, looking oddly at the Gryffindor girl.
"Payback," said Harry in an undertone.
Glancing about, nodding at each other, Terry Boot putting his arm around Susan and squeezing, they all silently agreed.
And none noticed the wise blue eyes of Albus Dumbledore watching them from the window of the Burrow's kitchen, smiling as he turned away and disappeared through a non-existent door into the corridor outside the Room of Requirement.
It was two weeks after Percy Weasley's marriage that all hell broke loose. Ginny tore into the boy's dorm, her eyes wild as she searched the room for Harry.
"Harry!" she cried out when she didn't see him. He came out of the boys' bath, a towel wrapped around his middle and rubbing his wet hair with another, looking curiously at her.
"Oi!" Seamus looked at her. "You shouldn't be in here when one of us isn't decent!"
Harry raised his eyebrows at the other boy, and Ginny snorted. "Seamus Finnegan, if you think that this is the first time I've seen Harry half dressed, you're blinder than I thought you were!"
"Gin..." Harry tried to avoid the rather knowing look that Seamus sent him, and looked, instead, at his glowing girlfriend. "What's wrong?"
"You know how I was telling you that we needed some fun around here?"
"Yes..." Harry was looking into her sparkling eyes and feeling very, very nervous. Ginny was reminding him, frighteningly, of the twins right now... and he didn't like it. Not one little bit.
"Well, come on... you've got to see this!"
"What have you done?" he asked as the others crowded out of the dorm and towards the common room. Harry pulled a pair of pants from his trunk and tried to pull them on as Ginny hopped from one foot to the other with excitement.
Grabbing a jumper as Ginny dragged him out and down the stairs, Harry straighted his glasses and tried to keep up. "What have you done?"
"Not me!"
"I know that look, Ginny... it says you have definitely been up to something... I did go to school with your brothers for five years, you know..."
"This is just too, too good!"
"Ginny!"
"You remember that the twins told us that there was something in our prank package made just for greasy-haired gits?"
"No..." Harry paled. "Ginny, tell me you didn't prank Snape..."
Her eyes danced. "Would that scare you, Harry?"
"Ginny... he's got a hate on for us as it is... you know that anything could tip him over the..."
"I didn't do it!" she giggled. "I got an owl from Fred, though, telling me that if I wasn't willing to, they were going to take matters into their own hands, and to try to catch a glimpse of Snape today..."
"And?"
"And right now, he's eating lunch in the Great Hall... and you have got to see this!"
All the time she'd been talking, she'd been moving. Ginny was now in the lead, dragging Harry by the hand, and led a dozen Gryffindor students towards the Great Hall.
"Oi... Ginny!" Colin called. "What's this all about?"
"Great Hall... now!" she giggled, racing for the stairs.
By the time they reached the Great Hall, they were three dozen strong. The group seemed to acquire stray students as they went, and it being a Saturday, there were plenty of students out wandering about the halls.
Entering the Great Hall, Ginny began to giggle, but made her way to the Gryffindor table and sat down, turning to look at the stunned expressions on the faces of her fellow students. Harry was speechless as he collapsed on the bench next to her.
"Oh, my..." Hermione's eyes and mouth were round with surprise as she stared up at the head table.
Where sat their very obviously annoyed Potions professor. But not alone.
Professor Vector was seated next to him. And Poppy Pomfrey had pulled her chair up at the other side, the two obviously vying for the attention of the now... handsome?... Potions Master.
Greasy haired gits, indeed. Severus Snape's long black hair fell in shining waves past his shoulders, perfectly coiffed. His hawk-like nose appeared to have lost an inch or two, and now seemed perfectly balanced in his craggy, movie-star handsome face.
He grimaced, and Harry was beset by a fresh wave of laughter as Snape's teeth let off a sparkle to rival that in Dumbledore's eyes.
Severus Snape had been taken in by a Charming Charm.
"Gin?"
"I don't know how they did it... I really don't. I've been trying to figure out how to slip him the tablet all year... and Fred and George have managed it from outside the castle... I just can't figure it out..." she giggled.
"Do you think we could get away with calling him Professor Lockhart?" Ron chuckled.
"Oh, what an insult!" Hermione tried not to laugh. "Snape is much more handsome..."
Snape, obviously having had enough of the attention from his fellow professors, not to mention the openly giggling students, stood and flung his napkin down, looked with scorn around the room, and then marched out.
Leaving the students suffering from fresh gales of laughter.
"I'm impressed, really," Ron said when he had control of himself. "I wouldn't have thought he'd show his face in public like that. He's got some stones, he does."
