A/N: Ahh!! Hello once again my fan ficcy readers! I must apologize profusely for my extreme inability to present you loving and wonderful reviewers with at least one chapter once a month. (sighs) I beg your forgiveness, but I suffer from a terrible disease. Yes, I must come clean with you. I suffer from…(Drum Roll) Procrastination. I am the queen of all procrastinators and hope that you will put up with me and my un-timeliness. On another note, I must get down on my knees and thank the 30 reviewers who took the time to jot down a little note for my second chapter. I am forever in your debt. In case you haven't noticed, I am slightly melodramatic. I do hope you enjoy chapter number three!!
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Dawn broke the next morning to reveal a bright and sunny beginning to the day. Gentle pink and orange rays invaded the dark room Ginny had chosen to inhabit, and fell upon the tiny red headed girl who was still enjoying the comforts of sleep. The beams of light continued it's journey across Ginny's room until it was entirely too bright for her to ignore.
Growling at sun who had so invasively awoken her, Ginny pushed the bulky bedspread towards the bottom of her large bed, and swung her legs over the side. Reveling slightly in the feel of the thick carpet between her toes, Ginny made her dazed and tired way over to the long curtains that blocked out the majority of the suns light and yanked them apart.
Much stronger beams of light flooded the once dark room and pervaded every corner in it's haste to remove the shadows. Ginny stared out of the window, glaring at the birds who dared to sing and the sun that taunted her by shining so brightly. How dare they, Ginny thought to herself. How dare the day even contemplate this sickening cheerfulness when Harry might not even be alive?
Ginny suddenly snapped to attention.
Harry.
She bolted from her room and sprinted down the stairs as fast as her short legs would carry her. She dashed through hallway after hallway, making her chaotic way towards the room that still held the hopefully alive Harry. The only thought on Ginny's mind as she threw back the double doors was Harry and the thought of him slipping away into the dark realm of night.
Her intense, sweeping gaze met with Madame Pomfrey's rather accosted looking one. "Miss Weasly!" The old nurse said, brushing her hands on her skirt as she stood. "What are you thinking, running in here like a madwoman this early in the morning?"
Ginny looked contrite in spite of herself. "Sorry Madame Pomfrey." The red headed girl said, breathless. "I was just worried about Harry. Is he alright?"
The weary nurses face softened considerably. "Yes dear. He is still with us. His magical reserves are quite low…unnaturally so, but Mr. Potter has always seemed to have the ability to defy the impossibilities of our mortal lives. My main concern last night was his surviving the night. Now that he has done so, I do believe that he will be awakening. When however, I am not certain." Madame Pomfrey pinned Ginny with her gaze for several moments before appearing to have come to a decision. "Ms. Weasly, I need to go and report to the Headmaster. Do you think that you could stay with Mr. Potter for a moment while I am gone?"
Ginny looked surprised, the elderly matron never let anyone else help look after her patients once they were in her care. This must be a record of some kind.
"Of course Madame Pomfrey. I'll stay here as long as you need me."
The nurse smiled good naturedly at her. "Thank you dear, I will be back soon so don't fret." With that, the elderly school nurse exited the dreary living room, and shut the doors tightly behind her.
Ginny looked over at the still boy laying down on the slightly dusty velvet couch. Closing her eyes, she could still hear Harry's strong voice in the Chamber of Secrets, telling her that everything was alright. She could still see the pain in his eyes when he emerged from the maze at the Tri-Wizard Tournament, could still feel those emerald green eyes burn with anger, hatred, and exquisite agony.
Ginny brushed the obsidian locks back from Harry's forehead, wishing that it was possible to make some of his pain go away. She knew how much he hated pity, but she couldn't help it. This poor boy, this poor tormented boy had been so manipulated, mentally violated, and defiled that it appalled her.
Damn every higher power for letting this happen. She thought to herself, willing her angry tears away. How could anyone have let this happen? How could she have let this happen? Ginny would have contemplated her own guilt in far more detail had she the chance. At that very moment a surprised and horrified scream drifted through the double doors from the kitchen.
Ginny's gaze snapped to attention immediately. That was her mother's voice, she'd heard her mother scream and yell enough at her brothers to know what she sounded like. Ginny sprinted from the room, not even daring to breath until she skidded to a halt inside the kitchen.
"W-what happened?" Ginny said between gasps of air. Her mother had apparently fallen back into her seat from a huge shock as she clutched a somewhat blood stained note in her hands, her father standing next to her, rubbing her shoulders in an attempt to calm her. Professor Snape was standing in a nearby corner, his face as impenetrable as ever, and Professor Dumbledore was sitting to her mother's left, his old wrinkled hands rubbing little circles against his temples.
"What happened?" Ginny repeated, louder this time. She hated being ignored because of her young age. Honestly they all seemed to be doing it anymore. Ron, Hermoine, everyone in the order, and it was beginning to wear on her. She was tired of being left in the dark, and she'd be damned if she didn't get answers now.
It was professor Snape who looked at her when she spoke. Those onyx eyes seemed to infiltrate her mental defenses and examine her very soul. She stood straighter and stared fiercely back into his penetrating gaze, excepting his challenge and returning it. She saw the potions master nod slightly, almost to himself, before sweeping over to her mother and plucking the note from her grasp.
He glided over towards Ginny, and handed her the slightly crumpled note that was covered with dried blood. Ginny held the note with trembling fingertips, and felt all the breath go out of her when she realized what this must be. Harry's suicide note. Harry's final words to them.
"What do you think you are doing?!" Mrs. Weasly shrieked at the aging Potions Master. "She's only a child, she can't read that!"
"I must say that I agree Severus." Dumbledore said, his eyes opening for the first time since Ginny had entered the room. "We don't want to distress Ms. Weasly anymore then I'm sure she already is."
Severus Snape stared back at them all, his cold black eyes scanning for weakness. "In case you have all temporarily forgotten, Ms. Weasly was the only one of us here who was actually mentioned in Potter's letter. It seems as though he wanted the girl to read it, otherwise why say anything to her?" The patronizing undertone was not lost on his audience, and Ginny could have sworn that she saw her mother's eyes flash dangerously.
"Even so, she is only a child Severus!" Mrs. Weasly yelled, her face red with anger at this point. "And she is my child, so I forbid her from reading that letter!"
By this time the rest of the houses inhabitants had made their way towards the source of the noise. Ron, Hermoine, Fred, George and even Remus had managed to squeeze themselves in to the kitchen. Moments later Madame Pomfrey came thundering towards the source of the noise that was so near her patients room. She was silenced immediately however by the fierce intensity on Mrs. Weasly's face. Not even she dared to invoke the wrath of Mrs. Weasly.
"Mum?" Ron ventured cautiously. "What's going on mum?"
Before Mrs. Weasly could respond to her sons inquiry however, Ginny decided to take matters into her own hands.
"It's a note from Harry." She said, a little louder than was entirely necessary, making sure that everyone in the room could hear her. "A suicide note I believe."
These words had the desired effects. Remus went very pale and had to lean against the doorframe to prevent himself from falling. Hermoine gasped and her eyes went very wide, she reached over and clung to the rigid form of her boyfriend who's mouth was hanging open in shock.
Ginny saw the twins face's become very somber and they let their eyes drift towards the floor, while Madame Pomfrey just stared in disbelief.
"What does it say?" said the now hoarse voice of Remus Lupin. His eyes were empty and staring, they flickered from Dumbledore, to Ginny, to the note in her hand, and then finally to the enraged looking Mrs. Weasly. "I don't understand. What does all of the shouting have o do with Harry's letter?" Ginny could almost see the pieces falling into place behind the mans eyes, but it was obvious that he didn't quite have it yet.
Severus Snape cut in at this time, deciding to have a little fun of his own. "Well, you see Lupin, Potter's letter included Ms. Weasly here, and you too come to think of it but that's beside the point. Ms. Weasly wanted to read the letters contents but Molly," He spat the name out like a curse. "has decided that the contents of this letter are far to distressing for her daughter to handle." Snape said all of this in his usual silky tones, only the slightest undertone of malice lining his statement.
Ginny saw Remus pale further, but this time in anger. "Molly, what is the matter with you? Who else does the letter mention, hmmm…? And Dumbledore, did you even plan on telling me about this letter? Or were you going to just sweep it away under the rug?" Remus was really on a roll now, throwing a barrage of questions lined with subtle insults directed at both Mrs. Weasly and Dumbledore. The only difference between the two adults being that Dumbledore was calmly excepting the cleverly hidden insults while Molly was screaming rather nasty things in return.
The others had now joined the argument, filling the kitchen with noise and confusion. The only other person aside from Ginny who remained outside of the chaotic argument was Professor Snape. Ginny caught the Potion Master's eye and a flash of understanding passed between them. Sidestepping the mob of angry Order members, she crept out the door and burst into a mad dash once she reached the stairs.
Bolting into her room, Ginny slammed her door shut and switched the lock into place. Knowing that the muggle lock wouldn't last against an unlocking charm, Ginny grabbed the special made lock that Bill had gotten for her in Egypt, and snapped it onto the doorknob.
Bill had gotten the locking mechanism for her when she was a small child and was crying because Fred and George had stolen her doll. However Ginny never really had a chance to use it before because her mother had strictly forbidden it. Now however, it would serve it's purpose just fine.
Satisfied that the door was sufficiently locked, Ginny settled down on her soft, plush comforter, and held the letter in shaking hands.
'Harry's final words.' Ginny though. 'Or at least, what he intended them to be.' She stared at the letter, letting her delicate fingertips trace over the lettering of the address and the brown stains of Harry's own blood. Swallowing hard, Ginny unfolded the slightly stiff parchment and flattened it tenderly against her thigh.
It took Ginny several moments before she could calm herself enough to open her eyes and stop the compulsive shaking of her hands. Letting her eyes rest upon the opening sentence of Harry's letter, she read:
Dear Whomever happens to find the letter,
Well, I am truly sorry for whomever happened to find this archive of my musings. You have quite a lot to read, and none of it is really all that important. But, now that you have seen a letter beside my presumably dead body covered in blood, I doubt that you could put this note down if you wanted too.
I suppose that I should start off with the clichéd reasons as to why I have decided I would be better off dead. Let's start with Sirius and make our way up the chart shall we?
While Sirius was my Godfather and one of the last remaining links to my parents, I would not have killed myself over his death. Sirius' dying brought me great pain and distress, but I wouldn't have wasted my life on some one who was already dead. I had to focus on the living, and place my efforts into a cause worthy of my "position".
I am going to safely assume that an Order member is reading this letter, and I will also predict that Dumbledore has not yet informed you of the Prophecy. It is to this that I refer when I say "position".
In a nutshell, my life and destiny have been previously planned by some higher power and they decided to tell the one and only Albus Dumbledore of my precarious situation, through a loony old fraud of a bat. Now, it is far too dangerous for me to write the prophecy word for word in this note, for fear that my assumptions are wrong and this is actually a Death Eater. However, the synopsis is that it's either me or him.
Yes, rather a shock to the system isn't it? Well, have a little fun and imagine how I reacted. In short I went ballistic and destroyed nearly half of Dumbledore's office which, by the way, I am still not really sorry for. But anyway, I'm going off track.
Because of this prophecy, I am not allowed to die. It simply isn't allowed unless I am taking him down with me, so you'll be wondering why the attempted suicide.
Well seeing as I am human I can feel pain, contrary to popular belief. Dumbledore and the rest of the Order seemed to have forgotten that in between my boughs of dueling with the Snake faced bastard himself, I was still a teenage boy. A teenage boy who craved love and affection, a boy who felt so lost in the awe inspiring vastness of his own magic, a boy who still had a small piece of naivety left in him as to believe that human beings were inherently good.
When I first received the lightning bolt scar on my forehead I became Dumbledore's pawn. I was sent to live with the Dursely's to make sure I had no previous bearing on the Wizarding world. He wanted to make sure that the first time I heard about the four houses at Hogwarts it would be from a biased source.
Hagrid brought me to Diagon Alley when I was 11 and there I learned that Slytherins were all evil. I learned that Voldemort, the man who killed my parents, was sorted into Slytherin. Why would I wish to be in a house of that sort? Well, Dumbledore breathed a sigh of relief I'm sure when the hat proclaimed me Gryffindor. That made me much easier to manipulate, much easier to mold to his liking.
I was taught that the world was black and white, no shades of gray existed in between. The Dark Arts were evil and wrong, while light magic was good and pure. And I believed it. I swallowed that nonsense for many years, never questioning it's truth.
The Tri-Wizard Tournament changed me though. That was the one thing that Dumbledore never meant to happen, and without him even knowing, it screwed up his plans indefinitely. It seemed to me that there actually was a world full of different shades of gray, mixed in with the black and white. But now what was I to do? I was in unknown territory without a map or guide and there was no way out.
So, I studied and searched until I found the answers I was looking for. I found that the opinions of which I had been brought up were mind numbingly narrow. There was a whole other world that I didn't even know about, and now I had the knowledge to explore it.
I hid my newly acquired knowledge from the prying eyes of my professors and friends, knowing that they would think me dark. But honestly, I consider myself to be a lovely shade of gray. Not good, not bad, just somewhere in between.
Now if you don't mind anonymous person, I would like to write to two other people before I end my already obtuse letter. The two people are Remus Lupin, and Ginny Weasly, if you could do me the favor of finding them, I would be most obliged.
Dear Remus,
I do hope that you are holding up alright Remus. I know that Sirius' death hit you harder then it hit me, and for that I pity you. No one deserves to lose some one they love, and I know that you both loved each other with a ferocious intensity. In a brotherly sort of way, of course. I'm going to go out on a limb and assume that you don't swing that way.
I also wanted to say thank you Remus. Back in the Department of Mysteries you held me back when Sirius fell through the veil. You held me tight to you as I struggled and fought to go after him and for that I can never that you enough. You over rode your own desire to go after your mate, and prevented me from doing the same. You, Remus Lupin, truly are one of the best friends a person could ever ask for.
Now Remus, I want to say so much but have so little time. The only thing that I could possibly write in this short period of time is that I get this feeling that we are in this mess together. Something is keeping us together, and I don't really know what it is. I promise that once I wake up we will have a long discussion, but for now I must write to Ginny. My time is short and I still have much to write. Thank you again Remus.
Dear Ginny,
Well, I'm not even sure how I can start this part of my letter. We've never been close Ginny, I know that, but I still felt the need to write to you. I still don't understand why, but that is aside from the point. What ever reasoning my more-then-slightly-insane mind possesses, we are obviously not privy to it.
I'm not sure if you remember, but during Christmas break, after the attack on your dad, you, me, Ron, and Hermoine were up in my room and I was extremely rude to you. I fell into the same trap that every other member of your family and the Order seem to fall into. I treated you like a child, when in reality you have seen the same evil I have. You are the only one who could come close to unerstanding, and yet I cast you aside and ignored you. I couldn't have been more of a fool.
When I wake up from my presumed coma, I hope that we can talk Ginny. But I should probably explain further shouldn't I? I have absolutely no intention of dying. As I said before, I can't die. It's simply not allowed. I promise to explain my reasons once I wake up.
I realize that if you read the whole of my letter, it will make little sense to you. Most parts are contradictory, redundant, and all around useless to those without the proper context. I apologize in advance for wasting your time with my babble, but it had to be said, just in case things take a wrong turn and I don't make it out of this alive. You see, I've been planning this for a while, I just never had the time necessary to exact it without being interrupted.
I suppose that before I end this letter, I could explain a few things to you. You see Hermoine sent me a book over the summer, to 'try and take my mind off things' I believe her words were. Anyway I really had nothing to do for large portions of the day, so I decided to give the book a look through. It was far more interesting then I originally gave it credit for.
The book talked about magic in it's entirety, several parts focusing on how magic can sometimes be blocked. I found this part t be more captivating then the others for some reason, and read it over thoroughly. The book said that in order to test for a magical block, the person would have to go into deep meditation. I figured that I didn't have a magic block, but that the meditation would do me good. I needed to relax after the affair in the Department of Mysteries.
After numerous, frustrating attempts, I managed to submerge my self-conscious in a deep meditative trance. It was such bliss Ginny. Like nothing I've ever felt before. I promise that I'll teach you should I survive my experience at death's door. Anyway, I'm off track again.
Well, once I was in my trance, I noticed that something was amiss. Something was most definitely wrong with my magic. Or at least, what I will assume was my magic. There was something that felt like a brick wall in my way. It was an invisible force that acted like a force field and kept me out. I couldn't figure what it was for the life of me.
I came out of my trance and looked through my book. It turns out that there was a block on my magic. I rather powerful one at that. From what the book said, the stronger the block felt, the more magical energy it was trying to surpress. So somebody was obviously trying to surpress enormous amounts of my magic. Now, I don't know about you, but some one trying to control my magical ability pisses the hell out of me.
So, several broken objects later, I looked back over my book to see how I could remove this block. I was most displeased with what I found. It said that the stronger the block was, the more drastic of an action would need to be taken. I looked through several examples, but none of them were even nearing the powerful resistance that this block inside of me put up.
I wrote to the author and asked him, under and alias of course, what I could do considering the strength of this block. His answer was not the hopeful letter I was half expecting.
The author told me that a block of the power and magnitude I had described had not been created yet therefore, he could not give me a definitive answer. However he told me that, hypothetically, I would need to send my body such a shock that it would rock the very center of my magical core. The shock would loosen the block and therefore let my body destroy it.
I hence made the connection that sending my body to the brink of death and back would surfice as a substantial shock. I knew that I was taking a huge risk, but it had to be done. I can't defeat Voldemort if part of me is forever blocked off. I hope that you understand, or at least try and come to grips with it. Please try and explain to the Order why I have done this, I honestly don't think that they will understand on their own.
I thank you again Ginny. You have been nothing but kind to me, and I can never thank you enough. I promise to try my hardest to come back and see you again, even if it is only for a moment or two.
Until we meet again,
Harry
Ginny set the letter down, a myriad of emotions running across her mind. Deciding to settle on her more distraught and painful emotions, Ginny buried her face in her hands and cried.
She cried harder then she ever thought possible. She wept so hard and so long that she never noticed her family and several Order members shoving their way into her room. She never noticed her father pull out his wand and mutter several choice words. The only thing she noticed, was that her tears were falling atop the blood stains on Harry's letter and slowly washing them away. She slipped into the darkness and let the image of her tears washing away Harry's pain, forever be etched in her memory.
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A/N: So…what do you guys think? I am dreadfully sorry that I took such a gross amount of time to finish this chapter. I really didn't mean for it to take that long, but jeez…time catches up with you. A day turned to a week and a week turned to a month, and then Father time had just gone completely out of control. Well, I hope that I kinda made up for it with the extra long chapter. I revamped it so that it would include the letter. Originally this chappie didn't contain the letter, but I figured that you guys would kill me if I didn't. Well, review if you would, and do enjoy it. That is why I write. I keep producing chapters in order to keep people happy, and I hope that I am succeeding. Well, I wasted enough of your time. Good Bye!