Premature Exit

Chapter 12

Disclaimer: I still don't own Harry Potter.

A/N: Thank you to reviewers. I hope the explanation in this chapter is understandable and I hope you understand my decision to keep the one ship in this R/Hr because it's going to be canon (actually stated by JK now). I'm just pushing the boundaries of this fanfiction about now and I haven't honestly had any of this planned: it's all just spilled out. So I hope you enjoy it. I plan to wrap it up soon, now. Thank you reviewers of the last chapter: Lady Arwen of Rivendell, Hidden-rose15 and Harry4ginny.

Harry watched the scenes around him melt away with the slightest inkling of gratitude - he hadn't wanted to see that and certainly hoped never to witness something quite like that again.

The colour faded and so did the detail until finally Harry was left on a very simple plain white background. Trying to shake away the horrible images he had just seen - he realised that this was what had happened before he was transferred to that reality. He fiddled with his thumbs for a moment whilst waiting for something to happen.

Nothing did.

Great. Harry thought - so now he was stuck, unable to go one way or another in some place he didn't even want to imagine the complications of where it was. At least before there had been a landscape, somewhere to go, an unclear idea of what to do- now there was nothing. Surely Merlin was playing games with him but he was just making Harry's head hurt more with everywhere he went.

What had Merlin hoped would enlighten Harry in what he had just seen? He would not have described it as a pleasant experience in any plane. What was he supposed to feel? His friend, Hermione was all right for now - none of this had happened yet and as far as Harry was concerned he wouldn't let any of it ever happen. Was this all necessary?

"OK Merlin, this is getting-"

He was cut off by the appearance of the man arriving at the sound of his name. He had the same, peculiar smile on his face.

"Interesting reaction," he said simply.

He gave Harry the impression that he could read minds, and he realised with a start that if he could perform legilimency he probably was. Harry broke eye contact and tried to barricade his mind from the intruder, but nothing else happened.

"What-?" Harry began, but was annoyed to see Merlin's lips move swiftly and find himself cut off again.

"What happened next? What had happened already? Why did it happen and how did it concern you?" He said, ticking off his fingers as he said them.

"You'd know if you listened to the end of a sentence for once!" Harry said irritably, but Merlin didn't seem particularly abashed.

"But those were the things you wanted to ask? Were they not?"

Harry was even more fed up with his company than ever before. He almost wished he'd remained stranded in this eternity of nothingness than this. Resisting the urge to tell Merlin to go away, Harry bit his lip and nodded ferociously.

Merlin dropped the annoying smile and the air of maddening superiority.

"Your friends - Ron and Hermione - were, as you may or may not have gathered, searching for that very same sword that you pulled out of the sorting hat in your second year of magical education."

"I guessed that," Harry said quickly.

"For this you shall have to know the backing story: In the time you just visited you fell through the veil at the department of mysteries and stayed where you were. After spending a year at Hogwarts trying their hardest to research more about the veil after everyone being rescued by Mr Dumbledore and trying to find ways in which you could come back. The two of them were both forced into realising that you had chosen not to return and that they were to move onto other things, for instance, helping the wizarding world against the victorious Voldemort. But there was something he did not understand, could not understand due to never hearing the prophecy fully - it had not been fulfilled as he assumed. Taking that into account, you were not the only one who could destroy him-"

"But I thought-" Harry started.

"Please let me continue. The prophecy was not fulfilled: meaning you were not the only one who could strike the fatal blow to Lord Voldemort after all, others, mere muggles could possibly have the chance. The future was not written out, and nobody knew what the final outcome was going to be. The wizarding world was in uproar, everything had changed - The Dark Lord was back and soon the - quite accurate, I must say - rumours started that it had been prophecised that you were the only one who could kill Voldemort. You can quite imagine the fear - many lost hope, but Mr Albus Dumbledore knew otherwise. You know Mr Dumbledore, do you, Harry?"

Harry nodded - he found his mouth was dry, and he felt unable to speak.

"Yes. Very skilled wizard - knew a lot about Voldemort, even found out things about the boy Tom Riddle whom was Voldemort as a child. He studied the enemy extremely well and reached a well founded conclusion, he rejoiced and summoned Ron and Hermione Weasley-"

"Weasley?" asked Harry weakly.

"Ah, yes - minor detail I missed, they eloped soon after the end of their schooling and returned to join the Order of the Phoenix. Now, Dumbledore knew they were trustworthy, they had been your dearest friends, after all, and they were a capable witch and wizard respectively. He told them what he knew about the prophecy, how he knew it had not been fulfilled and that there was still a chance. Both of them were delighted to try and break Voldemort's immortality before trying to finally defeat him, quest after quest followed. Hermione researched, solved puzzles and Ron did a lot more than provide his usual comedy, too - you see by this time, Dumbledore had died-"

"Dumbledore had-?" Harry was finding it rather difficult to keep up; he'd heard a few words and sprung instantly back to life. "Dumbledore died?"

"Yes, old age possibly - a wound that had sprung from one of Voldemort's more cleverly hidden objects, also possible. They didn't find out, thus, I did neither. But let me go on, them two alone were trusted with the knowledge that the world could still be saved. The Order was falling against Voldemort's new legions of Dark followers, nobody wanted to die prematurely - so they devoted their lives to helping Voldemort instead, and many of the others could easily be made to tell the truth. Ron and Hermione kept it to themselves."

Harry struggled madly to catch up with everything. Ron and Hermione were married and the only two who knew that the world they lived in wasn't completely doomed? Was that an even larger burden than the one that had been placed on him? Or less so because there had been two of them? He had no time to consider.

"Then they set out for another quest, a dangerous quest, right inside Voldemort's new headquarters: the remnants of Hogwarts school. They knew that Voldemort would be after two items of great importance; the pensieve in which the memory of the prophecy had been in, and the sword of Godric Gryffindor that Voldemort wished to use in the same way he had used the diary you destroyed previously. They did not know how long it would take for Voldemort or his Death Eaters to break the password, only that it would happen, and they couldn't let these objects be taken. Thus what you saw tonight, Harry."

Finally, a chance to breathe. This was so much information Harry found himself wishing he had his own pensieve to record this in.

"What then? What happened next?" he asked, although he didn't really want to know the answer.

"Ron died afterwards, he lost his head in battle by the death of his beloved wife," Merlin said bitterly, "the secret of the unfulfilled prophecy died with them both."

Harry felt saddened. Had he caused this by not returning? Or had they just been living on borrowed time - being that if he had returned their souls would have departed for the spiritual plane faster? He could have scarcely begun to imagine the many possibilities before this. He had never realised that without him being killed by Voldemort the prophecy could not be fulfilled. That it would mean that anybody would just be able to defeat him, if done correctly. But the only ones who knew this were dead. Would anyone find out? Could anyone find out? By not returning, maybe the wizarding world would be-

"But it could be rediscovered. Your two friends did leave a trail of things that another could realise and the flame of hope could be re-ignited. Harry Potter, do you still wish to return back to your own plane?"

Harry could not see how changing his answer would be helpful, though he was beginning to see that maybe going back would not be helping anybody. He cursed his own willingness to stay. He had to go back. He would help his friends - they wouldn't be alone this time. He may be the chosen one but there were many different possible outcomes of what could happen. Maybe going back would be better, maybe staying would - but who really knew?

"Yes," said Harry defiantly. He caught a glimpse of something in one of Merlin's eyes.

"Then there is more for you to see," Merlin said. The smile was back. The world was shifting…

This time the colours came back much faster and hurt Harry's eyes underneath his glasses. The sudden return of life around him had made him feel slightly dizzy and he tumbled over, smashing his head against something that looked like a large bookshelf - though he wasn't sure his eyes were functioning properly again yet. The air was crisp again; a familiar icy breeze was rushing in through open windows in the small cottage that he had found himself in. He looked around; the whole place looked like a storm had hit it from the inside. It remained perfectly intact - but everything had been blown around and a broken table lay sadly in the corner of the room. Despite everything, however, a fire was still burning. He was in some living room he was quite sure he had never been to before.

He looked around at his surroundings for any moving - but nothing. Harry sighed in relief and proceeded towards the door. He had not been expecting this again. Was Merlin really having fun playing these games? Did he want to change Harry's mind? Did he really expect this to happen by showing him his best friend's deaths? He swung the door open angrily - well, if he were supposed to see something else he didn't quite fancy being discovered in a room where there was nowhere to hid and no other way to get out. He'd watch from the outside.

He stepped into another room, most probably a kitchen of some sort and immediately stopped when he realised that there was somebody inside of it.

His anger had caused him to be careless, now he was going to be found and possibly arrested for trying to impersonate a dead wizard - he could see himself now kicking and screaming that he was the real Harry Potter whilst being carried off by the Dementors. So this was the climax to Merlin's game: if he did not agree by the end of that last scene he was to be sent to the Dementors?

Harry ducked instinctively as a dirty-blonde head turned around and then turned back again, then muttered something under her (for it was a her) breath that sounded like, "gooblewhistlers, I told them I'd sort them out if they'd wanted."

The voice was familiar. The head was familiar. The sentence - well, who else could it really be but Luna Lovegood? She was possibly the only person who could have overlooked something like that in a strange empty house and expect it to be some creature only she and Quibbler-readers had ever heard of. Harry was glad. He made a mental note that if this were to happen again he would have to ask Merlin for an invisibility cloak because this was getting ridiculous. He was crouched down in a very comfortless position and had no way of moving somewhere without either passing Luna or having to reopen the now closed door back from where he had come from.

There was no way he could move without her noticing him. He once again thought that turning into a bat would have been a great way to get away, or perhaps a beetle - no, not like Rita Skeeter - maybe a fly. Harry looked up at Luna; she was humming to herself happily (which must have been a good thing because it was covering up Harry's quick yelp of pain as he put his hand down on something spiky that he dared not to look at. She was apparently reading through some giant sized textbook; Harry saw several copies of The Quibbler stacked up in the far corner of the kitchen. Was this where Luna lived? Harry could not explain the feeling that told him the answer was no. So what was she doing here?

Luna closed the book unexpectedly and her humming stopped. There was another silence as she stood up from the chair on which she was sitting and appeared to be turning towards the door Harry was in front of, a piece of parchment clutched firmly in her hand. He was going to be discovered…

Then Harry was struck by what seemed to be a momentary brilliance, he seized something - the same thing, incidentally, that had spiked his hand across the kitchen in front of Luna's eyes. As she turned back to see what it was he moved quickly to the stairs on the other side of the room. He hurried as fast as he could on all fours - how being a dog would help now - towards the stairs on the other side of the kitchen. It was a long shot, and all depended on how long Luna was distracted.

"Hmm?" she said confusedly, looking at what Harry had thrown mercilessly past her. "Matlal?" she walked over and picked whatever it was up.

A hedgehog. Luna Lovegood had what must have been a pet hedgehog.

"Did you fly, Matlal?" she asked eagerly, her large protuberant eyes lighting up at the creature in her hands, "and they told me you didn't have any special powers!"

Harry almost wanted to laugh. The years hadn't changed Luna. She had grown taller and her dirty blonde hair was longer, though tied up with some kind of scarf-like material. Luna's clothes consisted of very brightly coloured muggle garments and she must have been wearing two jumpers - Harry didn't blame her, the future was very cold.

She placed the hedgehog down with utmost care.

"I've got to go now," she said to it as though expecting an answer, "but I certainly won't forget this, you could fly in to greet me if you get too-"

Harry made himself comfortable on the stairs and was not pleased at the idea of Luna coming upstairs and making him move again. He had really had enough of this - first with Ron and Hermione and now he was skulking around a weird cottage that Luna Lovegood inhabited. But she was going now - walking into the room in which Harry had first come to, if he wanted to have the faintest idea what she was doing he should probably follow her, but Harry had already had enough close calls for one day. He stayed, perfectly content - though shivering, and slightly bored. Luna wasn't talking to herself in the next room so he hadn't a clue what she was doing - all he knew was when the door swung open again she was followed by two other people.

One was a round faced, yet tall and broad man and the other was a woman shorter than both of them with fiery red hair streaming down her back. So Neville and Ginny had survived. They were both looking slightly ragged and worse for wear and Ginny had a deep cut across one of her freckled cheeks - Neville looked like he hadn't slept for weeks.

"What is it, Luna?" asked Ginny, shaking back her hair, "it hardly soothes the mind when you come calling this early in the morning. I thought I was under attack."

"Yes, tell us why you've forced us to leave our homes in favour of this place," Neville shivered, he then sat down at the table Luna had been sitting at and summoned two chairs from the previous room for Luna and Ginny. "I don't like it here, Ron and Hermione's old place, was it not?"

So this was where he was. And he knew it was sometime after what he had seen before, although that much had been pretty much given due to the fact they each looked much older than Ron and Hermione had been.

"Yes," said Ginny, biting her lip, she turned to Luna, "we won't find anything here - the Death Eaters took everything after it all happened."

"I was looking at this," Luna replied, looking at the book she had been reading fondly - she opened it up, "it was Hermione's, I think. I was trying out my new wonderwattiwatch," she indicated a large chunky watch on her right wrist, "very useful - detects information we need whilst also functioning as a usual watch, you know."

"Yes," Neville urged her on.

"I was thinking about maybe getting them for everybody in the Order, my Dad would have loved them - oh yes, well, it started beeping oddly, you know? And I thought it might be malfunctioning, the enchantment might be wearing off or something, but I opened this and look-"

Luna pointed at something Harry could not hope to be able to read in such a distance. Both Neville and Ginny leaned in closer for a better look. Harry considered waiting until they were all finished and summoning the book for him to look at. He swished his wand longingly and without warning the pile of magazines blew everywhere. Luna didn't even look up, but-

"What was that?" asked Ginny sharply.

"I don't know," said Neville anxiously, looking all around. Harry crept worriedly onto the upstairs landing so that they were unable to see him - though this came at a price: He could only hear them now.

"Gooblewhistler," stated Luna in a pleasant singsong voice, the seriousness in her voice before forgotten.

"Come again?" said Neville.

"It was clearly a gooblewhistler, silly! They live in places like these, you can't see them, but-"

"We were just concerned it was an intruder," said Ginny gently, "wands out, do you reckon?"

"This is rather silly, really," Luna said, but when Harry dared peep through the bars of the stairs again he saw that they all had their wands out.

"Well, we're just taking precautions, you never know who's there these days," said Neville, a note of bitterness in his voice.

This time they had heard him and at any moment would strike if they heard him again. Harry had got to stop accidentally being clumsy - he couldn't help it when he was unsure what to do, rather bored, cold and his head was throbbing. He remembered longingly of the little illusion house that he had shared with his parents and Sirius what seemed like days ago. Did they know what he was doing now? Were they talking with Merlin over tea what he intended Harry to see? Harry only wished he knew, too. Harry wouldn't have minded going back and staying there now, if the alternative was to stand and watch his friends from afar in a very distant reality to what he remembered. There followed a silence. What the three of them were doing Harry didn't dare look - instead, he painted himself an image of the three of them sitting with large cups of magically refilling tea and discussing Quidditch, highly unlikely, but possible. After all, perhaps reality was not always the route one wished to take - he was being made to think that way.


Well, I was going to add a lot more into this chapter but couldn't find a place to bring it in and the chapter was getting longer and more tedious. I hope this chapter makes sense and isn't a complete waste of time - I did really miss Ron and Hermione and everybody else whilst writing this fic so I had to find a way to bring them in somehow. Good news for me and noone else: I got a new Ipod and we went to visit my Dad's chocolate factory (no joke) the other day. I got loads of free chocolate :P