Premature Exit
Disclaimer: I don't own Harry Potter, Harry Potter is the property of JK Rowling.
A/N: Hey. You might know I'm writing another story at the same time as this, it's worth a look, and it's a bit more light hearted than this fic: It' called My Happy Ending. Well, anyway, cheers to reviewers Hidden-Rose15 and beewitt (yeah - seriously, we reckon it's the smallest in Britain, though), here's the next chapter:
Chapter 13
Harry wondered what to do, why was he here? What was happening that was so important? It was just a few of his old friends having a midnight party in his other friends' old home. Something was not adding up. Clearly it was a few years after what he had seen before (he couldn't bring himself to call it Hermione's death) and Luna had discovered something interesting. Then again, it was Luna, and perhaps she had found proof of a crumple horned snorckack or something? He could not let himself be seen, but in order to know what was going on he had to at least be able to hear his friends - he was currently too far away. If they saw him, Ginny would probably hex him, Harry thought to himself. Perhaps he was safer where he was…but would Merlin really let any harm come to him?
So what were they doing? Harry tried to think back to his conversation with Merlin. If he hadn't been speaking so damn fast Harry might have got a lot more out of the conversation, and it was a lot of information to handle at any given point. He remembered that Ron and Hermione had got married, Dumbledore had died somehow and nobody knew that the prophecy had been unfulfilled therefore lived believing that the wizarding world would never be saved - lived without hope. Harry thought he had got the general gist, anyway. But Merlin had also said the secret may not have died yet, did he not, for Ron and Hermione had left some sort of trail before they died. What if-
Luna was babbling loudly down below and between every other sentence Harry could hear Neville speaking slowly.
"Shut up, Luna…Neville…you're doing my head in!" said Ginny's voice angrily, "and frankly, I think Luna's right - but this, this is…unbelievable. Did you have any…any leads, Luna."
Harry listened very closely, hoping for the chance they would all decide to speak loudly for no apparent reason - he needed to know if his assumption was correct.
But he couldn't hear Luna's reply.
"Asides from your wonderwhatd'youcallit watch," said Ginny, calmly but with a note of something in her voice that suggested she had had enough and desperately wanted some sleep.
He could not hear Luna's reply again - though he was not entirely sure she had spoken.
"I'm not sure I believe it," said Neville uncertainly, he, on the contrary, sounded wide-awake, "I'm not sure we can believe it, wouldn't they-?"
"No," snapped Ginny, louder than before, "they wouldn't of, and they never did, of course."
"I think that's a rather rash judgement," said Luna dreamily, finally projecting her voice loud enough for Harry to hear.
"That's the truth, I knew them better than anybody…" but Ginny's voice wavered and then Harry could not hear her next words. Deciding that it would be OK to watch them now, since they were obviously distracted, Harry did so.
Ginny's freckled face looked very sad and Neville had put an arm around her, comforting her. Luna was making clucking noises with her tongue. Ginny was mumbling something, but neither Harry, nor, apparently, the other two could understand what she was saying.
"Go home," Neville said to her, Ginny looked up at him.
"But-" she began. Neville looked at her with an expression so firm that Harry would not have expected it from him.
"Luna and I will figure out what this means - I've already got a pretty clear idea, if this isn't all fakes planted by the-"
"It isn't!" sobbed Ginny.
"We'll both see you tomorrow," said Neville calmly, "go."
Ginny nodded and disappeared promptly. Harry was slightly surprised; he couldn't get used to the idea of her apparating.
"She never used to be like that," muttered Neville in a low voice to Luna, who stopped making noises with her tongue and put her head to one side.
"I think she's still upset about everything," said Luna seriously, "I keep telling her that everything will be all right one day, and she tells me it won't be, and then leaves…like that."
"Will it ever be all right though?" asked Neville sadly. Harry got the impression this was meant to be a rhetorical question - but Luna had other ideas. She nodded furiously.
"It will be," she said. Neville smiled at her.
"I've got to go," he said, "can I take this?" He pointed at the large book. Luna nodded again, her earring jingling.
"Bye, then," Neville said.
Luna grinned.
"Bye - Neville, wait!"
"What?"
"Watch out for the dilladillongoes!"
Harry knew exactly where he was, what his friends were discovering and why it was important. Or thought he did. Luna had discovered it - he had no idea what the book was, but felt it probably contained some very vital information on everything Ron, Hermione and Dumbledore had planned for so long. Harry felt very sure that he had just witnessed the moment when his remaining friends had put all the facts together. What was to happen now? The question in his head was answered almost immediately. The image of the stairs in the creaky cottage home was falling away - instead there was a not so new blank atmosphere Harry was coming to associate with Merlin's own realm.
"Good guesswork," said a voice. Harry recognised it and turned around slowly.
"You," he said, not caring to be polite.
"Me," said Merlin amusedly.
Harry took a deep breath. "What happened next?"
The trace of amusement left Merlin's face as he retained the serious look that told Harry something he didn't want to hear was coming.
"Luna Lovegood died," he said. Harry stared at him. "Mr Longbottom and Miss Weasley found her body the following morning - they never found out how she died, but suspected dark magic. Without her, they found that finding information was harder without Luna's uncanny knack to stumble across something accidentally, but eventually, they learned enough to be able to tell the story as well as I have done."
His friends - the people who had stuck by him even when he was wrong, as proved by the ministry scene what seemed far too long ago, were merely being counted off by Merlin's fingers. And he was powerless to stop it, never before had he not been able to try and save their lives. He had, had he not, tried to get them all out after they went to the department of mysteries and found only the Death Eaters - he'd fought them, but only really trying, hoping, to be given a route out.
Well, this was his route out. Not one he had been intending, but a way out of everything. But even if Neville and Ginny did triumph now, could he let all the damage happen in the first place? If he were to go back, and to succeed in destroying Voldemort, none of this would need to happen…hopefully. He could not help feeling that, despite himself, it would be a lot easier to stay where he was and just simply depart to the spiritual plane and wait for his friends there.
He cursed himself in his own head for even considering it.
"And what happened next?" asked Harry, he didn't want to ask all the questions and he definitely didn't really want to know the answers. He'd have been more than content with just hoping everything went all right from the last thing he had seen - but then he knew it hadn't, Luna had died. He knew, in due time, he would have to know the answer to the question.
But Merlin was giving him one of his all-knowing smiles Harry found irritating.
"Why don't you find out?" he said.
And before Harry could yell "NO!" defiantly, he was being whirled off back to the future once more. Harry wanted to believe this would be the last time - but what was he to see? He fell over, feeling dizzy, and then stood back on. He had emerged at a battle field. He could not tell where exactly he was, only that he could not see a building, or a sign of life such as a tree for miles around. He could see, however, several cloaked figures lying sprawled on the dry, dusty ground around him. This was getting sick. If the only way to go on was to pull off the hoods of the corpses of these people then he'd rather avada kedavra himself. He could see nothing else to do. Harry stood, frozen, as he considered his choices.
There was a quiet pop, Harry spun around and worriedly tried to find somewhere he could hide - he'd never managed to get an invisibility cloak from Merlin - never even asked. Harry felt the answer would have been no nevertheless. He hoped beyond hope that whoever it was would not see him, but he could not be lucky again. The damage was done.
He whipped out his wand and waited for something, anything - but the woman, he could tell it was a woman did nothing but stand there. Harry wondered for a split second if she could not see him and all this hiding had been a complete waste of time, but then the woman fell to her knees. Her hood slipped off as she fell, revealing very bright red hair. It must have been this that seemed to lighten up all the surroundings around him, he felt he hadn't seen colour this vivid for a while now.
She was sobbing, and apparently, talking to herself.
"It's official," she muttered, " I've gone mad…people were telling me and I refused to believe them…but now I know - Harry Potter's here…I'm - I'm - please tell me I'm dreaming."
She looked around at the dead bodies around her as though pleading for one of them to wake up and tell her that she was dreaming. Harry felt it would be OK to talk to her - she didn't seem in the right mental state to attack him.
"You're - you're-" his voice crackled, perhaps because he had not been prepared to use it, "not dreaming." He finished lamely.
Ginny turned her head to face him. Her great brown eyes looked at him all over, observing him. Harry thought she looked awful. Her long hair fell limp and greasy over half of her face and there were large dark shadows under her eyes. She looked oddly skeletal; not the young girl he had been so used to seeing happy and full of life. Overall, this didn't suit Ginny Weasley at all.
"You're dead," she told him matter-of-factly, "I'm not seeing you…I'm not!"
She blinked several times as if expecting him to be gone each time she reopened her eyes.
"You are," Harry said, he wasn't ready for this. He found her appearance as strange as she found his - but perhaps she had more of a reason to.
"Dead wizards don't come back," Ginny said, smiling almost insanely, "I should know."
"Ginny," Harry began, trying to think desperately of a way for her to stop believing she was hallucinating, "I-I was transported here. After I fell through the veil - it was strange, everything was strange. Then I got to see the future, come here - but Ginny, what's happened?"
She had no reason to believe the truth but Harry felt that maybe she had.
"I've never hallucinated before - I don't think I've lost my mind…you could be a Death Eater…but I'd know, I'm sure I'd know."
Harry wondered if she was going to give him an answer. Surprisingly, she opened her mouth again and told him almost everything that Merlin had told him. Harry noticed the scar on the side of her face stretched horribly as she spoke. She told him what had happened in the aftermath of his Death. What had happened to herself, Ron, Hermione, Neville and Luna. She told him that they'd escaped Voldemort, but barely - only with Dumbledore's help. She said that she could remember every moment that happened at the ministry, but after was a blur, then when Voldemort and his followers destroyed Hogwarts in her seventh year she joined the Order of the Phoenix. She talked about Ron and Hermione, how they'd been keeping secrets, how they'd died and how Luna, Neville and herself had fitted the broken pieces back together and learned for themselves what had been within the prophecy. How it hadn't been fulfilled, how they'd searched far and wide to destroy his immortality (Harry couldn't quite make sense of her now) and how they'd succeeded. But Voldemort was still here. She didn't know how to finish him off for good.
"Where's Neville?" asked Harry, hoping not to seem to forward.
"Dead," choked Ginny in reply, "just now…"
Her eyes flashed suddenly. "Now it's my turn." Harry didn't understand. "I'm going to die."
But Harry had realised something in a mad stroke of brilliance and was hardly listening.
"Ginny, when is Voldemort going to come?" he asked.
"About now," she replied, "how do you know?"
"It was a guess."
"Good guess," she replied, smiling - but not in the same crazy way she'd smiled earlier. There was something about her old self in that smile.
"I need your wand, Ginny," said Harry suddenly.
Ginny looked at him confusedly. "Why?"
He didn't reply and she swapped her wand for his. She still didn't seem to understand. Maybe her sense of insanity was rubbing off on him, because he couldn't explain why he knew suddenly what to do.
Harry walked over and past the bodies. He lay down himself, still as anything. Maybe Ginny understood now, maybe she didn't, but he wasn't facing her.
Next, he heard an explosion of noise spread over the eerily silent deathbed. He felt the pain in his scar that told him Voldemort was near, but it wasn't as bad as he remembered it - soothed, even. He heard yells. The coldest voice that Harry had ever heard in his life was proclaiming Ginny Weasley to death. It seemed he wanted to have a bit of fun first, though. He heard him say the word Crucio and Ginny's long high-pitched screams and knew the time was right.
He turned around suddenly so he could see the scene and something shot out of his, or rather, Ginny's wand. It was a silvery beam of light. Blinding Harry. Blinding the Death Eaters. He couldn't see…
What was happening?
Wow…I surprised myself there. I started off with slight writer's block and now it's all fitted together. I hope you understood. These last three chapters weren't planned - they spilled out, but they worked. I hope you enjoyed reading this story. Two chapters to the end now, and I won't be delaying it any further. Please review.
