Disclaimer: I own no part of this story except for the plot and spell work. J. K. Rowling owns everything else, including dozens of hours of my life that I am dedicating to this story.
Chapter 5: Echoes of the Dead
After Harry and Mrs. Weasley broke apart, life at Grimmauld Place looked like it would return to normal until Dumbledore asked the question that Harry knew had to come sooner or later.
"Well Harry, why don't you tell us what exactly happened that night," Dumbledore said pointedly.
"Just like the old fool to keep his plans to himself and not tell those who are at risk in them." Harry found himself thinking. He was immediately ashamed of this thought and was unsure what had caused it. The voice…the voice had caused it. But the voice was sinking further and further into his subconscious and, try as he might, he was soon unable to even remember what the voice had said to him.
Harry saw that everyone else in the room was still looking at him and he realized that he must have been quiet for quite a while. Everyone else suspected it was just Harry grieving over Ron's death, which Harry supposed he must have been, but he had a strange feeling that something else had bothered him instead. Something that Harry could not quite put his finger on.
Harry shook his head and cleared his mind before forcing himself to relive that fateful night. "Well, as Tonks and the others will be able to tell you, Ron, Hermione, and I were attacked by six Death Eaters," Harry said finally getting his voice back. "We stunned Macnair and I performed a choking spell on Avery before stunning Malfoy, Draco that is. By the time I finished this, everyone else had wrapped the rest up."
"After we had finished tying up the Death Eaters, Tonks cried out as Voldemort came storming from the warehouse. Tonks and Kingsley were hit by the Impediment curse and lost consciousness. Moody was hit by a Reductor Curse that took out his knee." With this comment everyone flinched as they knew what a Reductor Curse could do to a brick wall, much less a human.
"Voldemort then turned to me; I tried to raise my wand, but by the time I even had it half way up Voldemort was already shouting his curse. The green spell came flying towards me and—"
Harry left off what he was saying and took his head in his hands. Hermione reached over and began rubbing the Harry's back before finishing his sentence for him. "Ron jumped in front of Harry and was hit in the chest by the spell."
Mrs. Weasley looked pale and stood up as if to leave the room, but instead ran to Harry and threw her arms around him. "I'm so sorry Harry, I know that you must miss him and my criticism couldn't have made it any better. You were trying to make it easier on me rather than on yourself. Ron couldn't have asked for a better friend." Harry let out a loud sniffle and collapsed into tears in her arms. Mrs. Weasley continued to hold Harry repeating "It'll be okay."
Hermione wanted to be with Harry, to help him through his grief, but knew that not only Harry was the one grieving right now. Mrs. Weasley was still trying to get over her son's death as well and soothing Harry was helping her come to terms with Ron's death as well. Instead Hermione turned and looked around the room. Mr. Weasley looked extremely pale, but had a look of determination on his face. Remus and Snape looked grave and serious. Hermione looked to Dumbledore for comfort, but was startled to see a single tear sliding down his face. She knew that the loss of any student had to be hard on him, but she had never seen him show any sign of weakness before. Hermione realized with a start that Dumbledore was not only affected by Ron's death, but also by how close Harry had come to dying as well.
Dumbledore's voice suddenly brought Hermione back from her thoughts. "Harry, I am sorry that I had to make you relive that moment, but it was important to ensure that you had accepted Ron's death."
Harry merely nodded at him and waited for him to continue.
"Well Harry, I guess that all that has to be decided now is what you are going to do. I would recommend staying at Grimmauld Place for a few days before leaving, but what you do past that is up to you."
"I—you mean that I can do whatever I want?" Harry asked in a nervous voice.
"You are of age now and out of school. It is time for you to live your own life and make your own decisions. I just have one piece of advice for you Harry, one that I have given to you before. It is not our abilities that show us who we really are, but our choices.
Harry gave a slight smile and looked over at Hermione. "Actually, I think that we will be leaving today."
Most of the group seemed surprised at this statement but Dumbledore merely nodded.
"And what are you planning on doing Harry?"
Harry's smile widened, "We're going back to the Aurors today."
Harry was certain that he saw a few jaws hit the table as the full impact of his statement hit them.
Remus was the first to speak, taking over his Godfather duties now that Sirius was gone, "Are you sure you're ready Harry? You sure you don't want to take a few more days off?"
Mrs. Weasley looked as if she was going to force Harry to take a few days off but Harry raised a hand to cut her protest off.
"I know it seems early, but I can't sit idle any longer. Every day I sit here is a day that Voldemort does not have to fear facing me. If I must face Voldemort, I will do it on my terms rather than wait for him to come after me when he is ready. Besides, what good is being an Auror if you aren't actively opposing evil and trying to save the lives of people who can't fight against it?"
Dumbledore looked ready to interject a comment, but Harry saw it coming. "However, I am going to talk to Fudge and demand that Hermione and I get the proper training. We only lack a few months more and we will be ready for whatever Voldemort can throw at us."
Dumbledore nodded his head satisfied. After seeing Dumbledore's approval of Harry's plans, the rest of the group grudgingly admitted that Harry was doing the right thing. Dumbledore, sensing the silent agreement of the most prominent members of the Order of the Phoenix, nodded and said, "Molly, why don't you go ahead and make Harry some breakfast."
"Of course I will." Mrs. Weasley said with a smile.
Harry smiled as Mrs. Weasley placed a mound of food on his empty plate and brought it to him. She had always thought of Harry as undernourished since his first trip to the Burrow and it seemed as if times hadn't changed that much.
As Harry began to eat silently it was Remus who broke the tense moment. "So Harry and Hermione, I heard that you two did quite well on your N.E.W.T.s. No doubt due to my outstanding teaching," he said as a grin began to creep across his face,
Harry thought he heard a loud gruff come from the hall, but supposed it must be a dog outside. He noticed that everyone else exchanged a startled look at the sound, even Hermione.
Harry tried to bite back a smile as he replied, "I'm sure that's true Remus. However, I'm pretty sure that Snape would have been a better Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher."
Snape, who didn't know whether to take this as a compliment or a reference to his job as a spy against the Death Eaters, chose not to respond and merely nodded in agreement.
Remus looked taken aback, but shared a secret look with Harry at the sight of the smug look on Snape's face. Harry knew that Remus and Snape used to hate one another, but since Snape had rescued Harry from Voldemort last year, the two had come to a silent agreement.
"It's about time that they realized that they were on the same side," Harry thought with a grin. "Although, if Sirius was still here, I know that there wouldn't be a chance in hell for the two to ever see eye-to-eye."
Ever since their days at Hogwarts, Sirius and Snape had never gotten along. The fact that a careless remark by Sirius during their school years had nearly resulted in Snape's death didn't help the bitter feelings the two shared for one another.
"Hell, it was hard enough just to keep the two in the same room while listening to reports from other members of the Order." Harry knew the two would never gotten along very well.
"Well…it's not a problem now." Harry thought with a slight grimace. The loss of his godfather had been one of the worst moments of Harry's life. Somewhere in his heart he had always known that, after the war was over, he and Sirius would be able to reclaim the time that they had lost. That Padfoot and the offspring of Prongs would be reunited after it was all done. It had stunned Harry when Sirius died, knowing that the dream was no longer a possibility. Harry had always thought that Sirius's death would affect him the most, but now he wasn't sure. Ron had been Harry's constant friend and ally ever since their first ride on the Hogwarts Express.
Harry found that his thoughts often turned to Sirius when things were quiet. He sometimes wished that the action would never stop, but it always did. It would stop suddenly and leave the repercussions of the dead filling its absence. With each time that the action stopped, Harry had someone new to grieve for. He knew it would be twice as bad now with Ron dead.
Harry briefly remembered Ron holding the Quidditch Cup over his head during their fifth year. He had never seen Ron so happy and Harry wished that he had been able to be there to see the match. That was before Ron and Harry had to quit the team because it was too easy to attack them while they were playing Quidditch. Brooms have strong resistance to magical charms and curses, but Dark Magic can easily break through these barriers. Harry had nearly died during a practice session their sixth year because a Death Eater had been able to knock him off his broom. In the end, Harry and Ron resigned and hoped that someday they would be able to play again.
"It's too late now for Ron to try again. Maybe I will try out for a professional Quidditch team when this is all over. He'd want me to do it—as long as I played for the Cannons." Harry smiled as he remembered Ron's slightly insane behavior towards his favorite Quidditch team, the Chudley Cannons. Even thought the team hadn't won a league championship in one hundred and twelve years, Ron had always supported them like a maniac. If anyone was to insult the Cannons, Harry and Hermione would have to hold Ron back from cursing them. Harry smiled as he remembered the one time that he had "accidentally" let Ron get loose when Malfoy had insulted the Cannons. The two had spent a week of detentions with Filch, but it had been worth it to see Malfoy run screaming from the room with tentacles somehow sprouting from his face.
Later, after Harry and Ron told Fred and George how to mix to spells to the make tentacles sprout, a new product called Calamari Creams came into the Hogwarts black market of jokes. Someone had slipped a few of them into the professors' food during breakfast and breakfast suddenly got a whole lot more interesting. Eleven teachers were suddenly groping about their face, feeling their new appendages. Only Dumbledore had sat still, with quite an amused expression on his face. Harry was pretty sure that Dumbledore had known what was going to happen, but had gone along with the joke for appearances sake. However, the rest of the professors didn't quite take it as easily.
Harry had particularly enjoyed seeing Snape's eyes bulge as he felt the wriggling tentacles that emerged from his cheeks, although Snape took it out on Gryffindor when Potions came around. Their house quickly lost fifty points for Neville simply knocking over his cauldron, which was a daily occurrence for him and had never warranted losing so many points. Snape's vindictive mood continued through the week, but the rest of the teachers, aside from Professor McGonagal, had actually enjoyed the joke when the tentacles fell off three hours later. They had an unusually large amount of homework in Transfiguration, but that, with the unfair loss of house points, was the extent of their punishment for the joke.
Harry still remembered the excited look on Ron's face when he had told Harry that it had been him that had sneaked the Creams into the food that morning. It had been tough convincing Dobby to let him do so, but he had been able to distract Dobby with a new pair of socks that Ron had got for him. Harry and Ron had laughed for quite a while, knowing that it had been a long time since the staff of Hogwarts had been at the receiving end of a joke.
Another wave of sadness swept across Harry as he realized that he and Ron would never be able to sit and laugh at a joke together again. It seemed that while those who had died were gone, their echoes would always reach out to touch the living. The echoes were both good and bad, but Harry had lost enough friends and loved ones that, when the bad came, it was too much for him to handle.
Harry dropped his fork with a clatter and quickly asked to be excused, knowing that memories of Sirius, Hagrid, and his parents would soon be following. By the looks of everyone else at the table, Harry knew that they were sure of the reason for his sudden departure. Dumbledore simply nodded and said, "Okay Harry, we will talk with you this evening after you are done talking to Fudge." Harry said thanks and quickly ran up to his room. He was about to shut the door behind them when Hermione slipped in. Hermione, aside from Ginny, was the only person who seemed to be able to help Harry through his grief. Just her presence was strong enough to block most of the memories, and her soothing words made everything else almost bearable.
She didn't say anything as she entered the room, but just walked up to Harry and took him in her arms. She held to him tightly as Harry felt his emotions begin to pour out of him. She didn't let go until Harry felt his body sag with the weight of the emotions gone.
Harry wiped away his tears before turning and smiling at Hermione, silently thanking whatever chance of fate that brought Hermione into his life.
Suddenly, the famous Potter look slid across Harry's face as he raised his eyebrows at Hermione. "Well, are you ready to threaten the Minister of Magic?"
"I can think of nothing else I would rather do." Hermione answered the same wicked smile appearing on her face.
The two walked downstairs to the fireplace and bid Mr. and Mrs. Weasley goodbye before departing for the Ministry of Magic.
Author's Note: There, the companion piece to where I suddenly left off yesterday. About Sirius' return, I strongly believe that J.K. Rowling is going to use Sirius as an ace up her sleeve, only using him when things are getting tough. Sorry if you don't think that Sirius is coming back, but, as I said, I believe that Sirius' role in the Harry Potter Universe has just begun. By the way, I've got a state UIL meet in Austin this weekend so I probably won't be able to update again until early next week.
Janangel05- I'm glad that you like the story. It's my first and I felt a little hesitant about posting it after reading so many other good fics. Thanks for reviewing and keep reading.