Two Photographs

Chapter 3- Harry


All six of the horcruxes were gone, destroyed by the three of us over the course of the year. From August 'til June, living in the shadows and having no contact with the world... just with one another, and now it was almost over, just one target left in Voldemort himself...

"So when do we do it?" Ron asked softly, taking a bite from his biscuit. The firelight illuminated his hand, lined with scars and wrinkles from countless death scares.

I shook my head, hidden beneath a long hood. I'd had done many things in the last year; many things that would have sentenced me to Azkaban had it been anything but wartime—only now would the Ministry talk of giving me awards for acts that we all called heinous and terrible under our breaths as we completed them. I couldn't bear to have people look upon me and see these things and think great of me, so I hide from the world.

"Two days. That's when Snape said Voldemort was going to be launching his attack on Hogwarts; we can't risk anything before that, he's going to have thousands of Death Eaters gathering around him to prepare."

"So we have two days to prepare?" Hermione stood up and took our bottle of water. "What do we need to do? Plan our attack, or maybe work some more on battle tactics..."

I shook my head slightly. "We're not going to get any better in two days. What the two of you need is to think of what you're fighting for—to remember and reflect, and prepare mentally."

Ron stared at me with his mouth open. Hermione shot him a 'shut-your-mouth-now' look and poured a glass of water. "So we're going to stay here and share memories?"

I shook my head again. "I want you to go home tomorrow morning and spend a day with your families."

Ron's stared in shock. They hadn't seen their families since July, and every time one of them would bring them up, I would lecture them on how dangerous it would be for them to go back.

I knew what he was thinking. "Voldemort isn't going to care with the attack against Hogwarts only a day away; he can't risk alerting the Order by going to your homes and placing an attack there. Besides, I doubt he'll take notice with the plans that he's going over. It's perfectly safe."

"Where are you gonna go?" Ron stood up and moved next to Hermione, taking the cup from her hands. "You wanna come with me to the Burrow?"

I shook his head one last time. "I can't risk it. Besides... I want to go back to the graveyard and to Godric's Hollow. Maybe some of my old luck with come back."

"You sure?" Hermione muttered.

"Yeah. The thing is..." I stopped for a moment, staring deep into the fire. "If you go home and realize that there is something else out there worth not dying for, I want you to stay and not have to leave me directly. If you find something at home that makes life worth it, then stay. I'll understand; I'd do the same if I had a family to live for."


The embers were the only part of the fire left when I was able to snap out of my reverie. I couldn't help but be a little surprised over the fact that I had allowed myself to drift in half-sleep that long—the sky was a dark blue, and the first stars were starting to show beside the crescent moon.

Star light, star bright, first star I see tonight; wish I may, wish I might, have the wish I wish tonight...

Even in my mind the words sounded stupid, like something out of a lifetime long ago. Who believed in wishes but children, naïve youths who all believed their parents could solve anything and that everyone found their soul mates? Perhaps those that died in their youth were the lucky ones; the ones who never had to hit that wall when they realized that eventually their parents would die, their true love would betray them, and the dreams they had as children were simply not going to come true.

"If you could have one wish, what would it be?"

If I closed my eyes and wished hard enough, I could almost see Ginny in front of me.

"That this would all be over."

There had been an awkward pause then, I remembered. She had leaned down and fumbled with a fold in her dress to avoid the fact that we were together, alone, and no longer together.

"How about you?"

She had stared at me then, I think. Watched me intently, as though she was trying to see through my question. How much I remember is probably a mix of both reality and dreams; but what I see at this moment, looking back, is how I will always remember her. At that moment in my mind, she wasn't wearing dress robes and her hair wasn't twisted hundreds of times over. She was just Ginny, with a spot of dirt on her face, red from the heat and embarrassment.

"I wish that this war was over, so I could be with you again."

As it always was when I tried to dream of this, she was suddenly in her quidditch uniform. That determined look was on her face, as though she knew what I wanted and was prepared to go to any lengths to do it. Like that day last year, last spring, now over a year ago.

I didn't even try and stop it when, as always happened in my dreams, Voldemort came from behind and cut her neck. I didn't react when he killed her in front of me, or when he laughed softly and told me that her blood was on my hands.

Since finding that newspaper in the gutter three months ago, I'd wondered if this was what happened. If he had killed her just like that, or if it was only just a dream my mind created. The paper had only held her name, a date, and a small picture; she wasn't anyone of importance. She was one of one hundred and seventeen that day, and those were only the names that had been recovered. The true death poll that day had probably been closer to four or five hundred.

I'm never sure if I'm awake or asleep anymore. Nightmares have become reality in my waking hours, and the reality we've always known has become a part of dreams. Events that have happened, battles that have been fought, lives that have been lost—I can't tell, even now, if they actually occurred or if they were only in my sleeping hours. The lines have been so blurred over the past year that I don't know anything for sure minus that the three of us were alive, somehow, and Ginny was dead. And that the world was nothing more than a holocaust.

Everything's backwards now. I've not been sure I was asleep for any time in the last year—any dream or nightmare I had could have been reality. Maybe I didn't sleep at all. However, in what I know are our waking hours, I see a world that has died. Everyone lives on the streets, or what used to be the streets before Voldemort destroyed them. Muggles and Wizards alike hide together, melting into a mob of homeless, friendless people who had nothing and no one. Families were torn apart. Bodies thrown everywhere, diseases infecting both societies, magic a lost art due to the fear of being found.

Ten months. Ten months was all it took to go from a world where the three of us could go to the streets without much fear, ten months since muggles learned of wizards, ten months since Hogwarts and the International Quidditch League and the Ministry of Magic shut down, although Hogwarts remained as the final stronghold for renegade wizards and muggles. Ten months since we last saw the Order, at Bill's wedding. Ten months since Ron and Hermione last saw their families.

"I wish that this war was over, so I could be with you again."

Ten months since I had walked away, leaving the girl I loved in a golden dress behind me.

A month and a half since I last saw her in a faded old photograph in a forgotten newspaper.

I hadn't seen her anytime in between. Hadn't trusted myself to visit her or see her or think of her. All along I'd told myself that when the war was over, we could be together. All along I'd known that one of us wouldn't make it out alive, but I couldn't do it to her. Couldn't do it to myself.

Often when lying on the cold ground, I'd wondered about her. We hadn't even been together in the end; we'd separated with little hope of ever seeing one another again. What if she had moved on and started seeing someone else? What if she had forgotten about me, or thought me dead? What if all the images I had of her were fabrications that my mind created because I wanted them so badly? We'd been dating a few months, but we'd never as much as said the word 'love'. It was the war, and the prospect that one or both of us may not make it out, that created this need to have her in my mind. Did she feel the same? Did she even know why when they had killed her? Had they gone after her because she was an Order member's daughter or because someone had told him that we had seen each other for a short time?

Truthfully, did it even matter? She was gone, dead, and would never come back. What did it matter what either of us had thought?

I made promises in the beginning. Promised myself that, in the end, everything would be storybook. We'd kill Voldemort, all making it out alive, and all embrace one another. We'd see everyone there then, all the Order members and families and people we loved, and everything would be great again. Ron and Hermione would get married, and then Ginny and I would. We'd all live in a huge house, have lots of kids, and send them to Hogwarts and watch them live their lives.

Somewhere between finding the paper with Ginny's picture in March and the Ministry giving up completely in April, reality hit. I gave up dreaming and focused on life—we were nothing more than ants to Voldemort, and we were just wasting time until it was our turn. We are as good as dead, no matter what prophecy or knowledge we have on our side. He has everything. We have nothing.

I'm not afraid anymore. I know what's coming. I'm ready now.

Sometimes, when I think I'm asleep, my nights are filled with memories. Nightmares, though with the state of the world, I don't know if you can call them nightmares. Some of them are now simply dreams, because who in their right minds would call a vision they prefer over reality to be a nightmare?

Other times, I see different outcomes. I see Dumbledore talking with McGonagall about the future, and her blushing a deep red as he takes her hand. I see Cedric laughing and pulling Cho over to meet his parents. I see Fred and George sitting at a long table, discussing plans and pranks with Sirius and my dad. I see my mum, looking over her shoulder from talking with Snape, smiling at me.

Yet most often of these dreams, I see Ginny, alive and waiting for me. She's always wearing those quidditch robes that she wore the first night we kissed, always looking at me like she did the last time I saw her; as though she saw everything in me, knew me and accepted what she saw.

"I wish that this war was over, so I could be with you again."

The last of the embers faded, the fire dying off completely.

I stood slowly, testing my limbs before moving them. Since the Ministry gave up, since the Order was disbanded, since finding that paper in the gutter on the side of a dead road in a dead world; I'd pushed myself. What did pain mean in a world like this? What good was I unless I was something that could stand up to Voldemort? His defeat was all that drove me. I woke up each morning to run, as fast as I could, in any direction I could. I'd be gone the majority of the day, pushing my body to its limits.

Running gave me the escape that I needed. It kept me sane, because after the initial pain, euphoria took over and drove me. For those few precious hours every day, I could feel nothing at all. When I couldn't think or remember where I was and who I am, those are the best times.

As we always did leaving our campsite of the day, I scattered the ashes from the fire and gathered the two tattered sheets that had become both our bed and shelter. The few other things we had kept with us we had burned the night before almost ceremoniously. I thought it would have been harder to let go of everything we'd lived off of during the past ten months, but it wasn't at all. The hardest part was making sure that the flames didn't get too high so that we wouldn't be noticed by anyone who could be nearby.

Knowing full well that no Death Eaters would be caring about a renegade spell of magic less than a day before the final siege, I banished the blankets and took one last look around before apparating away.

I let out the breath I'd been holding when I felt my feet land on the ground. Although I had memories from the dementors, I hadn't been to Godric's Hollow since Halloween all those years ago. I didn't know what anything around it looked like or even what was there—but apparently, that didn't matter.

There wasn't much on the plot of land where my old house had been. The foundation and ruins had been removed, leaving only a small garden on the edge of the lawn.

I stopped short as I heard someone breathing behind me.

His voice was a low grumble, almost as though it were a part of the wind. "What are you fighting for?"

I turned slowly, hand on my wand. An older man stepped out of the shadows and stopped, staring at me. He leaned heavily on his cane and laughed softly. "I doubt I'll be doing much fighting with this leg the way it is. Besides, I'm a muggle. Not a drop of wizarding blood in me; only found out about you people a few months back when they got to my wife and kid. Been fighting them as best I could ever since, though that's not saying much with my age and condition. Now, answer me, because I know that look you've got; I had it once myself."

He could easily have been a Death Eater, or a spy, or an enemy. Most people were in these times—it was far easier to sell out someone you had just met then watch your family die when the threats started flooding in.

Yet the look in his eyes made me hesitate.

"I'm fighting for freedom," I muttered. He shook his head.

"No, you're not. Don't lie to me, boy, and even more than that don't lie to yourself. You don't give a whip if you are free or dead, and the way you looked down when you gave me that excuse. Now, why are you fighting? What are you really fighting for?"

I had no idea how to respond, but the old man seemed to understand. "Okay, let's start at the beginning then. What got you started here? Parents, a girl, friends?" He paused. "Or is there some sort of wizarding way of choosing people to fight? I don't admit to being knowledgeable on the subject of magic."

Mum and Dad; Ginny, Ron and Hermione and the prophecy. As scary as it seemed, he had marked me down perfectly.

"What does it matter to you?" I took my hand off my wand. "What does it matter if I'm fighting for something or not?"

He smiled wistfully. "Because I know a lot about war, boy. Been through one myself, a long time ago; I've seen my fair share of friends leave this world because they didn't know why they were there. Now, looking at you, I can see my friends. But even more than that I see the future. You've got the weight of the world on your shoulders but a dead look in your eyes. Those two things just don't mix. And as much as I want to be with my family again someday, I'm not ready to die. So I'm figuring that I can help you find what it is that you're fighting for so that we have a chance. So that they didn't all die in vain."

The older man shrugged and hobbled over to the garden. "These your parents?"

I felt my body stiffen. "My parents are dead."

"Then I'm glad I'm not talking about people. Come here, boy. I'm talking about these."

Two gravestones came into view after a few steps. My breath caught in my throat. "I didn't know that there were graves at all..."

"Nice people, Lily and James," he interrupted smoothly. "Met them once and once only, right before they left for wherever it was they went to. I'm assuming with the ruins here that they put some sort of spell on the house to hide it? Now, I'm guessing it's safe to assume that you're their little boy Harry. Met you that day too, but you've changed a bit since then. Grown up in more ways then one. Pity you wear that hood over your face, or I'd tell you an old man's stories about how much you look like one or both of them."

I stared at the graves, unsure how to react. He laughed. "So it's not your parents you're fighting for then. I was sure it was them, since you came back here. Ah well."

"I came back because I hadn't been here since they died." He nodded absentmindedly. "I want them to be proud of me."

"Oh, they were. No parents aren't proud of their child, no matter what becomes of them."

All I could think of was Voldemort and his parents.

"A girl, then. You have the love of your life waiting for you?"

The familiar hollow feeling flooded through my stomach as I saw her standing there next to the graves, smiling at me. "Only way I'll get to see her is if I die."

He sighed. "I'd say friends next, but I'm assuming I'll get a similar answer. Next I'm expecting that you'll tell me you didn't have a choice."

The prophecy rung inside my head, echoing almost mockingly. "In all realty, I don't, but that's as much my choice as it is circumstance."

"I think we're getting to something," the old man muttered. "Why are you forcing yourself to do this?"

"Voldemort killed my parents," I said without emotion. "And he's responsible for the deaths of my godfather, my girlfriend, Dumbledore... ten million others..."

"Over twenty now, actually, though I seriously doubt that helps matters."

I closed my eyes and sat down hard, trying to wash out the words he'd just said. "No, it doesn't."

"You're not fighting for what's right, then," he said. I heard him stand up and start walking off. "Where are you going?"

He chuckled. "Going to enjoy my last night on Earth, boy. Have a drink with some friends and celebrate the fact that we made it this far."

"You aren't afraid?"

The old man looked back at me, his brown eyes curious. "You are?"

I started to answer no, because that was what I had always said. What I knew to be true. Somehow though, somewhere deep inside, something stopped me from shaking my head.

Why couldn't I say no? A feeling of something that I hadn't felt in months crept up on me.

Fear.

He laughed. "Good luck, Harry Potter. We'll meet again, I'm sure. Where, that becomes the question."

He was gone as quickly as he had appeared, back into the heavy fog that had taken over the same time as Voldemort and his dementors had. I stood and followed his path to the edge of the clearing; the fear taking over me completely.

What if I die tomorrow? What if he kills me? What comes after for me, for everyone still alive on Earth?

I hadn't felt fear, or any emotion but a hollow sadness, since Ginny's picture had come and gone. Now it was taking over, paralyzing me.

No one knows about the horcruxes save us, and if we die, then he's won completely!

As I had next to their graves, I felt myself collapse to the ground. Salty tears rained down my face, completely unfamiliar to me because I hadn't cried in a year.

What if there is no heaven? What if there is? What if he decides to leave people alive as slaves? What if he kills everyone?

All I wanted was to go back, back to the end of my sixth year and hold Ginny close to me, forgetting about the world once again.

"Harry?"

Time stopped.

I didn't need to look up to know it was her behind me.

But I did anyway.

"You're wearing your quidditch robes."

She laughed. "Get up. What would people say if they saw you like this? Get up, Harry. Stand up."

I was barely breathing when she stepped back. "You can't exist, you know that, right? You're dead, and you're not a ghost."

Her expression didn't change at all.

"You are in my imagination," I whispered. She shrugged. "You're what I want to see, so I see you."

Ginny shrugged again and started walking towards me. "Isn't that all life is, anyhow? What you want to see, what you make of it, all that? So what if I'm real? For all you know, our 'love' wasn't, yet you made it real simply by wishing it so. Reality is what you perceive it to be. That's why the optimists of this world enjoy it so much and the pessimists can live the same life hating every moment of it." She stopped right in front of me.

"Reality is perceptive," she whispered, looking down to her hands.

How I wished...

I reached out and hovered my hand above hers. Her eyes slowly traced back up to mine. "I thought you didn't believe in me, Harry."

Words raced through my mind. How I wanted to tell her that she was always on my mind, that I didn't believe her dead, that everything I was saying was a product of complete exhaustion and terror of the upcoming battle...

"I don't."

I closed my eyes and lowered my hand, closing my mind to every thought but her.

Somehow, on some level, I felt her hand underneath mine.

She was warm, smooth... alive.

Maybe she wasn't really here, I realized—maybe she wasn't holding my hand, wasn't breathing before me. Maybe she had never loved me. But my reality, my life, knew one thing for certain.

"I love you," I whispered.

That much isn't perception, no matter how much the circumstances are; so as badly as I wanted to hear her say it back, she didn't. Because she was dead, and although we were here holding hands... that was my reality.

"Why do you hide your face?" She asked softly, tightening her grip. "I want to see you, Harry. Show me who you are."

I hesitated, not wanting to let her go, not wanting to raise the hood I'd been wearing for months; not ready to take down the wall that separated me from all I'd done.

"Talking to yourself again, mate?"

Ginny's hand slipped away as though it were part of the breeze. I closed my fist for a moment before opening my eyes.

"I thought I told you to go home."

Ron shrugged. "I went back to the Burrow. Talked with my family. You know I'm an uncle now? Fleur and Bill had a kid. Squirt of a thing. Anyhow, Fred and Mum said some things that made me realize that it didn't matter if I was there. You told me to go home and, well, here I am."

I stared at him. He hadn't rambled on like that since the first days out. "How is a burned out flat of land that used to belong to my family your home, exactly?"

"Because it's where our hearts are."

Hermione walked out of the fog and took Ron's hand in hers. "Isn't that how the old saying went? 'Home is where the heart is'? Well, you're stuck with me, because where the two of you are is my home."

Ron grinned. "Come on, Harry, you know you're going to miss sleeping on a patch of rocky dirt while Hermione cuddles up to you late at night."

"And Ron's incessant snoring," Hermione bit in, smiling at him.

"And Hermione getting up at the crack of dawn to 'think'."

"And Ron running around like a moron when rain starts to fall."

"And Hermione..."

"I get the picture." Both of them stopped short and stared back at me. "I'm going to miss the both of you for being yourselves. Well, we're going to have to rectify that. How about... when we win, we move into Grimmauld Place. It won't be like a tent, but we'll still be all in it together."

Neither of them moved. They both just watched me, gaping, as though I had sprouted two heads. "Is there a problem?"

"You just... you haven't mentioned anything about what happens after the end before. You've never wanted to think about it."

Because I know that we aren't going to survive, I thought to myself. Subjective reality. If they want to believe that we make it out alive, then we will.

If you wanted something bad enough, it would be real.

Behind them, I could see Ginny, giving me that determined look again.

"-was convinced I didn't have what it takes to fight. He made me look around until I found it. Thought he was dead crazy at first, but when I saw that photograph-"

Ginny, smiling softly in a faded old photograph; the last ever taken of her.

"A photograph changed my mind too. Well, two photographs, actually. The difference between our first year and that one the boy took a couple of months back. I realized that I'm fighting for the past; for the two of you, for all our friends. I feel like if I had stayed, I would have been betraying you, and when he came for me in months to come..."

Ron put an arm around her shoulder and held her to his chest as she took a few deep breaths. Miraculously, she didn't shed a tear.

"I'm fighting for the day of the wedding," Ron said, releasing his hold on her. "I'm fighting for that day."

Hermione's face went pale as Ron looked more and more confused.

She finally managed to squeak out a reply. "Is that your idea of a proposal, Ronald?"

He turned a shade of red that I didn't know him capable of. His mouth opened as he gaped-

-but then he shut it and smiled embarrassedly, as if he realized something. "Actually, I didn't mean that wedding, I meant the one last summer. But... I know it isn't the most romantic, I was gonna do it later, but since you've got my number..." he took her hand in his. "When this is over, will you marry me?"

I walked away, leaving them to their peace. From behind me I could hear Hermione and Ron speaking softly, no doubt making plans for the future.

Ginny was standing next to my parent's graves. "He finally did it, then? Good. Merlin knows they deserve happiness." Her gaze shifted towards me. "As do you."

Our eyes locked for a moment.

"Harry!"

Ron and Hermione stood behind me, waiting for my cue to leave—to head to Hogwarts, where we would make our last stand. They had found what they were fighting for because they had a future.

Ginny was in front of me, smiling ever the same. She was all I wanted, all I had ever dreamed of having in my life. She was what had haunted my mind for the past year...

But that was just it. I will never know if she felt the same. Everything I felt was the war, and the pressure, and the dreams.

I was relying on a fabrication this past year.

I was relying on myself.

My mind had been protecting me, telling me what I needed to go on. Making up a reality that, as painful as it was, kept me alive and determined.

Now it was my turn, in my conscious, to take over and do what needed to be done.

"I love you," I said calmly to Ginny as she faded away. She raised a hand up, almost completely transparent, and touched my hood.

I helped her push it back all the way before turning my back on her and facing my friends.

I had expected them to be shocked, but they weren't. They simply smiled back at me, happy simply for this moment that we had together.

"You know, I'm glad you did that on your own," Ron said, motioning as though taking off a hood himself. "I wasn't sure how people would react seeing a hooded specter walking down the aisle as my best man. We were debating having to give Snape your job."

A feeling of warmth swept through me as Ron began to chuckle. It got louder until, eventually, he fell to the ground in hysterical peals of laughter.

Hermione had looked shocked at first, and afraid of my reaction. But as Ron fell to his knees, she couldn't help but giggle herself.

I didn't know why or how. All I know is that I hadn't laughed since a time so long ago, and somehow, I was next to my two best friends, laughing.

Their arms grabbed me and pulled me down with them.

We were three kids, laughing together about absolutely nothing.

Somehow, that made me laugh harder.

"So what now?" Hermione managed to ask. "It's almost sunrise, so we have all day and all night to prepare."

One last golden day, I'd called Bill and Fleur's wedding. Who was to say that today couldn't be another?

"First off, we sleep for a few hours. Then, when we're awake and terrified out of our wits, we go to Hogwarts. We sit with everyone else and talk. We're not alone in this anymore."

We all lay back, staring up at the stars

We're not alone in this.

Faces swam through my mind, both alive and dead.

No matter what happens, we aren't alone.

That's all that matters.


End Part 3/3

Notes: I know that Ive talked about plans to write a part four of this, but in all honesty, it isn't going to happen. I originally meant this as a one-shot about Hermione's take on the entire war as a birthday gift for my fabulous Final Fantasy beta reader, IsleofSolitude; and from there I decided to take on the other characters. This was never meant to encompass more than that night, and I've decided to leave it off here for that exact point. The final battle goes as it goes; logically, there is no way that they could survive, but there is always a hope in the dark. So take on your own subjective reality and decide for yourselves.

Chapters 1 & 2 beta'd by Hyperblonde016, who would have done this chapter as well had I not delayed it for months and months and felt bad enough to simply release it.