Disclaimer: I don't own Harry potter and neither is this fic being written for any financial reasons. Harry potter is and will remain the creation of JKR

Harry Potter & the Last Horcrux

Chapter 3: Harry Awakes

Next day morning, there was a huge headline in the Daily Prophet

Harry Potter's Grave Desecrated: Has the Dark Lord Returned?

By Lois Little

In perhaps one of the most atrocious moves in modern wizarding day, we witnessed the theft of the body of the savior of the wizarding world, Harry Potter.

To remind the readers, Mr Potter had been laid to rest in the Godrics hollow, besides the grave of his deceased parents. Yet, people would remember it more as one of the mysteries of modern world as a magic dampening field had established itself over the area. Due to the same, normal precaution taken by the wizarding government to keep it away from the muggle world had proven to be futile.

Yet, sometime last night, the dampening field had been removed by someone very powerful and the body of the savior of the wizarding world has been stolen.

One must realize that the only wizards powerful enough to do something like this were Albus Dumbledore (who died by the hands of Severus Snape), Harry Potter (Whose body has been stolen) and the dark lord.

Clearly only one of them has achieved to return from the dead.

The question we must ask is, "Has the Dark Lord returned?"

In previous years, before Voldemort, such a headline would not have been possible. But now-a-days, when the minister of magic Rufus Scrimgeour had to resort to all sorts of nefarious practices to keep him self in power, this had been a boon. He was completely confident that he-who-must-not-be-named was dead, yet the public still lived under the threat. As the dark lord had returned once before, everybody feared that he could return once again. It was this fear that he had decided to inculcate in the minds of the English wizard world to continue to rule his fiefdom.

It was not at all surprising when the entire Diagon alley closed down, before it had even properly opened.

The only store to remain open was the WWW, the joke shop run by one of the two most important businessmen in the wizarding world and friends of the late Harry Potter, Fred & George Weasley.

Unknown to many, they had been the leaders of the small resistance movement against the atrocities doled out by the government. In the wake of the announcement, several people started to pop in to the extra basement which had been created for only such an emergency purpose.

The meeting went till late afternoon. There was only chaos and no order. The new threat had completely taken over the psyche of normal wizards.

As Fred looked at his other half, the time had come to put their emergency plan in action. It was their last promise to Harry and come hell or high water, they would honor it.

In the ministry, there was chaos as well. Rufus was trying his best, but he had overplayed his hand and now he was not in a position to manage the aftereffects. He was even more stung by the absence of several of his key staff. They might have been secretaries and ministers and officers, yet none of them had reached here through merit. All the present officials were as corrupt as the ministry. And all corrupts share a common trait, they are cowards.

All of them had been practicing grafts and had illegal stashes at Gringotts. Over the next few hours, lots of people moved their money and the wizarding economy went into utter chaos.

It was a position not very dissimilar to that of the crash of 1929 in the US. In a period of few days, it was a melt down. Rich people ran with what they could and few opportunists stayed behind. But mostly everyone else did not have the luxury or the means to escape. All this, just because a body was stolen from a graveyard.

What is it that one feels when he gets out of a soul tearing endeavor. No-One knows. Perhaps the best combination we can think of is fatigue and perhaps a little bit of bliss. But most of all, it has to be confusion. And such was the case of Harry Potter. As he opened his eyes, he found the eye lids too heavy. After not being used for nearly four years, they had too been getting rusty. Had it not been for the spell placed by Bill, his body would have been in a far worse position. Not to say that he knew about it at the moment.

As he opened his eyes, he found it too bright for his liking and closed his eyes. He drifted away into the Netherlands of fatigue.

Over the next few days, his episodes of getting up seemed to become more frequent and he remembered seeing shadows which seemed quite similar. At one time he thought that he had died and was in some kind of journey between the next great adventure. But of late, he felt it was wrong. He didn't know how or why, it felt wrong. And then one day he started to remember.
It had been nearly a month since Hermione, Ron & Ginny had returned with Harry. The small island had been turned into a veritable fortress with the jaw-bridge up. Everyday, potions were being injected into Harry's body to replenish the loss. Bill had been brought in specifically because of his knowledge on animating the mummies. Unfortunately, no kind of spell seemed to work on Harry. In the beginning, he just lied on the bed, opening his eyes every other day. Slowly, he started to thrash about. In one it was good because his muscles could use a bit of exercise after being atrophied for so long.

But lately, one could hear anguish and screams which were unearthly. They were lucky his throat had not damaged itself.

Hermione and Poppy had tried several spells to diagnose Harry, but it had been of no avail. All they got were numbers which were contradictory and it was obvious that they were not working at all.

In the last day or say, Harry had gone silent and slept. They all hoped that the worst had been dealt with and waited for their friend and beloved would return.

It was night when Harry started to stir a bit. He opened his eyes and saw someone who looked a lot like Hermione sitting on a rocking chair besides him. He could see her looking straight out of the window at the sky. Small tears were glistening at her cheek, a very old looking book sat on her lap as she rocked to and fro in a natural rhythm. He could not help but smile.

"Hermy", Harry tried to say but all he could hear was a croak.

Hermione moved and jumped in the same motion and as it was a rocking chair rather than a normal chair, she lost her balance as the chair tilted under her shifted weight and fell over with a thud.

Harry could not help a small smile escape his lips as he saw Hermione on her, so to say, bum but with a smile that could have lit up the whole sky. An instant later, she was up and embraced Harry as hard as she could.

Just behind her, the door banged open as several people entered after hearing Hermione fall. Harry saw Ron, Ginny, Bill, Moody, Arthur, Remus etc running in. after seeing him; they all had tears in their eyes as they saw Harry smile weakly from around Hermione's shoulder.

Just behind them, Molly bustled in.

She stopped, eyes filling with tears and then strode in.

"Young man, you should be ashamed of yourself. Didn't I teach you anything about eating? Look how thin you've…" Just then she broke down and wept into the shoulders of Arthur as everybody marveled at the return of Harry Potter.

Half an hour later, things were a bit more relaxed. Harry had been removed to the same rocking chair Hermione had been using, although, now they were sitting in front of a fireplace.

Everybody had come in and sat around him. An uneasy quiet fell upon the assemblage. In the past few minutes, Hermione had given Harry a few more potions which had now improved his voice to the degree that he did not have to croak and he felt a lot better.

Although nobody asked him anything, he knew the burning question in all their minds. It was not a secret and he could read their thoughts quite easily.

Everybody in the inner circle knew that before the final showdown, they had been unable to destroy the last Horcrux. In their minds, there was still a possibility that tom could rise from the dead. He did not know what to tell them or more importantly how to tell them. Would they understand or would they hate him. He knew that all of their perspective would change. But could he lie?

'No!' he decided. His new life would no longer be based on falsehoods. He was who he was and he would not lie.

He looked up and a strange calm engulfed him. He looked into the eyes of everybody looking at him. It was obvious that whatever Harry was about to tell them was not pretty. Every one of them could feel it in their bones.

Harry closed his eyes once and opened them again, all doubts cleared and resolution clear in his mind. Suddenly, he felt very powerful.

Then he uttered the four words which changed the world.

"Harry Potter is dead!"

Author's Notes:

I hope you like the see-saw. Sorry, I thought that I would open the secret of the prophecy in this chapter but this was too good a place to stop. I hope you have reviews up your sleeves. I may have had a long case of writers block, but I don't think you would be too dissatisfied by the explanation.

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