This is the final chapter of the prologue I created when scoping out the plot of my main story, which I called Harry Potter and the Lost Souls Club. This very brief chapter asks two key questions, which are a central themes to the main story. I have a few chapters of the story already together, which takes place several years after Deathly Hallows and revolves around a new character, who has been introduced in passing in the prologue. The story tackles how our very wounded heroes try to heal, with a little ex-Death Eater retribution thrown in. I hope to begin that story soon.

Thanks again for your feedback and to JK for letting me play on her sandbox.

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The following night, no matter how hard he tries, sleep will not come for come Harry Potter. Staring up at the ceiling above his bed in the Gryffindor tower, the faces of those he lost, the mistakes he made, and the nightmare of the evil that he had just defeated flow before him. He throws off the covers and rolls out of bed and notes that there is no sign of Ron or Neville, while Dean and Seamus are resting comfortably, sedated to help them recover from their injuries. Looking down at the tattered, blood covered clothes he has worn since before their escape from Gringotts several days ago, the young man slowly makes his way to the showers. He peels off layers of clothing and pain along the way. Standing numbly under the hot stream, the seventeen year old boy cries.

Sometime later, Harry slips on a clean pair of jeans, a blue sweater, and new trainers, likely left by Kreacher during the night. The outfits hides the numerous bruises covering his malnourished frame, including a new lightning bolt scar on his chest, directly over his heart. As he descends the stairs, he takes a deep breath as the utter silence of the Common Room overwhelms him. After celebrating Voldemort's demise for hours, the defenders of Hogwarts are resting and taking stock of the damage. For Harry, the damage is crippling.

Restless, Harry continues down further into the castle and peers inside the Great Hall. Inside, the scene tears at his heart. On one cot, Mrs. Weasley sits unmoving with her hand holding the hand of her dead son while George is lain across is twin's feet, passed out from exhaustion. Mr. Weasley, a stranger who opened his heart and family to a young boy from cupboard, sits across from his beloved wife with a bank loss on his face. Once the patriarch of seven precious and precarious children, he has had three irreplaceable pieces of his soul ripped away in less than a year.

Harry only learned about Percy's fate late yesterday. After Voldemort's death, Kingsley Shacklebolt led a handful of volunteers back to the Ministry to take the Dark Lord's supporters by surprise. Unfortunately, Tiberius Yaxley had managed to escape Hogwarts beforehand and rallied many of the survivors who quickly overwhelmed the small force that the former Auror was leading. In desperation, Percy used his inside knowledge of the Ministry to break away, get a message to the Continent, and unlock the Floo Network before he was overwhelmed. The combined Auror force from France, Germany, Spain, the Netherlands, and elsewhere was able to overtake the Death Eaters; but not before Percy had fallen.

A few cots over from the skeletal remains of the Weasley family, Andromeda Tonks slowly rocks in her chain holding little Teddy Lupin with the bodies of his mother and farther surrounding them. Swallowing hard, Harry slips back out and onto the grounds of the school.

A breeze chills the Chosen one as he wanders across the courtyard, looking up at all of the damage. At least the bodies of the fallen on both sides have been moved. Before he can further darken his mood, a genital, hesitant hand taps his shoulder. Instinctively, the hardened young man spins, wand-up, a curse on the edge of his lips.

Surprised, Professor McGonagall, her robes till torn from the day's battle, several dried scars marking her face, holds-up her hand in submission. "I'm sorry, Harry, couldn't sleep?"

"No, you?" Harry sighs as he sheathes her wand.

Shaking her head sadly, the Headmistress admits. "No."

Looking behind her, Harry spots the tall, powerful visage of Kingsley Shacklebolt standing beside her. Harry nods at the Wizard. "Congratulations on being tabbed as the new Minister of Magic, Sir. You're the best man for the job."

Stepping forward, the purple robed Minister of Magic shakes the Chosen One's offered hand. "Thank you, Harry, it's just 'interim' for now; but, nevertheless, it means a lot coming from you."

Turning back to his former Head of House, Harry wearily asks. "What do you need?"

Professor McGonagall takes a deep breath. "We wanted to ask you, Harry, what do you think we should do with Voldemort, er, Tom Riddle's body?"

Harry's eyes narrow as images of his parents, Cedric, Sirius, Dumbledore, Mad-Eye, Ginny, Fred, and other flash across his vision. "Burn it. I don't want anybody trying to use Tom's corpse for their gain or a rallying point."

The Minister nods his head in agreement. "I already asked Filch to prepare a pyre. Bill Weasley suggested that we burn him and then divide up the ashes and scatter them at various undisclosed locations."

"Filch?" Harry spits out.

"Harry, believe it or not, Filch is very distraught over what happened." Professor McGonagall quietly interjects. "He may be a little rough on disciple with the students from time-to-time; but he cares deeply for the school. He has not been the same since Ginny and Ernie were hanged." The stern matron breaks at that point, wiping tears away from her eyes with a bandaged hand.

Thinner and now nearly bald since Harry last saw him many years and many deaths ago, Amos Diggory steps forward, his voice nearly as cold as black eyes. "At least a majority of Voldemort's inner circle has been accounted for. Yaxley, Dolohov, and a few others are missing. One of the Carrows, Greyback, the Malfoys, and others are all under guard. Nott and a handful of others are in the trauma tent in very bad shape. Bellatrix Lastrange, as we all saw, was killed in a duel with Molly Weasley. Harry confirmed that Snape was killed by Voldemort's snake. We just found his body."

"Snape was on our side." Harry interrupts with a whisper. "Everything he did, even Dumbledore's death, was done on Dumbledore's order."

"Are you sure?" Cedric's still grieving father bites back.

Meeting the older man's eyes without hesitation, Harry answers. "Yes, he deserves to be here with the other heroes today."

"Very well," Shacklebolt ends that part of the discussion.

Not willing to entirely give-up, Mr. Diggory moves farther down the list. Alecto Carrow is dead after she was thrown off the fifth floor balcony over there. Up on the fifth floor itself, someone broke Rodolphus Lestrange's with his bare hands. Of course, you saw the American's body by the Room of Requirement. What should we do with them?"

Clenching his fists, Harry snarls. "I read an American cowboy novel once and I believe that the saying was - 'you ride with an outlaw, you die with an outlaw' (Lonesome Dove). These people chose to follow Riddle's orders. We haven't even been able to find where Ginny and the others were buried. They can burn with Tom."

"Gladly," Mr. Diggory smiles.

The decision made, Harry's shoulders slump. Without a word, he turns and walks past the three adults and slips away into the night. Some hours later, as storm clouds spew forth from the cold Atlantic and crawl over Ben Starav to grip area in a cold, miserable rain, he emerges at the shore of the Black Lake next to a broken, white marble monument.

Leaning heavily against his mentor's tomb, the exhausted, disheveled, and distraught teenager balls up the Marauder's Map and stuffs it in rage into his moleskin bag. "Where are you Ginny? Why can't I find you?"

With a hand still in the moleskin bag, Harry pulls out an ancient shaft of wood. Carefully, he sides the Elder Wand through a crack in the crypt and places in the in the unmoving hands of the body wrapped inside. Wiping away tears, he slides off the monument and shouts. "Reparo!" Dumbledore's final resting place is mended like new, unlike his protégée's heart.

Satisfied with the repair, he weeps, eyes closed, staring straight up into the rain. "There, it's finally over Professor. I did what you wanted me to."

After another moment of silence, he collapses into the mud, he body wracked in grief. Taking a deep, painful breath, he cries out to the heavens. "But, can you tell me, was it worth it? Can anyone please tell me was it worth it?"