Chapter 22

A Battle No One Could Win

"Raya still quiet?" asked Ron, sitting beside Harry on the couch.

"Yeah," said Harry, "she won't talk to me."

"Don't worry mate," said Ron, trying to be reassuring, "everything will work out for the best, you'll see."

"What if it doesn't?" asked Harry, "I want to help her heal."

"Maybe this kind of pain wasn't meant to be healed," said Ron quietly.

"Of course it is, all pain needs healing," said Harry.

"Maybe, but maybe not healing that someone else gives," said Ron, "only the healing you give yourself. Or in this case that Raya gives herself."

Harry stared at the floor.

"I used to think I was great," said Harry, "God, I was so full of myself. I thought I was invincible. That no one could touch me. I was a such a prat!"

"Harry, we all want to think the best of ourselves," said Ron.

"Just leave me alone right now Ron," said Harry, "I need time."

Harry didn't bother finishing his sentence, he wasn't quite sure what he needed the time for, he just knew that he need it.

Ron got up slowly and walked out of the common room. He stepped in the hallway and took a deep breath. He sat down against the wall a few feet away from the Fat Lady.

"What's wrong?"

Ron jumped and looked up to see Luna.

"Oh!" said Ron, "Hey, what's up?"

"Nothing, but what's wrong?" she asked again.

"Harry's taking everything really hard," said Ron, putting his head in his hands, "starting to take things out on himself."

"I am sorry about all this," said Luna.

She sat down next to him.

"You have nothing to be sorry about," said Ron, "you didn't do anything."

They sat in silence for a small while.

"This has taken a large toll on all of us hasn't it," said Luna quietly. "Draco's death I mean."

"Yeah, who knew," said Ron.

"You're right," said Luna, "if someone had told me last year that I would be so upset over Draco Malfoy's death, I would have laughed."

"I know what you mean," said Ron.

"Luna?" asked a voice from behind them.

Luna turned to see Neville.

"Hello Neville," she said brightly.

"Ron?" asked Neville, "what's the matter?"

"The whole thing," said Ron, indicating Draco's death.

"Oh," said Neville, "so the same thing that's effecting us all."

"That's the one," said Ron, standing up and offering a hand to Luna.

"I was wondering, Luna," said Neville, "if I could have a word with you in private."

"Of course," said Luna, "I hope you fell better soon Ron."

Ron smiled and walked down the hall.

"What did you want to talk about?" asked Luna as Neville lead her in the other direction.

"About how you're doing," said Neville as they descended the stairs.

"I'm fine," said Luna, "but it saddens me to see everyone so sad."

"It has been sad times," said Neville, "but I thought of a way to make them a little happier for you, I hope."

As Neville said this he began stuttering for the first time in about a year.

"What do you mean?" asked Luna and they passed through the great doors onto the grounds.

"I mean all this sadness," said Neville, "I don't want you to feel sad anymore, Luna."

They stopped in front of a bench.

"Neville, what do you mean?" asked Luna, sitting on the bench.

"Luna," said Neville, "will you marry me?"

She stared up at him with her large blue eyes. And then she smiled and nodded her head.

"I don't have a ring or anything," said Neville, "but I'll get one as soon as I can."

"Oh Neville," said Luna, and she smiled joyfully at her husband to be. "It doesn't matter about the ring."

Neville couldn't remember ever being happier as he and Luna sat under the moon, gazing at the stars.

Hermione opened the portrait hole and quickly stepped inside. She was about to upstairs to her dormitory, and to bed but stopped when she saw Harry sitting on the couch with his head in his hands.

"Hello Harry," said Hermione.

Harry jumped, turned to look at her, and then turned back again to look into the flames.

"I know times are rough Harry," said Hermione, coming from around the couch to sit by him, "but right now we need your help to stop Voldemort and his armies."

"Voldemort and his armies?" asked Harry, skeptically, "I'm just one person."

"To the world you may just be one person, but to one person you could mean the world," said Hermione, "and I think you know who that one person is."

"Raya doesn't need me," said Harry.

"Quite the contrary, she needs you now more than ever," said Hermione.

"What could I have done!" said Harry angrily and frustrated. Questions were filling his head and were making it hurt.

"That is the wrong question to ask yourself. If we were meant to always look back on things our eyes would have been placed in back of our heads. But there not, Harry," said Hermione, "they are faced forward so that we can look ahead. The question you need to ask yourself if what can you do now."

Harry was silent for a moment.

"How can you pick up with life again so easily?" asked Harry and he turned toward her, "aren't you sad he's gone."

"Of course I'm sad," said Hermione, matter-of-factly, "I'm devastated. But right now I know I need to be strong, at least look strong for the sake of others. I just keep my mind off it by keeping myself busy."

Harry sighed deeply and looked downward.

"Harry dear," said Hermione, putting a reassuring hand to rest on his shoulder, "don't cry because he's gone now, smile and be glad because you were able to see the real him, you were able to let him know all was forgiven, smile because he was a great friend that we shared great times with."

"It is going to be so hard," said Harry.

"Of course it will," stated Hermione frankly, "but you've got to try."

And with that she got up and walked away. Harry sat for a while and thought.

A whole day had passed and he had not seen Raya. He wondered where she was, what she was doing, whether it had something to do with Draco.

Eventually he got up and walked up the stairs to his dormitory where he finally fell asleep.

Only a moment had passed since Harry went upstairs when Raya's face appeared in the window of the common room. She took out her wand from her coat and muttered a spell while rotating her wand in a perfect circle on the window. A large circular section of the glass disappeared and Raya climbed inside. She turned back to the glass and muttered another spell and the glass returned. She was a sight.

She had been gone for about two weeks fighting against the forces of darkness. She was exhausted, and wouldn't have continued to fight had been if it had not been for her anger that kept her wanting to kill any who had anything to do with the man that had killed Draco, Lucius.

She was scratched up everywhere. Cuts on her cheeks, a bruise on her left eye, her hair was full of dirt, her neck was red, from where a hobgoblin tried to struggle her, and she slightly favoring her right leg. She slumped down onto the couch, sighed, and put her head back on the back of the couch. She lifted her right arm and muttered a spell and a bowl of hot water with a cloth inside appeared on the armrest of the couch.

She took out the cloth and nursed her left cheek with the hot, wet cloth. Then as soon as she had cleaned all her wounds she muttered healing spells and the marks, for the most of the wounds disappeared leaving a couple scares.

Draco watched as she tended to her wounds. He looked at her with all of the love and admiration that he felt for her. He sighed, and as he did so a sadness washed upon him that he had never known. I was so great that he found it almost difficult to breathe.

Thoughts kept running through his head; thoughts like: I will never be able to truly see her again. She will never be able to see me again. What if she is in trouble and I can't help her. I can't tell her I'm in love with her. And as he felt this sadness a strange feeling tingled in his feet.

Raya slowly got up and walked upstairs; she silently walked into the seventh year girl dormitories.

Draco however remained downstairs. He couldn't move. He was rooted to the floor where he stood. He tried to follow Raya. He began clawing at his feet to try and get them to move. He looked down at the ground to see that a thick white gray mist surrounded his feet.

But when he looked back up he was no longer in the Gryffindor common room. He now stood back where he had last left what was supposed to be the happiest place in existence. He stood in the garden of Heaven. He looked around for James, Lily, or Sirius. He could see none of them.

He began to walk around, calling out their names. Then suddenly he walked into something solid, yet soft. He looked up.

He had just bumped into Nicolas Flammel.

"Nicolas," said Draco, "where are they?"

"They are in the large house over there," said Nicolas, "The library."

"Thank you," said Draco and he made from the library at a run.

When he reached the doors he banged them open and walked hurriedly inside. As he had expected James, Lily, and Sirius all were seated at a table near the door and had turned, startled, when the doors had been banged open. And they seemed to look ever more awestruck when they saw who it was.

"Why am I back?" asked Draco, "Why was I taken away from Raya again?"

"Draco!" said Lily, "I can't believe it --, what are you doing here so early?"

"I should be asking you that question," said Draco angrily. "One moment I was watching over Raya and the next I'm here. Why was I taken away?"

"I don't--," started Sirius.

"Did I break some sort of ghostly rule? Did I accidentally do something to alter the time? What did I do wrong?" asked Draco hurriedly.

"We don't know!" said James quietly.

"Draco you have to understand that we don't know everything about how Heaven works," said Sirius.

"Come and sit with us," said Lily making room around the table.

Draco sat down to look at the eight books that they had splayed out across the white marble table. The books had no words, but pictures. These pictures moved, not really surprising to Draco. However what did surprise Draco is that the pictures didn't just move around doing one thing over and over again. These pictures kept moving like they were telling a story.

He looked around at the different books when one caught his eye. It was a picture that was sketched, which was different from most of the pictures in the books around him, all with very vibrant, bright, crisp colors. But what mostly made it different was that it was still. Not moving at all. A woman was sketched out; on her head was a helm. She wore a suit of armor with a crest on the front in the shape of a shield divided into four sections.

In the first was upper left hand corner was a sword, on the upper right corner was a rose, on the downward left hand corner was a dragon, and on the downward right hand corner was a phoenix.

The woman was alone on a battlefield full of enemies. He could see in the sketched picture the woman was driving her sword through an enemy that was lying on the ground, yet at the same time a dozen enemies had her surrounded and were in the middle of driving their swords in her.

"Raya," said Sirius, sitting next to Draco was still staring at the picture. "That's Raya's life right now."

Draco looked up horrified.

"No," said Sirius, "this exact thing is not happening to her, but yet this is a symbolism of what is happening inside her."

"What do you mean?" asked Draco.

"He means that this is Raya's inner battle," said Lily, and her face grew sad, "a battle no one could win."

Draco looked back down at the table and noticed some of the other books. He saw Harry in one, Hermione in another, then Luna. He saw every one of his seven best friends.

"All my friends," said Draco, "these are my friends' books."

Lily nodded. Then he saw the eighth book, it was completely blank.

"And that's my book," said Draco sadly.

The books continued with their stories as Draco stared.

"What do they mean?" asked Draco finally.

"These books are the most important books in the library," said Lily, "they show the destiny of eight young adults that will change the world."

"The destiny of eight?" asked Draco, "don't you mean the destiny of seven."

Draco quickly wiped away tears that were starting to form in his eyes.

"Draco," said Lily amazed. "You are crying."

"Yeah, so," said Draco defensively.

"That is a very human emotion," said Lily, still in awe.

James and Sirius had looks of confusion on their faces.

And then, Lily smiled.

"I know why they sent you back," she said.

All three men looked at her with anticipation.

"Draco," said Lily, "the dead in heaven are suppose to be the happiest people imaginable, and yet you walk among us, are one of us, and you are not the same. You carry a great sadness within you that is unknown to us. You were already a human like spirit to begin with, but you confessing your still strong love to Raya seemed to take its toll on your feelings. You are still so human like that it is impossible for Heaven to keep you within their doors. They sent you back to us because they are going to send you back to her."

"What --," Draco started to ask, but then his eyes caught his blank book.

The book began emitting a golden glow that encircled the air around it. After a couple moments the gold glow imploded into the book and disappeared. Now in the book was a picture of Draco, as he was now, almost like a mirror.

"You are alive again," Lily breathed.

The mist began swirling around Draco's feet.

"Tell Raya and Harry we love them," said James.

The mist rose and began swirling also around his waist.

"Tell everyone we said hello and hope for them the best," said Sirius.

The mist rose again and now it also circled his chest.

"Remember you are the destiny of eight," said Lily.

And the mist completely enveloped him and there was darkness.

So what did you think? It took me forever to write, I know. I have been having complications with my computer so I had to save my entire story onto a disk and then wait until my dad brought home his old work computer to upload the story temporarily on that and then I had to edit my previous chapters and then finish this one. Sorry for the wait. Please review.