Author's Note: Thank you all for your kindness, patience, and responsiveness these past couple months. You are all an author's dream come true. To those of you who have consistently reviewed (you know who you are) -- I owe you more gratitude than I can outline here.
I am toying with the idea of spin-offs: pieces that are much shorter than this one, but set in the same universe. If you review, and if there are any periods of time you'd particularly like covered in future stories, please say so in the review.
There is an epilogue yet to come; it is chapter-length, and I am quite fond of it. I will post it this weekend at the latest.
Mum made me a big breakfast the next morning, defending the spread by saying I looked drawn and pale. Dad laughed at this and told her she was acting like Molly, which made Mum cross her arms and sigh, but smile all the while. She was usually smiling these days.
Before Hermione and Ron arrived, while Dad was showering and getting dressed, Mum gave me the letter that I'd written to read. It was yellowed and torn on the creases, but she'd saved it all these years.
Dear Mum,
Yes, you're my mum. I'm actually in you right now. If you don't believe that, ask Tonks; she's seen my Time Turner. I'm sorry I didn't tell you for all this time, but I had to be undercover so I could help you and Dad and the others with the Horcruxes and all. I hope you're not angry with me.
By the time you read this, I'll be back in my own time, and Dad will be gone, too. You're not going to see Dad again for a while -- he's been gone my whole life. It's going to be hard for the two of us, you raising me without him, but I hope I can bring him back to you. I can't promise anything, Mum, but I'm going to try my best.
You've been getting me ready for this trip all my life, and I have to say, you and Aunt Hermione did a really good job. You've always been very honest with me, letting me know that this trip was something I had to do, and I'm glad for that. You never told me about Neville, but I think that was the right choice. I wouldn't have wanted to know ahead of time.
I'm leaving you the necklace you gave me. Hold onto it -- you can give it back to me when I see you again, in eighteen years. You made me promise to come back to you, and I can promise you that much.
Love, Susan Lily Potter.
I put the letter gently on the kitchen table. "Do you know how long it took me to believe it?" Mum asked me.
I looked up at her. "How long?"
"Not till you were born." She smiled ruefully and shook her head. "While I was pregnant, I still thought the whole thing could be a joke or a trick. But when you were born . . . it was you. It was so clearly you. You had the hair and the eyes and that thoughtful look to you. That's when I knew."
"It must've been a relief," I said, "to know you had a chance to see Dad again."
Mum laughed. "A relief? I was seventeen and had just become a single mother to a little baby girl who I'd have to send into mortal danger while she was still a child. I was terrified. That's why I didn't want to believe it, Susan. I didn't want to believe that I could be so callous as to send my baby into harm's way."
"But you had to!" I cried.
Mum shook her head. "I wonder . . . well. You would've ended up back there no matter what. It was best that I knew about it and prepared you."
Dad walked in, freshly shaven and dressed in his new clothes. "How are my two best girls?" he asked, and Mum and I put on smiles. It didn't do to dwell on the past too much.
Ron and Hermione showed up shortly thereafter, having taken off of work and left their children with Molly for the day. We sat in the sitting room of our flat, and I was struck by how familiar this felt, the five of us sitting and talking about Voldemort.
"Susan wanted to know what happened on the day she left," Mum said carefully.
"Well, I'd be fascinated to hear what you did, Harry," Hermione said, and we all smiled.
"I'll go first, then," said Dad. "Let's see . . . well, Susan, right after you disappeared, Ginny and Hermione burst into the room. But of course they couldn't see me. I hadn't really . . . considered fully the implications of Fidelius. I followed them back to Gryffindor, banging on suits of armor and rattling balustrades, but they blamed it all on Peeves. When I tried grabbing Ginny's arm, she just said she felt chilly. There was nothing I could do to make them notice me.
"That was upsetting. But then I remembered the reason for it all: the Death Eaters would be at Hogwarts that night. I nearly panicked -- I didn't know how to defeat Voldemort, even if he couldn't fight back. So I ran to the Headmistress' office, hoping to use the Pensieve. I thought maybe Dumbledore had left me a memory that would help.
"It took forever for McGonagall to leave her office, but when she did, I slipped in. When I was looking for the Pensieve, I heard Dumbledore's portrait speaking to me.
"'Hello, Harry. You haven't been to see me in donkey's years!' he said.
"I looked up at him. 'You can see me?' I asked.
"'Harry, I'm old, but I'm not blind,' he said.
"'No, it's not that, Professor. Susan hid me with a Fidelius charm. She's -- well --'
"'Your daughter. Yes, I'm aware of the situation. That was terribly clever of her. This will render you invisible, and therefore well nigh invincible, to Voldemort,' he said.
"'Yes, sir, I know, but -- how am I to fight him?' I asked.
"'You mustn't use Dark magic against him; it will only make him stronger,' he told me. 'Ideally, you want to strip him of his ability to hurt innocents and command the Death Eaters.'
"'But how can I?' I asked.
"'You have destroyed all the errant pieces of his soul, Harry. He is just as vulnerable, perhaps moreso, as any human being. Have you studied human Transfiguration yet?'
"'Yes, sir,' I said.
"'What has the Headmistress taught you about performing Transfigurations on other people?'
"'She said we're not to try it, as it's extraordinarily tricky and can often be . . . irreversible . . . .'
"Then he smiled. 'Yes, Minerva is very conservative about these things. From what I understand, Miss Granger Transfigured you into a cat with very little trouble. However, it's a far easier proposition, turning a person into an animal -- because we are, after all, animals in our own right -- than it is turning a person into something inanimate.'
"I knew what he meant me to do then, so I thanked him and left the office. It was getting to be quite late by that time, so I went outside to wait for the Dark forces. And around sunset, they came. They just . . . walked in the front gate. There were dozens of them.
"I knew that I could still be taken out by a spell if it happened to hit me. I'd got my broom from Gryffindor Tower, and I figured if I were riding it, no one would be able to see it, either. I was right, too: I flew right over the heads of all the Death Eaters to the back, where Voldemort was commanding them. He had Nagini the snake with him, and he was thundering out these orders, telling them to breach the castle walls. From far away, I saw some kids in Hogwarts robes ready to fight -- it must've been you all," he said to the other three adults.
"Yeah," Ron said. "It was the whole D.A."
Harry nodded and continued. "I heard Voldemort saying not to kill anyone, but to take as many hostages as possible. He -- he was going to kill them one by one until McGonagall agreed to give me up. I knew I couldn't wait for that, so I began by Disarming him from my broom. It was almost funny to watch -- he lost his wand, but he didn't even realize it for a moment. And then I suppose Fidelius kept him from realizing that someone had Disarmed him. So he just ordered Wormtail to retrieve his wand.
"Wormtail gave it back to him, but then said, 'Master, do you really intend to kill any child just to get your hands on Potter?'
"Voldemort just sort of looked at him. 'Of course, you nitwit.'
"'Even the pureblooded ones?' Wormtail asked.
"'I will kill whomever it takes to get through to the Potter boy,' said Voldemort.
"I think that was what did it for Wormtail . . . Peter. I don't think he ever really believed in Voldemort's cause, and he certainly didn't hate me. He felt indebted to me, and for whatever it was worth, he had loved my father, once upon a time. So when I Disarmed Voldemort a second time, Peter took Voldemort's wand, transformed, and ran off with his tail curled round it."
I gasped and looked around; everyone looked as shocked as I felt. Dad continued, "That left me free to weaken him however I felt was necessary. But I knew I wasn't to use Dark magic, so I sent in my Patronus."
"Brilliant," breathed Hermione. "As an extension of you, the Patronus would be as invisible as you yourself were."
Dad grinned. "Yeah, it was amazing. Voldemort was being attacked by this thing he couldn't see, and meanwhile he didn't have his wand, so he couldn't fight it off, and he couldn't put up any sort of shield. And all the Death Eaters had long since stormed the castle; Peter was supposed to be the one who stayed by Voldemort. So he was almost completely helpless.
"I waited until he sort of fell to his knees. Then I flew down to the ground, got off my broom, and looked him straight in the eye. Of course, he couldn't see me, but I wanted to look him in the face before I ended it.
"I ended up Transfiguring him into a rock slab, like one of the ones we saw at Avebury. It was simple enough. I almost wanted it to be more dramatic, more difficult. But that was it. With the last piece of his soul homeless, there was nothing left of him.
"Behind me, I heard this unbelievable . . . noise. Actually, I felt it more than I heard it. The ground started shaking. Instinct kicked in before I could think; I jumped on my broom and sped up to a safe height. That's when I saw the earth just . . . open up, right below the horde of Death Eaters. They were nearly all swallowed up, though a few managed to escape.
"I wanted to bury Voldemort and everything he stood for. So as soon as everything stopped moving around so much, I swooped down and levitated the rock slab into the air a bit, then hurled it towards the pit. It plunged down into the chasm, and a minute or so later, the chasm closed up.
"And that was it. It was over. I went to the dorm, packed up my things, left the Invisibility Cloak on my bed, and left. Fawkes caught up with me at the last minute, and we headed off together. Like I said before, Susan, I tried being around when you were born, but that didn't work out so well."
There was a profound silence after Harry had finished, and the adults all took a moment to sip on their tea and steady their breathing. After a minute or two, Hermione said, "Well, it's high time you and your daughter heard the other half of the story.
"I'd told the D.A. to meet in the Room of Requirement before the concert began. When you didn't show, everyone was so worried, but Ron and I played it off like it was our secret plan to have you stationed elsewhere. Everyone was there, it was brilliant -- even people like Lavender Brown and Zacharias Smith. They'd all heard about it, and no one was backing down.
"We decided not to give up the advantage of being on home ground, so we stationed ourselves inside the Entrance Hall after the concert had started and everyone was outside. We waited and waited; it felt like forever. Then suddenly this -- alarm went off.
"I talked to Dumbledore's portrait about it later; he'd had McGonagall rig up an alarm so that if anyone with a Dark Mark set foot on the grounds, light would flash in all the hallways, and a klaxon would sound. We knew without being told what it meant.
"So we went outside, and we saw these Death Eaters just . . . advancing. It was terrifying, it really was. They were in their full regalia, masks and all. They all had their wands drawn.
"We went into formation like we'd talked about; those of us who cast very strong Shield Charms put up a huge Shield around the entire group, like we'd done in Hogsmeade on Valentine's Day.
"They started firing spells, but they weren't Killing Curses or anything, just spells to disable us. We held them at a hundred feet or so for a good while, five minutes or so.
"Then they managed to get the Shield down." She sighed. "They blitzed us almost immediately, and they grabbed a couple of us. They were yelling about hostages. So . . . ." She turned to her husband. "Dear, would you like to tell this part?"
Ron nodded, took a sip of tea, and began speaking. "I knew it had to end. And I knew what I had to do. I yelled at everyone who was still standing to get inside. I had Hermione put a Shield around just the two of us, and I just flung everyone else inside with Mobilicorpus. I wasn't gentle -- maybe I should've been, it took Padma's ribs ages and ages to heal -- but I knew I had to get everyone inside.
"They had a couple students: Seamus Finnigan and Cho Chang. But I couldn't hold off any longer. I pushed Hermione behind me and . . . I said the word of power." He looked over at Harry. "The stones at Avebury taught it to me. It's something the earth has to respond to. And exactly what I wanted to happen, happened: the earth cracked open, and the Death Eaters started to fall.
"I screamed at Hermione to Summon Cho Chang; I ran forward and yelled, 'Accio Seamus Finnigan!' He flew up out of the hole straight away; he was unconscious, but he looked all right, so I laid him out on the steps.
"But when Hermione had Summoned Cho, the Death Eater who had taken her hostage came with her. So Cho was sort of clinging to the side of the crevasse. Hermione ran over to grab a hold of her, but the Death Eater was climbing over her even as Hermione was trying to save her.
"Before I could even run back to the chasm, Neville had raced right past me to help Hermione." My heart thumped painfully, but I didn't let anyone see how I felt. Ron addressed his wife: "Do you want to tell the rest?"
Hermione took up the thread. "I was holding onto Cho so tightly, just not wanting her to fall in and die. But as long as I was doing that, I couldn't fight the Death Eater. So he was clambering up the side, basically using Cho as a ladder.
"Then Neville came and just very calmly levitated the Death Eater into the air right above the chasm and Banished him down into the depths. He took Cho's other hand, and between the two of us, we hauled her onto the grass. Then Neville called out to Ron, 'Close it!!' So Ron held out his arms, made this incomprehensible noise, and brought his hands together. Just like that, the earth closed up again. There was just a little line of disturbed dirt to show where they'd been."
I sat back in wonder. They'd ended the war just like that.
"I always felt a bit guilty," Hermione said in a small voice. "That they all died like that, I mean."
"They were coming to kill children," Ginny said coolly. "They deserved whatever they got."
"Still . . . ." said Hermione, clearly uncomfortable.
"Still," Dad joined in, "they were people, just like us, and they were mourned."
When Ron and Ginny looked at him incredulously, he chuckled a little. "I've had to rely on the kindness of strangers quite a bit all these years. I've learned to be a little less swift in my judgments."
Ron laughed loudly at this. "You'll have your membership in Gryffindor House revoked."
They stayed for a while, talking and laughing, and I could see already that the three heroes' friendship was too fast to have been weakened by the intervening years. Some things were immutable, as I'd learned all too well. If I bleared my focus, if I let my vision go fuzzy, the four adults sitting on the couches in my little flat were indistinguishable from the ghosts in my memory I'd been fortunate enough to live amongst for the past few seasons. Some things lived on, no matter what.