Thanks for those who reviewed and put me in their story alert list. Your comments are what writers live for, since we don't get paid or anything.
And I'm still looking for a beta. Will anyone help me? Please? Pretty please?
If you recognize it, I don't own it. I'm just borrowing them, okay?
Early evening, May 15, 1998
It was dinner time at Hogwarts. People - students, family, teachers - were heading from the various dormitories towards the Great Hall to eat, and for most of them it would be a welcome respite from the hard work of cleaning up the castle. The immediate rubble of the battle had been removed by now. The more minor bits of damage - broken windows and the like - had also been fixed. The rest of the repairs, though, would have to be left at a later time. Fixing such a large structure kept up by magic was not something to be left to amateurs.
The mood in the Great Hall was subdued, to say the least. Everyone's mind was on what would happen the following morning: the memorial service for all those who had died. McGonagall had asked if Harry was up to saying something. He had answered, truthfully, that he wasn't. His brain told him, Voldemort is gone, you've got your whole future ahead of you. However, his heart kept reminding him about the cost: Lupin, Tonks, Fred, Dobby, and so many others dead. Even more people than that, hurt. And who knows how many more lost family. With such a battle going on within him, he was sure anything he said would turn out to be rubbish.
That was far from the only thing on his mind. His eyes wandered from Ron and Hermione, who were sitting across the table, to Ginny, sitting beside him, all the way to McGonagall and Kingsley who were both at the staff table. Reliving the past year through a Pensieve, would not be easy. For what seemed like the umpteenth time, he wondered if asking Ginny to come tonight was a mistake. He turned towards Ginny, who was sitting beside him. He had asked her again before dinner if she was sure she wanted to join him. Her brown eyes had locked with his green ones. Just as she had earlier that day, she nodded.
For her part, Ginny was terribly anxious about what would happen later tonight. She knew how much Harry had thought about her the past year; she and Hermione had talked about it this morning, before they had woken Harry and Ron up. Hermione told Ginny about the endless nights when Harry, thinking Hermione was asleep, had watched the Marauder's Map by wandlight. She felt gratified that Harry trusted her with what had to be the darkest secrets of his life; it spoke to the amount of trust each had in the other.
At the same time, however, Ginny could not deny that she was afraid of what those secrets were. She had never admitted it to anyone, but she still had nightmares about her whole first year. Sometimes, she dreamed that that accursed diary had completely taken over her, that Voldemort had risen again two years earlier than he actually had, that... both she and Harry had died there, alone, in the Chamber of Secrets. If that was the kind of dark magic Harry had faced then, how much worse could it have been now? She only had to glance at Harry's neck, where some scars had escaped Madam Pomfrey's attention - from what, Merlin only knew.
Dinner passed quietly, and soon the four were facing the gargoyle that guarded the headmaster's office. All four of them exchanged meaningful glances; they were all as ready as they would ever be. Harry turned to face the gargoyle. "Canary cream," he said, and the entrance to the office opened. On the way up, Harry was amused at the thought that such a strict teacher like McGonagall would use a Weasleys' Wizard Wheezes product as her password. Then again, it wasn't a bad tribute to either Fred or Dumbledore - and neither would mind at all, he thought.
The group reached the top of the moving stairway and heard McGonagall talking with Kingsley Shacklebolt through the half-open door. "I assure you, Minerva," he said, "the remaining Death Eaters will be removed from Hogwarts tonight. The Ministry has found enough trustworthy personnel to guard them in London - and with their wands here, in any case, there is not much they can do."
"That is good to hear. I- ah, yes, I see that they've arrived," McGonagall said, seeing that Harry and the others. "Enter."
They entered the office. The Pensieve was still where Harry had left it the day before, but beside it there was a small bottle that, he supposed, contained Snape's memories. Harry noticed there was a small box beside it. It was full of wands. The last time he had seen that many wands in one place was Ollivander's. Kingsley followed Harry's eyes and answered the unspoken question. "Death Eaters," he said. "We decided it was best to keep their wands as far away from them as possible. Oh, and speaking of which," Kingsley pulled a small package from a pocket in his robes. "The Malfoys were kind enough to send this over. I'm not sure who the owners of these are."
Kingsley opened the package, which contained two wands - one of vinewood, another of willow. Ron and Hermione's eyes grew bigger. "Our wands!" Ron said. They took their respective wands, and it was clear to Harry that they were feeling the same things he had when his holly wand had been repaired. "How uncharacteristically... generous of the Malfoys," McGonagall wryly remarked.
"People will do things they normally wouldn't if they want to avoid Azkaban," Kingsley said. "They're currently under house arrest at Malfoy Manor. Ron, Hermione, whose wands have you been using?"
"Oh," Hermione said. "Ron's been using Peter Pettigrew's. I've been using-" Hermione took a breath, "Bellatrix Lestrange's." She took the wands of the two dead Death Eaters and placed them with the rest of the wands on McGonagall's desk. Everyone noticed the look of revulsion on Hermione's face as she did so.
"Bellatrix Lestrange?" McGonagall asked. "But-" she turned to face Harry. "I suppose this will all make sense when we've viewed the memories, am I correct?" Harry nodded. "By the way," he added, "I think this one belongs to Draco." He handed over the hawthorn wand to the Minister. "I don't need it anymore. I suppose you can send it back, I guess."
"We'll see, Harry," Kingsley replied. "You may begin when you are ready."
Harry just nodded. He began with the prophecy, Dumbledore's private lessons in his sixth year, which was really just a segue to his explanation of Horcruxes. Ginny, Kingsley, and McGonagall were all shocked when he had explained just what they were, and that Voldemort had made so many of them. He remembered his initial reaction when he had realized exactly what Horcruxes were; he saw the same reaction on three faces. Ginny had squeezed Harry's hand hard when she realized that the diary that had given her so much grief had held a part of Voldemort's soul. Merlin's beard, Ginny thought, that... thing was worse than I thought.
Harry had still been talking while Ginny had been lost in her own thoughts. He had just finished talking about when he and Dumbledore and left to retrieve the locket Horcrux, and then pulled out the bottle containing the trio's memories from his robes. "That's where our... journey, started. I think." He opened the bottle and poured the contents into the Pensieve. Harry noticed that while all the memories he had dealt with before had a silvery white color, these had a closer somewhat closer to gray. Of course they would, Harry thought. With what these contain... I'm not surprised they're black. As if on cue, six heads plunged into the Pensieve.
It was several hours later when they all emerged from the Pensieve. Kingsley was the most composed of the group, but even he had a look somewhere between shock and amazement. McGonagall, who Harry thought had always managed to comport herself with dignity, looked badly shaken. Ron and Hermione were both leaning on the other, eyes read from tears. Harry and Ginny were in a similar state. Even the portraits of former headmasters were holding back tears. It took a while before the silence was broken.
"The Elder Wand," McGonagall said. "It's still-"
"It's still here, Professor," Harry said, pulling it out from his robes.
"Filius and I," McGonagall said, "have not been able to fix Dumbledore's tomb yet. He believes that in between the original protective spells and the damage Voldemort inflicted, it would require extraordinary magic to repair. Would you be willing to use the Elder Wand to do so?"
"Of course, Professor," Harry said.
"Harry," Kingsley said, "the whole wizarding world owes you and your friends a debt that can never be fully repaid. You have all faced trials that would have daunted wizards far older than yourselves. It would not be far fetched to say," he went on, "that you and your generation of wizards and witches may well be the greatest generation the wizarding world has ever produced. " Harry, Ron, Hermione, and Ginny all turned pink in reaction. No one was quite sure how to respond to such lofty praise.
"Minister," Harry said, but Kingsley cut him off. "It's just Kingsley, Harry." Harry nodded. "We can't let the whole story out, can we? The last thing we need is all this knowledge about Horcruxes out in public. It can't be told, ever, not all of it."
"I agree," Kingsley said. "Some things are best kept secret. We can give the rest of the world a... summary. But the complete story will never leave this room. Can we all agree on that?" There were five nods in reply.
"Professor," Hermione asked, "what about our seventh year?"
"I have spoken," McGonagall said, "to the school governors. I am pleased to say that we have agreed that anyone who was not able to attend this past year will be more than welcome to return when the new term starts in September. And yes, we will open in September," answering the unasked question. "If there is one thing I will do as Headmistress, that will be it."
"I will tell the Daily Prophet that, Minerva, if you will allow me. Is there anything else we need to discuss?"
"Well," Hermione said meekly, "there is one more thing." She explained what she had done to her parents. "I don't know where they are now, and, well..."
"That won't be much of a problem," Kingsley said reassuringly. "The Australian and American Ministers of Magic will attend the memorial tomorrow. I'm sure he will be more than happy to help."
Ron was surprised. "The what?" he asked. "What are they doing here?", with puzzlement clear in his voice.
"Both of them," the Acting Minister said, "were acquaintances of Moody. Excellent Aurors in their day, too. Both of them knew that our Ministry was lying when they denied Voldemort had returned. At the same time, they couldn't say so openly. So they gave us what help they could discreetly. When the Ministry fell, the Order started evacuating as many Muggle-borns and anyone else in danger as we could to America and Australia. Madame Maxime helped, too; she hid some Hogwarts students at Beaubaxtons. Now that the whole world knows what's really going on, they're giving us all the help we need. Publicly."
Hermione relaxed visibly. So did Ron. "It is late," McGonagall said. Harry looked at his watch - it was just before midnight. "Go back to your dormitories. You need your rest. I dare say we all will. We can deal with Dumbledore's tomb tomorrow morning."
"Thanks, Professor. Oh, one more thing. Is the Room of Requirement still working?" Harry asked.
"Oh, yes," she answered. "Horace was able to control the Fiendfyre that foolish Crabbe unleashed. However, all the contents of the Room of Hidden Things have been reduced to ashes. Beyond that, however, the Room seems to have survived intact."
Harry nodded in thanks, and the four left the office. They made their way back to Gryffindor Tower in silence. Ron and Hermione proceeded to climb up to the dormitory, while Harry and Ginny stayed behind in the common room.
"Ginny, can you... can you get the DA together? After we put the wand back, I mean?"
"Yes, but - why, Harry?"
"You all deserve to know too, Gin. Not the whole story, but most of it. Besides, you're in charge now, right?"
There was the faintest trace of a smile on Ginny. She pulled out the fake galleon from her robes, and sent out the word. The pair ended up in one of the chairs beside a window. They looked out into the grounds, into the Forbidden Forest, contemplating what they had just seen. Eventually, fatigue claimed both of them, and they both lied down on a couch in the common room, too tired to climb up to the dormitories.
The following morning, Mrs. Weasley found them still asleep in the common room. She had to do a double-take at the sight, but soon managed a smile - the first one that had graced her features since the battle. She, like all mothers, knew more than she let on. She knew something like this would happen eventually, and guessed that her youngest son would be in a similar position as well. It was then that she knew that things would be alright in the end. Grief-stricken as she was right now, she knew that life would go on. They would never forget the dead, but neither would they forget what they had died for.
She conjured a blanket and placed it over the sleeping couple. They were still in the most blissful sleep either one had experienced in their entire lives.
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To be continued...