Harry Potter is Dead

Chapter 17 | One Long Year of Mourning


Ginny explained as they ran, dodging past the fighters both dueling and defeated, the wooden skeleton of the Quidditch pitch growing steadily closer. Most of the battle had moved indoors by now; apart from the occasional spell that shot over their heads, the four were left alone save for the little bundles that seemed to litter the grounds. Ginny did not want to look at them, to recognize a pair of glassy eyes staring up at the starry sky above.

But she found it difficult not to pay them any attention. It was as if they called to her, moving on the edges of her vision, only to lie still again when she whipped her head around to look. Though the Resurrection Stone sat cold and untouched in her front pocket, Ginny could see their ghosts seeping out of their mouths like hot breath on an icy day. Frightened and panting, she forced herself to stare straight ahead. In her frantic pace she had soon outstripped the others, and arrived at the pitch first. She flattened herself against the door to the broom cupboard and breathed deeply, eyes closed. It was a moment before she remembered her wand.

"Alohomora." She whispered, pointing it at the heavy lock; the door swung open with a creak.

"Ginny - excellent - " Ron puffed, breathless; he, Hermione, and Luna had caught up, thoroughly winded and clutching stitches in their sides. All four of them grabbed brooms without another word.

Ginny went straight for the Cleansweep Five. It hummed at her touch, waiting eagerly to burst into flight. She had learned to fly on one of these, nicked from Fred or George when they weren't home. They listed a bit to the right and couldn't corner nearly as well as some of the more modern makes, but the old thing with its bent twigs and mottled handle brought back a rush of memories. She could see the orchard, feel the wind in her hair, hear shouts of laughter echoing over the years.

They kicked off and soared into the air, and just like that Ginny's worries seemed to melt away. She could not forget the task at hand; she did not believe anything at this point could distract her enough, but Merlin, she'd missed this. Ginny was feather-light, soaring, truly and wholly free for the first time in over a year. The higher she climbed, the happier she felt.

There was an enormous bang and Ginny lurched on her broom. A fast-approaching window had been blasted open by some unknown spell, showering the fighters below in a hail of stained glass. In looking down Ginny realized that she was flying far higher than her companions. She dipped into a controlled dive, laughing at the sting of the wind on her face, and soared through the smashed window behind them.

"Right," Hermione said as they dismounted their brooms, stowing her wand in her pocket. "Let's go. He could be anywhere up here."

"Should we split off?" Ron asked.

Hermione looked torn. "I know it's a lot to cover in such little time - but Ron, what if one of us finds him, before the rest of us can get there, and he - he - "

"We'll stay close by." said Luna reassuringly. "Always within earshot."

The others nodded worriedly.

"Ready?" asked Hermione, her voice shaking slightly.

"Definitely." Ron answered. He took her hand in his, squeezed it tight. She smiled weakly. "You two go ahead for a minute. I just . . ."

Hermione's smile faded; she followed Ron's gaze over her own shoulder, into Ginny's eyes, wide and dark. She looked back at him.

"We won't go far." She whispered.

Ron planted a kiss on her forehead, which she accepted with her eyes cast downwards. Ginny watched her linger, dawdling when she should be urgent, looking back when she should be hurrying forward. She watched Ron's eyes follow her and Luna until they turned the corridor, watched him draw into himself the moment she was no longer visible. Ginny was struck by the cord that had been drawn between her brother and Hermione, the line that connected them even when they were apart. It was thin and fraying and threatened by fire, but she found herself envying it nonetheless.

"She loves you." Ginny said quietly.

Ron was silent for a long moment, his eyes still trained on the spot where Hermione had gone.

"We're getting married." He said.

"That's wonderful."

He turned towards her then, face impassive save for his eyes. They were dangerous, full of steel and flint and unanswered questions.

"Where did you learn that spell?" Ron asked quietly.

Ginny could not answer. Now shame and guilt played in the back of her mind, overtaking the urgency that had propelled the four of them to this spot high above the battle. She wanted to look away from Ron, to break eye contact, but found she could not. Though his tone was soft, his gaze was powerful and burning, holding her in place like a deer caught in lights.

"I took one of Hermione's books." She mumbled.

"Yeah, I figured as much, only those don't tell you how to do it. What I want to know is who taught you how to cast that bloody spell."

"It was Kingsley's - Kingsley's friend Branimir. From Croatia. He's an Auror, and . . . since he knew how to do the Unbreakable Vow, I figured . . . he'd know Fiendfyre as well." Ginny swallowed. "So I - I Imperiused him, and I made him - "

At the horrified look on Ron's face, Ginny's voice broke. Now the guilt was consuming her like fire; she wanted it to be gone, to leave her without feeling as she had been before. She did not want to live with the consequences of her actions. But all the same, there was some quiet conscience in the back of her head, speaking with Harry's voice, that reminded her that it was no longer acceptable to succumb. She could not afford to distance herself from reality now, when there was so much at stake.

So when Ron's eyes softened and he approached to put his arm around his sniffling sister, she pulled back, though she wanted desperately to loose herself in his embrace. Ginny forced herself to continue on in a voice that was strained but clear.

"I Imperiused him and I made him show me how to do it. It was wrong and I know I shouldn't have and I'm sorry." Ginny added with a hint of pleading in her voice. Ron did not respond, and she looked down. "I didn't think anyone would understand. I wasn't in the right state of mind. I'm - I'm still not. I still can't always - " Ginny stopped short, closing her eyes; the world had begun to spin. "I just felt so alone and confused and angry. All the time. And I just couldn't see an end to it - only this big dusty road that went on and on. I was lost. I was lost for a while. I got to thinking that . . . well, dying wouldn't be so bad if I could end this once and for all. And then pretty - pretty soon that turned into thinking it would be better to take a few people down with me if it meant I saved the rest of them . . . No, please don't speak yet, I know I deserve it, but you'll get your turn - just hear me out!"

Ron had looked as if he were about to speak, to reprimand her; but at Ginny's last sentence, he had stepped back.. Her voice echoed in the dark corridor. She wondered fearfully how she had allowed her tone to become so forceful without her even realizing it. The two met one another's gaze for a moment. Ginny was panting; she was scaring herself. Her eyes were now cast downwards, at her hands, caked with Luna's blood.

"I can't control it all the time. Not completely." She murmured. "I try and I try but nothing's ever really clear."

Ron did not try to speak this time. Ginny was grateful - there were more words she had to say, even if she did not know what they were until the moment they tumbled from her mouth.

"I'm not trying to justify what I've done." Ginny began again, speaking shakily. "I'm not saying that you should forgive me because - because I'm mad, and I know I am. I can't hide it; not from you, not from me. But that doesn't mean I didn't know what I was doing tonight." She looked up at him. "I didn't plan this. I didn't come tonight thinking I'd have to use it. It just - happened. But that doesn't change that I learned the spell, and that I was prepared to use it if I needed to. And - and I did. I did, and I was glad of it. They were the sacrifice, but so was I. You might have been too, but I just didn't care. In my head it just - it just made sense. But . . . it was Luna that changed it. She changed everything. I held her hand, and I looked at her, and - I just knew - "

The red spots high on Ginny's cheekbones betrayed her agitation almost as much as her frantic tone did. Her eyes raked Ron for some sort of hold to latch onto, to keep her from slipping, but he was as slick and expressionless as he had been before.

"She made me realize: I was wrong. Please, please believe, I wish I hadn't more than anything. But I'm done being sick. I killed those people, and it was a whole and conscious decision, and I need to take responsibility for it."

For the first time, Ron spoke, quiet and impassive. "You know that there is no forgiveness here."

"None."

"You can never go back."

"Never."

"You've got to accept the consequences, and live with them for the rest of your life."

"I will." Ginny said. She drew a shaky breath. "When tonight is over, and if we've won and I'm alive and that bastard is cold and dead, you have my word that I will accept the consequences. I will carry them with me until the day I die. And that means . . . " The strongest beams of cedar and steel supported her words: "That means I will die in Azkaban."

Blank shock shone on Ron's face, sudden and discordant after he had worn the expressionless mask for so long. As though he had physically reached up and cast it off himself, now Ginny picked it up and wore it proudly. It was that, her stone-hewn confidence and her unshakable determination, that made her so formidable. While he cycled through disbelief, fear, and finally sorrow, she remained the impassive one. And although beneath the visage she trembled with fear, her decision had been made and there was no changing it.

"Ginny," Ron croaked. "You don't - I mean - are you - ?"

There was a battle going on in Ron's head, and Ginny imagined she could hear it, loud and violent, pounding against his skull. One part of him acknowledged the punishment Ginny deserved, but the other was selfish and afraid; he did not want to see his baby sister imprisoned.

"I'm serious, Ron." She said.

He stood there for a moment, looking as if the ground had just been pulled out from beneath his feet. Nothing was steady anymore, Ginny thought; all of them were falling, and the little bits of their shattered lives were falling with them, and it was all they could do to try and gather up the pieces.

"We should start looking." Ginny said, pulling herself from Ron's grasp.

He looked into her eyes as she did so, but if he noticed the change in them, he did not mention it. The two started down the corridor at a hurried pace, exchanging no more words between them; the castle was hushed and still here, and they were operating in secret. Wands aloft, they ran until they found Hermione. She was emerging from an empty classroom with a worried look on her face. Ginny saw her relax as soon as her eyes fell on Ron.

"Luna's just there," Hermione said, looking towards the circle of wandlight a long ways off. "We haven't checked either of those halls yet, though, if you could to go that way." She pointed to the fork at the end of the corridor, each path branching off into a sightless abyss.

"We won't be far," Ron told Ginny. With a tight squeeze of her hand, Ron turned and left down the dark end of the corridor. Ginny took a deep breath and set off in the opposite direction. The subtle swish of his robes soon faded away, into the haze.

Though Ron, Hermione and Luna never ventured far, there were times when they were nearly gone, hovering on the edges of Ginny's perception. A heavy silence filled the castle in these moments, dark and complete, and their footsteps were no longer distinguishable from the scurrying of rats in the dusty rooms she searched. Ginny fought it at first, imagining demons in the corners, just past her wandlight. But then it became easier to let go, to lose herself in the thick of the night. She extinguished her wand and let the shadows swirl around her, drawing her in, and imagined herself to be alone; save for one. The Resurrection Stone glinted even in the black as Ginny turned it in her hands.

"Ginny, keep going." Harry said. "You have to move. We don't have time."

"I know. I know." she said, already running, her eyes adjusted by now. "Just . . . stay with me."

Harry's presence as they searched was all the light Ginny needed. He was silent at first, but some time after the search began his voice broke the silence, warm and quiet.

"That was very brave of you back there. With Ron." Harry said.

"You were watching?"

"'Course I was. I always am."

Ginny smiled at that. "Always."

There was something in the way Harry paused here, something strange, that made Ginny look back over her shoulder at his ghostly form. Suddenly she understood.

"It's Azkaban, Harry," she said quietly, "Don't tell me I'll have to go it alone."

"They'd confiscate all your possessions right on the spot anyway," said Harry, "Even the ring."

Ginny's palms began to sweat. Somehow she'd convinced herself that prison would not be so terrible with Harry at her side - because he must go there with her, she could not imagine facing something so terrible without him -

"Ginny, please, don't make me do this again," Harry said at once. He had seen the color drain from her face, the white of her knuckles as she tightened her fists. "We - we talked about this. If Voldemort wins tonight, then, well, I'm going anyway whether I want to or not. And if we manage to stop him . . . you promised me you'd stop using the ring."

Ginny could not force herself to respond immediately. "You didn't - you didn't say when, you didn't say tonight - "

"Well, I'm saying it now." Harry raised his voice ever so slightly, and she stopped, shying away. His face softened. "Once the war's over the Order won't need to talk with Dumbledore and me anymore. As soon as there's no other purpose for having the ring around, that's when you have to do it. Throw it into the lake, smash it to bits, anything. You've got to. If you wait too long, it'll only be harder."

"It's . . . it's Azkaban, Harry."

The expression on Harry's face was so pained that Ginny found she had no strength left in her to argue.

"I know. I know, Ginny. I just . . . nothing good can come of keeping me with you. I love you, you know that. But look at these past few weeks; you've been getting better - so, so much better. And you know why that was, don't you?"

He looked at her pleadingly. Ginny's eyes felt weighed down by lead; she could not keep looking into Harry's face. Sliding her gaze to the floor, she nodded almost imperceptibly.

"It's because you stopped seeing me. You told yourself you needed to talk to me and you still did every now and again - but you weren't dependent on my anymore, Ginny! That's what mattered, that's what still matters! You can go on without me and I know you can."

"Even - "

"Even Azkaban!" Harry cried. "I wouldn't leave for a second if I thought you couldn't do it! But you can, Ginny, you can! So what if you won't be able to see me? I'll still be there! I'll be with you every step of the way, whether you know it or not."

His words jogged something in Ginny's memory: the image of her mother, gripping her shoulders, pale in the face.

"Ginny," she had said. "I don't think you can."

Ginny remembered this conversation well. It had been the one that decided if she was to fight alongside the rest of the Order during their invasion of Hogwarts - specifically, whether or not she would accompany Ron and Hermione. Her mother's words echoed in her head, and she found herself being pulled away from the dark castle with Harry in the present, back to that golden summer afternoon, one also colored with anxiety and frustration.

Ginny followed her parents outside, into the heat of the late afternoon sun. The sounds of rustling leaves and twittering birds played in the background; a light wind swept her hair. On an ordinary day Ginny could lose herself in the sensations for hours, but today she had no time for the golden sun or the warm breeze. Ginny was focused entirely on her parents, her eyes darting angrily between them.

She had long since forgotten the words that had actually been exchanged that day. Like so many of her memories they were merely a haze of tones and feelings, with occasional moments emerging, glaringly sharp, from the fog. The scene was angry, she knew that much, and colored gold. They had shouted each other hoarse until the setting sun had nearly vanished beneath the treeline.

Then, quite suddenly, a portion of clarity jumped out at her. She remembered this part because Harry had been there.

It was a momentary lull. They stood there for a moment in the fading sunlight, watching as the shadow of the house lengthened, swallowing them up. The Resurrection Stone glinted in the light, shifting quickly between Ginny's fingers, a nervous habit of hers. Behind her, Harry stood sentinel, silent until now. The light filtered through him strangely; he looked almost as if he were on fire. She looked up at him, all of her arguments exhausted, her eyes pleading for his help.

"Let me talk to them." Harry said finally; his tone was quiet, his expression unreadable.

Ginny exhaled a long, trailing breath at these words. She took the Resurrection Stone and placed it in her father's hand, curling her mother's around it as well, so that all three of them held the glimmering ring together. A moment later her parents' eyes suddenly found Harry standing beside them. There was something different in his expression, angrier perhaps, that kept them from speaking first.

"I think she should go with Ron and Hermione." Harry said.

Ginny's eyes widened. She had been hoping desperately to hear those words, but had never imagined Harry would actually say them.

"Harry, I'm not sure you quite understand - she's not - Ginny can't - "

"She's not well, I know." Harry said. "I know you're concerned for her safety, and believe me, Mr. and Mrs. Weasley, I am just as much as you are. I just think . . . keeping her here during the attack might do more harm than good."

Two seconds' ringing silence followed these words, in which Ginny and her parents blinked up at him, all of them at a momentary loss for words.

"How so?" Ginny's father managed after a moment.

"She's been up in her room for a year, in no fit state to help us - "

"But I want to now!" Ginny exclaimed

"Exactly," Harry said soothingly, "She's been getting so much better lately. I trust her to be able to keep it together in a dangerous situation like this."

"It's not really a matter of whether she can stay calm. There will be people there who will want to kill her, and that's a risk I'm not prepared to take." her father said.

"I'm of age!" Ginny roared.

"It's just not safe!"

"Please, let me finish!" Harry said a little loudly, "I understand your point, Mr. Weasley, but, well, you haven't been up there with her all this time. You haven't heard what she can be like sometimes."

Ginny looked up at Harry, frowning. There was betrayal in those fading green eyes; she could see it there, as cold as ice. Those conversations, the nighttime strolls, were sacred. He couldn't possibly just tell them . . . he wouldn't . . .

"Ginny used to have real trouble not speaking exactly what was on her mind. Anything that was bothering her she'd try to put into words, even if they didn't make sense to anyone but her. Usually it was just muttering under her breath. But she'd open up a bit more when we were alone."

"Harry, stop it." Ginny whispered. Harry did not seem to have heard her.

"She'd say things that were - a bit dark, actually, compared to how innocent she tended to be when anyone else was around."

"Don't." Ginny moaned.

"She talked constantly about Voldemort - what he'd done, what she'd learned he might be doing from eavesdropping on Order meetings. She blamed him personally for everything. She was absolutely right to, but again, she also wasn't in the right state of mind at the time either."

"Harry, stop it, you shouldn't - can't -"

"Ginny, if you want to go with Ron and Hermione, you need to let me continue," Harry said, rounding on her suddenly, "and if you want to get better, eventually you're going to have to start coming clean about everything." The look he gave her was frozen, cold and hard. "And I mean everything."

His words shocked Ginny into a stunned silence. She opened and closed her mouth several times, wanting terribly to say something, but Harry's icy glare held her in place. A single tear ran down Ginny's cheek. Her parents were watching with wide eyes, not daring to interrupt. It was a moment before Harry turned back to them.

"She started saying - "

"Let me do it!"

Ginny's cry was different this time. It was desperate, but also determined. She and Harry looked at one another again, but this time Ginny stood her ground. Where he was cold, she was fire; where he was dark, she was light. Ginny held his powerful gaze for several moments, refusing point-blank to back down Then he relented with a short nod. As she turned to speak Ginny thought she saw the ghost of a smile flicker across his face.

"What Harry says is true." she told her parents. "I just got so angry sometimes. And he - You-Know-Who - just - " Ginny swallowed. "I couldn't contain it. I needed to do something. I screamed. I cried. But it wasn't enough. No matter what I did he was still out there, and he was still . . . there, ripping up families and - and making people sleep, and I couldn't do anything to stop him. I knew he killed Harry. I couldn't get over it. And in the sort of state I was in, it started to become . . . "

There was darkness rimming the corners of the world. She pressed her hands to her ears, ignoring the hands of her mother as they wrapped comfortingly around her. Ginny could not continue, it was all too confusing, she was slipping, drowning in dark water. She shook her head at Harry, pleading with her eyes for him to continue where she could not.

" . . . Instead of just blaming Voldemort for killing me," Harry finished, never taking his eyes from Ginny, " she started to think that his death could bring me back."

Her mother drew in a great, shuddering gasp; she looked as if she would swell and burst. Her father met her gaze with an expression containing such intense sadness that Ginny found it difficult to keep looking.

"Ginny, dear, you know that's not true, you can't possibly - "

"I don't know!" Ginny howled. "I just don't know anymore!"

Her father's eyes seemed to be boring into her own; their sorrow was so unbearable that Ginny could not stand it. She couldn't stand anything. It was too much. So she shut her eyes and let the tide push and pull at her body as it willed.

"I don't . . . I don't think she'll be able to get better until she lets go of me, you know - until she stops using the Stone. And I don't think she can let go of me until she helps take Voldemort down . . . "

Harry's voice seemed to be coming to her from the end of a dark tunnel. Everything was fading around her; his argument, her parents' worried responses, the whispers of sadness that floated on the wind. The sound of rushing water in her ears was drowning everything out.

" . . . Even if she knows . . . can't really bring me back . . . still could bring her into relapse if she doesn't . . . "

Ginny was only dimly aware of the one finger that touched the Resurrection Stone, still warm though the sun had now set. As her vision swam, her grip slackened, and she stumbled back. Harry vanished instantly, her last vestige of sanity on this godforsaken earth, the only thing tethering her to the people she loved. Ginny felt her eyelids drooping, unconsciousness calling like a siren song from far away. The ground seemed to come up to meet her very, very fast. And everything slipped beneath the dark waves.

With great difficulty Ginny forced herself to surface.

What felt like hours had only passed in a moment. Harry's last words had faded and died; now, it seemed, words were beyond either of them. His hand reached up to her face, but as always, a touch was impossible. Ginny looked into his eyes and found she could stare through them, right to the charcoal-gray walls of the stone corridor. He was so fragile, she thought, balanced so precariously between two worlds: the living and the dead. Seeing those sad, faded green eyes was what allowed Ginny to understand. Being here, where he so obviously did not belong, brought him no joy.

"And it doesn't give me any, either." Ginny whispered.

"What?"

"You - when you're here - It doesn't - " It was as if the clouds had parted and a great revelation was there, written gold in the sky. Suddenly, everything was clear. No shock accompanied this self-discovery. Ginny wondered, though she had not realized until this very moment, if she had known it all along. "I don't need you anymore."

Harry's mouth opened in surprise; he searched her, as if he could find the words he was looking for written somewhere on her face. When none came, Ginny went on, feeling as if she were taking her first little steps in a foreign land.

"You've been dead. You've been dead, only I haven't been treating it like that. I thought that the Stone brought you back . . . but it didn't, did it? You've never really, really been back. I just . . . thought you were." Ginny looked pleadingly at him, "So maybe that's what made me sick. I've been pretending. But now - now I know I was wrong. I think I can be alright." Ginny chanced a smile that felt rather alien on her face. "It's just been one long year of mourning, hasn't it? Now . . . I'm ready for it to be over."

Harry did not speak, but Ginny knew somehow that he understood. The silence between them was dark, but it was also full of warmth. After a long while, Harry leaned forward slowly and ever so carefully, placing a kiss on Ginny's forehead. Her eyes closed as he neared, and she imagined songbirds and bells bursting from the place he touched.


I had this finished last week, only I've been having some computer troubles lately, so bear with me. I'll try and write as much as I can while the laptop allows. Not much further to go now! As always, thanks so much for reading. Your support has been amazing!