Chapter 42

Harry stared at the stone in Hermione's hand. Ginny and Ron both gaped like fish. So many feelings hit Harry simultaneously. Anger reigned predominantly but a hint of longing was also attached. Hermione could see the longing on Ginny and Ron's faces as well. Only a moment had passed before Harry's face turned red in anger and Hermione closed her fist around the stone before he tried to grab it from her.

"It's broken," was all she said to stop him from shouting. He stopped and stared at her, his face a mix of anger and confusion.

"Hermione, how the bloody hell did you find it? He said he dropped it in the middle of the forest, not to mention it was months ago. And I don't know about you, but Harry said he used it and it worked for him then. How could it be broken?" said Ron.

"Harry, please just listen before you blow up. You have every right to be angry with me, but this was the only thing Dumbledore couldn't explain. I needed to see the stone before figuring out what happened. I used a tracking spell to follow your footsteps into the forest. It took a while to find the right spot, but when they suddenly ended in a large clearing. I figured this was where…Voldemort hit you and Hagrid carried you out of the forest. So I backtracked and started using a Summoning Charm. It was slow going at first, but finally I found it at the edge of the clearing.

"I have to admit, I…tried it there in the forest. I turned it over like you said you did, Harry. But it didn't work for me. No one showed up. I brought it back to the office and asked Dumbledore what that could mean, and he said that it must have been broken when he removed the soul fragment from it."

Harry sat on the couch staring at Hermione as if she had betrayed him. He hadn't said anything for a long time, but the anger was practically radiating off of him in waves. When Hermione explained the "broken concept" to him, his angry features grew confused as well.

"Hermione," he finally spoke. "I know what I saw that night, and I know I saw my parents, Sirius, and Remus. If it was broken, how did I see them? And let's not forget, my parents and Sirius might not have been dead, but Remus sure as hell was and he was there in the forest too. You had better have a damn good explanation for this."

She looked at him carefully, worried she had ruined a perfectly good friendship, but she didn't see hatred or contempt, only anger. Friendship can survive anger, she thought.

"I do Harry, just give me some time to explain. This is really complicated even for me. Okay?" she asked him. He could see the worry in her eyes and he was upset at how quickly his anger was dissipating. He was still angrier than he'd ever been at her (at least since the Firebolt incident) and he didn't see her justification making up for her foray into the forest any time soon. But he waved his hand at her to continue, not trusting his words to come out in any way that wasn't shouting or cold disdain. She sighed and organized her thoughts before beginning.

"First I want to prove to you all that it really is broken," she said. Immediately she turned the stone over, then over again. Ron, Ginny and Harry all gasped as the suddenness of it, as she turned it over the final time. Nothing happened. They waited a full minute before Hermione held it out to Ginny. The pain and temptation on the young girls face was almost too hard to look at.

"Ginny, it really is broken, but I need more than just myself to try it to be one hundred percent positive. Please?" the older girl asked. Ginny stared at the stone in Hermione's hand and thought about Fred, Remus, Tonks, and Colin. She tentatively reached out her hand palm side up and waited to feel the soft plunk of stone hitting flesh before she looked up straight into Harry's eyes. He watched with bated breath as she turned it over three times quickly. He let out the air in his lungs after he saw that nothing happened once again.

A tear rolled down Ginny's cheek. He wiped it away and held her close.

"He wouldn't have wanted to return, Gin. It's not right to pull them out of their sanctuaries. Just think of him happily pranking Merlin himself along with Remus and Dumbledore and Moody and you'll be fine," Harry whispered in her ear making her chuckle sadly. She handed the stone back to Hermione who smiled a sad smile of apology to her.

"Ron, will you try too?" she asked her boyfriend. He looked at her, then at Ginny, then at Harry.

"Since I'm the only one of us who hasn't tried, I guess I should too," he muttered. She handed him the stone and he turned it over quickly, resulting in the same anti-climatic response as the other two. He handed it back to Hermione silently thanking Merlin it hadn't worked. He understood that this was the Hallows that drove the original Brother to kill himself. He understood the power this small rock could hold over one person. As much as he wanted his brother back, he knew Fred was better off where he was, where ever that was.

Hermione stood up and went into lecture mode. She paced in front of the three of them slowly as she spoke.

"Now that we know this stone is just that, a stone, the first thing we have to consider it this; in order to destroy a Horcrux one has to destroy it beyond magical repair using either Basilisk venom or other corrosive means. Destroy it so utterly that it can never be repaired by magic again." A look of dawning comprehension travelled briefly across Ginny's face but she remained silent. Hermione's detail may have explained one thing, but not another.

"Now, Dumbledore told me when he found the ring, he was compelled to put it on. He said that afterwards he admitted it was a brilliant protection. Confuse the person to put on the cursed ring to kill them before they could get help. The only reason he survived was because he was magically stronger than most wizards and was able to occlude his mind once he knew what was happening and remove the ring. The curse had already begun so he rushed back to the Castle and got Snape to stop the curse. He only had about a year before the curse started again and knew they wouldn't be able to stop it again. He then took the Sword and hit the stone with it. He knew that the venom on the sword would destroy the Horcrux, but he didn't know what would happen to the Hallow.

"He admitted that he was very tempted to try the stone after the Horcrux was removed but didn't. He wasn't about to torment himself more than he already was." She paused when she heard Harry scoff.

"No, he just left the stone for me to torment myself with it," Harry said scornfully.

"Anyways," she continued. "He had me try it in front of him, McGonagall was asked to leave the office. When I tried it and showed him that it didn't work he asked me what you had said about that night. I told him roughly what you said you saw and he sat and thought for a while. Finally, when I was fit to burst with curiosity, he said that it's possible that, psychologically, you imagined what you saw.

"I'm not that well read in psychology but I do understand that when a person is about to commit suicide, sometimes their mind can create a vision of some kind either to assist them, delays them, or convinces them to stop and get help. Muggles who experience this kind of vision usually call them miracles."

"Hermione, I wouldn't call what I did suicide. I was helping save everyone from that monster. I was a Horcrux, he had to hit me with a Killing curse or it all would have fallen apart. I had no choice," Harry said through grinding teeth.

"And many Suicide Bombers believe that by blowing themselves up along with many other people they're going to be rewarded in their afterlife for doing what they did. Whether what you did was heroic or not Harry you willingly walked to your death. That's suicide. Motivation isn't important to explain why it happened to you. Just listen. I know this is kind of out of our realm being a Muggle Science but try to pay attention.

"You walked to your death knowing it was going to happen and you did nothing to stop it. You actually decided to use the Resurrection Stone to bring your parents and uncle figures to help you keep going. If we take into consideration that since you used the stone, no one has touched it, then I pick it up and it doesn't work, would mean that technically it didn't work when you tried it. Psychologically speaking then, what you saw had to have been a hallucination brought on by your…walk towards death."

She paused to let that sink in, and then continued.

"Your subconscious knew that if you didn't die, Voldemort couldn't be defeated and you couldn't live a real life. So, when your parents, Remus, and Sirius showed up in front of you they helped you walk further than if you would have been able to on your own. Your subconscious made up your parents and Sirius and Remus and you imagined what they said because it was what you needed to hear. But from what we know of the stone's history, when it brings people from wherever they are, they aren't happy; they don't want to stay there. But you explained your family as smiling and proud of you, willingly there to help you, right?"

Hermione stopped talking and waited. She had finished her explanation for the most part, now she just had to see if Harry would accept it. Even she was iffy on what she was explaining to them. She wasn't one hundred percent sure about it because she hadn't read many psychology books and neither had Dumbledore. What they had come up with explained everything, but the question now remained; was their explanation correct?

"Hermione this makes no sense what so ever," Harry said firmly.

"Actually Harry, it does," replied Ginny. "If you accept that fact that the stone is broken, then there isn't any other way to explain why you saw your parents and Sirius since they were actually alive when this happened."

"I have one question though?" asked Ron. "What about the fact that this stone was made by Death himself? Wouldn't that make this thing indestructible therefore rendering it not broken?" he asked. Hermione looked at him for a moment.

"That's really…insightful of you Ron. I hadn't thought of that," she said quietly.

"I mean the wand is unbeatable, and the Cloak is perfect in that no one can find you when you use it, but the Stone breaks? Not very infallible if you ask me," he finished. Harry's eyebrow rose at Hermione as if to say, 'care to explain that?' She sat dejected for a moment.

No one said anything for several long minutes.

"Unless," Ginny broke the silence, "Unless a mere human can't be the Master of Death. Then it might make sense."

"What do you mean?" asked Hermione.

"Well, the three items have never been owned by the same person at the same time, right? Myth says that the person who holds all three at the same time becomes the Master of Death. Dumbledore also didn't want you to acquire the Hallows yourself or go to a Hallow and retrieve it; you have to obtain them through other means. So, you inherited the Cloak, the Stone was given to you, and the Wand you won by accident. By all definition, you should be the Master of Death…but what if no mortal can be the Master? Does that mean that Death reclaimed his stone? Or allowed it to be broken? What if by becoming the Master and therefore uniting them all again, renders them all…average? The wand becomes just a wand, the cloak becomes a normal Invisibility Cloak that can wear and tear and break down over time, and the stone returns to being just a stone?" They all stared at her for several moments before Ron broke the silence this time.

"But Harry wasn't the Master when he entered the Forest. He didn't have the wand," he said.

"That doesn't mean I wasn't the Master. I may not have had the wand in my possession, but I was still the Master of the wand, which means I was Master of Death when I went into the Forest," Harry finished quietly.

They all sat for a moment longer in quiet contemplation.

"I think your idea has merit, Ginny. It's a very good possibility." She looked over at Harry who was still quietly thinking. "Harry?" she prompted. He looked up at her slowly and sighed.

"Hermione, I can't understand why you have this obsessive need to explain everything, but I know that you are who you are and there's no changing you. I just wish you would learn to ask first. Maybe run some things by me before you go running to Dumbledore or McGonagall. Do you ever stop to think that maybe you are the only one who wants to know these answers? That maybe I don't care? Maybe I want to just get to know my parents without worrying that I'm going insane and hallucinating. Or wonder if my friends are going to run off to get answers from someone I really hate right now." He stood by the window now staring out at the sun set over the orchard. No one said anything, so the sound of the Floo going off and footsteps were heard by everyone easily.

"Harry?" called Sirius up the stairs.

"In the living room," Harry called back. He heard Sirius coming and continued to look out the window at the waning light.

"Hey kiddo, we were wondering how much longer you were going to be? It's been about a half an hour since you left. What's going on?" he asked looking to the others in the room.

"Hermione had to go and be herself and go talk to Dumbledore about a few things she didn't understand. She didn't ask me if I minded her talking to him about me and what she found out is kind of important. Don't ask what, it would just confuse you unless you knew the whole story since you 'died'. Let's get going guys," he said as he turned from the window.

The other three stood up and waited for Harry to lead the way to the Floo. Sirius looked questioningly at Ginny but she shook her head and walked quickly to catch up to Harry.

A/N: Many thanks to Teufel1987, my new beta, for editing this chapter! This chapter took way too long, I like to think the holidays and moving had a lot to do with my slowness. I apologize to everyone who caught my edits to the previous chapter, and were excited for a new one but only had the old one, there were just too many mistakes in that one for me to let slide. I start school again on Monday, starting my brand spanking new Bachelors of Fine Arts degree now that I have finally finished my Associates of Fine Arts! WOOT!! And to top it all off, the new school I transferred too, accepted 77 credits so my 120 credit degree is over half done! Double WOOT! All I have now is all art classes and a few left over generals that are new to the new degree. Things like, Math...yuck, and Democracy classes...learning the history of Democracy...now that's a snoozer if I ever heard one...Anywho, please review and tell me what you think of my explanations!