It is four thirty in the morning and Harry is tired, bone tired. All he wants right now is to go crawl into his bed in Gryffindor Tower, if only parts of it had not been blown apart. Hogwarts was in a bad way, during the battle with the Death Eaters it had sustained quite a bit of damage. They were in the middle of a ceasefire, a short reprieve to get their dead and dying inside the great hall. Harry had taken the opportunity to race up and into the headmaster's office; he had come from the Shrieking Shack where Severus Snape was just murdered.
He had collected the memories from Snape as they had rolled down his face, as he lay dying after Voldemort ordered Nagini to strike him down. It was honestly a wonder to Harry that Voldemort did not realise that Harry had been in the next room the whole time. Harry opened the cabinet, which he knew contained Albus Dumbledore's pensieve. He popped off the cap and tipped the entire contents of the little glass bottle into the swirling basin and watched as the silvery liquid of the memories turned dark, Harry took a deep breath in and plunged his head into the enchanted bowl.
Harry watched as the memories played themselves out before his eyes; Snape and his mother Lily meeting for the first time, his father James and his friends playing tricks on Snape, Snape calling Lily a mudblood in humiliation and so many others. The last one though he saw was of Snape and Dumbledore, Dumbledore telling Snape that Harry was essentially a horcrux and that Voldemort had to be the one to kill him. Harry emerged from the pensieve and promptly collapsed to the ground, tears threatening to run down his face as a wave of emotion slammed into his being. Harry pulled his knees up to his chest and rested his weary head upon them, curling his arms around his legs in an effort to hold himself together.
'I don't want to die,' thought Harry. However, what choice did he have? He could not just run away from all this, Voldemort would live on if he did, 'Is there no way around this?' Thought Harry, couldn't there be a way to stop Voldemort without him having to sacrifice his own life when there was no guarantee that someone else would-be able stop him after he had been killed? The odds were very long in Harry's opinion; Voldemort was just too powerful. A sudden thought had him pausing though, what if he sent his stag Patronus into the forest instead of actually going out there himself. 'This might work,' Harry thought to himself as he got up from the floor, if he really was a horcrux like the memory suggested and like he suspected, then surely alerting Voldemort to this fact might give the man pause.
Harry left the headmaster's office in search of Hermione and Ron, he was certain he knew where they would be located. There was rubble lying around, bits of the castle strewn about the place and there was blood, lots of it spattered everywhere. He felt sick to his stomach as he walked down the steps near the great hall, the doors to which were barely hanging on their frames. The closer he got to the doors the greater the smell of rotten magic became and the smell of death almost unbearable.
Harry gulped and steadied himself before walking into the great hall, there were bodies lying in rows all along the hall, as he moved closer to where he could see the Weasley family and Hermione were huddled. Harry noticed two cots that contained the lifeless forms of Remus Lupin and Nymphadora Tonks; their hands outstretched towards each other and the tears that Harry had tried to hold back before came with a rush, spilling down his dirty, bloodied face.
Hermione looked around to see who had just entered the hall when her eyes landed on Harry; she gave a short gasp before she followed his gaze to where it lingered on Remus and Tonks. She hurried over to him and threw her arms around him in a tight, shaky hug.
"Oh, thank goodness you're alright," Hermione managed to get out, before she started to cry hysterically. Harry wrapped his arms around her briefly to return the hug, he let go to wipe at his eyes.
"How's everyone else?" Harry whispered, looking over at the Weasley's they were still huddled together around a cot it seemed, "Who is it?" Harry asked, a sinking feeling forming in his gut.
"It's F... Fred," Hermione whispered back, her voice cracking. "He was hit by a curse, he's...he's dead. Harry closed his eyes tightly for a moment; his whole body trembled in silent misery.
"He wants me to go meet him in the Forbidden Forest, Mione." Harry stated quietly, looking down at his shoes; he could not look anywhere else. He did not want to see any more people whom he recognised that had had their lives cut short. This war had taken too many good people, fine witches and wizards in their own right.
"Harry, mate you can't!" It was Ron who had spoken, he had come over to them once he had realised Hermione was no longer standing next to him.
"He'll kill you!" said Ron, there were tear tracks on his cheeks, a mixture of dirt and something else smeared across the top of his forehead and into his orange hair, which had started to take on a dusty brown colour.
"I know." Harry replied, looking up at both Hermione and Ron his face frowning, he was sure he could feel the wrinkles in his forehead were starting to stick from all the stress. "I don't want to die," Harry stated, slowly. He needed to tell them his plan; he knew they were not going to like it.
"Then don't go out there!" Hermione cried, wiping away at the tears starting to fall.
"I don't plan on it," Harry said, taking Draco Malfoy's wand from his pocket. He could see the confusion forming on both of their faces, "But, I think you both know why I should...and I think I've known for a while too..."
Harry did not want to say it aloud in the open, that he was more than likely one of Lord Voldemort's horcruxes.
"There doesn't seem to be any other explanation for the reason that I can speak Parseltongue, see inside his mind and through his eyes, feel his emotions or feel the horcruxes like I can." Harry paused briefly for a moment, taking in the expressions they both had, Hermione had closed her eyes and inhaled and Ron was just staring at him his eyes wide like dinner plates, his mouth slightly agape.
"I don't want to die," Harry repeated himself, Ron closed his mouth and Hermione opened her eyes and was now looking at him with understanding. "But we can't continue fighting a war that's never going to end unless one of us gives up, and I think we can all agree that it won't be him."
"You don't want to die, but your giving up anyway?" Ron asked frowning; he could not grasp this concept easily.
"Not giving up per say," Harry responded, "Just the war we are fighting right now, no one else needs to die Ron, not on my behalf. If I can put a stop to it I will."
Hermione was shaking her head vigorously, "So, what are we going to do? How do we end this war and the killing of innocents?"
"I was thinking about luring him up to the castle," Harry replied, both Hermione and Ron appeared horrified.
"What!" They both shout whispered, "How are you going to do that?" Hermione whispered, her voice taking on a steely edge. She clearly thought he was mad; she began gesturing for them to follow her out of the hall. When they got through the doors and made their way to an empty classroom or what was left of it, she whipped around on Harry, pulled out her wand and cast Muffliato around the room so that they could talk without being overheard.
"Mate," Ron began tentatively, "So, how do you plan on bringing You Know Who up to the castle without getting anyone hurt?"
"Yes, please tell us." Hermione was not happy, frankly the very thought terrified her. The thought of one of her best friends was willing to surrender himself to the dark lord was almost incomprehensible, however, it was Harry they were talking about, he would do anything to keep those around him safe.
"Well," Harry began wringing his hands together, "I thought I would send out my Patronus into the forest to Voldemort and get him to follow it."
"What would you say in your message?" Ron asked curiously, doubting that this would work.
"That I just learned something about myself from the memories of Severus Snape and that maybe he should check out these claims in case they were true," Harry replied, nodding to himself, "Because you know it pertains to his soul and all. And I would ask him not hurt anyone if I surrendered."
"So, you're going to appeal to his fear of death and sense of self?" Hermione questioned, nodding her head, "He won't be able to pass the offer up, not once you allude to the evidence surrounding your circumstances. The mere thought that you could possibly be one of his Horcruxes might make some sense to him and it will probably make him mad as hell."
"Yeah, especially since he's been trying to kill you for like ever," Ron chimed in, "He's not going to like the fact that he's essentially been trying to kill apart of himself." Harry grimaced at the very thought, that he himself housed apart of Voldemort's soul. If it was true, then hopefully Voldemort knew of a way test that out, because the three of them did not.
"We need to notify the others," Harry spoke up, coming out of his thoughts. The rest of Ron's family, especially Molly Weasley was going to hate this idea all the way around, but if they all lived, it would be worth it to surrender himself to the Dark Lord. To stop the madness, stop the needless killing hopefully.
"Harry," Hermione paused, blinking rapidly. "You realise if you go through with this plan, he wins right?" Ron looked distraught at that comment, all the muggleborns would be forced to register, including Hermione. The Wizarding World would be rebuilt in Lord Voldemort's vision. The world, if it was not already on its head was about to be rear-ended so bad it would be tumbling into the next era.
"I know," Harry, responded quietly, his nerves were starting to feel like they had electricity running through them. He did not want to think about what this decision could possibly do to the world. He could hear Voldemort's voice in his head, "You're a fool Harry Potter and you will lose everything." Harry hoped the snide voice in his head was wrong, but it probably was not, he sighed. He hoped beyond anything that his plan would work.