He felt Ginny pull away from him and knew she was embarrassed by what had happened, but he had to try and explain.
He could still hear the blood thumping madly in his ears. He grabbed her hand as she made to stand, forcing her to resume her seat at his side.
“Ginny, wait,” Harry’s voice was low and deep. “I’m sorry. Look, I really wanted to kiss you. I really want to kiss you. But I can’t. Not right now anyway.” He raised a trembling hand to her lips, gently tracing their outline with his index finger. The crazy attraction he had felt was still there and it was taking all his will power not to grab her there and then and kiss her till they both ran out of oxygen.
Ginny seemed to be feeling the same way. Her eyes closed as she felt his finger on her lips. She kissed it lightly and moved away from Harry slightly. Once the connection broke, Harry felt his senses returning, but not before he had murmured, “You’re killing me Ginny. How am I supposed to concentrate on anything after that.”
Ginny laughed softly and said, “I don’t know what is going on with you Harry Potter. But something tells me that now is not the time to start digging around and trying to figure it out. You have been given a temporary reprieve. I will want a full explanation at some stage you know.”
Harry smiled, relieved that Ginny could be so reasonable in the face of what had just happened. She never ceased to surprise him and looking at her now, Harry started to realise that Ginny wasn’t just Ron’s little sister but had become his friend in her own right. She sat back on the couch quietly waiting for Ron to return and allowed Harry to lose himself in his thoughts again.
He thought back to the picture that was now stowed under his pillow. It seemed all the main protagonists, or at least those that he was close to, were represented there. He thought about each in turn, and what they meant to him.
Firstly, there was his mother and father; the people that had given him life and love for the first two years of his life. They were the people who had formed his early personality and for that he would be eternally grateful. Those formative years had ensured that the succeeding ten years of hardship he had endured at the hands of his relatives had not led him to become embittered with life. More importantly, they were the people who had given him protection through their sacrifice. That knowledge was a burden to Harry in some respects. He knew he needed to strive more than others to make his life a success, to defeat Voldemort, otherwise their sacrifice would have been in vain.
Harry then thought of sirius, the man who had survived many years at Azkaban in the sure and certain knowledge that he was the only surviving guardian that actually cared for Harry. He had survived in the knowledge that he was innocent, but knowing that his decision not to be secret keeper had ultimately led to the Potters discovery and murder. Harry knew that sirius suffered from the guilt of that decision ever since Lily and James had been killed. His knowledge of who the real traitor was had kept him alive as he sought to find a way to protect Harry and bring Peter Pettigrew to justice.
It was that desire to protect and be there for Harry that had ultimately led to his own death. Now Harry was the one carrying the burden of guilt of leading sirius to his death. Once again, he may not have been the one holding the wand that killed, but sirius would not have been on the receiving end of that wand if it hadn’t been for him.
Then there was Ginny, Ron and Hermione. Those three had been through it all with him over the past few years. They had gone as far down the road by his side as possible. They hadn’t had to face Voldemort directly, but it was their help that had given him the opportunity to rescue the Philosopher’s Stone in their first year, it was their help again that had led him to Ginny and Tom Riddle in second year, they had been there to help set sirius free in Third Year and had witnessed and helped him in his efforts in the Triwizard tournament during their Fourth Year.
All this had led up to the events in the Department of Mysteries, by which time Ginny had proved that she had just as much Gryffindor bravery in her as any of them had. Lately, Ginny had shown that she wasn’t just a Gryffindor, but a young woman with the ability to turn the head of Harry Potter!
And now here they were: facing into what would arguably be one of the most dangerous years of their young lives. When most sixteen year olds were trying to plan what to do after school, Harry and his friends were wondering if they would still be alive to see graduation.
Harry saw the distinct differences between his generation and the generation of his parents and the marauders. The generation of the marauders had never experienced a war before. They were young and talented and must still have held the belief that no matter what would happen they could and would, overcome it.
Harry and his friends on the other hand, had seen how the last war had turned out. They were the surviving products of that war. Harry had seen how easily people died, how being prepared did not even delay the inevitable.
In some respects Harry was better prepared for it than most. This, in reality was his second war. He had triumphed in the first. He had already been in a battle to the death even if he had not known it at the time.
Suddenly Harry remembered the inscription at the base of the Photo frame. ‘Circus Ultima’. Slowly like the pieces of some enormous jigsaw that up until now had been too big for him to take in the whole picture, Harry had a sudden, enlightening aerial view. He suddenly started to see things take shape.
‘Circus Ultima,’ he breathed the words almost to himself, enlightenment causing him to sit back in the couch in amazement. He needed to confirm that what he was thinking was accurate. “Ginny,” her murmured. “I need a Latin dictionary…do you know if there is one in this house?”
Ginny nodded slowly. “Yes, give me a moment, I’m pretty sure I came across one in the library downstairs.”
Harry nodded, barely aware of Ginny leaving the room. His mind was beginning to race, in that way when something that has been baffling you for some time is suddenly revealed. So many other thoughts and happenings reveal themselves to be connected in some way. Like collapsing dominos Harry began to piece the whole picture together.
Harry hadn’t even noticed Ginny return until he felt someone sit beside him and push a duty volume into his hands. Harry found his hands shook slightly as he opened the dusty dictionary “ thumbing through the pages, he skipped quickly over descriptions of nouns starting with ‘S’ then ‘T’, until he found what he was looking for.
His suspicions confirmed, Harry sat back in the couch and closed his eyes with a sigh.
‘Circus Ultima’
Ultimatum “ ‘The last thing’
Circus - ‘Circle’
Harry let the word form slowly in his mind.
The Final Circle.
The links began to form in Harry’s mind. Galloping through the thought process, Harry found himself picturing each person in the photo once again.
The Final Circle.
Then his mind skipped to what had seemed to be ‘random’ ravings of the Black portrait, those that everyone heard, and those that whispered to Harry whenever he passed up the stairs on his own.
He went through each in turn methodologically.
The night he had arrived, he had heard Mrs Black screaming blue murder “Traitors beware, the time has come for vengeance to fall sweetly. None will escape, none will be untouched. Those disloyal to the ancient pureblood ways will pay. It has already begun.”
Then he moved on to analysing the whispers he heard on the stairway.
“It has begun. The thoughts have been planted and those at the centre will be the first petals to fade and Die.”
The following day the voice had whispered: “It has begun. The pawns are in place. The petals begin to fall as summer fades”
In turn, Harry analysed each of these. There still wasn’t enough information. Something else was missing.
It was then that Harry remembered one important piece of information that he had been neglecting.
Sirius. Harry recalled what sirius had said to him in the nightmare. He stripped away all the other memories and was left with just the following:
“Full circle Harry….think about it. The wheel must come full circle. Would I have died had I never known you existed? Of course. Everlasting life isn’t an option for mere mortals. But would I have died as prematurely as I did? Unlikely. As I say you were haunting me before you were born. You had a direct influence on the path that my life took. And Yes, you had a direct influence on my life being taken from me.”
Full Circle. There it was again. It was a reference to the connections between the present and the past. Harry needed to look at it all again. He felt the answer was dancing just beyond his grip, if he could just analyse it all properly Harry felt sure that it would begin to fall into place.
Hermione was a better analyst than him. Harry tended to rush headlong into things without fully thinking it through. He needed Hermione’s help now. His head was trying but it was as if there were too many pieces of information to keep in place.
Concentrating on one piece meant that another moved from his view. Harry shook his head in frustration.
It was then that it came to him. He didn’t know how he knew, but he just did.
In that terrible, blinding moment of clarity he realised the meaning of Circus Ultima. One by one, Harry went through the people gathered in the photograph. Lily and James “ the catalyst in their death was Harry, through no fault of his own.
Sirius. Again, his closeness to Lily and James, led to his closeness to Harry. He was his Godfather. The one that was supposed to look after him should anything happen to Harry’s parents. He had done so, ultimately sacrificing his own life in the pursuit of saving Harry’s.
The raven haired girl was still a mystery so Harry moved on to dwell on his three friends.
Ron. Easily Harry’s best friend and always willing to plough into whatever trouble Harry found himself in to help. He had already been hurt in the Department of Mysteries, displaying just how far he would go to help Harry.
Now he was trying his best to help Hermione too, and not wanting to bother Harry with this problem, he was trying to do it on his own.
Ginny. Hermione’s only real girlfriend and Ron’s sister. She too had proved her mettle in the Department of Mysteries. She was loyal to a fault. She was obviously upset with Hermione’s change of character over the summer, and worried about Ron. She too was preoccupied trying to help Ron with Hermione, even if all she got for her efforts was a silent and angry Hermione.
She had listened to Harry, and tried to help him too. When the other’s had been distant and preoccupied, she had made time to talk to him and be there if he wanted to open up and talk to her.
Hermione. Ignoring what was currently happening with his friend, Harry thought back to all the things she had done for him. All the times she had helped him, without which he would have failed, been expelled, got injured or perhaps even died depending on the circumstances. She had been there with him through thick and thin.
And now, Harry didn’t seem to know her anymore. He didn’t understand what was going on in her mind. He was drifting further away from her, or was that the other way around?
Suddenly it all became all that much clearer. The Final Circle. But a Circle was by its very definition Infinite. “Unless the Circle was broken,” he whispered almost too himself.
He was the centre. He now realised that. All the people in the circle radiated from him. They were directly influenced by him. sirius’s words came back to him, “You were haunting me before you were born. You had a direct influence on the path that my life took. And yes, you had a direct influence on my life being taken from me.”
That circle of people had been directly influenced by Harry’s mere existence, and it was still happening. Ron, Ginny, Hermione had all risked so much, were still risking so much, just by the mere chance that it had been they that had bonded as friends.
But now the circle was to be broken. Harry felt a sweat break out at the back of his neck. He felt himself shudder. Harry had never been one to believe in premonitions, but at that moment he had seen clearly that the destruction of his life and the life of wizard-kind was but a moment away.
Not only that but he had also just seen the source of that destruction.
Hermione.