CHAPTER 3 - The Show Ends
DISCLAIMER: All of these wonderful characters belong to JK Rowling. I just invited them to come out and play. And they did!
RON: Is this thing working? Blimey! Hello, everyone. This is Ron Weasley...
HARRY: And Harry Potter.
RON: Since George and Fred are busy pleading for their lives, we’re going to take over and try to finish the show. Errr...
HARRY: What is it, Ron?
RON: I was supposed to be the next Mystery Guest!
HARRY: Well, why don’t you go ahead and tell everyone what your favorite memory involving me is?
RON: OK. That’s easy. It was Draco Malfoy, the amazing bouncing ferret!
[Audience roars with laughter]
HARRY: I’ll never forget that one! Malfoy made the mistake of trying to hex me from behind my back in front of Professor Moody.
RON: Yeah. At least we thought he was Moody, not an impostor using Poly-Juice Potion. But Malfoy certainly made a nice ferret!
What’s your favorite memory involving me?
HARRY: That would be from our first year when you saved Hermione and me.
RON: When was that?
HARRY: Don’t you remember the mountain troll in the girls’ bathroom? All I managed to do was run my wand up its nose. You were the one who conked it with its own club! You were the hero that night, mate.
RON: [Audience laughs because Ron is blushing] Oh. I guess I did. Anyway, it’s time for our next Mystery Guest.
FEMALE VOICE: I made a point of checking my records. Mr Potter has come more times into hospital than any other student I’ve tended to.
HARRY: That’s got to be Madam Pomfrey!
RON: Spot on, Harry. Please come out, Madam Pomfrey.
[Warm applause from the audience]
RON: Tell me, do you have any particular memory of Harry you’d like to share?
POMFREY: Well, there was that night Sirius Black had been caught. At first, Mr Potter was behaving like he always does, wanting to be up and about, doing those dangerous things that bring him back to me to patch him up. Yet not ten minutes had passed when he was as polite and meek as you please while the Minister of Magic and Professor Snape were shouting and acting far more outrageously than any student ever did.
RON: How about it, Harry?
HARRY: Well, I’ve always appreciated Madam Pomfrey’s care, but what I would like to thank her for today was her letting us visit and talk to Hermione while she was petrified. We knew she cared for us as patients, but that showed me she also cared for us as people.
RON: Thank you, Madam Pomfrey. Please be seated with the audience.
[Again there is warm applause as she takes her seat.]
HARRY: So, let’s hear the next Mystery Guest.
MALE VOICE: Harry looks very much like his father, but there is much about the way he treats people that reminds me more of his mother, Lily.
HARRY: Thank you, Professor Lupin. Please come on in.
[Again, there is very warm applause]
RON: What’s your favorite memory of Harry, Professor?
LUPIN: It was during a Quidditch match with Ravenclaw when some foolish Slytherins came onto the pitch dressed as dementors. Harry shot a Patronus at them that flattened them and trapped them in their costumes. Of course they all got detentions.
[Audience laughs, but the laughter is interrupted by multiple bangs and shrieks]
HARRY: [Shouting] Now, everyone! Do it!
HARRY, RON, LUPIN, & AUDIENCE: Defendo Familia!
[A high, thin laugh grows louder and louder as someone approaches the microphone. Harry gasps with pain and falls to his knees.]
VOLDEMORT: Surprised, Harry? I’m here to make my favorite memory of you--your death!
HARRY: [Shaking] Don’t count on it, Voldemort.
VOLDEMORT: Why shouldn’t I. You can’t even stand in my presence, thanks to that painful scar. But you can watch as my Death Eaters kill everyone you love, everyone who’s been so thoughtfully brought together in one spot for me!
RON: It doesn’t look that way to me.
VOLDEMORT: Silence, boy! But, what is this?
[Voldemort looks around the room and realizes that his Death Eaters haven’t accomplished their assigned duties. They are firing hexes at the audience, but those spells are bouncing off a translucent, golden, glowing shield and hitting objects in the room. Some spells are hitting his Death Eaters, reducing their numbers.]
VOLDEMORT: What have you done, Potter?
HARRY: [Stands up and grins] I’ve lured you into a trap. There are fifty aurors around this building, combining their strength to raise an anti-apparition shield to keep even you from leaving. Those that I love, my family, have raised a shield over themselves and my friends up here that even the Killing Curse cannot penetrate. As for me, I was acting, pretending that my scar disabled me.
VOLDEMORT: Impossible!
HARRY: [Laughing] Really? Take a good look at Snape.
[Severus Snape is the only Death Eater not shooting curses at the audience. He is much too busy, running, leaping, diving, desperately avoiding the curses bouncing off their shield. The other Death Eaters, one by one, are falling to their own curses.]
HARRY: My friends have yet to fire a curse at your followers, yet over half of those idiots have fallen to their own stupidity. We’ll have no problem rounding up those that survive.
VOLDEMORT: [Shrieks loudly] NO! THIS ENDS HERE AND NOW. CRUCIO!
[Voldemort’s wand squawks loudly and turns into a rubber chicken. Fred and George Weasley give each other a high five and then bow to Dobby. Dobby hands Voldemort’s wand to George, who then hands it to Mr Ollivander and Professor Flitwick.]
HARRY: Sorry, Tom Riddle, but it really does end here. A mere house elf has dared to help me by replacing your wand with a fake one.
HARRY, RON, & LUPIN: Petrificus Totallus!
[Voldemort falls to the floor. Lupin uses his wand to tie Voldemort with ropes jinxed to prevent apparition. Harry looks over to Professor Flitwick who is giving a “thumbs up” signal to Harry and handing Voldemort’s wand to Hagrid. Harry then squats down where Voldemort can see him.]
HARRY: I see you’ve landed where you can see Hagrid, who wants to show you something.
HAGRID: Did’ja know ‘twas fifty-five years ago today that yuh testified to th’ Wizengamot that I was th’ one settin’ a monster on students at Hogwarts? That was th’ day they broke my wand. Like this! [Hagrid snaps Voldemort’s wand.] I owed yuh that, Tom Riddle!
HARRY: Now, Tom, I need to bring you up do date on a few things. You see, this year, when I chose to return to Hogwarts, I made a point of acting my age. I had turned seventeen and had some adventures while I looked for your Horcruxes.
That’s right, Dumbledore and I figured out you’d created six of them. And after I wasted two months trying to find them myself over the hols, I got smart and went to Professors McGonagall, Sprout, Slughorn, and Flitwick.
Between them, they came up with the spell my family and I cast, Defendo Familia. That means, “protect the family.” Being a group spell cast by people of one heart and one mind, it creates a shield no spell can penetrate. And Madam Pomfrey and Professors Lupin and Slughorn came up with the potion that allows me to tolerate the pain from the scar.
[As Harry speaks a large snake is working its way around the studio, heading to a point behind Harry]
HARRY: They also came up with some other charms, like the one that leads me to Horcruxes. That allowed me to find and identify the remaining four Horcruxes you had made. I know that you knew I’d destroyed the diary. You might have heard that Professor Dumbledore nearly died destroying Slytherin’s ring. Since then I’ve destroyed Slytherin’s locket which Regulus Black had removed from the cave you hid it in and left it in the Black mansion. That’s three. I also tracked down Helga Hufflepuff’s cup and Rowena Ravenclaw’s hair brush. That accounts for the first five Horcruxes you made.
[The snake continues silently slithering across the floor and rises in a shadow behind Harry]
HARRY: Then there’s the matter of the sixth one you knowingly made: Nagini.
[Harry suddenly stands, pulls a sword from his robes, spins about and slices off Nagini’s head]
HARRY: I practiced that move for months, Tom. And please note that I wasn’t harmed. Had any of my friends killed Nagini, they surely would have died. I didn’t because of this lovely scar you gave me when you tried to kill me and make me into a Horcrux.
It isn’t a normal scar, you know. Haven’t you ever wondered why it was the scar caused me pain whenever you were near? Or how exactly it was that we were able to feel each other’s emotions? Or know what the other was thinking? Or, in your case, to give me false images to lead me into a trap?
This scar IS a Horcrux, one you unwittingly made when you tried to kill me. At this point it contains the fragments of your soul that you put into all the others, except the one you put into the ring. It’s always been a burden, and sometimes a blessing, all my life. I’m tired of it. You can have it back.
[Harry points his wand first at his scar, then at Voldemort] Reverto Horcruxes!
[Despite his induced paralysis, Voldemort screams as the accumulated souls return to him in a beam of light coming from Harry’s forehead. He then tries to rise, but fails. Harry walks around him.]
HARRY: Weak, aren’t you. You’ve been poisoned. No, not with a physical poison, but with all the love I’ve ever felt. Except for the fragment from Nagini, all of the others have been immersed in all the love I’ve felt since I learned I was a wizard, came to Hogwarts, and started making real friends. The Weasleys, Hermione, Neville, Ginny, so many of the students, Dumbledore, the other professors... they all loved me in their own ways. Those that still live are all here today in the audience. They empowered me. And those fragments I returned are full of love.
How does it feel?
VOLDEMORT: [Weakly, gasping for breath] It’s impossible. Hate is stronger than love. Hate rules the world. I learned that in the orphanage and nothing I experienced in my life refutes that!
HARRY: So you’re still rejecting all that love that’s now embedded in your soul?
VOLDEMORT: [More weakly] Yes. I have to.
HARRY: [Nodding] Everyone told me you would. So, you really can’t be redeemed. You lived only for hate. All I can do is tell you goodbye.
[Harry stands and watches as Voldemort breathes his last. He looks around and watches as the aurors remove the last of the Death Eaters. The audience drops their shield. One by one, each of his friends, the people he loves, walks up and hugs Harry or shakes his hand. Ginny kisses his scar-free forehead and whispers something in his ear that makes him blush and smile. All of the audience returns to their seats and Harry goes back to the microphone.]
HARRY: Okay. Tom Riddle, who renamed himself Lord Voldemort, the would-be Dark Lord, is dead. Most of his Death Eaters are dead or captured. It’s over. The show’s over. The hard part of my life is over. Good night.
[Harry looks up to the control booth where a wizard signals that the microphone is off. Harry steps closer to his friends.]
HARRY: Okay. Who’s up for Quidditch?
The End