CHAPTER ONE - CONFESSIONS AND PREPARATIONS
That they’d think less of anyone who just disagreed?’
‘And history seems to agree
That I would fight you for me,
That us would fight them for we.
Is that how it always will be?’
“I want out,” said Harry in a shaking whisper.
Ron, Hermione and Ginny (who had firmly refused to be left out) huddled with Harry in a corner of the quiet common room.
“Why is it always me?” asked Harry bitterly. “Why do I have to be the flaming ‘chosen one?’”
“Because no one else would be able to handle it?” suggested Hermione quietly, casting Harry a small smile. Harry didn’t seem to notice.
“Well, I’m not having a marvelous time of it myself, am I?” he shot, voice rising steadily. “You’ve all been talking about it like this is some little challenge that I’m just too big-headed to work out!”
“We don’t “” started Ron.
“Well it’s not!” plundered Harry hotly. “Voldemort killed my parents! It’s his fault Sirius is dead! He’ll kill everyone I care about to get to me, and he’s going to succeed too unless I flaming murder him! I’ve had enough of my blood life. I don’t want to deal with this! I’m done! I want out! I’m sick and tired of being ‘Harry Potter, the Boy-Who-Lived.’”
“Then don’t be,” said Ginny swiftly. Her chin was rested casually in her hands and her toe was tapping gently to a tune Lavender Brown was humming a few chairs over.
“Oh,” snarled Harry sarcastically. “It’s that bloody easy is it? Well excuse me, I’ll just go swap lives with someone else! Silly me!”
Ginny gave a hollow laugh.
If you don't want to kill him,” she snapped, “then don’t kill him. But do something about it! Moping around here certainly isn’t going to help anything! Do you honestly think wallowing in self-pity is going to get you out of this? I didn’t think you were that daft, Harry.”
Harry leapt to his feet and towered over Ginny, fists clenched and teeth barred. Ron and Hermione sank back into their chairs in fright.
“This isn’t little kid stuff,” said Harry coldly. “Everyone I ever dared love is dead thanks to Voldemort “” Ron whimpered ““ and the only chance I have to avenge them, the only chance the world has to survive rests on whether or not I murder the most evil and quite possibly most powerful wizard in history!”
“You’re the most powerful wizard in history, Harry!” piped Colin Creevey from across the room, giving Harry a thumbs-up. Only then did Harry realise he was shouting.
“Shut-up, Harry,” Ginny said cooly. “I know it’s hard but “”
“No you don’t!”
Ginny glared at him.
“I know it’s hard,” she repeated in a deadly calm, “but that’s never stopped you before. I never thought I’d see the day when The Great Harry Potter would back down from a challenge.”
“Look, Harry,” said Hermione quickly before Harry could hit Ginny, which he looked on the verge of doing anyway. “Just ... look at it logically: you don’t want to kill V-Voldemort. Actually, you’re not even phsycologically capable of murder. You’d probably rather die than kill anyway ...”
“Well that’s not an option either, is it?” shot Ron, jumping to Harry’s defence. “If Harry dies, the whole lot of us die! Even the muggles. If you’re actually suggesting that Harry be killed by You-Know-Who ... well, you’d be mental!
“He’s the only chance we have of ever defeating him. V-V-Vol-Voldemort.”
Ron shuddered and the others stared at him in shock.
“I never said Harry had to die,” Hermione said softly, recovering from the shockof Ron’s new development. “But he doesn’t have to kill him either.”
Harry cursed loudly and threw himself back into his chair.
“What the bloody hell are you going on about?” asked Ron, glancing between Hermione and Ginny; he was trying very hard, for Harry’s sake, to look angry when he was really just itching to find out what Hermione’s brain had cooked up.
Ginny leaned forward in her chair and grasped Harry by the shoulders.
“Talk to him Harry “” she started.
“Oh, that’ll be pleasant!” spat Harry. “I’ll just waltz into Voldemort’s lair and have a nice little chat over tea, shall I?”
Ginny ignored him.
“He has human in him,” she said. “He has you in him.” Her voice dropped to barely more than a whisper and Harry caught something vaugely like affection in it. “All the love you have inside you is in him, Harry. It’s in his blood. He can love now. He can forgive. And Harry, you can forgive too.”
She released his shoulders and walked away, stopping at the base of the staircase to the girl’s dormitories just long enough to meet Harry’s eyes and smile just enough to confirm the affection he’d caught earlier.
Ron and Hermione were gaping at her. They had both expected Ginny to release upon Harry the wrath of the youngest Weasley. Maybe Ginny still did see somethng more than friendship in Harry.
Harry tured toward the fire, crackling brightly in the grate and sighed heavilly.
“Why?” he murmured gently. “Why is Voldemort the way he is? Why is everyone so eager to fight?” He paused and his eyes glistened with the tears that stung as he fought them back. “I just don’t understand. Why do they want to fight? To kill? I’ve got to the point where I don’t even want to hit him anymore, and he hasn’t tried to hurt anyone as much as he’s tried to hurt me. So why do they want to fight?”
~*~*~*~*~*~
“Come Along now, hurry up! The coaches are about to leave!”
Professor McGonagall’s sharp voice sliced through the restless babble of the students milling around the Hogsmeade coaches.
Harry shot meaningful looks at Ron, Hermione and Ginny and they followed him grimmly into an empty coach. Harry’s heart raced in his chest and he repeated a few choice words under his breath. Hermione chewed her lower lip, Ron was wringing his hands nervously and Ginny kept glancing out the window warilly at McGonagall as though she expected Voldemort to leap out from under her cloak.
Over the last month, beginning just after their discussion in the common room, the quartet had been haunting the library and stealing around the school under Harry’s invisibility cloak trying desperately to pick up on any clues as to where Voldemort could be hiding. Alas, it had been to no prevail until Lucius Malfoy visited the school ...
***flashback***
Harry and Ron crouched silently under the invisibility cloak in a tall oak wardrobe in Dumbledore’s office. Dumbledore, himself, was pacing up and down the room, brow furrowed in thought. It was stiflingly hot and Ron was half-asleep, slumped against the back wall. Harry, on the other hand, was wide awake and quite alert, listening for anything to help his search. However, the flickering firelight that filled the office was beginning to makehis eyelids droop ...
“Dumbledore!” Ron jolted awake at Harry’s side.
Lucius Malfoy strode into the room, robes billowing out behind him. He scanned the room with steely eyes and rested on Dumbledore with a look of pure loathing
Dumbledore didn’t flinch..
“Good Evening, Lucius,” he said swiftly. “Out of Azkaban so soon?”
Mr Malfoy sneered at the old man.
“For your information, Dumbledore, the Dark Lord had me under his control via the Imperius Curse. You understand, of course, that there was nothing I could do. The Dark Lord has great powers indeed. The Wizengamot sympathized with me. It’s really a shame you weren’t at the trial. It would have done an old fool like yourself good to see that he’s not always right.”
“Ah, of course,” said Dumbledore, he sounded lightly amused. “An I suppose you’ve been passing the blackmail through Draco this time? It would have been quite an inconvenience to pass threats out of Azkaban.”
Maloy scowled as Dumbledore casually reached for his wand.
“Now, Lucius,” he said calmly. “As I’m sure you undersstand, I can’t allow you to be roaming the school. I will not let any harm come to my students.”
Malfoy thrust his hand into his pocket and shot a stunner at Dumbledore which was cleanly deflected.
Harry whipped out his wand and reached for the door to the wardrobe but Ron flung himself onto Harry’s soulders and forced him back.
Dumbledore brought his wand down through the air and it gave a mighty crack that shook the windows. When the smoke cleared, Lucius Malfoy was on the ground bleeding profusely where he had hit his head on the floor. With a flick of his wand, Dumbledore levitated Malfoy’s body in front of him and started down the stairs. Before he left, however, he glanced at the wardrobe where Harry and Ron crouched with a twinkle in his eye.
As soon as the old man disappeared, Ron and Harry leapt from theirhiding space and sprinted to the door to get out as fast as possible.
“Ron,” breathed Harry suddenly. He pointed a quivering finger to a scrap of heavy parchment on the floor. It was splattered with blood which proved Harry’s theory that it had belonged to Lucius Malfoy. He crouched down, smoothed out the parchment and read aloud:
‘Letum Specus can be found at The Cave in the Mountains, Hogsmeade’
***end fllashback***
Letum Specus, Hermione had informed them later, was Latin for Death Cavern, which appeared to be the name of Voldemort’s lair, and was obviously protected by the Fidelius charm. Therefore, that single bit of parchment was enough to get the four of them into Letum Specus and, as Ron pointed out quite quickly, right into Voldemort’s clutches. Harry would not be swayed from the plan. They memorized the adress and the parchment had been burnt.
So now they sat in a small coach, wands in their pockets, preparing to face the Dark Lord again. Except this time it was by choice. There was no hostage, it was no trick. Therefore, they were all terrified out of their minds.
Their thoughts were suddenly jolted back to the present when a fifth person scrambled into the coach.
“Do you mind if I sit here?” asked Neville Longbottom as he sat next to Ginny. “See, Malfoy found me in my first coach and well, you know Malfoy, so he “ er “ am I interupting something?” He had suddenly noticed the four piercing pairs of eyes glaring at him.
Ginny glanced at Harry with a determined glint in her eye. Ron and Hermione exchanged dark looks.
“Well, Harry,” Ginny said slowly. “If anyone has the right ...”
“No.”
“Oh, come on Harry! He could have been in your shoes! You can’t just “”
“No!”
Neville’s face became quite pink and he locked eyes with Harry.
“What are you doing?” he asked firmly. “If this has anytihng to do with You-Know-Who “”
“’s nothing, Neville,” muttered Ron. Ginny kicked him hard in the shins and glared at Harry.
Harry sighed in defeat but refused to meet Neville’s eye. “We know where he is.”
For a moment, Neville looked as though he might faint, but he pulled himself together and crossed his arms.
“Then I’m coming,” he said grimly. “Don’t try and stop me. Harry needs more than three people! I can help hold off the Death Eaters to give Harry a clear pathway to You-Know-Who. I’m “ not afraid.”
His round eyes flashed with determination.
Hermione and Ginnyy seemed to agree heartilly with Neville, Ron was in shock from his pledge of courage and Harry hadn’t the patience to argue.
“Fine,” said Harry. “Hermione will tell you the plan.”