“After knowing my dad for seventeen years, I’ve learned not to take any chances,” said Emma.
The eight time travelers collapsed into chairs back in the Room of Requirement. They were exhausted, dirty, and bloody, and not prepared to budge anytime soon.
“I’m skipping last period,” Jordan announced flatly. Normally, such a statement from Jordan Potter would be accompanied by gasps, shrieks, and cries of “It’s a sign of the apocalypse!” But no one was surprised this time. They’d all been through what Jordan had and there was no way any of them could go to class without getting some serious rest first. Besides, cutting class was no problem when they had a Time Turner at hand.
“Well, that entire mission was a complete fiasco!” Anatoly announced cheerfully.
Haley shook her head. “I know. We didn’t even get to find out how Dad defeated Voldemort.”
“Well, I could have told you that,” blurted Jordan. He looked surprised by his own words. “I… I never wanted to talk about the Final Battle before. I saw it when I was ten years old… I looked into Dad’s Pensieve, and… well, it was horrible. Ivy knows that… but I never told anyone what happened. But I’m a Seer now, and I’ve seen much, much worse.” He paused. “Like, for instance, what Emma and Tyrone were doing a few minutes ago.”
Emma gasped. “Ivy, you little sneak! When you said Jordan had seen the battle before, I thought you were just bluffing to impress Cecilia! Since when does he spill his secrets to you, anyway?”
Ivy shrugged. “I was there,” she said simply. “He was in a generous mood, and I was lucky.”
Tyrone peered at her. “Ivy, are you being sarcastic?” he exclaimed. “Look at you, you are! Next you’re going to start telling dirty jokes! I’m so proud.”
For once in her life, Haley wasn’t amused. “I want to hear what happened with Dad and Voldemort,” she said. “I’ve been wondering about it my whole life, the least you can do is tell me, Jor-jums.”
Jordan looked down at his hands. “I remember everything,” he said. “It started off right where we left, when Uncle Ron was fighting with Wormtail…”
Ten-year-old Jordan, scrawny and bespectacled and clueless, stood gape-mouthed amid the blood and chaos. Once or twice, a Death Eater actually ran through him, not the pleasantest of sensations. He felt like an invisible ghost, drifting around uselessly as spells and hexes he’d never even heard of whizzed by his head.
He saw his father fighting some big Death Eater he didn’t know”he hardly even recognized any of them, only the Eight, and even then, they were difficult to identify. Beside him, Ron was firing every curse he could manage, trying to keep Death Eaters away from Harry. Hermione and Ginny were both fighting a man who had to be Lucius Malfoy, with that long blonde hair of his.
As Jordan watched, a small, plump man with beady, watery eyes crept out from behind one of the derelict houses. He watched silently until one of Ron’s spells hit the Death Eater that Harry had been fighting, then grabbed Harry, clamped a strangely shiny silver hand over his mouth, and pulled him up against a wall.
“Wormtail?” Harry said in disgust, looking down at the silver hand that was still gripping his jaw.
“Shhh, don’t let them hear you!” squeaked Wormtail, his tiny eyes darting back and forth. “You-Know-Who will be here any minute!”
“Doesn’t he like it better when his servants call him The Dark Lord?” Harry asked roughly, trying to shove Wormtail’s hand away from him.
Wormtail looked as though he was about to burst into tears. “You look so much like James,” he said in a wet, sniffly sort of voice. “Just like the last time I saw him.”
“What are you trying to do?” demanded Harry, revulsion written across his face.
Wormtail twitched. “My Master wanted to wait to fight you until you were weak and your friends were all gone. Just to see you suffer before you died. But he’s coming now.”
Harry looked around the battlefield. “All of my friends are still alive,” he said. “All the ones who came here with me, at least. Voldemort got that wrong.”
Wormtail twitched again, this time convulsively, at the sound of Voldemort’s name. “Don’t say the name,” he muttered.
Suddenly, as if on cue, there was a whirring sound, and a tall, skeletal figure cloaked in black materialized in the middle of the battlefield. His entrance was near-silent, but as he appeared, all action on the field ceased immediately. Lord Voldemort had that effect on people.
Jordan had heard many stories about Voldemort, more than he could attempt to count. But in his mind, Voldemort had just been a big, ugly man with pointy eyebrows and a long black beard, like an evil wizard in a cartoon. But this man, this creature, didn’t even look human. His waxy white skin was pulled tight over the bones of his hairless face, his nostrils flat slits on a noseless expanse, his eyes red and reptilian. He was alien and hideous, beyond anything Jordan could have imagined.
“Wormtail,” he said in a crooning near-whisper. His voice was another surprise, high and cold and barely audible, but carrying nonetheless. Jordan had expected a deep, booming roar. “Wormtail,” repeated the evilest being in wizarding history.
Wormtail bustled out from behind the old house where he’d dragged Harry, looking so guilty that it was comical.
“At last,” Voldemort said in that same horrible soft voice. “I told you to bring me Harry Potter upon my arrival. Where is the boy?”
Wormtail was trembling from head to toe. “He… he never came,” he squeaked. “He sent his friends before him to see if it was safe.”
“YOU LIE.”
The two syllables hung in the air, resonating as though Voldemort had shouted them, instead of letting them out in a strangled-sounding hiss, like an angry gnat.
“I have known Harry Potter for sixteen years, Wormtail. I have experienced flashes of insight into regions of his mind that even Potter is unaware of. He would never send his friends anywhere without accompanying them.” Voldemort shook his hideous head slowly, something like a smile pulling at his lipless mouth. “Wormtail, Wormtail,” he said. “You are pathetic. You are no use to the Death Eaters, and the Order of the Phoenix would never take you back now. Where is Potter?”
Wormtail burst into tears, a disgusting sight, “He’s not here!” he cried.
Voldemort stared at him so intently that Jordan would not have been surprised if laser beams had shot out of his eyes and into Wormtail’s. He raised his wand in a slow, graceful motion that reminded Jordan of a snake rearing its head to strike. “I seem to remember, Wormtail, that I gave you this hand as a gift… under one condition. I see no reason for you to keep it now.”
With a slash of his wand, Voldemort separated the glowing hand from Wormtail’s trembling wrist. It hung in the air for a moment, then dissipated in a puff of smoke, leaving Wormtail holding the stump of his arm and bawling like a child as blood poured from the open wound.
“You call yourself a man, Wormtail, but you have provided precious little reason for me to consider you as such,” Voldemort intoned, then sent Wormtail sprawling to the ground with another flick of his wand. “Where is Potter?”
Wormtail didn’t answer, his eyes still fixated on his mangled wrist and his lip trembling.
“Very well,” hissed Voldemort, then jabbed his wand at Wormtail. Jordan watched in horrified awe as the man transformed into a shabby rat, missing its front paw. “If you will not speak to Lord Voldemort when he commands you, then show him. Where is the boy?”
The rat skittered back and forth almost drunkenly, staring up at the evil wizard through bleary eyes.
“Perhaps this will persuade you. CRUCIO!”
With an awful, shrill squeal, the rat flipped over on its back, kicking its legs madly and twitching in agony, as the towering figure of Lord Voldemort bent over the pitiful creature with a look of cold indifference on his face.
“Now are you ready to show me where Potter is hiding?” he hissed.
The rat convulsed with an uncontrollable spasm of pain, but gave no other reply
“Do you think you can deceive the Dark Lord, Wormtail? Crucio!,” spat Voldemort again, directing his wand at Wormtail, with such force that it actually bent from the motion. As soon as the spell ended, Voldemort cried, “Crucio!” once more, before Wormtail even had a second to recover. The high-pitched screaming sounds were terrible to hear, but Voldemort didn’t seem to notice. After what seemed like hours of torture, he stepped on the pathetic, bleeding rat with a sickening crunch, and blasted him behind the house with his wand.
Invisible as he was in his capacity as Pensieve Tourist, Jordan raced behind the house to see what was going on. It was almost as if Voldemort had known that Harry was behind the building where he had disposed of Wormtail, but if he had, he certainly would not have wasted time torturing the rat before going in for the kill. In the centre of the battlefield, Jordan heard Voldemort demanding in his horrible whisper of a voice, “Lord Voldemort appreciates that you chose to remain silent while I was… testing Wormtail, but now is not the time to hold your tongues. Where is the boy?”
Every Death Eater present shifted just as uncomfortably as the Order members gathered around.
“I seen him,” a big, slow-voiced Death Eater said at last. “I seen him a lot. But I don’t know where he is now.”
“Perhaps he ran away?” called out a shrill male voice from the back of the crowd.
Voldemort did not shout. His voice only grew even quieter. “You mean to say that you allowed the one true reason for this battle to… escape?”
“We wanted to kill his friends first, my lord,” stammered Lucius Malfoy.
“As I see,” snarled Voldemort, glancing around the circle at the Order members who were still on their feet.
But Jordan, behind the house where Harry, Ron, and Hermione sat with Wormtail, was no longer focusing on the various atrocities that Voldemort was inflicting on his followers. His attention was occupied by something closer at hand.
“Blimey, what was all of that for?” Ron said in a hushed voice, eyeing the rat with pity and disgust.
Harry looked uncomfortable. “I, er, spared his life back at the Shrieking Shack”in third year, remember? And I guess…he decided to pay me back. Dumbledore always said he might, but I never believed him.” He shuddered. “I wouldn’t wish the Cruciatus Curse on anyone, though.”
Hermione’s eyes were as round as Galleons. “I suppose he really was a Gryffindor after all,” she said quietly.
There was a disgusting gurgling noise, and Jordan saw a sight so repulsive that he would have thrown up on the spot, had he not been a spectral presence. Wormtail had apparently tried to change back into a human, but he was too weak. Parts of him were human, parts of him were still those of a rat, and some parts were something in-between. His face was hopelessly distorted, with the features of a human bulging from the tiny cranium of a rat, and one tiny clawed rat’s leg protruded from his human shoulders, while his bleeding stump was that of a human. He still had a tail and sporadic patches of grey-brown fur, and one rat’s eye was lost in a gaping human socket.
“Aaaaagh!” Ron scrambled back as far as he could from the mess that was Peter Pettigrew, Hermione clinging onto his shoulder.
Wormtail was trying to speak, grasping for Harry with his puny claw, but with a rat-sized brain, all that came out was a wheezy squealing noise. Blood was still pooling all around him, more blood than seemed possible.
“I… I reckon we should put him out of his misery,” Ron said quietly.
“WHAT?” squawked Hermione.
“Like when Errol got caught in the trunk of some Muggle salesman’s car,” Ron explained. “He’s not going to make it anyway, Hermione.”
Harry’s brow creased, causing his scar to twitch. Jordan noticed that it looked much deeper and brighter red than the lightning scar he recognized. “I think he’s right,” said Harry. “Er… should I do it, then?” He paused, obviously remembering the scene at the Shrieking Shack, when Sirius asked, ‘Shall we kill him together?’ and Remus replied, ‘Yes, I think so.’
“Don’t!” cried Hermione. “Besides, Voldemort can track when you do magic, Harry! He’ll find you!”
“Well, I’m going to have to face him sooner or later anyway,” Harry told her firmly. “Wormtail would have wanted it this way. He turned my dad in to Voldemort. If anyone had to do this, he’d want it to be me.” He raised his wand. “A… Avada K-k-k…” He took a deep breath and closed his eyes. “Avada Kedavra.”
There was a whooshing sound, and a beam of green light, and Jordan covered his eyes… but when he finally opened them, he saw that Wormtail was still writhing and moaning on the ground.
Harry squinted at his wand. “But… I did it!” he breathed. “Didn’t I?”
“Don’t you remember what Bellatrix Lestrange said?” Hermione asked in an infuriatingly all-knowing voice, pronouncing ‘Lestrange’ with the sort of impeccable French acecent that even the Lestranges themselves had never been quite able to affect. “You have to really mean it, she said.”
“I did mean it, though!” insisted Harry.
Hermione sighed. “I think she meant that some people have it in them to kill, and… some people just don’t.”
“Look, er, I’ll try it,” Ron butted in before Harry could say anything more. He directed his wand at Wormtail’s misshapen body, and said very softly, “Avada Kedavra.”
Flash.
It wasn’t a very dramatic scene. The green glow enveloped Wormtail, and he stopped moving, and that was it.
“Er… that’s it, then,” Ron said uncomfortably, wiping his wand on his shirt as though he had dirtied it. His face was stark white, and his freckles stood out like punctuation marks. Hermione was crying, and Harry looked lost and confused.
The three of them sat in silence as Hermione transfigured the body into a small blue stone and Harry dug a shallow hole, placed the stone in it, and covered it with dirt. They all looked down at the small indentation in the ground that was the only remaining sign of Peter Pettigrew, unsure of what to say or how to say what was on their minds.
But before they had to, Lord Voldemort’s magically enhanced voice rang out across the battlefield, “Potter, you cannot hide forever. How many of your defenders are you willing to sacrifice to save your skin?”
Harry took a breath so deep that it seemed to take him forever to exhale. “Right,” he said, “I’m going.”
“Ohhh no, mate, what are you thinking?” demanded Ron. “He’s going to kill you. You can only get lucky so many times?”
“Look, I can’t let Voldemort do anyone else in. I’m supposed to stop him, I might as well try it now.” Harry’s words were brave, but his words couldn’t hide how terrified he looked. He was shaking all over and he looked like a frightened little boy, one who had lived in a cupboard under the stairs his whole life.
Hermione grabbed his sleeve. “But we haven’t even got the last Horcrux yet, Harry!” she exclaimed. “You can’t possibly expect to defeat him without it. There’s the book, the cup””
“The ring, the locket, and Rowena Ravenclaw’s charm bracelet, I know,” finished Harry. “But there’s no time to kill the snake. Even if I can’t finish off Voldemort for good, he’ll still be set back until he can get his body back. And he doesn’t have Wormtail to chop off his hand for him anymore.”
Tears were actually running down Ron’s face, something that they hadn’t done since Dumbledore’s funeral, and very rarely before then. “Don’t do it, Harry. It’s a suicide mission.”
“You can’t even cast a Killing Curse!” added Hermione, glaring through teary eyes. “How are you planning on just waltzing up to Voldemort and””
Harry sighed. “I have no idea what I’m doing,” he said. “But I know Voldemort wants this to be the Final Battle, and he isn’t going to give up until I give in.” His voice cracked, and Jordan could barely stand to watch him.
“But you’re supposed to be the one to defeat him!” Hermione urged him. “No one else can do it. Wait until you actually have a plan!”
“Voldemort kills people,” snapped Harry. “It’s what he does. He’s just going to kill everyone he finds, and then he’s going to find me and kill me as it is. It might take a bit longer, but he’s still going to do it.”
Ron jumped up. “Harry, at least let me come with you, all right? I can do a Killing Curse, I--”
“No way, you have parents. I’m not going to put them through that,” said Harry. He stared off into the distance. “If I have to die, I’d want it to be here, like my parents…” he whispered.
“I wish you didn’t always have to be such a… a… bloody hero,” sobbed Hermione, and buried Harry in the tightest, most rib-cracking hug she could manage. Harry hugged her back, not even making a joke about her use of profanity. Once she finally let go, Ron gave Harry an equally smothering hug. Ron was not generally the hugging type, but nobody commented on that. The three of them huddled together, making the most of every last second they had together.
“I can’t believe you both came with me to all of this stupid stuff. Nobody else would have stuck with me this long,” Harry said thickly.
“I don’t know what to say to you,” whispered Hermione. “I can’t just say goodbye.”
Harry closed his eyes. “You might try ‘good luck,’” he said, and before Ron and Hermione could stall him any further, he stood as straight and tall as he could and walked out from behind the house, into the open. He looked… shockingly like Jordan.
As Harry advanced toward Voldemort, Ginny grabbed his hand and hissed, “What are you doing?” But Harry couldn’t bring himself to look at her or reply.
Voldemort and the rest of the Death Eaters were staring at him, as though they were an eager audience waiting for him to begin tap-dancing. When Harry drew even with Voldemort, still shaking, as hard as he tried to steady himself, Voldemort looked almost disappointed.
“Potter,” he whispered. “I must admit my surprise. No last minute tricks, no desperate bids for survival… I had not expected you to give up so easily.”
“I’ve lost too many friends that way,” Harry said quietly.
“Ah,” Voldemort said lazily. “I see you are willing to die in the hopes that your little friends will escape unscathed. Chivalrous as always, I see. And foolish.”
Harry did not react. His whole body shivered with suppressed terror, but his face remained blank and resolute.
“And yet, now that it comes down to you and me, tell me before it is too late”why do you do this? Why do you try time and time again to defeat Lord Voldemort when the Dark Lord possesses powers that you could never dream of understanding? Why do you seek me out when any other man would hide?”
“You killed my parents,” Harry replied. His voice barely trembled, but Voldemort could sense his fear. He seemed to be drinking it in from the air with his snakelike tongue.
Voldemort laughed a merciless, humorless laugh that sounded like a pit full of angry cobras. “You lie. You never knew your parents, just as I never knew mine. I assure you, it was no difficulty killing Tom Riddle.” He spat the name as though it were poison in his mouth. “Suppose I told you your parents were alive.”
Harry swallowed. “They’re not,” he managed.
“But if they were, Potter. You would not, I think, be pleased to hear the news. You’ve been powerful without them. You can take risks that no boy would otherwise dare attempt. For the very same reason, I achieved greatness, with no parents to prevent me from attaining everything I could ever desire.”
“Not everything,” whispered Harry. “You never did get that Defense Against the Dark Arts job, did you, Riddle? And you never killed me.”
“SILENCE!” hissed Voldemort. “It is not because of your parents that you pursue me. Do not play the noble hero. Nobody wants peace and justice and freedom and safety. They are words that are used to disguise ambition. Why, then, is it? It cannot be genuine compassion for the filthy Muggles that are blighting our race, surely you realize I would never believe that?”
Harry was silent for a moment, staring into those inhuman red eyes. “No,” he said at last, “I don’t. After sixteen years with the Dursleys, I could care less what happens to the Muggles.”
Voldemort’s eyes gleamed an even brighter blood red. “So you admit it at last, Potter. Now tell me, what is your reason? Do not stall any longer, in hopes of dreaming up a plan to escape me again. I am already tiring of this game.”
Harry took a long, deep breath, then fixed his green eyes resolutely on Voldemort’s. “Because they all expect me to defeat you,” he said. “Everyone thinks I’m some big hero, that there’s something special about me because of what happened when I was a baby. They all expect me to be the saviour”anyone that Fudge and Rita Skeeter and who knows who else haven’t gotten to yet, I mean.”
Voldemort’s lipless mouth was stretched alarmingly wide, though it still never showed a glimmer of teeth. “At last the truth is revealed,” he murmured. “The great Harry Potter is nothing more than a frightened child who has had a taste of glory and is hungry for more.”
“If you think I’m going to join you, you’re wrong,” said Harry. “I haven’t come this far for nothing. No matter what you give me, there are too many people who believe in me.”
Voldemort inhaled so deeply, his slitlike nostrils almost vanished. “Predictable as ever, Potter. But Lord Voldemort has more to offer than you suspect. We are very alike, the two of us… I had hoped for some time that your ambition would lead you to the Dark Lord. But I have a proposition that I believe you will find quite… tantalizing.
“Not one of my Death Eaters will lay a finger on your… friends if you cooperate with this plan. I will disappear once more, and you and your friends will walk free, bearing the miraculous story of my defeat. The wizarding world will believe me gone for good, as they did before, and your name will remain untarnished… but in exchange, you will serve me and only me. The Death Eaters will operate entirely underground, and I will stay in hiding… but once you die”of natural causes, of course”and have no reason to protect your reputation, I will return, as powerful as before, and with the news that it was Harry Potter who assisted me all along. I believe it is a very fair bargain for your life.”
Harry stared at the ground. “Why do you think I would agree to something like that?”
“The alternative is death. I know you have discovered my Horcruxes. But both of us are perfectly aware that my final Horcrux remains safe from prying eyes, and I am certain that you will never destroy it. Time is running short, boy. Do you choose death now, after all of these years of fortuitous escapes, or do you choose my offer? Lord Voldermort is a merciful lord, he provides to those who are willing to make sacrifices for him.”
Harry’s eyes darted around the battlefield, to pale, bewildered Ginny, to smug Lucius Malfoy, to desperate, paralyzed Neville, to the dead body of Bellatrix Lestrange. “I… I accept,” he said softly, at long last. “If it keeps my friends safe.”
Even Voldemort could not hide his surprise. His smooth, reptilian face looked stunned and puzzled, but mostly fiendishly gleeful. “It is done, then. Come, make the Unbreakable Vow.”
“But the penalty for breaking an Unbreakable Vow is death,” Harry pointed out resolutely. “If you can’t die, how can I trust you to keep your promise?”
Voldemort scowled. “You will speak to the Dark Lord when spoken to,” he spat. “Lord Voldemort makes no compromises. How can I know if you are to be trusted?”
“A true Slytherin never trusts anyone,” Harry said. It didn’t sound like an insult, the way he said it. There was greed in his eyes, and it was ugly on his young face. “But if you don’t think I’m being honest with you, do Legilimency on me. You know I’m not an Occlumens. What do you have to lose?”
“Very well,” hissed Voldemort, and stepped forward, so closely that if he had had a nose, it would have pressed against Harry’s. His eyes bored into Harry’s, which stared defiantly back.
Suddenly… something began to happen. Jordan watched in confused fascination as Voldemort began making strange inhuman gurgles of pain. Harry was forced down onto his knees, gasping for breath, but he still did not break eye contact. Jordan could see that Voldemort was paralyzed by something”whether pain, fear, or nausea”and however hard he tried to pull away, Harry’s eyes seemed to tug at him like twin magnets. Harry’s scar glowed red-hot, angry, and raw.
Without warning, a gust of powerful wind seemed to come from nowhere, and where Voldemort had seemed to be pulled toward the boy just seconds before, he was now thrown across the battlefield, flying a good seven or eight feet before crashing to the ground with terrible finality. He let out a scream, so piercing and high-pitched that it sounded more like a mosquito than a man, as his skeletal body was racked with mysterious spasms. As the wind whipped at him, Voldemort seemed to decay, his body weathering into a withered husk before Jordan’s eyes. As he watched, it crumbled into dust and blew about angrily like a tiny swarm of locusts… before settling into a small grey pile on the ground. A tattered black robe and a dusty wand sat on top of the unassuming mound.
The battlefield was silent as everyone, Death Eater or Order Member alike, stared at the remains of what had been the vilest wizard in living memory. Harry Potter lay spread-eagled on the ground, white and motionless as a waxwork. He looked almost dead, but his chest rose and fell weakly. His glasses lay beside him, and his wand had rolled away.
Hermione shattered the dreamlike, suspended moment by running forward and grabbing Harry’s shoulder. “Harry!” she cried.
Harry’s eyelids flickered. “It’s all right, it’s over, he’s gone,” he muttered weakly.
“Harry, are you all right?” Ginny asked softly.
At the sound of her voice, his eyes flew open, and he sat up abruptly and kissed her full on the mouth. Jordan stared in scandalized horror as he watched the teenagers who would become his parents. When they broke apart, Harry dragged himself to his feet, still weak and unsteady, and surveyed the battlefield. “I… I did it,” he whispered hoarsely. For a moment, tears seemed to well up in his eyes, but then he let out a small, hard chuckle of amusement. “So what am I going to do with myself now?”
Most of the Death Eaters were either unconscious or had already Disapparated, but a few stragglers remained, huddled in terror around the field. As Harry advanced toward the pile of dust that had been Voldemort, they scattered into the shadows. Harry stood staring at the mound in silent contemplation, his head bowed solemnly. Then, he bent over, picked up Voldemort’s ownerless wand, turned it over in his hands, and snapped it cleanly in two, leaving the pieces on top of the pile.
When he walked back to where his friends were standing, no one knew quite what to say. This was Harry, who they had known for years, the average student, the Quidditch player, the one who was continually getting into the strangest of scrapes and doing his best to talk his way out of them, the one with the stupid haircut, awful glasses, and terrible clothes. But this was also the vanquisher of Lord Voldemort, the young man who had looked death and pure evil in the face and come off the better.
At last, Harry said, “You, er, knew I didn’t mean it when I said I’d join Voldemort, right?”
“Of course,” said Hermione.
“I wasn’t sure at first, but then I realized you had to have something up your sleeve,” said Ron, grinning broadly.
Ginny hung back as the others professed their confidence that Harry had been bluffing all along. But when Harry turned to look at her, his eyes full of concern, she whispered, “I was sure you wouldn’t do something like that… but I thought you were Imperiused, I really did. I guess I don’t know you as well as I thought I did.”
“Don’t worry,” said Harry, smiling. “We have loads of time to get to know each other better now.” He paused and touched his forehead, feeling around experimentally. “My scar doesn’t hurt,” he murmured.
“I should hope not,” said Ron. “It would be a real pain in the bum if Voldemort came back now.”
“No, you don’t get it”it always hurts,” explained Harry. “Ever since I turned eleven, it always twinged a bit. I just got used to it after awhile. But now it’s good as new.”
Ginny reached up and touched the lightning bolt mark, now faded to an innocuous pinkish-white like any other healed injury. “What did happen?” she asked. “With you and Voldemort, I mean?”
Harry sighed and shook his head. “I don’t even know,” he said. “I remembered how Voldemort tried how to possess me that time at the Ministry”it hurt him to get inside my head. Dumbledore said it was love that did it. He said it was my weapon against Voldemort, since he didn’t know anything about it. So I thought if I could get him inside my head again, maybe it would scare him away and I’d buy some time before he caught up with me… It was like I was trying to do a Patronus”I just tried to keep focused on everything I love the whole time.
“But when he did it, something… weird happened. It was like something inside me, and something inside Voldemort were playing tug-of-war or something. I was scared out of my mind, I mean, I saw inside Voldemort’s head, every disgusting thing he’s ever done to anyone. Half the time, I didn’t even know if I was me or Voldemort. I felt like I was ripping in half- and then it was like something broke inside my brain, and I felt something… it almost felt like a… a ghost or something was flying out my head, through my scar. I don’t know, it doesn’t make any sense. I didn’t see what happened after that, though… I didn’t see it when Voldemort died. Everything went all black at first, and then””
“Go on,” prompted Hermione.
“You’re going to say I’m mad,” Harry said.
Ron snorted. “It can’t be any stranger than the first part of your story, can it?”
“Well, what happened was I…” Harry ran a hand through his hair. “I mean, you must have wondered what happened when I was knocked out all that time?”
Ginny peered at him. “Harry, you were only out for ten seconds.”
“But it was hours!” spluttered Harry. “I… I went somewhere!”
“Went somewhere?” Ron repeated incredulously.
Harry clutched his forehead, as though his scar had begun to burn again. “I don’t remember what it looked like or anything. But… I saw my parents.” He looked far off into the distance, determinedly not meeting his friends’ eyes. “They told me that they were proud of me… and they love me. And that Sirius and Dumbledore do, too.”
There was a catch in his voice, however casual he tried to sound. “I asked them if I was dead, and my… my mum said no, just a part of me that wasn’t really me to begin with.”
Ginny squinted. “What?”
“Back in first year, Dumbledore told me that Voldemort accidentally put part of himself into me the first time he tried to kill me… and so I guess that bit of him split back off of me when Voldemort got in my head, but it had been so long that it was really… fused to me. And it wouldn’t let go… but I beat it in the end.” Harry’s legs buckled, and he sat down on the ground.
“My dad said I’m the man he always wished he could be. He said… he wished he had half the guts I do.” He squeezed his eyes shut for a moment to keep tears from escaping. “He was only four years older than me when he died. He looked like… he could’ve been my twin.”
Hermione stared at him like she’d never seen him before. “You really did see your parents, didn’t you?” she breathed.
“Well, that’s two times you got what you saw in the Mirror of Erised now,” muttered Ron. “I mean, I didn’t think Quidditch Captain and Head Boy was too much to ask for, did you?”
Harry suddenly burst out laughing, and he couldn’t stop. “We’ve all gone completely mental!” he exclaimed. “Just a few years ago, people looked at me like I was out of my mind just because I had a dream about a flying motorcycle. Now, all of… this can happen, and everyone acts like it makes sense!”
Ron clapped a hand on Harry’s shoulder. “Harry,” he said, “This all stopped making sense years ago. We’ve just learned to stop trying to understand it all.” He exhaled deeply. “You know, mate, I never did get to tell you this, but you really are brilliant. I don’t know how you do it all.”
Ginny gave Harry a kiss on the cheek. “For what it’s worth, I’m proud of you, too,” she whispered, and pressed her nose against his. “I bet for once, you’re glad you’re Harry Potter today.”
Harry grinned. “Yeah, I am,” he said. “Because only Harry Potter gets to do this.” And he pulled her close to him and kissed her like a hungry Dementor.
“Anyway, Voldemort told him that he had one of two choices,” said Jordan. “He could agree to join him or die. It was a rhetorical question”look it up, Haley, I’m not explaining what that means”but Dad said he’d join him.” He paused. “That’s where I got the idea for what I did with Malfoy, actually. Dad did it first.”
“In any case, Voldemort didn’t believe him, so he got inside Dad’s head. And… Dad’s memories were too much for Voldemort. There was too much love. Voldemort… burned up from inside and… in layman’s terms, he basically exploded.”
Seven pairs of wide eyes stared back, getting even wider as he continued. Jordan’s voice was often just a little too matter-of-fact, and this was one of those times.
“Well, that ‘hungry Dementor’ metaphor was a bit much, but good story,” offered Anatoly.
“I thought there was still one Horcrux left,” offered Cecilia, ever practical.
Jordan smiled. “The last Horcrux was Dad. Voldemort accidentally made him a Horcrux the night he killed his mum and dad… of course, he knew a bit of his soul dislodged that night, but he always thought it was in his wand. That was why he always protected it so closely. But when Voldemort tried to possess Dad, he accidentally destroyed that bit of soul.” He shook his head. “It was all luck. Dad wasn’t sure what would happen. All he knew was that Dumbledore had said love was the one thing Voldemort didn’t understand, and he took a chance.”
Haley sighed. “Wow,” she said dreamily. “That’s amazing.” She paused pensively. “You know, that’s not the only way Dad’s love helped, either. Because, I mean, you know, we helped out in the battle, and if Dad and Mum didn’t love each other, then we wouldn’t exist, because””
“Can we not talk about this, Haley?” demanded Jordan, looking slightly queasy.
“Oh, grow up, Jordan,” Haley replied contemptuously.
Jordan didn’t have a single thing to say in response to this, mainly because he was so shocked by the fact that Haley of all people was telling him to grow up.
“I mean, we all learned about the Fwoopers and the Billywigs years ago,” continued Haley urbanely. “None of us would be here if it wasn’t for””
“Yes. Well.” Jordan cleared his throat once again. Once upon a time, he’d written in a letter to Giorgi, ‘When did all of my friends get hormones, and where was I when they were handed out?’ Unlike seemingly everyone else he knew, love wasn’t something he really liked to discuss.
“What does it matter what Dad did, though?” he continued. “The important thing was what exactly happened with Uncle Ron and Snape. And we didn’t see that.” He raked his hand through his hair bitterly. “Now there’s no way at all to prove Uncle Ron’s innocent.”
Emma looked up, her face hard and set and her jaw tense in that expression that those who knew her knew so well. “Yes, there is,” she said.
All eyes now fixed upon her. She shifted uncomfortably, but she didn’t look afraid. “I know how we can get my dad out of jail,” she said quietly. “You know how I’ve been acting weird all year?”
“All seventeen years, more like,” muttered Tyrone.
Emma raised her eyebrows. “Do you really want this to be the shortest relationship ever?” she asked, though she was smiling. She swung her hair over her shoulder.
“I guess I might as well tell you. It’s like Tyrone said, it’s about time I’m brave enough to admit I’m scared. Well… Godric, how do I say this?” She exhaled slowly. “You know how Bellowes tried to wreck my dad’s reputation all year? And he tried to do the same thing when I was three, and it didn’t work because before he could get anywhere, my dad saved Uncle Harry’s life and everyone thought he was great?”
She surveyed the group. “My dad took me to his work once, when I was three… he went off to get something and he left me in his office with some girl, I think she was probably a trainee. So Bellowes comes in and tells the girl to leave, and he… he… heputtheImperiuscurseonme. Only the people in my family knew where Dad kept the diaries, and he Imperiused me to steal them and give them to him.”
Her fists were tightly clenched and her teeth even more so. Her face was blotchy with anger. “I couldn’t hold it off,” she said, her voice shaking. “I knew it was bad, but I did it anyway. And then… I was too much of a coward to tell anyone. I let my dad go to jail because I was too scared to turn myself in.” For all the obscenities she knew, she spat out the word ‘coward’ like it was the worst word in her arsenal.
Everyone stared up at Emma, who suddenly seemed so different. Twenty-four hours before, anyone would have described her as invincible and unyielding. But she wasn’t one to do things halfway”once she gave in and let her guard down on Telemency, she could give in to Tyrone, give in to tears, give in to admitting her fear, and now this, her biggest secret of all. Having said it at last, her whole face looked different, so much more relaxed than usual.
“Emma, you didn’t do anything wrong,” said Ted, his voice coming out in a croak. “Not even most Aurors can stand up to the Imperius. You were three. You didn’t even know what it was.”
Emma sighed. “That doesn’t matter. You know I hate losing control of myself.” She paused. “You’d know all about that, Ted,” she added quietly.
Ted looked down at the ground again. “I see what you mean.” Losing control of himself was definitely something he could relate to.
“That’s why you always want everything your way!” exclaimed Anatoly. “I just thought you were evil! You could have said you don’t like having people trying to change your mind!” Emma gave him an icy look. “Shutting up now,” he said cheerily. “But seriously. I always assumed you were prejudiced toward we Slytherins solely due to you being a jerk! How refreshing to know you had one of those tragic pasts!”
“Is this some version of shutting up that I’ve never heard of before?” snapped Emma. She sighed and curled up like a cat on her sofa, leaning up against Tyrone.
“That’s so horrible,” whispered Haley. She sprang up from her seat and hugged Emma. “Emma, Emma, what can I say? Bellowes is git and he needs to rot in Azkaban?”
“That’ll do,” said Emma weakly. She looked tired. “Jordan…” she began hesitantly.
Jordan looked up at her and smiled slightly. “Do I get to…”
“Go ahead. Do your Telemency thing. Show the Mininstry. Show the world. It won’t kill me,” said Emma. “It’s about time the Ministry found out about Bellowes.” She beamed. “I was scared of Telemency because I was scared you’d find out about me and the diaries… and messing around with my brain is too much like the Imperius. But… now that you’ve done Telemency on me already, nothing really scares me anymore.”
Jordan stared at her. Not at her face, at her aura. It had always been a virulent orange, streaked with pink at the edges and marred by a dead-looking brown spot in the middle.
Now her aura had expanded to three times its size, like the Grinch’s heart, and the pink had flooded the orange, mingling together like sunrise or tie-dye. Sparks were shooting off from the aura and blending with Tyrone’s which was a bright, clear gold speckled with deep purple.
“We really didn’t have to go back in time at all,” Jordan stated glumly, leaning back in his seat.
“I’m glad we did,” said Emma. “I learned a lot. Like, Bellatrix Lestrange is a total freak, and it’s okay to get scared, and Tyrone’s not as much of a shallow prat as I thought he was.”
“And that I do have a mustache,” finished Tyrone happily.
“I’m glad we went, too,” Cecilia said. “It was worth seeing my mum and dad.”
“And I like a good battle any day,” added Haley.
Ted alone didn’t seem to agree. He was still so quiet, so fragile-looking.
Jordan looked at him with his dark, serious eyes. “Please smile,” he said. “Please. The last thing we need is two Jordans.” Ted couldn’t help it. He smiled, and suddenly, he was Ted again. “Occlumency lessons later today, I promise,” said Jordan. “But first, I have to do some Telemency.”