Disclaimer: With humble gratitude to J. K. Rowling for allowing me to build castles in her sandbox once more.
Ten
Harry: Fallout
There was no denying the sense of déjà vu making Harry’s insides clench the moment he spied the neat rows of chairs. In the background, the calm expanse of the Black Lake sparkled in the last rays of the afternoon, the ribbon of trees along the edge of the Forbidden Forest like dark arms to encase their grief.
He’d been too caught up in the tide of battle to savor his return to Hogwarts “ and now the stately structure which had once been his home seemed just as empty a shell as he. The carefree laughter of children he recalled so fondly had been supplanted with recent cries of anguish that still haunted the depths of his soul.
It was inevitable that he would be asked to say a few words. After all, he was the man of the hour, the unsung hero. The Boy-Who-Continued-to-Live-Despite-the-Odds, regardless of what his weary heart may have wished at any given moment.
How he’d longed to tell them that he’d just as soon skip the entire thing. Light a hero’s pyre and float the useless remains of lives cut short out onto the Black Lake. That would have been more fitting for the occasion. Deep down, they had all been renegades; not part of any organized resistance, not in the way the Ministry was determined to treat them.
Besides, he needed the cleansing power of fire. Needed it to burn away the shadow that the Death Eaters had allowed to fall over the world. Needed it to burn the guilt that incessantly plagued him for allowing so many to go to their deaths because of him.
Well, they would have to accept that Harry Potter was going into retirement. He’d had his share of heroics, to tell you the truth. Had his share of it long ago, each small victory coming at too high a price. Any triumph he’d felt had long since dissolved into acrid ashes on his tongue. Today’s speech would be the final curtain call for him. The world would have to accept that he was their puppet no more.
A hushed silence fell over the assembled mourners as the Acting Minister, Kingsley Shacklebolt, concluded his eloquent words and motioned for Harry to join him at the podium. The warm encouragement of his smile did not chip away at the glacial shell surrounding Harry’s heart. It was the only thing holding him together; the moment it cracked, he knew he would be incapable of coherent speech.
With a dolorous weight to each step, Harry rose to take his place before the ocean of faces undulating into the horizon. Today there was no green expanse of lawn before the smoking hulk that was Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Even the deep scars the climatic battle had left on the very face of the escarpment were covered in somber, upturned faces.
He couldn’t look at them. He was too afraid of the recrimination he would see in their eyes. So instead, Harry allowed his watery gaze to take a panoramic view of his surroundings, focusing his attention on the distant row of trees beyond the lonely Quidditch pitch. He could feel the heat of the setting sun at his back, but the sky beyond was still a cerulean blue that testified just how paltry the events of mankind were in the whole fabric of time. With a deep sigh, he consigned himself to the inevitable.
“Thank you for the inspiring words, Minister,” Harry began as he felt the Sonorous Charm enlarge his voice as far as the foothills. Amplified, the rawness was even more pronounced, but he didn’t allow that to stop him. “I’m absolute rubbish at flowery speeches so you can all be thankful that Minister Shacklebolt was kind enough to set the mood today. Please add my sentiments to his.
“All I can say is that I’m glad it’s over. Yet at the same time, I can’t help replaying the events over and over in my mind and wishing that I could change the outcome for all these beloved people whom we are here to honor today. They shouldn’t have died; but if they hadn’t, surely we’d be looking at a different row of corpses before us. War and death are forever intertwined; let us never forget that.
“War is the last resort of bureaucrats who can’t work things out amicably in the halls of government. May that echo through the new administration as we turn our faces to a world enshrouded in peace once more, yet diminished irretrievably by our losses.”
Harry felt his voice hitch as the bitterness flowed unhindered into his chest until he feared he would drown. Sensing this, Ginny was suddenly at his side although he had not seen her rise from the front row. Like an old man, stooped and stumbling, he allowed her gentle hands to guide him back to his seat, heedless of the shining river of tears upon his face.
It was a foregone conclusion they would end up at the Burrow afterwards. Andromeda Tonks had briefly proposed hosting the get together in her too-empty house, but Harry suspected that a horde of funeral guests would only amplify her feelings of loneliness “ especially in the echoing silence once they left. Molly had interceded with her bustling sort of kindness that brooked no argument, insisting that the Burrow was home to all sorts of marauding reprobates; and consequently, ideal for the occasion.
Clearly, Molly found solace in assuming full hostess mode as she directed everyone towards the extensive buffet that had been laid out the in the shade of the back veranda. From his spot underneath the gnarled beech on the far side of the yard, Harry could see them flitting like somber moths before returning with laden plates to join the conversations inside.
“Too boisterous for you?” a soft voice rang at his elbow as Ginny settled her gauzy black skirts around her knees.
He gave her a small smile that was tinged with sadness. “I needed some air.”
“Doesn’t surprise me one bit!” she agreed as she fanned her face with her hand. “That Firewhiskey packs a punch.”
He eyed her in a creditable impersonation of Molly. “You’re not even of age, young lady!”
“What’s a few months when I’ve dueled mano-a-mano with Bellatrix Lestrange herself?”
Harry suspected that Molly would intercede to protect her only daughter once again, but kept silent. Truth be told, he found Ginny’s irreverence intoxicating amid all the pallor that had dominated his life in the past year. Had it really been that long since he’d sat under this tree at the Burrow? He felt as if he’d aged a decade, at least.
“That was an inspired idea of Seamus to suggest toasting the departed. ‘Tis a fine tradition the Irish bring to our desolate shores,” he added in a brave imitation of Seamus’ lilting brogue.
Ginny laughed softly. “Needs a bit of work, I’d say. Perhaps some more whiskey would help.”
“No, thanks. I was dizzy enough when I found my way back here.” Too many to toast, he thought, but left the words unsaid. Even though he’d been prudent enough to take sips instead of downing most of the small glass with each name. So many names…but to roll them into one blanket toast seemed disrespectful of the vibrant individuals they had all been.
Turning away from that avenue with some difficulty, Harry prompted, “Is that what’s got your eyes shining so? Illicit sips of forbidden firewater?”
Caught in the cross-hairs, Ginny lowered her eyes self-consciously. “Only in part,” she mumbled more to herself than anything.
What was he to make of that? Harry thought to himself. They really hadn’t had time to iron out the turbulent issues between the two of them, yet she’d latched onto him from the minute he and Hermione agreed to return to the Burrow with the rest of the Weasleys. Was it just compassion in a time of need? he wondered. Ron had Hermione after all. Ginny’s closeness was his ballast in the storm, but Harry didn’t dare attribute anything but friendship to her actions. He wasn’t prepared to risk everything to know the truth; he couldn’t face the possibility of rejection right now.
A smattering of laughter wafted on the gentle breeze as the horizon slowly bled into night. The sun had performed a glorious display over the newly dug graves, but even the endless summer sunsets eventually faded away.
“They’ve certainly managed to cheer each other up,” Harry observed.
“I suspect that lot is approaching incandescence by now,” Ginny attested wryly.
“I never knew your father had such a hidden cache of Firewhiskey.”
“He doesn’t. Seamus had accomplices. Hagrid arrived with a full bottle in each hand, only to be upstaged by Professor Flitwick who claimed to be able to Apparate with two full pints and never spill a drop. Then McGonagall showed up at the back door with the genuine article: Power’s Irish Whiskey. Much mellower with a sweeter aftertaste.”
“Somehow I can’t see Minerva slipping you a stealthy sip.”
“She didn’t. I’m just repeating what I overheard.”
No wonder he’d heard Hermione exclaim from the next room, “Why they have a regular Finnegan’s Wake going on!”
The pun had not been lost on Harry, but he’d slipped out as it brought back bittersweet memories of Remus retreating to the library at Grimmauld Place. His esoteric reading selections were often from Muggle writers such as James Joyce.
Reining his emotions back in, Harry commented, “I can’t see our staid Head of House throwing them back at all, come to think of it. She’ll be letting her bun out at this rate!”
“She strikes me as the type who can hold her liquor,” Ginny giggled. “Seamus explained that in true Irish tradition, this was to be a celebration of life. So Dad launched into a funny tale about how Moody had disrupted the entire Muggle Artifacts Office “ all two of them -- when he’d ambushed a rogue cuckoo clock just as Dad was coming around the corner with his alarms full of spelled alarm clocks!”
Harry joined in her laughter. It was too easy to supply the missing details and the startled look on Arthur’s face.
“Flitwick started to recount the night he and Hagrid had accompanied Dumbledore to London,” Ginny continued, “but McGonagall hushed them saying that was too inappropriate. Bill promised to remind them to tell it later.”
“Didn’t anyone remember Tonks?” Harry blurted before he thought to stop himself.
Ginny squeezed his hand in comfort. “Of course. Andromeda had everyone in stitches, only to make Teddy laugh, too. Then McGonagall told a totally outrageous tale about the tribulations of being Head of House to the infamous Marauders. We’re used to thinking of Remus as the quiet one in that group; but to hear her tell it, he was the most preposterous schemer of all!”
Harry bit his lip to maintain his composure as he imagined all the adventures Teddy and Remus would never share. He himself had known the man too briefly to suit him, barely saying hello before being caught up in the tide of battle it seemed.
In a voice fraught with emotion, Harry begged her to stop. “I promise to get every last tale from McGonagall myself “ even if I have to pour all the liquor at the Three Broomsticks down her throat in the process. I owe Teddy at least that much. It’s not like I knew his parents that well, when you get down to it. Certainly not as well as Sirius had known mine…” He found himself unable to go on; the recent tragedies breaking forth the dam he’d cobbled over his heart when Sirius had fallen through the veil.
Without having to ask for comfort, she gave it. Wrapping her arms roughly around his chest, she pulled him into her body, resting her chin against the side of his head. He locked his arms around hers as he finally gave in, capitulating to the despair that had hunted him like a predator since he’d escaped from Bill’s wedding with Hermione and Ron in tow.
A lifetime later, he found himself staring into the midnight blue of the heavens which were peppered with stars that couldn’t possibly still be shining. He wiped sticky tears from beneath his glasses as he struggled to sit up on his elbows. From his side, Ginny did likewise; the sudden absence of her body pressed next to his made him shiver self-consciously.
“It’s a beautiful night,” she issued wistfully. “Hard to believe that Voldemort’s claws haven’t shredded that as well.”
“Will life ever be the same again?” he wondered, not realizing that he’d said the words aloud.
“I think so,” she affirmed softly. “But it will be a while before it stops hurting every time I breathe.”
Feeling like a selfish clod who had not considered how much she must be hurting at the loss of her brother, Fred, he cocooned her softly in his arms once more. The warmth of their bodies served as barriers to the harsh reality that neither could fully escape.
After a time, her breathing slowed and he whispered into her hair, “You know there was a time I dreamed of sitting like this with you. Only you were at Hogwarts and it was only me alone in the anonymous woods. Half the time, I had no idea where Hermione had Apparated us to for that day. My only ties to the familiar world were the faint melody of her and Ron bickering in the background.”
Ginny snorted derisively at the image. “If you’re angling for the pity prize, you’ll have to let me participate, too.”
He tightened his arms around her in response, willing himself to become lost within the faint smell of her hair.
“How do you think I felt: abandoned at Hogwarts with those sadistic Troglodytes for instructors --”
“Minerva would not take lightly to that characterization,” he teased.
“Not her!”
“Snape would’ve set up detention.”
“He did. When the new Dumbledore’s Army tried to steal Gryffindor’s sword.”
“Clever,” he remarked. “Was it your idea or Neville’s to require an initiation ritual for new recruits?”
He felt her giggle silently. “Neither. We were too afraid to trust anyone else. It was just the dregs of the once glorious Army,” she asserted.
“Wouldn’t it have made more sense to call yourselves ‘Dumbledore’s Commandos,’ then?”
“And risk being confused with men’s underwear fashions “ or lack thereof?” She rocked with pent-up laughter.
“McGonagall would’ve had no choice but to punish you for being out of uniform,” he retorted wickedly as he watched a soft blush steal across the side of her cheek.
“Is that what spending months in the wilds did to your imagination?” she posed, twisting awkwardly to face him.
Suddenly embarrassed, he mumbled something unintelligible.
“Sorry, I didn’t catch that,” she prodded mercilessly.
“Ginny…I….” He berated his sandpapery tongue as he imagined his lips flapping morbidly like a dying fish.
Much to his surprise, she leaned over and kissed him gently, drawing away so slowly that he could see individual strands of her hair glowing in the moonlight.
Was it courage or self-destruction that spurred him on? “What was that supposed to mean?” he gasped, his pulse pounding relentlessly in his ears.
Ginny shrugged playfully. “Just a more constructive way to leave you speechless, is all.”
“Oh.” The disillusionment lay heavy upon him even as he yearned to hear more.
“Don’t sound so disappointed.”
“I wasn’t. At least not entirely.”
“Well, what then?” her fiery temper flared suddenly. “Is the expert ready to render his critique?”
“Not without a larger sample,” he returned huskily as he pulled her down to him once more. This time when they broke apart there was no mistaking that she was as breathless as he was.
With a small sigh of contentment, she snuggled into his shoulder once more. “Well, at least you’re not trying to break up with me again. Merlin knows where you got it into that tussled head of yours that it was proper behavior after a funeral.”
“I was….an idiot,” he settled for.
“No argument there.”
“I’m surprised you’re even speaking to me, to tell you the truth.”
“Not many other options at the moment.”
“You could rejoin the others,” he suggested in spite of himself.
“Not without at least a quart of Firewhiskey to my name!” she asserted as the raucous echoes lingered on the evening breeze.
Not that he begrudged the others their bit of respite, Harry muttered to himself. If only he could find such surcease.
“What’s that you have in your pocket?” she asked suddenly.
“Huh?”
“You’ve been worrying it since you got up before the crowd,” she insisted. “A hole that needs mending? I’ll just get my wand.”
Sheepishly, Harry withdrew his hand from his pocket. The faded and dog-eared slip of cardboard had seen better days, yet the benevolent image of Dumbledore in his stylish lilac robes was unmistakable even in the gossamer moonlight. “It’s been a sort of talisman of mine since I found it in the gutter among the shambles of Diagon Alley. The last shred of the past…”
“They’ll rebuild,” she asserted as she pulled his head onto her shoulder and soothingly stroked his back until his shoulders stopped shaking.
“Not feeling like much of a hero, thanks for asking,” he dissembled into the folds of her blouse.
“You never do,” she chuckled lightly. “It’s the outside world who tried to cast you into a mold that never really suited you.”
Her sudden insight floored him. Could it be that she knew him almost as well as he knew himself? The hope that flared in his chest died away almost instantly with the notion that she recognized him for the worthless loser that he was.
“Why Dumbledore?” she urged like a whisper of wind.
“Nervous habit,” Harry answered by rote, willing his fingers to stop caressing the edges of the cardboard that were already beginning to disintegrate into layers.
“No, it’s more than that. Tell me all of it.”
She waited patiently as he leaned back against the soft carpet of grass and searched the cosmos for the answers to what lay buried in his heart. With a sigh of resignation, he admitted hollowly, “That’s when it all started going sour. As I watched Snape cut down Dumbledore, I knew that it had all spiraled out of my control. I no longer knew whom to trust “ only that enemies were where I least expected.”
“I’m not your enemy.”
“No, but what you represented was.” Seeing the confusion in her face, he plowed onward, “The temptation to turn away from the sordid mission Dumbledore had entrusted to me was almost overwhelming at times, Ginny. Too many nights I wondered what would happen if I just walked away. Who else would step up to save the world?”
“You and Ron both. Walking away is never the answer.”
“What would you have done then?” he asserted, turning around to face her directly.
“About Voldemort, I’m not sure. Haven’t had as long to ponder that one.” She tapped her finger on her lower lip as she considered her response, a simple gesture which Harry found enchanting at close range. Catching his eyes with hers, she intoned breathlessly, “As for Ron’s disappearing act, I would have snatched that Unlighter gadget from his grubby mitt so fast --”
“It’s called a Deluminator,” Harry interjected.
“Really?”
“Hermione found a description of the very object in a book.”
“In the middle of the stinking woods?”
“Couldn’t wait to put her nose to it just as soon as we got back to civilization. Turns out there are only two known to exist. She was so aglow with satisfaction, it’s a wonder Shell Cottage wasn’t visible from across the channel!”
Ginny emitted a sharp laugh. “Well, you certainly nailed the description.”
Harry basked in the warmth of her smile. What did it matter than he had tooled rather liberally with the truth? He had made her laugh. On today of all days.
“Forgive me,” he beseeched. “What would you have done after you commandeered the Deluminator?”
She flashed him a put upon pout before continuing, “I would’ve shoved Ron aside and shown him how it should be done.”
“You were at Hogwarts,” he argued.
“No, I wasn’t. It was almost Christmas and even the Death Eaters hadn’t gotten around to cancelling that yet.”
Once again, he was amazed at how much better she’d kept up with his exploits than vice versa. Unbidden, a vision of his parents’ headstones in the Godric’s Hollow cemetery rose to the forefront of his mind. He’d lost track of the days by then, the snow on the ground being the only indicator that it was winter. Hermione had reminded him that it was Christmas Eve only to have it seem like a celebration he had observed in a past lifetime.
“What about Ron then?” Harry played along. “Hermione would’ve been devastated.”
Ginny shrugged stoically. “Life is full of disappointments, but I hate to think my git of a brother had broken her heart.”
“How would your parents have explained your failure to return to school?”
“Another case of spattergroit, I suppose. I’m certain that poor ghoul was feeling lonely by then.”
“So you’re saying your mum would’ve imprisoned Ron in the attic?”
“Or the root cellar, seeing as how the ghoul had inherited his room as part of the charade. Whatever it took to keep him from running off into danger once more. Don’t look so affronted; it’s not like she wouldn’t have fed him and let him out to exercise in the yard!”
“Molly must’ve been really put out before,” he considered.
“Sick with worry, more like. We all were.”
“I was so afraid someone would try to follow us and get caught in a trap.”
“Don’t think that idea wasn’t tossed about; but in the end, it was Elphias Doge’s advice to lay low that made the most sense. He told us how during the prior conflict, the Death Eaters had purposely broken into homes to set pets free. Then they’d follow them to their owners who were in hiding.”
“Blimey, that’s cold,” Harry attested with a small shudder.
With an iron set to her jaw, Ginny continued, “Dad believes that’s how they caught up with Ted Tonks in the end. Andromeda reported that their aged terrier had run away not long after Remus and Tonks got married. She was so caught up in their troubles, what with the unplanned pregnancy and Tonks being summarily dismissed from the Auror squad, that the last thing she thought about was searching for Cassie.”
“That was about the time Remus showed up at Grimmauld Place and offered to be our bodyguard,” Harry recalled.
“Andromeda admitted that Ted took up jogging right about then as an excuse to search for both of them.”
“Remus was half-crazed with worry that staying with Tonks would endanger her,” Harry supplied.
“Sound familiar?” Ginny prodded.
“Not in the way you think,” Harry returned. “I sent him on his way rather brusquely, thinking how much I’d missed growing up without my parents and that I’d rot in hell if I’d let him do the same to his child.” The sense of irony threatened to engulf him. “A lot of bloody good it did in the end.”
Ginny gripped his hand in comfort. “They were happy, just as I’m sure your parents were in the short time they had together. But it was Voldemort who stole their lives away “ not you!”
Harry nodded wordlessly as he sobbed silently into his chest. The pressure of her fingers interlaced with his finally brought him back to the present. It was such a beautiful, peaceful night that it seemed inordinately selfish of him to be drowning in sorrow.
Ginny’s breath tickled the back of his neck as she posed, “What would you have done?”
“Me?”
“Hypothetically,” she clarified. “If you had to do it over again, what would you change?”
“You mean if Neville hadn’t destroyed that cache of Time-Turners in the Department of Mysteries?”
“Precisely. No one can fine you for tinkering with the past in your imagination.”
Harry stopped to consider all the possibilities. How could he have kept his own existence from falling apart without impacting others in even worse ways? There was no way to know, of course.
“I think I would’ve stepped aside,” he mused. “Refused to be the Chosen One. Forced them to choose someone else.”
“You mean like that Muggle king who abdicated to marry the woman he loved?”
“See, it even comes with a signing bonus!” He grinned.
“But who would’ve stopped Voldemort? The prophecy…”
“Assuming that I believed in Divination, which I don’t,” he stipulated, “that prophecy could just as easily apply to Neville as to me.”
“But Dumbledore …” Ginny began only to be swallowed up by the enormity of such a monumental shift.
“Dumbledore knew. Knew it all along, but kept his cards close to his vest. I was stupid enough to step up to the plate first, so he went with me. But don’t think he didn’t have a back-up plan.”
“How long have you known this?”
“Since we were stumbling about in the woods like a trio of blind mice. I had plenty of time to think things through. Wild extrapolations that dissolved in the bleak light of morning. But not this one line of reasoning; it kept at me until I unraveled it bit by bit.”
“Why didn’t you tell Ron or Hermione?” Ginny asked in an awed whisper.
Harry issued a mirthless laugh. “Seemed rather rude under the circumstances, don’t you think? Besides, by then it was too late.”
“What about your scar? Wasn’t that essential to defeating Voldemort?”
Harry was relieved that he had confided in her so completely. “So they could’ve dragged me in at the end to do my part,” he offered. “Rather like a supporting player. If only I had done things differently in my first year…”
“That was the turning point as you see it?”
“Absolutely. Dumbledore made a big point of awarding Neville extra House Points at end-of-year feast to bolster his confidence. For the longest time, I thought it was an act of supreme kindness.”
“It wasn’t?”
“Even then, he was hedging his bets. Ready to put his weight behind the one contender who took the bait. I’m absolutely certain of it!”