The Last True Gryffindor

The Last True Gryffindor

The Gryffindor Ghost

Harry walked slowly past the rows of still-seated mourners, refusing to catch anyone’s eye or stop to talk. He paused at the last row and looked up at the castle, eyes searching for and finding the tower that held Dumbledore’s study. He stared up at the un-lit windows of the circular room and said a final goodbye to the greatest wizard the world had ever known.

He resumed his pace, heading towards the castle doors. Once inside, he paused, turning slowly around in a full circle, taking in the entrance hall properly for the fist time in years. The stately marble staircase at the opposite end, torches flickering on their brackets along the walls, the four sparkling hour glasses, the green emeralds for Slytherin and red rubies of Gryffindor’s newly-repaired hour glass on equal levels, glittering brightly in the sunlight spilling from the open door. But even the sunlight failed to reach the high ceiling of the magnificent hall, the top of the walls fading into darkness, the rafters lost in gloom. Harry look one last sad look around before moving on up the marble stairs.

He passed slowly through the levels of Hogwarts, pausing outside the doors of various rooms which held the most memories for him. The defence against the dark arts classroom and office on the first floor, now dark and empty, but which had over the past six years housed six different teachers and provided Harry with six unique and interesting years, both good and bad. Harry peered through the door and was for a moment transported back into his third year, the room filled with odd looking creatures, the young teens seated at the desks, alert and interested, wands clutched in their hands, listening as the tired-looking but smiling professor demonstrated wand movements for them to follow, looking more like a favourite uncle than a teacher, frayed robes hanging off his frame, hair streaked with grey, but kind eyes looking out from a young face, hands gesturing as he explained an important theory.

Next Harry saw the classroom become a beehive of activity, chaos erupting as students dived under desks out of the way of the pixies wreaking havoc in the room, books flying out of windows, mad giggles from tiny figures streaking across the room, shrieks and yells from pupils and the dismayed and dishevelled looking professor at the desk, waving his hands and shouting, eyes panicked and darting for an escape route out of the chaos.

“It’s easy to get lost in memories” a sombre voice intoned, bringing Harry back to the present. “Wha-?” he began, looking around. Nearly Headless Nick floated the rest of the way through the wall and hovered beside Harry. “ But the past is the past and we must move on and let it be” he said quietly, looking down at the boy beside him.

Harry let out a noisy breath and turned away from the ghost “I know Nick, but that’s easy for you to say, your past is, quite literally, ancient history. Mine’s still churning out behind me isn’t it? Not easy to forget events that happened two years ago rather than two hundred” Harry said as he moved on down the corridor and up to the second floor. Nick floated up through the floor beside him as he came to a stop outside the stone gargoyle behind which was the entrance to Dumbledore’s office and private quarters.

“You think he’ll come back Nick?” Harry asked after a while, staring at the gargoyle, not really expecting an answer from the ghost beside him. “No, I suppose not, there’s no need to even answer that. He once referred to death as the next great adventure, almost as if it was another extension of life. No, he wont come back” Harry said sadly and continued on through the castle, Nick floating along silently beside him. Harry looked over at the ghost and saw him with a thoughtful expression on his face. Nick caught Harry’s look and opened his mouth to speak. “You know Harry” he said slowly “I’m not so sure you are right. Albus Dumbledore was always an enigma, no one can seriously admit to knowing him completely. Maybe he will decide to return as a ghost, but then maybe it will be as you say and he will continue on to the ‘next great adventure’. Who can say for certain?” with a ghostly shrug he finished, and the two lapsed again into silence and went on up to Gryffindor tower.

Harry entered the tower for what he knew to be the last time and absorbed all the details of the common room, hoping to never forget his home for the last six years of his life. Or rather, he thought, the first six years of my life. I wasn’t alive, not fully, until I came to Hogwarts.

He collected his things from his dormitory and exited the tower with a last glance around the room. This is where my life began, where my real family are, where everything important has happened, home to my best memories.

He swiftly walked back through the castle, trunk hovering by his side, broomstick over his shoulder and the Gryffindor ghost keeping him company. Harry stopped in the entrance hall and looked out through the doors, across the grounds. There were still hundreds of people by the lake, no one quite ready to leave just yet, all wanting to pay their last respects. Harry turned to Nick “Well… goodbye Nick, you’ve been a good friend over the years. Thanks.” he said, a little awkwardly. “I would shake your hand but…” he trailed off with a ghost of a grin, which Nick returned.

“Goodbye Harry” he paused, sad eyes studying the boy before him “I wont see you again, will I?” he asked.

Harry shook his head and smiled sadly. He lingered another moment, looking around him again before picking up his broom and walking to the door. He paused on the threshold. “He’s really gone hasn’t he” he said then looked back at the ghost, a deep sadness in his eyes, face pained. “He wont come back Nick. He’s really gone.” Harry whispered. He drew a shaky breath and visibly pulled himself together before walked out of the door.

The Gryffindor ghost watched him go, a tall and determined young man walking away from his old familiar life, into a new uncertain future. He seemed to possess some inner core of strength and will that drove him on, away from all he loved into a dangerous world where the absence of Albus Dumbledore left a gaping void. Nick felt admiration and pride well up inside of him as he watched Harry Potter, the last true Gryffindor, walk away from Hogwarts, safety and the only home he’d ever loved.

He didn’t once look back.

The Beginning of the End

A young flame-haired man of twenty sat sprawled in his faded armchair, absently picking at the threads of a frayed patch on its arm. Across the room his older brothers squabbled about some new plan, fingers jabbing at points on the blueprints spread across the table at which they sat. Occasionally snatches of their conversation reached him, squeezing through the shrieking on either side of him into his ears. His onetime girlfriend Hermione Granger and his younger sister sat to either side of him, arguing over the latest Rita Skeeter article in the Prophet.

“Look Ginny I just don’t see how you can believe this drivel!” Hermione said angrily, shaking the article in question at her.

“How can you not believe it?” Ginny countered shrilly, glaring daggers at the older girl. “It says, quite clearly that H-”

“Since when did you believe anything that woman writes?!” Hermione exclaimed. Ron sank further into his chair, trying very hard to shut out the conversation flowing over his head. “Look, can you two shriek a little less loudly please? My ears are getting a battering here!” which earned him a dirty look from both sides, and they continued right where they left off.

“It says-”

“Hmph!”

“It says here that Harry Potter has been seen by eyewitnesses in Austria, fighting off a dozen death eaters, saving a family of six from them. Eyewitnesses Hermione! She cant have made that up!” Ginny said triumphantly, slapping the paper down on the sofa she sat on. Hermione took a deep breath and forced herself to be calm.

She spoke in a softer voice “Ginny, you know how many ‘sightings’ there’s been of Harry these last three years. And you know how many are real - none. Not one reliable witness, only some fanciful tale and then a week of torture for us here as we have this argument over and over again - but face it Ginny -he’s not coming back” Hermione said bitterly “He ran away, just-”

“No! Hermione you cant mean that, he did not! He wouldn’t, not…not when he had us here, not when we needed him so much! He’d rather die!”

“Then that’s what he is” Hermione said softly “dead. Dead and gone.”

“Oh will you two please stop!” Ron said, straightening in his chair. “Yes, yes we all know he’s not here, but guess what? We are and have to do the best we can. Now if you’ll excuse me ladies I want to find out what my brothers are up to.” With that he heaved himself from the chair and slouched over to where Fred, George, Bill and Charlie were sitting and promptly pulled out a chair and pulled the map towards himself.

“Ginny-”

“Save it Hermione.” The younger woman replied shortly and stalked from the room. Hermione followed her out but took a different route, up to the master bedroom. She closed the door behind her and slide down against it. She stared out into the room, sparkling clean, just like the day it was finished. She remembered it so well - three years ago Hermione, Ginny and Molly had spent so so long scrubbing, cleaning and decorating in here, transforming it from a hippogriff’s den to a gorgeous bedroom. That evening they waited for hours for Harry to come back and see what they had done for him. They waited and waited, and waited. But he never did come back.

Three years into Voldemort’s rise to power and he still wasn’t here. Ginny was still waiting. Hermione wasn’t.

They had done all they could to slow down Voldemort, hoping that he would struggle to find followers but the sheer cowardice of the wizarding world had amazed Hermione - over three hundred known witches and wizards had openly turned to Voldemort in the past three years, and he gained more everyday. As to the number secretly going to him? Who knows. Countless.

With the death of Dumbledore and the disappearance of Harry Potter, the courage of the wizarding world began to fail - who would fight now? Hermione believed that they could have coped with one loss, but to lose their two most prominent hopes in one week? It was a blow too great for many to bear, a few had lost all faith and chose to end their lives rather than live in the dark times that would surely follow. For that, Hermione held Harry solely responsible.

But still, no small number of brave witches and wizards chose to fight, and Voldemort found his rise met with huge resistance. In that first dark year countless humans and magical beasts had died. The fighting slowed in the first months of the second year, giving way to small skirmishes, hiding and plotting. In that second year many ‘accidents’ happened to muggles, who still did not know that the wizarding world existed, although many knew that something was very, very wrong in the world, but no one had yet voiced publicly their suspicions, turning instead to the likes of terrorism, anarchists and even aliens to explain the unexplainable. Of course no one was going to even mention the word magic. It doesn’t exist, everyone knows that…

While the muggles lived on in their blinkered lives the magical world was shattering year by year. The leaders of the Dark forces were, of course, Voldemort and his ever faithful few Death Eaters who had been with him since the beginning. Those few were known to all as ‘the faithful’. No other recruit of Voldemort’s faction gained access to that inner circle, they were too secure, too careful.

While in the forces of so-called ‘good’, nearly a thousand witches and wizards made up the ranks. How many of them were spies? Who knows. Too many. A thousand wizards are too many to trust implicitly, but the few that could be trusted were part of the tightest ranks of the ‘army’ - the Order of the Phoenix. No one, absolutely no one outside the Order knew who exactly was in it, only the most prominent members, like Hermione Granger, the Weasley brothers and sister, the Hogwarts teachers etc who let it be known that they were the Order. The other members were supposed ‘nobodies’, and no one would ever suspect them. For example Mundungus "Dung" Fletcher would often be heard placing bets with various shady characters as to who was Order and who was not, and not a soul suspected that he was one of the trusted few.

In this way the Order of the Phoenix kept its secrets safe, and plotted and counter-plotted against Voldemort and his Death Eaters and the past year had gone by at an impasse between the two groups, each waiting for the other to make the first major mistake.

Hermione groaned and put her head in her hands. The tension was too high, the stalemate and the relative ‘peace’ it brought with it could not last. And when hell finally broke loose, she would be there, wand raised, shouting out the first curses with the best of them. She knew it, and was ready.