Disclaimer: I don't own the characters from the Harry Potter universe. I've just borrowed them and will return them safely to where I've taken them from.
Have a good read!
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Chapter 11 - The end of the dream
The train was rumbling through the night. Every now and then, the wheels screeched eerily, as though to scare away the last passenger they were carrying. Harry Potter was sitting at the window, his forehead in contact with the cold glass, and staring outside into the night.
How come everything had to be so dark? Wasn't there anybody alive out there?
Something hit him sharply on the head like lightning, cutting through the dream.
"Harry! Wake up!"
He awoke with a start and sat bolt upright. His surroundings gradually swam into view.
Hermione, Ron, Luna, Draco, Ginny, Neville and Tom were all grouped around him, watching him with sorrowful eyes.
"Whassup?" he said groggily.
Hermione seemed ready to throw her arms around him again. He was glad she restrained herself, for his head was weighing a ton and he could not have enjoyed the hug.
"S'pose you're alive, then", Draco said, half-laughing.
"Yeah, we thought we'd lost you, mate", Ron added.
Harry stared at Tom. "What're you -"
"We don't have time", Tom informed him quietly. His voice had not the slightest trace of its former cruelty to it.
Harry relaxed a little. After all, his friends would not be sitting here so calmly if Voldemort was with them, would they?
"We don't have time?"
"You're still in the Department of Mysteries", Ginny told him. "You unlocked that door, but the force behind it was too much for you."
"You were weak after you retrieved me from your scar", Tom said. "I'm glad you did, though. Now, I can go on in peace."
"Go on where?"
"You know what I mean. You and whatever hid behind that door destroyed my body, after all." Tom smiled faintly.
"But why -"
Luna raised an eyebrow. "I do think you should stop asking so many questions, Harry. It is time for you to get out of here."
To Harry's bewilderment, his friends and Tom stood up and walked away. They almost immediately dispersed in the white mist surrounding them.
Hermione was the last one to go.
"Wait for me", Harry called. She turned around and regarded him with sadness in her eyes.
"You've forgotten the promise, Harry."
"What promise?"
"I can't tell you", she replied, a look of intense pain in her face. "Go now. The Maze is still ahead of you. Don't lose any more time."
"Maze?"
But she had averted her eyes already and was walking away.
Hastily, he scrambled to his feet. Stumbling, he advanced a step in the direction they had disappeared.
Instantly, the fog lifted and revealed breathtaking scenery.
***
Poor confused Harry was standing in a garden, greener and more colourful than any garden he had ever seen. Trees were swaying gently in an invisible breeze. A small creek was bubbling at his feet. There was not a single cloud in the sky, and the air felt like silk on his skin.
Reluctantly, he walked on. The garden appeared to be stretching endlessly; for several minutes, Harry trod on his path without meeting anyone.
Suddenly, an enormous dazzling white stag galloped past him. Harry jumped. He had not heard the animal approach.
The stag slowed down before him, as though signalling for him to follow. Without thinking twice, Harry broke into a run. Immediately, the stag increased his pace, too.
They hurried along, the beautiful scenery around them now becoming increasingly filled with flowers. Their scent was so strong that Harry gasped helplessly for breath - and yet, he knew he must not stop. The powerful odour might lead to his demise.
Finally, a huge tree came into view. The stag ran straight towards it - and then he disappeared.
Harry almost shouted - then, he saw that where the stag had been, someone now was lying under the tree.
He drew nearer carefully.
The person lying on the grass was a woman, and she was beautiful. Harry had never yet thought of a woman as beautiful, except maybe Fleur; here, the word came to him naturally.
She had noticed him and now sat up, unsmiling.
"Well, hello", she said in an unearthly voice. Her honeyish hair was flowing in waves around her shoulders. She looked up at him with slight interest in her otherwise strangely void brown eyes. "So you made it here. I am impressed."
Harry stood before her, uncertain what to reply to this - and anyway, she was too breathtaking to think of anything.
"Do sit", she pleaded and patted the free space to her left.
Harry obeyed. And finally, he found his voice.
"Who are you?"
She still was not smiling.
"I don't have a name. You may call me Amy, if you wish. I am the Guardian of The Maze. I take it you want to go through The Maze?"
Why would he want to go through the maze, when he could spend the remainder of his life next to this woman?
But wait...
"Hermione said to go through the maze."
Who was this Hermione, anyway?
"Who is Hermione?" she inquired curiously, stretching her limbs like someone waking up from a deep sleep.
As she did so, Harry noticed a blemish on her white skin. She had an oddly long, thin red scar across her throat.
"What's that?" he blurted out, pointing.
Quickly, she covered her neck with a scarf she had taken from nowhere. "Oh, it's nothing", she smiled.
"Oh, if you say so", Harry replied calmly.
He spent the next few hours lying next to her, looking at the leaves above him. His head was blissfully empty.
It happened when she stood up and walked a few steps to bathe her feet in the water of the creek.
A sudden cold breeze rustled through the leaves, shifting them around. And Harry saw -
A face.
He wanted to leap up and yell, but his body did not heed his commands. Petrified, he stared into the - the - the face -
Riddle glared back at him.
"What is wrong, my dear?" Amy asked kindly when she came back. She knelt down to wipe his sweaty forehead. Harry, however, pushed her hand away.
"I must leave at once", he said into her blank expression. "Show me where the entrance lies."
She stood up without a word and walked around the tree. There, she beckoned for him to come.
"The entrance is right here", she said, pointing at the thick trunk. "It is invisible, and you can only enter if your heart is set. Do not hesitate, or you will be stuck forever. I, the Guardian, have seen many die. I cannot help you from now on."
Harry gulped. The horrid face was still fresh on his mind.
Taking a deep breath, he stepped forward.
***
Immediately, he was swallowed by darkness. It only lasted a few seconds. Then, his strained eyes told him in an almost cat-like fashion that there were towering hedges to his left, right and behind him. He understood - he was in The Maze.
Amy's outline shone up before him. "Well done", she said quietly. "From now on, everything is going to depend on your inner strength. Crossing The Maze is a battle of mental powers. Good luck."
And she was gone.
The sky high above his head grew brighter as he set off, allowing him to see further than a few inches. Soon, the path lay clearly before his eyes. He walked as though in a trance for what seemed like hours, not meeting anyone. The stag, however, had returned, although he was not always there, flickering on and off like a broken lamp. He would not be around for long, Harry knew. He had dawdled maybe a little too long under that tree...
Harry met a dead end and was about to turn back when the hedge parted before him, revealing another path. This one was actually paved properly. Taking this as a positive sign, Harry resumed walking.
After a few minutes, he saw smoke rising in spirals. The path was swallowed by a small garden, this one much untidier than the previous one, and there was a hut at its very end. Harry moved towards it.
The door opened.
"I've been waiting for you", the alchemist said. "Come in."
"I must not dawdle any more", Harry told him.
"The path ends here", the alchemist said.
"No, it does not", Harry replied fiercely. "Get out of the way."
As he said this, the alchemist shook his head, as though regretting a lost case. Then, without warning, he and his hut dissolved into thin air, leaving nothing behind but a tall, dark-haired boy who was twiddling a wand idly between his fingers.
His eyes flashed with cruel pleasure at the sight of Harry.
"There you are, Potter. I knew you would come to me sooner or later."
And he laughed harshly. Feeling his hair standing on end, Harry picked up a stone from the ground and threw it at Riddle, who blocked it with a lazy wave of his wand.
"Come on, you can do better than that, Potter."
"But I've already defeated you!" Harry said. "I've destroyed your Horcruxes! You - you can't be here -"
"I am not him, Potter", Riddle snarled. "Forgotten everything, have you?"
Harry touched his forehead. The scar was gone, proving him right. He had battled Voldemort and extracted the good Tom from himself -
"You're a dream", he said angrily. "Nothing but a product of imagination. You -"
Riddle flicked his wand, searing Harry's robes. To his utter dismay, Harry felt very real pain, and the next moment, the ground was sprayed with blood.
"This is boring. Take your wand", Riddle said, kicking something on the ground towards his opponent. Harry bent to pick it up, his eyes on Tom.
He held up the wand and examined it. A stag was engraved into it.
Ah...
"I've still got the otter I took from your significant other", Riddle sneered, extracting another wooden stick from his sleeve. "You thwarted my plans then - but you will not succeed this time. There is no running away now. Take Hermione's wand from me - if you can." He laughed again and pocketed the wand with the otter.
Harry howled with fury. Darting forward, he brandished his wand like a whip. It created a chain of sparks that bound Riddle - surely, he had done it -
Riddle struggled for a moment; then, he broke free.
"You're dead!" Harry yelled, swishing his wand again. "We left you in the graveyard!"
"Oh", said Riddle with a smug expression, the one that Harry loathed so much, "but you were only running away. I am inside you. You know what that means, Potter? You cannot run away from me. Confront me, or die trying!"
For a while, they sent spells back and forth in silence. Harry soon felt out of breath - heck, he had only been granted a very short break from his fight with the grown-up Riddle, and he had all sorts of injuries that were dragging him down -
The wand flew out of his hand.
Riddle leapt forward, a look of triumph on his face -
And a small otter emerged from his robes, rushing at Harry's wand and kicking it in a swishing movement. It was sent flying into the air, and Harry caught it.
"Stupefy!" he yelled.
Riddle keeled over and fell to the ground.
The otter darted towards him and pulled the wand from Riddle's pocket. He brought it to Harry, who knelt down before him in disbelief.
"Hermione", he whispered.
The otter gave him a most Hermione-ish look before he disappeared.
Harry strode over towards Riddle.
"I've won, Riddle", he said coldly. "You know why? Because Hermione loves me. I'll never be like you."
Riddle's eyes were full of hatred.
The next moment, he had blended with the ground.
"Well done, Harry", said a loud voice behind him.
Harry flew around. Surely not -
There was Sirius, laughter in his face. He had his arm around Alice, who was smiling. To their right stood a happy Dumbledore; he was clapping his hands. Behind him were two grown-ups holding hands, one with untidy black hair and one with Harry's eyes. They waved at him. Harry waved back. And Hagrid was there, cheering.
"Knew ye had it in you, Harry", he said.
"Go now, Harry", Dumbledore nodded. Harry did not need telling twice.
In any case, the last thing he needed was for them to see the tears in his eyes.
***
Harry kept his eyes shut tight for a moment and inhaled deeply.
There was the smell of damp earth he knew so well, and of grass that would probably never see a lawnmower. He could hear the gnomes bustling through the hedge that separated him from The Burrow. And beyond the hedge, he heard voices. Very familiar voices those were, too.
"C'mon, Hermione, stop crying. Oh, bloody hell..."
"Have a tissue", Ginny said.
"We are lucky to have such extraordinarily fine weather today." That was Luna's dreamy voice. Harry chuckled in spite of himself.
He could hardly restrain himself now. However, he stayed behind the hedge for another minute, savouring the thought that he and his friends were alive, that they still had many years to live, now that there was no Dark Wizard around to spoil their happiness.
Quite suddenly, he felt something bulge the pocket of his robes. Startled, he extracted a piece of veil. It was no longer torn and grey, but a dazzling white and glittering in the sunlight.
Well, he might find a use for it in due course.
With that happy thought, he walked towards the fence and waited for his friends to notice him.
The End
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Whew. Thank you for bearing with me!!
This is the first story I actually planned. You still might find instances of faulty logic in there. It's been quite a writing lesson.
Your comments are very welcome! Do let me know if you liked it.