Author Note: The original version of Chapter 5 was missing the last few paragraphs. The correct, complete version has now been uploaded. Please read that version because it contains a part of the Harry-Draco conversation that is integral to the plot.
This chapter is a bit short but I didn't want to break the next chapter at an awkward point.
The Second Day - Part 3
Neville, Seamus, and Dean were all sleeping heavily and the strong scent of firewhiskey filled the circular tower room. Ron's bed had been stripped to the bare mattress and the bed hangings were pulled back. Krum looked around the room warily, as if he expected Ron to come out of the wardrobe at any moment.
"Ron has gone home?" he said quietly.
"Yes," Harry confirmed. "The funeral is later today so the Burrow will already be completely shut off. The wards will be raised to prevent anyone from coming in or going out. The Weasleys will be able to get ready in peace. No press, no interruptions."
Krum nodded, threw his satchel on the floor, then sat down on the edge of the bed to remove his boots.
"Do you need a blanket or anything?" Harry asked. "I think there might be a spare pillow in the wardrobe."
"Thank you, Harry, but no. I have my own things," Krum said, pulling out a worn but clean and neatly folded gray-green sleeping bag from his satchel.
Harry turned back to his own bed and saw that Kreacher had left him two more sandwiches and a large flagon of what looked like pumpkin juice. "Are you hungry? Can I offer you a sandwich? It looks like fish of some kind," Harry said.
"Yes, thank you," Krum said gratefully, snatching both sandwiches from the plate like a man who had not seen proper food for a long time.
Krum was exhausted and fell asleep quickly. But Harry had slept through most of the previous day and he was wide awake now, his mind churning through all the revelations of the past few hours. How foolish he had been to think that the mysteries of his life would all be solved with Voldemort's death! Instead the end of Voldemort had ripped away the veil of lies that had almost suffocated every good and true feeling. How many of his thoughts and feelings were entirely his own? Harry wondered. How many were the corrupting whispers of an enemy consumed by hate and cruelty?
But, but-Harry reminded himself. Sometimes-many times-his own feelings had been strong enough to overcome that bit of Tom Riddle within him. Once, even, strong enough to repel Voldemort himself. Dumbledore had explained it-Harry's love for Sirius had driven Voldemort out. But maybe that was only part of the story, Harry thought, his mind replaying the entire battle in the Department of Mysteries. When he and Neville and Hermione had faced the Death Eaters. When Hermione had been felled by Dolohov's curse. When feelings of fear and panic and love had surged through Harry so strongly that he had felt faint, light-headed, unable to move or think. Yes--love. He had loved Hermione then-two years ago! In the chaos of battle he hadn't recognized his feelings or named them for what they were.
But Voldermort had known. Unable to feel love himself, he was still able to recognize it in others. He knew the power that Lily's love had given Harry. He must have seen Harry's ability to love and be loved as a weapon that could be used against him.
"When he possessed me," Harry whispered, as if Dumbledore might still be listening, "he experienced not just my feelings for Sirius but my love for Hermione too. And he had to kill that love."
Everything Draco had told him earlier in the evening now made sense. But Draco was wrong about one thing. Ginny was not merely a distraction to keep him occupied and away from his friends. Voldemort's manipulation of Ginny was to keep him away from discovering real love, his love for Hermione. Instead he had been forcefed infatuation, obsession, just as if he had been given the same dosing of Amortentia that Merope had used to ensnare Riddle's father.
Harry shook his head at his own stupidity. How could he not have seen? Why didn't he recognize the signs? How could his feelings for Ginny have been true and real when they led him to rage and thoughts of violence against Dean? Perhaps that's what love had meant to Voldemort-possessiveness and jealousy. But that isn't love. Love is caring for someone so deeply that you put their happiness before your own.
As he thought back on the past two years, Harry shook his head at the irony: Voldemort needn't have bothered with his elaborate scheme with Ginny in order to keep him away from Hermione. Harry had convinced himself that his two best friends were meant to find happiness with each other. So he had done the "stupid, noble" thing-Ginny's words, in a different context, echoed in his mind. He had sacrificed his own feelings. Even after Ron had left them, he had been a loyal friend, never criticizing Ron to Hermione, never trying to take advantage. Only once had he allowed himself to put his arm around her, and that was in the graveyard, when they were Polyjuiced into other people, and somehow it was allowed.
So now he knew why, when he was walking into the forest to what he thought was certain death, and he longed to see the people he loved, Hermione's name was the one that came to him first, before Ron, Ginny, and the rest. And he knew why, when Voldemort was finished, he walked past Ginny without letting her know he was there and sought out Ron and Hermione. He had accepted the inevitable, that Hermione had chosen Ron, but he was determined to find a way to be near them, to be near her.
Perhaps that was the reason for his dream of the Hogwarts Express: he and Hermione and the Weasleys, linked forever as one family. But that was a false future, a fraud. Was that why he hadn't been able to speak to Hermione-because he could never lie to her, even in a dream?
Just as he knew that Hermione would never lie to him. Harry looked out the window to the lake beyond, as the moonlight streamed in, illuminating a square patch of floor near his bed. "I don't fancy Ron," she had said. "Ron's like the brother I never had." Harry smiled and closed his eyes, and let his mind be filled with the image of his and Hermione's Patronuses sweeping across the lake together.
Harry was in an expansive meadow that sloped gently down to the sea. The meadow was full of a phantasmagorical
collection of animals, from the tame and domestic--a cat, a dog, a horse, a mule, a bull--to the wild and fantastic--a
camel, a lion, a wild boar, a unicorn, and a stag with golden antlers.
In the air above, wheeling in tight circles was an unmatched flock of birds--a silver eagle, a black raven, a grey owl, a many-coloured peacock, a parrot. Rising out of the water was an enormous dolphin, a remora, and three whiskered sea creatures Harry didn't recognize.
Surmounting the scene at the top of a small hill, smoldering in a nest of flames, was a red phoenix, it wings outspread.
The unicorn charged forward as if it would leap into the sea. But it came up short, reared on its hind legs, then turned around. It cantered slowly across the meadow toward a dense thicket of trees far in the distance. The other animals paid no attention, but the stag raised its magnificent head as the unicorn passed and fell into step alongside it. The sun glinted off the gold of its antlers and the silver of the unicorn's horn, and the two animals seemed to float across the meadow until they disappeared into the forest.
[End of Part 3]
Author Note: The image comes from the fifth day of Michael Maier's Septimana philosophica.
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