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Harry Potter and the Serpent's Coven | ||||||
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Category: Post-HBP Characters:All Genres: Action/Adventure, Fluff, General, Romance Warnings: Death, Sexual Situations, Violence Rating: R Reviews: 90 Summary: *** The author has been reminded via the e-mail address on file that this story is listed as incomplete and has not been updated in over 2 years *** Harry Potter realises that returning to Hogwarts for his final year is the only way he will succeed in his quest to destroy Lord Voldemort. It is a year of darkness, horror and new discoveries. Ginny Weasley is not only the witch who possesses Harry's heart, but also the true source of his strength as a wizard. Together, they will find new powers within themselves and each other, and find that there are some things that even the darkest magic cannot break. Hitcount: Story Total: 170714; Chapter Total: 4634 Author's Notes: This story was supposed to turn out dark, dangerous and exciting in the end, so please let me know if the romance gets too sickly! |
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Ginny led Harry quietly down the stairs, flinching at the slightest creaking of the old house as they went, until they reached her own bedroom. “Close the door please, and sit down,” she said. Harry did as he was told. He couldn’t help wondering what on earth she had to show him that had to wait until everyone else was asleep. He also couldn’t help reflecting on how his heartbeat had raced as she had taken him by the hand. “Listen Harry, whatever you hear or see in this room, you tell nobody, alright?” He nodded understandingly. “Promise?” she demanded. “I promise.” Harry was somewhat surprised at the commanding tone in her voice, though he would have never betrayed her trust no matter what. Her eyes lingered on him for a while, as if to ensure that he was being genuine, before she finally turned away and knelt down on the floor. Harry watched with great curiosity as she pulled up a loose floorboard, reached inside, and retrieved a small bundle of dirty white cloth. She sat beside Harry, carefully holding it in her lap, and was looking very nervous indeed, perhaps more nervous than he had ever seen her. “Ginny, what’s…?” “I’m serious Harry,” she breathed heavily, “nobody else must know about this, and I do mean nobody.” “I swear Ginny, whatever it is, I won’t tell another soul.” She nodded shakily, and slowly unwrapped the bundle. As she did this, Harry could see that whatever was inside was emitting a dull red glow that grew stronger with each layer of cloth that was removed. It was obviously a very delicate object from the way she handled it. Ginny almost seemed frightened to reveal what was hidden. Resolutely, she removed the last fold of cloth, and Harry stared in amazement. He had seen objects like this before, in fact both of them had, but now he wore a look of stunned disbelief. In the middle of the unfolded cloth lay a small glass orb, now glowing a powerful red. “It can’t be…” he gaped “I’m afraid it is” she replied. “Your…prophecy?” She nodded. It was clear that Harry was trying desperately to get his head around what he had seen. Ginny could almost see his mind working away through his eyes. “So…” began Harry, only just about able to make sense of it all, “…so, it was you. The break-in at the Ministry, that was YOU!” “I can’t take credit for that,” she said, “I may have removed it from the shelf, being that I’m only person who could, but I had a lot of help.” “I see, and who was crazy enough to help you break in? From what I heard, there are so many new security measures taken at the Ministry, I’m surprised that even employees can get in.” Ginny gave him a guilty smile. “Well, there were a couple of members of The Order who couldn’t resist a bit of mischief, even in times like these. I’d been in contact with them about it a few days after we came home.” Harry pondered this for a moment, before he broke into a smile of his own. “So that must mean….ah, I understand! This was Lupin’s handiwork, wasn’t it? I might’ve known!” She shrugged at this. “It wasn’t just him,” she said, “This may come as a surprise to you, but Mad-Eye Moody was also very obliging. I explained to him why I needed this, and he was very sympathetic about it. Of course, for the two of them together, breaking in was hardly what you would call a challenge.” Even with this explanation, Harry was still baffled by it all. “But why did you need it? And why do you want to show it to me?” he asked. “I had to show it to someone else, and no matter what there is between us, I just thought you were the only one who would understand.” Harry nodded silently. He too had removed his own prophecy from the Department of Mysteries, and after discovering the truth about himself and Lord Voldemort, he could sympathise with Ginny wanting to know something of her own fate. He watched as she carefully placed the glowing orb on the floor in front of her. “You want to hear it now? In here?” he asked. “Is there something else you would rather be doing?” she enquired, though with kind reassurance in her eyes, “Don’t worry Harry, there are silencing charms everywhere in this room. The walls, the door, even the floor and ceiling. This is for our ears only.” Her gaze returned to the seemingly harmless object on the floor, and gripped Harry’s hand tightly in hers as she brought her foot crashing down upon it. From the shattered orb emerged a pale, almost faceless ghost whose only clearly identifiable features were its large, round black eyes. Its very appearance echoed around the room, and its voice, as if there were two voices in unison, reverberated in both male and female tones as it spoke. “From the pure blood House of Weasley, heirs by blood and right to Godric Gryffindor, shall be born a seventh child of fire. Heart of iron will and purest love. Honourable of purpose, she shall walk a road most deadly. Chosen from the moment of birth to hold powers unseen and unknown to those who would see her fall, she shall be guardian protector of he who would enter the Serpent’s Coven and seek to overthrow the Dark Arts within. If the heart should fail, all will be lost.” As the echo of these last words subsided, the ghost slowly faded in a shimmering haze until nothing remained but the shards of glass on the floor. Both sat in silence for what seemed an age, before Harry finally spoke. “Heirs of Gryffindor?” he breathed, realising that he had never really considered how the bloodline had travelled. Ginny remained speechless, though Harry thought he could see tears welling up in her eyes. At last, she opened her mouth. “It’s all too much. Not me. Please Harry, not me!” she cried, burying her face into his shoulder and weeping. He put his arms around comfortingly and savoured the alluring smell of her hair as he spoke softly into her ear. “Ginny, listen to me. It’s okay. Prophecies must be like that for some people. I mean, I was told that I was destined to either kill or be killed by the most powerful Dark wizard who has ever lived. It would be difficult for anyone to hear something like that, but whatever you have to face, you won’t be alone.” Harry found himself biting back these last few words. What was he thinking? He couldn’t just take back what he had said to her at Dumbledore’s funeral. Better to say something along the lines of “You have a wonderful family who will always stand by you”, just to be sure. But Ginny had already lifted her head, and was now gazing straight into Harry’s eyes. Why did she have to be so beautiful? She leaned across and pulled a tissue from a box beside her bed, and dried her eyes. “Harry, I want to tell you something,” she began, “and I’ve been wondering how to say it for a long time, so just let me get it out of my system.” “You can tell me anything,” he replied, already cursing himself for sounding so considerate. Why couldn’t he just have nodded? “I was told the story about you when I was about six years old. The famous Harry Potter. No one knew where you’d grown up, but everyone in our world knew your name, and what happened to you. You were a hero, and I used to feel safe when I went to sleep at night, just knowing you were out there somewhere.” Even in this light and with the redness that the tears had stained on her cheeks, Harry could tell she was blushing, “After a few years though, I stopped thinking about where you might be. For all I knew, there would be some special place for wizards like you, because you weren’t like anyone else. Then one day, I came to London with mum to see my brothers off to Hogwarts, and there you were. And it wasn’t until you were on the train that I found out it was you. I didn’t think for a second that this boy who looked so lost and nervous could be Harry Potter.” For some reason, Harry hadn’t expected any of this from Ginny, though he was very used to hearing her speak her mind. “When Ron came home and told me he’d made friends with you, I almost thought he was lying to make fun of me, because I still had drawings of you in my room from when I was younger. I was excited enough during the summer before my first year at school, thinking I might actually get to meet you, so you can’t imagine how I felt when I came downstairs one morning to see you sitting in our kitchen. I wanted so much to talk to you, but what could I have said? I had as much of a crush on you as a girl that age could have. It wasn’t easy Harry believe me.” Now it was Harry’s turn to blush. “After you saved my life in the Chamber of Secrets, I felt torn apart every time I saw you. I knew I had feelings of some kind for you, and they were feelings that just grew stronger with every passing year. Hermione was the only one who really knew. But you were Harry Potter. You might have been friends with my brothers, but why would you notice me, when you could probably be with any girl you wanted?” Harry was on the verge of replying to this, but Ginny had no intention of allowing him to do so. “Seeing Michael and Dean was just my way of accepting that what I then knew to be love simply wasn’t meant to be” she said, forcing herself not to cry again, “Because I love you Harry. I can’t help it, and when you kissed me that day in the common room, I knew that whatever happened, I would die happy.” This was too much for Harry. Yesterday, he would have once again given her the reason why they could not be together. But now, there were far too many questions racing through his head. It was as if he could no longer be sure of anything, but knew that the girl who sat looking at him would be needing answers. He opened his mouth to speak once, twice, three times, but simply couldn’t get the words out. As he considered the possibility that he had forgotten the entire English language, Ginny reached out and laid a hand on his heart. He could feel his pulse quicken dramatically, and he trembled slightly as she took one of his hands and placed it on her own heart. They sat there, almost hypnotised, when Harry realised that his arm wasn’t just trembling, it was pulsing in time with Ginny’s heartbeat, and now he could even feel it inside his head. He looked down and noticed that the same had happened to her. His attention was then suddenly caught by a silver light that began to engulf his hand where it touched Ginny. It spread slowly up his wrist and past his elbow, until his entire arm was illuminated. The light was pleasantly warm on him, though somewhat unsettling. As it reached across his shoulders, he could see that not only had Ginny’s hand been taken by the same light from him, but she was in some kind of a trance, and breathing heavily. “I…I can…feel it!” she said. “Ginny?” he whispered, feeling decidedly light-headed. The light continued to travel down his other arm, and now his whole body began to tingle. He would have been nervous about this, but for some reason, he felt positively uplifted. As he looked down and saw the silver gleam form a ball in his hand, he felt a strong compulsion to keep it in a tight grip, not wanting to lose the happiness inside. Ginny, he could see, was experiencing a similar sensation. There was a dull pain in his fingers, as though the ball of light was trying to escape. He began to hold on tighter, but then heard Ginny’s voice. “Let go Harry. It’s alright” He opened his hand and stared in amazement as his patronus, a large silver stag, erupted from the light. It stood there looking back at him, clearer than he had ever seen it. Just as he wondered how he could have silently conjured this without the use of a wand, he saw a fountain of light soaring from Ginny’s hand. This was so bright that Harry found himself having to squint at it for a few seconds until the glare finally settled. He blinked twice before realising that he was looking at a magnificent silver lioness, who stretched her claws out in front of her and opened her mouth wide in a silent roar, looking as if she was overjoyed to be finally released into the wild. Ginny and her patronus regarded each other with both curiosity and bewilderment, before the two patroni turned to face one another. Harry could only go on a few things he had read, and snippets of various wildlife documentaries he had seen on television whilst living with the Dursleys, but this was enough to know that a confrontation between a stag and a lioness would not usually be a friendly one. “Harry, what’s hap…” Ginny began. “Ssh, don’t worry” he assured her. When both animals had resolutely stood their ground for quite some time, the stag slowly bent its neck down toward the lioness. After a small hesitation, the two animals brushed noses this way and that, before glancing back at Harry and Ginny. With a small bow, they turned and walked away, vanishing into the wall. Even with the lamps lit, the room then seemed to be in semi-darkness, but Harry could see the reflection in Ginny’s eyes of what little light remained. Ginny was the first to find her voice. “It’s true, isn’t it? What I heard you tell Hermione” Harry closed his eyes and nodded. “You love me?” she enquired, her voice quivering with the tears she was trying to choke back. After a deep breath, Harry opened his and eyes and found himself lost in hers. He couldn’t keep lying to himself. They had both seen it happen. He had effortlessly summoned his patronus from the power that she had given him. It wasn’t even as if he had needed to concentrate, because she had simply made him happier than he had ever been. She had shown him love that he had never known, and for that he would owe her his soul. “I’ve been in pain without you, Ginny. I will always love you, and protect you with every last drop of blood I have.” Ginny smiled warmly, but shook her head as she drew him in close to her. He felt her sweet breath against his face and drank in every detail of her features, framed by the luscious mane of red hair that cascaded down upon her nightdress. “No Harry, I understand now” she replied, her mouth now poised less than an inch from his, “Your task is to kill Lord Voldemort, but it is I who shall protect you.” And so saying, she pulled him into a firm and loving kiss, throwing her arms tightly around him as he ran his fingers through her hair. The fiery passion between their lips intensified, and in that moment Harry felt as though they had both become immortal, as he could never imagine such a feeling coming to an end. They had both lost track of the time that had passed when the kiss finally subsided. Ginny was nearly breathless, biting loosely down on her bottom lip and gazing at Harry with a burning look of desire in her eyes. “Stay with me, Harry Potter, and don’t ever leave me,” she said. “I love you Ginny Weasley,” he replied, “and no, I’ll never leave you.” Harry lay back on the pillow with Ginny beside him, nestling her head into his shoulder. “I love you too,” she whispered, swearing to herself that she would even protect him in his dreams. |
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