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The Veil | ||||||
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Category: Post-OotP, Holidays Characters:Harry/Ginny Genres: Drama Warnings: Death Story is Complete Rating: PG-13 Reviews: 113 Summary: In the fall of 1996 Harry finds a book about the ancient holidays just before Samhain, or what has become Hallowe'en. Tradition says communication with the dead is possible. Harry enlists Ginny to help him find out if its true. Hitcount: Story Total: 59202; Chapter Total: 1199 Awards: View Trophy Room Author's Notes: Here it is, the final real chapter of The Veil. There will be an epilogue out later this week. I ended this story in a way that I think fits it alone. I know some might not like how it ends, but the story begins and now ends in similar ways. I hope you can respect that. I appreciate everyone who has read and especially those who have reviewed. Enjoy, MNF |
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Chapter 33: “Are you sure you’re okay? I can make your father wait another day,” Lily said as she fussed over Harry. Remus had healed his wounds easily after the Horcrux was gone, but she worried. She was a mother and it was her prerogative to worry. “Mum, I’m fine,” Harry said firmly. “Better than fine. The headache is gone, I haven’t had a nightmare and I think my eyesight might be better too.” “Well, if you have your Dad’s vision anything would be an improvement. He can’t see six inches in front of his face.” “We are both going to get our eyes fixed when all this is over,” Harry added happily. “Let’s see what the future brings, shall we?” Lily said pensively. In the two days since the Horcrux was removed she and James had spoken with their friends about the possibility that they might not be ‘alive’ much longer. Anwen, the only one who hadn’t died previously, promised she would look after the Potter boys as if they were her own. Lily knew that wouldn’t be the same, especially if Sirius was gone again. “You are positive that you’re ready?” “Yes, Mum. I’m going to be fine. Ginny will be with me, and Dad, Sirius and Remus. We know Tom’s in bad shape and in the cellar at Stargazer’s Summit. Obviously, no one is caring for him, so it should be easy.” “Do not think it’s going to be easy,” Lily gently reprimanded. “That is how mistakes are made.” Harry dutifully nodded, but he knew in his heart this would be easier than removing that thing from his head. The snake might put up a fight, but there were five of them, and he knew Parseltongue. The Sword of Gryffindor had remained with them, so the snake could be destroyed. “Mum, I have everything in the world to live for. I have a girl I love, a family that might be eccentric, but they love me, and a little brother. Plus, the way Sirius and Anwen are with each other, I’m going to have a little cousin soon.” “Your aunt has a bit of healing to do before she can carry a baby,” Lily countered sadly. “I don’t think I’ll ever be able to thank her for what she’s done.” “Me either, Mum. I’m going to go talk with Dad and Remus, okay?” “That’s fine. I should go check on Anwen anyway. She’s due for more potions.” Lily was slow in going over the potions list she and Julia had for their patient’s healing. Sirius was still up with her, and she knew he was hesitant to leave her while her health was so precarious. “Luv, I’m sure I can stay,” Sirius said to Anwen, who was still flat in bed. Her right leg was held in a stasis charm, but the burn was not healing as quickly as it should. Even Essence of Dittany wasn’t working. The room was dark, as Anwen found light just split through her head and made her cry. The worst, however, was her inability to do any magic. “You stay behind?” Anwen croaked cynically. “You’d just sit here and fidget at having your best mates, your godson, and your ‘Red’ go into danger without you.” “For you I would.” “I don’t doubt that, but I want you to go. It’s your house he’s in.” Sirius nodded begrudgingly. Lily came into the room, and Sirius kissed his wife and stood and moved away the bed. “I’m leaving her in your hands, Petal.” “I’ll take care of her, Pads, I promise. I owe her the lives of my sons.” Sirius nodded, told Anwen he loved her and then left the room. Lily went to the dresser top that held all Anwen’s supplies and began mixing the mid-morning concoction. James had already created the Portkey to take the five of them to the Black family country retreat. He had gone there often when he and Sirius were children. They swam in the pond and had built a tree house beyond the Quidditch pitch. Regulus played with them then, and the three boys were friends. Those were the carefree days before there was a light or dark side of the Wizarding World. James hoped his sons would have something resembling a future like his past. Sirius appeared in the Library. “Come on, let’s get going so we can get back here.” “Anwen isn’t any better?” Harry asked sadly. “Not yet,” he responded. “Mum is fire calling Mimi to see if Poppy might drop by.” “That should help,” Remus said. “She can do wonders.” “Yeah, I don’t want to take her St. Mungo’s if I don’t need to. Too many questions.” “Come on boys. You too, Ginny,” Andrew said. “I’d prefer if you leave from the outside. Your long legs always topple the furniture when you leave.” Everyone laughed, even Sirius. Outside, when they all had hold of the poorly reassembled platter of three pigs eating corn, James touched the platter with his wand, and they were gone. Only one of the patio chairs toppled over, which Andrew quickly righted. The arrival at Stargazer’s Summit saw most of the party land on their feet, only Harry ending up on his bum. “Why can’t I land right?” he asked his dad and uncles. “Because you’re tense,” Sirius said. “Be loose and just start walking right after we take off.” “Yeah, sure, sounds easy,” Harry scoffed. “Let me take James and go investigate the wards first,” Sirius said. “The original ones will let me in, since I’m a Black. James was registered when we were little, and his mother would bring him over to play.” “I wonder if the tree house is still there?” James inquired. “Nope. Dad tore it down in a fit when I was sorted into Gryffindor. Come on,” Sirius motioned, and James took off with him. Harry was fascinated with the house itself. He’d seen grand houses before, especially on trips through London; but this dwarfed many of them. It was like some of the country houses they visited when he was in primary school. The house stood four stories tall, and then had a full telescope tower with a rounded top rising above. In the masonry of the house were stars, some made from stone, others made of ceramics, even other made from metals he even spotted a few he thought might be precious gemstones. As the clouds moved, the sun hit different ones and it appeared to make the house sparkle. He couldn’t make out the stained-glass windows, but they were intricate. Overall, the impression was spectacular. Unlike Grimmauld Place, this house appeared to be better cared for. “I wonder why it looks like sane folks have lived here all along, when headquarters looks like the deranged reside there?” Ginny asked. “I think Mrs. Black was quite mentally ill at the end. Plus, Kreacher isn’t exactly proactive in his maintenance of the place. I think it’s just magic that holds it together,” Remus replied. “Sirius told me this place has always been cared for, and when a house elf is at the end of his usefulness, the manager will hire a new one. The old one is given an easier job on the estate or allowed to retire if they wish.” “Ahh,” Harry and Ginny said in unison, which caused all three of them to laugh. “He has happy memories from here,” Remus went on. “I think much of his childhood was spent here with his mother, away from his father who stayed in London. This was where he was free and a time when the rest of the family still loved him.” Their former professor seemed very sad to the two teens. Ginny couldn’t help but wonder what had made him so pensive. “I hope we don’t take that away from him. I know he’d like to bring Anwen here, maybe make this their family home.” “I think she’d like it,” Ginny said. “She impresses me as someone who likes being in the out of doors.” “She does,” Remus said. “She grew up on a dairy farm. When she was a first year, she was stronger than any other girl I’d ever met.” “Why doesn’t that surprise me?” Harry said dryly. It didn’t seem to him that his aunt was much of a wilting flower in any part of her life. “There are no extra wards, charms or hexes on this place,” Sirius said as he and James strode back. “I’m not sure who last cast these spells, I’m guessing my dad, but they’re so simple in structure and now they’re decaying. We did more to the tunnel to get into Hogsmeade our seventh year than this whole place must have had when we lived here.” “Your dad’s arrogance,” James suggested. “He always thought your family was revered. No one would ever want to do him harm.” “I guess, but it’s pathetic. Then again, so was he,” Sirius added. “Come on, there’s nothing keeping us out, but anyone with the Dark Mark who hits the spell we just put up will find themselves in the dungeons of the Ministry.” “Smart move you two,” Remus said, a bit surprised. “We can work on a plan without you, you know,” Padfoot countered. “Where was I?” the werewolf asked. “Probably at home, in bed with Eva. We were awake at two last night,” James answered. Remus nodded and then turned so he could walk ahead. “Harry, do you have the sword?” James asked his son. Harry pulled it out of his pocket and then returned it to the normal size. “Let’s go.” “I think we’d be better off going in through the cellar door on the left side, rather than traipse through the house to go in that way. This way we can go into the kitchens, then down into the root cellar and through it to the storage area. Anwen’s drawing showed Tom on an old single down there.” The rest gave answers in the affirmative, and they moved out. Everyone had their wands out, and the three men flanked the two teens. Harry wanted to argue but knew it would be useless. They wanted to protect him, since it had to be Harry to end Tom. Harry worried that he wasn’t up to murdering someone, even someone as vile as Tom Riddle was. Ginny sensed his confusion and wrapped her fingers around his wrist, since he was carrying the Sword of Gryffindor. The exterior cellar door was wide and consisted of two huge doors which hung from floor to ceiling. Sirius made quick work of the locks and though the doors were thick and heavy, they swung open with surprising ease. Harry couldn’t imagine why they needed to be so large. “I still remember asking your grandmother why the doors were so big, and then being disgusted at her answer,” James said to Sirius. “It’s not every family that brings in living creatures so they can be slaughtered on site,” Sirius said. “Most people just killed the objects of their hunt out in the field and had a dressing shed for the grizzlier muscle removing. My great grandmother liked the blood for her spells as fresh as possible. Wacky Cassie didn’t come by her peculiarities all on her own.” “Sirius, your family was deranged,” Ginny said flat out. “You think I’m not aware, Red?” His eyebrow quirked up as he turned to look at her. “Come on, in here.” The group filed into a small room off the enormous, but empty, kitchen. Sirius made a face at entering the place. “Shite, it still smells like rotting potatoes in here, and it hasn’t had any in decades. Come on, I need away from this.” They went down a flight of stairs which descended from the middle of the room, only to find themselves in an identical room a floor below. “Something smells even worse down here,” Sirius said. He pushed on the back wall, and the center gave way, and they entered a slightly lighter, but much dustier room. “Welcome to my home’s version of a dump. Be careful what you touch, I know some very strange things were left here to die when one of Auntie Cassie’s experiments went wrong or a potion of Grammy’s didn’t work out so well,” Sirius explained as he flicked his wand to light the hanging cauldrons lining the walls. “You had your own Hagrid and Snape,” Harry quipped. “How did you end up so…normal?” “Who said he’s normal?” James quickly answered. “You didn’t see some of his potions or Charms homework.” “Remember when Anwen fixed his love potion? His first try looked like sludge and smelled like feet,” Remus added. “He was not happy with her at all,” James remembered. “Yes, and I broke her heart that night when I stormed out of there and went with Evelyn Ellerthrope for the night. She lorded that over Anwen for years,” Sirius snapped, effectively ending the conversation. “That bitch,” a weak voice slurred from behind a wardrobe, and when Sirius blasted the furniture to bits, they found the body of Voldemort. He hadn’t looked human when Harry had tussled with him in the spring, now nearing winter the man was little more than a skeleton with skin draped over it. The mattress had been soaked through with urine and feces and the odor was overwhelming. The three men quickly did bubblehead charms, and then Sirius and James did them over Ginny and Harry. There was a mass of clothing about fifteen feet away, and no one thought a thing about it until it unfurled, becoming Wormtail. “I must be hallucinating,” the rumpled version of Peter Pettigrew said. “You’re dead.” He was staring at James. “You’re supposed to be dead too.” This time his gaze was on Sirius. “Don’t believe everything you hear, Wormy,” James spat at him. “Quite alive and kicking, which is more than I think we can say for you.” “What are you doing here?” Ginny asked, the only one of the five who might have had a tiny bit of remorse for the man. “This hand,” Peter said raising the one Voldemort restored in the graveyard at Little Hangleton, “was a gift. But it’s a curse too. I cannot leave his side, even to go for supplies. I must always be near him. We are dying.” “Starving sounds like too easy of a death for you, Peter,” Sirius roared. “Do you have any idea what you’ve done?” “You don’t understand,” he whined. “I tried to tell you before, in the shack, but —” “There are no ‘buts’, Peter. Death before betrayal; that was our rule!” Sirius lunged for the lump of a man, and in his weakened state Peter collapsed under the pressure. “Sirius, don’t,” Harry said. “It’s bad enough I have to deal with Tom here, let’s not murder him too. I’m sure the Ministry can find a nice room for him in the dungeons.” “He’s right, Padfoot,” James said. “We can walk him into the barrier.” “I’m glad we added those extras,” Sirius said with a demented glee in his eyes. “Agreed.” “I’ll watch him, you four need to deal with the snake, remember?” Remus said. “Where is it?” “Out feeding,” Peter said. “She can slither out for food. I’m trapped here with HIM!” “That was your choice, Peter,” Remus reminded him. “Whatever would have happened, we would have been with you. We were your brothers.” “Great,” Harry said defeated. “I can’t do Tom in without killing the snake first.” “Then I’ll summon all the snakes on the island to the house,” Sirius said. “Remember, this is the house of a long line of Slytherins. Whenever anyone needed one — and we surprisingly did frequently — we’d simply charm them all to come to nest here.” Sirius walked to the fireplace and put his wand to the snake on the mantlepiece. Two small sliding doors on either side of the chimney opened and within moments the snakes began to slither in. At the same time the doors opened, a three-foot-high retaining wall of iron came from around the grate and formed a semi-circle they were gathering in. Ginny, never too fond of snakes even before her father was attacked by Nagini Christmas a year ago, backed up into James. He slid her behind him. “They can’t get at you,” he said to comfort her. “There’s a containment spell on the whole fireplace. It happened once Sirius activated the Summoning Spell. Reg was frightened of them when we were little. That gate is a brilliant way to keep a toddler out of the fireplace too. Harry accidentally flooed himself to Sirius and Anwen’s house once.” “Marauder in training,” Sirius spoke sideways to Harry. Tom groaned again and mumbled, but no one paid him any attention. “Where is his wand?” he asked, indicating Tom with his head. “I don’t know,” Harry said, “but if it’s on that bed, there is no way I’m touching it.” “Agreed,” Sirius said before pulling out his dragon hide driving gloves. “These will need a cleaning. Accio wands of Dark Wizards. Two wands came flying at him. Harry immediately recognized the bent and discolored twin of his own. Another flew from near Wormtail. Sirius and James both recognized it from their school days. “James, the bag is you please.” James produced a shimmering bag with a drawstring. The wands were slipped inside and then they vanished. “Sent them to Dad. We can discuss what to do with them later.” There seemed to be a trickle of tiny snakes coming from the left side, which then stopped altogether. Tom began to mumble in Parseltongue. Then the tail of a very thick snake began to fall from the chute. “Wands up,” James yelled. Harry raised the Sword as well. “You can pierce the spell,” Sirius announced. “Come to me,” Tom whispered and Nagini’s body twisted mid-air. Harry just stood there, watching the snake and realizing he couldn’t hear her talking like he had before. James and Sirius yelled at him to do something, but he was stunned into inaction. “Come to me,” the dark wizard whispered again. Ginny reached across to grab Harry by the shoulder, but still he would not move. “Never again,” she yelled, taking the sword from Harry’s hand and cutting through the snake. The bits landed on the floor with a thump, and whatever snakes Nagini’s blood or venom touched just shriveled and died. With a twist of his wand, Sirius made them all disappear. “What happened?” Harry asked, shaking his head. “Ginny killed the snake,” James said. “You tell us what happened. It was like you were in a trance.” “I was, sort of. I…I couldn’t hear her, not like before. Not like when…” “He is out of your head, Harry,” Ginny said softly, even as the Sword of Gryffindor disappeared from her hand. “Time to end this.” Harry nodded and turned to face the pathetic form before him. With the death of his last Horcrux, Tom Riddle looked closer to death than even when they first gazed upon him. His skin was now dry and flaking away, his red eyes dimmed to mere pricks of light. There was a deep rattle when he inhaled or exhaled, and he made a wheezy sound that sort of resembled Harry’s name. “I almost feel bad killing you,” Harry said. “You’re nothing more than a lump of bone and tissue moments from dying. For over twenty years people have been frightened of you. I’ll be thrilled to show them your last moments.” “I…am…Lord…Voldemort,” he sputtered out, using some of the last dredges of his energy. “No, you’re not,” Harry said firmly. “You’re a psychopath and mass murderer. The world will not mourn you. Your only follower here to witness your end will be in prison tonight. With his memories the others will fall. You are nothing.” “I…am…” he couldn’t finish it this time. “You. Are. Nothing. There will be no one to mourn you. You missed out on the best part of living. Love is the real magic, and my wonderful, courageous, brilliant Aunt Anwen broke you with it.” “Bi..tch.” “You call my wife that word one more time and I’ll kill you,” Sirius spouted. “No, Sirius, it’s just a word,” Harry calmly said. “Knowing her, she’d probably thank him for the compliment.” “I would,” Ginny added. “I don’t even think we should give him the release of death,” Harry added. “I think we should just wait while he expires all on his own. It doesn’t say I have to kill him; it says neither can like while the other survives. He’s not going to survive. I won.” Sirius banished the bed to someone only the god and goddess would know. He then summoned some chairs, and the three Marauders and the young couple waited while the pitiful creature who was once a powerful dark wizard laid on the floor in a rag to die. The only person who had ever held devotion to him was bound in a stasis spell and hanging upside down on the far side of the room. Ten minutes later Tom Riddle died. |
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