Chapter Twenty-Six
Finally, the truth.
Lying with his face pressed into the dusty carpet of the office where he had once thought he was learning the secrets of victory, Harry understood at last that he was not supposed to survive.
His job was to walk calmly into Death’s welcoming arms.
Along the way, he was to dispose of Voldemort’s remaining links to life, so that when he at last flung himself across Voldemort’s path, and did not raise a wand to defend himself, the end would be clean, and the job that ought to have been done in Godric’s Hollow would be finished. Neither would live; neither could survive.
Harry felt his heart pounding fiercely in his chest. How strange that in his dread of death, it pumped all the harder, valiantly keeping him alive. But it would have to stop, and soon. Its beats were numbered. How many would there be time for, as he rose and walked through the castle for the last time, out into the grounds and into the forest?
Terror washed over him as he lay on the floor, with that funeral drum pounding inside him. Would it hurt to die?
All those times he had thought it was about to happen and escaped, he had never really thought of the act itself: His will to live had always been much stronger than his fear of Death. Yet it did not occur to him to try to escape, to try to outrun Voldemort. It was over, he knew it. He would do this for his loved ones, for the world. All that was left was the thing itself—dying.
He envied his parents’ deaths now; their deaths had been quick, cruel as they had been. This cold-blooded walk to his own destruction would require a different kind of bravery. He felt his fingers trembling slightly and made an effort to control them, although no one could see him. The portraits on the walls were all still empty.
Slowly, very slowly, he sat up, and as he did so he felt more alive and more aware of his own living body than ever before. Why had he never appreciated what a miracle it was, brain and nerve and pounding heart? It would all be gone…or at least, he would be gone from it. His breath came slow and deep, and his mouth and throat were completely dry, but so were his eyes.
Dumbledore’s betrayal was almost nothing.
Of course there had been a bigger plan; Harry had simply been too foolish to see it, he realized that now. Harry had never questioned his own assumption that Dumbledore wanted him alive. Now he saw that his life span had always been determined by how long it took to eliminate all the Horcruxes. Dumbledore had passed the job of destroying them to Harry, and Harry had obediently continued to chip away at the bonds tying not only Voldemort, but himself, to life. How neat, how elegant, not to waste any more lives, but to give the dangerous task to the boy who had already been marked for slaughter, and whose death would not be a calamity, but another blow against Voldemort.
And Dumbledore had known that Harry would not duck out. That he would keep going to the end, even though it was his end, because Dumbledore had taken the trouble to get to know Harry, hadn’t he? Dumbledore knew, as Voldemort knew, that Harry would not let anyone else die for him now that he had discovered it was in his power to stop it.
The images of Fred, Tonks, and Ted, lying dead in the Great Hall forced their way back into Harry’s mind’s eye, and for a moment he could hardly breathe: Death was impatient…
But Dumbledore had overestimated Harry. He had failed: the snake survived. One Horcrux remained to bind Voldemort to the earth, even after Harry had been killed. True, that would mean an easier job for someone. He wondered who would do it…Ron and Hermione, and Sirius and Remus would know what needed to be done of course…that would have been why Dumbledore wanted him to confide in them… so that if he fulfilled his true destiny a little early, they could carry on…
Like rain on a cold window, these thoughts pattered against the hard surface of the incontrovertible truth. Which was that Harry must die. I must die. It must end.
There would be no good-byes and no explanations; Harry was determined of that. He could not make this journey with his friends or his guardians, and the attempts they would make to stop him would waste valuable time. The pain and grief in their faces…the anguish and torture of what it would do to them—to Sirius and Remus especially, who saw their care of Harry as an extension of their love and loss of James and Lily…
Oh, Sirius. Oh, Remus. I’m so sorry. You deserve better than this, a million times. But you…you must live on. Carry my family’s legacy; it rests in your capable hands.
Harry looked down at the battered gold watch that Molly had given him for his seventeenth birthday. Nearly half of the hour allotted by Voldemort for his surrender had elapsed.
He stood up. His heart was leaping against his ribs like a frantic bird, but Harry envisioned those shelves in his mind…the drawing room of 12 Grimmauld Place, a crackling fire and a spinning record…
His heart slowed, and he did not look back as he closed the office door.
The castle was empty. Harry felt ghostly striding through it, as if he had already died. He pulled the Invisibility Cloak over himself and descended through the floors, at last walking down the marble staircase into the entrance hall.
Within the Great Hall, Remus was now tending to the wounded beside Poppy, and did not hear nor sense Harry beyond the oaken doors, and so it was that no one came to stop Harry as he walked the Death March alone.
Harry reached the front doors, and then Neville nearly walked into him. He was one half of a pair that was carrying a body in from the grounds. Harry glanced down and felt another dull blow to his stomach: Colin Creevey, though underage, must have sneaked back just as Malfoy, Crabbe, and Goyle had done.
Colin was tiny in Death.
“You know what? I can manage him alone, Neville,” Oliver Wood said and he heaved Colin over his shoulder in a fireman’s lift and carried him into the Great Hall.
Neville leaned against the doorframe for a moment and wiped his forehead with the back of his hand. He looked like an old man. Then he set off down the steps again into the darkness to recover more bodies.
Harry took one glance back at the Great Hall. People were moving around, trying to comfort each other, drinking, kneeling beside the dead, but he could not see any of the people he loved. He could see no hint of Sirius, Remus, Hermione, Ron, Ginny, or any of the other Weasley’s, no Luna. He felt he would have given all the time remaining to him for just one more look at them; but then, would he ever have the strength to stop looking? It was better like this.
Harry moved down the steps and into the darkness. It was nearly four in the morning, and the stillness of the grounds felt as though they were holding their breath, waiting to see whether he could do what he must.
Harry moved toward Neville, who was bending over another body.
“Neville.”
“Blimey, Harry, you nearly gave me heart failure!”
Harry had pulled off the Cloak: the idea came to him out of nowhere, born out of a desire to make absolutely sure. And he knew he could rely on Neville as much as any of the others.
“Where are you going alone?” Neville asked suspiciously.
“It’s all part of the plan,” Harry said, “There’s something I’ve got to do. Listen, Neville—”
“Harry!” Neville looked scared, “Harry, you’re not thinking of handing yourself over?”
“No,” Harry lied, “’Course not…this is something else. But I might be out of sight for a while. You know Voldemort’s snake, Neville? He’s got a huge snake, calls it Nagini…”
“I’ve heard, yeah…what about it?”
“It’s got to be killed. Ron, Hermione, Sirius, and Remus know about that, but just in case they—”
The awfulness of the possibility smothered Harry for a moment, made it impossible to keep talking. But he pulled himself together again: this was crucial, he must make sure there were backups, others to carry on.
“Just in case they’re—busy—and you get the chance—”
“Kill the snake?”
“Kill the snake,” Harry nodded.
“Alright, Harry. You’re okay, aren’t you?”
“I’m fine. Thanks, Neville.”
But Neville seized his wrist as Harry made to move on, “We’re all going to keep fighting, Harry. You know that, right?”
“Yeah, I—”
But the suffocating feeling extinguished the end of the sentence and Harry could not go on. Neville seemed to understand. He patted Harry’s shoulder and released him, and walked away to look for more bodies.
Harry swung the Cloak over himself and walked on. Someone else was moving not far away, stooping over another prone figure on the ground. He was feet away from her when he realized it was Ginny.
He stopped in his tracks. Ginny was crouching over a girl who was whispering for her mother.
“It’s alright,” Ginny was saying, “It’s okay. We’re going to get you inside.”
“But I want to go home,” the girl murmured, “I don’t want to fight anymore…”
“I know,” Ginny said and her voice broke, “It’s going to be alright.”
Ripples of cold undulated Harry’s skin. He wanted to shout out to the night, he wanted Ginny to know that he was there, he wanted her to know where he was going. He wanted to be stopped, to be dragged back, to be sent home…
But he was home. Hogwarts had been the first home he had known. And 12 Grimmauld Place—the drawing room, his safe space—had been a source of pain and heartbreak for Sirius as a boy, and then the Headquarters of a war. And Hope Cottage felt like ages and ages ago…had he, Harry, ever lived there? It felt like a dream…but if he could make it real for Sirius, Remus, and Teddy, then Harry must…
Ginny was kneeling beside the injured girl now, holding her hand. With a huge effort, Harry forced himself on. He thought he saw Ginny look around as he passed, and wondered whether she sensed someone walking by, sensed him thinking: I love you. I love you. I love you. I’d do anything for you; anything. I will do this.
Hagrid’s Hut loomed out of the darkness. There were no lights, no sound of Fang scrabbling at the door, his bark booming in welcome. All those visits to Hagrid, and the gleam of the copper kettle on the fire, and rock cakes and giant grubs, and his great, bearded face, and Ron vomiting slugs and Hermione helping him save Norbert…
Harry moved on, and now he reached the edge of the forest, and he stopped.
A swarm of Dementors was gliding amongst the trees; he could feel their chill. But he had no strength left for a Patronus. He could no longer control his trembling. It was not, after all, so easy to die.
Every second he breathed, the smell of the grass, the cool air on his face, was so precious: to think that people had years and years, time to waste, so much time it dragged, and he was clinging to every second. At the same time, he thought that he would not be able to go on, and knew that he must. The long game was ended, the Snitch had been caught, it was time to leave the air…
The Snitch.
His nerveless fingers fumbled for a moment in his pocket and then he pulled it out.
I open at the close.
In a way, Remus had been right—as he always was. The Snitch opened at the end of Harry’s quest to defeat Voldemort, and at the close of his own life.
Breathing fast and hard, Harry stared down at it. Now that he wanted time to move as slowly as possible, it seemed to have sped up, and understanding was coming so fast it seemed to have bypassed thought.
He pressed the golden metal to his lips and whispered, “I am about to die.”
The metal shell broke open. He lowered his shaking hand, raised Draco’s wand beneath the Cloak and murmured, “Lumos.”
The black stone with its jagged crack running down the center sat in the two halves of the open Snitch. The Resurrection Stone had cracked down the vertical line representing the Elder Wand. The triangle and circle representing the Cloak and the stone were still discernible.
And again, Harry understood without having to think.
It did not matter about bringing them back, for he was about to join them. He was not really fetching them; they were fetching him.
He closed his eyes and turned the stone over in his hands three times.
James grinned as he made puffs of colored smoke erupt from his wand for the amusement of his small son. Harry looked so cute in his blue pajamas, laughing and trying to catch the smoke, to grab it in his small fist…Harry would make a fine Seeker one day, James thought with a grin.
The kitchen door opened and Lily entered, her long flaming red hair falling over her face as she laughed and smiled saying, “Oh, look at him, James! He’ll make—”
“A grand Seeker,” James finished for her. Merlin, she looked lovely tonight, even with the war closing in around them, she still made the home feel like home. And it was Halloween night—once little Harry was put to bed, they could watch her favorite special on the telly and Lily could explain to him all of the Muggle beliefs around Halloween for the umpteenth time. James always loved to hear Lily explain things, tell stories. Loved to watch the way her eyes lit up and her hands moved in the air as she gestured.
James bent and scooped up his son before handing Harry to Lily. He threw himself down upon the sofa and stretched, yawning…thinking of Lily soon snuggled up beside him, and Harry soundly asleep upstairs…
The door burst open.
James did not hesitate; he sprinted into the hall. His hands were clammy and empty and he realized, like a cold blast of winter air, that he did not have his wand.
“Lily, take Harry and go!” He shouted, his heart pounding, his mind—his enire life—narrowed in on the young woman he loved and his baby boy, “It’s him! Go! Run! I’ll hold him off!”
Voldemort laughed before casting the curse, “Avada Kedavra!”
James’ last thought was of Lily and Harry. And he pleaded—Let them live, let them live. I’ll go; let them stay.
There was no ill will in his heart; only this last prayer.
I'll do anything for them! I'll die gladly right now! Just let Lily live to raise our son, to imbue him with her full-heart and her zealous wit. Let Harry zoom across a Quidditch pitch, let him know the healing power of magic; let him help others…
The green light filled the cramped hallway and James Potter fell…
Lily could not help from screaming as she heard the curse below and knew James was dead.
James, oh James, not James…he was the sun, for God’s sake! How could life go on without him? But in her arms, Harry stared crying and Lily focused—this was her and James’ little boy, the one who had kicked and spun inside her. He would be the light in the darkness, Sirius had told her. He would be the sun.
As gently as she could, she held her little boy against her chest and began barricading herself in….she had no wand on her either…she knew it as she shoved the dresser, the boxes full of baby clothes, and the rocking chair up against the door, thinking ridiculously of the nursery rhymes she had sung to Harry the night before…
Oh, somewhere over the rainbow, blue birds fly
And the dream that you dare to
Oh why, oh why can’t I?
Well, I see trees of green and red roses too
I’ll watch them bloom for me and you
And I think to myself
What a wonderful world
She watched him force the door open, casting aside the rocking chair and boxes hastily piled up against it with one lazy sweep of his wand…and there Lily stood, Harry in her arms. As soon as she saw him, Lily dropped her son into the crib behind her and threw her arms wide.
She knew this would not help, but still she shielded him. She thought only: Let him live, let him live. I’ll go, I’ll go join James, but let him stay.
There was no pain left in her, only this one last pleading.
Let my child outlive me; let him live and let him love. Let him see a wonderful world, let him dream…
“Not Harry, not Harry, please not Harry!” She heard herself beg aloud.
“Stand aside, you silly girl…stand aside, now.”
“Not Harry, please no—TAKE ME, KILL ME INSTEAD!”
“This is my last warning—”
“Not Harry! Please…have mercy, have mercy…Not Harry! Please—I’ll do anything—”
Anything—I’ll do anything for him! Anything for Harry!
“Stand aside. Stand aside, girl!”
The green light flashed around the room and Lily Evans Potter dropped…
They were neither ghost not truly flesh, Harry could see that. Less substantial than living bodies, but much more than ghosts, they moved toward him, and on their faces was the same loving smile.
Time had stitched them by.
Time had made them into legends more than people. But they had been alive, and real once.
James was exactly the same height as Harry. James was wearing the clothes in which he had died, and his hair was untidy and ruffled, his glasses were a little lopsided, like Arthur’s. He was so young—only twenty-one—and Harry could fully appreciate his father’s youthful death now. And James looked happy; glad to be back in this familiar place, scene of so many adolescent wanderings.
Lily’s smile was wider than James. She was so young and so beautiful—so vibrant, even in her shaded state. She pushed her long, red hair back as she drew close to Harry, and her green eyes, so like his, searched his face hungrily, as though she would never be able to see him enough.
“You’ve been so brave.”
Harry could not speak. His eyes feasted on Lily, and he thought he would like to stand and look at her forever, and that would be enough.
“You are nearly there,” James said, “Very close. We are…so proud of you.”
“Does it hurt?”
The childish question had slipped from Harry’s lips before he could stop it.
“Dying? Not at all,” James said, “Quicker and easier than falling asleep.”
“I didn’t want you to die,” Harry said, these words came without his volition, “I’m so sorry…”
“I am sorry too,” James said softly, behind his glasses, his large hazel eyes were warm on Harry, “I’m sorry that I did not get to be there, Harry. Your mother and I were trying to make a world in which you could live a happier life. And we’re sorry it has been…”
“It’s been wonderful,” Harry said, his voice breaking, “I had the best of friends, and Moony and Padfoot came into my life. They took care of me. And I played Quidditch and saw magic—felt magic…” Harry turned to his mother, beseeching her.
“I felt love, Mum. And I loved back.”
Lily smiled still wider, her green eyes still roaming his face, “That is all I hoped for you, my darling son.”
A chilly breeze that seemed to emanate from the heart of the forest lifted the hair at Harry’s brow. He knew that they would not tell him to go, that it would have to be his decision.
“You’ll stay with me?”
“Until the very end,” James said.
“They won’t be able to see you?”
“We are a part of you,” Lily said gently, “Invisible to anyone else.”
Harry looked at his mother, “Stay close to me,” he said quietly.
And he set off.
Of all the comrades that e’er I had
They’re sorry for my going away
And all the sweethearts that e’er I had
They’d wish me one more day to stay
But since it fell unto my lot
That I should rise and you should not
I’ll gently rise and softly call
Good night and joy be to you all
The Dementor’s chill did not overcome him; he passed through it with his parents, and they acted like Patronuses to him, and together they marched through the old trees that grew closely together, their branches tangled, their roots gnarled and twisted underfoot. Harry clutched the Cloak tightly around him in the darkness, traveling deeper and deeper into the forest, with no idea where exactly Voldemort was, but sure that he would find him. Death was calling; it would lead Harry on.
Beside him, making scarcely a sound, walked James and Lily, and their presence was his courage, and the reason he was able to keep putting one foot in front of the other.
His body and mind felt oddly disconnected now, his limbs working without instruction, as if he were passenger, not driver, in the body he was about to leave. His dead parents who walked beside him were more real to him now than the living back at the castle—they felt like ghosts as he stumbled and slipped toward the end of his life, toward Voldemort…
A thud and a whisper. Some other living creature had stirred nearby. Harry stopped under the Cloak, peering around, listing, and his mother and father stopped to.
“Someone there,” came a rough whisper close at hand, “He’s got an Invisibility Cloak. Could it be—?”
Two figures emerged from behind a nearby tree, their wands flared, and Harry recognized Yaxley and Dolohov peering into the darkness, directly at the place where James and Lily stood. The Death Eaters could not see the dead.
“Definitely heard something,” Yaxley said, “Animal, d’you reckon?”
“That head case Hagrid kept a whole bunch of stuff in here,” Dolohov said, glancing over his shoulder.
Yaxley looked down at his watch, “Time’s nearly up. Potter’s had his hour. He’s not coming.”
“And he was sure he’d come! He won’t be happy.”
“Better go back,” Yaxley said, “Find out what the plan is now.”
He and Dolohov turned and walked deeper into the forest, and Harry followed them, knowing that they would lead him exactly where he wanted to go. He glanced sideways, and Lily smiled at him and James nodded in encouragement.
They had traveled on mere minutes when Harry saw light ahead, and Yaxley and Dolohov stepped out into a clearing that Harry knew had been the place where Aragog had once lived. The remnants of his vast web were there still, but the swarm of descendants had been driven out by the Death Eaters, to fight for their cause.
A fire burned in the middle of the clearing, and its flickering light fell over a crowd of completely silent, watchful Death Eaters. Some of them were still masked and hooded; others showed their faces. Two giants sat on the outskirts of the group, casting massive shadows over the scene, their faces rough-hewn like rock. Harry saw the great blonde Rowle was dabbing at his bleeding lip; MacNair was holding his silver hand up to the firelight, watching with glinting, greedy eyes as his fingers gleamed. Harry saw Lucius Malfoy, who looked beaten and terrified, and Narcissa, whose eyes were sunken and weary.
Voldemort stood with his head bowed, his white hands folded over the Elder Wand in front of him. He might have been praying, or else counting silently in his mind, and Harry, standing still on the edge of the scene, thought absurdly of playing Hide-and-Seek. Behind Voldemort’s head, still swirling and coiling, the great snake Nagini floated in her glittering, charmed cage like a monstrous halo.
When Dolohov and Yaxley rejoined the circle, Voldemort looked up.
“No sign of him, my Lord,” Dolohov said.
Voldemort’s expression did not change. The red eyes seemed to burn in the firelight. Slowly, he drew the Elder Wand between his long fingers.
“My Lord—”
Bellatrix had spoken; she stood closest to Voldemort, disheveled, her face a little bloody but otherwise unharmed.
Voldemort raised his hand to silence her and she did not speak another word but eyed him in worshipful fascination.
“I thought he would come,” Voldemort said in his high, cold and clear voice, his eyes on the leaping flames, “I expected him to come.”
No one spoke.
Harry’s heart was now throwing itself against his ribs as though determined to escape the body he was about to cast aside. His hands were sweating as he pulled off the Invisibility Cloak and stuffed it beneath his robes, with his wand. He did not want to be tempted to fight.
“I was, it seems…mistaken,” Voldemort said.
“You weren’t.”
Harry said it as loudly as he could, with all the force he could muster: he did not want to sound afraid. He did not want to be afraid.
The Resurrection Stone slipped from between his numb fingers and out of the corner of his eyes, Harry saw James and Lily vanish as he stepped forward into the firelight. At that moment he thought of Remus, and what he had told Harry when Harry had been torn between Hallows and Horcruxes.
“I offered myself in exchange, just as your mother did for you...I just spoke to the voices beyond the veil...to Death...with my heart and soul. I told them I loved him, I offered up myself, and in answer, Sirius was spared."
And so, Harry thought: I offer myself, in exchange for all of them; all whom I love. I love them. I love them so...
Let them live. Take me instead.
And then the giants roared and the Death Eaters rose up together, and there were many cries, gasps, and even laughter. Voldemort had frozen where he stood, but his red eyes had found Harry, and he stared as Harry moved toward him, with nothing but the fire between them.
Then a voice yelled, “HARRY! NO!”
Harry turned—Hagrid was bound and trussed, tied to a tree nearby. His massive body shook the branches overhead as he struggled desperately.
“NO! NO! HARRY, WHAT ARE YEH—?"
“QUIET!” MacNair shouted and with a flick of his wand, Hagrid was silenced.
Bellatrix was looking eagerly from Voldemort to Harry, her breast heaving. The only things that moved were the flames and the snake, coiling and uncoiling in the glittering cage behind Voldemort’s head.
Harry could feel his wand against his chest, but made no attempt to draw it. He knew that the snake was too well protected, knew that if he managed to point the wand at Nagini, fifty curses would hit him first. And still, Voldemort and Harry looked at one another. And Voldemort tilted his head a little to the side, considering the boy standing before him, and a singularly mirthless smile curled the lipless mouth.
“Harry Potter,” he said very softly, “The Boy Who Lived. Come to die.”
None of the Death Eaters moved. They were waiting. Everything was waiting. Hagrid was struggling, Bellatrix was panting, and Harry thought inexplicably of Ginny. Her blazing look, and the feel of her lips on his—and please: Let her live, let her live.
Voldemort raised his wand. His head was tilted still to one side, like a curious child, wondering what would happen if he proceeded. Harry looked back into the red eyes, and wanted it to happen now, quickly, while he could still stand, before he lost control, before he betrayed fear—
He saw the mouth move, heard the shout of, “Avada Kedavra!”
There was a flash of green light, and everything was gone.
So, fill to me the parting glass,
And drink a health whate’er befalls
Then gently rise and softly call
Good night and joy be to all