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Don't Give Up On Me | ||||||
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Category: Alternate Universe Characters:All Genres: Action/Adventure, Drama, Romance Warnings: Death, Mild Language, Mild Sexual Situations, Violence Rating: PG-13 Reviews: 173 Summary: Harry Potter has a destiny to defeat Voldemort and save the Wizarding World, but it’s hard to do when he’s the only one who knows that the Dark Lord has returned. Hitcount: Story Total: 50410; Chapter Total: 1179 Awards: View Trophy Room |
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It was the ticking and whirling that woke Harry. He blinked and wiped at his eyes, wondering when the hospital wing had changed into...the Headmaster’s office? Harry found himself sitting in the chair across the large desk from Albus Dumbledore. He was smiling at Harry and looked...younger and healthy! “Professor!” Harry sat more upright in the chair and fought the urge to launch himself at Dumbledore in gratitude. “Hello Harry. I wondered when you might wake.” “Am I awake?” Harry asked. He looked down and saw that he was wearing the scratchy, starched pajamas from the hospital wing. “I don’t remember going to sleep. Or maybe I died,” he said. Little bits and pieces of the past came to him, floating as if upon feathers, gently landing upon his mind. But Dumbledore smiled even wider, his cornflower eyes twinkling at the corners. “To die, to sleep — to sleep, perchance to dream — ay, there's the rub, for in this sleep of death what dreams may come.” “Sir?” “William Shakespeare, my boy,” said the Headmaster. “You will find that wizards do not hold the only magic in the universe. For words themselves can weave as powerful a spell on the human mind as a wand can.” Harry nodded, unsure exactly what Dumbledore meant. “But...I did die,” he said. He remembered that now, remembered falling to the forest floor, feeling the green light of Voldemort’s spell envelope him. “Yes, you did,” Dumbledore said. “But I came back. I thought...I thought I would see you,” Harry said, “when I used the stone. I wanted to ask you...to confirm what Professor Snape told me.” “I feared that by coming to you I might dissuade you from making a choice. Because it had to be a choice, you understand, Harry?” Slowly, Harry nodded. He sat back in the chair and tried to count the times he’d been in this very spot, conversing with his beloved Headmaster. But his mind was still foggy. Could it be a remnant of the spell that Voldemort had cast, or was it something else, an effect of dying, or even whatever potions Molly Weasley poured down his throat? “When did you know about the memory charm?” Harry asked. “It was placed before your fifth year, I believe,” said Dumbledore. “Riddle was determined to conquer the wizarding world this time and, I have to admit, he was almost successful.” Long fingers steepled as he rested his elbows on his desk. The gesture was familiar, and Harry smiled at the warmth it brought him. “I suspected there was some spell work at play, but he was very clever. Very clever, indeed.” “How did you know?” Harry asked. “Did it not affect you? In the memories, it seemed like you knew.” “Oh, the charm worked just as well on me as anyone else, I assure you. But I have more experience with memory charms that some. I was able to notice…inconsistencies with my thoughts, ideas that did not seem to fit quite right. It was only after using the Pensieve to examine those memories that I was able to understand what was happening. That is why it took so long to break through with your own thoughts, Harry. The key was in questioning deeply, examining them and seeing the situation for what it was.” Harry thought back to when Fawkes had appeared in the kitchen at Grimmauld Place. He and Ginny had been struggling for so long trying to figure out what was wrong with them. “We had to break a barrier, of sorts,” Harry murmured. “Exactly.” They were quiet for a long minute as Harry thought about the damage the charm had done to so many people. Dumbledore sat back in his chair and looked out the window, the corners of his mouth lifting upwards in a fond smile. “And the horcrux inside me?” Harry asked. “Is it gone?” Dumbledore’s eyebrow lifted and he turned, taking Harry in. “Can’t you tell?” Harry nodded immediately, knowing it had been a silly question. There was a difference inside him that Harry felt clear and distinct. He was different now. There was no longer a darkness inside him, clawing to get out. They sat in silence for a long minute, the ticking of Dumbledore’s instruments marking time. “You have no further questions for me, Harry?” “I do.” Dumbledore tilted his head, waiting for Harry to ask. But the only thing he could imagine asking was too horrible, too painful to imagine. “You want to know why I died,” said Dumbledore, “or, more appropriately, how I did so.” Harry jerked his head up and down. “I thought maybe...Snape…” Dumbledore smiled. “Professor Snape was many things, Harry, but not my murderer.” He stopped speaking and a strange look came onto his face. “I died as a result of my own choices, Harry, much like you told Tom Riddle. It is our choices that reveal our true character. I’m afraid, Harry, that my choices revealed how weak I am when it comes to certain temptations. I could not resist placing the ring on my finger when I found it. I knew that it was a horcrux, and that it was cursed, but my own desire to see my family…” His words ran out. “I understand, Professor.” The memory of seeing his parents and Remus in the forest was fresh and poignant. “I knew you would, Harry.” “You...you trusted that I could figure it all out,” said Harry. “Why?” Dumbledore leaned forward, his lips twisting into a full smile. “Why would I not trust you, Harry?” More warmth spread through Harry reaching down to his toes. “I didn’t remember much of anything,” he admitted. “The memory charm worked well. Even Ginny knew more at first than I did, she just didn’t realize.” “Yes, Miss Weasley has an extreme capacity for feeling, doesn’t she?” “I’m in love with her,” Harry blurted out. Dumbledore laughed. “That is good, Harry. Very good.” “Do you think...do you think that I can be happy now?” Harry asked. “That Ginny can be happy now?” “Were you happy before, Harry?” Dumbledore asked. “Sometimes,” Harry said with a shrug of his shoulder. He stood, feeling the pull of something at his chest. His hand pressed there, holding the fabric of his pajamas in place until the ache went away and then he moved on bare feet toward a silver light that played in the cracks of a cabinet on the far wall. He knew what he would find inside and without asking permission, Harry nudged the doors open until he was looking at a Pensieve full of gossamer memories floating and giving off a brilliant light. “Happiness can be found in the darkest of times,” said Dumbledore from beside him, “if one only remembers--” “To turn on the light,” Harry finished. He looked up at Dumbledore’s face, lit with the shine of hundreds of glowing memories and thoughts. “You will be happy, Harry. You and Miss Weasley both, because you have found the light inside yourselves.” Harry thought about everyone who had been willing to stand up against evil for him, and the hundreds more that would have been willing, had they been given the chance. He thought of Mr. Weasley clapping him on the shoulder, George and Charlie teasing him, Bill smiling through pain and praising Harry’s curse breaking, Fleur calling him brother, Ron holding him upright, Hermione’s well-meant mothering, and Ginny’s smoldering look. “I need to go back,” Harry said. “To wake,” Dumbledore corrected. “You’re only asleep, Harry, but that doesn’t make this any less real, I promise you.” “I need to wake up,” Harry said. He reached out to clasp Dumbledore’s hand one last time, but the fingers slid through Harry’s, disappearing into nothingness as the Headmaster’s office faded before his eyes. Xxxxx The ticking and whirling were gone, but there were distant noises when Harry opened his eyes. He recognized the smell of the Hogwarts hospital wing immediately, but there was a soft fragrance that was far more enticing not far away. Ginny was curled up in the chair next to him, leaning forward on the bed, her head pillowed on her arms as she dozed. The room was dark, lit only from the moonlight peeking in through the tall windows and playing along the buttresses and columns. Harry was taken back more than three years to when he’d been here in this hospital wing and Ginny’d been the one in the bed, her pink toes with blue nail polish sticking out from under the blanket. Careful not to wake her, he lifted his hand and brushed his fingers along her temple, moving stray bits of hair away from her pale skin. So much had changed in those years. Had he loved her then? He wasn’t sure because somewhere between then and now his memories had gotten so jumbled up with what he felt for her that it was hard to push them aside and analyze. And, really, did it matter? Ginny took in a deep breath and her eyes fluttered open, going wide when she saw he was awake. Wincing, she moved her arms toward him, careful to avoid his chest. “You’re awake.” “I love you,” he said. Ginny chuckled. “I love you, too, crazy man.” Their eyes locked and Harry leaned forward as much as he could, ghosting his lips along her nose and over her eyes. “You’re here,” he whispered. “And you’re safe.” Ginny’s fingers tugged at his pajamas, holding him to the bed as she nudged him over and lay with him. She twined their hands together. “I’ve cried so much today.” Harry held his lips to her temple and hummed. “It was horrible watching you walk away and knowing...knowing that I had to let you go.” She hiccupped through a sob and pulled even tighter into him. “Ginny--” “You died, Harry.” “Yes.” “You died so that we…” “Yes.” Her free hand tucked into the space between buttons on his shirt and brushed against his chest, where it was tender. “You have a new scar.” “I thought I might,” Harry said. He hadn’t thought much about it, but it made sense. “Dumbledore once told me that scars can be useful. Did you know he had one the shape of the London underground above his knee?” Ginny snorted and shook her head. “No, I didn’t know that.” They lapsed into silence and Harry twisted a lock of Ginny’s hair around and around his finger. There were people all around them, but the wing was silent and still. Harry guessed that it was the middle of the night. Absently, he noted that Mrs. Weasley and Madam Pomfrey were not up and bustling around, shoving potions down throats and wrapping bandages. “You should be asleep,” Harry murmured. He settled more into the mattress, feeling the lumps and springs poke his backside. “I didn’t want you to be alone.” Harry smiled and closed his eyes, remembering a similar exchange not so long ago. “We’re going to be happy now, Ginny,” he promised. “It’ll take time, and some work, but--” Ginny lifted her head and kissed his chin. It was such a simple gesture, yet so intimate that it made Harry shiver with pleasure. “We already are,” she said. “There’s still loads to do,” Harry said. “And we’ve lost so many people. Remus...Fred...even damned Snape.” “That doesn’t mean we can’t be happy.” Harry told her about his dream of Dumbledore, and they lay in the darkness. There was an aching sadness, but Harry understood that there always would be in life. And maybe that was part of the sweetness of it all; he could appreciate the good because they’d lived through the bad. “Go to sleep, Harry,” Ginny murmured to him. “I’ll stay here and watch over you.” Harry let his eyes close and rolled onto his side, pulling her even further into his embrace. Her fingers rested over his heart, exactly in the place where his new scar stretched. But Harry could live with the scars, as long as he got to keep the memories. |
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