Full Circle

Chapter Thirteen

So when the smoke clears and the truth comes shining through
Those prophecies they made will crumble in two
Like a dark horse riding, graceful through the night
You're the language of reason, you're the language of life

And who will raise their voice as the cruel winds blow?
And who will call a truce? And who can break our fall?
Whisper words of reason to those without a song
And who will raise their voice and carry us along?

--Capercaillie, "Who Will Raise Their Voice?"

Hermione didn't know how much later it was that she woke up. She was disoriented at first, sitting up slowly. Her whole body ached in a vague sort of way and she was incredibly tired. It took her a moment to remember what had happened, but when she did, her stomach gave a painful lurch and she had to lie down.

It was only after she was horizontal and her stomach had settled a bit that she realised that she wasn't in a cell, as she would have expected, but in a somewhat normal room that was only extraordinary in the fact that it did not appear to have a window or a door of any sort. The walls, ceiling, and floor of the room were all smooth grey stone, unadorned by any picture or decoration save for a thick green rug covering the floor. There was a bed, which she currently occupied, one chair, and a small table, with a sink and toilet in the corner.

The next thing she noticed was that a shimmering silver band had been fastened snugly around her upper right arm. Her robe sleeve had been cut at the shoulder to accommodate it. The band was not uncomfortable, but when she prodded at it with the fingers of her other hand it glowed green and pushed her fingers away as if her fingers and the band were magnets of similar polarity, repelling each other with more than a little force. Whatever this band was, it wasn't coming off any time soon, and as it didn't appear to be causing her any harm, she decided not to worry about it for the moment, instead focussing on the more immediate matter at hand.

Voldemort.

Or rather, Tom Riddle, she corrected herself with a shudder. Somehow, against her will, she had been forced to heal him, to turn him back into a human again. He had taken a power that she had been assured could only be used for good - but was that what Raymond had really said? She rubbed her forehead, trying to ignore the cool weight of the silver band on her arm, and thought back to her time in Paris.

"Very good," said Raymond. He replaced the skulls on the shelf and turned back to her. "The skill of a White Lady is often seen as healing, but that is not technically so. A White Lady is one that can see deeply into the heart of a living thing and pull out the truth, the essence of it, as you have done just now. And by doing so, she can often restore a truth that has been damaged or obscured."

Pull out the truth? Her heart skipped a beat at the possibility that had begun to form in her mind. If what she had done was to restore Voldemort to his original state - as Tom Riddle - then he was in the body he had been born with, the body that had not been enhanced with layer upon layer of Dark Magic and immortality spells.

It would now be possible for Harry to kill him.

Surely Voldemort would realise this? Surely he could tell that he was no longer immortal? But the more Hermione thought about this, the more she suspected he had no idea. Since there had not been a White Lady in Britain during his lifetime, and even she hadn't known very much about her abilities until Raymond taught her, perhaps he didn't realise.

And that gave Harry a chance.

Although she hadn't seen him when Bellatrix's forced Apparition had deposited them in Voldemort's Great Hall, and there was no way of knowing where he or Ron were, she felt very strongly that they were both still alive. She would know if something had happened to them, she was sure of it. She just had to find a way out of this room and try to find them.

Sliding off the bed, she closed her eyes and prepared to Apparate - she felt the familiar tingle in each cell of her body, beginning to disappear - and then she fell backwards, landing on her arse with a heavy thump as if she'd been shoved there.

"Ow!" she yelped, rubbing her behind and grateful for the rug beneath her. The band on her arm glowed green, and she realised it must be some kind of Apparition inhibitor. Which would make sense, considering that the only way in or out of this room appeared to be by Apparition. That meant that the only way out for her would probably be to be forcibly Apparated out by someone without an inhibitor. Even knowing that, though, she couldn't help but get up and walk slowly along the perimeter of the room, running her hands along the seamless wall in the vain hope of finding some way out.

There was a sharp crack and Hermione turned quickly to see Draco Malfoy scowling at her. "Waste of time, Granger," he drawled, crossing his arms over his chest. "I would have thought you would have figured out by now that there's only one way in or out of this room."

"Shut up, Malfoy," she snapped, turning her back on him and resuming her inspection of the wall. "Do whatever it is you've been sent to do and get out."

"What makes you think I've been 'sent'?" he asked.

"Surely you wouldn't voluntarily subject yourself to my presence," said Hermione.

"That's true," Malfoy said. "I wouldn't be here if it wasn't specifically asked of me. But I've been sent to make sure you haven't damaged yourself in any way. I have to say I don't blame him - you've been quite useful."

Hermione ignored this, pretending to continue to examine the walls for any sign of a crack or chink in the stone, but in reality thinking of how she could use Malfoy's presence to her advantage. It didn't appear that there would be many people coming in and out of her room - maybe only Malfoy had that responsibility - and she had to get out of here somehow to find Harry and Ron. Her mind whirled, thinking back to every encounter she'd had with Malfoy, how he'd be likely to respond to anything she said to him, how he'd been the last time they'd really interacted -

The lake.

"Useful?" she asked, playing dumb to stall for time while she thought. If she could keep him talking for a bit... She didn't really listen to his reply, which was mainly self-congratulatory, but played back their last real encounter in her mind. The lake - when Harry had tried to drown Malfoy in revenge for what he'd done for Ron. She'd stopped Harry from killing him, and that meant he owed her.

"Malfoy," she said abruptly, turning from the wall to face him, "You owe me a life-debt, and I intend to collect what is owed to me."

"What?" he said, flushing slightly. "I don't owe you anything, Granger."

She stepped towards him, trying to keep the nervousness out of her voice. She had no idea if there was any formal language one was to use when redeeming a life-debt, and it had been discussed so little in her textbooks she didn't know just how binding it was. "I saved your life last year when Harry was trying to kill you, don't you remember? He would have killed you if I hadn't stopped him. And now you're obligated to repay me by helping me escape."

"I will not!" Malfoy said indignantly, but a curious expression was taking over his face; not quite the look of someone under the Imperius Curse, but the look of someone who is being compelled to do something they very much do not wish to do. "I can't take the band off; He's the only one that can do that."

"Fine," Hermione said. "Get me to where they're holding Harry."

"I don't know where He's got Potter," Malfoy replied angrily. He grasped her upper arm, hooking a finger under the silver band as he did so. "No one knows that but Himself and my Father."

"Do you know where Ron is?"

He couldn't stop himself from answering, she could tell. "Yes."

"Then take me there."

"I hate you for this, Granger," he said, and Apparated them out of the room.

*****

The journey to wherever this was had not been kind to Ron. The forced Apparition had disoriented him, and when they'd landed here he hadn't got his feet under him properly. His stumbling amused his captor, who shoved him to the floor - and Ron felt a sickening snap in his right knee as he fell. The Death Eater clapped a silver band around his arm and Apparated away, and that was the last he'd seen of anyone.

Ron didn't think there was any way out of the room, what with no windows or doors, but he couldn't be sure because when he'd tried to get up and have a look around, his knee refused to hold him up. His walking stick was long gone, of course - my brother gave me that, you arseholes, he thought irritably. There wasn't much else to do other than sit and wait for whatever might happen next.

He lay back, hands behind his head, and closed his eyes, trying to think about what he would do if he had the opportunity to get out. It hadn't taken long to figure out that the silver armband was an Apparition inhibitor and that it wasn't coming off, and there didn't appear to be another way out. As he was thinking that it would be really handy just then to have a magical eye like Moody so that he could see what was going on the other side of the wall, his thoughts suddenly took off on their own and an image appeared in his mind, an image that was so vivid that he felt he'd stepped into another reality entirely.

It was an image of massive piles of rock, and for a moment Ron thought he was remembering second year, when Gilderoy Lockhart had attempted to Obliviate him and Harry and ended up bringing half the cavern down on their heads. But it wasn't that, and as the image refocused he could see that it was what appeared to have been a room much like this one, and he felt a wave of a sick sort of recognition at seeing himself and Hermione digging through the rubble. It didn't take long to realise what they were looking for, either. They dug and shifted and moved rock and finally Hermione let out a small sort of scream, flinging herself on Harry, who was still half-covered in rock and not moving. His scar stood out in vivid blood-red contrast to the pale skin of his forehead, and he was so still that Ron was afraid to even look at him.

"No!" said Ron, sitting up suddenly, shattering the mental picture. His hands shook as he rubbed his face roughly, and though he'd never experienced anything like this before, he had read enough about Seer visions to know that what he'd just seen was a reflection of the future. The near future, he clarified, trying to sift through the details of the vision before he lost them, like what they'd been wearing.

Don't panic, he told himself. Seer visions aren't infallible, especially the first ones. But he couldn't shake the feeling of dread that had settled around him like a cloak, dark and heavy.

He was so agitated that when Hermione and Malfoy Apparated into his cell just then he instinctively reached for his wand a split second before he realised who it was and that he wasn't armed.

"What's he doing with you?" Ron yelped, looking up at them from the floor.

"Collecting a debt owed," said Hermione.

"What, from him?"

"Unfortunately, yes," said Malfoy shortly. He looked extremely agitated. And then it dawned on Ron - Malfoy was the Page of Wands he'd been looking for all this time. His card was always influenced by the Justice card, the card that stood for a life-debt, because Malfoy owed Hermione for stopping Harry from killing him; and it had almost always shown up in alignment with Voldemort but very occasionally with Harry, because Malfoy was involuntarily siding with them to fill the debt. And this was the result. It gave him a chill to realise he'd been right, but he felt incredibly dense for not seeing it sooner.

"He's going to get us out of here, whether he wants to or not," said Hermione. She frowned and then added, "Are you hurt? What's wrong?"

"My knee, I think," he said, but she'd already knelt beside him, pushed his trouser leg up, and was prodding at his knee with her fingers. He wanted to tell her what he'd just Seen, but he wasn't about to say anything in Malfoy's hearing. And irrationally, Ron thought that if he didn't speak of it, it would invalidate it somehow - make it less possible. His realisation about his card readings being true didn't give him much confidence in that, however.

"It's a sprain," she said. "And a bad one." He felt the warm tingle of her healing magic and then a sharper burn underneath; when she pulled away it was still sore but not painful and he got to his feet with little trouble. "Did that help?"

"Yeah," Ron said. "We've got to find Harry."

"Once we get out of here it shouldn't be too difficult," Hermione said. "These walls are like one-way mirrors; no one on the inside can see out, but those on the outside can see in. I expect Harry's in a similar one - "

"He is," said Ron urgently, cutting her off. "We have to get him out, somehow."

Hermione looked as though she wanted to ask how he knew that, but she didn't; instead she turned to Malfoy, who had watched them silently through this whole exchange and said, "If you help us get Harry out, the life-debt will be paid in full."

Malfoy looked uncomfortable, but he also looked as if he didn't really have a choice in the matter; Ron was surprised by the power the life-debt had, as he'd never seen one invoked before. "Fine." Malfoy grabbed each of them by the arm, just above the armbands, and Apparated them into the corridor.

"I told you, I don't know where Potter is; you'll have to look for him yourself," said Malfoy, releasing them quickly as though reluctant to touch them.

"Then let's look," said Ron.

"We came from two floors up, which was the top floor," said Hermione, "and Harry wasn't there, so we should work our way down." She took one end of the corridor and Ron the other, though Ron wasn't moving nearly as fast as he would have liked. Malfoy stood at the end of the corridor with his arms folded, watching; when they'd searched the entire corridor and hadn't found Harry, they moved to a lower floor. Malfoy followed them but didn't assist them. Ron wondered why the corridors were so empty, and he jumped at the slightest sound as if expecting them to be caught any moment.

He hoped they found Harry soon. The vision of Harry under a pile of crushed rock still hadn't faded from his mind, and he wanted to get Harry out of there before it could happen.

*****

Harry paced the floor of his windowless, doorless room in a state of slowly-growing panic. He had no idea where he was or where Ron and Hermione were or any real idea how long he'd been there - the lack of a window made figuring the passage of time difficult. Lucius Malfoy had brought him directly to this room, with the help of two other Death Eaters, fastened a silver bracelet onto his upper arm, and immediately Apparated away. No one had entered the room since then, and Harry was beginning to wonder what exactly Voldemort planned to do to him.

The prophecy clearly said that either Harry had to kill Voldemort, or Voldemort would kill Harry, and he had no illusions that Voldemort did not realise this. Harry's stomach rumbled and he wondered briefly if Voldemort intended to starve him to death. Not bloody likely, Harry thought. He'd not be able to show off to his followers that way. Whatever he was intending to do, it apparently involved some degree of preparations, and meanwhile Harry was being left here to cool his heels and wonder.

He wasn't sure what he was going to do. Every time he'd faced Voldemort in the past, something had happened to save him - it hadn't been anything on his own part that had saved his life. The first time, it had been his mother's protection that had kept Quirrell from touching him. The second time, it had been Fawkes bearing the Sword of Gryffindor. The third time, it had been his parents' echoes from a trick of wands that had allowed him to escape; the fourth time it had been his love for Sirius, and just last year it had been Hermione's reflexes and a convenient Portkey. But he had none of those things now; he was wandless, his mother's protection gone, drowned in a graveyard cauldron, Dumbledore was long dead, and he had no idea where Hermione and Ron were.

Whatever was about to happen, he had to be ready.

What he wasn't ready for was the sudden appearance of Ron, Hermione, and Malfoy in the middle of his room. He jumped back, staring. "What is he doing here?" he snapped, but Ron made a sharp gesture with his hand and Hermione spoke quickly.

"We've got to get you out of this room," she said, "but Malfoy can't Apparate more than two of us at a time. Malfoy, take Ron out and then come back for Harry and me."

To Harry's great surprise, Malfoy did what Hermione told him, grasping Ron by the arm and Apparating him out of the room. Before Harry could ask her what the hell was going on, Hermione grabbed his arm and spoke quickly.

"Harry - Voldemort's back to himself, do you understand? He's Tom Riddle now." Her voice faltered for a second, and then she took a deep breath and tried again. "He made me use my healing magic on him, I didn't have any choice. But now his immortality is gone, he's like he was before, and you can kill him." She looked as if she were about to say more, but Malfoy reappeared at that moment and she closed her mouth quickly.

Harry barely noticed Malfoy grabbing him and Hermione by the arms to Apparate them out - he was too focused on what Hermione had just said. You can kill him. He wasn't sure what Hermione was talking about, but it was Hermione, and he trusted her, and her words had filled him with a swelling of hope he hadn't felt in a long time.

It was such a strong feeling of hope that it didn't fade even when they Apparated out into the corridor to face a wall of hooded black.

There were Death Eaters everywhere. One had Ron, wand to his throat; the others had their wands out and trained on himself, Hermione, and Malfoy.

"This was very foolish of you, Draco." Snape stepped out from the group, looking at Malfoy with a nearly predatory expression.

Malfoy looked panicked, letting go of Harry and Hermione immediately. "I wasn't - " he began, but his words were cut off by the Death Eaters that surrounded them, holding them tightly.

"I wonder what He will have to say about this," Snape continued. "But I imagine he will take care of the more pressing matter at hand before dealing with you."

Snape looked at him then for a long moment, his expression giving nothing away. Harry searched Snape's face, trying to figure out what he might be trying to say, but there was nothing there.

Harry thought somewhere in the back of his mind that he really should be afraid, but he wasn't. It was as if he was outside himself somehow, looking at the scene from somewhere far removed from it all. And it was almost a relief when Voldemort appeared a moment later in the centre of the crowd. All Harry could think of was this is it, it will all be over soon. For good.

"Running away, Potter?" Voldemort asked softly, turning his wand over and over in his now-human fingers. Hermione had warned Harry of the change in Voldemort, but it was still startling to see - no longer the Voldemort he'd grown used to confronting, but the sharp-eyed young man he'd met in the pages of a diary.

"No," said Harry. He found it remarkably easy to keep his voice steady. "Actually, I was on my way to find you."

Voldemort laughed, looking around at his circle of followers. "Do you hear how the boy welcomes death? It is almost a shame that I must kill him." There was a scattering of nervous laughter around the group that died out quickly. Voldemort's voice dropped even further, nearly whispering. "But kill him I shall."

What happened next went so quickly that Harry couldn't believe it was happening even as it rushed by before his eyes. A jet of red light sailed just past Harry's ear, hitting his captor in the face and sending him reeling; he barely had time to realise that it hadn't come from Voldemort when he heard Snape shout, "Potter!" and a wand - his wand - came hurtling towards him. He caught it just as Voldemort aimed his own wand at him, and they shouted "Avada Kedavara!" nearly in unison, Harry pulling up the curse from somewhere deep inside him he wasn't sure really even existed until now, something he'd only done by accident before - then he threw himself to the ground in an attempt to dodge Voldemort's curse, and he felt the thick, nearly electric crackle of magic sail over his head and smash into the stone behind him as his wand arm tingled and throbbed and went numb.

A fierce, stabbing, splitting pain burst in his forehead, like a white-hot iron, and he screamed, clutching his scar and squeezing his eyes shut. It was worse than anything he'd ever felt before, more intense than a hundred Cruciatus Curses - he could barely breathe from the pain, and something warm and sticky was seeping between his fingers where they clutched his forehead.

Then as abruptly as it had happened, the pain disappeared, leaving a dull, throbbing soreness behind. He gingerly pulled his hands away from his face and realised that the stickiness was blood, but he didn't care where it came from as long as Voldemort was gone.

Harry looked up to see if he'd really managed to kill him, but there was only thick, oily black smoke where Voldemort had been, Death Eaters running in all directions, and Ron gesturing wildly and screaming something Harry couldn't make out for the ominous rumble from all around him. Harry twisted his body around to look up above him, and saw the massive fissure in the ceiling over his head just before it split like a huge, gaping black mouth that sent chunks of stone raining down on him.

*****

"NO!" yelled Ron, when the wall behind Harry split open with the force of Voldemort's Killing Curse. The scene he'd seen in his mind hours earlier was playing out right before his eyes; the wall split and rumbled, an enormous crack opening up the wall and travelling up into the ceiling above it, sending rocks and debris pouring down and swallowing Harry up in an instant. Some of the Death Eaters fled and some were caught in the avalanche of rock, but the others began firing curses at an astounding rate.

Hermione screamed from somewhere beside him, and she darted past him towards the pile of rock. Out of the corner of his eye Ron saw a Death Eater take aim at her, but there was no way she could hear Ron's warning over the noise and he launched himself at her, knocking her to the floor. The curse surged over them, glancing off Ron's shoulder as it went. He grunted and swore, grasping his shoulder and rolling off of Hermione - and putting himself nose to nose with a fallen Death Eater. He scrambled to find the dead man's wand, closing his fingers around the handle and firing a Stunning Spell back in their assailant's direction before he could retaliate.

"We have to get to him, Ron," Hermione said as they scrambled to their feet. Instinctively, Ron shoved her behind him and yelled, "Protego!" as another curse flew their way. He kept up the Shield Charm as they made their way over to the pile of rock, and once they reached it, Hermione began to dig. Ron continued to keep the remaining Death Eaters away from the rock pile; situated as it was, it was impossible for anyone to sneak up behind them over the debris.

"Oh, God, there's so much rock," Hermione moaned as she dug. "We'll never get to him in time."

"Just dig, Hermione," Ron said through gritted teeth and concentrating on maintaining the Shield Charm.

"Move," said Snape, who had just appeared at Ron's side in a swirl of black. His robes were torn and there was a spectacular bruise blooming over half his face. "Help Granger. Let us hope, for Potter's sake, that your rock-moving skills are better than your spellwork."

Ron had never been so relieved to be insulted in his life. He scrambled down to where Hermione was making slow progress at moving the heavy chunks of rock; her hands were scraped and bleeding, but she wouldn't stop. "Here," he said, thrusting the wand at her. "Use magic. I'll dig them out."

Hermione took the wand and began levitating rocks from the pile, and Ron dug and shifted and moved some more as Snape kept up a defence between them and the remaining Death Eaters. After a few minutes, they came across another Death Eater who had been caught in the rubble. Ron stole his wand without a second thought and began to levitate the rock along with Hermione, which made things go much faster.

The next body they uncovered was Harry's.

Harry looked exactly as he had in Ron's vision. Underneath the cuts and bruises, his skin was whiter than Ron thought it possible for a person's skin to be, and his scar - Ron swallowed down a wave of nausea when he saw that Harry's scar had split open, spilling bright red blood down his face and into his hair.

Hermione let out a small scream and fell to her knees beside Harry, tears trickling down her dirt-streaked face. "No, Harry," she whispered, running her scraped-up hands over every bit of him she could reach. "No, you've done it, you've won, you can't leave...."

"Can you help him?" Ron asked, kneeling beside her. He put a hand on Hermione's back to steady her, but he couldn't bring himself to touch Harry. He didn't want to bump or shake him or anything else that would hurt Harry more than he already was.

"I don't know, I'm trying," she sobbed. Her hands left blood-smeared prints on Harry wherever she touched him. Ron watched helplessly as she pressed her fingertips to his throat, under his jaw, feeling for a pulse. "There's not - I can't find a pulse!"

"He's got to have a pulse, he's not dead!" Ron snapped, slipping his fingers under Hermione's at Harry's jaw. But there wasn't anything to feel. "Do something, Hermione!"

"I can't!" she cried. "There's nothing - he's gone, Ron, we're too late - " She crumpled onto Harry then, burying her face in his torn shirt and sobbing.

It didn't seem possible to Ron that Harry could be dead. He reached out and took Harry's hand. It was still warm, and he tried to will Harry to just squeeze back, give some kind of sign that he was still alive, damn it! He'd killed Voldemort, how could he die from a stupid rock fall? It wasn't fair for Harry to have come this far only to die. Ron felt like something heavy was tightening around his chest, squeezing every last bit of feeling out of him, when he realised that Harry wasn't going to respond.

*****

If this was what being dead was like, it wasn't half bad, really, Harry thought, except for the feeling of being so very sleepy. It didn't hurt at all, even though he expected it to, and there was something warm all around him, a strong, comforting feeling almost like a hug. Harry was so tired, and he shifted himself around a little until he felt something warm and solid against his face, and then the low rumble of a voice against his cheek.

"Hello, Harry," said Sirius.

Sirius! Harry forced his eyes open - it was quite difficult, being so tired and warm and comfortable - and saw that he was sitting on Sirius's lap, with his head against Sirius's chest, like a little kid. He sat up a little, not really wanting to disentangle himself from Sirius, but yet wanting to have a good look around, though there wasn't much to see. No surroundings of any sort, only his godfather, who looked the happiest Harry could ever remember seeing him and yet a little sad at the same time.

"Sirius," Harry croaked, and threw his arms around Sirius's neck. It had been so long since he'd seen him, and he didn't want to let go. He closed his eyes, and he felt Sirius ruffle his hair. He'd missed that. Sirius was the only person to do that, ever, and no one else had done it since.

"Hey, wake up, kid," Sirius said gently, prodding Harry to sit up. But Harry was very sleepy, and Sirius had to shake him a little to get him to open his eyes and sit up again.

"I'm tired," said Harry, not caring that he sounded very small.

"I know," said Sirius, grasping him by the shoulders and helping him to sit up. "You did something very brave just now, and I'm proud of you."

Harry rubbed his eyes then, blinking. "I did it? He's really gone?" Sirius nodded, and Harry felt as if a thick, heavy cloak had been lifted off his shoulders. "It's over?"

"Yeah, Harry," said Sirius. "It's over."

Harry wanted to do a million things at once. He wanted to jump up and down and yell at the top of his lungs, run around in circles, cry, jump on a broom and fly up as high as he could until the air got too thin to breathe, laugh, explode into a billion blissful bits, and lie down and go to sleep for a very long time. But he didn't do any of these things; instead, he sat very still and let an enormous grin spread across his face. "Oh," he said, feeling inexplicably foolish but not caring.

"I never doubted you," said Sirius. "Not for a moment." He paused, then continued carefully, "Neither did they." He gestured behind him, turning slightly, to two tall figures that were now visible several yards away. It was difficult to see them at first, as they were surrounded with a sort of white, shimmery light, but when it shifted and they came into focus Harry recognised them at once.

His mother gave a small wave, and Harry felt a lump rise up in his throat.

"Mum?"

She nodded, smiling, and looked as if she wanted to run to him, but Harry's father took her hand, holding her back.

"Can I see them?" Harry asked Sirius.

"That depends on whether or not you want to stay," said Sirius, and his expression grew more solemn.

"Stay? Where is this?" Harry couldn't take his eyes off his parents; he felt a kind of hunger inside him that he didn't think would be satisfied unless he could go to them.

"This is After," Sirius said softly. "It has a lot of names - Muggles call it Heaven, Dumbledore calls it the 'next great adventure'. But it's where we all end up, eventually."

"I'm dead?" It made no sense to Harry that he could say this; if he really was dead, why was he talking? He felt sleepy still, and befuddled, and he didn't want to think about it all that much. What he really wanted to do at that moment, more than anything else in the world, was go to his mother and father. But Sirius's grip on his shoulders was strong and he couldn't move.

Sirius shook his head. "Not exactly. You are... but you aren't, as well. That's why your parents didn't come this far. They'd love to see you, but they aren't the only ones." He stood then, and their surroundings shifted from a soft, gauzy white to what looked like a sun-dappled, wooded path. There were trees all around, with golden leaves that rustled softly in the breeze, and Harry could see down the path to where it split in two just in front of them. At the end of the first path, he could still see his mother, with his father's arm around her shoulders, holding her close. They wore the same happy-yet-sad expression as Sirius, and Harry still felt the same painful lump in his throat as when he'd first seen them, the same hunger to just go and be with them.

He took a step towards them, thinking that if he could just go to them, he could rest and it would all be over, he wouldn't have to do anything else ever again.

Another step, and the fork in the path was just in front of him. His parents' faces were more clear now, and Harry thought his heart might burst with looking at them. It was just as he'd felt when he'd seen them in the mirror all those years ago, pressing his nose to the dusty glass and wishing he could step right inside it, wanting it so much it hurt.

"If you go down that path, Harry, you won't be able to go back."

I won't be able to go back... he would never see Ron and Hermione again, and their faces burst clearly into his mind as he fought down the lump in his throat.

He forced himself to turn and look down the other path, though he couldn't see to the end of it even when he stood on tiptoes and craned his neck, for it seemed to rise sharply uphill before bending and turning out of sight into the trees. "Where does it go?" he asked.

"It goes back," said Sirius. "You can't travel both. You'll have to choose."

Harry was sorely torn. It would be so easy to continue down the path to his parents, to let it all go and end it for good; he had served his mission in life, after all, hadn't he? The prophecy he'd been born to fulfil had been completed. Was there a purpose to his life anymore, now that Voldemort was gone?

Did he really have a reason to go back?

He closed his eyes and thought about what it had been like, the night on the hill, when he'd laid in the grass between Ron and Hermione, in the little bubble of warm air that Hermione had conjured for them, and how they had not asked anything of him except to be. How it had seemed in that one perfect moment that something more might be possible, if they would just let each other. As badly as he wanted the rest of it to be over, and as much as he longed to have his parents, he could not let go of that moment. It was as if that memory was a silvery strand in a Pensieve, surrounding the rest of his thoughts with a shimmering thread of hope.

They had never seen him as a weapon, as some others had - they had only seen him as Harry. And now he had a chance to be just Harry, without anything hanging over him or weighing him down. It gave him a quiet little thrill inside.

"You'll be back here, eventually," Sirius said gently from just behind him, putting his hand on Harry's shoulder. "Why don't you wait until you don't have to come alone?"

Harry could not bear to look down the first path at his parents again, nor could he bear to turn around and look at Sirius or even reply to him. He reached up, covering Sirius's hand with his for a moment and squeezing tight before letting go and stepping resolutely onto the second path.

*****

Hermione hadn't felt like this when Ron had fallen from his broom last year. She knew how badly he'd been hurt, but she had still been able to feel that glimmer of life inside him that had given her the hope to keep going. But when she touched Harry, she couldn't feel anything. There was no pulse, no breath - no tiny bit of what she imagined as soul. He felt no more alive to her than the rocks around him.

She felt something inside of her shrivel, and she let her head fall onto Harry's chest as if someone had punched her in the stomach and left her winded. All she could do was clench her hands in Harry's shirt and cry. This wasn't part of the plan - Harry was supposed to defeat Voldemort and they were all going to live happily ever after, wasn't that the way these things went?

Harry was supposed to live happily ever after. He wasn't supposed to die. And after seeing her parents cut down before her eyes, she didn't know how she would stand it if Harry was taken from her, too.

Ron made a small, broken noise from somewhere behind her, and she thought for a moment that she ought to turn to him, let him comfort her and try to give him some comfort in return, but she couldn't bring herself to let go of Harry. She pressed her face into Harry's shirt, trying unsuccessfully to hold back the choking sobs welling up in her chest.

And then she felt Harry's chest rise and fall just the tiniest bit, as if he'd taken a breath.

Hermione sat up suddenly, her breath hitching in her throat, and slipped her hand into Harry's shirt, resting her hand in the centre of his chest. There it was again - a light, shallow breath, so soft she nearly missed it. But she could feel a tiny pinpoint of life there, and she clung to it. "Harry?"

"Hermione?" Ron said. He moved closer and leaned in, watching intently. "What is it?"

Her answer fell out of her mouth in a half-sob of relief. "He's not gone," she said. "Oh my God, Ron, he's here, he's still with us." Hermione focused every bit of her skill on Harry then, like someone trying to coax a tiny spark into a fire, though she was so exhausted she wasn't sure just how much she could do for him. She heard Ron beside her, encouraging Harry to pull through, to come back to them. That tiny pinpoint of life grew and glowed until she felt Harry take a deep, shuddering breath - and it was almost like his soul poured back into his body all at once, causing Hermione to yank her hands away in surprise.

Harry coughed weakly, opening his eyes. "Oh," he said, wincing.

Hermione bounced a little on her knees then, grabbing Ron's hand and squeezing tightly, and laughing out of sheer giddy joy. "Harry," she said, pushing his blood-matted fringe back off his forehead with her free hand, away from his split-open scar. "You did it, you beat him, it's over."

"I know," he rasped, "Sirius told me."

"Sirius?" asked Ron.

"I'll tell you later." Harry smiled a little and tried to sit up, but he obviously hurt too much; he lay back again and closed his eyes.

"No, don't move yet," said Hermione. "I think your scar burst open when Voldemort died - you've lost a lot of blood, and there's no telling what the rocks did to you. Be still." She checked him over quickly and found that other than the scar, a concussion, massive amounts of bruising, and a smashed shoulder, he was surprisingly unhurt. What she had done to Voldemort had taken a lot out of her so she couldn't do more than patch up his shoulder without feeling like she would black out, but it would be enough until they could get him out of there.

Harry opened his eyes again, looking very tired. "Thanks. Both of you."

"'Course, Harry," said Ron, swiping at his eyes. "What'd you think we were for, huh?"

Harry looked past them, and Hermione turned and looked up to see Snape glowering down at them. "The area has been secured and the Order notified," he said gruffly. "Since Potter refuses to die, I suggest we get him out of here and to a medical facility as soon as they arrive."

"Thanks to you too, Snape," Harry said.

Snape made an indescribable noise. "Do not mention it." He gave Harry a look that on any other person could almost be described as something resembling relieved, then stalked off.

"If you can't get a good word out of him for killing Voldemort, I reckon you never will," said Ron with a snort.

The corner of Harry's mouth turned up. "It's okay." He took Hermione's hand, squeezing tightly, and Ron reached over to clasp his other hand. "I just want to go home."

Hermione had never agreed with Harry more than she did at that moment.