The Beginning of The End

Chapter Twelve

Training Day

The sun was shining on December 20th, casting shadows through the bare trees and onto the snow covered grounds of Hogwarts. It was a picture from a book--the vast grounds covered in a thick blanket of white sparkling snow. Harry stared at it through the small window in his dormitory. The hour was four am and for once, Harry had a reason for being awake. And for once, he knew that if he crawled under his blankets, he would fall asleep. But he couldn't. So he dressed warmly, as Dumbledore had advised, in casual clothing.

For reasons unbeknownst to him, Harry's mind kept falling on his first year of school. Last night before falling asleep, Harry had replayed in his mind every single moment of his first day at Hogwarts. Arriving with Hagrid in the boats, looking up at the castle, standing in complete panic while waiting to be sorted with Ron. He remembered coming up to the dormitory that tired, content night and climbing into his four poster for the first time. He remembered that he had felt complete for the first time in his young life.

But now, Harry wondered what it would have been like had he not received his letter. If, by some chance, Aunt Petunia and Uncle Vernon had been able to keep him from Hogwarts. He wouldn't have to face any of this. It was stupid, really, to think about because he knew his life would be empty and alone if he had never received his letter. And his gratitude towards Hagrid for rescuing him from that life was as strong as it had been the day he'd walked beside him in Diagon Alley for the first time.

But Harry couldn't help thinking about it... he couldn't help counting the number of lives that would probably have been saved if he'd never been known to the wizarding world as he was now. If he had simply remained the baby who had stopped Voldemort and who had never been heard from.

From across the room, Ron grunted a loud snore. Harry felt a sharp stab of relief that Hagrid had found him and brought him here.

However, when Harry left the dorms, he became totally numb to all the jumbled emotions he'd been feeling.

"Are you ready, Harry?" Dumbledore asked him when he reached the entrance hall.

Harry wanted to laugh. He truly thought that to be a hilarious question, but he would never disrespect his headmaster. He nodded quietly and realized something. "Where's-- Professor Snape?"

"He'll be there when we arrive," Dumbledore said simply.

They walked in silence, Sirius's hand on Harry's shoulder, following Dumbledore outside in the freezing cold. The birds were starting to chirp but it was still pitch black. Harry never did find out where they were going, but he didn't care to ask. He didn't care to even know. However, as they continued down the path, Harry realized with a jolt, that they were heading into Hogsmeade. At the gates which lead to the main road, Dumbledore turned to Harry.

"The place where we are going to be, Harry, can only be reached by Portkey. The Portkey has been set inside one of the Ministry Defense Shelters that they've set up in Hogsmeade. The sight in Hogsmeade, Harry, is... unpleasant to say the least. The photos in the Daily Prophet didn't even touch on the destruction, however, much of it has been cleaned up. I just wanted to warn you, Harry. It doesn't look the way it did last time you visited here."

Harry nodded and swallowed hard. He didn't want to see it. He'd give anything not to see it.

"Also, Harry," Sirius added. "The Defense Shelter has extreme intense security. Just stay silent until we get where we're going."

Harry nodded, feeling slightly nauseous.

He followed Dumbledore numbly through the iron gates and into Hogsmeade. It wasn't anything he expected. It didn't look so much a war zone or battlefield as much as it looked like a place that had been deserted for hundreds of years. Some of the stores stood perfectly fine and unharmed--but the doors were closed and the window shades were pulled down. There were no peddlers on the street selling magical souvenirs, no outdoor stands with food and drinks... no people at all. Some buildings were destroyed and those were terrible to look at. Many of them were just piles of bricks and rubble, but some of them were littered with things that had belonged inside the shops. Papers blew in the breeze over one of the destroyed structures and Harry knew they must be from books that had once been sold in the book shop. There was no dust or soot anywhere--it must have been wiped out magically, but the cleanliness of the street added to the irony of the massive ruins that stood everywhere leaving an unsettling atmosphere to the a place that had once been so welcome.

They walked down the pathway, passing all of Harry's favorite places. He turned his head away from a very desolate pole from which hung a colorful metal sign, squeaking as it swung back and forth in the wind. He couldn't bare to read that sign, the one he had seen so many times when opening the door below it with thoughts of butterbeer and pretty Madam Rosmerta. The door was gone and so was the establishment that it had lead to.

They didn't walk for a very long time before coming across a small structure that seemed brand new. It was a tiny place that looked to Harry a public restroom. When they reached it, Sirius held out his wand, tapped several bricks and muttered an incantation. Through the bricks, a hole broke and opened and Harry and Dumbledore followed Sirius inside.

Harry stared in shock. The place was enormous--bigger even than the Great Hall, with huge portraits lining the stone walls and rows and rows of desks behind which sat a variety of witches, wizards and goblins. A huge line of Security Trolls manned the entrance, and right in front of them sat a desk with a sharp eyed goblin who stared right at them.

"Password?" he snapped at them. Three wizards appeared from thin air and pointed wands at Harry, Dumbledore and Sirius. Without warning, the room disappeared and the three of them were enclosed in a tiny room made entirely of gray stone with no doors. A huge iron padlock hung in midair and began ticking. Harry gasped as the walls began to close in on them.

But Sirius lifted his own wand at the lock and muttered a very long, complicated incantation--the password. The lock clicked open loudly and vanished, along with the four walls that had been slowly closing in on them. Once again, they were standing in the huge room, now further inside and behind the wall of trolls.

Harry wanted to ask what the hell had just happened, but his heart was in his throat and he remembered Sirius's words to stay silent. Harry followed them further into the vast room and stopped when they did at a massive painting depicting a deep red haze that swirled around and around, turning several different shades of scarlet. Dumbledore touched his wand to the very center of the vortex and the mist faded at once into a very distinguished looking gentleman who regarded them with an air of importance. "Password?" he asked.

Dumbledore whispered something in Latin and the portrait, much like the Fat Lady's, swung open at the password. They stepped inside and Harry found himself facing a long, deep corridor. They walked for what seemed like hours, but when Harry checked his watch, only forty minutes had passed since he'd met Sirius and Dumbledore in the entrance hall back at Hogwarts. Harry had the uneasy feeling that the passageway was shorter in site than it was in space.

At last they reached a very heavy stone door and Sirius pushed it open with his wand. The room was small and completely square and on the stone floor stood a very common-looking iron goblet. The portkey.

"Is that right?" Sirius asked Dumbledore sharply and the headmaster nodded.

"That seems to be in order. A few tests will tell us for certain."

Dumbledore pointed his wand at the portkey and performed a few spells that Harry recognized from the special Dark Arts lesson as Jinx Detectors. Then Dumbledore performed another spell which allowed them to view where the portkey would take them. Harry saw the picture of it hanging in thin air--a large, empty, dusty room that looked like it belonged inside Hogwarts, some kind of hidden room or something.

Dumbledore picked it up carefully and both Harry and Sirius reached out a hand. Harry felt the familiar jerk and in seconds his feet hit the ground. He put out a foot to steady himself and looked around the room. There were no windows and no doors and several people occupied the large space. One was Lupin and he walked over to them the minute he saw them. Another was Snape, standing apart from four other surely looking wizards. But no dementer.

Dumbledore made introductions at once and Harry discovered that the four wizards were Ministry Aurors who would be supervising every session.

"Where are they?" Sirius asked, and Harry noted that Sirius' eyes had changed. They were now flat and expressionless.

"We've got them locked under several barriers, including an invisibility charm," said one of the aurors, an older one with a very thin mustache.

"One of the barriers is heavy enough so that we can't feel the effects of it," another auror explained, noting Harry's confusion. He was younger, looked to be around Bill or Charlie's age, but had an air of knowledge to him that reminded Harry of Percy a little.

"There are more than one?" Harry answered.

Dumbledore spoke up before any of the aurors could. "Yes. The spell will destroy them eventually."

Harry stared up at him. "K-kill them?"

Dumbledore nodded and locked eyes with Harry. "Yes."

Harry almost shuddered. He knew dementors were terrible, inhumane creatures that fed off of happiness... but Harry had never killed anything in his life. He closed his eyes tried to put the thought from his mind. He wondered vaguely what was going on at Hogwarts right now. Then he remembered that it was seven in the morning on Christmas holiday--most people were probably sleeping in.

"Are we ready Dumbledore?" another auror asked.

Dumbledore looked at Harry. "Are we ready?"

Feeling Sirius's hand on his shoulder, Harry let out a long breath and nodded.

~*~

"WAKE UP! WAKE UP!"

Ginny's eyes flew open at the voice and a loud pounding noise.

Every bad thing that could have happened raced through Ginny's mind and she started to scramble up in fear when the voice shouted again. "SNOWBALL FIGHT! Gryffindor verses Hufflepuff! The Hufflepuffs just issued the challenge! Come ON!"

Apparently someone had been knocking on their dormitory door. The sixth years girls began shrieking and scrambling out of bed while Ginny sat where she was simply stunned with relief.

"Ginny are you awake?" one of her friends asked her.

"Of course I'm awake, how could I not be?" she said grumpily.

"Well, come on, didn't you hear?"

Ginny plopped back down on her bed and pulled the covers up over her head.

"I'm too tired. What time is it anyway?"

"It's about nine. Come on, lets go we're already dressed!"

"I'm too tired." Ginny couldn't believe she had slept this late today of all days. "I'm just going to stay here." And worry about Harry.

After everyone had left, Ginny stayed where she was with her bed curtains closed and the covers high up over her head. How could they have a snowball fight? Harry was off who knew where, fighting who knew what and the school wanted to go outside and play? What was the matter with everyone?

Ginny yanked her covers off and slammed around her bedroom gathering her clothes. She wasn't going to sit around and mope about something she had no control over, but she certainly wouldn't be outside having a snowball fight. She would wait until everyone could go outside and enjoy the break and not have to worry about fighting dementors and... whatever.

Not that Ginny knew anything, really. She was simply going off what she had overheard Ron saying last weak. "Here's a bloody dementor to fight." Ginny had spent hours agonizing over what that meant, but had come to the conclusion that she wouldn't figure it out. She'd debated flat out asking Hermione or Ron, but had decided against it. She knew they wouldn't tell her. They probably weren't even supposed to know. She decided to save her pride and keep her thoughts to herself. She knew that would only continue for a certain amount of time before her head exploded, but she was willing to take the chance. Perhaps her head could finally explode after she got out of Hogwarts--strike that, no, it couldn't. Harry would probably be staying at the Burrow this summer. In fact until it was safe for him to live with his godfather, he would be living at the Burrow indefinitely.

I'll never get away from him, Ginny thought as she toweled her hair dry from her shower and pulled on some jeans. That was fact and she would just have to learn to keep her stupid emotions and questions to herself. She could do it. She wasn't a Gryffindor for nothing.

Although Ginny often wondered why it was she'd been chosen for Gryffindor House. She wasn't brave--in her mind she was a coward who was too scared to tell a boy that she loved him. The Christmas Ball came back to her and she shook her head irritably and padded back to her dormitory. Sure, yell at him when he was being an idiot, but she would never, ever have the guts to make him do something about it. Or force him to admit his own feelings. That had to come from Harry himself. If he even felt anything for her at all... perhaps even that was all her imagination.

Ginny would not think about the way he looked at her the night of the ball. She would put it out of her head because Harry had more important things to be concerned with. He was going through hell right now--Ginny could see it and she would not expect anything from him.

And she wasn't going to think about it anymore, Ginny resolved while she yanked a comb through her wet hair and grabbed her sketchbook. She would sit in her window and draw. Her mind could shut down while she drew--it was one of the things she liked best about her hobby.

So Ginny walked down the stairs into the common room, which was empty due to the snowball fight. She had just started to wonder where her brother and Hermione were when Ginny froze at the site in the corner of the room.

It was Harry. He was sitting on the sofa, his face white as a ghost... and he was staring right at her. As Ginny's eyes took a better view of him, she saw that his hands were shaking violently and his eyes looked sunken in as if he hadn't slept in days. She dropped her book on a chair and hurried over to him.

"Harry?" she whispered, wide-eyed. "Are you okay?"

Harry nodded quickly. "I'm fine," he said, but the words were choked. "I'm fine, it's okay."

He was far from fine. Ginny stared at him for a long time before she slowly sank down next to him on the sofa.

"I told you, I'm fine. Why aren't you out..." but even speaking was an effort for him. "...outside...?"

Ginny continued to watch him, her heart crashing in her chest. He looked the way he had when she'd seen him at the Burrow that night and she wondered what kind of nightmare he'd been through this morning. She found herself whispering his name again and tried to block the ache when he shifted away from her.

"Sorry... I have to go..." he muttered and moved to get up, but Ginny shook her head rapidly.

"No! Don't go, I will. You can have the room to yourself, Harry, I'll go."

"Wait," he said quickly. "I- I don't want you to, I--" he broke off and sighed, running a hand down his face. "I don't know..." he said in a voice that was barely audible. When he finaly dragged his hand away, Ginny saw pure torture in his eyes. The ghosts that always haunted him, but worse, many, many times worse.

Ginny would never know what made her do it, but after a few seconds, she reached out and covered his hand with hers. His was freezing cold and it was shaking. Harry didn't move it away but stared down at their joined hands very intently. Before Ginny could process what was happening, Harry turned his hand over under hers and locked their fingers together.

She thought she would break open right there. However, she clutched his hand and forced herself to remain calm for him. He needed peace right now and she gently rubbed her fingers over his knuckles--an attempt to ease his pain.

Harry let out a long deep sigh and--not breaking his hand from Ginny's--leaned his head against the back of the sofa and closed his eyes. Time seemed to stand still as they sat there.

Harry spoke a while later, his head still back, his eyes still closed. "I saw a dementor today."

Ginny squeezed her eyes shut. This was not the time to tell him that she'd eavesdropped on his conversation last week, but she found she didn't have to. Harry opened his tired eyes and glanced at her. "You know, don't you?"

Ginny shook her head and said, "Not very much."

Harry nodded, and closed his eyes again. After another long silence, he spoke again. "What do you think about when a dementor gets near you?"

Ginny looked up in surprise. "I haven't seen one since..."

"On the train. I know... I remember you were there."

It was Ginny's turn to lean her head back. "I heard Tom Riddle. The usual, you know." Then she asked him very softly, "What do you think of?"

Harry was silent for a while. "I hear my mum... right before she died. And a load of other stuff... but that's the gist of it."

Ginny swallowed and looked down at their twined hands. For a second she couldn't tell which fingers were hers and which were his. When she lifted her head to look at Harry, she saw that he was looking down as well, watching their hands before leaning back again and closing his eyes. They sat there for a long time.

To Be Continued...