Tales of a Spiritual Warrior

Chapter Seventeen: Revelations

Harry was doing his best to be quiet, but Voldemort heard his steps on the stairs. Ignoring Draco Malfoy, who was cowering on the floor, Voldemort seized Luna by the wrist and pulled her out of the chair. She gasped at his touch, and looked at him, wide-eyed. He stared into her eyes, which were shining silvery in the light from the flickering fire, and at once he became aware of a new threat and a new power.

"You little whore!" Voldemort screamed, almost beside himself with rage. He was distracted only for a moment, but that's all it took for a grieving Draco Malfoy to raise his head and his wand and aim a stunning spell.

Voldemort deflected the spell back at Malfoy, who slumped to the floor, but at that moment, Harry appeared in the doorway, and concentrating hard, as Dumbledore had taught him, cried out, "Deleo nocens!"

Voldemort who had let go of Luna when Harry had arrived, froze for a moment, and with a look of terrible shock on his face began to fade. He was enveloped in a swirl of rainbow light and just faded away, bit by bit. He let out a horrible, unearthly howl, as he became almost transparent, and then vanished in a wisp of smoke, leaving only a swirling cloud of dust in the room to show where he had been standing.

Harry and Luna watched in amazement as the dust settled. Harry went to Luna, and took her in his arms for a bone-crushing hug. He then took out his enchanted knife and cut the magical rope from her wrist. As it was falling to the floor, they heard the pounding of many feet coming up the stairs. Snape arrived first, with Ron and Hermione right behind him. Snape had a huge gash on his forehead that was bleeding badly. Shaking his head to clear the blood from his eyes, he looked at Harry amazed, as Ron and Hermione, panting, stood gaping behind him.

"He is gone?"

"Yes," Harry said tiredly, "he is gone. It's over. We must thank the headmaster at Durmstrang. He is the one who really made this possible."

Snape pointed his wand at his own head, and finally took the time to close and clean his wound. To Harry's amusement, it looked as if Snape was now on the verge of having a long, rather prominent scar. Ginny and Neville appeared behind Ron and Hermione, and looked around the room.

"What happened?" Ginny asked. "Did we miss everything?"

"Nearly everything," Hermione replied. "We were just about to try to take the goblins down when Professor Snape arrived." She looked at him, and swallowed hard. "We couldn't have done it without you, sir."

"Where are they now?" Luna asked, curiously. "I was getting rather used to them."

"The one that tried to take off my head is dead," Snape sneered. "The others have fled. I do not think we need concern ourselves with them. They are probably halfway across the valley by now."

Snape then looked back at Hermione and said curtly, "I was happy to be able to assist, but you did well enough on your own Miss Granger. That fire cage was your work, I suppose? That was very effective." He looked around. "I think we had better return to the castle at once. The headmaster must be beside himself. He will probably want to send members of the Order to examine this area, but I will leave that to him to arrange."

Harry looked at his teacher and his friends. " Please, sir, you, Ron, and Hermione can apparate. Take Ginny and Neville with you. There's one thing I have to do before I come back. It's important. I promise you, I will be there shortly."

"I would prefer you return with us, Mr. Potter," Snape said, looking at him doubtfully, "but I will leave it to your discretion. He looked down at the limp form of Draco Malfoy. " I think that I had better take Mr. Malfoy with me as well. When he wakes up he will be in store for several nasty shocks."

"Thank you, sir."

When the others had gone, Luna came to Harry's side, and put her hand on his arm. "What is troubling you, Harry? You did everything you ever set out to do. You should be very proud of yourself. I know I am proud of you."

Harry looked at Luna, and swallowed hard, his mind teeming with horrible images. "What did he mean?"

"What are you talking about?"

"I heard what Voldemort said. I heard what he called you. What did he mean? Did he let them...did any of them...do anything to you?"

Luna blinked, and suddenly smiled. "Harry! What an imagination you have! If you mean did they rape me, no! I doubt if the thought ever crossed anyone's mind. I'm not very appealing, you know," she said serenely, smoothing a long, errant lock of her hair down the back of her head.

"You are to me," said Harry, relieved, pulling her into his arms and kissing her fiercely on the top of the head. "It must have meant something, though. I want you to tell me. He hated me so. Could he tell when he touched you that you belong to me?"

Luna gave him a long look, and stepped away. Turning her back, she answered in a low voice, "I think it was more than that. Harry, do you remember the first time we spent the night together, at the shack?"

"That would be kind of difficult to forget," Harry told her gently, "considering it was one of the most important nights of my life."

"You had so many doubts about your mission, Harry. You frightened me. I was really frightened. The only way you could lose would have been by not having faith in yourself. I had faith in you, but I wasn't completely sure you would be able to hold onto your own faith."

Harry smiled ruefully. "I don't blame you for that, Lu. I did start to lose faith, many times, but once I knew I was in danger of losing you, I never looked back."

"I wanted to hold onto you, Harry. I didn't want to lose you. I wanted to make sure I could hold onto to part of you. So I cast a charm that night. You didn't know what it was, so you couldn't countermand it. I knew you wouldn't know. It was wrong of me, but I couldn't help it. I couldn't stop myself. At the time it felt so right."

Harry looked at her, confused. "Lu, you know I would never leave you...not while I've got breath left in my body. Why did you feel you had to cast a spell to keep me?"

"I...cast a conception spell. Voldemort had such a strong connection with you, I think he realized I was having your child."

Harry's mouth dropped open in shock. He could say nothing for a long moment, then he finally whispered, horrified, "You did that without telling me? You decided to have a BABY and did it deliberately without telling me? You cast a charm? And you've known all this time that it worked and you never said anything? Damn it! It's been almost three months, Luna!

"I didn't want you to worry," Luna said in a small voice.

He began to pace, agitated. "What were you thinking? That's what I want to know! And when were you going to tell me? Did you think since I was too stupid to know what you were doing that I'd be too stupid to care? Do you realize how serious this is? How could you do something like that? Luna, were you mad?"

"Harry, please!" She went to him and tried to put her hand back on his arm but he shook it off.

She tried again to reason with him. "Harry, I did it because I love you! You're my whole life. If I had lost you, I would have had nothing left! And our whole world would have been nothing! Can't you understand that?"

"No," Harry said brokenly. "I don't understand."

And he dropped into the chair before the fire and put his head in his hands.