Harry Potter and the Last Recourse

“Harry Potter and the Last Recourse”

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Chapter One – The Last Recourse

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There was no magic left in the world. No pensieve, no polyjuice potion, no Mirror of Erised, no Goblet of Fire . . . no Dark Lord.

As Salazar Slytherin had a hidden chamber that only his heir could find, so did Godric Gryffindor. Inside was his wand, along with a single spell of his own creation, to be used only as a last recourse.

When the war between good and evil was at its peak, with evil winning and the only end in sight being the end of good, Gryffindor’s heir held aloft his ancestor’s wand and screamed the words he wished he never read. The battlefield went silent as an ominous sucking sound was heard. It grew and grew until a hurricane of pinkish wind lit up the night sky and rushed into Gryffindor’s wand in a deafening roar. Passing through the wand, the beam of energy went straight into the body of the heir of Gryffindor. Paralyzed for a moment in mid air, he fell to the Earth.

All of the magic in the universe was trapped inside Harry Potter.

* * * * *

In an ordinary room with orange wallpaper, Harry laid in a bed. Hermione Granger sat by his side. The door opened quietly and Hermione jumped. Charlie Weasley peered in.

“Sorry,” he said with a yawn. “Dean’s taking over watch.”

Hermione nodded as the door closed. She slipped a gun back under the mattress.

* * * * *

It had been three months since Lord Voldemort’s army invaded Hogwarts in search of Harry. Having already killed or assimilated most of the wizards and witches on the planet, the Dark Lord had just one goal left. Outmatched by the death eaters, giants and Dementors, the school was taken hostage without a fight.

Harry was well hidden, but Voldemort vowed to perform the Dementor’s kiss on five students each minute until Harry showed himself. Just before lips met lips, Harry walked out of Hagrid’s cabin, wand at the ready. Voldemort’s hand waved off the Dementors. The sea of captive students was parted, leading the way for Harry to meet his nemesis at the lake’s edge. . . .

They talked. They dueled. Harry died.

Cho was the first to move. She stole a death eater’s wand and cursed two giants before Voldemort did away with her. That started the battle. Unarmed students were tackling full grown, hooded wizards, fighting for their lives, and not succeeding. Giants were ripping first years apart, Dementors were sucking out souls, jets of green light were flying everywhere . . . Voldemort was laughing.

But not for long.

Peering over the chaos, another figure was emerging from Hagrid’s cabin. This one also had dark hair and glasses. Voldemort shot a look at the slain Harry Potter lying on the ground. His limp form slowly turned into that of Albus Dumbledore. Voldemort raised his wand at the figure by the hut, but its wand was already raised, and it was already screaming the most simple of spells –

“No more!”

“Avada Kedavra!” countered the Dark Lord . . . but nothing happened. And nothing would happen when anyone raises a wand and says an incantation for a very long time. How long, no one knew. Except perhaps . . .

* * * * *

“Harry,” cried Hermione, “please come back to us.”

She held his hand in hers, pressing it against her cheek as she rested her head on his thigh. She tried to stop a tear by closing her eyes, but all that did was squeeze it out. Opening them, she glanced up at Harry – and saw him staring right back at her. Hermione wanted to yell out, but Harry’s face was so sad. They shared a long look in silence before Harry spoke.

“What time is it?”

“September.”

Harry couldn’t believe it. He hadn’t been there for them for so long, and he didn’t know what had happened. So many questions ran through his mind. Did the spell work? Did they escape? Had Voldemort finally gone?

“Who’s dead?”

She didn’t want to be the one to tell him, and she couldn’t be sure which ones he knew about.

“Dumbledore. Cho . . .”

He knew.

“When I saw her take that wand . . .” started Harry before breaking off. “If only we told her. If only we told everyone about the plan.”

Hermione nodded while wiping away a tear.

“No one else that we knew well,” she finished. “Several students, though, right after Cho.”

“I could have saved them all,” Harry said, cursing himself. “The wand was in my hand! I saw Cho fall and . . . I felt like it was already too late. Like it was useless. Like it was over. . . . When I finally looked up again, out the window, it was horrible. More were already dead. . . . I knew what I had to do. I knew it. And every second I wasted another was dying. But I still wasn’t sure. . . . Dumbledore died for us, and casting that spell meant that he didn’t even have to! If I just told him about it! If I just cast the bloody thing right after I found it!”

Even though he had been in a coma for a hundred days, it seemed as if he had been waiting all that time to rid himself of those thoughts.

“You’ll know it when you see it, and I hope you never see it,” quoted Hermione.

Harry recognized it as the only words he ever told her about the spell he found in Gryffindor’s chamber.

“I couldn’t tell you. I couldn’t tell anyone,” he said. “It was too much of a burden for anyone to bear . . . too hard a decision for anyone to make.”

“You made it.”

“I had to.”

“You saved my life.”

“I had to.”

Too many were lost for either of them to feel very good about this.

“I have so many questions, Harry,” Hermione said, hoping desperately that he had the answers.

“First, tell me everything,” said Harry. “From the moment I collapsed until now.”

“He’s gone, Harry,” she said, almost in a race to get to the one piece of good news. “You-Know-Who – Voldemort . . . he’s dead.” Harry wanted more. “Magic was the only thing keeping him alive. I didn’t see it myself, but about a dozen students were watching him when it happened, and they all say the same thing – the pink wind blew him away like dust as it passed by. There’s nothing left of him.”

Although he wasn’t sure exactly how it would happen, that was Harry’s intended result. It was the only way to bring peace, even if it did mean losing the only thing that ever gave him joy.

“Everyone was stunned,” Hermione continued. “The death eaters were furious. The Dementors were whisked away by the wind just like You-Know-Who was. Even the giants stopped. They looked scared. No one knew what happened. I didn’t even know. But I saw you fall, after you sort of levitated in the air for a moment, and while everyone else ran towards the castle, I ran in the opposite direction, to you.”

Harry didn’t know what would happen to him after performing the spell. He never thought about how he’d escape the still dangerous giants and death eaters.

“I don’t know how I did it – I’ll never know – but I carried you by myself on a dead run all the way back to the castle,” said Hermione, looking down. “Without magic.” Harry couldn’t believe it. “The death eaters could have stopped me at any time, and killed both of us, but they were too shocked to do anything. Two of them ran off the grounds completely, but the rest just took off their hoods and stared at each other, fiddling with their wands. I ran right by Lucius Malfoy and saw that his nose was crooked and he had a big scar on his cheek. They must have been repaired by magic. . . . My teeth are back to normal.”

Harry hadn’t noticed. He was still amazed by how she summoned the strength to lift him out of harm’s way.

“There’s a lot more,” she said, eyeing Harry, “but shouldn’t we tell them that you’re back first? There are twenty two people here, all to protect you, not even knowing if you’d ever wake up.”

“To protect me?”

“Their way of life is inside you . . . somewhere. Who knows what would happen if . . .”

Harry understood.

“I need to hear the rest first,” he said.

“Well, we all ran into the Gryffindor common room, and we saw through the windows that the death eaters and giants were following us inside the castle. We knew that they’d find us pretty quick and that the giants would probably kill us. And that’s when the most unbelievable thing happened.”

Harry couldn’t imagine what that would be. Without magic, what could be so hard to believe? Besides Hermione lifting a one hundred and seventy pound man a few hundred yards of course.

“Max Daniels, a Hufflepuff second year, ran out of the common room and said he’d be back in a minute,” said Hermione, now smiling. “We all tried to stop him, but he wouldn’t listen. After what seemed like half an hour, but must have been about ninety seconds, we heard the footsteps of the giants running, and then right after that Max jumped up through the portrait hole with a guitar!”

“A guitar?” said Harry. “Did he think giants are like three headed dogs, or what?”

“That’s what I thought. I thought he just lost his mind,” Hermione said, suddenly frowning. “And I shouldn’t be happy about this, because it’s just so violent, but it saved us, and I so very much did not want to be torn apart by a giant at that moment.”

“What happened?” He was dying to know.

“Max slid across the floor with the guitar case right when two giants busted through the common room. They started to crawl in, but Max opened the case and pulled out two big Muggle guns and shot the giants in the head! They were both dead after a few shots each. Then he grabbed two more guns from the case – it was loaded with weapons – and he ran down the death eaters, who were right behind the giants. They had nowhere to go. One bullet to the head each, and he never missed. They were all dead within thirty seconds.”

Now that was hard to believe. After all the fighting, after all the people the death eaters had murdered, some no name Hufflepuff kills them all, just like that. With guns, no less.

“Max Daniels?”

“His dad owns a gun shop – a Muggle, of course,” explained Hermione. “He smuggled in the weapons during the last week of the term when there was so much commotion. . . . Mr. Weasley would have been very interested in that story.”

Harry wished she hadn’t said that, but it was true. He wished Ron was there, too, but he knew that he would still be hiding out with Ginny and Mrs. Weasley, who wouldn’t let either of her underage children out of her sight after her husband was killed in June. If Ron was there, he’d be in that room with Hermione. He had to ask, though.

“How are the Weasleys?”

“Bill and Charlie and Fred and George are all here,” said Hermione. “They’re fine.”

“Where’s Percy?” Harry asked, worried.

“Percy,” started Hermione, with the air of big news, “is the Minister of Magic.”

“What?”

“Or at least that’s what he’s calling himself, and no one can really argue with him. He’s the only one left eligible for the position, since you need to have worked for the ministry for at least two years to become minister. But since there’s no more magic, he’s not really the minister of anything. . . . He’s been at the burrow with Ron and Ginny and Mrs. Weasley for the past couple months.”

“At the burrow?”

“He convinced Mrs. Weasley to go back there,” said Hermione. “He says it’s the last place a death eater would look, since they think they’re on the run and would be too stupid to stay at home.”

“I thought all the death eaters were killed.”

“Oh, no, two ran away after your spell. And as you know, we had reason to believe McNair wasn’t with the contingent that took over the school –”

“That’s right,” said Harry, remembering.

“And he wasn’t among the group that Max killed,” said Hermione, confirming their suspicion.

“Who were the two that ran off?”

“We’re almost positive that they were Draco and Pansy,” Hermione explained. “And we think it was Pansy’s wand that was taken by Cho. One of the students recognized the ring Draco gave her. She fled right away, and the one standing next to her, Draco, took off after her. . . . Those three are the only ones unaccounted for . . . that we know of.”

“Right,” said Harry. “But why should we be scared of them? They can’t do magic anymore, and none of them know much about the Muggle ways.”

“They’re bitter, Harry. We killed both Draco’s and Pansy’s parents. And McNair loves violence. They want revenge.”

“But they must be more scared of us than we are of them,” Harry said. “I mean, there’s hundreds of us, counting all the Muggle parents of Hogwarts students, who are just as dangerous now as anyone. And there’s only three of them.”

“It’s complicated, Harry. The whole world knows about the magical community now. Hogwarts appeared to everyone of course, as soon as its magic was taken away, and the police searched it. Everything happened so fast. Durmstrang, Beauxbatons, the American schools, Diagon Alley . . . Gringotts was a disaster. Fifty goblins are in a holding cell right now. Some people think they’re from outer space and that all of this is the work of some kind of alien beings. But they’re putting all the facts together now, and when they’re done, they’ll know the truth. Everyone will know about us . . . know about you.”

Harry never even considered the possibility that Muggles would learn about the magical community as a result of his spell. He thought it would just end the magical community altogether.

“They found the bodies of the death eaters and the students, and if they find us, we’ll be arrested. There was no report about the giants. They must be keeping that secret for now. All the Muggles are frightened. They’re on the lookout for anything strange. The police searched the burrow last week and I don’t know how in the world the Weasleys convinced them that they were a normal family that knew nothing of Hogwarts. Luckily, owls can still deliver messages for us, although we have to be very careful not to look suspicious, and Percy wrote that he had a fool proof story planned for the police that worked perfectly. We can’t imagine what it was.”

“What’s our plan?” said Harry, with a terrible feeling that they didn’t have one. “Where are we? How did we get here?”

“We’re right above the gun shop that Max’s dad owns,” Hermione said, smiling again. “It’s just him and his dad and they live up here on the second floor. It’s a good place to be if there’s any trouble. There’s about a thousand weapons in the shop, and there’s even a bomb shelter below. We hide down there most of the time. . . . Most of us came here right after Max killed the death eaters, which was an adventure in itself. A lot of the students went home – the others had their relatives meet them here to either pick them up or stay. There are six Muggles here, including Max’s dad and Neville’s grandmother. . . . The Weasleys arrived two days later, after Mr. Weasley’s funeral, and against their mother’s wishes.”

Harry was hoping there was more, dreading the time when it was his turn to be questioned.

“And we’ve all been hiding out here ever since,” finished Hermione.

It was his turn.

“Harry, I’m just going to come right out and ask it. Is there any way to restore the magic?”

He wasn’t sure if he liked the wording of that question, as if it was the only thing that’s been on their minds all this time.

“If there was, we certainly wouldn’t do it,” he said, getting emotional. “If there was magic again, Voldemort might come back!”

“I know, Harry, I know,” said Hermione, reassuring him. “I just wanted to know if it was possible. . . . Is it possible?”

“I don’t know,” said Harry, chuckling with a shake of his head at how absurd that sounds. “He didn’t say in his note.”

“Gryffindor?” she asked, receiving a nod from Harry.

Hermione seemed very excited to hear the answer to her next question.

“Can you do magic?”

“I don’t think so. It said the spell would rid the entire world of magic. It didn’t say for how long, or if it was possible to return it. That made the decision a lot tougher.”

“The magical wind went inside of you, Harry, right through your wand. Your whole body lit up pink inside – we could see it through your robes, it was so bright.”

This was news to Harry. He had pictured nothing physical happening before he did the spell. He just thought no one would be able to do magic anymore. He saw the wind rush into Gryffindor’s wand, but then he blacked out. . . . Maybe he could do magic.

“Where’s Gryffindor’s wand?”

“Right here,” she said, pulling it out from under the mattress, where it laid next to the gun.

Hermione handed it to Harry. She was shaking. He wished she didn’t look so hopeful. It was giving him hope, and he had hoped for things before.

“Turn off the lights,” he told her.

“What?” she asked, wondering what he was planning. “It’s dark outside, Harry.”

“I know.”

Hermione got up from her chair as if she had been sitting in it for days, which she probably had been. She went over to the switch and flipped it down. She couldn’t see a thing.

“Lumos!”

She still couldn’t see a thing.

“Lumos!”

Nothing but darkness.

She flipped on the light again. Harry was dejected, looking at the wand. For the first time, he felt what first the death eaters and then every wizard and witch had felt – hopeless. He looked up at Hermione. She nodded, letting him know that she understood and felt his pain.

As their eyes were locked, two men with red hair and guns burst through the door!

“Hermione, are you --”

Charlie spotted Harry and stopped.

“Harry?” yelled Bill, smiling. “Harry!”

Fred and George came in right behind their brothers with stunned looks on their faces. They lowered their guns.

Harry started to get out of bed to greet them, but appeared to feel something odd and stopped briefly before Fred lifted him up without warning and gave him a big hug.

“We thought we lost ya, pal.”

Everyone was rushing into the room now. Hermione backed out of their way. She and Harry were the only ones not smiling.

Harry couldn’t be positive, but as he was shaking hands with a pained expression on his face, he was pretty sure he knew where the magic went.

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Next Chapter – Chapter Two – Harry and Eve