Harry Potter and the War of Souls

Chapter 29

Evacuation

That night at dinner, the students could tell something had changed. There was a tension in the air like something terrible was about to happen, or already was happening. McGonagall stood and raised her hands for silence.

"This is to be your last meal at Hogwarts this year. Eat quickly and eat well, then return to your dorms and pack your bags. We will evacuate the school promptly at seven o'clock."

A buzz began to circulate throughout the room and McGonagall, who did not appear to have anything more planned to say, stepped back to the podium. "A threat has been made to the school, but we will have you all safely back with your families before anything happens here."

Hermione looked at Harry. "Did you know about this?"

He nodded. "The next big battle is going to happen here."

"Are we going to be allowed to fight?" Ron asked.

Harry began to answer, but McGonagall had been walking down the aisle and overheard them. She stopped and said, "No, Mr. Weasley. All students are to be evacuated. Everyone."

"But-" Harry began.

McGonagall leaned in to Harry. "When you fight, make it on your terms, not His. You're not ready for this yet." She patted him on the shoulder, then left.

Harry swung around in his seat. "I'm not ready? I've fought Him before, haven't I?" He said to Hermione, "Give me that spell to cause the explosion."

"You already know the Reducto curse. Use that."

"I need something to blast us both away, one big enough to destroy an entire wing of this castle if necessary."

Hermione shook her head. "I told you before, I can't help you kill yourself. I'd have to live with that for the rest of my life!"

"I'll probably be dead at the end of this anyway, Hermione. The question is, do you still want Voldemort around after I'm gone? Can you live with that?"

Hermione's mouth opened then closed and despite her obvious effort to hold them back her eyes filled with tears. Finally, she slammed the glass she'd been holding onto the table, then stood. "I've got to pack." With that, she practically ran from the room.

"What'd you have to ask her like that for?" Ron asked. "Do you know how horrible she already feels?"

"Get that spell for me," Harry said. "Ron, if you're my friend, I need the name of that spell." He left his plate and walked out of the Hall.

Theodore Nott caught up to him as he entered the hallway. "Hey, Harry, maybe this doesn't matter now since we're all leaving, but for whatever it counts, I don't want you to turn yourself over to Him. Nobody does. It doesn't make sense to do that, right?"

"Er, right. Thanks."

Harry felt a distinct sadness as he packed his trunk that evening. This was not the farewell he hoped to have from Hogwarts. Although he'd never have admitted it to anyone, maybe not even to Ginny, he had thought a few times how fantastic it might have been to have actually defeated Voldemort, and to have celebrated that in a final dinner in the Great Hall. The Weasleys would have come, and Lupin and Tonks. He would have been free to love Ginny, to ask if she might consider a life with him.

"Harry," Seamus said, running into the room. "I just saw McGonagall. She asked me to find you. She wants to see you in her office right away."

Harry put the last couple of things into his trunk, then shut it and hurried out of the common room where he ran to McGonagall's office. Maybe she had changed her mind. She would allow him to remain and finish this fight.

She was waiting outside her office door when he arrived. "It's been a long year," she said to him. "But someone has finally awoken. He wants to speak with you." She parted the door and motioned for Harry to walk inside.

He noticed immediately that most of the items in the office were packed up. Clearly, McGonagall meant for this to be a total evacuation of the school. However, in the golden frame above her desk, he realized he was not entirely alone - not really.

"Professor Dumbledore." Harry spoke his name with great respect. He realized as he said it that he'd hardly spoke the man's name this entire year, although he thought of him frequently.

"Harry, you look so much older I might have mistaken you for your father if I hadn't seen him so recently on my side of the living," Dumbledore said.

Harry cocked his head. He wasn't sure how to respond to that.

"Why didn't you tell me you were dying last year?" Harry finally asked. "Why didn't you tell me about your plan with Snape?"

"Until the very end, I hoped to change the outcome of Draco's plan. I hoped, even until the last few moments, that I would not have to require Professor Snape to do what he had to do. But my death is far less interesting than your life, so there is no point of dwelling on it. Minerva tells me you have continued the quest for the horcruxes this year."

"Yes sir. I have all of them but one. I think I'm - that is, do you think I might be the last horcrux?"

Dumbledore furrowed his brows. "I never believed it would be wise for him to place a horcrux in a living thing. But although brilliant, Tom was not always wise. I cannot give you an answer for certain, Harry. All I do know is that you must find a way to win, whether you are the horcrux or not."

"I don't know if I can beat Him, Professor. He's so much stronger than I am."

"You have all the strength you need," Dumbledore said. "In some ways you are the most ordinary of wizards. You have never wished for fame or glory. You have never sought any of the attention given to you. You were neither our best nor our most obedient student. And there hasn't been a year of your life thus far when you have not been made to suffer in some way. Yet, you continue to rise above it and for that, Harry, you have made yourself the most extraordinary of wizards." He paused briefly and looked into Harry's eyes so deeply that Harry almost believed Dumbledore was standing there alive in front of him. "Harry, not only can you defeat him, but you will. His strength is built on fear, despair, and hatred, a house built upon the shifting sand. Yours is built upon courage, loyalty, and love, a house built on rock. He trusts his wand. You trust your heart. That is far stronger than any wand ever could be."

Harry smiled and nodded, then said. "Tell my mum and dad to watch out for me, okay?"

"They always have. Now go, Harry. It's time to leave the school but do not worry. You will be ready when it is your time."

By 7:00, every Hogwarts student was outside with their trunks loaded. They were quickly loaded onto the thestral-pulled carriages which began taking them down to the train.

Harry rode down with Ron, Hermione, and Neville. He sat directly across from Neville, who was looking strangely calm.

Hermione seemed to have noticed this too. "Aren't you worried, Neville?" she asked.

"Sure," he said mildly. "But I figure in the end, everything will work out okay. Life seems to happen that way."

Harry turned and stared at the window. He wished he'd gotten in a carriage alone with Ginny. They'd barely seen each other since they kissed beneath his invisibility cloak and now he felt desperate to sit close to her again. He wanted to hear her say that in the end, she understood everything would work out for her.

"There's only one thing I regret," Neville continued. "Hogwarts is closed now and it's our last year. I heard you say, Harry, that you expected a final duel with Voldemort. And it's weird, because I've always thought I'd be there with you in that final battle. I guess it's not going to work out that way after all."

Harry looked at each of his friends in the carriage one by one. "I always thought you'd all be there too. But as you said, maybe that's for the best too. Nobody else needs to die."

He heard what he thought was a hiccup in the corner and glanced from the corner of his eye at Hermione, who was quietly dabbing at her eyes with a tissue.

Once there, the students were put into a long line that went up a gently sloping hill, where Hagrid instructed them to wait until the train arrived. Harry felt childish having to wait here, but Ron and Hermione were sticking close to him.

"McGonagall's right to make us leave, you know," Hermione said. "You take the fight to Him when you're ready for it. Don't let Voldemort decide how it's going to happen."

Ron began to say something back to her, but Harry barely heard them. He was looking around for Ginny, who he hadn't seen since he left the Great Hall.

"Was she in the dorms when you packed?" he asked Hermione.

"I was the first one packed and out of the dorms, so I didn't really see anyone." Hermione began looking around. "She's around here somewhere though." She began walking up the hill. "I'll look up here."

Ron hurried and grabbed Harry's arm. "Listen, just while Hermione's away. I got her to tell me the explosion spell, but she'll curse me if she knows I told you. It's Anhillorora. It'll blow up half of Hogwarts, but I'm telling you, don't use it unless it's your last chance, okay?"

"Yeah, sure."

Ron started to move down the hillside. "I'll check with Hagrid and see if she got ahead of us somehow."

Harry climbed onto a rock to give himself a better view, but she just wasn't there. As far as he could see, she wasn't with the group anywhere. He rummaged through his bag until he found his Marauder's Map. "I solemnly swear I am up to no good," he whispered, tapping the map with his wand.

Hogwarts had indeed been completely evacuated. For the first time ever, he saw completely bare rooms and hallways on the map. There was nobody in the entire school. Where was she?

Suddenly he had an idea, one which should have been so obvious he kicked himself for not thinking of it before. He grabbed his trunk and opened it. One of the last things packed, The Friend Finder, was still on top. He grabbed it and with his wand firmly clenched in his hand said, "Take me to Ginny."

He felt an almost immediate twisting sensation around him, as if his body were being spiraled. He felt a horrible dizziness and closed his eyes until he felt himself being untwisted. When he opened his eyes, he took a quick step back. Moaning Myrtle's bathroom was not where he expected to be.

Of course, He had taken her into the Chamber of Secrets. That's where Ginny was.

Harry walked to the broken faucet just as he had done years earlier. He whispered in Parseltongue the command to open the Chamber, and just as before, the sink began to disappear within the floor. He held his wand upright then jumped into the pipes. He slid down the dark and slimy pipes and landed in nearly the exact spot where Ron and he had landed years earlier.

He crept forward to where the cave-in had been. An opening wide enough for him to pass through had been blasted open. At the end of the tunnel, he saw the entrance to the Chamber, also held open as if waiting like an invitation for him.

He crawled through and paused, listening to the absolute silence. Where was she?

He crept along the pathway lined with serpentine pillars. When he reached the end, in a room still bathed in silence, he looked around again but saw no one, and heard no one.

"Tom!" he called out. "Tom, I want her back!"

He heard footsteps behind him and turned in time to see sparks fly like fountain spray from a wand whose owner was cloaked in darkness. He dodged many of them but the ones that hit him landed like needles on his skin.

"Stupefy!" Harry yelled back, but the spell was blocked. He ran back to the pillar, giving him something to hide behind. Only when he was chased did he see who had been attacking him. "Wormtail?" Feeling a rush of anger, he darted out and yelled, "Levicorpus!" His spell struck Pettigrew head-on and he was immediately thrust upside. "Expelliarmus!" Harry yelled and caught Pettigrew's wand as it flew into his hand.

"Fine, you got me," Pettigrew said, laughing. "But you've done exactly what they wanted, haven't you?"

"What are you talking about?"

"Do you think the great Salazar Slytherin ever entered this Chamber through that beastly pipe? No, there is another entrance from outside, a secret, unknown entrance that none but my master know about. And He has led us all through. He only needed someone to open the Chamber's entrance through the school. Then we would be free to enter Hogwarts. Get Ginny Weasley, he told me. Bring her to the Chamber and Potter will come for her like a dog to his supper. And that's what you've done, isn't it?"

"Where is Ginny?"

"Let me down. I'll bring you to her."

"As if I'd trust you to do that." Harry's eyes narrowed. "My parents trusted you and look where it got them!"

"Don't judge me too harshly," Pettigrew warned. "Soon you'll face the Dark Lord. He'll persuade you just as he did me. You'll bow to him before this is finished."

"There's nothing He could do to make me betray the people I love."

"You don't know His tricks-"

"It's not about tricks, it's about remembering your friends," Harry said. "Tell me, do you think of them? Do you ever think of Remus? You became an animagus to help him. You used to risk your safety to protect his, to protect the entire school's. And what about Sirius? You were always in awe of him, but knew he'd always back you up if you ever needed his help." Harry's voice lowered. "Do you ever think about my dad, about James? He was your true friend. You would have trusted him with your life."

Pettigrew didn't answer, and Harry began to walk away, but stopped as he saw tears in Pettigrew's eyes. Peter Pettigrew was a traitor and a murderer, but not a proud one. At best, Pettigrew's life had been that of a pathetic failure.

"I'm sorry, Harry," Pettigrew whimpered. "I know it doesn't mean much, but I've never stopped hating myself for what I did to your parents. I wish I could at least say the Dark Lord tortured the information out of me, or that I would have died protecting their secret, but it wasn't like that. I'm just weak, that's all."

"You're not weak. You're a Gryffindor. The sorting hat placed you there for a reason."

"I asked it to. Sirius and Remus had already been sorted to Gryffindor. I knew that's where your father would go, too."

"Who cares how you became a Gryffindor? That's who you still are. It's never too late, you know. It's never too late to do the right thing."

Pettigrew shook his head and his voice quivered when he spoke. "You're so much like him, Harry. So much like your father."

"Help me," Harry said. "Make things right, Peter."

Pettigrew hesitated and looked both ways before he finally whispered, "It's about the soul, Harry. There are ways I dare not describe to you of dividing the soul. It's very dark magic and something even I would never attempt. But there are also ways of strengthening the soul. The Dark Lord knows what your mother did that night. The spell, the potion, they sealed her soul to yours. Her success required only one thing-" He stopped as a rising chorus of voices, growls, footsteps, and paw steps echoed throughout the chamber. "His army has come," Pettigrew whispered. "For your own sake, I beg you to hide!"

First to round the corner was Lucius Malfoy, who was walking as if he was the general meant to lead this charge. Harry ran toward him, knowing he had no chance to stop them all, but he intended to stop as many of them as he could from ever leaving the chamber.

He didn't count on what followed after Malfoy next. Emerging from the darkness were dementors, hundreds of them. He felt them draining him from within and heard his mother's final screams blasting through his head. They encircled Harry, preparing to strike. He fumbled with his wand, but couldn't keep his thoughts together. There was so much death, so much sadness, and there would be more. He heard his mother crying out his name. She was dying - bonding her soul to his. She literally gave her life to him.

Harry felt a change inside him. His mother was still there with him. Even in this black pit, surrounded only by evil and enemies, he felt the love of his mother. The dementors tightened their circle around him with mouths wide open. He raised his wand against them.

"Expecto Patronum!" Harry yelled and his stag shot forth from his wand, shielding him from them.

From within the shield he saw Voldemort's army continue to come into the room. There were hundreds of wands aimed against him, just waiting for his shield to fail. He couldn't hold the dementors away forever, and behind them all, he could see other dark creatures who would love the opportunity to tear his body to shreds.

His shield began to fail, and Harry reared up his wand to continue fighting, but then he heard Malfoy's voice behind him. "This is for my son! Stupefy!" Everything around Harry went black.