Harry Potter and The Soul Guide

Chapter-21

It only took about an hour for McGonagall to set up the ceremony in which Harry would tell everyone his story. The whole Order came to Hogwarts to hear what exactly had happened down in the chamber. It was a very touching moment for Harry to see his family again.

“Harry, dear,” Mrs. Weasley said happily as she squeezed him tightly. “Oh, Harry! We were so worried! Mad-Eye came to our house and said… but it doesn’t matter now. Oh, Harry!”

“Mum, you’re gonna kill him,” Ginny said, laughing at her mother’s concern. “Why don’t you let the others have him for awhile now?”

But it wasn’t different with everyone else. He was pulled into a deep bear hug by everyone he saw, including people he thought didn’t like him much. Finally, after speaking to everyone in the Order for at least a minute, he was pushed to Remus.

They just stood there in silence until Harry said, “Well… I hear you’re engaged? That’s… wonderful! Congratulations, Moony!”

“Yeah…,” Remus said. “I hear you’re a hero?” Harry looked up at those words, and they two men sat there staring at each other for a moment, until Remus pulled him into a bear hug. “Merlin, Harry, you scared me. I thought I’d lost what was left of me; what was left of my friends. But…,” he pulled Harry away to look him in the eyes. “I’m so sorry I tried to stop you. Will you ever forgive me?”

Harry smiled innocently and said, “I forgave you the moment you did it. The same goes with the others. I knew why they did it, and I knew why I had to leave. Will you ever forgive me?”

“Only if you’re my best man at my wedding,” Remus said, smiling. “That’s my only condition, Potter.”

“Then looks like I’m forgiven,” Harry said, then looked over at Tonks, who was standing right next to her fiancé. “Good find, Tonks.”

“Harry!” she said, giving him a hug as well. “I’m so glad to see you alive! We were all so sure that you’d been killed.”

“No, actually, I’m the one that survived,” he said, causing Tonks to get a look of confusion on her face. “I’ll explain--”

“Now, Mr. Potter?” McGonagall said, holding out her hand so he could get onto the staff table. “Please explain your story.”

Harry nodded his head and got onto the teachers table, looking out at the whole school as he did so. Everyone looked so shocked to see him, yet cheerful that he was alright. It was the most miraculous thing he’d ever seen… a whole community caring about one person. Nothing felt better than that.

“Hello, everyone,” Harry said waving at crowd of students and adults. “I know, big surprise to see me, huh? Well, I don’t think you know how surprised I am to see all of you, considering I never thought I would see any of you again.” The crowd just stared at him, listening to what he had to say intently.

“I guess I should start with what happened two years ago,” he began, and continued from there. He explained all about Sirius, and how furious he was that he’d been killed. He told them all about the prophecy, and about what he was told he had to do. He told them all about how Dumbledore went searching for the pieces of Voldemort’s soul, and all about how they had gone to find one of them together.

“Nobody knows that I was there,” he said. “I was hiding, so nobody saw me watch Dumbledore die. And nobody knew why I was with Dumbledore that night in the first place. It was that night that I realized I was all alone in what I had to do. And not only was I alone, but Dumbledore and I failed… we didn’t grab a piece of soul… we grabbed a fake.”

The crowd gasped, making Harry apprehended just how much of a nightmare his own story was. He continued to tell them about what he’d learned in the pensieve, and about how he came to the conclusion that there was a guide to all of Voldemort’s soul pieces inside of his old house.

“It wasn’t easy escaping from where I was. I had to get a little help from…,” he turned his attention to his sweet Ginny and winked. She smiled brightly, and he continued. “But I did escape, and that’s when I went to my old house in Godric’s Hollow to get the Soul Guide. After I found that, it was simple. I climbed mountains, went through forests, entered old houses and went through the rubbish bins, but I finally found almost every piece.”

He told them all about Fawkes, and how the bird led him to the bathroom in which the Chamber of Secrets was hidden.

“I made Myrtle promise not to tell anyone I was there,” he said, “because I knew if they knew, they would stop me. But apparently a certain poltergeist heard my story, and went off to tell. It didn’t matter, though, because by the time they reached me I was already gone.”

He told them about the Chamber of Secrets, and how he snuck in without anybody noticing he was there.

“I had to call the snake toward me,” he continued. “If I didn’t destroy it, I couldn’t fight Voldemort and live through it. The instant that snake reached me it was a goner. It was then that I came out of the shadows.”

He told them all about his chat with the Dark Lord, and how, for just a moment, panic crawled onto the evil wizard’s face. But the panic soon went away as he pulled out his secret weapon: Ginny.

“My heart stopped,” he said sadly. “He had her in his arms, and said that, if I didn’t surrender, he’d kill her. But I didn’t think it was her. I thought she was studying above me in the library, so I held my wand at the ready. He said that I’d made my choice, and that it was too late to change it. It wasn’t until then that I noticed the locket around her neck.” He had to stop here for just a moment as the thought brought tears to his eyes.

“Merlin, I thought it was over,” he said, tearing his eyes away from the crowd and placing them on Ginny. “I tried to stop him, but… I couldn’t. Gin, I swear, if I’d seen that that locket first, I would’ve dropped my wand. It would’ve been over, right there.” He paused for a second to get his thoughts together, then continued.

He told them about how the souls of the ones he loved gave him extraordinary powers, which made him invincible.

“All I could feel was hatred,” he explained. “My eyes… I could feel them go black, and for the first time in my life I could fly. Never, not once, have I ever felt so angry, sad, and lost. Nothing had a point anymore, yet everything seemed to matter. I snatched his wand from his hands, and told him to bring it. But… he had no chance.”

The eyes of everyone in the great hall grew wide as they hoped and prayed that what he was about to say was legitimate. He pulled from his back pocket the wooden stick that Voldemort had used to kill so many lives.

“I hold in my hand,” he began. “The wand of Voldemort, which has killed so many helpless people to this date.” He held it up high enough so everyone in the hall could see it. “It will never hurt anyone again,” he said, and threw it in the fire that was behind him.

His sight instantly went black, erasing the beautiful view of the great hall and all its occupants. He could feel his legs turn into jelly as he lost balance and fell face first from the staff table.

“Harry!” Ginny screamed as she watched Harry fall from the table into the crowd. She ran over to him just as Hagrid caught him.

He was unconscious, and Ginny knew that, if he didn’t get immediate attention from the school nurse, something horrible could happen.

And so they all rushed Harry to the hospital wing, praying that their hero was alright.