Complete header information may be found in
Chapter One. You may find all parts of this story by clicking the
Harry Potter and the Slytherin's Hair tag.
Chapter Nine: That Last Lesson
The sun was beginning to set when Harry, Remus, and Severus
ended their efforts to beat back the
remaining creatures from Hogwarts' grounds. They had been
joined by several Aurors, professors,
students, and citizens of Hogsmeade. At last, the fighting stopped, the
wards were strengthened, and
the weary battlers turned their gazes upon the castle, or what was left
of it.
"God," Remus said, viewing the partial
destruction. "That looks as awful as it would to Muggle
tourists,
doesn't it?"
"The Ministry'll have its work cut out for
it Obliviating anyone who's been close to it. Wards or no,
people had to have heard the commotion," Harry heard a witch
he did not know reply.
"Mr. Potter, are you well?"
Snape's talking to you, he told
himself. You should answer.
"Mr. Potter?"
Harry looked about himself and felt nothing to see the bloody
and broken bodies strewn everywhere.
This is war. This is death. This is-
"Harry, look at me," Snape said firmly.
The boy looked up, blinking; he felt as though he were waking
up from a nightmare or just turning away
from a horrible film on the telly, and he wanted nothing more than to
find the plug and blank everything
out, make everything quiet.
"You are not dreaming, boy," the man said
gently. "Have you been injured?"
"No. Sir."
"Good. Come, we should regroup with the others and
find a safe path into the castle."
"No."
"You needn't remain here."
"I . . . I'm afraid to go back. I
don't want to-"
"HARRY!" two voices called loudly across
the grass.
As he turned, Ron and Hermione rushed up and grabbed him into
a hug. "I-"
"You did it, mate! I knew you would!"
"Oh, Harry, you're all right!"
Hermione exclaimed, kissing his cheek and then pulling away to wipe the
blood from her mouth. "Scourgify!"
she cast, first on her friends, and then on herself, before looking
Harry over and casting a warming charm on him for good measure.
"Ron, let's get him inside," she
ordered crisply.
The witch's charm made things feel normal again to
Harry, and he gently shook them off. "No, wait.
Remus," he said, looking over at the wizard, who was walking
slowly away from the others.
"Mr. Potter, go with your friends. I shall look
after Lupin."
"Thank you, Sir. Oh, and I never said, but
congratulations."
"What?" Hermione asked.
"Thank you, Mr. Potter."
"What'd you mean by that?
Winning?" Ron asked.
"No. Um, no."
"Can't you say?"
"I don't kn-Blaise! Is
she-"
"She took a knock in the head, but she's
fine," Ron assured him. "What's up with
Sna-"
Suddenly, it hit him: Tonks.
Harry's knees buckled, but his friends kept him standing.
"Right. Into the castle with you,"
Hermione told him.
"No. Tonks. Tonks is . . . Tonks is dead."
"Wh-what?" Hermione asked.
"Oh, how?"
"Remus loved her."
Ron cleared his throat. "Hermione, I think maybe I
should go after them. Snape's not the comforting
sort."
"Yes. Go."
Hermione and Harry sank down into the grass, the witch glaring
as a well-wisher attempting to
approach, and then the others milling about in confusion began to drift
back toward Hogwarts.
"Take a minute. We can go back when you're
ready."
"I don't . . . know that I'll
ever be ready."
"It was a great shock, you know, for all of us when
the castle was attacked. When Ron, Neville, and I
couldn't find you, we-"
"Neville. Shit. I never-"
"Don't worry about that. He's
sorry. It was stupid, but he was just trying to help."
"I don't understand.
Dobby-"
Hermione sighed. "I should have stopped
them."
"I really don't understand,"
Harry said, more crossly.
"Neville, Dobby, Dean, Millicent, and
Ginny-they made you think that-"
"That was a joke? Nev's been in the
Infirmary for two weeks because he was playing a prank?"
"Well, he actually wanted to study for N.E.W.T.s in
peace and quiet, and also to push you together
with Zabini. He didn't mean-"
"And you knew?" Harry
demanded, standing up, albeit a little shakily.
"Not right away, and by the time I did know, you
were gone, so I couldn't tell you. Where did you go,
anyway?"
"When?" the boy demanded angrily, though
he was not sure that he was truly mad at Hermione, or if he
was just furious in general. "This is STUPID! Stupid, bloody,
sodding ridiculous! This isn't
the way
it's supposed to happen!"
"There is no correct way for war to end, save in
pain and blood and death," Albus Dumbledore said
from behind the two Seventh Years.
"She's dead. She killed them and
she's dead. Look at this," Harry demanded, sweeping
his arm out to
indicate the bodies lying about them. "This . . . this is . .
. this is," he stopped, not knowing what it was,
or why he was yelling.
"Harry," Hermione said, rising and
attempting to touch him.
"No. I don't . . . I want . . . never . .
. ."
"Miss Granger, would you be good enough
to-"
"Yes, of course," she said, moving a
little away to give the wizards their privacy.
Dumbledore approached Harry and stared at him until he focused
on the wizard. It took some time, as
the boy was trembling and finding it difficult to concentrate.
"When I defeated Grindelwald, it was nothing like
this," Albus said, holding out a hand as if to steady
Harry, but he swayed out of reach. "He had been my teacher,
my mentor some years before his sanity
left him. I knew him, you see, so when it became apparent that his
madness could only be stopped by
death, it was surprisingly easy to get close to him. Oh, I was never in
his head, but I knew his habits, his
routine."
"How did that help?"
"He thought that working with the Muggles to win
their war would shield him as he set about waging his
own, but Grindelwald was a creature of habit. Despite his wards,
despite his guards, despite himself, he
could not deviate from the pattern of his life. Because I had once been
a part of it, I merely insinuated
myself into his routine again. He never saw his death coming. He only
knew it was time for his evening
nightcap. . . . Do you remember what Binns taught you about
Grindelwald's defeat?"
"He died in battle . . . against you."
"Yes, that is what is taught. It makes a better
story," the older wizard said, his features grim.
"What . . . what really happened?"
"Everything you learnt is true. There was a battle.
People did die, and horribly, too. But Grindelwald
did not fall in the field. Grindelwald suffocated in his own bath after
drinking a Scotch laced with a
magical poison, and his servants dragged him from it, clothed him, and
brought him to the fighting where
they found me. The rest is, as they say, history-but a
romanticized version of it spun by the Ministry to
give that war an 'appropriate' ending."
"Appropriate? It wasn't enough that you
killed him?"
"Obviously not, dear boy. You, having made history,
having seen that it is not a story, but life playing
itself out, know that wars end in death. That they are not clean. That
nothing about them is good."
"Isn't it good that Voldemort's
gone?"
"Indeed, it is, but would it not have been better if
Tom Riddle had not been able to call to him the most
frightened, the greediest, the weakest members of society and waged
this war with them to begin with?
I'm afraid that the forces at work in our world are not so
pure. Grindelwald was supposed to be the
last dark wizard. I knew when I killed him, when I saw his servants
seeking to preserve his legacy, his
myth, that there would be another."
"What are you saying? That what I did was . . . was
for nothing?"
"Not at all. What I am saying is that you did what
you had to, and you know that it was not a story.
Tom Riddle was an evil, well-educated man without any self-control. He
tortured and killed people
because he could, not because it was right, and he will not be the last
to do such things. You stopped
him. You did what was right. You are a good and brave man, and I am
very proud to have known you.
What I am telling you is that there is no appropriate end to war, and
that though now you are feeling
shocked by what you have done, that feeling will pass. I do not know
what it is you were expecting,
Harry. I can only tell you what I was not. I was not expecting to see
people dragging Grindelwald out
into the battle to insure his legacy. It was . . . painful to note how
desperate people can be for a
'proper' story."
"I . . . I think I understand," Harry
said, feeling bone weary and somewhat calmer. "Are you
telling me
that-no, wait. I don't understand at all,
Albus-oh, I mean, Sir."
Dumbledore chuckled. "Albus is fine, Harry. They,
your adoring public, will cast you even more firmly
in the role of hero, now that you have defeated Riddle. They will make
of your victory a story, and you
will hear it and hate it. You will hear it, and want to disabuse the
tellers of their inaccuracies. What I'm
telling you is that you are Harry James Potter, a seventeen-year-old
wizard of great power, who did
what no young man should have to do, and you did it because it was
right. Do not forget that. No
matter what you hear in the coming days, months, years, do not forget
what happened. This," Albus
said, sweeping his gaze over the dead, "is war. And it is
ugly, but it is over, for now. There will be
another hero, another villain, another war, in time. But this is your
war, your life. It is always an
unexpected thing, life, but remember your deeds, and those of others,
and try not to let the stories
bother you."
"I want to tell people about what she did. People
should know that story."
"Yes, they should. They should not, however, know
this, this death. It doesn't actually help people to
see it. It merely horrifies them. That is why we have stories. Your
story is one of bravery and sacrifice,
and knowing that will help people to be strong in the face of evil.
Though it will disgust you to see the
tale mangled beyond recognition, hearing it, telling it, will give
others courage. People need their heroes.
You need the truth, and eventually, you shall need to learn to live
with the simplicity of it. You did what
was right because you could. You faced evil, you defeated it, and it
was ugly-it did not end the way
you imagined it would. But end it did, Harry, and you are to be
commended for it."
"It wasn't just me, Sir."
"No, it was not."
"I . . . I want to see Mrs. Tonks."
"Of course."
"Let me . . . I need to tell Hermione."
Harry walked over to where Hermione was waiting with a
medi-wizard. The man reached out his hand,
and the boy took it.
"Thank the gods for you, Harry Potter," he
said fervently.
Harry just nodded.
"Thank you, Medi-wizard Ambrose," Hermione
said. "You might want to see to yourself, too."
"Oh, of course. I'll do that. And
I'll tell my children I met you, Sir. They'll be so
proud," the man said,
hurrying off.
"You're going to tell the Tonkses about
their daughter, aren't you?"
"How did you know that?"
"It's the right thing to do,
isn't it?"
Hermione was surprised when Harry grabbed her and pulled her
close, but she held him just as tightly.
"I'm sure Neville's sorry,
Harry."
He barked out a laugh. "It's all right.
Just a prank. Please, tell Blaise that
I'll-"
"I will. I promise. I'll see you when you
get back," Hermione told him, walking back to the castle.
When Harry turned around, Albus was gone. "What?
Albus?"
"We can't all be phoenixes,
Harry," the Headmaster's voice said near his ear.
"We each of us come to
the end of our stories."
"Oh, oh, God. Albus.
You're-"
"So very proud of you, dear boy. So very
proud."
"Thank you, Sir," Harry said, feeling the
other wizard's presence fade slowly.
He knew that he would always be grateful to the man for
sparing him the shock of his loss.