Harry Potter, The Jedi That Would Not Die
Chapter 33 – Heroism Can Come From Anyone
All the jedi froze at that, the senior jedi exchanging a worried look.
"Say that again please?" asked Harry slowly.
"You-Know-Who led the attacks against the Ministry and Hogwarts."
Harry and Hermione turned to each other.
"It's not possible, he couldn't be here."
"Not in two places at once," she agreed.
"Some form of cloning maybe?"
"Although we have been gone a few years I doubt Muggle science has progressed as far as cloning anything as advanced as a human, besides it doesn't make sense, why would he do it?"
"The Republic can do it," offered Aayla
"Surely there would be more evidence of interference if that were the case," contributed Coleman.
"Besides why clone him in the first place?" Hermione resumed.
"Then what's you explanation?"
"I don't have one Harry," she snapped back. "I might be pretty clever but I don't know everything."
"Sorry," he apologised.
"Can you please explain what it is we don't know?" demanded Padma.
Turning back to the twins Harry continued.
"You're sure that Voldemort is the one leading the Death Eaters?"
"Yes of course, we all saw him when he attacked here and some of those who fought in the last war recognised him. Now what is it that we don't know?"
"The reason that the jedi returned to Earth now Miss Patil," began Master Windu. "Is that not two months ago Padawan Potter and Padawan Granger confronted then defeated Voldemort on a world a very long way away from here."
"What! How is that possible, he can't be in two places at once?"
"That's what we're saying," emphasised Harry.
"How could he even of got there?"
"When I defeated him again in the graveyard his body was destroyed," explained Harry. "But just like when I was young his mind survived. When I was half mad in Azkaban he penetrated my mind and hid there, not reappearing until a couple of months ago when we were in a place with lots of the darkest magic that enabled him to emerge and fight me again."
"You defeated him?" asked Parvati.
"Just...but he's still alive on that planet, we've had to have it quarantined until we can get rid of him."
"How can there be two of him?" demanded Padma.
"Could it be related to Professor Dumbledore's mission?" Cho asked the sisters who both looked at her in concern.
"You think the different objects could form copies of him?" Parvati asked.
"We don't know enough about them to comment," replied Padma.
"What objects?" asked Aayla.
The sisters exchanged a look before looking to Cho who seemed to know they wanted her consent which she gave with a nod after instructing Jia to leave them and raising a privacy bubble around them all, separating them from the rest of the hall.
"We learned later from others that were involved that the reason You-Know-Who can't be killed is because he has split his soul."
"He's what!" exclaimed Hermione as the faces of the jedi turned ashen or gasped in shock.
"We don't know all the details, Professor Dumbledore didn't have time to pass all the information along but we know that while one of these soul pieces, all of which are bound into completely normal objects survives he can never truly die."
"Well that explained a few things," sighed Harry.
"It sounds similar to something that powerful Sith were supposedly able to do in order to prolong their lives," remarked Master Windu.
"That's excellent," smiled Padma, "You knowledge will be invaluable in helping us eliminate them."
"I regret that our knowledge will be of little help," replied Windu. "As I said they are Sith techniques, we know of them only as something to warn our padawans against falling to the dark side. Are you able to tell us what you know about them?"
"They are called horcruxes," continued Padma. "Each of them required taking a life to create and the only thing we currently know can destroy them is basilisk venom."
"Pad, can you go and get the diadem and the ring please."
"Yes Cho," she nodded before walking out of the privacy bubble and off down one of the side tunnels from which she returned a couple of minutes later carrying a wooden boxes which she placed in front of them before opening the lid.
Inside of which were a cracked ring and a tiara like head piece.
"That ring apparently belonged to one of Voldemort's relatives. It is what killed Professor Dumbledore; it was charmed so that when it was put on it instantly triggered a curse that would begin moving through the body."
"Why did he even put on the ring," asked Hermione. "He must have known there would be defences of some kind around it if it was that important to Voldemort."
"We have no idea and probably never will. What we do know thanks to Rowena Ravenclaw's portrait is that the diadem once belonged to her, I won't go into its full history now but we know Professor McGonagall was told by Professor Dumbledore where to find it and thanks to the two of them we have eliminated two of the seven, at least that's what we learned from the information that Professor Dumbledore passed along."
"Do you know where the other five are?" asked Master Windu.
"Or what they are?" added Alema.
The twins again exchanged a look before starting.
"Professor Dumbledore, thankfully as there was no immediate threat tried to find out information about as many as possible before he acted against any of them, if it was not for that fact we would be at a complete loss, but thankfully according to what Professor Dumbledore told McGonagall we know of three of the others, one was a book that was given to a student back in her first year."
"Tom Riddle's diary?" Harry asked shocked.
"When we spoke to Ginny about it she revealed that she was the student," confirmed Parvati.
"You didn't know, I thought everyone did?"
"No, we were only ever told that a student had been taken to the chamber and that you and Ron were given special awards for getting her back and somehow stopping the beast of Slytherin, it wasn't until we got in here that we realised that the beast was a basilisk and until Ginny told us the rest that we realised what actually happened."
"I assumed everyone knew," replied Harry.
"Professor Dumbledore was probably trying to keep Ginny's identity a secret," Hermione hypothesised.
"Well, only a few of us know now so it's still mostly a secret," explained Cho. "Not that Ginny cares anymore."
"I wish you would stop dropping sentences like that," Harry groaned, "It makes me want to ask about them but that will mean going off topic again."
"Sorry," she apologised. "Anyway she did mention the name Riddle when we talked about it so it likely is the diary you describe."
"That would mean that that one was destroyed too," explained Hermione. "As Harry put a basilisk's fang through it."
"Which is also how Dumbledore discovered how to destroy them, Harry inadvertently gave him the answer."
"Three down," commented Aayla. "You said you knew of two more?"
"Indeed, one was a locket that belonged to Salazar Slytherin, this has also been destroyed and last we heard Neville had it."
"You're doing it again," groaned Harry.
"Sorry," she apologised. "As for the last of the ones we know...Well..."
"Yeessss?" Harry asked slowly, recognising the tone of the statement.
"Well...That one is sitting at this table right now."
The jedi all exchanged looks for a second before they all turned back to Harry, realising that it could be no one else.
"You are joking?"
"Not according to Dumbledore. He told McGonagall that when you defeated him when you were one and his curse backfired and killed him instead of you that his soul was so unstable from being split so many times that it unintentionally split again."
"There can't be a fragment of his soul in me..." Harry replied defensively.
"Harry," calmed Cho, "I know it's not something anyone would want to admit bu-"
"No, it's not that..." he paused. "...Well it is that, just not just that...Look, I know there are no parts of him left in me; after I defeated him on Dagobah I spent hours trawling through every inch of my mind and there is nothing in here that is not supposed to be."
"That either means Dumbledore was wrong-" concluded Padma.
"Unlikely considering his track record," commented Parvati.
"-Or it was already destroyed."
"Surely I would have noticed something that would have killed something in my mind."
"You tell us?" they returned together.
Everyone was silent for a moment before Alema came up with a suggestion.
"Miss Patil, if destroying the objects was the only way to get rid of the soul pieces, would dying destroy a fragment in a person?"
"That would make sense, but why would you-"
"Master, do you remember the first time we met, when you rescued me from the Death Watch and you got badly shot?"
"Yes," Harry nodded, following her line of thought.
"You were clinically dead for several minutes," confirmed Aayla. "If the soul fragment could have been destroyed that way then temporarily being dead would have removed the soul fragment from your mind leaving just his consciousness behind until he left you on Dagobah."
"Now your dropping hints about what you've been up to while you've been away," remarked Cho.
"Sorry, but to be sure later with the assistance of the Masters, my Master and Hermione I would like to go through my mind again looking for any intruders or anything that is not supposed to be there, just to be on the safe side."
"A good idea Padawan," remarked Master Windu before turning back to the twins and Cho. "Do we have any information on the last two horcruxes?"
"Unfortunately not a lot, but I think we need to continue where we left off in order to give you the context for how we found out about one of the remaining two."
"Alright," Harry nodded.
"We didn't actually witness what happened next but Neville showed us memories that Professor McGonagall had shown him," explained Parvati, tears coming to her eyes as she spoke. "If ever there was a tragic accident and a senseless waste of life it was this. After going off to follow Dumbledore's last instruction during the battle nothing was heard from McGonagall for at least half an hour, Neville discovered her in one of the corridors near where the Death Eaters were attacking. They hadn't actually managed to get inside at all by that point but one attack was accidentally perfectly timed and placed. Neville discovered her in the wreckage of what had happened after the outer wall exploded inwards, she had no serious injuries from the flying rubble but at the time she had apparently been carrying a basilisk fang and in the explosion it had embedded itself in her side."
"Oh no," Hermione exclaimed, realising what they were about to say.
"She lived long enough to pass the information of what Dumbledore had told to her a few hours earlier onto Neville and then Neville and Ginny as she came upon them a few minutes later. She also told them of a secret organisation she and Dumbledore were a part of called the Order of the Phoenix which had been dedicated to fighting You-Know-Who during the first war but was reassembled to help get Fudge out of the Ministry and to combat the remaining Death Eaters. She instructed them to only relay the information she had told them to one of a select few people who she said were in the Order as well and pointedly refused to give into the poison until she was sure they understood her instructions."
"What about Fawkes?" asked Harry.
"Who's Fawkes?" Padma asked confused.
"The Headmaster's phoenix, he's the one who saved me from the basilisk's venom back in our second year."
"We never knew you had been poisoned!" replied Parvati in shock, "We were told that you had rescued a student and that you had defeated the monster, but Ginny never told us that bit."
"That brings me to several questions I have on that subject but right now I want to go back to my question about Fawkes?"
"Apparently he stood guard over Dumbledore's body for several hours after his death until the castle was attacked, he then went outside and started setting fire to the ground around the attackers, it bought us valuable time until he was hit with a curse and retreated, apparently he burst into flames just inside one of the windows where he was found by Professor Sprout as a chick in a pile of ash a few minutes later. He was in no position to go to McGonagall's aid when she was hit."
"If he'd been there he could have saved her," Hermione said forlornly.
"The past is the past Hermione," comforted Coleman. "We can't change it."
"I know Master," she replied, before turning back to the girls. "Please go on."
"Neville and Ginny then went to find one of the people she mentioned and came across Professor Lupin-"
"Remus!" Harry exclaimed, "What was he doing here?"
"He came to help defend the castle with Mr Shacklebolt," replied Cho. "Professor Lupin and his wife-"
"Wife!" Harry exclaimed again. "When did he get married?...And who to?"
"A few months before the battle apparently, she was a young auror, only six or seven years older than us. She was also Sirius Black's cousin...and yours as well I believe."
"Was?" asked Alema slowly. "You mean she's...?"
"Oh no," correct Cho. "She's alive, but it might have been better if she wasn't."
"Ok, this time I am not going to let the question wait," urged Harry. "Explain please?"
"After Neville and Ginny told them and they realised that..."
"Hang on, hang on," interrupted Hermione. "Before you answer Harry's question, what was the mission that Dumbledore gave to McGonagall?"
"To find and destroy the rest of the Horcruxes."
"Now that's a tough mission if ever I heard one," remarked Aayla.
"Yes very. As I was saying, when Professor Lupin and Auror Lupin were given the information and they realised that two people had already died to destroy the damned things they decided not to tell anyone else in the Order and just to keep it to themselves and Neville and Ginny as of course they already knew."
"When the castle fell the four of them made an escape to the Black family home, we don't know where it is so don't ask. The Lupins then set out after one of the other locations that Dumbledore had identified as being a possible site for a horcrux...We don't know exactly what happened but we know there was poison, fire and inferi."
"Inferi?" asked Master Windu.
"It's a creature created by reanimating a corpse," explained Hermione. "They have no free will of their own and cannot think for themselves, their only purpose is to serve the dark wizard who created them."
"From what Neville told us, they were waiting for them to return at the Black residence, when they arrived Professor Lupin had been viciously attacked and had apparently been forced to ingest a poison of some kind. Even with a fully trained aurors healing skills he only survived another couple of minutes."
"Oh god," sighed Harry as he realised that is last link to his parent was gone.
"I'm afraid it gets worse, we don't know whether it was related to the incident in any way as we don't know exactly what happened but their child was stillborn."
"She was pregnant," Harry gasped.
"Yes," Cho nodded slowly. "The stress and loss of losing both her child and husband in quick succession caused Tonks, that was her maiden name by the way and what she chose to go by, to have a mental breakdown; she's currently being looked after by the Weasley family, we have not heard from them in a while so we don't know whether she has improved at all."
"Who is searching for the Horcruxes now?
"Neville, Ginny and a girl from my house in Ginny's year called Luna."
"What!" exclaimed Harry, making the three girls jump, "Why aren't the rest of this 'Order' doing it, why is it being left two three people who are barely adults?"
"Please don't shout like that Harry," requested Cho. "I can't see the shocks coming so they always make me jump."
"It made us jump too Cho," advised Padma. "They aren't doing it because Neville and Ginny decided not to tell any more of them else in case they suffered similar fates, we only know because they let us know what was going on a while after that. So far of the four Horcruxes recovered including the diary, there have been three deaths, one person has had a mental breakdown and another has had his memory erased."
"Typical Gryffindors," smiled Parvati. "Always going off doing the most stupid and brave things."
"Hmm," added Aayla in agreement, sending a look at her padawan who perfectly fitted that statement.
"After Neville and Ginny set out they encountered Luna somewhere along the way and she joined them."
"Do we know what's happening to them at the moment?" asked Hermione.
"Not a lot unfortunately, it's not as easy to move about the country or communicate over long distances as it used to be, but we did hear via the grape vine that they ran into some of the other Weasleys a month or two ago."
"How were they?"
"Quite a bit fitter and completely fed up of sleeping in a tent with limited bathroom facilities," replied Padma with a sly smile.
"Also apparently Neville was getting quite frustrated of sleeping in a tent with a horny couple," grinned Parvati as she watched Harry's chin drop.
"And there was me thinking that being in a tent with two attractive young women was every man's dream," replied Hermione as if Neville had just gone up in her expectations.
"No Hermione," corrected Parvati with a smile at Hermione's misinterpretation. "Not a horny couple of girls, a horny couple who are both girls."
Hermione's eyes bulged as her line of thought caught up with the others.
"Rare is it that anyone gets something before you my padawan," smiled Coleman, Hermione would have probably blushed if she had not been so shocked by the statement.
"Are you telling me that Ginny is...?"
"Well if she wasn't before she is now," chuckled Cho, laughing for the first time since they had been reunited. "Admittedly none of us saw it coming, especially given her crush on Harry in her first couple of years here, but after Ginny lost several people either to death or the depths of space she got quite cold and hard to reach, she needed someone or something to hold on to and although Luna can be quite...actually very strange at times, she could always be there for those that took the trouble that got to know her, I freely admit I wasn't one of these until after you left. She can be wonderfully insightful and understanding, not to mention as loyal as a Hufflepuff and as reckless brave as a Gryffindor."
"Now I definitely want to meet her?" smiled Harry, who had recovered quite quickly from the surprise. "What does Mrs Weasley think about this?"
"Which one?"
"Which one?" Harry repeated in confusion? "How many Mrs Weasleys are there?"
"At the last count...three?" estimated Parvati only to be corrected by her sister.
"Four."
"Either the families a lot more extensive than I thought or we have missed several marriages."
"The latter," confirmed Cho. "The threat of years of government suppression before Minister Bones took over encouraged many young couples to get married quickly. But to answer your original question first, Molly Weasley is not in any way happy about the situation and is making sure everyone knows it. As for the others, first William Weasley married Fleur Dela-"
"Fleur!" exclaimed Hermione, not letting her finish. "As in French snob Fleur?"
"Yes that Fleur, she may be vain and a bit snobbish but she genuinely does care when she gets to know you. She's also quite fond of Harry because of what happened during the second task, she was just as sad as we were when we heard you had gone. Anyway, off topic, then Percy married Penelope Clearwater,"
"I'm glad that relationship survived graduating."
"Then George married Angelina," continued Parvati.
"Really? That's excellent."
"And...Katie got engaged to Fred."
"Well at least we didn't miss that wedding," sighed Hermione.
"There's...not...going to be a wedding," sighed Parvati, a tear running down her cheek making the others realise what had happened.
"When?"
"During the Second Battle of Hogwarts, they were part of the rear guard that volunteered to stay behind to guard the retreat as we fell back...They got hit by a transfiguration curse and... well come and see."
The twins led the group out of the room down one of the side tunnels, leaving Cho at the table, Harry had had no idea that the tunnel network had been so extensive when he had been down here the last time. They passed several makeshift stores and additional sleeping chambers before turning into a room with a distinct chill to it and it was obvious why as soon as they entered it.
The hall was only about a quarter of the size of the Great Hall but it was three quarters full with coffins.
"Oh god!" exclaimed Hermione. "So many."
"As soon as we get back to the table you need to finish your tale Misses Patil," instructed Master Windu, needing to know the end of the story.
"They're down here," explained Padma, leading them down the rows of coffins to a large object covered in a sheet which she pulled loose causing the others to gasp at what they saw.
In front of them, frozen in stone were Fred Weasley and Katie Bell in mid battle, him standing up straight with his wand arm extended, while she crouched in front of him firing off at a different angle, a curse on her lips. There was a thin bit of stone where her back touched his leg which linked them together in this eternal moment.
"We moved them down here so they would be safe."
"Is there not any way of reversing this?" asked Alema.
"Highly unlikely," replied Padma. "It is possible to safely transform someone into an inanimate object but it has to be done as a transfiguration spell which is specifically designed to be reversed, curses are designed to specifically be dangerous. We could probably turn them back into flesh and bone but it's a one in ten chance that each of them would even survive and even less than that that their bodies would still work after so long, so the odds of both of them surviving are...Well, the Weasley and Bell families both agreed that they would not try and reverse the curse and that once we have finally defeated You-Know-Who and the Ministry and the castle is rebuilt, if the new headmaster agrees that they will be put on a plinth in the centre of the courtyard here at Hogwarts as a permanent monument to those that have fallen."
"That's rather morbid is it not?" asked Coleman.
"Only if you choose to see it that way," countered Parvati, turning to him, confidently and slightly affronted. "You can choose to see it as two dead corpses being put on display for all to see, or you can see it as we do; as a sign of bravery in the face of unimaginable odds, of cooperation in that even in their final moment they stood by each other, of sacrifice so that others may live, as a tribute to the fallen heroes and victims of the war and as a sign of their love for each other both in life and in death."
"Besides," continued Padma, "I think if I had the choice between being turned back into flesh and being cremated or buried in the ground, I'd prefer to be like this with my future and never to be husband where we would last for all time thanks to the protective magic around us and help to make sure people never forget the sacrifices of those that died less memorably."
"I see your points Misses Patil," conceded Coleman. "And they were well made."
"Shall we return to the hall, I think Cho will want us to continue our tale so we can get onto yours."
AUTHOR'S NOTE: Thank you Dericof Diname for spotting my repeated naming mistake in the last chapter, if you didn't notice it I was calling Padma (Padma Patil) Padmé (as in Padmé Amidala) throughout the entire chapter. That will teach me to check the correct spelling of a character's name wont it.
red demon161 thank you for your suggestions, as you can see I used it in this chapter.
So, tell me what you think.