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Author: Ari Story: Death of a Hero Rating: Young Teens Status: Completed Reviews: 17 Words: 2,205 Ginny looked around at the remains of her childhood home from the front stair. The old burnt tree that used to house the swing was little more than a skeleton with moss growing all aver it, and hex marks carved deep into the wood. There was a crater where the chicken hut used to stand, with a more natural, but just as unnerving, dry pond next to it. Over a decade had passed since the battle that destroyed the Burrow. Harry had died in the midst of it all, at the hand of the dying Voldemort. Ginny still couldn't believe that Harry had died in the battle, just after he'd finally won against Voldemort Ginny stared forlornly out at the parched grounds and wept silently, not noticing when two people appeared out of the ruins at her back. "Gin?" Ginny stood up and spun around, her wand in her hand. A decade hadn't dulled the reflexes she had learnt under Harry's tutelage, just before he set out for the Horcruxes. ~*~ Ginny had been left behind at school, only knowing as much about the Horcrux hunt as what the weekly letters from the trio told her. They were really no more than cryptic, vague notes that said 'We're fine, don't worry,' and not much else. After a month of these notes, she decided to leave school to follow her friends and brother. She knew where they were going, for a few more days at least, from when she stumbled into one of their meetings. They had been discussing their plans in the back shed of the Burrow. Ginny went after Harry and his best friends. As far as she knew, the school was still open for anyone who wanted to go back to school, and all who were running from the increasing Death eater attacks. Dumbledore's death had made Voldemort confident that no one would stop him. Ginny followed the trio from the Dursleys, to Godric's Hollow, to London, then, although she didn't trust the Muggle transport, under the English Channel and onto the mainland. The Golden Trio destroyed all but two of the Horcruxes left to be destroyed. They only had a book of Potions that Rowena Ravenclaw had written and Nagini left to destroy. Then they had to kill Voldemort himself, which would be a feat and a half. Ginny had cornered Harry in the eastern-most point of France, in a small town called Víolé, all magic and no Muggle. She found Harry in a dingy bookshop, skimming through the shelves. As he picked out a book, his eyes locked with Ginny's through the wooden shelves. He paid for the book hurriedly and ran out the door, where the crowds swallowed him in their anxious ranks. Ginny followed him through the crowd, following his raven hair. When she finally caught up to him, he started to run again. He stopped, however, when Ginny started breaking down in the middle of the busy, bustling street. Harry almost ran, but the pointed looks from the elders of the crowd, and the French, German and English mutters stopped him. He coaxed her gently out of the public's way. Before he could run, she kissed him. He didn't push her away, as she expected him to. He returned her kiss. Then Hermione and Ron had showed up. Ginny smiled as Ron quickly did a double take at the mouth of the alley when he saw her and Harry kissing. When he was sure of what he was seeing, Ron marched up to them, pulled her off Harry and demanded to know what she was doing there. Her innocent answer, "Kissing Harry," turned Ron's face red. "I'm also following you three. I will not miss helping you because I'm too young. I refuse to accept it." From behind Ron, Hermione laughed at Ginny's expression of rage and defiance. "Seeming as you've followed us this far, I think it would be safer for you to stick with us." Ginny smiled at the brown-haired woman and the four of them Disapparated to the English Magical Embassy. There they copied the Potions book's contents and set the horcrux on fire, destroying it. Then they returned to England only to find that Voldemort was attacking Ottery St. Catchpole, going after the "blood-traitors" and the Lovegoods, as well as all the Muggles in the town. ~*~ "Ginny? Are you alright?" Hermione asked, and Ginny started slightly. "I'm fine, 'Mione. I just miss Harry, George, Percy, Charlie and Dad." ~*~ Harry, Ginny, Ron and Hermione immediately Apparated to the Burrow, hoping that they weren't too late. Ginny and Ron felt their Weasley blood boil as they Apparated into the masses of black-robed Death Eaters swarming over their home. As Harry and Hermione finally caught up to the youngest Weasleys, the Death Eaters finally noticed them running among them. "Ickle Baby Potter!" one of the hooded figures crowed, and Harry snarled. "Bellatrix! Crucio!" Far from the pathetic attempt at the Ministry Atrium, this curse had Bellatrix on the ground, crying out with pain. The fights around the pair stopped as the Death Eaters gawped at Harry, and the Order members were able to Stun or capture most of them, choosing to ignore the Unforgivable Curse Harry was using. "Harry!" Harry's concentration was broken by Hermione's scream as Lucius Malfoy, one of the few unbound Death Eaters, sent a Cruciatus Curse at Harry. Harry ducked, and Ginny ploughed through the Death Eater ranks to see the Burrow start to go up in flames. Praying no one was inside, Ginny turned to Stun and Incarcerous all the Death Eaters she could, but she was hit by a curse and knocked unconscious. From what Hermione, Ron and the Order members told her afterwards, Voldemort chose then to appear. ~*~ "Ginny!" "What?" Ginny looked at Ron, who was a red-eyed as she was. "You were staring off into space," Hermione explained. "I was remembering…" she trailed off. Hermione and Ron shut their eyes and remembered too. ~*~ "So, Potter," Voldemort said, flinging curse after curse at Harry, "Do you really think you can win over me?" "You will die, Voldemort," Harry snarled, throwing up a shield as a Cutting Curse flew towards him. "Whether by my hand or my friends', you will die." Far from engaging in a conversation, as Harry expected him to, Voldemort turned and cried, "Avada Kedavra!" Charlie Weasley fell to the ground from where he fought Rabastian Lestrange, dead. Harry snarled and drew the heavy sword from where it was hidden, invisible, on his back. He had trained with a few fencing-masters while he was on the mainland, and he pulled the lessons into his mind now. Voldemort looked at the sword and smiled. "The Sword of Gryffindor. A very fitting weapon to use against the Heir of Slytherin." Harry swung the sword around in his left hand, his right holding his wand. With a cry, he brought it down on Voldemort's arm, severing his hand from his wrist. Voldemort cried out in pain, but kicked out at Harry. He caught Harry in the chin and Harry flew backwards a few feet. "Nagini! Come and get him!" Voldemort hissed in Parseltongue, and Harry stood up, twisting his head around. Nagini lunged at Harry from where she had been hiding inside the chicken hut, and Harry twisted his arm around just in time. He remembered the shape Mr. Weasley had been in when the snake had bitten him in Harry's fifth year. Now the damage was being inflicted on the cursing Voldemort. Nagini had, as Harry had dodged her bite, landed on Voldemort, mouth open. The poison in her bite was entering Voldemort's bloodstream, but it didn't seem to be doing much damage, aside from all the blood staining the ground, both from Voldemort's wrist and mangled shoulder. It appeared that using Nagini's poison in a potion to keep himself alive brought some unforseen side effects for Voldemort. This was known to neither the Order nor Voldemort himself. Voldemort swooped down and plucked up his wand from where he dropped it. "I will live, Harry Potter, and you shall die!" Voldemort cast healing charms on himself, but it was precious time wasted. As Nagini turned on Harry for another strike, Harry cast a Decapitation Hex at her, and her head was severed from her neck. "Nagini!" Voldemort's eyes were, if it were possible, even redder with rage. He cast Cruciatus after Cruciatus at Harry, who was only caught by a small multiple of them. But he did drop the sword and his wand. As Voldemort let up the curse, Harry scrambled for his wand. He grabbed it and the sword as the next curse gripped him, and he screamed as the rubies on the sword hilt dug into his palm. The whole time, Hermione was standing over Ginny, protecting her from the burning Burrow and the Death Eaters that were sending curse after hex after jinx at the pair of them. Ron was a little more offensive than Hermione. He was dispatching Death Eaters almost as often as Voldemort was casting the Cruciatus on Harry. His single-minded focus on Voldemort left little to stand in his way, and few people who wanted to. "Riddle!" Ron yelled, and Voldemort turned around, losing his focus on cursing Harry. Instead, he threw an Advada Kedavra at Ron. Arthur Weasley jumped in front of it, shielding his son from the green light. Ron stared in shock at his dead father, and growled, sending a Decapitation Hex at Voldemort. Voldemort dodged it and his head met with Harry's foot. Voldemort cursed and held his bleeding head, spinning around to see the pure hatred in Harry's eyes and the sword flashing towards his gut. "How dare you kill him!" Harry demanded as the steel punctuated Voldemort's abdomen. "Die, you foul half-blood!" With that, Ron sent a Cutting Curse at Voldemort and it cut straight through the Dark Lord's wand. Voldemort, feeling, incredibly, his life fleeing from him, used his last effort of wandless magic to throw Harry from his crumbling form, and into the burning Burrow. ~*~ Hermione and Ron had tears rolling down their faces as they remembered the last they saw of their friend, his rage — and hatred — contorted face relaxing in the shock of his imminent death. Harry had flown right through the supports holding the burning house up, and the Burrow had collapsed on top of him. "Harry once told us that the only places he really considered home were Hogwarts and the Burrow," Hermione had said at his funeral, "so he's being buried at Hogwarts, because he died at the Burrow. His very own White Tomb will stand next to that of Albus Dumbledore for all time." "He's with Sirius, and his mum and dad, Gin," Ron said, holding a muscled arm out for her. He already had one arm around Hermione, who was crying into his chest, not being tall enough to reach his shoulder. The twenty-five year old redhead moved to her brother's side and pulled him into a hug, including Hermione in it as well. "And Mum and Dad are together again, with Charlie, Fred and George, and Percy," Ron continued. Molly Weasley had died two years ago, on the exact day of the eighth anniversary of her husband's death. It was also the second birthday of Bill and Fleur's first child, Madeline. Molly had died, it was decreed, of a mistake in the ingredients of her cooking. But the Weasleys that had lived under Molly's roof and eaten her cooking knew that she couldn't have mistaken anything to do with cooking. The Weasleys had made a personal investigation, as a family, and found what looked like the Muggle poison arsenic in her food. The official record still holds the cause was 'accidental'. Fred was killed a year after Molly when one of his experiments for Weasleys' Wizard Wheezes backfired, blowing up his apartment and the roof off the shop below. The remaining Weasleys knew what had caused it: Fred had often complained that he didn't feel whole after George's death, and had taken on a sombre state of mind in the past half-decade. Without George's mind to help Fred remember the qualities of the ingredients he was using, he had often ended up in St. Mungo's. The last time he was there, they had had to regrow half the skin on his face, giving him scars like Bill's from the Death Eater raid on Hogwarts. "They're all together, waiting for us to join the party," Hermione mumbled, wiping her eyes with a handkerchief from her pocket. "And you know it'll be a good one," Ginny answered, pulling out her own handkerchief. "Fred and George are there." The trio laughed slightly as they thought of all the tricks the twins might be able to pull off now. Behind them, a pearly-white seventeen-year-old with round glasses sat on the ruins of the Burrow and watched his friends watch the sun set over the regrown trees. In a hollow voice, he said, "We're waiting for you guys, but don't hurry." When Ginny glanced at the ruins, the apparition waved and disintegrated on the wind. |