Emma Potter; Going to War

125: The end of it

We moved Voldemort's body and laid it in a chamber off the Hall, away from the bodies of Fred, Tonks, Lupin, Colin Creevey, and fifty others who had died fighting him. McGonagall had replaced the House tables, but nobody was sitting according to House anymore: All were jumbled together, teachers and pupils, ghosts and parents, centaurs and house-elves, and Firenze lay recovering in a corner, and Grawp peered in through a smashed window, and people were throwing food into his laughing mouth. The wolves tended to their wonded and mourned for their dead. 

I kneeled beside the alpha, his clear blue eyes rested on me. 

"I'm sorry, " I whispered, my breath caught in my throat. "I never meant for them to die."

They died by their own choosing. They will be remembered with honour

My eyes widened. "C-Can you understand me?"

Wrong question. You know I can understand you. You were supposed to ask if you could understand me. You may be different than most but human ignorance never changes. 

"H-how?"

A part of you, said the wolf looking away, " resides in each member of my pack. And a part of each member of my pack, including myself, resides in you.

After a while, exhausted and drained, Harry and I found ourselves sitting on a bench beside Luna. 

 "I'd want some peace and quiet, if it were me," she said.

 "We'd love some," I replied.

 "I'll distract them all," she said. "Use your Cloak."

 And before we could say a word she had cried, "Oooh, look, a Blibbering Humdinger!" and pointed out of the window. Everyone who heard looked around, and Harry and I slid the Cloak up over ourselves, and got to our feet. Now we could move through the Hall without interference. 

We spotted Ginny two tables away; she was sitting with her head on her mother's shoulder. Nicholas was talking with a man I assume was his father. I saw Neville, the sword of Gryffindor lying beside his plate as he ate, surrounded by a knot of fervent admirers. Along the aisle between the tables he walked, and we spotted the three Malfoys, Draco was talking to his parents gently, while an auror stood a little while away. They were due for trial, but perhaps their actions at the end would change the outcome. 

Perhaps. 

Everywhere we looked we saw families reunited, and finally, we saw the three whose company I craved most. 

 "It's us," I muttered, crouching down between them. "Will you come with us?" 

 We stood up at once, and together Harry, Ron, Zoe, Hermione and I  left the Great Hall. Great chunks were missing from the marble staircase, part of the balustrade gone, and rubble and bloodstains occurred every few steps as they climbed. Somewhere in the distance they could hear Peeves zooming through the corridors singing a victory song of his own composition: 

 We did it, we bashed them, wee Potters are the ones, 

 And Voldy's gone mouldy, so now let's have fun!

 "Really gives a feeling for the scope and tragedy of the thing, doesn't it?" said Ron, pushing open a door to let Zoe, me, Harry and Hermione through. Happiness would come, I thought, but at the moment it was muffled by exhaustion, and the pain of losing Fred and Lupin and Tonks pierced me like a physical wound every few steps. 

Most of all I felt the most stupendous relief, and a longing to sleep. But first we owed an explanation to Zoe, Ron and Hermione, who had stuck with us for so long, and who deserved the truth. Painstakingly we recounted what we had seen in the Pensieve and what had happened in the forest, and they had not even begun to express all their shock and amazement when at last we arrived at the place to which we had been walking, though none of us had mentioned their destination.