𝐁𝐞𝐥𝐥𝐞 𝐀𝐦𝐞 | 𝐇.𝐏.

𝐲𝐞𝐚𝐫 𝟕 - 𝟏𝟓

The Great Hall was a haze of smoke and debris. It smelled too much like sorrow and ash, so Hermione, Weasley and I all stepped out and waited on the main staircase for Potter.

Once we had gotten back to the castle he'd wasted no time running up to Dumbledore's office to put Snape's tears in the Pensive. Every time I thought of Snape I saw his slumped, blood-stained body, and I felt a sharp pang. It wasn't sadness, exactly, because it wasn't like we'd ever really gotten along. But I'd known him since long before I came to Hogwarts, and his death still managed to strike something deep within me.

I was starting to get nervous about Potter. We'd all been in a constant state of anxiousness since the war began, and probably even before that, but it was heightened now that he was separated from us. Anything could have happened to him. The Death Eaters had disappeared after Voldemort's orders, but that didn't mean that the castle still wasn't dangerous, especially for him.

When finally we heard his footsteps the three of us stood and spun around to face him. He was walking slowly, heavily, like whatever he had seen in the Pensive had aged him decades. There was a strange look on his face as well, and he wouldn't meet any of our eyes.

"What did you see?" Hermione asked immediately, but he just kept walking until he was passed us, and then on the landing in front of us.

"I'm going," Potter said emotionlessly, back still facing us.

"Going where?" Weasley asked obliviously.

"The Forbidden Forest. I'm going there now."

I couldn't breath. He didn't mean it.

"Are you mad?" Weasley shouted, at the same time Hermione exclaimed "No! You can't give yourself up to him!"

My mind was going blank. All I could think was Potter and the Forbidden Forest and Voldemort and Potter Potter Potter. I wanted to scream at him. I wanted to cry. I wanted to blast him into a million pieces because that would still be better then letting him walk into his own death at the hands of the man he'd been fighting for his entire life.

"What is it?" I eventually whispered. I could barely even hear myself, but I knew he could. "What did you see?"

Finally Potter turned around, but honestly it just made everything worse. I felt like I was seeing him again for the first time. Bright green eyes, forever messy jet-black hair, all sharp edges and crinkly smile lines that looked out of place on his devastated face.

I couldn't do this.

He took a ragged breath before saying softly, "There's a reason I can hear them... the Horcruxes. And him. I think I've known for a while." He looked at Hermione now. "And I think you have too."

Then it all clicked, like everything we had been trying to figure out this entire year all came together in a discovery so impossible that I was dizzy with it. But I knew in my heart it was true. 

Potter was a Horcrux.

A sob escaped Hermione, and then tears were running too quickly down her face to count. "I'll come with you," she cried.

"No," Potter said firmly, but every word was another punch in the gut. "Kill the snake. Kill the snake, and then it's just him."

Hermione let out another sob, and then she hugged him like she was never going to again. That's when I realized she actually truly wasn't. Weasley wordlessly ran up to him and hugged him too, but did the opposite. I stumbled back a few steps, nearly tripping over myself, completely disbelieving. I couldn't. I wouldn't. It wasn't true, it wasn't fair, it wasn't right.

Potter was the Chosen One. The Boy Who Lived. The little baby that had ended the first Wizarding War and then started the second. Knowing now that when he left this school he was never coming back made me sick and light headed and numb.