Change the Future

DH 29

Lying with his face pressed into the dusty carpet of the office where he had once thought he was learning the secrets of victory, Harry understood at last that he was not supposed to survive. Slowly, very slowly, he sat up, and as he did so he felt more alive and more aware of his own living body than ever before. He stood up. He did not look back as he closed the office door. The castle was empty. He felt ghostly striding through it alone, as if he had already died. The portrait people were still missing from their frames, the whole place was eerily still, as if all its remaining lifeblood were concentrated in the Great Hall where the
dead and the mourners were crammed. Harry pulled the Invisibility Cloak over himself and descended through the floors, at last walking down the marble staircase into the entrance hall. He reached the front doors easily. Then Neville nearly walked into him. He was only half of a pair that was carrying a body in from the grounds. Harry glanced down, Colin Creevey. He was tiny in death. 

"You know what? I can manage him alone, Neville," Oliver Wood said, and he heaved Colin over his shoulder in a fireman's lift and carried him into the Great Hall.

"That poor boy" Narcissa said. James and Sirius didn't even bother to glare at Oliver this time too shocked at everything that had happened.

Neville leaned against the door frame for a moment and wiped his forehead with the back of his hand. He looked like an old man. Then he set off down the stops again into the darkness to recover more bodies. Harry took one glance back at the entrance of the Great Hall. People were moving around, trying to comfort each other, drinking, kneeling beside the dead. He moved down the steps and out into the darkness. It was nearly four in the morning, and the deathly stillness of the grounds felt as though they were holding their breath, waiting to see whether he could do what he must. Harry moved toward Neville, who was bending over another body. 

"Neville."

"Blimey, Harry, you nearly gave me heart failure!" Harry had pulled off the Cloak. "Where are you going, alone?" Neville asked suspiciously. 

"It's all part of the plan," Harry said. "There's something I've got to do. Listen Neville"

"Harry!" Neville looked suddenly scared. "Harry, you're not thinking of handing yourself over?" 

"No," Harry lied easily. "'Course not this is something else. But I might be out of sight for a while. You know Voldemort's name, Neville? He's got a huge snake. Calls it Nagini"

"I've heard, yeah. What about it?" 

"It's got to be killed. Ron and Hermione know that, but just in case they. Just in case they're busy and you get the chance"

"Kill the snake?" 

"Kill the snake," Harry repeated.

"All right, Harry, You're okay, are you?"

"I'm fine. Thanks, Neville." But Neville seized his wrist as Harry made to move on. "We're all going to keep fighting, Harry. You know that?"

"Yeah, I" He patted Harry on the shoulder, released him, and walked away to look for
more bodies. Harry swing the Cloak back over himself and walked on. Someones eyes was moving not far away, stooping over another prone figure on the ground. He was feet away from her when he realised it was Ginny. He stopped in his tracks. She was crouching over a girl who was whispering for her mother.

"It's all right," Ginny was saying. "It's okay. We're going to get you inside."

"But I want to go home," whispered the girl. "I don't want to fight anymore!"