94 Diagon Alley - Chapter 259

    The bond of life! How succinct, how simply, don’t waste any more lives, and give this dangerous task to a boy destined to die, whose death will not be a disaster, but another blow to Voldemort.

    Dumbledore knew that Harry would not run away, that he would go to the end, even though it was his end, because Dumbledore had worked so hard to understand Harry. isn’t it? Voldemort knew, and so did Dumbledore, that Harry wouldn’t let anyone die for him once he found out he had the power to stop it. The sight of piles of corpses and countless wounded lying in the auditorium squeezed into Harry’s mind again, making him breathless for a moment: Death couldn’t wait…

    But Dumbledore overestimated him. He failed, and the snake was still alive. Even after Harry was killed, there was still a Horcrux that tied Voldemort to the earth. Of course, that means it will be easier for others to get it. Who would do this, he figured… Ron and Hermione must know what needs to be done… So Dumbledore wants him to reveal the secret to them both… So, if he gets his true destiny a little earlier, They can go on…

    Like rain on a cold window, these thoughts pounded on the hard, undeniable fact that he had to die. I must die. Things must end.

    Ron and Hermione seem to be far, far away, in some far-flung country. He felt like he had been separated from them for a long time. Don’t say goodbye, don’t explain, he’s made up his mind. It’s a journey they can’t go on together, and they’ll try to stop him, and it’ll just be a waste of precious time. He looked down at the deformed gold watch he got for his seventeenth birthday. Nearly half an hour had passed since Voldemort had ordered him to surrender.

    Harry stood up, his heart like a crazy bird, slamming against his sternum. Maybe it knew time was running out, maybe it decided to finish the beat of a lifetime before it was over. Without looking back, Harry closed the office door.

    The castle was empty. He strode alone, feeling like a ghost, as if he were dead. The framed portraits were still empty, and the whole school was eerily dead, as if all the remaining life was concentrated in the Great Hall, where the dead and mourners crowded.

    Harry put the Invisibility Cloak over his body and walked down the stairs, finally down the marble staircase to the foyer. Maybe, in a small corner of his heart, he hoped that someone could feel him, see him, and stop him, but the Invisibility Cloak was as perfect and flawless as ever, and he walked to the door with ease.

    Suddenly, Neville almost bumped into him. Neville moved in a man from the playground with another man. Harry looked down and felt like he had been hit again: Colin Creevey. He wasn’t old enough and must have sneaked back like Malfoy and Crabbe and Goyle. There was a large pool of blood on his chest, and his pupils were a little dilated.

    “Listen to me, Neville, I can move him alone.” Oliver Wood said, carrying Colin on his shoulders like a firefighter and walked into the auditorium. “Katie will find a way to give him priority.”

    Neville leaned against the door frame for a while, wiping the sweat from his brow with the back of his hand. He looked like an old man. Then he went down the steps again, into the dark to find other wounded – or dead.

    Harry took one last look at the entrance to the Great Hall. People were walking around, comforting each other, drinking, kneeling beside relatives and friends, but he couldn’t see a single person he loved, not Hermione, Ron, Ginny, or the rest of the Weasleys, nor Luna. He felt willing to trade all the time he had left for one last look at them, but if that was the case, would he still have the perseverance to look away? Still better.

    He went down the steps and into the dark night outside. It was almost four in the morning, and the deadly silent playground also seemed to hold its breath, waiting to see if he would do what he had to do.

    Harry walked towards Neville, who was leaning over to examine the other body.

    “Neville.”

    “My God, Harry, you almost scared me to death!”

    Harry has taken off his invisibility cloak. The idea came out of nowhere because he wanted to make sure that nothing went wrong.

    “Where are you going alone?” Neville asked suspiciously.

    “It’s part of the plan,” Harry said. “I’m going to do something. Listen to me—Neville—”

    “Harry!” Neville suddenly looked terrified and said, “Harry, don’t you want to hand yourself over?”

    “No,” Harry lied casually, “of course not… something else. But I may be missing for a while. Neville, you know Voldemort’s snake, right? He There’s a very large snake…called Nagini…”

    “I know, I heard…what’s the matter?”

    “It has to be killed. Ron and Hermione know, but in case they-“

    The possibility was so terrifying that it left him breathless and unable to continue. But he picked himself up: it was crucial, he had to keep his head, like Dumbledore, to make sure there was someone on the bench and someone else to carry on the task. Dumbledore died knowing there were still three people who knew about Horcruxes, and now that Neville will replace Harry, there are still three people who know the inside story.

    “In case they – busy – and you have a chance -“

    “Kill the snake?”

    “Kill the snake.” Harry repeated.

    “Okay, Harry. Are you all right?”

    “I’m fine. Thank you, Neville.”

    Harry had just turned to leave when Neville grabbed his wrist.

    “We’ll all keep fighting, Harry. You know what?”

    “I know, I—”

    The feeling of suffocation made the second half of the sentence choked in his throat, and he couldn’t continue. Neville didn’t seem to notice Harry’s strangeness. He patted Harry on the shoulder, released him, and walked away to find the other bodies.

    Harry put the Invisibility Cloak back on his body and continued walking. Someone was moving not far away, bending over to check a figure lying on the ground. A few steps away, Harry recognized it was Ginny.

    He stopped abruptly. Ginny leaned over to comfort a girl who whispered to her mother.

    “It’s all right,” Ginny said. “It’s all right. We’ll take you in here.”

    “But I want to go home,” the girl whispered, “I don’t want to fight anymore!”

    “I know,” Ginny said, her voice choked, “it will pass.”

    Waves of chill ran across Harry’s skin. He wanted to yell into the night, he wanted Ginny to know he was here, he wanted Ginny to know where he was going. He wanted to be stopped, dragged back, sent home…

    However, he is at home now. Hogwarts was the first and best home he had ever known. Abandoned boys like him, Voldemort and Snape have all found homes here…

    Ginny knelt beside the injured girl and grabbed her hand. Harry forced himself forward with great willpower. He seemed to see Ginny looking around as he passed, wondering if she could sense someone walking by, but Harry didn’t speak or look back.

    Hagrid’s cabin emerged from the darkness. There were no lights and no sound of Fang scratching and barking at the door in welcome. Had come to see Hagrid so many times, the shiny copper pot on the fire, the rock-skin pie, the giant grub, and Hagrid’s big, unshaven face, Ron spitting out slugs, Hermione helping Hagrid Save Norbert…

    Harry continued on, and now he has come to the edge of the forest. He stopped.

    A group of dementors wandered among the trees, and he felt the chill of them, wondering if he could pass safely. He no longer has the power to summon the Patronus. He couldn’t control his trembling body any longer. It seems that death is not so easy. Every second he breathed, the fragrance of the grass, the feeling of the cool breeze on his cheeks, was so precious. Thinking that others still have many, many years to squander, the time is simply too much to pass, and for him, every second is so difficult to let go. He thought he couldn’t go any further, and at the same time knew he had to. The long game is over, the Snitch has been caught, and it’s time to get out of the air…

    The Snitch. His feeble fingers fumbled for a moment in the leather pouch hanging around his neck and pulled it out.

    I open at the end.

    Harry stared down at the Snitch, breathing hard and fast. Now he hoped that time would pass as slowly as possible, but time seemed to speed up, and he seemed to be enlightened without thinking. This is the end. it’s time.

    He pressed the golden metal surface to his lips and said softly, “I’m going to die.”

    The metal shell cracked. Harry lowered his trembling hands, raised Draco’s wand under the invisibility cloak, and whispered, “Fluorescent flashes.”

    Among the snitch that split in half, it was the black stone with a tooth-like crack in the middle. The fissures in the Resurrection Stone run straight down the emblem representing the Elder Wand, while the triangles and circles representing the Invisibility Cloak and the stone are still legible.

    Harry had another epiphany. Raising the dead is no longer important, because he is going to be one of them. In fact, it was not he who was calling them, but they were calling him away.

    He closed his eyes and turned the stone in his hand three times.

    He knew there was a result, because he heard a slight movement around him, like some weak bodies moving on the soil scattered by the branches of the forest outside. He opened his eyes and looked around.

    He saw that they were neither ghosts nor flesh and blood. he