Chapter 1: Hollow Victory

"I still think that you should take the money and go to a happy place," said 26-year old Harry Potter, the Boy-Who-Lived, Basilisk-Slayer, Tri-wizard Champion, Dark Arts Defense League senior member, Leader of the Light, member of Order of the Phoenix, Order of Merlin 1st class recipient, and the Man-Who-Conquered.

"Of course not, Little Bro!" Thirty one year old Nymphadora Tonks growled. "We have already discussed this for the last 10 days and our decision is final. I will not allow you to second guess it. You better get over here and read me the checklist while I cross-check it."

Tonks watched as battle-wounded Harry Potter wandlessly levitated his wheelchair over to her. Two weeks ago, Harry had successfully vanquished the Dark Lord Voldemort for the final time during the epic battle at Godric's Hollow. This brought about a culmination of the 15-long-years of war with the Dark side.

During Harry's first year at Hogwarts, he helped kill the possessed professor Quirrel and banish the spirit of Voldemort. The next year, he rescued a possessed Ginny Weasley from the Chamber of Secrets and destroyed the 16-year-old version of Tom Riddle. During his fourth year Harry witnessed Lord Voldemort's reincarnation and the whole magical community refused to believe him.

At the end of his fifth year, Harry lost his godfather, Sirius Black, during the Battle of the Ministry. Harry was possessed by Lord Voldemort and considered himself lucky for having found a way to eject Voldemort from his body. The great and powerful Albus Dumbledore, the Leader of the Light, chose that night to reveal the prophecy to Harry Potter. Thinking back, Harry wondered as to why Dumbledore chose that moment to tell him of the Prophecy. Harry still was not trained in Occlumency, so Voldemort could still read the information from his head anytime.

The next year, Harry witnessed Albus Dumbledore murdered by his most trusted spy, Severus Snape. During that year, Dumbledore spent more than six months telling or rather showing Harry memories he had collected about Lord Voldemort. He told him about Tom's Horcruxes and his suspicions. They had already destroyed two of them, the Diary and the Gaunt ring, and were in the process of acquiring the third, the Slytherin Locket (which turned out to be a fake), when Death Eaters stormed the castle and killed Albus Dumbledore. Snape later justified his actions to Harry just before he died that he was merely carrying out Dumbledore's orders as Dumbledore was already dying from the "Withering Curse" on the Gaunt ring. Harry believed that having Dumbledore's orders to kill him did not prove that Snape was loyal to the light.

During Dumbledore's funeral Harry broke off a short-lived fling with Ginny Weasley and the golden trio i.e. Harry Potter, Hermione Granger and Ron Weasley set off in search of the remaining Horcruxes. The next year, instead of attending Hogwarts for their seventh year, they found the Slytherin Locket, Ravenclaw Diadem, and Hufflepuff Chalice and destroyed the soul fragments in them. Neville Longbottom killed Nagini, another Horcrux, using the Gryffindor's sword. Finally, Voldemort himself killed the final Horcrux in Harry's scar when he fired the Killing curse at him. In the battle that ensued, Harry was able to reflect the killing curse back at Voldemort using a simple disarming spell thus killing the Dark Lord permanently.

Or so they thought.

A month after the Battle of Hogwarts, the Unspeakables approached Harry and informed him that they did not believe that the Dark Lord was truly dead. Harry and Hermione joined the Unspeakables to get better trained for the next encounter with Voldemort.

Harry mourned a lot of his friends after the Battle of Hogwarts: Remus Lupin, Hagrid, Fred Weasley, Percy Weasley, Mad-eye Moody and a lot of Order members, Hogwarts staff and many Aurors he knew. Kingsley Shacklebolt was voted as the Minister of Magic and Tonks-Lupin retired from the Auror force and joined the Unspeakables to aid Harry and Hermione in their quest.

Ron Weasley in another of his jealous fits broke up with Hermione. Harry Potter never really restarted his relationship with Ginny Weasley and attending Weasley Sunday dinners was becoming a difficult chore with Molly Weasley practically planning Harry and Ginny's wedding every time Harry visited them. George Weasley withdrew into a shell after the death of his twin. Alicia Spinnet, his twin's girlfriend, moved in with him and his girlfriend Angelina Johnson. George refused to attend the Weasley Sunday dinners.

Peace reigned for 2 years and it was shattered on Christmas Eve at the Burrow. After the Weasleys, excluding George (who never attended) and Bill (who was in France with Fleur) and Harry exchanged presents, Molly, Ron and Ginny went into kitchen on the ruse of bringing a surprise present. Harry was immediately suspicious of the trio as soon as they entered the living room. In a split second, three killing curses were fired by them, Ginny at Arthur, Ron at Charlie and Molly at Harry Potter. Harry managed to dodge it and fire a stunner at Molly. Ginny and Ron managed to portkey out. Harry had his worst fear come true.

The Veritaserum aided interrogation of Molly Weasley over the next two weeks brought out a lot of truths and Harry was shocked at how far people would go to control others. The story of Molly Weasley manipulating or being manipulated started during the summer after her fourth year at Hogwarts. Death eaters had attacked the Prewitt Manor and killed her parents. Her younger twin brothers, Gideon and Fabian were at their friend's house. Molly in order to save her younger sisters, 5-year old Joanne and 2 year old Elizabeth, banished them both to the center of a nearby town and hid in a cupboard.

Aurors had been alerted to the Dark Mark and had apparated to Prewitt Manor and found a catatonic Molly Prewitt and refused to interrogate her. They reported the two younger girls missing and presumed that they had been kidnapped by Death Eaters. Dumbledore used Legilimency on Molly and found out what she had done and tried to give her hope that her sisters might have survived. This unfortunately reinforced Molly's feelings of guilt every time he talked to her about it. Dumbledore refused to punish Molly when he caught her using a love potion on Arthur Weasley and gave her a second chance as he was familiar with her history.

Molly's guilt at losing her sisters was the motivation behind having 7 children until she had at least a baby girl, in spite of financial burdens. Molly had changed from a fun-loving prankster like her younger twin-brothers to a perfect Slytherin. She worked towards getting what she wanted, by hook or by crook. With the complicit permission of Dumbledore, Molly executed the perfect plan to befriend Harry Potter. She envisioned a bright future for her children and getting the Potter boy to fall in love with her baby girl was a prime component.

Ron was groomed to isolate Harry Potter from other potential friends. Molly had administered Harry a strong loyalty potion towards Ron in the corn-beef sandwich that Ron offered to Harry on the first ride to Hogwarts. She reinforced these potions during the summers along with an attraction potion to Hermione towards Ron after the fourth year, and a love potion to Harry towards Ginny during the sixth year. Molly had also kept other adult influences away from Harry. She fought with Sirius to gain 'parental' control over Harry Potter. She subtly encouraged Lupin's irrational fears of Lycanthropy rejection and kept him away from Harry. She even dosed Tonks and Lupin a love potion to keep them busy. She claimed that she only did all that for Harry's own good as he did not know what was good for him, having been raised by muggles. In spite of all her other shortcomings, she never stole a single galleon from Harry Potter.

When asked why she fired the Killing curse at Harry, she broke down and claimed that she did not remember. The truth potion later revealed that she was under two Imperius curses by both Ginny and Ron. Molly revealed that Ginny started having nightmares and visions, similar to Harry, during what would have been Harry's seventh year at Hogwarts. Harry and the Unspeakables guessed that they had not really destroyed the whole soul of the 16-year old Tom Riddle during the Chamber of Secrets incident. Much like Harry's scar, her possession left behind a small piece of Riddle in Ginny which Voldemort took advantage of.

After the disastrous Christmas dinner at the Burrow, Voldemort in his spirit form possessed Ginny and underwent an androgenization ritual converting her into a man and assimilating his soul into hers. Thus started a third war with a red haired Voldemort. Most of the death eaters who had been marked had died or been captured after the Battle of the Hogwarts. GinMort refused to brand his followers with the Dark Mark, but instead took a leaf out of the Dumbledore's Army and created irremovable bracelets and necklaces that worked similar to the DA's coins. This made it even more difficult for the Aurors to track and capture Death Eaters.

With diminished resources GinMort carried of his campaign using Guerilla tactics and slowly built up his base. His pureblood lineage from Ginny Weasley and connection to the Slytherin line drew in more support from ancient families across Europe. Many years and more losses made the light faction falter. GinMort particularly liked torturing Harry by torturing and killing those closest to him. Over the next few years, almost all the original DA had been killed. Other non-DA casualties included Minerva McGonagall, Filius Flitwick, Hestia Jones, the Diggorys, the Delacours, the Granger parents, Teddy Lupin (Harry's godson), the Dursleys including Aunt Marge, the Lovegoods, Rita Skeeter, Madam Rosemerta, Tom at the Leaky Cauldron, Ollivander, and even Stan Shupike. The only friends of Harry Potter who were not dead were George Weasley and his two girlfriends, Bill Weasley, Neville Longbottom, Tonks and Hermione Granger. Ron Weasley was GinMort's chief enforcer just like Bellatrix had been Voldemort's.

In a desperate attempt, Bill Weasley volunteered to infiltrate the Death Eater camp and for the next 8 months became GinMort's second best enforcer and best ward breaker. After establishing himself in the inner circle, he started leaking information about the attacks. Harry and Neville trained themselves for the final confrontation in all sorts of battle magics, physical attacks and weapons training. They learned to summon the Gryffindor's sword and practice with it at every opportunity.

The final confrontation was brought about during a rescue mission of Neville Longbottom after he had been kidnapped and kept prisoner at James Potter's home in Godric's Hollow. The Fidelius charm was still active and hence only Harry Potter could enter the building. The Aurors, Unspeakables, hit wizards, and Harry's friends rushed to Godric's Hollow.

By the time Harry reached the dilapidated building, GinMort had already killed Neville, not before having put him under the Imperius to summon, curse and banish the Gryffindor's sword. During the battle that ensued, there was yet another instance of Priori Incantatum, this time leading to the destruction of both their wands. Before GinMort could summon his second wand, Harry Potter leapt at him, summoned the Gryffindor's sword in his left hand, and chopped GinMort's head off. Only after the excitement died down, did Harry realize that the sword had been cursed with the same Withering Curse that was slowly killing Albus Dumbledore.

Harry walked out of the dilapidated building to see the carnage around him. George and his girlfriends had been killed by Death Eaters who had summoned the brooms from underneath them. Ron had shot the same purple flesh eating curse at Hermione and Bill had killed him with an AK. Another death eater shot a killing curse at Tonks and Bill had dived at Tonks intercepting the curse. Tonks, thanks to her clumsiness, fell and hit a stone on her forehead and passed out.

The only conscious person Harry found on the battlefield was Hermione and she was in a lot of pain. In spite of that, she laughed in relief when she saw Harry walk out. Her happiness was short lived when she saw Harry's blackened fingers and recognized the Withering curse. As she lay dying, she smiled at Harry and told him to look for a tent in her bedroom and passed him a note that said, 'The Hollow Victory magical tent can be found at the north-east corner of Hermione Granger's Bedroom at #12 Grimmauld Place'. Hermione's last words before she died were, "I love you Harry Potter and I will see you soon."