WARNING: Character death... Major spoiler for HBP, I suppose... Just a blurb...
DISCLAIMER: I don't own Harry Potter... go figure.
Breathing Memory
He still remembered.
Dumbledore was dying; they all knew it, crowded around his bed while the stench of mortality drew nearer and nearer. Harry resisted the urge to cry.
"Harry, m'boy..." The ancient wizard's voice was dry, and cracked with every syllable as he spoke.
It was time.
The room cleared with a glance from the boy-who-wouldn't-die, Snape closing the door with an audible, yet subdued snap. Harry turned to the Headmaster, kneeling by the bed as Dumbledore struggled to breathe.
A smile, however weary and forced, still made it's way to the old man's face. "Harry... I know how you are feeling, but it will pass." A grimace as the pain potion momentarily lost it's hold, Harry glancing almost desperately at the door, ready to call back the potions master if need be. Dumbledore's shaking fingers on his wrist prevented him. "No, stop! I need you to listen to me, Harry."
Fear was something Harry was accustomed to, and though something darker and much more dangerous was roiling in his stomach, he nodded and tried to relax back into his kneeling position.
Dumbledore sighed, his chest sinking further towards the bedding before rising to half mast with his breathing. "You need to understand something, and though I myself never have truly grasped the meaning of these words, something tells me you might." A pause for more pained breathing, the intakes becoming husky gasps. He started again, "The world is a mysterious place - and most of us live with no inkling of what we are really made to do. People create gods only to curse them, Harry. Empires rise under the tutelage of a mighty leader, only to be crushed by the smallest and seemingly most insignificant of people."
Harry must have looked confused at that moment - he certainly would remember being so - for Dumbledore smiled fondly. "The truth is, Harry, that things work themselves out, as they always have. For better, for worse; for us or for others..." Dumbledore paused, a strange look crossing his face as he glanced at Harry. "Remember that Harry, but most of all remember..." the words were hurried, the old wizard as desperate to speak as Harry was to listen. The scarred teen grasped his elders' hand. Dumbledore kept on smiling. "Death... is only the next step... in your adven...ture."
Time seemed to freeze then, when Harry saw the light leave his tutor's eyes. The wrinkled, colorless lips withholding the unrealized wisdom while the equally time-worn fingers slid from much younger copies.
Harry Potter had not cried in a very long time, but that night he did. He was silent, save for his initial, echoing sob meant to alert the others who stood outside. No, he was not the loudest mourner that night, but he was certainly the most sincere. The most frightened. The most angered.
Yes... He was all those things and more, then and now - and he would never forget the night that Albus Dumbledore, Headmaster of Hogwarts, Order of Merlin 1st Class, and Leader of Order of the Phoenix, fell from earth into Paradise.
FIN
I did warn you it was just a blurb... I hope you enjoyed this rather small piece.