Harry Potter: Memories
"Avada Kedavra!"
Harry tried to scream, but the Full Body-Bind had sealed his mouth closed and he was unable to. He watched in terrified silence as he watched Albus Dumbledore, the greatest wizard of the century, was blasted off his feet by the force of Snape's Killing Curse. His old and battered body soared backward almost gracefully through the air before losing momentum and falling off the tower, vanishing out of sight with one last flurry of his robes.
It took Harry a moment to realize that the spell that bound him had been lifted, and he threw off the Invisibility Cloak before charging down the stairs after the Death Eaters. At the base of the stairs, he hesitated; the hallway was filled with a huge dust cloud that concealed everything and everyone except for flashes of light coming from wands of currently unknown ownership. He didn't want to do anything for fear of hitting a friend or ally instead of an enemy.
But then he heard Snape yell, "It's over, time to go!" and he took off into the fray, all thoughts of the duels around him forgotten. A flash of red light missed his head by a few inches, and he looked around to see two Death Eaters dueling with Ron and Hermione. "Stupefy!" Ron bellowed, and his foe collapsed in an unconscious heap.
"Good one, Ron!" Hermione called in between spells.
"Always the tone of surprise," he said back with a small grin before shouting, "Impedimenta!" and aiming at another Death Eater that was advancing.
"Expelliarmus!" Hermione cried, and her opponent's wand soared from his hand to clatter on the floor a few feet away. Before he could run or dive for his fallen weapon, she had said, "Petrificus Totalus!" and the Death Eater fell to the floor, stiff as a board.
Harry leapt over the immobilized wizard and continued down the hall. Up ahead, he saw Ginny engaged in a violent duel with a lumpy Death Eater who was sending Torture Curses at her in rapid succession. "You can't dance forever, pretty!" he cackled.
Harry felt terror lick at his heart and yelled, "Impedimenta!" His jinx hit the lumpy wizard and blasted him backward.
"Harry, where'd you come from?" asked Ginny in bewilderment.
Harry paused only long enough to give her a brief kiss before darting off after Snape and Malfoy. He passed Professor McGonagall and Lupin, who were in heavy combat. Lupin was battling two at once, and Ron darted forward to take one of them. Tonks was dividing her time in trying to fight and avoiding the random jets of light coming from a huge blond Death Eater's wand. He seemed to be the one responsible for most of the damage to the corridor. As his curses hit the walls and ceiling, large cracks appeared in the stone.
Harry aimed a curse at him, but Tonks beat him to the punch. "Stupefy!" she cried, and the blond Death Eater fell unconscious immediately. She then saw Harry and raised her eyebrows in surprise. "Harry? What are you…?"
But Harry rushed past her before she could finish her statement. In seconds, he had reached the corner of the corridor and turned.
He froze. Instead of facing a blank stretch of stone as he'd been expecting, he was staring at his own reflection. He didn't move for a long moment, just gazing at the mirror he hadn't seen in over five years. It was the Mirror of Erised. He could tell because, though he was alone in the corridor, there were two people standing behind his reflection.
His mother and father.
Shaking his head, Harry took a step backward, watching as his reflection reached into his pocket and withdrew a blood-red stone. No, no this isn't happening, he thought. Your imagination's playing tricks on you. Get a grip on yourself and find Snape!
He turned away from the mirror and continued down the corridor. He turned another corner and stopped again. Even though he was far from the second floor, he was now looking down a stretch of eerily familiar stone. It was the wall outside Moaning Myrtle's bathroom, the entrance to the Chamber of Secrets. He knew it was this corridor because of the message scrawled on the wall in what appeared to be blood: The Chamber of Secrets has been opened. Enemies of the heir beware.
Harry gaped at the message for a long moment. What was going on here? Was this Snape trying to distract him? Was his mind running wild with the shock of watching Dumbledore die?
Before he could come up with an answer, he heard a distinct hissing sound, and he looked instinctively over his shoulder to see a giant snake slithering toward him, its eyes a pair of bloody pulps. It was rearing back its ugly head, preparing to strike. "Stupefy!" Harry yelled, then turned to run, not even looking back to see if his curse had any effect. He only slowed when he realized that the temperature had taken a sudden downturn, despite the fact it was a warm summer evening. The reason became clear almost at once; a dementor swooped into the corridor from a classroom, its rotten hands reaching toward him, its hooded face sucking in the dread and terror Harry was feeling.
"Expecto Patronum!"
A silver stag erupted from the end of Harry's wand and chased the dementor down the hall. Harry ducked into an archway hidden by a giant tapestry and descended to the first floor of the castle. The front doors, he noticed, were open. Snape and Malfoy had already been through here.
"Harry?"
Harry stopped running, his heart missing several beats. He knew that voice. But it wasn't possible. It couldn't be…
He slowly turned to face the speaker. It was Cedric Diggory. He looked just as he had the night of Voldemort's return. Except he was alive.
"Harry! We heard a noise, and someone said something about the Dark Mark…"
Harry turned and fled. His confusion and uncertainty had bloomed into outright terror in an instant. If he didn't know any better, he would have said he was dreaming.
He passed the entrance to the Great Hall and glanced inside.
By now, he supposed, he should have been expecting something to be off about the scene. But he still wasn't prepared to see, not the Great Hall, but the Department of Mysteries. And where the teachers' table usually sat, a giant stone archway stood, complete with a thin, tattered veil that was billowing softly in a nonexistent breeze. Dueling at the base of the arch were Bellatrix Lestrange and…
Sirius Black.
A curse missed Sirius, and his godfather laughed. "Come on, you can do better than that!"
"SIRIUS!" Harry yelled, but he was too late. Bellatrix's next curse hit Sirius in the chest, and he lost his balance, falling backward into the veil and vanishing from sight. Harry knew he wasn't going to reappear.
"NOOO!" he screamed, momentarily forgetting Snape and Malfoy. For the second time, he had lost his godfather, and there was nothing he could do to bring him back.
A series of bright lights drew his attention to the Entrance Hall, where he was stunned to see two very powerful wizards locked in a violent duel. Lord Voldemort and Albus Dumbledore.
Dumbledore was ALIVE?
Harry opened his mouth to speak, but no sound came out. How on earth could Dumbledore still be alive? He had seen Snape's Killing Curse hit him! He should have been lying as a lifeless heap at the base of the Astronomy Tower. Yet here he was, as alive as he had been that afternoon as they'd set out to retrieve Voldemort's horcrux.
One of Dumbledore's spells missed, hitting the Gryffindor hourglass, which shattered, sending a cascade of rubies onto the stone floor. Harry let out a yelp of alarm.
Voldemort heard him. He looked over at Harry, and their eyes met. The scar on Harry's forehead seared with sudden pain. He yelled in agony as Voldemort smiled, his snakelike face twisting malevolently. "Well, well, well. Harry Potter. We meet again."
Harry couldn't respond; the pain in his forehead was too fierce.
"Avada Kedavra!"
Harry woke with a start and a yelp as Voldemort's curse engulfed him, and he looked wildly around. He was sitting on a log in front of the fire Hermione had started. Behind him, he could hear Ron's deep snoring coming from the tent. It was a comforting sound. It reminded him that he wasn't alone.
"Note to self," he muttered. "Don't mention to Hermione that you fell asleep on guard duty."
A sudden thought occurred to him, and he looked around nervously. He raised his wand and whispered, "Homenum revelio." Nothing happened, and he sighed with relief. They were still alone.
He clutched the locket around his neck. Despite the heat from the fire, it was ice cold. "One day," he murmured, "one day, I will destroy you. Just as soon as I find out how."
He resumed gazing into the fire and stayed in that position until Hermione emerged from the tent around three in the morning to take his place. He handed the locket to her gratefully, said good-night, and slipped into his bunk.
It was a long time before he finally fell asleep.