Notes: All seven books up to chapter 35 in DH (when Harry meets Dumbledore at King's Cross) are canon in this story. Some dialogue and descriptions are taken directly from DH and OotP.

Disclaimer: Harry Potter belongs to J.K. Rowling.

Chapter One: The Veil.

Harry lay face down, listening to the silence. He was perfectly alone. Nobody was watching. Nobody else was there. He was not completely sure that he was there himself.

A long time later, or perhaps no time at all, it came to him that he must exist, must be more than disembodied thought, because he was lying, definitely lying, on some surface. Therefore he had a sense of touch, and the thing against which he lay existed too.

So maybe, because he had the ability to feel, he could see as well? He opened his eyes slowly, almost fearfully, and discovered with relief that he still had sight.

He lay in what appeared to be a bright mist, though it wasn't like mist he had ever experienced before. His surroundings were not hidden by cloudy vapor; rather the cloudy vapor had not yet formed into surroundings. The floor on which he lay was also white, neither warm nor cold, and as he sat up he realized that he was sitting on a raised stone dais in the center of a pit.

Harry looked around and found that the mist had suddenly vanished, and in its place were what appeared to be stone benches circling the room, similar to the courtrooms Harry remembered seeing in the Ministry of Magic. In fact, this place seemed to give off a strong air of déjà vu, like he'd been here before...

Had he really been here before? The only times he remembered going somewhere courtroom-like was when he, Ron, and Hermione had infiltrated the Ministry a couple months ago, though it felt more like ages. But that didn't seem to fit quite right. The other time he knew he'd been in a courtroom was when he'd been tried for underage magic the summer before his fifth year at Hogwarts.

Fifth year.

He suddenly whipped around and saw – almost expected to see – the ancient veiled archway through which Sirius had once disappeared. Heart swooping, he stood up and hesitantly approached it, feeling somewhat nauseous.

The black curtain fluttered and swayed innocently, like it always had. Harry thought he could hear faint whispering, murmuring noises he vaguely recalled hearing the first time he'd been in the Death Chamber.

Similar to the first time, as he watched the gently rippling veil with glazed eyes, he thought of how the archway had a kind of beauty about it, feeling a very strong inclination to walk through it.

And before he knew what he was doing, he somehow found himself standing mere feet away from the curtain, the whispering voices louder than ever. He took a step closer, and another step, getting closer and closer still. But as he slowly closed the gap between the arch and himself, a small voice in the back of his mind told him that he needed to stop. Now. He needed to stop, his life depended on it – but he couldn't. If he walked through the veil, then he'd see Sirius! This archway led to death, right? So he'd really die this time, big deal. Voldemort had already used the Killing Curse on him and he hadn't resisted. He could be a ghost for all he knew.

But whether he really was a ghost or not mattered very little, because he had one last footstep and then he'd meet Sirius again, and maybe even his parents and Lupin!

Taking a deep breath, he steeled himself to cross over in one go, but –

"Harry!"

It was like being broken from a strange, possessive trance: Harry spun around and stumbled, nearly falling through the veil.

"P-professor…?"

Albus Dumbledore was descending the stone benches surrounding the dais on which Harry stood, beckoning for him to step away from the arch.

Stunned, Harry watched as Dumbledore walked down and sat on one of the benches of the lowest row, patting the empty seat beside him.

Harry strode over reluctantly, bewilderment overwhelming him as he stare at Dumbledore's face, half expecting the old headmaster to disappear the moment he reached him.

Yet everything was the same as he remembered it. Dumbledore still had the same long silver hair and beard, same crooked nose, and same piercingly blue eyes behind half-moon spectacles. The only thing that was different was that both his hands, which now stayed folded in his lap, were whole and undamaged.

"But you're dead," Harry blurted out.

"Oh yes," said Dumbledore matter-of-factly.

"Then …I'm dead too?"

"Ah," said Dumbledore, smiling for the first time. "That is the question, isn't it? On the whole, dear boy, I think not."

They looked at each other.

"Not?" repeated Harry.

"Not," said Dumbledore.

"But then… where?" Harry raised his hand instinctively to touch his scar, but it didn't seem to be there. Neither were his glasses. "This place…"

"This place is indeed similar to that of the Death Chamber in the Department of Mysteries."

"Similar?" said Harry. "It's not the actual one?"

"I think not." said Dumbledore again.

Harry was confused.

"Then, sir," he said, his eyebrows knotted in a frown. "Why are we here? I should've died – I didn't defend myself! I meant to let Voldemort kill me!"

"And that," said Dumbledore, "will have made all the difference."

Harry still didn't understand. "Explain," he said.

And Dumbledore explained. He told Harry about how weak and foolish, he, Dumbledore, had been in search of the Hallows, how his determination to become master of death had blinded him, and that he was deeply apologetic for not trusting Harry enough. He explained how Voldemort's intake of Harry's blood tethered Harry to life, solidifying the "neither lives while the other survives" line of the prophecy – how Harry had been an accidental seventh Horcrux all along.

"So the part of his soul that was in me …has it gone?" asked Harry.

"Oh yes!" said Dumbledore. "Yes, he destroyed it. Your soul is whole, and completely your own, Harry."

There was a long silence as Harry contemplated everything Dumbledore said, staring unseeingly at the archway and its fluttering curtain. He did still feel a bit angry at Dumbledore for keeping secrets, especially one as big as him being the seventh Horcrux, but it eventually tapered down to the fact that had Harry known this information before setting out to destroy the other Horcruxes, he might not have been able to do as he'd done.

As he pondered all this, gradual realization of what was to come settled over him.

"I've got to back, haven't I?" he said.

"That is up to you."

"I've got a choice?"

"Several, actually. You might exit this room, or walk through the black veil, or you may even walk through that white veil."

"White veil?"

"Yes, yes," said Dumbledore, smiling more broadly. "It is on the other side of the veil we face. See it for yourself, Harry, if you will."

Harry got up and walked around the dais, not wanting to get too close to the swaying curtain lest he slip into that strange trance again. Sure enough, as Dumbledore said, the backside of the black veil showed to be a pure, blinding white. It was so bright, in fact, that he couldn't look at it for more than a few seconds.

"But Professor," Harry called as he strolled back, "the veil in the Death Chamber was completely black!" He was certain that the arch's curtain had been black all around; he could never forget that moment when Sirius had fallen behind it.

"Indeed, it was," said Dumbledore. "But I should remind you that this is not the actual Death Chamber."

"Then what is this place, exactly?"

"Why the Death Chamber, of course," Dumbledore chuckled, holding up a hand at Harry's quizzical look. "A place of passage, should I say, between life and death. I assume it takes the form of what you wish your departure from the living to be."

"Right," said Harry, not entirely sure if he understood all that. "So what would happen if I left this room?"

"You would, I'm sure, return to your present."

"And if I walk through the black veil?"

"You would move On," said Dumbledore simply.

"And the white veil?"

"You would go backwards, perhaps."

"Backwards?" If leaving this room led to the present, and the black veil led to death, then could the white veil perhaps…? "You mean backwards …backward in time?"

"Certainly."

Harry blinked. And blinked again. He couldn't believe it.

Dumbledore smiled at the shocked expression on Harry's face. "It is not going back in time, intrinsically, or at least not as one would with a Time Turner. The corporeal form does not accompany the time travel, as I believe you are only the immaterial part of your person here. I am aware that this choice may sound the most engaging, Harry," Dumbledore added, sensing the eagerness that swept over Harry's shock. "However, I must advise utmost caution if you were to choose so, for it is the most indefinite and commutable of the three."

But Harry didn't seem to be listening. "Sir," he said excitedly, "if I were to go back and change things, then – then there might not be as many deaths as there have been in the war! I could stop them from happening!" Dumbledore wouldn't have to die – and neither would Sirius, Lupin, Dobby, Fred, Snape, and everyone else who had!

Dumbledore nodded solemnly, but didn't say anything.

Harry had a notion that Dumbledore didn't want him to do as he intended to do, but he decided not to mention anything, as the old man seemed too polite to bring it up himself.

At length, the two of them stood up after a somewhat strained silence and walked around to the white veil. Harry climbed onto the dais, shading his eyes from the bright whiteness. There weren't any strange sensations coming from it that he could feel, though he did feel a bit nervous and oddly blank at the same time.

He turned around. "Well …er, I guess this is good-bye, then, Professor," he said awkwardly, not sure how he felt about the abrupt end to their meeting.

"Alas, it is, dear boy," said Dumbledore sadly, reaching up to pat him on the shoulder. "Farewell, Harry. Best of luck to you."

Harry waved and determinedly strode over to the arch, looking back over his shoulder as he went.

As soon as his foot slipped past the white curtain, the entire place began to brighten into the same blinding color as the veil. And though he couldn't be too sure because of the intense glare, Harry thought he saw tears spill from sparkling blue eyes before the whiteness unceremoniously consumed him and everything went blank.

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