Setting Things Up
Dumbledore told Harry to go get his Invisibility Cloak before they went to see if there was a Horcrux in the cave where Voldemort took a couple of Muggle children when he was living in an orphanage.
"Meet me in the entrance hall in a few minutes," he had said to Harry.
Harry ran off, not knowing that Dumbledore another motive for wanting him to leave him for a few minutes, besides the possible need for the Invisibility Cloak.
"Fawkes," he said, turning to his pet phoenix, who was sitting on his perch. "Listen to me. I am going to be killed tonight by Severus Snape. Do not try to prevent this. No matter what your instinct tells you to do. You will be needed in the last battle, and I cannot allow you to die pointlessly."
Fawkes gave Dumbledore a sad look.
"I know that this is a lot to ask, but you must obey. It is important that I be killed by Snape, so that there can be hope that Voldemort will be struck down. He doesn't want to finish me off, either, but it's got to be done."
The phoenix turned his back on his master. He would never lay eyes on Dumbledore again.
"Now, there was something I was supposed to make certain I did before we set out," Dumbledore said, muttering to himself. "What was it?" He tapped his forehead with his wand.
Glancing about his office, he saw the Pensieve sitting in full prominence, and the statue of the humpbacked witch from the third floor that needed repairing. Then his eyes fell on a large chest that had once been in the Defense Against the Dark Arts office, when Barty Crouch Jr. had taught that subject while masquerading as Alastor Moody.
"Ah yes, of course," Dumbledore said, walking over to the trunk and taking the set of keys off the top of it.
He unlocked the first lock and opened the trunk to reveal a collection of hairbrushes from witches whom he had dated a long of time ago. Funny to think of that time now, when he was soon to die. That was before he met Grindelwald…which changed everything.
Dumbledore closed the trunk lid, turned the key in the second lock, and reopened it. Here were his notes on The Tales of Beedle the Bard. He'd keep that in there till someone like Hermione Granger found the trunk and opened it.
The third time he lifted the lid, he found a sponge and a starfish in it. He didn't know what to make of them. He tried to lift the sponge, but a crab clinched his finger, causing him to gasp in pain. He blew on it before shutting the lid.
In the fourth compartment, he found a copy of Twelve Fail-Safe Ways to Charm Witches. He took that out and placed it on his desk, then shut the trunk lid and went for the fifth lock.
In the seventh compartment, he found what he was really looking for. The books on Horcruxes he had removed from the library shelves decades ago, after suspecting that Tom Riddle had read them and intended to use them for evil. He put these on top of the trunk, where they would be easy to access. He hoped that Hermione Granger would think well enough to use a Summoning Charm and read them so that she could learn how to destroy Horcruxes. Inside the trunk it would have been impossible to do, but now they were ready to be claimed.
He opened a drawer on his desk, re-reading his will to make sure it said that Hermione was to be given Tales of Beedle the Bard, Ron his putter-outer, and Harry the sword of Godric Gryffindor and the Snitch he had caught in his first Quidditch match. All these items were safely in a compartment in Dumbledore's vault at Gringott's. He hoped Rufus Scrimgeour wouldn't detain these items, but at least he made certain that Scrimgeour wouldn't be able to understand the true reason for Dumbledore bestowing these gifts on the only three people who could be counted on to get the job done, since they were the only three who knew about the Horcruxes who would still be living after that night.
He then grabbed the Twelve Fail-Safe Ways to Charm Witches book, took one final glance around his office, and then left it behind.
He went down the moving staircase, and seeing the gargoyle, said, "The new password is Caramel Cauldrons."
"Aye, aye, sir," the gargoyle saluted.
Dumbledore went up the stairs to the seventh floor, then crossed over to the West Tower. Going up this tower, he found himself in the Owlery. He searched the place until he found a snowy owl, prominent in the joint because it was the only one of its species represented there.
"Hedwig, pleased to see you," said Dumbledore, bowing to her. He then stroke her under her beak, which she enjoyed. "I hope you wouldn't mind my asking this, but would you take this book to Weasleys' Wizard Wheezes in Diagon Alley and give it to Fred Weasley? It is very important that you do so."
Hedwig held out her talon for Dumbledore to place Twelve Fail-Safe Ways to Charm Witches in it. He did so, and she waited a bit to see if there was any more Dumbledore wanted to say.
But Dumbledore didn't say anything, and Hedwig took off.
He peered around at all the tawny, barn, and Great Horned owls that were wide awake and squawking now that night was here. Some would be going out to hunt in the Forbidden Forest in a couple of hours. It astonished Dumbledore that there were creatures in the world who still lived and did things, when he was going to have to let himself be killed.
But now it was time to go meet Harry and experience one final adventure. To think that he had struck down one evil wizard, only for another to crop up even more evil and for whose downfall Dumbledore could only contribute so much…
As he walked down the staircase, he pushed Voldemort and the Second Wizarding War out of his mind and thought of lovelier things, such as the reason he sent that book to Fred Weasley, who would likely give a copy to his brother Ronald, who would finally figure out how to get with Hermione, whom everyone in the school knew belonged together…
He surprised himself that he was able to think like a modern teenager, being an old man. Perhaps that came with being about to die and seeing the hairbrushes of girls he used to spend time with, before he realized he was gay…
But here he was now, in the entrance hall. Harry appeared a moment after Dumbledore, flustered and sweating.
"Well, shall we be going then?" Dumbledore asked.
"To pursue that flighty temptress, adventure?"
"Indeed, Harry," Dumbledore said, smiling at the boy. He happily did not know that Rita Skeeter was disguised as a beetle and hanging on the wall near them, with a tiny camera that she had skillfully shrunk before transforming, with which she took the picture of the Headmaster and Harry. She planned to use this for a biography about Dumbledore she was going to write if he died in this war. Next she would need to go see Grindelwald in Nurmengard and discover what juicy things he had to tell…