Prologue: Kings Cross.
Author's note.
I deleted this story because I was not happy with how it was, and there were a few spelling mistakes. I have got Harry to return to October 31st, 1981 after the attack. Sadly, I can't save his parents because then Voldemort won't be defeated. I don't want him abused too much in my story and I want the Horcrux gone as soon as possible. He will run away from his aunt and uncle at a very young age. He will still be a medamorfigus. I haven't decided if he will go to Hogwarts as Harry Potter or disguised as a muggleborn. I have made him question some of Dumbledore's decisions as well so no, he won't follow Albus blindly. The pairings will be the same as in cannon. Dumbledore is not a bad man. He is good, manipulative, and he doesn't realise how some of his decisions affect people. The prologue is slightly different than cannon.
Prologue: Kings Cross.
May 2nd, 1998.
Lying with my face pressed into the dusty carpet of the office where I had once thought I was learning the secrets of victory, I understood at last that I was not supposed to survive. My job was to walk calmly into Death's welcoming arms. Along the way, I was to dispose of Voldemort's remaining links to life, so that when at last I flung myself across Voldemort's path, and did not raise a wand to defend myself, the end would be clean, and the job that ought to have been done in Godric's Hollow would be finished: Neither would live, neither could survive.
I felt my heart pounding fiercely in my chest. How strange that in my dread of death, it pumped all the harder, valiantly keeping me alive. But it would have to stop, and soon. Its beats were numbered. How many would there be time for, as I rose and walked through the castle for the last time, out into the grounds and into the forest?
Terror washed over me as I lay on the floor, with that funeral drum pounding inside me. Would it hurt to die? All those times I had thought that it was about to happen and escaped, I had never really thought of the thing itself: my will to live had always been so much stronger than my fear of death. Yet it did not occur to me now to try to escape, to outrun Voldemort. It was over, I knew it, and all that was left was the thing itself: dying.
If I could only have died on that summer's night when I had left number four, Privet Drive, for the last time, when the noble phoenix-feather wand had saved me! If I could only have died like Hedwig, so quickly I would not have known it had happened! Or if I could have launched myself in front of a wand to save someone I loved. I envied even my parents' deaths now. This cold-blooded walk to my own destruction would require a different kind of bravery. I felt my fingers trembling slightly and made an effort to control them, although no one could see me. The portraits on the walls were all empty.
Slowly, very slowly, I sat up, and as I did so, I felt more alive and more aware of my own living body than ever before. Why had I never appreciated what a miracle I was, brain, nerve, and beating heart? It would all be gone or at least, I would be gone from it. My breath came slow and deep, and my mouth and throat were completely dry, but so were my eyes.
Dumbledore's betrayal was almost nothing. Of course there had been a bigger plan; I had simply been too foolish to see it, I realized that now. I had never questioned my own assumption that Dumbledore wanted me alive. Now I saw that my life span had always been determined by how long it took to eliminate all the Horcruxes. Dumbledore had passed the job of destroying them to me, and obediently I had continued to chip away at the bonds tying not only Voldemort, but myself, to life! How neat, how elegant, not to waste any more lives, but to give the dangerous task to the boy who had already been marked for slaughter, and whose death would not be a calamity, but another blow against Voldemort.
Dumbledore had known that I would not duck out, that I would keep going to the end, even though it was my end, because he had taken trouble to get to know me, hadn't he? Dumbledore knew, as Voldemort knew, that I would not let anyone else die for me, now that I had discovered it was in my power to stop it.
The images of Fred, Remus, and Tonks lying dead in the Great Hall forced their way back into my mind's eye, and for a moment I could hardly breathe: Death was impatient, but Dumbledore had overestimated me. I had failed: The snake survived. One Horcrux remained to bind Voldemort to the earth, even after I had been killed. True, that would mean an easier job for somebody. I wonder who would do it. Ron and Hermione would know what needed to be done, of course. That would have been why Dumbledore wanted me to confide in two others, so that if I fulfilled my true destiny a little early, they could carry on.
Like rain on a cold window, these thoughts pattered against the hard surface of the incontrovertible truth, which was that I must die. I must die. It must end.
Ron and Hermione seemed a long way away, in a far-off country; I felt as though I had parted from them long ago. There would be no good-byes and no explanations, I was determined of that. This was a journey we could not take together, and the attempts they would make to stop me would waste valuable time. I looked down at the battered gold watch I had received on my seventeenth birthday. Nearly half of the hour allotted by Voldemort for my surrender had elapsed.
I stood up. My heart was leaping against my ribs like a frantic bird. Perhaps it knew it had little time left, perhaps it was determined to fulfil a lifetime's beats before the end. I did not look back as I closed the office door.
The castle was empty. I felt ghostly striding through it alone, as if I had already died. The portrait people were still missing from their frames; the whole place was eerily still, as if all its remaining life were concentrated in the Great Hall where the dead and the mourners were crammed.
I pulled the Invisibility Cloak over myself and descended through the floors, at last walking down the marble staircase into the entrance hall. Perhaps some tiny part of me hoped to be sensed, to be seen, to be stopped, but the Cloak was, as ever, impenetrable, perfect, and I reached the front doors easily.
I stopped and started thinking about my whole life.
Dumbledore had been the one who had left me at the Dursleys. He also knew that I wouldn't be treated right. His words came back to me. "Five years ago you arrived at Hogwarts, Harry, safe and whole, as I had planned and intended. Well-not quite whole. You had suffered. I knew you would when I left you on your aunt and uncle's doorstep. I knew I was condemning you to ten dark and difficult years."
If Dumbledore had truly cared about me, why had he not researched other ways of getting the Horcrux out of my head?
I thought back to second year. Phoenix tears could heal all wounds. It was dangerous but it could have worked. Dumbledore could have lightly stabbed the scar with Gryffindor's sword, waited for the Horcrux to be destroyed, then let Fawkes cry on the scar and heal it.
First year. Dumbledore could have hidden the Philosopher's stone under very powerful wards or the Fidelius charm but no, he had hidden the stone in the third floor corridor. The obstacles were so easy that a first or second year could get through them. The only two explanations that I came up with was that Dumbledore was testing me or he wanted to somehow trap Voldemort. Dumbledore had also known Quirrell before I came to school. He must have known that he was being possessed by Voldemort, especially when he was putting on his act.
He even asked Snape to keep an eye on Quirrell
Did the old man really not care about the students allowing Voldemort to teach at school like that? Who knows what Voldemort could have done? Dumbledore wanted to test me. He was willing to put student's lives at risk just to see what I was capable of.
I realised it then. I was being manipulated right from the start by him. I came to Hogwarts, abused and friendless because of him. I had trusted and confided in him just because he was one of the people who had been kind to me. The conversation between Snape and Dumbledore kept playing inside my head.
"on the night Lord Voldemort tried to kill him, when Lily Potter cast her own life between them as a shield, the Killing Curse rebounded upon Lord Voldemort, and a fragment of Voldemort's soul was blasted apart from the whole, and latched itself onto the only living soul left in that collapsing building. Part of Lord Voldemort lives inside Harry, and it is that which gives him the power of speech with snakes, and a connection with Lord Voldemort's mind that he has never understood. And while that fragment of soul, unmissed by Voldemort, remains attached to and protected by Harry, Lord Voldemort cannot die. Voldemort himself must kill him. That is essential."
"So the boy must die?"
"Yes."
"I thought all these years that we were protecting him for her. For Lily."
"We have protected him because it has been essential to teach him, to raise him, to let him try his strengths. Meanwhile, the connection between them grows ever stronger, a parasitic growth: Sometimes I have thought he suspects it himself. If I know him, he will have arranged matters so that when he does set out to meet his death, it will truly mean the end of Voldemort."
"You have kept him alive so that he can die at the right moment?"
"Don't be shocked, Severus. How many men and women have you watched die?"
"Lately, only those whom I could not save. You have used me."
"Meaning?"
"I have spied for you and lied for you, put myself in mortal danger for you. Everything was supposed to be to keep Lily Potter's son safe. Now you tell me you have been raising him like a pig for slaughter?"
"But this is touching, Severus, Have you grown to care for the boy, after all?"
The truth was that Dumbledore knew right from the start that I needed to die. I felt angry and sad. I had to live in a cupboard, got beaten on a daily bases, and had to do everything in the house for the first 10 years. For the next 6 years, I was facing danger. First year it was Quirrell and Voldemort trying to steal the Philosopher's stone, second year was the chamber of secrets, third year it was the dementors, fourth year it was the tournament, Voldemort's rezarection, and Cedric's death, fifth year it was Umbridge, the DA, and the department of mysteries, sixth year, I was learning about the Horcruxe's and witnessed Dumbledore's death, and finally this year was the worst of them all, searching for the Horcruxes, getting captured by the snatchers, Dobby dying, and the battle of Hogwarts.
How could I have been so clueless? How could I have not seen Dumbledore's manipulations earlier on?
For the first time, I felt sorry for Snape. I was not the only one who was being manipulated by Dumbledore. Snape was manipulated worse than me. He was risking his life just to keep me safe and then finding out that it was basically for nothing because I was meant to die all along. The man had still spied for Dumbledore after knowing the truth. No wonder the man was so bitter. Snape was the bravest man I ever knew.
So many people dead. My parents, Cedric, Sirius, Fred, Remus, Tonks, Dobby, Mad-Eye Moody, Snape, Dumbledore, and so many more.
I saw Neville carrying Colin Creevey's body to the Great Hall. He was so small. Hell, he was not even of age yet. Voldemort wanted me. So many people dead because of me. What was there to live for anyway?
I May as well just get it over with. I checked my watch, I had 20 minutes left.
I quickly hurried to the forbidden forest.
At the edge of the forest, I stopped. A swarm of dementors was gliding amongst the trees. I could feel their chill, and I was not sure I would be able to pass safely through it. I knew that somehow I needed to go on. I could not let Voldemort win. Many people's lives were at stake and if Voldemort wasn't stopped, the world would be completely destroyed in a few years. I felt sorry for whoever was going to face Voldemort. I was not sure if he could be defeated even after all of his Horcruxes were destroyed. So many people had tried to defeat him, but Voldemort was just too strong. I checked my watch again. 10 minutes. There was no time to think about what could have been or what could be. The long game had ended, the Snitch had been caught, it was time to leave the air.
The Snitch. My nerveless fingers fumbled for a moment with the pouch at my neck and I pulled it out.
I read the message again. "I open at the close." I am ready to die," I whispered.
I pressed my lips against it, and The metal shell broke open. I lowered my shaking hand, raised Draco's wand beneath the Cloak, and murmured, "Lumos."
The Resurrection stone sat in the two halves of the Snitch. It had cracked down the vertical line representing the Elder Wand but the triangle and circle representing the Cloak and the stone were still discernible.
Again I understood without having to think. It did not matter about bringing them back, for I was about to join them. I was not really fetching them: They were fetching me.
I closed my eyes and turned the stone over in my hand three times.
I knew it had happened, because I heard slight movements around me that suggested frail bodies shifting their footing on the earthy, twig-strewn ground that marked the outer edge of the forest. I opened my eyes and looked around.
They were neither ghost nor truly flesh, I could see that. They resembled most closely the Riddle that had escaped from the diary so long ago, and he had been memory made nearly solid. Less substantial than living bodies, but much more than ghosts, they moved toward me, and on each face, there was the same loving smile.
Dad was exactly the same height as me. He was wearing the clothes in which he had died, and his hair was untidy and ruffled, and his glasses were a little lopsided, like Mr. Weasley's.
Sirius was tall and handsome, and younger by far than I had seen him in life. He loped with an easy grace, his hands in his pockets and a grin on his face.
Remus was younger too, and much less shabby, and his hair was thicker and darker. He looked happy to be back in this familiar place, scene of so many adolescent wanderings.
Mum's smile was widest of all. She pushed her long hair back as she drew close to me, and her green eyes, so like mine, searched my face hungrily, as though she would never be able to look at me enough.
"You've been so brave."
I could not speak. My eyes feasted on her, and I thought that I would like to stand and look at her forever, and that would be enough.
"You are nearly there," said Dad. "Very close. We are so proud of you."
"Does it hurt?"
The childish question had fallen from my lips before I could stop it.
"Dying? Not at all," said Sirius. "Quicker and easier than falling asleep."
"And he will want it to be quick. He wants it over," said Remus.
"I didn't want you to die," I said. These words came without my volition. "Any of you. I'm sorry."
I addressed Remus more than any of them, beseeching him.
"Right after you'd had your son. Remus, I'm sorry."
"I am sorry too," said Remus. "Sorry I will never know him, but he will know why I died and I hope he will understand. I was trying to make a world in which he could live a happier life."
A chilly breeze that seemed to emanate from the heart of the forest lifted the hair at my brow. I knew that they would not tell me to go, and that it would have to be my decision.
"You'll stay with me?"
"Until the very end," said dad.
"They won't be able to see you?" I asked.
"We are part of you," said Sirius. "Invisible to anyone else."
I looked at my mother.
"Stay close to me," I said quietly.
And I set off. The dementors' chill did not overcome me; I passed through it with my companions, and they acted like Patronuses to me, and together we marched through the old trees that grew closely together, their branches tangled, their roots gnarled and twisted underfoot. I clutched the Cloak tightly around me in the darkness, traveling deeper and deeper into the forest, with no idea where exactly Voldemort was, but sure that I would find him. Beside me, making scarcely a sound, walked dad, Sirius, Remus, and mum, and their presence was my courage, and the reason I was able to keep putting one foot in front of the other.
I followed Yaxley and Dolohov to the clearing where Aragog had once lived.
A fire burned in the middle of the clearing, and its flickering light fell over a crowd of completely silent, watchful Death Eaters. Some of them were still masked and hooded; others showed their faces. Two giants sat on the outskirts of the group, casting massive shadows over the scene, their faces cruel, rough-hewn like rock. Every eye was fixed upon Voldemort, who stood with his head bowed, and his white hands folded over the Elder Wand in front of him. He might have been praying, or else counting silently in his mind, and I, standing still on the edge of the scene, thought absurdly of a child counting in a game of hide-and-seek. Behind his head, still swirling and coiling, the great snake Nagini floated in her glittering, charmed cage, like a monstrous halo.
I put The Resurrection Stone in my pouch.
When Dolohov and Yaxley rejoined the circle, Voldemort looked up.
"No sign of him, my Lord," said Dolohov.
Voldemort's expression did not change. The red eyes seemed to burn in the firelight. Slowly he drew the Elder Wand between his long fingers.
"My Lord."
Bellatrix had spoken: She sat closest to Voldemort, dishevelled, her face a little bloody but otherwise unharmed.
I was furious when I saw Bellatrix. I knew that I was going to die but I was determined to take as many death-eaters with me as I could. I pointed the wand at Bellatrix's throat and muttered, "Diffindo." Her head separated from her body. Both head and body fell to the ground.
Voldemort screamed in fury after seeing the broken lifeless body of his most faithful servant and started sending killing curses left and right. Some of the death-eaters stepped out of the way or ducked, and some were not so lucky and got hit.
I stayed under the cloak, pointed the wand at Lucius Malfoy's throat and muttered, "Sectumsempra." In half a minute he was also dead.
I killed a few more death-eaters, took off the cloak and smirked at Voldemort. "How does it feel to have your most faithful servants die, Tom?
Voldemort had frozen where he stood, but his red eyes had found me, and he stared as I moved toward him, with nothing but the fire between us.
Then a voice yelled: "HARRY! NO!"
I turned: Hagrid was bound and trussed, tied to a tree nearby. His massive body shook the branches overhead as he struggled desperately.
"NO! NO! HARRY, WHAT'RE YEH?"
"QUIET!" shouted Rowle, and with a flick of his wand Hagrid was silenced.
The only things that moved were the flames and the snake coiling and uncoiling in the glittering cage behind Voldemort's head.
I could feel Draco's wand against my chest, but I made no attempt to draw it. I knew that the snake was too well protected, knew that if I managed to point the wand at Nagini, fifty curses would hit me first. And still, Voldemort and I looked at each other, and now Voldemort tilted his head a little to the side, considering me, and a singularly mirthless smile curled the lipless mouth.
"Harry Potter," he said very softly. His voice might have been part of the spitting fire. "The Boy who lived, come to die."
None of the Death Eaters moved. They were waiting: Everything was waiting, Hagrid was struggling, and I thought inexplicably of Ginny, her blazing look, and the feel of her lips on mine.
Voldemort had raised his wand. His head was still tilted to one side, like a curious child, wondering what would happen if he proceeded. I looked back into the red eyes, and wanted it to happen now, quickly, while I could still stand, before I lost control, before I betrayed fear.
I saw the mouth move and a flash of green light, and everything was gone.
I lay face down, listening to the silence. I was perfectly alone. Nobody was watching. Nobody else was there. I was not perfectly sure that I was there myself.
A long time later, or maybe no time at all, it came to me that I must exist, must be more than disembodied thought, because I was lying, definitely lying, on some surface. Therefore I had a sense of touch, and the thing against which I lay existed too.
Almost as soon as I had reached this conclusion, I became conscious that I was naked. Convinced as I was of my total solitude, this did not concern me, but it did intrigue me slightly.
I wondered whether, as I could feel, I would be able to see. In opening them, I discovered that I had eyes.
I lay in a bright mist, though it was not like mist I had ever experienced before. My surroundings were not hidden by cloudy vapour; rather the cloudy vapour had not yet formed into surroundings. The floor on which I lay seemed to be white, neither warm nor cold, but simply there, a flat, blank something on which to be.
I sat up. My body appeared unscathed. I touched my face. I was not wearing glasses anymore.
Then a noise reached me through the unformed nothingness that surrounded me: the small soft thumping's of something that flapped, flailed, and struggled. It was a pitiful noise, yet also slightly indecent. I had the uncomfortable feeling that I was eavesdropping on something furtive, shameful.
For the first time, I wished I were clothed.
Barely had the wish formed in my head then robes appeared a short distance away. I took them and pulled them on: They were soft, clean, and warm. It was extraordinary how they had appeared, just like that, the moment I had wanted them.
I stood up, looking around. Was I in some great Room of Requirement? The longer I looked, the more there was to see. A great domed glass roof glittered high above me in sunlight. Perhaps it was a palace. All was hushed and still, except for those odd thumping and whimpering noises coming from somewhere close by in the mist.
I turned slowly on the spot, and my surroundings seemed to invent themselves before my eyes. A wide-open space, bright and clean, a hall larger by far than the Great Hall, with that clear, domed glass ceiling. It was quite empty. I was the only person there, except for —
I recoiled. I had spotted the thing that was making the noises. It had the form of a small, naked child, curled on the ground, its skin raw and rough, flayed-looking, and it lay shuddering under a seat where it had been left, unwanted, stuffed out of sight, and struggling for breath.
I was afraid of it. Small and fragile and wounded though it was, I did not want to approach it. Nevertheless I drew slowly nearer, ready to jump back at any moment. Soon I stood near enough to touch it, yet I could not bring myself to do it. I felt like a coward. I ought to comfort it, but it repulsed me.
"You cannot help."
I spun around. Albus Dumbledore was walking toward me, sprightly and upright, wearing sweeping robes of midnight blue.
"Harry." He spread his arms wide, and his hands were both whole and white and undamaged. "You wonderful boy. You brave, brave man. Let us walk."
I followed as Dumbledore strode away from where the flayed child lay whimpering, leading me to two seats that I had not previously noticed, set some distance away under that high, sparkling ceiling. Dumbledore sat down in one of them, and I fell into the other, staring at my old headmaster's face.
Dumbledore's long silver hair and beard, the piercingly blue eyes behind half-moon spectacles, the crooked nose: Everything was as I had remembered it. And yet.
"But you're dead," I said.
"Oh yes," said Dumbledore matter-of-factly.
"Then, I'm dead too?"
"Ah," said Dumbledore, smiling still more broadly. "That is the question, isn't it? On the whole, dear boy, I think not."
We looked at each other, the old man still beaming.
"Not?" I asked.
"Not," said Dumbledore.
"But I raised my hand instinctively toward the lightning scar. It did not seem to be there. "But I should have died, I didn't defend myself! I meant to let him kill me!"
"And that," said Dumbledore, "will, I think, have made all the difference."
Happiness seemed to radiate from Dumbledore like light, like fire: I had never seen the man so utterly, so palpably content.
"Explain," I said.
"But you already know," said Dumbledore. He twiddled his thumbs together.
"I let him kill me. Didn't I?" I said.
"You did," said Dumbledore, nodding. "Go on!" "So the part of his soul that was in me." Dumbledore nodded still more enthusiastically, urging me onward, a broad smile of encouragement on his face. "Has it gone?"
"Oh yes!" said Dumbledore. "Yes, he destroyed it. Your soul is whole, and completely your own, Harry."
"But then."
I glanced over his shoulder to where the small, maimed creature trembled under the chair.
"What is that, Professor?"
"Something that is beyond either of our help," said Dumbledore. "That is the part of Voldemort sent here to die.
"But if Voldemort used the Killing Curse," I started again, "and nobody died for me this time — how can I be alive?"
"I think you know," said Dumbledore. "Think back. Remember what he did, in his ignorance, in his greed and his cruelty."
I thought about it. I let my gaze drift over my surroundings. If it was indeed a palace in which we sat, it was an odd one, with chairs set in little rows and bits of railing here and there, and still Dumbledore, the stunted creature, and I under the chair were the only beings there. Then the answer rose to my lips easily without effort.
"He took my blood," I said.
"Precisely!" said Dumbledore. "He took your blood and rebuilt his living body with it! Your blood in his veins, Harry, Lily's protection inside both of you! He tethered you to life while he lives!"
"I live while he lives? But I thought, I thought it was the other way round! I thought we both had to die? Or is it the same thing?"
"You were the seventh Horcrux, Harry, the Horcrux he never meant to make. He had rendered his soul so unstable that it broke apart when he committed those acts of unspeakable evil, the murder of your parents, the attempted killing of a child. But what escaped from that room was even less than he knew. He left more than his body behind. He left part of himself latched to you, the would-be victim who had survived.
"And his knowledge remained woefully incomplete, Harry! That which Voldemort does not value, he takes no trouble to comprehend. Of house-elves and children's tales, of love, loyalty, and innocence, Voldemort knows and understands nothing. Nothing. That they all have a power beyond his own, a power beyond the reach of any magic, is a truth he has never grasped.
"He took your blood believing it would strengthen him. He took into his body a tiny part of the enchantment your mother laid upon you when she died for you. His body keeps her sacrifice alive, and while that enchantment survives, so do you, and so does Voldemort's one last hope for himself."
Dumbledore smiled at me, and I stared at him.
"And you knew this? You knew — all along that I was going to survive?"
"I guessed. But my guesses have usually been good," said Dumbledore happily, and we sat in silence for what seemed like a long time, while the creature behind us continued to whimper and tremble.
"There's more," I said. "There's more to it. Why did my wand break the wand he borrowed?"
"As to that, I cannot be sure."
"Have a guess, then," I said, and Dumbledore laughed.
"What you must understand, Harry, is that you and Lord Voldemort have journeyed together into realms of magic hitherto unknown and untested. But here is what I think happened, and it is unprecedented, and no wand maker could, I think, ever have predicted it or explained it to Voldemort.
"Without meaning to, as you now know, Lord Voldemort doubled the bond between you when he returned to a human form. A part of his soul was still attached to yours, and, thinking to strengthen himself, he took a part of your mother's sacrifice into himself. If he could only have understood the precise and terrible power of that sacrifice, he would not, perhaps, have dared to touch your blood. But then, if he had been able to understand, he could not be Lord Voldemort, and might never have murdered at all.
"Having ensured this two-fold connection, having wrapped your destinies together more securely than ever two wizards were joined in history, Voldemort proceeded to attack you with a wand that shared a core with yours. And now something very strange happened, as we know. The cores reacted in a way that Lord Voldemort, who never knew that your wand was twin of his, had never expected.
"He was more afraid than you were that night, Harry. You had accepted, even embraced, the possibility of death, something Lord Voldemort has never been able to do. Your courage won, your wand overpowered his. And in doing so, something happened between those wands, something that echoed the relationship between their masters.
"I believe that your wand imbibed some of the power and qualities of Voldemort's wand that night, which is to say that it contained a little of Voldemort himself. So your wand recognized him when he pursued you, recognized a man who was both kin and mortal enemy, and it regurgitated some of his own magic against him, magic much more powerful than anything Lucius's wand had ever performed. Your wand now contained the power of your enormous courage and of Voldemort's own deadly skill: What chance did that poor stick of Lucius Malfoy's stand?"
"But if my wand was so powerful, how come Hermione was able to break it?"
"My dear boy, its remarkable effects were directed only at Voldemort, who had tampered so ill-advisedly with the deepest laws of magic. Only toward him was that wand abnormally powerful. Otherwise it was a wand like any other. Though a good one, I am sure," Dumbledore finished kindly.
I sat in thought for a long time, or perhaps seconds. It was very hard to be sure of things like time here.
"He killed me with your wand."
"He failed to kill you with my wand," Dumbledore corrected Harry. "I think we can agree that you are not dead — though, of course," he added, as if fearing he had been discourteous, "I do not minimize your sufferings, which I am sure were severe."
"I feel great at the moment, though," I said, looking down at my clean, unblemished hands. "Where are we, exactly?"
"Well, I was going to ask you that," said Dumbledore, looking around. "Where would you say that we are?"
Until Dumbledore had asked, I had not known. Now, however, I found that I had an answer ready to give.
"It looks," I said slowly, "like King's Cross station. Except a lot cleaner and empty, and there are no trains as far as I can see."
"King's Cross station!" Dumbledore was chuckling immoderately. "Good gracious, really?"
"Well, where do you think we are?" I asked, a little defensively.
"My dear boy, I have no idea. This is, as they say, your party."
I had no idea what this meant; Dumbledore was being infuriating. I glared at him, then remembered a much more pressing question than that of our current location.
"The Deathly Hallows," I said, and I was glad to see that the words wiped the smile from Dumbledore's face.
"Ah, yes," he said. He even looked a little worried.
"Well?"
For the first time since I had met Dumbledore, he looked less than an old man, much less. He looked fleetingly like a small boy caught in wrongdoing.
"Can you forgive me?" he said. "Can you forgive me for not trusting you? For not telling you? Harry, I only feared that you would fail as I had failed. I only dreaded that you would make my mistakes. I crave your pardon, Harry. I have known, for some time now, that you are the better man."
"What are you talking about?" I asked, startled by his tone, by the sudden tears in his eyes.
"The Hallows, the Hallows," murmured Dumbledore. "A desperate man's dream!"
"But they're real!"
"Real, and dangerous, and a lure for fools," said Dumbledore. "And I was such a fool. But you know, don't you? I have no secrets from you anymore. You know."
"What do I know?"
Dumbledore turned his whole body to face me, and tears still sparkled in the brilliantly blue eyes.
"Master of death, Harry, master of Death! Was I better, ultimately, than Voldemort?"
"Of course you were," I said. "Of course, how can you ask that?
"True, true," said Dumbledore, and he was like a child seeking reassurance. "Yet I too sought a way to conquer death, Harry."
"Not the way he did," I said. After all my anger at Dumbledore, how odd it was to sit here, beneath the high, vaulted ceiling, and defend him from himself. "Hallows, not Horcruxes."
"Hallows," murmured Dumbledore, "not Horcruxes. Precisely."
There was a pause. The creature behind us whimpered, but I no longer looked around.
"Grindelwald was looking for them too?" I asked.
Dumbledore closed his eyes for a moment and nodded.
"It was the thing, above all, that drew us together," he said quietly. "Two clever, arrogant boys with a shared obsession. He wanted to come to Godric's Hollow, as I am sure you have guessed, because of the grave of Ignotus Peverell. He wanted to explore the place the third brother had died."
"So it's true?" I asked. "All of it? The Peverell brothers —"
"— were the three brothers of the tale," said Dumbledore, nodding. "Oh yes, I think so. Whether they met Death on a lonely road, I think it more likely that the Peverell brothers were simply gifted, dangerous wizards who succeeded in creating those powerful objects. The story of them being Death's own Hallows seems to me the sort of legend that might have sprung up around such creations.
"The Cloak, as you know now, travelled down through the ages, father to son, mother to daughter, right down to Ignotus's last living descendant, who was born, as Ignotus was, in the village of Godric's Hollow."
Dumbledore smiled at me.
"Me?" I asked.
"You. You have guessed, I know, why the Cloak was in my possession on the night your parents died. James had showed it to me just a few days previously. It explained much of his undetected wrongdoing at school. I could hardly believe what I was seeing. I asked to borrow it, to examine it. I had long since given up my dream of uniting the Hallows, but I could not resist, could not help taking a closer look. It was a Cloak the likes of which I had never seen, immensely old, perfect in every respect, and then your father died, and I had two Hallows at last, all to myself!"
His tone was unbearably bitter.
"The Cloak wouldn't have helped them survive, though," I said quickly. "Voldemort knew where my mum and dad were. The Cloak couldn't have made them curse-proof."
"True," sighed Dumbledore. "True."
I waited, but Dumbledore did not speak, so I prompted him.
"So you'd given up looking for the Hallows when you saw the Cloak?"
"Oh yes," said Dumbledore faintly. He forced himself to meet my eyes. "You know what happened. You know. You cannot despise me more than I despise myself."
"But I don't despise you."
"Then you should," said Dumbledore. He drew a deep breath. "You know the secret of my sister's ill health, what those Muggles did, what she became. You know how my poor father sought revenge, and paid the price, died in Azkaban. You know how my mother gave up her own life to care for Ariana.
"I resented it, Harry."
Dumbledore stated it baldly, coldly. He was looking now over the top of my head, into the distance.
"I was gifted, I was brilliant. I wanted to escape. I wanted to shine. I wanted glory.
"Do not misunderstand me," he said, and pain crossed the face so that he looked ancient again. "I loved them. I loved my parents, I loved my brother and my sister, but I was selfish, Harry, more selfish than you, who are a remarkably selfless person, could possibly imagine.
"So that, when my mother died, and I was left the responsibility of a damaged sister and a wayward brother, I returned to my village in anger and bitterness. Trapped and wasted, I thought! And then, of course, he came."
Dumbledore looked directly into my eyes again.
"Grindelwald. You cannot imagine how his ideas caught me, Harry, inflamed me. Muggles forced into subservience. We wizards triumphant. Grindelwald and I, the glorious young leaders of the revolution.
"Oh, I had a few scruples. I assuaged my conscience with empty words. It would all be for the greater good, and any harm done would be repaid a hundredfold in benefits for wizards. Did I know, in my heart of hearts, what Gellert Grindelwald was? I think I did, but I closed my eyes. If the plans we were making came to fruition, all my dreams would come true.
"And at the heart of our schemes, the Deathly Hallows! How they fascinated him, how they fascinated both of us! The unbeatable wand, the weapon that would lead us to power! The Resurrection Stone — to him, though I pretended not to know it, it meant an army of Inferi! To me, I confess, it meant the return of my parents, and the lifting of all responsibility from my shoulders.
"And the Cloak. We never discussed the Cloak much, Harry. Both of us could conceal ourselves well enough without the Cloak, the true magic of which, of course, is that it can be used to protect and shield others as well as its owner. I thought that, if we ever found it, it might be useful in hiding Ariana, but our interest in the Cloak was mainly that it completed the trio, for the legend said that the man who united all three objects would then be truly master of death, which we took to mean 'invincible.'
"Invincible masters of death, Grindelwald and Dumbledore! Two months of insanity, of cruel dreams, and neglect of the only two members of my family left to me. Then, you know what happened. Reality returned in the form of my rough, unlettered, and infinitely more admirable brother. I did not want to hear the truths he shouted at me. I did not want to hear that I could not set forth to seek Hallows with a fragile and unstable sister in tow.
"The argument became a fight. Grindelwald lost control. That which I had always sensed in him, though I pretended not to, now sprang into terrible being. And Ariana. After all my mother's care and caution lay dead upon the floor."
Dumbledore gave a little gasp and began to cry in earnest. I reached out and was glad to find that I could touch him: He gripped my arm tightly and he gradually regained control.
"Well, Grindelwald fled, as anyone but I could have predicted. He vanished, with his plans for seizing power, and his schemes for Muggle torture, and his dreams of the Deathly Hallows, dreams in which I had encouraged him and helped him. He ran, while I was left to bury my sister, and learn to live with my guilt and my terrible grief, the price of my shame.
"Years passed. There were rumours about him. They said he had procured a wand of immense power. I, meanwhile, was offered the post of Minister of Magic, not once, but several times. Naturally, I refused. I had learned that I was not to be trusted with power."
"But you would have been better than Fudge or Scrimgeour!" I said.
"Would I?" asked Dumbledore heavily. "I am not so sure. I had proven, as a very young man that power was my weakness and my temptation. It is a curious thing, Harry, but perhaps those who are best suited to power are those who have never sought it. Those who, like you, have leadership thrust upon them, and take up the mantle because they must, and find to their own surprise that they wear it well.
"I was safer at Hogwarts. I think I was a good teacher."
I stayed silent. Eventually, Dumbledore continued.
While I busied myself with the training of young wizards, Grindelwald was raising an army. They say he feared me, and perhaps he did, but less, I think, than I feared him.
"Oh, not death," said Dumbledore, in answer to my questioning look. "Not what he could do to me magically. I knew that we were evenly matched, perhaps that I was a shade more skilful. It was the truth I feared. You see, I never knew which of us, in that last, horrific fight, had actually cast the curse that killed my sister. You may call me cowardly: You would be right. Harry, I dreaded beyond all things the knowledge that it had been I who brought about her death, not merely through my arrogance and stupidity, but that I actually struck the blow that snuffed out her life.
"I think he knew it, I think he knew what frightened me. I delayed meeting him until finally, it would have been too shameful to resist any longer. People were dying and he seemed unstoppable, and I had to do what I could.
"Well, you know what happened next. I won the duel. I won the wand."
Another silence. I did not ask whether Dumbledore had ever found out who struck Ariana dead. I did not want to know, and even less did I want Dumbledore to have to tell me. At last, I knew what Dumbledore would have seen when he looked into the Mirror of Erised, and why he had been so understanding of the fascination it had exercised over me.
We sat in silence for a long time, and the whimpering's of the creature behind us barely disturbed me anymore.
At last I said, "Grindelwald tried to stop Voldemort going after the wand. He lied, you know, pretended he had never had it."
Dumbledore nodded, looking down at his lap, tears still glittering on the crooked nose.
"They say he showed remorse in later years, alone in his cell at Nurmengard. I hope that it is true. I would like to think he did feel the horror and shame of what he had done. Perhaps that lie to Voldemort was his attempt to make amends to prevent Voldemort from taking the Hallow."
"Or maybe from breaking into your tomb?" I suggested, and Dumbledore dabbed his eyes.
After another short pause I said, "You tried to use the Resurrection Stone."
Dumbledore nodded.
"When I discovered it, after all those years, buried in the abandoned home of the Gaunts, the Hallow I had craved most of all, though in my youth I had wanted it for very different reasons, I lost my head, Harry. I quite forgot that it was now a Horcrux, that the ring was sure to carry a curse. I picked it up, and I put it on, and for a second I imagined that I was about to see Ariana, and my mother, and my father, and to tell them how very, very sorry I was.
"I was such a fool, Harry. After all those years I had learned nothing. I was unworthy to unite the Deathly Hallows, I had proved it time and again, and here was final proof."
"Why?" I said. "It was natural! You wanted to see them again. What's wrong with that?"
"Maybe a man in a million could unite the Hallows, Harry. I was fit only to possess the meanest of them, the least extraordinary. I was fit to own the Elder Wand, and not to boast of it, and not to kill with it. I was permitted to tame and to use it, because I took it, not for gain, but to save others from it.
"But the Cloak, I took out of vain curiosity, and so it could never have worked for me as it works for you, its true owner. The stone I would have used in an attempt to drag back those who are at peace, rather than to enable my self-sacrifice, as you did. You are the worthy possessor of the Hallows."
Dumbledore patted my hand, and I looked up at him and smiled; I could not help myself. How could I remain angry with Dumbledore now?
"Why did you have to make it so difficult?"
Dumbledore's smile was tremulous.
"I am afraid I counted on Miss Granger to slow you up, Harry. I was afraid that your hot head might dominate your good heart. I was scared that, if presented outright with the facts about those tempting objects, you might seize the Hallows as I did, at the wrong time, for the wrong reasons. If you laid hands on them, I wanted you to possess them safely. You are the true master of death, because the true master does not seek to run away from Death. He accepts that he must die, and understands that there are far, far worse things in the living world than dying."
"And Voldemort never knew about the Hallows?"
"I do not think so, because he did not recognize the Resurrection Stone he turned into a Horcrux. But even if he had known about them, Harry, I doubt that he would have been interested in any except the first. He would not think that he needed the Cloak, and as for the stone, whom would he want to bring back from the dead? He fears the dead. He does not love."
"But you expected him to go after the wand?"
"I have been sure that he would try, ever since your wand beat Voldemort's in the graveyard of Little Hangleton. At first, he was afraid that you had conquered him by superior skill. Once he had kidnapped Ollivander, however, he discovered the existence of the twin cores. He thought that explained everything. Yet the borrowed wand did no better against yours! So Voldemort, instead of asking himself what quality it was in you that had made your wand so strong, what gift you possessed that he did not, naturally set out to find the one wand that, they said, would beat any other. For him, the Elder Wand has become an obsession to rival his obsession with you. He believes that the Elder Wand removes his last weakness and makes him truly invincible. Poor Severus."
"If you planned your death with Snape, you meant him to end up with the Elder Wand, didn't you?"
"I admit that was my intention," said Dumbledore, "but it did not work as I intended, did it?"
"No," I said. "That bit didn't work out."
The creature behind us jerked and moaned. Dumbledore and I sat without talking for the longest time yet. The realization of what would happen next settled gradually over me in the long minutes, like softly falling snow.
"I've got to go back, haven't I?" I asked, weighing the day's revelations in my mind.
"That is up to you," Dumbledore replied.
"I've got a choice?"
"Oh yes." Dumbledore smiled at me. "We are in King's Cross, you say? I think that if you decided not to go back, you would be able to... let's say... board a train."
I nodded, thoughtfully. "And where would it take me?"
"On," Dumbledore said simply.
Silence fell again, as I worked out how to ask my next question. "Voldemort's got the Elder Wand."
"True. Voldemort has the Elder Wand."
"But you want me to go back?"
"I think," said Dumbledore, "that if you choose to return, there is a chance that he may be finished for good. I cannot promise it. But I know this, Harry, that you have less to fear from returning here than he does."
I glanced again at the raw-looking thing that trembled and choked in the shadow beneath the distant chair.
"Do not pity the dead, Harry. Pity the living, and, above all, those who live without love. By returning, you may ensure that fewer souls are maimed, fewer families are torn apart. If that seems to you a worthy goal, then we say good-bye for the present."
"Do I have to go back to the exact moment I was cursed? Or is there really some extra benefit to mastering all three Hallows instead of just one or two? I'm not invincible, obviously, but- can I choose when I want to wake up?"
Dumbledore frowned at me. "The Hallows have not been united since the deaths of the Peverell brothers," he answered. "There is no certain lore on the subject, though I would not discount the possibility even if that were not the original intention. We are speaking of deep, uncharted magic; as you have already discovered, that counts more than words at such a level. However, I do not see why you would wish to delay your revival. There is no predicting what might occur while your body lies abandoned; you could rejoin it half an hour after your encounter with Voldemort, only to find Hogwarts in ruins at his feet."
"That's not what I meant, either." I shook my head, then took a deep breath. "What if I want to go backwards, instead of forwards?"
Dumbledore was silent for a moment; he looked very grave. "Harry, you know the risks of time travel are very severe."
"I've thought this over," I insisted. "More than once, actually; I've wondered what might have happened if I'd stolen a time turner from the Department of Mysteries when we went there looking for Sirius. See, the problem with going back in time is that if you change things you might stop yourself from going back in the first place, and that would create a paradox, so I couldn't have done anything useful with one anyway. But this- I wouldn't be sending anything physical back. Just my soul and memories. It'd be like waking up from a very long vision, not like time travel at all, really."
Dumbledore considered that. "What led you to believe this might be possible?"
"Merlin, actually," I said, shrugging. "Some of the Muggle legends say he lived backward in time. I don't know if that's true, I've never read the wizarding version- but Hermione says that legends always have some basis in fact. It just made sense to me that there might be a way to send information back, not to avoid death exactly, but to undo some of the suffering that happened along the way. It's like you said; there are far worse things in the living world than dying."
And my friends and I have seen more than our fair share of them, I did not add, but was sure the professor understood.
Dumbledore nodded slowly. "And due to the manner in which you reached this place, you would return without the fragment of Voldemort's soul that made so much of your suffering necessary. I quite see your point, my boy, but I must warn you, such a path would be fraught with even more danger than simply returning now, and I could not say what might happen when you reached this time once more."
I thought for a moment of all the things that might go wrong, all the victories as well as tragedies that would be undone, all the Horcruxes I would have to find once again. Then I pictured Cedric's face, slackened in death, Sirius' eyes, wide with shock, as he fell into the veil, Dumbledore himself toppling from the Astronomy Tower, Mad-Eye Moody's eye, mounted like a trophy in Voldemort's Ministry, Dobby's dead body with Bellatrix's knife sticking out of his chest, Nagini's fangs piercing Snape's neck, Fred, Remus, and Tonks, laid out in the Great Hall, and Neville carrying little Colin Creevey.
"It's worth it," I said, filled with conviction. It didn't matter what happened to me. I had already made my peace with the necessity of my death. The others had deserved better.
"Very well, then. I only suggest that, should it work, you find someone trustworthy in whom to confide, and that you choose your moment very carefully.
A sense of disbelief momentarily gripped me, leaving me speechless. Somehow, despite how often my instincts had been right over the last two years, I had not quite believed that such a thing might actually be possible. Yet- if Dumbledore was right- there really was a chance I could do it. I could be 1 again, back at the beginning of everything.
How could I resist? Hermione would chide me again about my hero complex, but it was as much a part of me as the colour of my eyes.
Another pang shot through me; I had been through so much with Ron and Hermione, and neither of them would remember any of this. They wouldn't remember what they had been to me or each other, or anything they'd learned; they'd be just a pair of eleven year old wizards looking forward to going to Hogwarts. Ginny would no longer be the fiery young woman I loved; she would be a little girl again with a blind crush on the wizarding world's hero. Could I really do this without their support?
I swallowed hard. Of course I could. I had to. And besides, even if they wouldn't be the same people I had leaned on so much over the last six years, they would still be there. They would still be my friends. I would just have to make sure they became the people I knew they could be, that was all.
Dumbledore and I stood up and we looked for a long moment into each other's faces. I finally understood something. Dumbledore had been thrust into the spotlight, just like me. I had been the boy who lived, Dumbledore had been the person who had defeated Grindelwald. He had been given positions of power. He had lead people for a long time. He manipulated people but he was trying to do the best for everyone. He could have done better but there really was no point in thinking about what could have been. I had come to terms with Dumbledore's decisions. I had forgiven him, but I would not forget. "Thank you for everything, sir," I said.
Then I closed my eyes and concentrated very firmly on October 31st, 1981. I was determined not to get beaten that much by my relatives and actually do well in school this time around.
The brightness around me increased, then dimmed. Suddenly, I saw Sirius. He was handing me over to Hagrid.
I felt very tired so I just fell asleep.