Chapter 7

Sirius leaned over, eyeing his target carefully, moving the stick in his hand back and forth slowly, judging the shot. He knew if he missed, I would have him. I watched him closely, letting him make his move. His hand suddenly jerked forward, and he struck, sending the cue ball into the eight ball, which rolled across the table, banking and heading toward a corner pocket, where it fell in easily for the win.

"Nice shot," I said.

"Had enough yet?" Sirius grinned. He'd just won a best-of-five series of pocket billiards against me and was looking rather smug. "I can do this all day long."

I had no reason to doubt that, but I don't think he realized, even though we were playing "fair" (not willing the balls to move where we wanted them, just letting them obey the normal laws of physics), that I could bring enough skill to bear to sink three or four balls per shot. Even Sirius himself could, if he applied the innate power of his mind to the geometry of the problem. He seemed content, however, to shoot pool "by the seat of his pants," as it were.

I racked the balls again, and Sirius broke, sinking two solids, then dropping in three more balls before barely missing a tricky bank shot.

"Remember, no cheating," he said as he sat down on a nearby stool to watch me take my shots.

"Nothing but skill," I said, lining up my first shot.

"Right," Sirius smirked. "That's why you're losing, mate."

Sirius and I had been shooting pool for some time now, after skittles had gotten boring. And before that, tenpin bowling, Exploding Snap, pinochle, crazy eights, pitch, ping pong, darts, draughts (I would have called it checkers); but we both drew the line at chess.

Some time ago, I had come up with a pretty good idea on how to get back to the living world, or so I thought — I would cease all thought in myself, disassociating my essence completely from this reality, which seemed to be comprised solely of thought. The reason I hadn't tried it yet was that I had no idea where I would end up in the material universe — I could end up inside a black hole or someplace equally unpleasant. I needed a way to find a reference point, which I thought would be possible if I was summoned by the Resurrection Stone. Unfortunately, I had no way of making someone in the living world do that. This had left me at an impasse — I had a way to get home, but no way to implement it.

We'd traveled back to Dumbledore's cottage, where I'd first met Sirius, Harry Potter's godfather, as well as his parents, Lily and James. I decided to kick ideas around in my head for a while, to see if a solution would present itself. In the meantime, Sirius and I had amused ourselves by playing various games on "no cheat mode" — that is, not using any of our abilities to manipulate objects in this reality, but only our natural skill at the games. Of course, my skill levels were fairly high, even without cheating.

Even so, Sirius had kept right up with me. Like everyone else here, he was composed of pure thought, so when he "put his mind" into an activity, he did pretty well with it. I discovered that Sirius was a natural athelete, good at almost any sporting activity. It was surprising that he'd never been on the Gryffindor Quidditch team, when he was at Hogwarts, but when I asked him why not, he'd just shrugged and said that one Marauder on the team had been enough.

James Potter, the Marauder Sirius was referring to, came into the room as I was sinking the fifth ball in my run on the table. "Still playing?" he looked at Sirius, who was sipping at a bottle of butterbeer that had appeared in his hand when he sat down.

"Still winning," Sirius took a long pull at the bottle, draining it, then tossing the bottle to James, who took a sip from the suddenly full again bottle. "You about ready for a game? You can play the winner, Sirius added, pointing at himself.

James shrugged. "I'm not in the mood," he said, in a bored tone. He scratched an ear, giving Sirius a sidelong look, as if he wanted to say something but didn't want to just blurt it out. "I was thinking…"

"I know," Sirius said, a teasing grin on his face, "I can hear the little gears working. Good shot," he muttered as I sank the eight ball, winning the game, then dropped his stick on the table. "So what are you thinking?" he asked James.

"I was thinking, maybe, we could go out where you were and see if we can find Severus —" Sirius rolled his eyes "— well, now that we know where he is, I'd like to get his side of the story on some things."

"Like Albus told us," Sirius repeated patiently, for perhaps the fifth time now, "he'll come to us when he's ready."

James looked unhappy. He turned to me. "What do you think, James?"

"I think you need to be patient," I said, putting my cue stick up in a rack on the wall of Dumbledore's parlor. "Severus Snape probably has some issues to work out before he's ready to meet you, Lily and Sirius again."

We had come across Snape as we were traveling to find Gellert Grindelwald, Dumbledore's old nemesis, whom the former headmaster believed could shed some insight on helping me find a way back to the living world after I'd trapped myself here by letting go of all thoughts tied back to the physical metaverse. Snape, we'd discovered, was getting glimpses into the lives of other people in this reality by having one of his former students, Colin Creevy, take photographs of them and add the pictures to an album Snape kept. I had learned, but hadn't shared with anyone (although Dumbledore had guessed) that Snape still kept the photographs Colin took of Lily Evans separate from all the other pictures, as if holding her separate from everyone else. I thought that, perhaps, when Snape was able to put those photographs with the others in the album, he'd be ready to meet everyone in person again. Until then, he'd chosen to remain on his own.

"Any progress on your own problem?" James asked me, to distract himself from thinking about Snape.

I shook my head. "I suppose Albus and Gellert and off discussing possible ideas," I said, waving a hand carelessly. "But I still don't have a clue what might work. The living world just isn't accessible from this reality."

"That was probably the most ironic thing about coming here," Sirius said, looking thoughtful. "I'd expected we would be able to look into the living world any time we wanted, to see what was going on in the lives of those we left behind. But we have no way to touch it at all, unless someone there calls us to them, in a dream, or by the Resurrection Stone."

The Resurrection Stone, I'd found, was a topic of frequent discussion here, though they were always held in hushed tones. Many here had made claims over the centuries, to have been touched by the Stone and brought back to the living world, to speak with someone there, but most of their stories had been shown to be mere imagination; the descendants of Cadmus Peverell, the original owner and believed creator of the Stone, had carefully preserved it within the family, until at some point it had been set in a heavy, somewhat clumsily-made gold ring.

Though few here knew it, I had used the Stone myself, to call Harry Potter from this reality back to Earth and ask whether there was something he'd left undone, something I could do for him, after he'd decided to travel on with Albus Dumbledore and I remained in his earthly body, taking his place, so that "he" could defeat Voldemort in a final battle in the Great Hall at Hogwarts. I had felt a bit guilty that I'd taken over the life he should have had; I'd married Ginny and had given her the children he should have had with her. As it turned out, Harry did miss something from living world, though he didn't even realize it: Ginny. The fragment of thought that held open the way from the living world to the "waiting room" of the afterlife was Harry's final thoughts in his life; they had been of Ginny, and he'd spent over two decades in the afterlife before he realized there was something he needed to go back to. Now Harry was back on Earth, alive and in his own body, and (I hoped) happy and enjoying the life he had once again. There was nothing of that I wanted to take from him — the only thing I wanted was to get out of here, myself.

"Do you think Harry will ever use the Stone again?" Sirius asked me, curious. "You have all of his memories, James — you're probably best equipped to predict what he might do."

I was silent for some time, considering how Harry might reply. Finally, I said, "I think Harry realizes you're all here and waiting for him. When he was young and living with the Dursleys, Harry was almost desperate to know what his real family would be like, but I think he got a taste of what the Resurrection Stone offers —and doesn't offer — when he looked into the Mirror of Erised, in his first year at Hogwarts. I think what it showed him about unfulfilled desires gave him the strength to look within himself for what his family could offer him — it was wise of Albus to allow him that glimpse of the Mirror."

"Why, thank you, James," Albus Dumbledore said as he entered the parlor, nodding greetings to all of us. "I was rather happy that Harry responded as well to the Mirror as he did — especially since, as it turned out, it offered a particularly ingenious method of hiding the Philosopher's Stone from Voldemort and Quirrell, until Harry could obtain it."

And that sparked a memory within me. "Oh, yes, the Philosopher's Stone, Albus! Interesting that you told Harry it had been destroyed, back in his first year, only to have it turn up in a box on your desk six years later."

Dumbledore's smile was a bit sheepish. "I thought it best for everyone, Harry included, to believe it destroyed." His expression turned wistful. "I had intended to study the Stone a bit further, before turning it over to the Department of Mysteries, but alas, time slipped away before I could do so."

"It was one of the reasons why I ended up staying in Harry's body, instead of letting him die in peace," I said, matter-of-factly. "Strange how all these circumstances contrived, over the years, to bring us to this point."

"Life has a way of doing that," Dumbledore agreed.

"Have you and Gellert come up with anything else for me?" I asked him.

"I am afraid not," Dumbledore replied, his voice heavy. "Without an actual connection back to the living world, such as the thread of Harry's final thoughts, which led you here in the first place, we have been unable to formulate a workable hypothesis which would allow you to return in a reasonably safe manner. I am very sorry."

I hadn't expected a breakthrough. "Thank you for trying, Albus. I'll be sure to thank Gellert the next time I see him, as well." I shrugged. "Well, I'll keep thinking about it, too — maybe something will turn up." I walked to the parlor door. "I'm going to go for a walk, to think about things," I said.

"Want some company?" James asked.

"No, thanks," I said, declining the offer. "I'll talk to you all later." I walked out of Dumbledore's cottage and began to hike down one of the trails that went into the countryside surrounding it. There really wasn't much else to talk about, I was thinking. It was one of the little flaws in the afterlife — there really wasn't much to do, once you'd decided you were completely happy and contented with yourself and everyone around you.

From that standpoint, James wanting to go find Snape and talk to him had more merit than simply standing around waiting for Snape to pull his head out of his arse and snap out of whatever funk he'd been in since coming here. We'd probably done both Grindelwald and Bellatrix more good by finding them and shaking down their little mutual commiseration society than by leaving them alone.

"What are you doing?" I smiled at hearing the by-now familiar voice of Bellatrix Lestrange, as she fell into step beside me.

"Hello, Bella," I greeted her. "Just out for a walk."

"Any progress on your quest?" she asked, not able to avoid a hint of mockery in her tone. I hadn't talked to her much since we'd returned from the place where we'd found her and Grindelwald; she mostly avoided the others, whereas I spent most of my time with them. She normally found me during my occasional solitary walks, like now.

"Not much," I admitted. "How are you doing?"

She shrugged, saying nothing. We walked on for a while, in silence, me looking around at the beautiful countryside, her simply walking alongside me, as if that was all she really wanted. I had long suspected that was all she did want — someone to accept her without question. I suppose that's what Gellert had done for her, and what Voldemort had done as well, both for their own selfish purposes, of course.

After a while, we came to a small copse of trees, and I pointed to a shady spot where she and I both sat down. It seemed like a pleasant place to sit for a while; neither of us was tired, of course. I looked at Bellatrix, noticing that her appearance was slightly different than before — she was a shade less pale and her eyes weren't as heavily shadowed or dark as they'd seemed before. Her lips were still full and red, but not as unnatural-looking. In short, she looked more human now than I ever seen before. I wondered if she was feeling more connected with the others here, not just me.

"What will happen to me when you're gone, James?" she asked suddenly, as if she'd just heard my thoughts. "Where will I go, what will I do?"

I smiled. "Frankly, my dear," I replied, "I don't give a damn." She looked at me, wide-eyed and confused by my remark. "I wasn't serious," I assured her. "It was just a line from an old movie, when someone asked the same questions you just did."

"It sounded like something…the Dark Lord would have said," she said, slowly. "For a moment, I thought…"

"What did you think?"
"I thought — I thought you might tell me you were really him," she finally said. I shook my head, and she looked away.

"You're going to have to accept that he didn't make it, Bella," I told her. "However strong or powerful you think he was, he destroyed his own soul in his quest to make himself immortal."

"You don't know that," she muttered, still refusing to accept the fact that no one had seen Voldemort in this reality since his final death. Harry had seen him, as a wailing, flayed baby, in the waiting area, when Voldemort tried to kill him in the Forbidden Forest. I had looked again, later, but the place had been empty then. "Souls cannot die," she said. "Therefore, he must be alive somewhere."

"Agreed," I said. "But not here."

She looked at me, and there was anger in her eyes. "You don't care," she told me, resentment seething in every syllable she uttered. "You probably don't even want him here, because I would want him more than I'd want you — at least he knew when he had a good thing!"

"You don't want me at all, Bella," I told her flatly. "You just want to grab and hold onto power, power to protect yourself, because you're basically an insecure person who makes up for her insecurities with displays of power and sadism." Her eyes were flashing with fury but I kept on talking. "The only reason you sided with Voldemort is because he seemed more self-assured than someone like Albus Dumbledore, because he told you he would win, and you wanted to believe that. He may have even made you think he felt something special for you.

"But he deceived you, because Voldemort only ever cared about himself. When enraged, he would kill his followers as quickly as he would his enemies. That's certainly not the action of a person who values his allies. Wherever he is, Bella, you are better off without him."

Bellatrix stared at me for a long time, her eyes fixed on mine. Finally, without a word, she stood and walked away. Within a few steps, she had faded entirely from view. I suppose she had at last realized that there would never be anything between me and her. And it was true that, frankly, I didn't give a damn.

***

I stayed where I was for what may have been a long time. Of course, there's no way to tell, when time isn't really passing. It's all relative, mind you; relativity is a concept of both the physical universe and the mind. As Einstein said, when you are courting a nice girl an hour seems like a second; when you sit on a red-hot cinder a second seems like an hour — that's relativity.

Unfortunately, Einstein wasn't here (at least as far as I knew) — I might've been able to use his help with my problem. I chuckled to myself. I was being facetious — if Albus Dumbledore and Gellert Grindelwald, two of the most famous practitioners of the magical arts, couldn't figure out how to get me back home, I doubted whether a physicist who had never even fully accepted quantum mechanics would fare much better!

I was tired of waiting around doing nothing. I let my essence expand once again, until I filled the whole of this reality. I could sense everyone in this place, and I was a part of everything that was here. The great majority of those who'd come here were wizards, though I sensed some who weren't — it was possible, it seemed, to get here even if you weren't magical. I suspected that, as I'd learned earlier, it was possible for the people here to move between these thought-realities, just as I had done between physical realities in the metaverse, the superposition of all material realities. No Albert Einstein here, though, as far as I could tell.

At this ten gazillion-foot view, I wasn't getting a lot of detail about the inhabitants of these realities, but I seemed to sense that, even through all of the thought-realities I could access, individuals were unique, unlike the material realities, where many different versions of people existed, each in their material phase-space. That seemed contradictory, unless only certain material realities had a corresponding thought-reality. With no way I knew of to correlate the two types of realities, there was nothing I could learn about that aspect.

I had to conjecture that these thought-realities didn't overlap, for some reason. It didn't seem reasonable that there was only one Albus Dumbledore who had died. I certainly knew of several, in the various failed Harry Potter universes I'd visited over the years. Dumbledore was as big a target as Harry was — even bigger, in some ways, since Voldemort always saw Dumbledore as an imminent threat to his safety, even on the first day that they'd met. Dumbledore had always been the bar Tom Riddle measured himself against, even after he'd named himself Lord Voldemort and considered himself more powerful than Dumbledore.

At this view, too, I could spot some anomalies that weren't apparent when I was more localized. I could sense a few individuals who seemed to be in more than one place at once. I concentrated on one, learning that he identified himself as "Herpos," and that he had lived during the days of ancient Greece. I immediately recognized him as the Dark wizard known in modern times as Herpo the Foul, the first wizard to create a basilisk, and the first wizard to create a Horcrux for himself, which explained why I sensed him in more than one location — he was so proud of these accomplishments that the fragments of his soul had maintained their separate existences, even after entering the afterlife!

It was also relatively simple, from my current vantage point of being present everywhere within this reality, to examine the individuals within it. I could see Bellatrix who, interestingly, was now in close proximity with both Dumbledore and Grindelwald; her soul was whole, but rather tattered, as if rent many times by all the murder she had done in life. Grindelwald's soul, though a bit frayed as well, looked much more mended than Bella's did, as if the decades he'd spent in Nuremgard had given him time to reflect upon his crimes and repent of them.

Curious at what Bellatrix might have to say to Dumbledore and Grindelwald, especially so soon after leaving me, I contracted my essence back down to its normal configuration in this reality, changing my point of convergence to be just outside Dumbledore's cottage. Entering the building, I found the three of them in Dumbledore's parlor. Bellatrix shook her head angrily at my entrance, but both of the elder wizards were excited to see me.

"Welcome, James! Bellatrix has just put forth an interesting theory," Dumbledore said, speaking quickly, "of where we may find Voldemort."

"In the 'waiting area'," I guessed.

"How did you know?" Grindelwald said, with a frown, as if the surprise was ruined.

"Just a lucky guess," I shrugged. "It was the last place he was seen before his Killing Curse backfired on him, finally destroying him."

"The flaw in that theory," Dumbledore added, with a cautionary finger held up, "is that the waiting area has been searched many times in the past, and he has never been found."

"But it's the only place he can be!" Bellatrix said grimly, giving me a smoldering look of hatred for good measure. "You keep insisting that souls cannot die, Dumbledore!"

"They cannot," Dumbledore agreed. "But they can be weakened, disabled, even made nearly inactive, depending on what the individual has done to themselves during their lives. Voldemort ripped his soul into pieces and scattered the fragments among artifacts of power such as Salazar Slytherin's locket, Hufflepuff's cup, Ravenclaw's diadem, and the Resurrection Stone. When those Horcruxes were finally found and eliminated, nearly half of them were destroyed with another artifact of great power — Godric Gryffindor's sword. I myself destroyed the ring Marvolo Gaunt had owned, and the locket and Voldemort's snake, Nagini, were likewise destroyed with it; the Sword absorbed the fragments of Voldemort's soul — they never would have appeared in the waiting area."

"So, you're saying that the Dark Lord can never be made whole again?" Bellatrix said, slowly. "He can never feel remorse for, or repent, of the wrongs he's done?"

"It would be very hard," Grindelwald put in, speaking seriously. "But it is possible. A soul is unique in that it is always one essence, even when divided. The fragments are always joined, even by the slimmest tendrils of thought, so that with sufficient concentration they can be brought together again. It can be painful — I know just how hard it is, too," Grindelwald added, feelingly. "I spent long decades agonizing over my crimes, in Nuremgard."

But if all this was true, I thought, then — "Perhaps we should go and see if we can find him there," I said.

Dumbledore smiled. "I thought you might want to do that, James. Shall we be off, then?"

It seemed like only a short walk from Dumbledore's cottage to a rather high, imposing stone wall, a wall I didn't remember from when I first came here. In the wall was an iron door, and Dumbledore carefully opened the bolts and clasps holding it shut, then swung it open, allowing Grindelwald, Bellatrix and myself to pass through with him.

On the other side was the familiar whiteness of the waiting area, the blank slate that was as easily malleable by thought as where we'd just come from. "Bellatrix," Dumbledore said, "you know the Dark Lord better than anyone else here — what environment would put him most at ease, would be most likely to draw him out?"

Bellatrix looked thoughtful for some time (an unusual occurrence in itself!) then a room appeared around us. Our surroundings darkened, the light becoming low and flickering, and the atmosphere grew warm and moist. The room filled with elaborate wall and floor decorations: exquisitely carved wooden chairs and divans, tall, ornate oil lamps, finely carved frames containing pictures of old wizards and witches, all glowering at us with sinister, brooding visages. Plush carpeting appeared on the floor, dark and heavy. It reminded me somewhat, through Harry's memories, of Malfoy Manor, but that was not what Bellatrix had evoked, even though she was certainly familiar with the Malfoy home, as she had lived there with her sister, Narcissa, who was married to Lucius Malfoy.

"He feels most comfortable in dark, warm places," Bellatrix said, looking around hopefully. "I wish I had thought of this earlier!"

"We have looked here before, Bellatrix," Dumbledore noted again, examining the room with mild interest. "If he does not wish to be found, it will be very difficult to locate him, especially here."

"Why is that?" I asked. "What's different about 'here,' as opposed to where we came from?"

"It is only a theory," Dumbledore spoke carefully, "but this reality can lead to a multitude of other realities, both material and immaterial. It has been described by some as Limbo, but there are no theological considerations to this place, since it does not seem to be under the command of any supernatural entity, either beatific or malefic."

I shook my head. "You're talking gobbledegook, Albus."

Dumbledore looked surprised. "I'm sorry, I didn't realize I'd lapsed into speaking the goblins' tongue."

"No, I meant —"

"Shhh!" Bellatrix hissed, and pointed toward a door in the opposite corner. As we watched, the knob of the door turned slowly, then pushed open slightly. No one came through, but the floor was obscured by a divan standing between us and the door. We could hear a shuffling sound, and an eye appeared at the corner of the divan, then retreated instantly. We heard rapid shuffling toward the door, which was still ajar.

"Wait!" Bellatrix said quickly. "Please don't leave!" She walked slowly toward the door, taking a long time to cross the room. As we watched, she leaned over behind the divan, talking softly to whomever was behind it. I could hear a muffled whimpering, and Bella comforting replies, spoken with surprising tenderness and even, perhaps, love. Such compassion had never seemed a part of Bellatrix character in life.

After a time she stood up and came out from behind the divan, bringing with her a young boy with black hair and dark eyes. His face was red and puffy from crying. He looked at us with fright in his eyes, but Bellatrix, an arm around his shoulders, spoke reassuringly to him, "Don't be afraid, they are friends." She pointed to Albus. "Do you remember Professor Dumbledore? He was headmaster of the magic school you attended." The boy looked at her, nodding once.

She looked at us. "This is Tom," she said. "Tom Riddle." There was a hint of warning in her voice, as if she wanted to avoid using any of his other names in front of him. "Tom tells me he's felt very sick for a long time, but he just began to feel better lately. Then he sensed this place and came to see what was in it."

"Interesting," Grindelwald said, "as if the parts of his soul —" but at a furious look from Bellatrix he stopped speaking.

"James," Dumbledore murmured. "There is something you should check."

"What? What do you mean?" Bellatrix demanded, starting to move protectively in front of the boy.

I stepped up to her. "Let me talk to him," I said.

"What are you going to do to him?"

"I'm going to help him, if I can." She looked into my eyes, still hating me, but she knew I was telling the truth. She crouched down, putting herself on eye level with the boy.

"Tom," she said softly. "This man is named James. He wants to talk to you." At the frightened expression on his face she added, "I won't let anything happen to you, I promise." She stood up and moved past me, whispering "Be careful!" for my ears only. I nodded and looked down at Tom.

"Tom, do you remember where you were before you were here?" I asked. Tom shook his head slowly. "Do you remember being in a place with other children?" Tom considered this for a bit, then nodded.

As we spoke, I was invisibly surrounding him with my essence, undetectable by Bellatrix or anyone else present. If what Grindelwald had said earlier was true, Tom was still connected to every other fragment of his soul, no matter where they were. And, if Dumbledore was correct about the Sword of Gryffindor absorbing the fragments of Voldemort's soul from the Horcruxes it destroyed, part of him still existed in material reality, connected to this young boy by the slimmest of thoughts. But still connected, which gave me a chance.

"Do you remember writing in a diary?" I asked him. Tom looked at me, confused, as if he remembered something but wasn't sure what it was he was remembering.

"Careful," Bellatrix said warningly, but I ignored her. I could sense something, but I needed to stimulate his memories, make him remember things from the parts of his soul that were still in the material universe, if I was going to trace their location.

"Do you remember your father?" Tom shook his head, backing away slightly.

"Don't ask him that!" Bellatrix shouted, starting to move toward him, but I immobilized her, rooting her to the spot where she stood. "Bastard! Let me go!" she shrieked, trying to twist free of my invisible grip.

Dumbledore and Grindelwald were looking on in a combination of fascination and horror, but they didn't interfere. "Your father, Tom," I said again. "He was a Muggle. Do you remember what a Muggle is?"

Tom's eyes were squeezing shut, he was shaking his head violently from side to side. "No! NO!" he shouted. "Don't make me remember! It hurts!"

But there was no help for that, if Tom was going to put himself back together again. I don't know if Bellatrix thought she was going to help him get through the painful process of reclaiming his soul, but to get things started he was going to have to deal with the pain and misery he'd inflicted on others in his life. And to do that, he was going to have to remember.

I felt the exquisite pain of a thought leading away from Tom's mind as he remembered something, a memory that was a part of him elsewhere. I followed that thought, ignoring the pain, staying with it, as everything around me disappeared and I sped through a dizzying array of colorsightsounds. Everything was jumblingtogether and fal ling ap art. I finally felt myself go cold and rigid—my senses simultaneously dulled, and sharpened. I was blind, deaf and dumb, but I was also strong and powerful.

At last I understood: I was now the Sword of Gryffindor!

Tom's other memories were here with me as well, within the Sword; I could feel them shrieking in anger and agony, trapped by the magic that had drawn them from the ruined Horcruxes the Sword had destroyed. I could not break free of the Sword, but there was only the tiniest bit of myself here — the rest of me was still back in the waiting area, with Dumbledore, Grindelwald, Bellatrix and Tom.

I withdrew most of myself from the waiting area, passing through Tom's mind and along the connection I'd established to the other parts of his soul. From the vantage point of Bellatrix and the others, it probably appeared as if I'd simply vanished. Dimly, as if from a great distance, I could hear Bellatrix screaming, as Tom had fallen to the floor, writhing, when I disappeared.

But now that I had come back in the real world, I was much more able to control my essence than before. I moved out of the Sword, assuming a human and invisible form, and found myself in the Gryffindor common room. The Sword was hanging over the mantle of the fireplace, inside a glass case. I read the engraved plaque beneath it:

The Sword of Godric Gryffindor
Created by Ragnuk the First, Master Swordmaker
Sword of all True Gryffindors

The common room was empty, I saw, except for a single occupant, one who was now staring at me in utter surprise. Obviously, he could sense me even though I was invisible.

"Hello, Nick," I said. "Sorry to drop in unannounced."

"Who — who are you?" Sir Nicholas de Mimsy Porpington asked. "What are you doing in Gryffindor Tower? And how did you get here?"

"It's a long story, Nick," I said. "Unfortunately, I don't have time to explain."

"I'm afraid I must insist —" Nick began, but before he could finish, I raised my arm and the Sword flew through the glass case, shattering it, and into my hand. I vanished from the room, reappearing (still invisible) in Harry's den at his house in Godric's Hollow.

A quick scan of the house showed that no one was home. I looked around Harry's den for a clue about the current date. A Holyhead Harpies calendar on the wall was turned to July 2020; on Harry's desk, a Famous Wizards daily calendar showed the date as 31 July, Harry's birthday. I smiled: he would be 40 years old today, a milestone.

But first things first, I needed to do what I came here to do. I was still holding a slim connection back to the young Tom Riddle, who had finally shown himself, apparently after the few fragments of his soul that had made it into the "waiting are," or Limbo, of the afterlife, had rejoined. The rest of Tom was now a part of the Sword of Gryffindor, but that was something I planned on changing.

I didn't know what it was going to do to Tom, pulling the final bits of his soul from the Sword and sending them on to rejoin the rest of him. Presumably, it couldn't kill him, but beyond that, I had no idea what might happen. I let my essence flow into the Sword, locating the energy that was Tom Riddle's soul and drawing it away from the other magical energies suffusing the metal. I drew those fragments of Riddle along the connection I'd made with the rest of his soul pushing them back together at the other end.

Tom began thrashing around, screaming, and I felt Bellatrix rush forward, holding him and trying to comfort him. Tom's mind, temporarily overloaded by the rush of memories back into himself, fell unconscious. I used the opportunity to speak to them directly, one last time.

Opening Tom's eyes, I looked at Dumbledore, Grindelwald, and Bellatrix. "This is James," I said.

"You Mudblood bastard!" Bellatrix snarled at me. "What did you do to him?!"

"Relax, Bella," I told her, calmly. "Tom's back together again, for better or worse." I looked at Dumbledore. "The plan worked — I was able to use Tom's connection to the other parts of his soul to find a way back into the material metaverse.

"In return, I took the fragments of Tom's soul, which were in the Sword of Gryffindor, and rejoined them with him."

"Amazing," Dumbledore murmured. "And so Tom can return with us now to — Beyond."

"If that's what he wants," I said. I looked at Bellatrix. "I hope you have what you wanted as well," I said to her.

She looked into Tom's eyes for a long moment. "I do," she said finally. "Thank you."

I nodded. "Good luck to all of you," I said, and withdrew.

***

I returned the Sword of Gryffindor back to its case in the common room of Gryffindor Tower, repairing the glass that I'd broken when taking it, and leaving everything else exactly as it had been. I wondered if Nearly Headless Nick would tell anyone about our encounter — although, without any evidence as to what had happened, it seemed like everyone would accuse him of simply imagining me.

Afterwards, I waited in Harry's den, invisible, until he and his family returned later that evening from his birthday celebration. I'd heard him and Ginny putting Lily to bed, and wishing James and Albus pleasant dreams, before he'd come in to make a few notes prior to turning in for the evening. I waited until he was nearly through with his notes before becoming visible, in a chair next to the heating stove he kept in the room, and said his name quietly: "Harry."

He turned around quickly, surprised but not frightened, his hand poised to draw his wand. Seeing me, he looked even more surprised, but took his hand away from his wand. "I wondered what had happened to you," he said finally. "You never reappeared, after I returned here."

"I couldn't," I said. "I had no way back after you recalled your final thought."

"Oh," he said, frowning. "Sorry, I didn't realize…"

"It was all right," I added, waving off his apology. "I was worried you might not return if you knew I wouldn't be able to get out of there."

"You were able, though," he pointed out. "Obviously, you're here, now."

I smiled broadly. "It took a bit of doing, but yes, I did get out. I hope things weren't too traumatic for you here, after your return."

"It did take a bit of convincing on my part," Harry admitted. "Ginny was pretty certain I was still you, trying to put something over on her. Ron was pretty skeptical as well. Fortunately, Hermione believed and helped me convince them I was really myself."

"Good," I said.

Harry turned his chair to look at me head on. "So — er, why are you back here, now? Surely not to wish me a happy birthday?"

I grinned. "It's just a happy coincidence I turned up today. I'm just passing through, and decided to stop in and say hello, one last time."

"One last time?" Harry repeated. "Where are you headed now? Off to find another universe where 'I' don't quite make it, and help it out a bit?"

"No," I shook my head. "I think I'm done with those. I don't feel like killing Voldemort any more."

"What will you do, then?"

"Maybe I should be more proactive," I mused. "Instead of helping your survivors, I should try to find ways to help you, before things begin to get complicated."

"You mean," Harry asked, "like helping me before I learn about Hogwarts, and magic?"

"Something like that."

"You could go back and stop Voldemort from murdering my parents," Harry suggested, plaintively.

"Right," I agreed. "I could even go back before Tom Riddle was born, and stop his mother from meeting his father. But in that case, you might never even be born yourself."

"A small price to pay, to rid the world of Voldemort," Harry pointed out.

"I think I like my idea better," I said, standing. "It would give you the opportunity to make your own decisions, rather than having so many of them made for you."

"I don't see it that way," Harry said, standing as well, "but you make your own choices." He extended his hand to me. "Anyway, I'm glad you stopped by. I wanted to thank you, again, for giving me my life back."

I took his hand, shaking it warmly. "You're welcome, Harry. Use it well."

I vanished from Harry's home, and from this version of his life. I didn't know whether I would do what I'd said to Harry, to try and help him in his pre-Hogwarts days, but it would have to be better than anything I'd done after he'd died. Preservation of life should always win out over retribution for death.

The End