A/N: I'm back! Exams are over, everything went swimmingly, and I can finally return to writing. The end is in sight, and the cogs are turning towards the finale. Thanks for reading everyone, and keep your eyes peeled for Chapter 27! Beta'd by my friend Monty.

Please review!

Chapter 26 – Reconciliation

Grimmauld Place

"Hello again, Peter," Dumbledore said calmly, entering the concealed doorway into Peter Pettigrew's highly warded cell on an upper floor of Grimmauld Place. The unwashed Animagus jumped and cowered away from Dumbledore, cringing in his stumpy chair which was propped next to his bed. A half eaten tray of food lay discarded on the floor. Pettigrew was thinner than when he was first captured, but the stress of incarceration and constant anti-Animagus warding affecting his body had yet to emaciate him like an Azkaban prisoner. It would probably eat away at him in due time; Pettigrew was not as strong as Sirius was.

"Dum... Dumbledore!" he squeaked, not meeting the man's eyes.

"I haven't been to see you for weeks, Peter. I just came here to tell you a few things," Dumbledore said with a distinctly forced politeness, before his expression darkened. "Harry Potter is dead."

Peter flinched physically at Dumbledore's tone, and his blue eyes watered under Dumbledore's withering stare. "I would have said," Dumbledore shook his head sadly and began again, "... I would have said, when you were eleven years old and being attacked by boys older than yourself and Sirius, Remus and James came to your rescue, that a friendship like that would never have broken. I know you were the outcast, everyone did, but they accepted you and sent you through school with nothing but happy memories. And now you sit here, while the son of one of your best friends, whom you betrayed, is also dead. Sirius and Remus would have me throw you to the proverbial wolves, Peter, and it is only my wish that proper justice be done for once that stays my hand."

Peter stole a look at Dumbledore, and saw the man was haggard and older than he usually looked; something was putting pressure on him, although the death of Harry Potter would do that to a man...

"The other thing I came here for was, frankly, information." Dumbledore said quietly. "Please sit on the bed, Peter."

Pettigrew looked hesitant at first, but something in Dumbledore's eyes brooked no argument. There was sadness there, but also a finality that showed all other options had been exhausted, and hard decisions were now having to be made.

"Dumbledore... I," Peter began lamely, but trailed off before he could really begin. Dumbledore looked at him once more, and sighed heavily. Evidently Pettigrew was not about to have a fit of redemption.

"Goodbye, Peter. Legilimens!"

Fear, so much fear. Fear of the mighty mage before him, of the Dark Lord, for his own life.

Always his own life.

Sirius, Remus, James... compassion was nice, friendship even more so, but their lives weren't worth his own. He wanted to survive this one.

Dumbledore pushed roughly past the surface emotions, looking deep in Pettigrew's eyes. The man was spread-eagled, flat on his back, on the bedspread, as Dumbledore stood before him.

The first war... Voldemort approaching him with an offer... the Dark Lord telling him his base was... his base was... Dumbledore forced his way past a thick veil of charms and concealment, forcing painfully into Pettigrew's mind with a regretful mental shove.

The Riddle Mansion.

It was a start. Dumbledore knew the mansion was in Little Hangleton, next to a graveyard. Harry had told him of something he had experienced, some sort of ritual in the graveyard. Breaking the Fidelus however, was going to be difficult, if not impossible, and the additional wards Voldemort would no doubt put in place o the mansion could mean a myriad of dangers surrounded the place.

Severus knew he had powerful charms placed on him to conceal some of Voldemort's most important information, and Dumbledore couldn't break these charms without risking reducing his most important spy to a vegetable. Unfortunately for Pettigrew, this didn't matter particularly if it happened to him.

With a flourish, Dumbledore removed his mental probe. Pettigrew took a shuddering breath, and failed to move, a thin line of drool trickling from the corner of his mouth. He stared straight ahead, blinking abnormally little, as Dumbledore watched.

"Who would have thought the mischievous Marauders would come to this?" he said to himself, before gently levitating Pettigrew, who seemed quite absent mentally, to lie down on the bed. Pettigrew sighed again, a bubble of spit forming and popping on his face, flecking him with saliva. Dumbledore gave him one last look, and left. The House Elves would keep him alive.

Dumbledore had his information.

The day after Harry had gotten the information he needed from Snape, and the evening of Dumbledore's visit to Pettigrew, he sat in the Forbidden Forest looking at the emerging stars. The Centaurs had yet to talk to him again, and he had been simply sitting planning in his deserted clearing, with only the thestrals for company.

He had been 'losing' more and more time since he had interrogated Snape... he had just snapped at the man when he saw him face to face, even though he held no grudges. That had been a blackout moment, and when he had come to he had found himself back in the Forest somehow knowing the Riddle Mansion was Voldemort's headquarters. It was as though the magic in his body was simply doing what it was designed to do, whether his consciousness agreed or not.

He sat on his tree stump, cross-legged, and craned his neck back. He was lonely, desperately so. Ron and Hermione were within walking distance, in Hogwarts, as was Dumbledore, but they might as well have been on the moon. Ron and Hermione were young and annoying, and Dumbledore had broken him mentally and raised him from the dead in a sick ritual.

But was the old man that bad? Harry had first thought reconciliation would be impossible with the man, after what he had done, but he had been dwelling on it more and more.

He blinked and felt a wave of dizziness overcome him, followed by white hot rage. With a forced swallow he stamped it down, trying to ignore the odd sensations accompanied by the magic animating his body clumsily manipulating his musculature. He closed his eyes and heard a voice in his ear.

"Things are pretty fucked now, mate," Ron said grimly. Harry's eyes flew open and he saw Ron standing awkwardly on the grass, studying him. Harry noticed Ron's legs went clean through a slumbering, snoring, thestral, as though he was a ghost.

"I like what you did with Snape," Ron continued, twisting his scarred face into a smile and running a hand through his cropped hair. He was dressed in a plain back Muggle shirt and black trousers, and looked unusually smart and incongruous with his battle-scarred adult visage. "Following him from the Forest and nailing him with a tracker spell as he Apparated, not bad. You went a bit mad getting the information from him though."

"I... I don't know what happened to me, Ron," Harry said, a note of desperation in his voice, needing to talk to someone. "I... I get so angry, and I think I fucking ate a werewolf when I disrupted a raid. What the hell is happening to me?"

Ron looked him up and down. "You know about Inferi, so I know about Inferi. You are partially one at the very least - you fear fire – tried to see what happens there by the way? – and you are driven by a murderous urge to kill and do the bidding of your master. You broke the bidding thing; you snapped Dumbledore's attempted control. I would cut the man some slack; he was backed into a corner. I doubt he was aiming all along for this to happen, I bet he was doing Horcrux research to make you one, and your death forced his hand."

"How does this help me, Ron? I... I don't know what to do!"

"Calm it, mate. You're an Inferius, or were resurrected using elements of the spellwork to make them. You're going a bit loopy because of that, I reckon. I have no idea how to stop it. I wouldn't say you're insane, just randomly driven to violence while your 'normal' side moderates it and resists. You're not a bad person, Harry. Magic is stronger than willpower in this case. You've been conditioned to be like this from the ritual. "

"That's the thing, Ron," Harry said quietly, looking at the stars from his sitting position. "I think I am a bad person. Look at me. I murder Death Eaters without a second thought and use spells that would lock me up; I've left my life behind, both literally and metaphorically. The Weasleys' think I'm dead, so does Hermione, and I've ostracised the Order and Dumbledore from my life. I think I just have to keep going to the end because I've lost sight of the beginning. I don't even know what kind of person I am anymore. I remember back when I was fifteen and Sirius' opinion of me mattered so much to me... I think I never really got over stuff like that. What the fuck would my parents think of all this? I used to be pretty damn happy, back in the old days. Now it's just killing and killing, and even dying, for people I've never met."

"This time travel business..." Ron said sadly, "it isn't all it's cracked up to be. You have the knowledge to save the world, but it just puts the pressure on you even more. But isn't that what Harry Potter does? Save the world? You spent five years doing it, it's only been, what, a month and a bit since this conflict started this time around? I think its nearing its end, mate. You know where the bastard is, go smoke him out. You're Harry fucking Potter. Sorry mate, but you're the only one who can end this, so you have to take the shit until you do."

"I know," Harry said. "I know. But I'm also a fucking zombie who can't keep a lid on his own actions. I feel a bit of Dumbledore inside my head. I can feel the control; I can feel the anger of being an Inferius. I can feel the fear of fire, the mind numbing paralysing terror associated with heat and flame. I don't even know if I can fight a proper battle, Ron."

"Well you seem to be able to talk to yourself about it pretty well," Ron said jovially, smiling at Harry. "Just hold it together, mate. People here aren't who you used to know back in our old timeline, you'll just have to keep calm and carry on. Harry fucking Potter mate, Harry fucking Potter. You just have to keep going. The fact you're talking about it to me is proof of that; I'm not even real."

"I'll just have to keep going. Don't I always?" Harry said bitterly, before shaking his head and looking away from the stars to see Ron had vanished. Harry carefully hopped off of the stump and picked his way through the thestrals, heading for the direction of Hogwarts in the still night air.

Dumbledore was his biggest potentially ally in this. It was time to make amends.

Albus Dumbledore was sitting in the Headmaster's office, working. Not administrative work; broom orders, Argus' incessant demands for student torture, finances, none of that. He was working on Arithmancy for the Hogwarts wards, and for the Hogsmeade ruins and the Muggles camped there. The war was not going to end with a whimper, Dumbledore knew that much. First it had been the Express, then Hogsmeade, then Diagon Alley... Voldemort was being brash, bold, and frankly successful. People were scared; the Ministry was having to crack down as hard as was reasonable to keep order. Without the Muggles they probably would have lost the Alley entirely.

He rubbed the bridge of his nose with a sigh, trying to ignore the biting doubt about Harry Potter. The Chosen One was still a probably-insane Inferius, roaming Merlin knew where. Dumbledore had had to accept his decision and make peace with himself over it, but it didn't mean he wasn't worried about Harry. But he had made his choice, and had to carry on with what he had.

Such was the nature of war, really.

He paused and wrote out a complicated line of runes and numbers, designed to provide a way to boost power from Hogwarts' wards to defences in Hogsmeade if necessary, but was jolted out of his academic reverie when an intricate device on a shelf behind him began to whistle. Dumbledore whirled round in his chair, looking over his half-moon glasses at the device, and frowned. It was a small brass sphere mounted on a brass tripod, with an opening the size of a penny on the top. Normally it just sat on his shelf like a curio, but today it was performing its function as a warning for the Hogwart's ward system in the Forbidden Forest – the wards did not stretch that far into the Forest, but it was still useful. The Apparition and Unplottable wards went a reasonable distance, but the detection wards were more towards the fringes of the forest, to prevent endless false alarms from creatures that dwelled within.

So something had breached the wards at the edge of the forest... the ward-warner now began to emit a snow-white jet of steam along with its whistling, and Dumbledore got to his feet, drawing his wand with a flourish. He pointed it at the ward-warner, which was nestled between other oddities and devices on the shelves lining Dumbledore's office, and levitated the smoking machine onto his desk.

"Show me," he said sharply, brushing his papers aside to make room for the tripod as it settled on the desk. The smoke issuing forth warped and billowed, before settling into a humanoid cloud, which was simply standing still.

So, one person then.

Dumbledore inspected the amorphous cloud for a few more seconds before striding to the window of his towertop office, to see the grounds below. There, beyond the Lake, on the fringes of the Forbidden Forest, was a figure. Even from this distance and at this point in the evening it was hard to mistake a man in white robes with black hair.

Could it be...?

Dumbledore whistled, and Fawkes the Phoenix exploded onto his perch in a ball of fire and feather, with a shrill warming trill.

"Fawkes, let us go."

Harry stood on the edge of the Forest, looking firmly at the Headmaster's tower of Hogwarts, one of the few lights on in the slumbering castle. He had felt the wards detect him with a warm buzz, one of the few things he could feel these days. Sure enough, within minutes, there was a burst of light and fire, with a feeling of rushing warmth in Harry's cold body. Albus Dumbledore stood in front of Harry, with Fawkes the Phoenix on his shoulder and the Lake stretched out behind him. He was dressed in, for him, simple robes; navy blue with silver trim. He also looked exhausted, and relieved to see Harry.

For the first few seconds they simply stared at each other, before Fawkes let out an uncharacteristic hissing cry, and vanished in his more customary fire-filled fashion. Dumbledore frowned at that, and several more increasingly uncomfortable seconds passed before he finally spoke.

"I'm sorry, Harry."

Harry remained silent, his eyes boring into Dumbledore's, oddly pronounced against the pasty white of his face.

"I..." Dumbledore began, and rubbed his forehead with exasperation. "I... did what I thought needed to be done, no matter how terrible it was. This is a war, and peace is within our grasp now; peace like a lot of us have never known."

Harry's face twisted into a smile. "Well it looks like, with the way things are going, I won't get to enjoy the peace I'm forced to fight for."

His smile, at first mildly mocking, changed into a scowl. "I can feel you, Dumbledore. You have done something to me, I just... I can feel you in my mind, like a cancer, eating away at my self control..."

Dumbledore looked mildly alarmed at Harry's suddenly change of countenance, but remained silent as Harry's scowl turned into a grimace of pain. "My senses are dulled, but my mind remains as sharp as ever, Dumbledore. I know what's happening to me now. I'm going insane, and it's because of you, Dumbledore. Because of you. You ripped me from my resting place because you couldn't take Voldemort on yourself, no one else could. Why couldn't you have just let me die?"

"Harry, I-"

"Stop giving your bloody excuses!" Harry shouted, his eyes flashing with dark rage, and an unnatural wind playing with his hair and robes. "I find myself on my own, with only the fucking thestrals for company, as nothing else can apparently abide being near me. I have no one now, and it's thanks to you, Dumbledore. But, in a bit of funny irony, I can't rely on anyone else for help. It looks like I'm going to have to fight once more, dancing on the puppet strings. You claimed, when I first came to this time, that you weren't the man I had grown up with first time around. Well you're wrong."

Dumbledore remained silent, looking sadly at Harry, who was now shaking with rage, his white robes billowing with the excess power he was giving off, like a heat haze. "My dear boy-"

"Don't pull the fucking act," Harry spat. His face was still bloodless, despite his anger, and his eyes were shining brightly with a green light. "Just..." he paused, holding his head with his left hand for a moment, as though confused. "Just..."

"Harry?"

"Just fuck off, Dumbledore. Don't try to claim you're the pure white knight of the Wizarding world who can do no wrong. You were their saviour fifty years ago, with Grindelwald. And I know they're a bunch of fucking incompetent morons who can't save themselves, so it's up to you again. But don't try to justify what you've had to do with your morality tales. As long as we're clear with that, I might be able to work with you. Face up to the fact, publically, for once your damned life, that you've fucked up majorly and have to roll with it."

"I..." Dumbledore's face sagged, and he sighed heavily, his arms limp by his side as Harry's eyes flashed dangerously, glowing as the ancient force of the Inferius came to the fore as he visibly shook with anger. "I know you're right, Harry, I know. But I fear you are being too hard on me, to be blunt. I've simply done the best I can."

The light in Harry's eyes faded, and the wind ruffling his robes began to die down. "I know, Dumbledore. I know. It's just... I'm not who I was. I can feel the magic in my head, and it's hard to keep it under control..." he grimaced, "I'm sure you heard about Devon?"

Dumbledore nodded sagely, still looking worn out. "Indeed. Harry, I had no idea the magic would have this effect on you. I had intended to try to find a way to break the mental conditioning which came with the spellwork, and I was frankly impressed when you broke it. Although, it was probably ultimately for the best, as I'm unsure I would have been able to fully free your mind."

Harry laughed, a harsh bark. "You think too much, Dumbledore. You need to take a step back, try to not do things simply for the "greater good", or whatever it is you try to justify yourself with. Or you'll end up doing something like this," he gestured at his body and abnormally white face, "again."

"We just have to do what we can with what we're given," Dumbledore said with a heavy voice.

"I know, I know. How did this whole mess even start?" Harry said quietly, looking over Dumbledore's shoulder at the lake, which was as smooth as a mirror in the darkness, silently reflecting Hogwarts Castle on its surface. "How did we get here? I'm an undead time-traveller, fighting Voldemort again."

Dumbledore gave a small chuckle, "Magic, Harry. I remember when you were eleven years old; it was only two years ago. Oh you would have never believed what was going to happen."

Harry smiled slightly, a true smile, as he remembered. "You told me when I was eleven that you didn't like Bertie Botts' Beans,"

"I still don't, after all this."

"Some things never change, eh? So," Harry clapped his hands together, looking hard at Dumbledore, framed by the tall trees of the Forest, "how are we going to kill Riddle? I've got some ideas, but I think first I'll need to hear yours."

Dumbledore stroked his beard, looking up at the sky, to the twinkling stars. "I won't deny I've given it some thought. Where are you staying in the forest? We can discuss matters there."

"Follow me."

"It's been, like, two weeks. Is anything actually going to happen here?" said one of the soldiers stationed at Hogsmeade to his patrol partner. The partner just sighed and shrugged, knowing full well his friend was highly impatient and would say the same even if they were killing things daily.

In all honesty, the signs were pointing towards a shit posting in this part of Scotland. True, the magic stuff had been very interesting, and the equipment they had been issued was, well, magical, but frankly two weeks of being camped in some shallow valley which was just burned ruins wasn't that interesting. It beat Ireland, but frankly that wasn't saying much.

Most of the soldiers and policemen that made up the Magical Pacification unit posted in Hogsmeade were uncomplaining; their commander was a notoriously unforgiving fellow, and it was pretty easy pay so far. But the tensions were mounting, especially after a patrolman had sworn he had seen some mysterious figures checking out their camp at midnight a few days back.

The camp wasn't much, just a collection of dark green tents of varying sizes with low walls encircling them, a series of open air mess tables, washing facilities and latrines. Parked in a row were several vehicles, mainly jeeps with a pair of, unbelievably, FV510 Warrior tracked armoured assault vehicles; God only knew how they had managed to get them here unobtrusively. The camp housed thirty men; a mixture of fighters, some logistics officers and the drivers for the Warriors. All ready to help the castle which was situated up the hill in the event of an emergency.

Right now though... right now, nothing was happening at all.

Then again, when things did happen to units of the British Army, you tended to find yourself wishing you were back in the more boring, safer times, really. Did wonders for your life expectancy.

"So you assaulted Professor Snape and probed his memory? I'm impressed, Harry," Dumbledore said, sitting on a conjured armchair in Harry's clearing, the thestrals having gone to find some food. Harry was seated on the stump, which he had charmed to be more comfortable.

"Well, I didn't mean to assault him; I just kind of... lost it a bit. Anyway, my plan was to talk to the Prime Minister about this Magical Pacification force of his, and simply attack the Riddle Mansion with it. Any magical help would be appreciated, but I honestly don't know how smart it would be to leave Hogwarts and the Ministry undefended if anything goes wrong."

"The Mansion is under Fidelus, Harry. How do you expect to break that, even before attempting to breach the other wards?" he stroked his beard in thought. "However... the Inferius magic, perhaps..."

"Not exactly," Harry said with a small smile. "I think there are a number of things I can use to try to break it. The Fidelus is strong, sure, but I've been thinking about how to break it. Voldemort is the secret keeper, but we know where the house is through prior experience. To us it'll appear to be either empty, or just not there. I'm guessing just empty, as the place is huge, not like Grimmauld Place, which is more easily concealable – people would notice if the Mansion just vanished. The thing is, the Mansion overlooks a graveyard, which is where Voldemort's father, Tom Riddle Sr., is buried."

"So you intend to dig up the skeleton and use it somehow?"

"I've done a bit of ward-breaking in my time, but never a Fidelus. I think using what is essentially the Secret Keeper's essence in the spell, it should help. He did it in the ritual he performed in my fourth year in the previous timeline."

"I see, that would probably work. If it would help, I will examine the use of using this... essence to amplify the ward-breaking spells. But frankly, Harry, I would not pin all your hopes on it."

"Well what will we do then?" Harry said, his voice taking on a hard edge. "Cower in Hogwarts and the Ministry while Voldemort plays his stupid cat and mouse game? According to you he's managed to get a bunch of magical creatures on his side already. This war, this war which seemingly no one gives a fuck about if they aren't the ones being hurt directly in it, is coming to a close. Light versus Dark, whatever the hell you want to call it, its going to just clash. And I'm going to have to be there, once again, but this time I think I'm ready, Dumbledore. Last time Hogwarts was burned to the ground with hundreds of innocent people inside, while all I could do was run."

"Harry, the International Confederation has-"

"They don't care. Britain is one of the oldest magical communities on this planet, and the bastards will just let us destroy ourselves. Half the fucking British wizards don't care either, even after Diagon Alley and Hogsmeade. To them it's just something that happens to other people, something that won't affect them. And that mentality will probably persist until the Death Eaters blow their doors down!" he gave Dumbledore a dark look, his eyes glowing faintly.

Dumbledore sighed, rubbing his forehead. "I agree that we need to go on the offensive. I will talk to Rufus, tell him I've contacted you. Him, Sirius, you and myself are the only men on this earth who know you are still working against Voldemort. Severus says he has three goals – the Ministry, Hogwarts, and to kill my good self."

"Well it looks like we'll have to point out that he hasn't won yet."

"Indeed, Harry." He paused for a second, considering his words. "And Harry... for what it is worth, despite all we've been through, I think James and Lily would still be proud of you." Dumbledore got up, vanishing the chair. "You may think you're alone, and that is mostly my fault, but don't forget that there are people up in that castle," he gestured in the rough direction of Hogwarts through the dark trees, "who still miss you daily. You may feel unable to connect with them, and I can understand that, but their feelings hold true nonetheless."

Harry's eyes dimmed, and he looked once more at the stars, cross-legged on his stump. Dumbledore remained silent for a moment, looking at the Boy Who Lived, before nodding and leaving Harry alone in the clearing.

Breaking a Fidelus would need preparation... as he walked through the shadowy forest, Dumbledore mentally resigned himself to yet another night without sleep.