Hello again guys, back with another installment of Harry Potter and the Lost Dumbledore. This chapter really mirrors a lot of Chapter 35: King's Cross in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, but it was because I wanted to keep the same ideas and didn't know how else to write them. Don't accuse me of copying off of JK Rowling, because I wasn't allegedly trying to plagarize off of her or anything.

Anyways, there's two chapters and an epilogue following this chapter, so we're coming down to the end! I hope you enjoy this one :)

By the way, as for soundtracks go I'll be posting that after the epilogue. For this chapter I highly suggest something like: Learning to Breathe, by Switchfoot.

Disclaimer: All ideas, places and characters belong to JK Rowling, with the exception of personal experiences by Lizzie Dumbledore.

Chapter Twenty Six: Bringing Back the Memories

Teetering on the edge of despair, I held fast to the park bench Grandpa had forced me into as soon as I started shaking uncontrollably. Staring at my hands trembling in my lap, I realized that sitting on the sidelines was so much harder than fighting Voldemort up front; waiting for Harry's destiny to unravel was so much more difficult than battling the wicked one up front. My breathing came in quick gasps as I desperately tried to quell the sobs that inched their way up my dry throat.

I was in pain, more pain than I should have been for one who died; but it wasn't natural pain. The pain I felt was a sharp, stabbing and grating in my heart; it was longing, but it was more pronounced longing than I had ever felt—and the longing was killing me over and over again.

"Elizabeth," Grandpa Albus' voice interrupted my withering thoughts, and gently prodded them in the right direction. "There's someone you have to see."

I looked up, startled out of a hopeless reverie and stared into those eyes that had always been so familiar to me; they were twinkling again and I saw happiness in them. What would my grandfather be happy about at a time like this? At a time when I was falling apart at the seams?

"Trust me Elizabeth," He soothed me, calming my rough edges. "You have to trust me Elizabeth; otherwise you'll be lost to this world forever." His voice was commanding, and almost frantic, but I could still hear the comfort in his words.

I stared at him, unsure of how to respond, but suddenly it didn't even matter anymore. There was a tugging in my mind, and I turned in the direction it was turning me—and that's when everything fell into place.

Across the whiteness of Platform 9 ¾, a dark figure contrasted with the pearly luminescence. It was obviously a young male and he walked with a stoop, almost as though he were relieved to be here.

"No…" I breathed out and my throat began to close up and cut away my words. "Oh Merlin no, Grandpa it's not possible." I continued to stare at the figure that seemed to be doubling in size as he walked toward us. "He isn't—he hasn't—oh God…"

"Elizabeth," He said, trying to bring me back down to a normal level where I could comprehend everything that was going on. His voice was tinted with a hard edge, which made me realize that I had to be focused because we didn't have much time.

Until what though?

The thought frightened me, but even so I tried my hardest to calm the nerves that had already been frayed from earlier. Just now, at this moment, I wished that I was truly dead and not in this dreadful in between place that continued to frighten me with its revelations. I stared at the boy—the young man I had come to know so well, who was walking toward us still; my attention was all pinned on him now, and that was all that mattered.

Suddenly, he was standing almost before me and he raised his head a fraction of an inch, but it was enough.

That was all I needed to see, a glimpse of his emerald eyes and it told me everything. I looked over at my grandfather who was staring at Harry with the same trepidation on his face, but a second later he looked down at me and his head moved up and down a fraction of an inch.

Without words, Harry and I began sprinting across the remaining distance that separated us, and soon it was just him and me. I didn't even realize it, but I was crying into his shoulder as he tightened his hold around my own shoulders.

"Lizzie," He said in a voice that shocked me, but I couldn't pull away and see if he was alright. It was too good just being in his arms as I cried out everything I had kept pent up for years. His arms instinctively tightened once more and he tried to make the invisible distance between us disappear even more, but either way it didn't matter because we were already as close as we could be.

I sobbed into his shirt, not caring that I got it wet or that he saw me as an emotional wreck, all I cared about was that he was with me again which was something I had previously thought impossible, but now it wasn't. Harry—Harry Potter was standing in front of me, holding me as I cried out in strangled pain.

"Oh Lizzie," He said again, and this time I caught the desperation in his voice.

I backed my head away a little and saw that he had tears filling his eyes, but he wasn't crying yet—his cheeks were still dry. "Harry," I murmured quietly, sensing that he needed to hear me say something. I lifted my hand and touched his cheek gently, sensing that I needed to assure him I was real. "Yes," I answered his unspoken question. "This is real, and I want you to do something for me."

"Anything," He choked out.

"Don't be scared."

"I'm not."

I smiled and leaned my head against his chest again, just happy to feel the warmth of his skin again; this made me content in a way that nothing else could.

Grandpa Albus, witnessing the whole scene, politely cleared his throat after the long moments of tenderness had passed.

I jumped in Harry's arms, and he tightened them around me, but I pulled away quickly. "There's someone else…" But my voice faded as soon as I saw his eyes wide with shock and hurt as they found Grandpa Albus.

"Professor?" He cried out after a moment of still silence. "How are you—what are you still doing here?"

"I don't have time to discuss that right now Harry," He responded as politely as ever, and stepped forward slowly to touch the boy on the shoulder. "But I want you to know that you've done the best job anyone could hope for under the circumstances. I unceremoniously dropped everything into your lap without explaining anything, but I'm so proud of what you have done since then." He smiled and a twinkle of light reached his eye briefly before he returned to seriousness. "However, there are some things you must understand before you go back…"

The breath in my throat caught and I looked at Grandpa with evident surprise on my face, but I couldn't form the words to ask him what he was talking about. Going back was impossible…if it wasn't I would be back there already.

"Go…back?" Harry said as though he were confused.

"Yes Harry, go back."

"But he…but he killed me."

"But you also let him kill you remember?" Grandpa said with a smile on his face. "And that makes all the difference in the world. You figured out what no one else could, not even me or Elizabeth."

"That the last part was in me the whole time, I just never knew it. It was more than just a scar that joined Voldemort and I, it was an actual part of his soul that he transferred into me when he attempted to kill me seventeen years ago." Harry looked over at me, his face showed that he was proud of figuring it out on his own, but he was also very aware that I was looking at him through a blank face.

"But you're still confused," He added simply. "And that is acceptable because death is a hard thing to understand, and overcome at any point in life." His eyes darkened for an instant, but I was sure I was the only one who noticed it.

"How am I able to still live after he killed me? Even if it was just his soul he killed—"

"Precisely Harry, it was just his soul that he killed on his own accord. Yours was still safe because it was whole and untouched, and there's something else…can you figure it out?"

After a long moment of silence, Harry looked back at Dumbledore, "That time he used my blood to regenerate his body."

"Yes and that alone attaches you to him because you share the same blood—the same blood that your mother had put an enchantment over so many years ago. And you see, this is Voldemort's greatest fault because he doesn't have the knowledge to comprehend such magic as this. While he still lives, so do you, because the enchantment your mother had protected you with years ago is still being used by his body."

"So I can still go on living as long as Voldemort is, even with the prophecy still in tact?" He asked, and for a moment he looked over at me, but I remained quietly neutral. "But one of us has to die…"

"Harry," Dumbledore said in a comforting voice. "I'm not entirely sure what will happen when you go back, but what I do know is that one of you will have to die; there's a good chance it might be Voldemort, but there's also a good chance it might be you," He took a breath and looked up into the pearly sky. "But you see, the prophecy can be discounted because Voldemort made a grave mistake the night he tried to kill you, because that's when your mother died to protect you. Her sacrifice leads to the problem Voldemort has now, and by using that you have a good chance of killing him."

"But I can't—I'm not strong enough to defeat Voldemort!"

"You let yourself be killed last time Harry, you don't know how powerful you truly are," Dumbledore reminded him gently. "And besides, you have more than enough people who support you and know that you can bring the darkness down for good."

This time when Harry looked back at me, I let the careful composure I had constructed slip away and I smiled at him. Nodding, I said, "Harry, this is what you were born to do remember? You're going to defeat Voldemort." In truth, there was nothing I had been surer about in my entire life, and so many people depended on Harry that it was impossible for him not to succeed.

"But if you can't make it out of this suspended world soon, you'll lose every opportunity you have to defeat the darkness."

A goodbye; another goodbye. I didn't know how well I would be able to stand another one, and I looked up at Grandpa Albus as I felt the blood drain from my face.

"I—I—Professor, I can't leave Lizzie again," He stuttered out as he looked at my face, which had snapped toward him in shock. "I care about her too much, and I can't do this without her." He reached forward, extending a hand that he wanted me to take.

Weakly, I allowed my fingers to slip into his and was instantly pulled into him. I began shaking at the thought of him leaving, but I managed to keep from crying as I stared at Grandpa Albus, who stared back with a stillness that frightened me.

"She sacrificed herself too! Doesn't that count for something?" Harry demanded as his voice teetered on the edge of all-out hostility.

"Her sacrifice was different," He responded coolly. "It was her duty; it was something she had to do for you Harry."

Taken aback by the coolness of his tone, Harry recoiled and looked down at me. "I can't lose you again," He told me quickly as his voice cracked with raw emotion. "Damn it Lizzie, I can't do this all over."

Not trusting my voice, I merely leaned my head against Harry's shoulder and let him hold me close to him. As I stood by him, I thought of everything I could to try and find something to help me get back to the human world, but nothing was coming to me.

"I'm so sorry," Grandpa Albus said softly as he saw the two of us breaking down. "I am so sorry Harry, Elizabeth…you have no idea how awful I feel. I should have known the two of you would have formed an attachment…but even so, I never expected it to be so strong."

"Please," I said finally, shocked at the way my voice cracked horribly. "I can't do this again…I just can't do it all over…I already lost…no…" But then, I stopped all together and my eyes snapped open. "Attachments," I said briefly as an edge crept into my voice once again. "I've formed multiple attachments with the other world, and they've been increasingly strong Grandpa. You said that I'm in the suspended world because of those attachments, so is it possible I can be pulled back through?" I looked at him with pleading eyes, desperately hoping that his answer would be a yes. I squeezed Harry's hand with all my might and knew that he was hoping too.

"I don't know Elizabeth…" He said solemnly, but as he looked around the pearly landscape a train pulled up to Platform 9 ¾…the Hogwarts Express in all its scarlet-colored glory. "Its time Harry…"

"I'm not leaving without Lizzie," He said determinedly and stared at the train that had just pulled up. "You can't force me onto that train Professor, I won't go without her."

I looked up at Grandpa as fear began filling my face. It was one thing to be separated from Harry forever, but it was another thing completely to cause his death, a real and actual death that separated him from the living. My lips were trembling and my eyes were widened to the point where I must have looked like a fool, but I couldn't help it—I was scared for Harry's life.

"Harry—"

"Harry," I said firmly as I gained my voice back. "You have to go regardless of whether or not I come. I can't promise you I'll survive that journey, but I can promise you that I'll be with you forever; I'll be in your heart until the day it stops beating. God Harry, you don't know how much I want to come back with you, but I don't know if I'd be able to survive."

"Go," Grandpa Albus' voice cut over mine. "Go Elizabeth, go and survive. You deserve a happier life than staying here, you deserve Harry and Hermione and Ron, and you deserve to live." He looked at me and nodded. "You don't know how much I would hate myself if you stayed here forever when I know that it's possible for you to survive; you're stronger than anyone I've ever known Elizabeth, you have to make it."

My head whirled back around to face the man that was taken from me so many months ago, the one man who believed in me and who had actually cared for me when so many other people couldn't. As I looked at him, I realized that this would truly be the last time I would ever see him…there would be no more incidences like this if I left. "Oh Grandpa," I said as the tears began to fill my eyes again. "I—"

"Go!" He ordered as the whistle of the Hogwarts Express blew harshly. "I'll be with you Elizabeth, whenever you need me I'll be there…just remember who you are and what you stand for!" He called to me as Harry began pulling me toward the moving Hogwarts Express.

"I love you Grandpa Albus!" I shouted over the whistle. "I'm not going to let you down!"

Harry leapt up onto the train and pulled me up with him and the two of us looked out the window as the train began moving faster.

"I won't forget!" I cried again as the platform began falling away and the train picked up speed. Through tearful eyes, I watched the figure of my grandfather disappear from my life once more and I quickly turned into Harry. "I miss him already," I whispered.

"I know," He consoled quietly and began to rub my shoulders. "Oh Lizzie, I know."

When I looked back out the window, the train station had completely disappeared and we were flying across a land of pearly white.

"Oh Grandpa Albus…" I murmured one last time and leaned my head back against Harry's shoulder. "I won't let you down...I can't."

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