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James, Lily, and Sirius watched in silence as Harry, Hagrid lumbering along beside him, made his way through the gathered students and lit wands at the foot of the Astronomy Tower, to the crumpled body of Albus Dumbledore. When the corpse came into view, Hagrid gasped aloud in disbelief and grief. Harry made not a sound, so great was his obvious pain and disbelief already. He, of course, already knew his favorite professor was gone. After all, even without the Killing Curse Snape had hit him with, no one could have survived a fall from such a height.
The crowd parted easily for them. Harry moved robotically forward, his eyes on Dumbledore's body. He reached it quickly and, with an obvious lack of concern or even awareness of those around him, he dropped to his knees beside it. He studied the face of the great wizard, peaceful in death. He reached forward to straighten the spectacles on Dumbledore's nose, and then, with the sleeve of his own robe, wiped away the blood that trickled from the corner of the old wizard's mouth. When he finished, he sat back on his haunches and simply stared down at the man who had been both a mentor and a friend. He looked like he couldn't quite believe he was gone.
Lily, who had been fighting tears for a few minutes now, finally lost the battle against them and began crying in earnest. After the Horcrux hunt, the battle, Dumbore's death, Severus' apparent betrayal; after everything, this was the final straw. She cried for Harry, for her son who had lost far too many people and whose losses just kept coming; for the fact that he'd now lost the one person who'd understood what was going on, what he was facing. He'd lost the wizard who'd always had his back and who had loved him, even when he shouldn't have. Dumbledore had been so much more than just a headmaster to Harry since the very beginning, and now he was just another of those who had perished before his young eyes.
And perished he had. There was no doubt in her mind. They had all felt it. The moment the curse had hit Albus, he was gone. He'd joined them on the other side of the Veil. He had not appeared with them as Sirius had, but none of them had ever expected him too. A deceased person appeared back with the people closest to them in life, and while they'd all been in the Order of the Phoenix together, the old wizard surely had far closer people to him. They could have gone to him even now, and Lily planned to see him at some point, to thank him for all he'd done for her family, but Harry needed them with him for the moment, even if he could never be consciously aware of their presence. His parents and his godfather would stay all the same.
The students surrounding the scene had watched Harry's display in relative silence, but as the seconds dragged on during which their peer did nothing more, increased murmuring rose up among them.
"It can't be Dumbledore. There's no way."
"You know it is."
"What is Harry doing?"
"Is he really dead?"
"Really, what makes Harry so special? Dumbledore was our headmaster too."
"Shh. Everyone knows they were close. Have some respect."
Harry seemed impervious to all of it. Grief was clear in his features as he stared down at Dumbledore, but his eyes were dry. The same could not be said of Hagrid behind him.
Eventually, he glanced down and, shifting slightly, pulled the locket, the purpose of the night's deadly outing in the first place, from the spot where his knee had formerly been. It was open, likely from the fall, and inside, oddly, was wedged a folded piece of parchment. This elicited no reaction from Harry, who simply pulled the parchment out and read it by the light of the gathered wands behind him.
James leaned forward, squinting over his son's shoulder, and read the missive to 'the Dark Lord' aloud for their little group. "I know I will be dead long before you read this but I want you to know that it was I who discovered your secret. I have stolen the real Horcrux and intend to destroy it as soon as I can. I face death in the hope that when you meet your match, you… will be mortal once more." He trailed off with the end of the sentence and swallowed as the weight of these words registered with him.
"The Horcrux is fake," Sirius summarized hollowly, "It… it was all for nothing?"
James inhaled deeply, released his breath slowly, and then swore. The three watched in somber silence as Harry, after staring unseeingly down at the piece of parchment for several seconds—maybe in disbelief, he crumpled it violently in his palm and looked back at the prone form that had once been Albus Dumbledore, tears finally flooding his eyes as howling rose up behind him.
Hagrid quieted Fang with a few comforting pats to the head and then stepped forward, closing the short distance between himself and where Harry knelt on the ground. He reached an unsteady hand forward and set it on his shoulder. "C'mere, Harry."
"No."
"Yeh can' stay here, Harry… Come on, now…."
"No." Harry's lip trembled slightly and he bit it, making no effort to comply with the half-giant's request. Hagrid, for his part, glanced around slightly helplessly now and looked back at Harry again, looking unsure of how to proceed.
As it turned out, he didn't have to. Ginny Weasley had recently joined the crowd and had been fighting her way through to the front, with use of some threats and minor language towards those who impeded her path. She broke free of the throng now and moved forward. Hagrid caught sight of her and, appearing relieved, stepped aside to allow the young witch her turn. "Harry, come on," she said gently, replacing Hagrid's hand on his shoulder with her own.
This time, Harry did not protest. In fact, he did not react much at all except to stand now and move away from the scene, looking haggard. "Thank Merlin," Sirius murmured, "Get him away from there."
Harry seemed to move more out of instinct more than will, trancelike. The surrounding crowd was bustling and noisy as they made their way silently through it. The students mostly parted easily for them. Ginny led Harry across the grounds and up the stairs to the entrance hall. He took it all in but didn't seem to really see much of anything.
"We're going to the Hospital Wing," Ginny informed him finally.
"I'm not hurt," was his immediate and characteristic response. It almost elicited a smile from his parents looking on. "
"It's McGonagall's orders," Ginny explained. "Everyone's up there, Ron and Hermione and Lupin and everyone—"
Emotion flashed across Harry's face for the first time since he'd left Dumbledore's body. It was fear this time rather than grief. "Ginny, who else is dead?"
"Don't worry," she replied quickly, "none of us."
He was quick to protest. "But the Dark Mark—Malfoy said he stepped over a body—"
"He stepped over Bill, but it's all right, he's alive."
"Are you sure?"
"Of course I'm sure," she answered, "He's a—a bit of a mess, that's all." And she told him what had happened with Greyback. The young witch's voice trembled slightly as she explained, but she didn't waver. Bill would live, she said, as would Neville and Professor Flitwick who'd both been injured as well. The only casualty had been on the side of the Death Eaters, which she did not seem particularly remorseful about. James didn't blame her a bit.
They entered the Hospital Wing, where Harry was greeted with a hug from Hermione. Remus, close behind her and looking anxious, asked, "Are you all right, Harry?"
"I'm fine," he answered quickly, "How's Bill?"
He took in the oldest Weasley sibling with shock, so bad were his injuries. Poppy Pomfrey, tending to his destroyed face, explained the consequences of the cursed bites. "I've tried everything I know, but there is no cure for werewolf bites."
"But he wasn't bitten at the full moon," Ron protested, looking as attempting to mend his brother's wounds by sheer force of will, "Greyback hadn't transformed, so surely Bill won't be a—a real—?"
He looked to Remus for answers. Moony informed him that Bill most likely wouldn't turn fully into a werewolf, but would probably still be affected long-term in some capacity.
"Dumbledore might know something that'd work, though," Ron suggested. "Where is he? Bill fought those maniacs on Dumbledore's orders, Dumbledore owes him, he can't leave him in this state—"
"Ron—Dumbledore's dead," Ginny interrupted.
Remus reacted most violently to this proclamation. "No!" he cried in disbelief, looking from Ginny to Harry as if hoping for contradiction of this fact. When it didn't come, he flung himself down in a chair beside Bill's bed and put his face in his hands. It was a heartbreaking sight, especially for those who knew him best. Moony was so rarely caught off guard like this. It pained James immensely to see him now and one glance beside him confirmed Sirius felt similarly. Harry, maybe to allow his trusted teacher and friend some privacy, looked back at Ron, who held his gaze and then looked devastated at the silent confirmation that passed between them.
The whole thing was horrible, truly.
"How did he die?" Nymphadora Tonks, speaking for the first time since Harry's arrival, asked, "How did it happen?"
"Snape killed him," Harry said to her and everyone, "I was there, I saw it." He went on to explain his experience earlier that night in the Astronomy Tower, with Dumbledore and the Death Eaters and Draco Malfoy. And Severus Snape. When he reached the part of Dumbledore's death, he broke off, unable to continue.
In the midst of the grief in the room, a Phoenix song sounded from somewhere outside and the occupants quieted for several minutes, listening to it.
"I don't understand," Sirius said now, in the midst of the silence, "Dumbledore had a plan. He always did, but this…" he shook his head, at a loss.
"Snivellus betrayed him," James offered as an explanation to his best friend. His voice held no angry inflection. They were past that. By now, it was simply a fact. "Harry tried to tell him. It was too little, too late, I guess."
Lily said nothing. Even having seen it with her own eyes, she still struggled to accept the reality. It just didn't seem right that Severus had truly done this. Turning them in to Voldemort, she could understand, as he had not known the prophecy in its entirety or its specifics. The Severus she knew had been lonely and misguided, longing for acceptance and power in the wrong places, and not always one to think his decisions through. He'd done some horrible things, yes. But he was not a murderer. She was sure of this. Misguided as her faith in him clearly was after the night's events, she simply could not make herself believe it.
She wondered instead what everyone was supposed to do now, what Harry was. She wondered if he could take it. He was so strong, but how much more would he be required to endure? It was monumentally unfair. He was just sixteen!
Minerva McGonagall joined them eventually, brining with her news that Molly and Arthur were on their way. She turned her eyes on the Potter's son. "Harry, what happened? According to Hagrid you were with Professor Dumbledore when he—when it happened. He says Professor Snape was involved in some—"
"Snape killed Dumbledore," Harry told her dully.
Minerva had been at Hogwarts since James and Lily's own time in school, and never had either of them seen her rattled. Not like this. She stared at Harry for a moment and then swayed suddenly under the weight of this news. Poppy rushed forward and slid a conjured chair under her before she could fall. She fell into it, looking dazed. "Snape," she repeated absently, "We all wondered… but he trusted… always… Snape... I can't believe it…"
"Snape was a highly accomplished Occlumens," Remus broke in now with surprising venom in his voice, "We always knew that." His anger was satisfying to James, who was unsurprised to note their friend had not questioned Harry's account for a second.
"But Dumbledore swore he was on our side!" whispered Tonks. "I always thought Dumbledore must know something about Snape that we didn't…"
Minerva muttered a reply to this, dabbing now at wet eyes with a handkerchief. "He always hinted that he had an ironclad reason for trusting Snape. I mean… with Snape's history… of course people were bound to wonder… but Dumbledore told me explicitly that Snape's repentance was absolutely genuine… Wouldn't hear a word against him!"
"I'd love to know what Snape told him to convince him," Tonks added skeptically.
"I know," Harry said, drawing the attention of all in the room, "Snape passed Voldemort the information that made Voldemort hunt down my mum and dad. Then Snape told Dumbledore he hadn't realized what he was doing, he was really sorry he'd done it, sorry that they were dead." A pin drop could have been heard in the resulting silence.
"And Dumbledore believed that?" Remus demanded incredulously, breaking it. "Dumbledore believed Snape was sorry James was dead? Snape hated James…"
"Thank you," James muttered.
"And he didn't think my mother was worth a damn either," added Harry, "because she was Muggle-born… 'Mudblood,' he called her…"
"That's not true," Lily murmured now, mostly to herself as she remembered the very day he was referencing. That had been the final straw. She turned her back on Severus for good then, and she regretted it to this very day. How different things might have been, if only she hadn't given up on him…
"Yes, it is, Lil," James said gently, looking at her. "We were all there." He wasn't blind or unsympathetic to the way she still felt regarding the man who had once, somehow, been her best friend. He knew this was awful for her. He simply couldn't help himself at times when it came to the git. Part of the reason he hated him so much was because he'd hurt Lily so badly. Up until that point, he'd simply not liked his interest in dark magic. He wasn't ignorant of the fact that he and his friends could have been much nicer to the wizard as kids, but they'd been young and stupid. And there was never a good enough reason to do the things Snivellus had done.
Lily shook her head in reply to her husband's comment. "He called me that, yes. But he regretted it. And I know he didn't think I was worthless. You, maybe, but not me."
"Doesn't change what he did," Sirius said, his tone soft but straightforward.
With a sigh, she glanced down and, fighting the urge to cry again, simply admitted, "I know."
James sighed himself and wrapped a comforting arm around her.
The occupants of the Hospital Wing, after a short moment of shocked silence at Harry's words, broke into discussion once more of the night's events. Many blamed themselves for what had happened. McGonagall, for calling Snape in at all. Ron, for letting Malfoy get past them. Hermione, for listening to Snape and going to Filius Flitwick's aid and allowing him access to the Astronomy tower. Ot one of them was really at fault; it was grief talking.
The breakdown of the night's events continued, in great detail and with much regret from the battle's various members, until Harry filled in the final detail of Tonk's recount. Snape had shouted something at the end of the fighting, which had resulted in the departure of the rest of the Death Eaters, however she, nor anyone else, had heard what it was. "He shouted, 'It's over,'" supplied Harry in a somber voice. "He'd done what he'd meant to do."
Silence fell in the room again as this news sank in with everyone present. The Phoenix's lament continued to sound from outside. The quiet held until the door of the Hospital Wing burst open and Molly and Arthur Weasley hurried inside.
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