Chapter 37
The night was unusually still. Not so much as a cloud drifted across the sky. The stars twinkled, and the moon was high in its arch. Silver light cast a soft glow across the land, filtering through the small crack in the simple curtains that hung on the windows in Remus Lupin's bedroom. Remus lay in his bed, flat on his back and eyes glued to the ceiling. He couldn't seem to get to sleep. It was becoming the story of his life. It wasn't the moon cycles. There were still a couple of weeks until the full moon. It wasn't so much the war. That had been raging for too many years to keep him up at night.
Remus glanced to his side. Curled up beside him was Nymphadora Tonks. His wife and the mother of his child. The war and the moon couldn't keep him awake, but she could easily.
Tonks was pregnant, nearing her fourth month now. James and Mad-Eye, at the first knowledge of her condition, had taken her out of the field. Tonks had thrown a fit. She was a fighter, and she couldn't stand sitting on the sidelines filing paperwork while the ones she loved were risking their lives. James had commented more than once that her behavior was mirroring Sirius's, to which both Blacks had responded that their behavior was justified.
For his part, Remus couldn't have been more thankful for James and Mad-Eye's determination and resolve to keep Tonks (and any other pregnant Aurors, really) out of the field. Tonks knew that she was doing everything for two now, but Remus wondered if it had truly sunken in yet. Remus was constantly beside himself with worry, but she had been fairly calm through this whole thing. Remus supposed that it could have been due to Tonks's more positive outlook on life.
Remus had never expected too much from life. His condition hadn't allowed for it. He had never expected to get into Hogwarts, but then Dumbledore had come to his house personally. Remus had expected it was be too good to be true. He could go to school, but he could never make friends. They would get close, they would notice that he was disappearing once a month, and they would figure out his secret. Once that happened, they would tell the rest of the school, and Remus would be hated. He'd tried to not get to close to anyone, but James (and Sirius once they stopped hating each other based on their families' old prejudices) hadn't allowed it.
But Remus's friends had surprised him. They had found out his secret, but they never told another soul. They stuck by his side, and they broke laws to help make his monthly torture more bearable. Sometimes, Remus had found himself almost looking forward to the full moon. Looking back, of course, he realized how stupid they had been.
After graduation, once Remus entered the real world, he realized just how much the rest of the wizarding world hated people like him. They didn't understand him or what he went through. All they knew was what he could become once a month. As if he hadn't done enough, Dumbledore had pulled strings among the Order to help Remus get a job.
Even less than he had ever expected friends, a job, or acceptance, Remus had never once expected to fall in love and be loved in return. Then he'd met Tonks. He'd hated himself for some time. He'd known Tonks (albeit, he'd only met her once or twice before) as a child. But he found himself very attracted to her. She had gown into a beautiful woman. She was loud, she was boisterous, and she was colorful. Her appearance was everything Remus wasn't. They were opposite sides of the spectrum. Remus had thought himself stupid and delusional. He told himself over and over again that he was just stressed by the war.
But it couldn't have been just that. He'd been on duty alone with her before, and the time had flown by. It was surreal, and the war had been a thing of the past. Tonks had made it all disappear. But when Remus realized that she was returning feelings for him, he'd panicked. He tried to push her way, not wanting to drag her down with him, but Lily and James had hexed him into the next week when they figured out his plan. James had been set to leave Remus alone to do the right thing after that, but Lily had meddled and meddled. After Remus had agreed to give Tonks a legitimate shot, there was no hope. He was completely smitten with her. But he was also terrified of the very idea of a relationship.
Tonks wouldn't hear a word of his worrying. Things would happen when they happened and for a reason, she'd say, and it would be a cold day in hell if she left him over a little thing like his "furry little problem."
Tonks quiet suddenly flipped over onto her other side, where she remained for hardly a second before turning to face Remus again. She made an odd little snorting sound, and Remus noticed her feet tapping to a silent tune. Her nose twitched, and her hair, which she had been wearing a bit longer than usual as of late, brightened to a shocking electric blue. "Yes, yes, I'm a natural blue," she muttered, curling up into a ball and squeezing her pillow in a tight hug.
Remus chuckled silently. Tonks was a bit of a sleep talker. Sometimes, like just then, she would merely utter a strange little quirk. One night, however, Remus had lay in bed and listened to her tell an entire story. She had denied it fiercely, even after Remus showed her a memory. Of course, Remus was no normal sleeper either. As the full moon drew closer, Remus would begin to display odder patterns of sleep. By the night before, Remus slept curled up like a wolf.
With Tonks settled into her sleep again, Remus's mind set to wandering and worrying. Tonks thought he did that far too much. The war and his condition had turned his hair prematurely grey. That, she said, she could live with, but if he didn't stop worrying over her, it would all fall out. And that would be unacceptable.
But Remus couldn't help it. He was going to worry. He was going to fret no matter how much Tonks assured him she was fine. Everyday when Remus walked up the path to his house from the Apparation point, he sweated and his heart raced until he saw the clear sky above his roof.
The war and the Death Eaters weren't Remus's only concerns about Tonks and the baby. By sheer association with him, Tonks had begun to be looked down upon by others in the wizarding community. God bless her, she had never given in and always stood strong by his side. But she was being treated differently. Remus knew that if it weren't for the fact that James, Mad-Eye, and Kingsley were her direct superiors, she could have even been fired from her job.
When Tonks had announced her pregnancy to him, Remus had nearly fainted. No one really knew what happened with children who came from werewolf parentage. It wasn't something that was documented because it just didn't happen. Werewolves never really got the chance to mate outside of their own circles. Not many people were as tolerant and understanding as Tonks was. The baby might be perfectly normal. It also could be a wolf. And Remus didn't know if he could deal with that.
The house could not properly be called a house. It had been abandoned for many, many years. Even before its abandonment, it had been in poor condition. It really couldn't be considered more than a shack. The wood was rotted, the windowpanes shattered, and everything was coated in a thick layer of dust. The carcass of a withered snake was hammered into the front door. Wearing a fine set of purple velvet robes, Albus Dumbledore looked very out of place.
He had come to this old shack alone, not that he was in any way bothered by that. During these troubled times, he would advise any others against such behavior. It was always best to have some one to watch out for you, to serve as a guard or lookout. But Albus Dumbledore was a highly skilled wizard, one who was very, very rarely caught off guard. He was an exceptional dueler, even at his age (which was quite an age, if you asked him). After all, he was the only that Lord Voldemort was said to fear.
Dumbledore entered the old shack. His presence there was the first in many, many years. His movement stirred the thick dust, slightly irritating his sinuses. He began to comb through the shack, rearranging the rotting furniture, lifting rusted pots, and even lifting floorboards. He didn't know exactly what he would find here, but he knew that there was something.
For many years now, Dumbledore had been investigating into the life of Lord Voldemort. Only recently had he begun to share his findings with James Potter and Sirius Black, two of his most trusted Order members. They were very devoted fighters, and they had high stakes in finally disposing of the Dark Lord. Harry, born Potter but raised Black, was the one who would kill Voldemort, if he was to be killed at all. Dumbledore could not, in good conscious, continue investigation into his former student without including the boy's fathers.
Sirius was highly helpful in Dumbledore's understanding of the workings of the Horcruxes. There was very little written about them, and Sirius's vast knowledge of the Dark Arts had shed light on the problem. Dumbledore was more certain than ever that Voldemort had been creating not one but many Horcruxes. It was alarming.
Dumbledore liked no part of Harry's supposed destiny to fight the Dark Lord. He was still a boy. Yes, he was of age, and yes, he had already fought in battles and grown up with knowledge of what war was like. But he was too young. And there was the problem of his loyalties.
Dumbledore did not ask for loyalty in the way that Voldemort did. Voldemort demanded loyalty to himself. He wanted personal loyalty. Dumbledore did not ask for that, but he would accept it when given. All Dumbledore asked for was loyalty to a cause, to goodness and light. He wanted only to disrupt the chaos and terror that Voldemort brought. He knew that he had loyalty from his Order. He had personal loyalty from Severus Snape and the Potters. He had loyalty to a cause from Sirius Black. Harry, however, had shown no concern about the cause of the Order and the Aurors. Harry was endlessly loyal to his father, and more recently to Hermione Granger. But he had been raised to give personal loyalty to Voldemort. And Dumbledore didn't know if Harry would be able to go against that.
Dumbledore's search did not prove wasted. In the corner of a back room, under a floorboard, he discovered a small golden ring. He knew this was it. It would be the only artifact in the house. He placed it into the folds of his robes before making his way back through the house, using his wand to cover his tracks in the dust. It would not do for the Dark Lord to realize so easily that someone had been here. He Apparated back to Hogsmeade and quickly made his way back to the school.
It was not until he was seated behind his desk, door sealed, that Dumbledore reached into his pocket and removed the ring. He placed it in the center of his desk and stared at it. The symbol in the stone was one very familiar to him. It was the symbol of the Deathly Hallows. He had been obsessed with them in his youth, along with his friend Gilbert Grindelwald. He had not expected this. He had thought only that this ring was a family heirloom, something Voldemort would see as connecting him physically to Slytherin's family. But the question was did he know what this ring really was? Did he know what he had held in his hands?
Dumbledore knew, without a shadow of a doubt, that this was the Resurrection Stone, one of the three Deathly Hallows. And with his discovery of this ring, he now knew the location of each Hallow. The Elder Wand was in his personal possession and had been for many years, since he had defeated Grindelwald. James Potter owned the Invisibility Cloak. It had been in his family for generations, but James did not know the significance of his Cloak. And now here was the Resurrection Stone.
This stone possessed great power. With it, the user could see and communicate with the dead. It was such an amazing prospect, to talk one last time with those long departed. And Dumbledore had outlived many people.
As a young man, Albus Dumbledore had showed perhaps the most astounding potential that Hogwarts had ever seen. He had been awarded every prize the school had to offer. He had been the acting Man of the Family for some years, since his father had been sentenced to life in Azkaban. But his mother had always been there to care for his brother and sister. But just after his graduation from Hogwarts, his sister had accidentally killed Kendra Dumbledore. All of his plans had been ruined, and he had been forced to take complete responsibility for his family. It was then that he met Gilbert Grindelwald, a young man as genius as he. They had become fast friends, and they had made plans for the world.
But again, everything changed. Gilbert wanted to go too far. They had fought, and the results of the battle had been Ariana's death. To this day, Dumbledore still did not know if it had been his own spell that had killed his little sister. And he had been living with that guilt for so many years.
And now, he finally held in his hands a way to ease his guilt. He could so easily use the Stone, just once, to summon his family. He could apologize to his mother for his failure in taking care of her family. He could confront his father about his actions. He could beg Ariana's forgiveness. The temptation was great, more overwhelming than anything he had felt in a very long time.
His long fingers closed over the ring. Just once he would use it. Then he would get rid of it. It was so simple. He slipped the ring onto his finger.
The pain was something he had not known before. His very soul felt as though it were on fire. Everything burned. He screamed, startling Fawkes, but he did not notice anything else. There was only a small part of his mind still functioning rationally. It demanded that he remove the ring. He did. The pain did not lessen.
He wanted to curse himself, but his mouth could not form the words. How could he have been so foolish as to forget that the ring had been made into a Horcrux? He fumbled through his robes, his hand closing around his wand. His vision was swimming, but he managed to make out this reflection of the light shinning off the ring. He screamed as he shot a spell, brilliant green light filling the room.
Another scream filled the room, one that was not his own, and he knew that the Horocrux was gone. But the pain was still there, ripping through every part of him. Fawkes was flying around him, distressed and unable to find a wound to cure with his tears. "To Severus," he cried. The bird was gone in an explosion of flames.
Severus Snape arrived a few moments later, out of breath and his face white at the sight before him. He ran over, and Dumbledore held up a hand, now withered and black. Snape was perplexed, but he worked quickly, using all manner of spells until finally the pain began to wash away, leaving in its place a dull throbbing reminder. Snape helped the headmaster to sit up and asked, "What in the hell happened to you?"
Dumbledore drew in a deep breath. "A very foolish decision," he said, reaching over and picking up the ring. He signed. Again, he had proven himself unworthy of the Hallows. Knowing now that the ring was safe, he slipped it onto one of his blackened fingers. It would serve as a reminder until he decided what to do with it.
"Mind if I pry a bit deeper," Snape asked, a deep frown etched into his features. "That took some very intense spellwork to push back that curse. Do you realize what's happened?"
Far too pleasantly for Snape, Dumbledore asked, "I've signed my death warrant?"
Snape winced. "I'd give you only a couple of years at the most," he said. "I couldn't do any more than that."
"Nor could I have asked you to," Dumbledore said, placing a grateful hand on Snape's shoulder. "But I have led a full and accomplished life. Perhaps it is time."
Snape stood so quickly that one of his knees popped. "What is wrong with you," he hissed, and Dumbledore was a bit surprised. "Are you listening to yourself? You are supposed to be the leader of this side of the war. Everyone is looking up to you, not to the Ministry. They're fools, corrupt ones at that. What do you think is going to happen to this war when you die?"
"I am but one man, Severus," Dumbledore said, "and an unworthy one at that."
"You are the only one that the Dark Lord fears," Snape snapped. "If that is not something, then I don't know what is!"
"But I will not kill him," Dumbledore said. "That job belongs to another."
"To a boy," Snape yelled. "A spoiled, pampered boy! The Black boy is not fit for that job and we all know it. He was raised to serve the Dark Lord, and he is quite frankly, not that clever of a wizard."
Dumbledore pulled himself up and sat behind his desk. "I will not lie to you, Severus," he said. "I too often doubt Harry's capability to defeat Lord Voldemort in battle. But then, I also think that there is more to Harry than any of us have given him credit for. Look at what he's done already?"
Snape arched a brow. "I'd say that his only accomplishment in life thus far was not failing all his subjects in school."
Dumbledore smiled. "I seem to recall him making excellent scores in Potions."
Snape's frown deepened. "And how would it have looked if I had failed the General's son?"
Dumbledore chuckled and said, "What I spoke of was his relationship with Hermione Granger."
"I fail to see what getting a girlfriend has to do with killing the most powerful Dark wizard of the century," Snape said bluntly.
"Love, Severus," Dumbledore said. "He loves her." He chuckled again. "No one ever wants to believe me when I say that love is the most powerful magic of all. Love is what we need to win this war, Severus. Remember that."