Ron had never been to the spirit world before.
It was hard to perceive time in the strange realm, but he knew there had to have been some time where he had not been exactly conscious, but either he managed to achieve consciousness by himself, something had happened in the regular world, or some other spirit decided it was time for him to wake up.
He had expected something more distinctly Burmese, but all around him it was white, like a white field. Whenever he realized he was awake, he realized he was naked shortly after that, but there were robes not far from him, not that there seemed to be anyone else around. There seemed to be no point in walking around, because he could change his location slightly, but his position counted for nothing at all in the placeless place in which he had found himself. After what felt like an eon, or perhaps a minute and a half, he found he did not even need to walk on the ground; walking in the air worked just fine.
Maybe I need to think of all the things I don't need to do here. Might be I can understand this place better. Might be if I can understand this place better, I can get out.
It occurred to him that it was quite possible he would not get out, but that he was out, and he needed to get back in. Alternatively, he might be up and need to go down, east and need to go west, and so on. He had no idea where he was in relation to his home, but he knew his home existed.
Ignorance is the rule; knowledge is the exception. Was that something Terry said?
Though it was not as simple as ruling out the impossible and looking at whatever remains, because there were infinite impossibilities, he had some idea that if he could get what he did not know out of the way, he could have a list of what he did know, at least as it related to his current situation. Never one to take too much down on parchment, he was somewhat surprised to find a stack of it right next to him, with a self-inking quill.
"Might as well," he said to no one.
I know my home exists, but I can't see it. It has to be somewhere, but it's not here, wherever here is. Not knowing anything about what was happening in the regular world, he decided not to write about it. He assumed that time was passing there like normal, but in the spirit world that seemed to not be the case, so he would not be surprised if he went back in ten minutes or ten thousand years.
"Well, that's not really an option, is it?" he asked, about as rhetorically as possible, since there was no one around to respond. "I can't just not go back. Can I go back at any point, if there's no time here?"
The obvious choice would be first year. Putting himself into his old body before Voldemort could get the Stone seemed like the best thing he could be doing, because that would prevent him from resurrecting, though he still had no idea how he would do that. The artefact had definitely not been safe in Gringotts, since Voldemort succeeded in breaking into a vault, and the goblin used the excuse that it had been minimally guarded at the time to prevent a bank run, but anyone who had a vault knew that there were several measures of security that had to be bypassed to reach any vault, meaning there was actually very little that other vaults had that the one in question did not. Of course, it was not exactly wise to pull funding out of Gringotts just because of that, because if there had only been one attempted break-in thus far, there would have been far more that had been prevented.
"If the Stone wouldn't have been safe there, the best thing I could have done would have been to tell Dumbledore that Voldemort was possessing Quirrell," he decided. Though he knew not what would happen if he did that, he would at least have another brain to pick. If it were that easy, though, someone surely would have gone back already.
"I am afraid you cannot go back, Mr. Weasley." He turned around, though it did not feel like he changed direction. He saw the old Headmaster in a similar white robe to his own.
"Dumbledore! How did you get to the spirit world?" he asked. "Do you go here when you die?" He looked around again. "Where's everyone else?"
"That would be a challenging question if one truly believed this to be the final stop on our journey." Dumbledore's eyes twinkled as he smiled. "Alas, you are neither at the beginning, nor are you at the end, Ronald Weasley. As such, you have come to the place that is no place, the place in between."
"Sir?" he asked. "Where exactly is this?"
"You may not have paid much attention, but I am quite sure you read this at least once. Where do vanished objects go?"
"Nowhere?"
"Not exactly. Vanished objects go into nonbeing, which is to say, everything."
"Are you saying someone vanished me?" he asked.
"They could not have vanished your physical body," the old warlock said. "They must have vanished some part of you that neither ages nor sleeps, nor hungers."
"I mean, yeah. Does that mean I'm just sitting there in a sick bed somewhere?"
"It is quite possible. Your friends care for you dearly, and they would probably do anything to keep you from harm. I would however, be more concerned about the part of you to which a measure of agency remains." He nodded.
"Why didn't the spirit thing vanish all of me?"
"It presents a sort of contradiction in magical law. You see, Mr. Weasley, this is your vanishing space. If you were to vanish something while in here, where would it go?"
"Would it just not work?"
"I cannot say. In either case, you may have noticed you cannot perform magic in here. Nothing is impossible, and yet nothing is accomplished. I have no doubt that if you wanted a wand in your hand and you wanted to create a fire hot enough to burn down the Amazon, you would succeed, and yet, you would not be casting a spell."
"I guess so," he said. He thought it was a bit weird how Dumbledore was only bringing up things he could have sworn he had heard before. "I didn't vanish you, though, did I?"
"No. This is, of course, in your head."
"Why is it you, though? Why you and not Charlie?"
"I am afraid I am not able to guess, though perhaps you do not see your brother with the same kind of authority on magical theory. I do have a tendency to say things and be believed."
"If you're just a figment of my imagination, why do I need your help at all?"
"Perhaps, Mr. Weasley, you simply lack confidence in yourself." Something like a white tree stump appeared from nowhere and the old warlock rested his bones. "It's not that uncommon. Failure has a way of convincing you that you are a failure."
"Well, what's a failure but someone who always fails?"
"Perhaps you should ask someone who has entirely given up." Dumbledore sighed. "Mr. Weasley, there is some sense in which, though this is your head, it is also real."
"I don't understand."
"Neither do I. I confess I was as inattentive to this matter in life as you were to Charms in third year. I suspect the reason for your initial credulity at my appearing in this place was at least predicated by the knowledge that I am already dead, and you would therefore not be surprised to find me in a realm of spirits."
"Is that what this is, then?" he asked, getting a bit frustrated as long as he was being honest with himself. "Where are the nats, then? I thought they lived here?"
"Somewhere around here, perhaps," the former Headmaster ventured. "How large of an area do you believe this to be?"
Ron's brow furrowed and his mouth hung slightly open.
"Sir, is this where everyone's vanished objects go?" He pointed far away from his location, off in the rolling hills of endless white. "Am I going to walk over there and find a bunch of rubbish from some witch in Bath?"
"Traversing this realm would be difficult for anyone who is not himself a spirit. As you discovered when you roused, you do not understand the properties of this place, nor even your own place within it. Rather like a young dragon that does not know how to fly, you are, at the present, quite limited."
"Well, what kind of things can be vanished?" he asked. "If I knew that, I might know more about... well, what I'm doing here."
"As I have stated, no living thing can be vanished, and yet, the soul can be vanished, primarily because the soul alone is quite incapable of magic, at least in this realm. The soul, of course, is only part of a living thing, and ordinarily you would find it difficult to vanish a soul."
"Yeah, I mean, if it weren't hard, everyone would be doing that instead of learning dark magic," he ventured. "I know I learned how to vanish things in school, but I never really applied it. I couldn't think of anything I would like to have on hand without just carrying it around."
The primary purpose of vanishing objects was being able to retrieve them, but it was a bit more difficult than most people bothered to learn. If anyone used vanishing, it was only particularly valuable in conjunction with conjuring, which required even greater skill and understanding of the theory. He had really only ever seen practiced adults conjure anything, and it was mostly ropes or chains, and he wondered how people always thought to vanish those things ahead of time until he realized that in many cases, it was just transfigured rubbish. Snape probably had a whole sea of vanished potions, and if he had the ability in transfiguration to match, then he could probably conjure whatever he could transfigure. There were meant to be rules on what could and could not be transfigured, but he did not remember what they were, nor did he remember what kind of enchantment could keep an object from being transfigured.
"Can thoughts be vanished, sir?"
"If only all that we have forgotten ended up in a place like this," Dumbledore mused. "If that were so, I would venture that the Pensieve would be almost entirely useless, except of course for those who wish to look remarkably thoughtful. Alas, I do not know whether or not thoughts erased with the memory charm are strictly speaking, vanished, or if memories modified are, strictly speaking, transfigured. The deeper one delves with magic, the more confusing it becomes."
"Hermione was saying something about that."
"Your friend was quite interested in the subject of magical theory, I recall."
There was a pause. Ron felt like he was wasting time. He knew he wanted to get back, but he was not entirely sure how he got there in the first place.
"So nats can vanish people's souls?"
"Yes, apparently, though this may be limited to nats that inhabit your body, and that might well be the true difficulty in vanishing souls."
"I'm still alive, though, right?"
"I would presume so. You would be aware of it had you truly passed on and taken the next step of your adventure."
"So my soul has to still be connected to the rest of me."
"Indeed. This is the primary purpose of the spirit, as I understand it. The killing curse, which you can perform, uses a piece of your soul to dislodge the soul of your opponent. Your friend Miss Granger would liken it to nuclear fission, if she has not already."
"I've dislodged little pieces of my soul?"
"You have, and yet I am perfectly certain that none of them has gone on to become a horcrux. A dead body is an unfit container for a soul or any part of a soul, and unless something blocks or averts the killing curse, the result will only be a body. I have never been afraid of bodies, myself, that is truly all they are, but I have always been saddened for the same reason."
"Living bodies, though, they could contain a horcrux, right? So if someone got hit by the killing curse and didn't die, then..."
"That person would be considered quite the miracle," Dumbledore answered. "I should like to see it happen myself."
"We've gotten off topic," Ron said, trying to get back to figuring out some way of getting back to the regular world, or rather, back to his body. "I am still connected to my physical body somewhere, because I haven't croaked yet."
"Yes, you are indeed more fortunate than those of us who have."
"So if I'm still connected, then is there some thin thread from here to there?"
"I can see how it would seem like that if your soul had been relocated to, say, Jupiter. We are, however, in nonbeing, which is to say, everything."
"I'm sorry, sir, that sounds like as far as I can get from my physical body. Is there a Burma part of nonbeing? Do I need to go there?"
"No, I believe you are as close as you need to be. You have not moved from where you were, after all."
"I really wish you weren't a figment of my imagination."
"I share your desire, Mr. Weasley. The palpable disrespect you show me and all other authority figures is quite tiring."
"I respected you when you were alive. I respected the real you. What I don't respect is some kind of desperate attempt to understand what's going on in my head."
"Ah. I shall try to remember I am nothing more than a dream, and the language you direct at me is, fortunately, without consequence."
Ron stopped pacing for a moment, finding to his surprise that he had been.
"I'm sorry, sir. It doesn't matter whether or not you're around to hear it. I shouldn't be rude to you because you're my idea of Dumbledore."
"Mr. Weasley, though like many others, you were born ignorant, you show a remarkable capacity for learning," the old warlock said. "You have never once failed to have the courage to face the truth, no matter what the truth means for you, because you rarely think of yourself."
"I'm not worth anyone's thoughts, sir. At some point I realized I shouldn't waste time thinking about myself either."
"A misguided trip by floo rarely takes one to the correct destination. And yet, for all the misguided thoughts wizards have had in these long years, even just of my life, I suppose one of them should turn out to be true." The former Headmaster sighed. "Perhaps it has been a long time since my blood has boiled, and longer still since I was a Gryffindor myself, but if asked, I believe I would say I understand your devotion to courage, as well as the proper response to past mistakes, though neither of these commendations come without caveat."
"Might as well say it, then." He hung his head again. "Sorry, sir. I don't think I'm as good at being polite in the spirit world."
"You may know, if Miss Granger has mentioned it, that I was once a great friend of the dark wizard Grindelwald; I once designed to help him in his quest to rule over the muggle world, benevolent as my ultimate goals might have been. I was a young man. If I may boast of my academic achievements, they had an insulating effect against the humbling of reality, and essentially confirmed that I understood all that there was to understand; I was intelligent, and therefore I was right." Shoots grew from the dead stump where Dumbledore sat and supported his elbows as arm rests. "It may interest you to know that there was never a time when I looked backward, and hated myself."
"Sir, you can't mean..."
"I never grew up, Mr. Weasley. I believed in the most ludicrously childish implementation of simplistic ideals. No one disagreed with me. Who would? The great Albus Dumbledore could never be wrong. The first friend I had who did argue with me was Nicholas, though there was one matter where it was easy for us to agree. Though we had all the Elixir in the world, we would remain as old as we could stand to remain. My bones creaked for over thirty years. I was ashamed, and quite rightly, of my past self, and I wished to never even look like him again."
Ron was at a loss as to how to respond. Inwardly he wondered how much of it was really his imagination. Fortunately, the old warlock spared him the trouble.
"Perhaps, to explain it as I would to any other student of mine, what would you say to a twenty year old wizard who had never held a wand, let alone cast his first spell?"
"It's not too late to start," he answered.
"Then, in the same sense, what would you say to a twenty year old wizard who has never thought ill of his former self, because he never changed?"
It was almost too difficult to get the words out.
"It's not too late to start." Perhaps the question was rhetorical, but he could not have cared.
"Indeed. This is where I feel I must introduce my promised caveat. Whatever you do, Mr. Weasley, you must not hate your current self. To reject the gift of life and the capacity for change is to remain hateful and to remain hated. There may come a time where you will give yourself a mission you know you will never survive, but you must never choose to die. Even with all the mistakes I made over the years, I would sooner correct them than leave them to others."
Ron remembered how Dumbledore died.
"Everything went downhill after that, sir. I just didn't know what to do. I mean, things were going downhill before that, but it's like we've been in freefall since we lost you."
The old Headmaster responded with an odd sort of smile, but the much younger wizard decided he would have had a hard time responding to it if anyone had ever told him that everything was terrible after his death. He would be flattered, in a sense, but it would mean that he failed to secure the future for those that would come after him. It was clear enough that he could only do so much for the future, and at some point he would have to hand it off to his descendants, but he would probably feel guilty for any problems they had anyway.
"Do you know what you have to do to return to your world?"
"I think so, sir. If you're not really a figment of my imagination, thanks for giving me an idea. If you are, thanks anyway, I guess."
He had expected a last little smile or twinkle of the eye, but Dumbledore was already gone. Staring at the infinite void above, he knew he wanted to return to his physical body, and he had something resembling an idea of how to do that, but there was more to nonbeing than he understood, and if he intended to use the spirits or their world against Voldemort, he would have to stop panicking and get some sort of idea how it all fit together while he had the opportunity. Calming himself and floating off what appeared to be the ground, he essentially set about stopping everything he did not have to do.
It was easiest to give up his sense of place, once he stopped moving. He did not know where he was, after all. It was harder to give up his sense of self, but appearing to be gone was much easier. Without looking around he did not truly know he was invisible, but it was easy enough to believe. He could hear nothing, smell nothing, feel nothing, and taste nothing, so he closed his eyes.
In an instant he was greeted by the sight of what could only be a nat, a pale-faced god in pink robes and a pointed golden crown.
"It is a pleasure to have you here, Ronald Weasley."