It took a while for Harry to disentangle himself from his nightmare. It had began as a good dream —extremely good since it had involved Ginny—, but then everything had quickly gone to hell when Ron had showed up and punched him, and then Sirius had made an appearance to tell him he was disappointed in him for not getting Slughorn's memory, and then Voldemort had dropped Dobby' tiny body at his feet saying that he would frame Harry for the murder, and then...

"Potter," whispered an impatient voice. Harry grumbled and tried to fight off the hands, which were Voldemort's hands and were trying to strangle him... "Potter!"

Harry's eyes snapped open, and he stopped struggling when he vaguely realized that the person strangling —no, shaking— him was McGonagall instead of Voldemort. It took him still another moment to completely wake up and gather his wits enough as to fumble for his glasses and focus on his Head of House.

"What's going on, Professor?" he rasped, noticing through his agitation that it was very dark and dimly thinking that she looked a lot younger with her hair down.

"You are to come with me, Potter, now," she said, her voice sounding oddly grave. "Put on something warm and meet me at the Common Room."

McGonagall's seriousness brought Harry completely back to Reality, and he suddenly was worrying about what might have happened. He hadn't had any visions in a while, but that was only because Voldemort was using Occlumency against him, according to Dumbledore. What if someone had been attacked like Mr. Weasley last year and Harry had been unable to give the warning on time? It didn't look as if McGonagall intended to wake up Ron, though, after giving him a stern look to make sure he didn't fall asleep again she had just slipped out of the dormitory. Perhaps it wasn't a Weasley, but someone else.

By the time he had made his way downstairs Harry had worked himself up into quite a panic, and it didn't help at all to see that McGonagall's eyes were red and puffy. Definitely someone in the Order, then, he thought with dread. Who, though? Remus? Aside from the Weasleys, he wasn't really close to anyone else in the Order, and given that only he had been woken up it must be personal for him. And Remus had been undercover with the werewolves...

He needed to know, but he was terrified to ask and in any case McGonagall didn't seem to be in the mood to explain because she immediately marched him out without a word. Better to hear it from Dumbledore, he thought as he climbed through the portrait and struggled to keep up with his Professor's long strides.

Harry was highly familiarized with the castle after curfew, but the dark hallways somehow felt different tonight. Probably because he was so on edge and he was already bracing himself for more loss. The ragged hole Sirius had left behind and that had slowly began to heal was threatening with cracking open again, and Harry didn't know how he would cope with that.

So absorbed he was in his pre-emptive anguish that he barely registered that the gargoyle simply jumped aside for them without waiting for any password, although he did notice McGonagall choking back a sob as they stepped onto the moving spiral staircase. Harry had never seen her so distraught, he couldn't help but to feel worried for her as well and to want to comfort her somehow. He kept quiet, though.

McGonagall walked into Dumbledore's office without knocking. Harry entered behind her, but hesitated in confusion a few steps later when he saw that the room was empty, no signs of Dumbledore anywhere. What...?

"Come, Potter, follow me," instructed his Professor briskly, leading him across the office to the right. Harry followed automatically, completely perplexed since as far as he knew there wasn't anywhere else to go from here.

And then he stopped cold.

There was a new portrait in the office, right behind the Headmaster's desk, and it was Dumbledore's.

No...

Harry realized that all the portraits in the office were wide awake and watching him. He only had eyes for Dumbledore, however, who in time seemed to only have eyes for Harry. Blue, wise eyes that pierced right through him even though they were only painted eyes.

"No..." he breathed imploringly, feeling his throat swell to the size of a Quaffle and his eyes burn. "Please no."

"I'm so sorry, my boy," said the portrait sadly. "So very sorry."

No, no, no, no, no...

McGonagall was saying something, maybe calling to him, but he couldn't hear her. All he could see was those sad, worried eyes, and all he could hear was that loud "NO!" inside his head.

A hand on his shoulder partially broke through the turmoil in his mind.

"He's upstairs, Potter, come now," said McGonagall, her tone much more gentle than he had ever heard it.

He let himself be steered away, across the office, and then through a hidden panel door, and up some stairs. Some part of his brain was perhaps curious about where he was going, but mostly he felt horribly adrift and sort of absent within himself. Dumbledore's sad portrait was all he could see inside his mind.

This can't be real, this can't be happening, there has to be some other explanation for the portrait...

At the end of the stairs there was a small foyer, and then through another door they entered a wide sitting room decorated in soothing shades of white, cream and grey. Professor Sprout was there, and Madam Pomfrey, both dressed in their night clothes and looking as if they had cried their eyes out. They said something to him, but the words got lost and he wasn't sure if he had said anything in return before McGonagall prompted him to keep walking.

The next room was the room. Dumbledore's bedchamber, indicated both by the presence of a royal four-posted bed and by the person lying on it. Harry froze in the doorway.

More than anything, he felt absurdly shocked at the revelation that teachers had private rooms and beds, which suggested they had lives like normal people and that they slept. Harry had never thought about it, and he now found the idea bizarre, still failing to imagine Snape ever lowering his guard to do something so mundane as sleep. Until this moment, he would have also been unable to picture Dumbledore lying in an horizontal position.

Only he wasn't sleeping, he knew.

His feet moved forward on their own accord, and suddenly he found himself standing over the greatest wizard he would ever know. It felt terribly disrespectful to stand when such a wizard was so low, though, so without thinking he sat down in the empty chair by the bed.

Harry clearly didn't want to process what he was seeing, because he kept focusing on irrelevant little things instead of truly looking. Like the fact that it was the first time he saw the Headmaster without his glasses, and his face didn't seem quite right without them. The half-moon spectacles laid over the night table, along with Dumbledore's wand and a book that looked like a Muggle novel. It had a bookmark half way through, and for some reason the fact that Dumbledore would never get to finish his book hit Harry harder than the fact that he would never get to see the old twinkling eyes again.

Furiously fighting back tears, he forced his eyes to properly focus on Dumbledore. He looked really, really old. How old? Harry had never asked nor even looked it up in a history book. So many things he didn't know... So many questions he had never asked...

The eyes were closed, and Dumbledore's expression was peaceful, as if he were simply enjoying a nice dream.

To the well-organized mind, death is but the next great adventure.

Dumbledore had said that, he remembered. Harry had not understood at the time, and he still found hard to share the notion, but looking at Dumbledore's face now it wasn't hard to believe that the wise man was fine with being dead.

Dead.

There it was the word he had been avoiding thinking.

He didn't look dead, though. Just sleeping. Harry knew that Dumbledore would never wake up, but he couldn't help to wish...

Needing to make sure, he hesitantly reached out and touched one of the old hands. The skin was soft and wrinkled, and cold. Freezing cold, actually, he thought pulling back his hand as if he had been burned. Perhaps someone had cast some sort of charm to preserve the body?

Body.

Dumbledore was dead. And the implications of that fact were slowly beginning to catch up with him. Without Dumbledore, there would be no one to stop darkness from taking over everything. No one to help Harry in his impossible task of defeating Voldemort. No one to guide him, nor to protect him. No one to save the day.

Dumbledore had died before he could finish explaining things to Harry. Before Harry could extract the memory from Slughorn and watch it with him. That memory had been the key —or so Dumbledore had seemed to believe—, and Harry had been too damn slow!

"I have already raised a few provisory wards," said Flitwick's voice from somewhere close to the door. "That should do until the Ministry sends someone over to update security."

"Thank you, Filius," said McGonagall. Harry wondered if McGonagall had been there the entire time and whether he was being watched, but he didn't turn his head to check. He feared they would tell him his time was up if he made any movement, and he didn't feel ready to leave Dumbledore's side yet. "I will discuss the matter with the Minister later."

"Does anyone know which were his last words?" asked Professor Sprout. "Who saw him last?"

"His last words were probably to himself," drawled a grave, hateful voice that made Harry involuntarily stiffen in response. "The usual mumbling."

He relaxed a little and felt his sense of doom slightly ease when he heard Flitwick's familiar chuckle.

"Mumbling doesn't count," said the tiny Professor. "I last saw him during dinner, I think his last words to me were 'you should have some pudding, Filius'."

"Not much in the way of last words," commented McGonagall. "But better than mine. He told me I'm too stressed out."

"I last spoke to him before he left the castle the other day," contributed Sprout, "he asked me how my new Shrivelfigs are coming along." She let out a loud sigh. "What about you, Severus?"

"I don't believe it is any of your business what his last words were to me," said Snape haughtily. "There is such thing as privacy, you know."

"Come, Severus," teased McGonagall, "if you don't share we will assume it was something inappropriate."

There was a moment of silence, and Harry couldn't resist the impulse of glancing back to see Snape's face. Before he could focus on the ugly face he got distracted by the overall aspect of the man, though. In his mind Snape was always impeccably dressed in his black robes, like a vampire or a Death Eater, but now he looked as if he had jumped out of bed —it suddenly wasn't so hard to believe that he slept— and just thrown on a dark green night robe over his grey nightshirt and pyjama bottoms. He was even wearing slippers.

And he was now glaring at the other teachers, who on their part seemed immune to his glare and waited with obvious amusement on their faces. As Harry watched, fascinated by the fact that anyone dared teasing Snape, the man let out a sigh of resignation.

"He said he would try not to steal my potions magazines," he grudgingly confessed.

Harry snorted.

Unfortunately the sound carried easily across the room, and suddenly there were four Heads of House —including one who hated him— looking at him.

"Too ordinary words for your taste, Mr. Potter?" asked Snape, not sounding nearly as malicious or mocking as usual but still rubbing Harry the wrong way. "Perhaps you have better last words to share?"

Harry met briefly the hard, black eyes before looking away, his gaze resting again on Dumbledore.

He thought about his last meeting with the Headmaster, just a few days ago. Dumbledore had been so disappointed because he hadn't given enough priority to Slughorn's memory... Harry didn't think he had ever felt so awful like in that moment, and that counting a lifetime with the Dursleys, the Cruciatus Curse and watching Cedric and Sirius die. Seeing the disappointment in those wise blue eyes had been a special kind of torment.

Had Dumbledore died still feeling let down? The rest of the meeting had gone well, they had watched two more memories and discussed them like normal, but Harry's failure to retrieve the memory had hung between them the entire time.

"Well, Mr. Potter?" pressed Snape. "We're all waiting. Do share Albus Dumbledore's last words to famous Harry Potter."

Harry turned around again and glared at Snape, the loathing he felt for the man pushing away grief and shame.

"The last thing he said to me was that the DADA position is truly cursed," he snapped. It made him so angry that all of them, including Snape, had ordinary last words to share, casual words like pudding and magazines and Shrivelfigs, while Harry only had Voldemort-related words. "So if something happens to you around June you should complain to your master, sir, since he was the one who cursed your job."

"Mr. Potter, that's enough," admonished McGonagall while Sprout and Flitwick glanced at Snape in concern. To Harry's irritation, however, they seemed afraid for him instead of of him.

Snape, on his part, was just looking at him with an obviously occluded expression, and that made Harry even more furious. He looked at the old wizard again, so peaceful and so dead, and suddenly he realized he had been an idiot. He had sat here moping because Dumbledore was gone and not once had he wondered how he had died. But it was obvious, wasn't it?

He jumped to his feet and wildly pointed a hand at Dumbledore while he glowered at Snape.

"Dumbledore was murdered by Draco Malfoy!" he yelled. "Probably poisoned. And Snape helped him do it or at the very least is covering for him!"