Chapter Five—Falling Together

When Harry found Hermione just outside the dungeons, he saw that she looked rather panicky.

"What's the matter?" he asked, surprised. As soon as she heard his voice, she saw him, and let out a sigh of relief.

"There you are! I was worried you'd be late. Can you imagine what Snape would do? And you've been on tenterhooks with him since—"

"First year," Harry interjected.

"Well, yes," Hermione admitted, "but more so this year. Anyway, what did you and Dumbledore talk about?"

"Tons," Harry told her in a low voice. "He answered some of our questions about it, like if Link and Queen Zelda were related."

Hermione scoffed. "I can't believe you brought up something that stupid. They were married, Harry, how many times do I have to remind you?"

"They were cousins," Harry told her by way of answer.

"What?" Hermione yelped.

"Calm down," Harry hissed, because two or three people's heads had swivelled around to see the source of the shout. "It's a long story, I'll tell you later."

His judgment call was a good one, because at that moment, the door to the dungeon swung open and Snape looked around at them all. His gaze hovered momentarily on Harry and Hermione and he sneered at them, but the weren't breaking any rules.

"No dawdling," he told them sharply, and he swept aside to allow the students to enter.

Hermione elbowed Harry hard in the arm as they found their usual seats together, near the back. He turned his glare from Snape to her, but before he could demand the reason for the assault, she told him quietly, "Don't pick a fight."

Harry didn't answer, but he did avoid Snape's evil eye as the lesson began.

"Today we will be working on the Delayed Memory Loss Potions you researched. You know the routine. Hand in your essays on my desk as you collect your ingredients." He flicked his wand at the blackboard, where the instructions appeared, and at the store cupboard, the door of which flew open.

As he handed in his essay, Harry heard Snape say softly, "I do hope this week's work is of a higher quality than last, Potter. Otherwise I'm afraid I may have to take up with the Headmaster the fact that his star pupil is apparently operating under the delusion that he can fake his way through life and counting on having someone there at all times to endorse his otherwise elusive skill."

Harry clenched his fingers around his parchment slightly before managing to relax them enough to place it on the professor's desk. He refused to rise to the taunt, though he could hear a faint ringing in his ears.

For the rest of the class, so long as he managed to keep his mind on his work and staged conversations with Hermione whenever Snape was nearby, Harry found that he could concoct his potion in relative peace; he couldn't help wondering if dodging his most hated teacher would get easier or harder as time went by. He also wondered if it was worth the trouble.

Classes filled that day so completely that Harry all but forgot what he had to talk to Ron and Hermione about in his anxiety over the level of homework he had; memories of the year before reminded him that he would severely regret not putting these assignments at the top of his to do list. Still, it would have been impossible for anything to take the place at the forefront of his mind above the shocking news of his own identity and destiny…or so he thought, until Professor Sinistra bestowed upon them the news that, since they all seemed to have forgotten many of the things that they had learned in previous years, they would have a cumulative exam on the material from their first to fifth years in the next week. Harry and Ron were stunned with horror, but neither was worse than Hermione, who looked as though she might faint.

The next day was Friday, and Harry and his friends continued to be far too busy to find time to discuss anything, other than, occasionally, school. The evening was devoted to Quidditch practice, where they decided upon their new Chasers. The honour went to a fourth-year girl by the name of Devon Murray, and, unsurprisingly, Ginny Weasley. Harry collapsed into bed that night with his head full of homework and Hermione's thoughts on school sports. Just before slipping into a comatose sleep, it occurred to him that he still hadn't said anything to her and Ron about what Dumbledore had told him. His arm twitched as he made to sit up, to get Ron's attention.

"Tomorrow…" he mumbled, finding that his body simply refused to move now that he had let it stop.

All night, his dreams were vague half-thoughts of Link, Ganondorf, Zelda, Voldemort, Sirius, and other people such as Viktor Krum who had nothing to do with anything. When he awoke on Saturday morning, bleary-eyed and trying to remember why Ruto had been scolding Percy for stealing her Nimbus 2001, he found that the other four in his dorm were still asleep. He looked at his watch and saw that it was seven o'clock; it was still far too early to get up on a weekend, unless he had some secret business to attend to. In pervious years, there had always been something covert to do, and he rather thought he preferred those days. These ones were comparatively boring, but still markedly unsafe.

Now he was wide awake, though, his mind buzzing with ideas about the past and the future. It was a clear day out, and he hadn't really been alone since…a day in June when he had sat for hours by the lake, just thinking and missing Sirius. Now that he thought of it, some time to himself would be a welcome change of pace. Something he needed.

Climbing quietly out of bed, so that he wouldn't wake Ron or any others, Harry dressed in comfortable weekend clothes and then crept out of the dorm, thinking that he might get an early breakfast in the Great Hall before anyone else arrived. It would be peaceful.

As soon as he walked into the hall, he knew he was wrong. Naturally, there was one other person there, the only one who could truly make his breakfast anything but peaceful.

"Well, well… Good morning, Potter."

To be more accurate, there were three people there, but two of them were beings that Harry tended to think of as non-sentient, like rocks. It was the blond haired boy they flanked who required the most attention.

"Get lost, Malfoy," Harry retorted bluntly, turning away from where he, Crabbe and Goyle sat at the Slytherin table in order to make his own way towards the Gryffindor one. It was already piled with food and awaiting its students.

Malfoy rose to his feet, keeping his expression even. "Are you trying to start something, Potter?" he asked sharply.

"No, I'm trying to end something," Harry corrected him swiftly. "This conversation. Get lost." He sat firmly at the breakfast table and began to stack his plate full.

"I don't think I will, thanks," Malfoy countered. "I really think we need to catch up, don't you? What's been going on over the summer for you? Still pen friends with your murderer godfather?"

Harry found himself on his feet and crossing the Great Hall before he realized it. "Your father's the murderer, Malfoy. Everybody knows it."

"Oh, that's right I forgot," Malfoy retorted smoothly, unperturbed. "Your godfather was a murder victim."

Almost against his will, Harry had instantly swung back a fist to punch Malfoy as hard as he could right in his pointed, sneering face—

"Watch yourself, Potter," came McGonagall's voice, quick and firm. Harry blinked and stopped in his tracks, though he was still seething with rage. The professor stood in the doorway of the hall, apparently having just arrived for her own breakfast.

"And you, Malfoy," McGonagall said now, turning to him. "While Potter does not have the right to strike you under any circumstances, I must inform you that you cannot cross the line of human decency and expect to get away with it. Understood?"

Malfoy continued to glare venomously at Harry as he spat, "Yes, Professor."

"Good. Ten points from Slytherin. Now leave each other alone."

Before Harry made to return to the Gryffindor table, he heard Malfoy hiss, "I've told you before and I'll tell you again, Potter. You've picked the losing side. This means war."

Only just managing to suppress the violent rage that roiled up within him, Harry said loudly, "I'll eat something later. I've lost my appetite."

Without waiting for a response, he whipped around and stormed out of the Great Hall. When he swung one of its massive doors closed behind him, the bang resounded so loudly that Harry thought it might awaken to whole school. This gave him an odd satisfaction.

Outside, the late summer sun made everything look greener and more alive that it normally did; the cerulean sky itself was teeming with life as puffs of cloud glanced across its surface like dancers over a stage. The waters of the lake glittered as though light was raining down on them, and the surface was undisturbed by anything except for a small breath of wind. It was blowing gently on Harry's face as well, and felt as energetic and somehow cognizant as the world looked right now.

He wasn't altogether surprised to feel a small, hot prickle in the corners of his eyes.

Harry found himself a seat on a large rock overlooking the lake, crossed his legs and looked out at the morning that stretched out before him resplendently. Life was beautiful.

But…life was unfair, too. Life murdered two young people who were brave and loving and had a baby son. Life let that baby boy grow up in a home where his own family longed for him to suffer. Life took the minds of a couple who wanted to make the world a better place. Life ostracized good people and made them objects of ridicule. Life made people believe lies and disbelieve truth. Life put an innocent man in prison, took twelve of his years, put a price on his head, and killed him only hours before he could have gotten his freedom back. Life ruined lives.

No, Harry thought, and the tears that had been threatening to stream down his face retreated instantly. No, it wasn't life that did any of those things, that took so much away form people who deserved so much more. Life just went past every day and gave people chances; it was the people themselves who made things happen, both good and bad. The only things life created were moments like this, where everything was beautiful.

And as for who created the suffering, the agony, the misery… It was always, in some way, shape or form, Lord Voldemort and his Death Eaters. It had always been the fault of the ones who sought absolute power, the ones who were true evil.

"And if it's up to me to stop them…if I have to kill them all to do it…" he whispered recklessly, his warm breath issuing out into the breeze, "then I'll do it. They deserve it."

The image of Bellatrix Lestrange, her once-beautiful face, robbed of its looks by Azkaban as Sirius' had been, flashed in Harry's mind, and anger flared in the pit of his stomach. Her… He had vowed to kill her in June, and his resolution remained unchanged.

For a long minute, Harry just sat there with his mind empty except for blank pain. He tried to think of another topic toward which to turn his reverie, and it wandered onto Ron and Hermione.

They had been acting unusually lately. Mainly, Harry noticed that they had been fighting often, even by their standards. It was almost as if they enjoyed their own constant bickering. Yet, at the same time as they were being as snarky with each other as they had ever been, they were also managing to endure each other's company more than ever before. In previous years, they had used Harry as a buffer; many times, it had occurred to him that they most likely would never have been friends if not for him. This year, however, they were managing to coexist peacefully through direct interaction. Maybe they were just maturing.

He didn't know how long he had been sitting there, staring at the bright lake, before a shriek of laughter from some distant part of the grounds broke his concentration. He looked up and saw that some students had leaked out of the castle to enjoy the warm weather. Checking his watch, he saw that it was approaching ten o'clock, and his stomach growled in protest at having been denied sustenance earlier. He therefore clambered down from his rock and re-entered the castle as everyone else was leaving, taking a moment to allow his eyes to adjust to the suddenly contrasting darkness of indoors.

The Great Hall was busy, so he blended in with the breakfast-eating crowd, but Ron and Hermione were not among them. He ate more quickly than he usually would have done, not being involved in a conversation, then headed up to Gryffindor Tower.

When he arrived there, however, he found that his friends weren't present. They hadn't been in the Great Hall, he mentally double checked, nor had they been in the Entrance Hall, nor had they been on the grounds when he had been, so most likely they were wandering the halls somewhere. But where?

Feeling slightly hurt that they had gone off somewhere without him, he began to scour the halls near Gryffindor Tower, but was turning up nothing. Deciding to make his way towards the Owlery, in case they had perhaps needed to send a letter, he approached a corridor branching off to his left.

Then he heard voices arguing off in the opposite direction, and he recognized them as Ron and Hermione. They sounded like they were in one of their most vicious fights ever. Harry had never heard Ron yelling with such anger, not even when he had suspected Crookshanks of eating Scabbers.

"I've never seen you be so naïve about anything! You've always the smart one! The logical one!"

"Oh, shut up, Ron! You don't know what you're talking about! The closest you've ever come to actually caring about someone was—was that irritating, self-centred little brat, Fleur!" Hermione was snarling, spitting like a wildcat.

"Why are you dragging her into this?! She has nothing to do with—!"

"She just proves the way you are! The way you've always liked the girls who are the prettiest, and who cares if they're sweet or stupid!"

Harry froze, just around the corner and out of their sight, listening. This was a strange fight.

Ron was apparently at a loss for a comeback. "I— You— How— You don't understand how—I—"

"What?" sneered Hermione irritably. "How you feel?"

Ron didn't give any answer that Harry could hear, though he was listening intently now, but something must have happened, because he heard a few quiet footsteps, and as he took a step forward himself, listening closely, he heard Hermione speaking apologetically.

"I'm sorry, Ron. I didn't mean…"

"Yes, you did."

There was another silence. Harry heard a few small sounds of their movement, then Hermione's voice again.

"Ron…"

"Yeah?"

Harry strained his ears harder than he had ever done before, longing for a pair of Fred and George's Extendable ones, but he didn't hear anything. Nervously, he peered around the corner, and couldn't believe what he saw.

Hermione and Ron were standing facing each other, very close together, with their eyes closed, and he was leaning in towards her…

Harry felt his stomach flip over, and before he could think, he was running away. He knew they must have heard him, but he was too busy trying to block out of his mind what he had just seen. It couldn't be. It couldn't be.

He burst into the Gryffindor common room and up to his dorm. He closed the door hard behind him and began to pace around the room, grateful on some level that the other Gryffindor boys were all awake and elsewhere. His heart was pounding so hard that he couldn't sit down. He pressed his hands against his eyes until small stars burst into his vision, but the image would not go away. Whatever Dumbledore had told him was not as shocking as this. He didn't know how he would be able to look at them again. Nothing could possibly be the same now. Ever.

Flopping onto his bed, he tried to put the pieces of the hypothetical future together, to test his own reaction. Ron and Hermione, going out. Ron and Hermione, boyfriend and girlfriend. Ron and Hermione, kissing.

Digging the heels of his hands into his eyes, he didn't know whether he wanted to laugh, scream, or be sick at the thought; he cringed, and found that he was gritting his teeth as though being tortured for information he was refusing to give up. It was just so bizarre.

"Er…Harry?"

The door creaked open, and Ron poked his head into the room. Harry stared determinedly at the ceiling, not wanting to look at his best friend.

"Are you angry?" asked Ron rather lamely, still standing in the doorway.

"No," said Harry, in a strange voice that he had to struggle to keep under control, speaking each word slowly and carefully. "Just a little confused."

"Yeah. I… Do you want to talk about it?"

Harry considered. "Where's Hermione?"

"In the common room," Ron answered slowly.

"Was talking about it her idea?"

Ron said nothing, which Harry took as confirmation.

"What happened?" asked Harry jerkily.

After hesitating a moment, Ron entered the dorm and closed the door behind him. He crossed the room towards the window as he explained uncomfortably.

"We were down at breakfast when the post came, and she had a letter…from Viktor. It said he thought that trying to be anything more than friends with her over a long distance just wasn't going to work, and he still really liked her, but it wasn't fair to either of them to keep anything going when there was no hope. That's what he wrote, anyway, but she didn't buy it. She got all upset, she said he was just trying to let her off easy but really it was just that he didn't care about her anymore. I tried to be a friend, you know, tell her how I'd never really liked him and all that, but it didn't seem to help. I dunno. She said she wanted to go for a walk—inside, because everyone's outside today—and she just wanted me to listen."

Harry bit back saying that Ron had been doing a lot more than listening, from what he had heard.

"So I was trying to just listen," Ron continued, "but it was really hard when she kept going on about how nice he way. I mean, five minutes before that, she's saying he's a lying creep! So I told her what I thought, which was that she should just forget about him.

"Then she got all mad at me. She started yelling about how I don't understand that she can't just forget about him because she still cares about him. I started yelling at her that she was being naïve—"

"Yeah, I heard that part," Harry forced out.

"Oh," said Ron, not managing to keep the surprise from his voice. "Right. So, anyway, when she made some comment about how I just like girls who are pretty, we just sort of…stared at each other, and then…I just got it."

"Got what?"

"I just understood. For so long it's been… She drives me mad. I know that, you know that, she knows that. But I couldn't figure out why she drives me mad, and then I just realized it's because—"

Ron paused, running his fingers through his hair as he stared out the window. Then he turned back to Harry and said almost pleadingly, "You know what I mean. Don't you?"

Harry shook his head candidly. Ron looked different to him suddenly; less like his best friend, the second-youngest Weasley, Keeper on the Gryffindor team, and everything else. More like a teenager.

"Well…" Ron began, clearly struggling for the right words. "I think she always drove me mad because it was like she was…taunting me, you know? Like, just by existing, and especially by having her little fling or whatever with Viktor, she was reminding me that she wasn't my girlfriend. Do you know what I mean?"

Harry had never felt any such thing towards a girl. He wished he could have truthfully said he understood, but he simply didn't, and so he just continued to stare blankly at Ron, who shrugged and sat on his bed.

Sitting up, Harry ventured to ask slowly, "What exactly did you… What happened?"

Ron gave a noise that might have been a laugh if it had been stronger. "Nothing," he said. "We were just about to…you know…"

Harry nodded. Ron was having as much difficulty in saying the word as Harry was in thinking it.

"Yeah. But before we could, we heard something, and we jumped over and saw you running away, so we followed you, 'cause we figured you'd seen…us. And now we're here."

There was a knock at the door, and they both jumped. Hermione's voice said, "What's taking so long? Harry, are you furious? Let's talk about this, please, like civilized people—"

"Oh, just come in, Hermione," sighed Harry.

She opened the door and stuck her head into the room, looking highly flustered. "Let's go outside or something," she said earnestly. "Let's get some air."

"Good idea," muttered Harry, and he and Ron followed her out of the dorm. As they left the tower, Harry stood next to Hermione, who had Ron on her left, and wondered which of the two of them he blamed more for this.

"So…so Ron told you what happened?" Hermione began anxiously as soon as they were outside. "That we didn't actually ki—"

"Only because I interrupted you," Harry snapped back. He felt distinctly more betrayed now that both of them were present. "What would you have done if I hadn't been there? No, never mind, I don't want to know!"

Ron and Hermione exchanged a look, and Harry felt himself grow angrier.

"Harry, it's not as though we planned this," Hermione pointed out. "We're not trying to shut you out—"

"Oh, yeah? Going on little morning strolls together to spill your heart out isn't shutting me out? It's like last summer at Grimmauld Place!" As soon as he spoke, he realized what he was saying, and charged on, "Did this start then? Tell me the truth!"

"No!" cried Ron vehemently.

"Well…" said Hermione sheepishly.

Ron and Harry both stared at her.

"Excuse me?" Ron snapped, in a higher voice than usual. "This is the first I've heard of it!"

"Well, we didn't do anything," Hermione elaborated. "But we did start to… I mean, Ginny told me that she'd seen us together a couple of times when we didn't know she was there, and she said we were just acting like a couple. She actually asked me if we were going out."

Ron gaped. "I'll kill her," he finally said matter-of-factly.

"Honestly, Ron, what for?" Hermione asked. "For noticing that we weren't acting normally? She was right! It's not her fault, it's ours. Is this really a surprise? You never noticed that there was…something?"

Harry flashed on the Yule Ball in fourth year; Ron had been spitting mad at Hermione. It made sense now, with Ron's explanation of how he had felt she was taunting him. And Hermione had said even then that he should have asked her…

"Look," Hermione was saying now, clearly exasperated with both of them. "We can't pretend this didn't happen, because it did, and even if we don't admit it, we can't avoid it, either, because it'll happen again. Harry, even though this isn't our fault, I'll give you an apology if that's what you want. And Ron, it's up to you."

Ron jumped, looking at her with wide eyes, apparently feeling a strong desire not to have to make any decisions. "What is?" he demanded fearfully.

Hermione was looking at him oddly, and Harry suddenly wished he could be anywhere but in their company. Looking down, she said "We need to decide what's going to happen…between us."

Harry took this is his cue to walk away, certain they wouldn't miss him. He sat down in the grass a few feet away, unable to keep himself from watching them out of the corner of his eye. They were talking with their heads very close together, quietly enough that he couldn't hear their words, but he could see them smiling now, and holding hands…

And then Harry realized why he was having such a hard time with this; he had thought it was just because they were his friends, but he couldn't deny, now that he thought about it, that much of their strange behaviour in the past had probably been a result of all this. No, the reason the situation really bothered him was that he didn't have anything like it in his own life. His so-called relationship with Cho the previous year had been his first serious attempt at having a girlfriend, and it had been an utter mess of tears on her part and frustration on his, with fights in between. But Ron and Hermione had already known each other for years, and though they might not have agreed on everything, they did know how each other's minds worked. They were both happy when they were together, and there was no awkwardness. Friends… That was where a good relationship like this one had to begin. What exactly did that mean?

Harry, who had been staring at his hands as he mulled over this, looked up at them again and saw they were walking towards him, still holding hands. He suspected they had reached a verdict.

"So," he said, standing up and trying as hard as he could not to sound bitter, "should I say congratulations?"

"Yeah, well, we're…" To complete the thought, Ron waved one of his hands between himself and Hermione, the hand that wasn't in hers.

"We've decided that we're going out," Hermione finished gently, almost apologetically. "Is that okay?"

Harry shrugged, hoping he looked casual. "Hey, it's not up to me, is it?"

There was a thick silence. Finally Harry summed up the energy and ability to be genuinely happy for them. "Really—I'm glad for you."

Ron and Hermione beamed.

"Thanks, mate."

"That means a lot to us, Harry."

Harry nodded uncomfortably, not sure what so say. "Let's head back to the castle," he finally suggested. Ron and Hermione voiced their assent immediately.

As they began to cross the grounds, Hermione said, "Hey, Harry, I've just realized— You still haven't told us what Dumbledore said when you gave that book back!"

Harry blinking, reaching back into his memory and discovering that this was indeed true. He had taken so long to tell them, with one distraction and another, that by now he had assumed he must have done it already. "Oh, yeah…"

And he launched into the explanation; it was a good change of subject, and certainly held their attention. By the time they arrived at Gryffindor Tower, he had gotten to the end, his own identity as Link's descendant and a True Hero, and he was quite sure he had never seen either of them gaping in such shock.

"You're like…the Heir of Gryffindor!" Ron exclaimed. "Like how You-Know-Who's the Heir of Slytherin!"

This hadn't crossed Harry's mind. "I guess I am," he agreed.

Hermione let out a gasp.

"What?" asked both boys instantly.

"Of course! I knew he looked familiar…" Without another word, she bolted away to her dormitory. Ron sighed.

"She still does drive me mad, though," he informed Harry as they took their usual seats by the fire to wait for her return.

Hermione returned a moment later, and the boys saw her carrying a massive volume that they had never seen before; as soon as she sat down and placed it on her lap, though, they saw the title.

"Oh," said Harry, smirking at her. "So this is the infamous Hogwarts: A History that we've heard so much about, is it?"

She smiled back without looking up, her eyes focused on the task of flipping through the hundreds of pages before her. "That's right. I want to show you something… Where is it…" Her voice trailed away as she talked to herself, skimming the words, then she said, "Ah, here! There's a chapter on the founders." Propping the book up in her lap, she read aloud.

"Godric Gryffindor placed as much value on his family as on his work towards the betterment of wizarding society. His daughter, Keitha, was a member of the third graduating class of the school, and his son, Leocore, was of the fifth."

Hermione turned the book around to show it to Harry and Ron, who leaned forward in their chairs to look at the small pictures in the margins of the text. Atop the page was a portrait of Godric Gryffindor, looking strikingly similar to Link, under a heading of his name. Below this, next to the curvaceously illuminated moniker of Keitha, was a miniature portrait of a smiling young woman with golden hair in gracious curls around her face, who looked exactly like someone else that Harry had seen before.

"She looks just like Queen Zelda!" he exclaimed. "I mean…she doesn't have the pointy ears, and she's got a few freckles, but still, it's pretty close."

"Yeah, you're right," Ron agreed. "But look at Leocore!"

Another small picture, similar to Keitha's, smiled up at them and waved. The young man in question had dark hair, glasses, bright eyes and a slim face. Ron couldn't stop himself from laughing.

"Some things never change, huh?" he observed.

"He doesn't look that much like me," Harry disagreed, though he was smiling as well. "He's got freckles like his sister, and different hair—"

"You mean neat hair," Ron corrected him. Hermione rolled her eyes.

It was true that the resemblance between Harry and Leocore wasn't as striking as that between Zelda and Keitha, but it was unmistakable.

"That wasn't my point, though," Hermione said. "I was thinking this. Dumbledore said you have the bloodlines of both Courage and Wisdom, right?"

"Right…"

"And you do, of course, but doesn't it look like they split up here?"

Ron and Harry exchanged doubtful expressions.

"Hermione, they couldn't have totally separated," Ron pointed out. "No matter what, both of those kids came from both and Link and Queen Zelda's bloodlines."

"I know," Hermione mused; it appeared that her train of thought had run out, and she was developing it now as she spoke, looking considerately at the pictures. "Doesn't it seem weird to you, though, that what's always been a three-part conflict would come down to two parts?"

"Things changed, Hermione," Harry said. "That's what Dumbledore said. Because Link III and Queen Zelda III married, and then Link IV wasn't from the other Heroes' bloodline."

She gave a small, thoughtful sigh. "I just think that seems like one of those things that would never change. There are three pieces of the Triforce, so there should be three people to fight for them. Isn't it possible that you're Leocore's descendant and someone else is Keitha's, and represents the Triforce of Wisdom?"

"Dumbledore would've said something about it, though," Ron suggested. "Unless he doesn't know who it is…but even then, you'd think he'd mention that there are three people…"

Harry had stopped listening, lost in thought. If he had noticed Hermione's expression, he would have seen understanding on it. Without her explanation, though, something clicked in his own mind, and he bolted away.

"Harry, where are you going?"

His mind was so completely elsewhere that he was surprised to find himself halting so soon before the large stone gargoyle, and nearly overbalanced in his attempt to stop suddenly.

"Oh… Chocolate!" he said, reaching out for the wall with one hand.

As soon as the gargoyle jumped aside, he began running up the moving staircase to reach the top as quickly as possible, and hammered on the door.

"Professor Dumbledore!"

"Come in," came the Headmaster's voice, sounding slightly surprised.

Harry threw open the door, pointing across the room at him, and exclaimed, "You! You!"

Dumbledore, who was standing at a bookshelf with a few items in his hands, apparently organizing them, raised his eyebrows. "I beg your pardon? What about me?"

"You!" Harry said again. "I'm not the Triforce of Wisdom, you are! You're Queen Zelda's descendant, Gryffindor and Keitha's!"

"Ah, so you discovered Keitha and Leocore, did you?" Dumbledore asked, laying the few books he still held down on his desk.

"Hermione did! And she thought there would have to be three people fighting for the Triforce, and you're the third!"

Dumbledore, who had been looking at Harry, turned his head to gaze out the window over the grounds. "The Triforce of Wisdom. The guide. A respected authority figure, very close to the Triforce of Courage, very magically powerful. You spotted the parallels."

"They're kind of hard to miss," Harry informed him dryly. "But why didn't you tell me?"

"Because…there is one more trait which always defines the Triforce of Wisdom. Do you know what that is?"

Harry could think of many things that the four Zeldas had in common, namely that they were all blonde-haired, blue-eyed, idealized images of princesses. But none of that applied to Dumbledore. "No."

"The Triforce of Courage," the Headmaster explained carefully, "always fights for the things he cares about. Ganondorf knew this, and targeted all the things Link I cared about. Not only the land of Hyrule in general, but his home in the forest, his friends and loved ones. Saria was trapped in a forest filled with Ganon's demons. A man pledging loyalty to him took control of the ranch where Malon worked and kept her under his control. And finally, when the three pieces of the Triforce stood on the edge of battle, he attacked Queen Zelda, for beyond being someone dear to Link, she was also a powerful threat herself. That was what forced Link to face the King of Evil, to learn that his desire for heroism and his dreams of saving the world were not so glorious when he could put names and faces to those who were suffering."

Dumbledore paused here before continuing, his voice sounding slightly less controlled.

"Voldemort has already begun to target the things you love, Harry. You know this. We discussed it last year. He has already begun to manipulate your natural willingness to do anything to save them…"

"And so…he's going to attack you," Harry finished quietly. Though he tried to make it sound normal, his voice was heavy when it emerged from his throat.

"I am the other side of your success, Harry," Dumbledore said quietly, "the one who guides you, provides you information, fights at your side. When the final battle between yourself and Lord Voldemort culminates…the one in which either you or he must die…my life also shall hang in the balance."

Harry couldn't feel his body. His voice didn't sound like his own as he said, "Why… Why didn't you tell me?"

Again, there was a brief pause before Dumbledore answered.

"With the fate of the world resting on your shoulders, Harry…I did not want to add the weight of my own life. You are a True Hero, and this means both that there are more important things for you to concern yourself with than any one individual…and that you will not believe that there possibly could be."