Disclaimer: JKR owns everything. I'm just a lowly fan.
There was mist everywhere: covering the ground, clouding the air, billowing around him with every movement he made in this place.
There was light, but he could not perceive the location of the source; it was scattered by the mist, and he found himself thinking it would not be wholly unlikely that it was the haze itself from whence the pale glow emanated.
And there was him.
The ethereal place had a strange effect on him. It lifted his weariness, calmed his tortured soul, and made him feel the youth he had nearly forgotten. And yet he was still alone. This was not new to him, as he had been alone much of his life. He did not define loneliness as the physical state of being apart from others; in fact, the times he felt the most alone were when he was in a crowded, noisy room filled with people calling his name and turning their eyes to him. Loneliness was the absence of another to share the burden of his sorrows.
As if he would have shared them anyway.
And then he sensed something.
He turned around, trying to find where the first strong sensation he'd felt in this place was to be found, and the mist swirled around him. What was it? He knew the sensation, he just could not place it. The mist clouded every element of this place, even his own mind.
The sensation was growing stronger; the source must be coming closer. He eventually could see a dark shape in the cloud, and a moment later, it was close enough for him to identify it.
Even in the mist, he had never seen so clearly in his life.
"Why are you here?" His heart was pounding in his throat, blocking his words, but he managed to force them out. This could not be happening.
"I could not help it," replied the voice that was so painfully dear to him.
"There are some things that are not meant to happen," he said gravely.
"And there are some that are?" There was anger in her voice; it was a tone he'd heard many times before.
"Yes, unfortunately."
"Why?" The mist swirled; she was coming closer to him. "Why did you do this?"
He waited until the mist settled before giving an answer.
"Because it was the only way."
"There is never an 'only way'."
"Then why are you here?"
The only sound was their breathing. Tendrils of mist rose and fell with the slight movements of air.
"I could not help it," she repeated.
"Neither could I."
He turned away from her and took several steps. He knew she would follow, but he wanted a heartbeat to himself; a moment where he could let his pain into the open and she could not see. She followed in the path he cleared in the mist and reached toward him, but did not touch him.
"Please," she whispered. "Please, I have to know."
"Some things are not meant to be known."
"You knew all along, didn't you?" she asked. "You knew it would come to this."
"I will not say that I predicted an outcome different to what happened."
"But why? Surely there must have been another way."
"It is never possible to know the whole story." He slowly turned around to face her again. The mist rose just past his knees with the movement and dissipated. "All we can hope for is as many pieces as possible."
"Then why did you keep it to yourself? We could have helped you!"
"I told you as much as you needed to know," he said. "I was trying to protect you, and only now do I feel regret."
His eyes were beginning to sting, and he knew it was not because of the mist.
"No one can save everyone," she said quietly. "Not even you."
He looked down. He could barely see his feet through the mist.
Her voice was so soft he had to strain to hear it. "If you could go back… would you?"
He looked up and straight into her eyes. He had looked into those eyes many times before, but never as intently as he did now. He could see the pain in his heart reflected in the depths of her eyes, and he suddenly felt less alone.
"No."
She clenched her eyes shut and nodded slightly. It was the answer she expected.
"Now it is my turn," he said. "Though I do not doubt the truth of what you have previously answered, I know it is not all of it."
She opened her eyes, and he spoke.
"Why are you here?"
She sighed, looked down, then up, then back at him again. Mist framed his face and gave his skin an eerie glow.
"Because I failed you," she whispered.
"You have never-" he began hotly.
"Yes, I did," she interrupted. "There was nothing more I could do. I tried to be a leader, but I was more lost, more weak than anyone. I don't think you know how much you meant to me, and I don't think I knew, either."
He shook his head. "No; believe me, if there was one thing I knew it was how much you meant to me. There were so many things I wanted to tell you, beyond the obvious. If anyone knew, though – knew how I truly felt about you – I cannot even imagine the horrors they would put you through to get to me, knowing I would have no choice but to come."
"Then surely you must be able to comprehend my pain!" she said. "When someone you love-"
She stopped herself, realizing that she'd let loose something she'd never meant to say.
He was not nearly as surprised as she was at her words. He'd long felt the same emotion on his side and suspected it from her.
"When someone you love," he said, picking up where she left off, "is in danger, you will do anything to protect her. Especially when it is someone you always knew others would look to for leadership when you could not be there, when you could no longer be followed."
"You were gone."
"I have gone before, and you had always risen to the occasion."
"Those times were different, Albus." Her eyes were as misty as the void around them. "Those times, we knew you would come back."
"I wanted you to follow me then," he quietly confessed. "If there was ever anyone I wanted to share every part of my life with, it was you."
He reached for her hands, and when their skin touched, he knew this was real. It was not his imagination or the mist playing tricks on his eyes. His knees buckled with the weight of the knowledge. Struggling to hold himself up, he turned over her hands and looked at her forearms. They were covered with scars.
"Oh, Minerva." He dropped to his knees in the mist. "There are some places a leader is not meant to be followed."
Albus Dumbledore had known only solitude in life.
And now, in death, he knew he would never be lonely again.
But even so, he would have traded an eternity of loneliness for Minerva McGonagall to never find her way into the mist.