Prologue
"But you're dead," said Harry.
"Oh yes," said Dumbledore matter-of-factly.
"Then… I'm dead too?"
"Ah," said Dumbledore, smiling still more broadly. "That is the question, isn't it? On the whole dear boy, I think not."
They looked at each other, the old man still beaming.
"Not?" repeated Harry.
"Not," said Dumbledore.
"But…" Harry raised his hand instinctively toward the lightning scar. It did not seem to be there. "But I should have died — I didn't defend myself! I meant to let him kill me!"
"And that," said Dumbledore, "will, I think, have made all the difference."
Happiness seemed to radiate from Dumbledore like light, like fire: Harry had never seen the man so utterly, so palpably content.
"Explain," said Harry.
"But you already know," said Dumbledore. He twiddled his thumbs together.
"I let him kill me," said Harry. "Didn't I?"
"You did," said Dumbledore, nodding. "Go on!"
"So the part of his soul that was in me…"
Dumbledore nodded still more enthusiastically, urging Harry onward, a broad smile of encouragement on his face.
"…has it gone?"
"Oh yes!" said Dumbledore. "Yes, he destroyed it. Your soul is whole, and completely your own, Harry."
"But then…"
Harry glanced over his shoulder to where the small, maimed creature trembled under the chair.
"What is that, Professor?"
"Something that is beyond either of our help," said Dumbledore.
"But if Voldemort used the Killing Curse," Harry started again, "and nobody died for me this time — how can I be alive?"
"I think you know," said Dumbledore. "Think back. Remember what he did, in his ignorance, in his greed and his cruelty."
Harry thought. He let his gaze drift over his surroundings. If it was indeed a palace in which they sat, it was an odd one, with chairs set in little rows and bits of railing here and there, and still, he and Dumbledore and the stunted creature under the chair were the only beings there. Then the answer rose to his lips easily, without effort.
"He took my blood," said Harry.
"Precisely!" said Dumbledore. "He took your blood and rebuilt his living body with it! Your blood in his veins, Harry, Lily's protection inside both of you! He tethered you to life while he lives!"
"I live…while he lives? But I thought…I thought it was the other way round! I thought we both had to die? Or is it the same thing?"
He was distracted by the whimpering and thumping of the agonized creature behind them and glanced back at it yet again.
"Are you sure we can't do anything?"
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Chapter One
Though you're not here
I can feel you there
I take you along
And when I'm scared
I imagine you there
Telling me to be brave
– "Brave for you, The xx
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When Harry Potter died, she knew it.
Not simply knew in the way the others did — from hearing the Dark Lord's screams of triumph, the laughter of Bellatrix Lestrange, the loud weeping of Rubeus Hagrid. Luna Lovegood felt her friend's soul as it was torn from his body like old, moth-eaten clothing. She shuddered. It hovered nearby for a moment, as if waiting for something — and then was gone.
Luna could almost see the empty place where it had been, in her mind's eye. It shimmered like the inside of a sea-shell, avoiding the light of the sun, making a space in the shadows.
When she came back to herself her mouth tasted of ashes, and she could hear Hermione, could hear Ron and Neville and Hannah and Minerva and Cho, Filius, Horace, Katie, Susan, … All of them, mourning as one. She imagined, even, that she could hear Cedric, and Myrtle, and the voices of all those who had ever loved Hogwarts, or Harry. And worst of all, she heard Ginny, poor Ginny, shrieking loudest of all as the body of the boy she loved was brought before her. Luna watched grimly, detachedly, as if she were not really inhabiting her body — just the way Marietta Edgecombe had hissed out in the hallway a few weeks ago, she thought ironically. It's like she's not even there!
It was a curious sort of emptiness. She supposed, upon considering it, that she was probably in shock.
This was not to say that Luna was not distraught. She felt herself to be drowning in a sea of happy memories, each one now stained with the piercing agony of reality. Harry teaching her how to cast a Patronus Charm. Going to Professor Slughorn's lovely party with Harry and watching that too-handsome, brash Quidditch player chase Hermione around the room. Feeding the little Thestral with Harry, as he quietly listened to her talk about her mother. Harry's eyes… his smile… the way his hair always made a fuss and never seemed to calm down, as if it wanted to tell everyone how brilliant his mind really was, how kind his heart, underneath the scar and the famous face of the Boy Who Lived. All things she would never see again, except in memory.
A loud bang from somewhere off to her right side startled her out of her grief. A warning shot, breaking the stone of the great steps and sending chunks of debris clattering down them to the ground.
Their enemies were nearing. At the forefront was the man who was not a man, his face snake-like and hideously smug, eyes flashing red in triumph. Calling himself Lord Voldemort and pretending he's more than human, she thought with a kind of hollow distaste. Luna knew better; he was less. She imagined she could smell the sulphur from where she stood, the telltale sign of a mind turned beyond hope — the brimstone-scented Viridian Torlinblot was especially attracted to madness, and the number on him must have been too many to count. But that didn't stop her from pitying him, faintly, far in the back of her mind. When he opened his mouth, she tuned out the sound and focused instead on the pale, bulbous Moon Frog that was croaking plaintively off by the lake, apparently up far past its bed-time.
Then Neville rose to say something, and Luna turned her head back to the confrontation. She noted, without ill will or surprise but a tiny pang of disappointment, that Draco had gone to be with his parents on the other side. She couldn't blame him, she supposed, but after he'd saved Harry from Bellatrix Lestrange at Malfoy Manor, a part of her had hoped he might stay and fight with them. They needed every witch and wizard they could get.
People die every day, Neville was saying. He was being very brave, Luna thought with a sad sort of pride. She did not know if any of them were going to make it out of this alive, but if Neville was going to keep fighting… well.
She'd do what she could.