- Chapter Twenty -

Three Turnovers

Wiggly waves swashed the shore where the snow-white marble tomb lay lonely in the shadow of the huge castle towers. Cold raindrops fell on the smooth surface, resistant to the forces of nature, time, or magic. Albus Dumbledore's tomb was the most protected place in the entire country, and this was due in no small part to the six-foot-tall, lion-like beast that lay like a lapdog at the base of the tomb. One might have thought that the huge animal belonged to the deceased, and therefore guarded the peace of the coffin – but it did not: in the tomb lay something far more important and dangerous than the decaying remains of a great sorcerer.

Harry's fingers stroked over the cold marble, tracing the ornate, meaningless flourish carved into the surface, and the inscription on the top of the stone slab – as if a Roman emperor lay in a solid coffin, wrapped in a silk scarf...

The tomb-guarding beast raised its head lazily, but it knew from a distance that the man in black had not come with malicious intent. It rose now, and with soundless footsteps strode up to him, bowing its head and rubbing it against Harry's shoulder, who let go the coffin with his fingers and scratched the base of the dwarf-nundu's ear. The animal purred pleasantly, like an overgrown house cat, and Harry felt the pulsing magic beneath his fingers, the warmth of the beast's skin, alive, breathing, so much better to touch than the cold, dead stone.

In recent years, he has greeted death as an old acquaintance, and has begun to feel that life is an illusion. But things like this animal reminded him that life is what matters, and death is only secondary, preying on life and unable to exist without it.

Katie Bell's funeral shook him; nothing has shaken him so much in years. He barely knew her, true, five years of playing Quidditch had forged them into a team on the court, but in real life he knew almost nothing about her. Still, when the coffin sank into the deep pit, a terrible, overwhelming feeling settled over him and he couldn't stay there any longer. He let go of Ginny, whose hand he had held during the farewell ceremony, and simply turned his back on the funeral, walked away and disapparated. He had no idea where he was going, and he himself was most surprised when he found himself on the muddy road outside the gates of Hogwarts. It was in the castle that most of his friends had died, and he had no more the feelings for the place as he had as a child: he would find only pain and mournful memories within its gloomy walls. Still, he went through the gate and went where his feet took him, past the tallest tower, down to the lakeside, to Dumbledore's grave.

'Is this how the real Master of Death should supposed to feel like, Professor?' Harry muttered bitterly, staring at the stone tomb.

He was cold, almost shivering, his black robes were soaked through, but he didn't even notice. He paced like a lunatic, and his moments of guilt and self-mortification were interrupted from time to time by the terrible rage that flared up inside him. He wanted to kill, wanted to wipe that horror from the world. His hatred was directed at Marius alone, and sometimes it was so intense that Harry felt as if he could crush him with his rage alone.

'I'm not very worthy of it now, am I?' he whispered, but he could not expect an answer from the stone. He who lay beneath it could not hear nor see him, could not know that Harry stood before him, trying to put order to the chaos that was swirling in his soul.

Sometimes he felt he would simply give in to the chaos, let his temper get the better of him, let him run wild and do whatever his anger told him to do – but he always restrained himself in time. He restrained himself even when Sirius lay before his wand, when he could have slain countless Death Eaters with deadly force, but he did not.

'But you are a murderer,' a voice whispered in his head. Voldemort had died by his hand, as was foretold. Yet he did not feel like a murderer; even at the last moment he did not unleash his anger, and it was then that he felt the greatest calm and certainty in himself. Why should he not feel the same now? Why had he forgotten so much in the last year and a half? He no longer felt worthy of the hallows, two of which he had willingly given up.

He shivered in the cold and began to cough – for a moment he got frightened that Marius might have cursed him with the Blight again, but the panic soon passed and he realised he might simply have a cold. So he reached into his pocket to pull out his wand and warm himself, drying his robes and making them waterproof, as any normal wizard would do when it rained. But the moment his fingers felt the hilt of the wand, it was as if an electric current ran through his body. He jerked, cried out, and fell to his knees before the tombstone; the nundu cried out, not understanding what had befallen the wizard, and, flashing his teeth, drew back from him. Harry clutched his hand, twitched his fingers, and swore quietly.

'What the hell... This isn't right... What's wrong with you?!' he coughed angrily, and with a quick movement he pulled the wand out of his pocket. It vibrated and bounced on his open palm like some kind of excited creature. Harry gasped; the nundu's flashing eyes watched him from behind the cover of the coffin.

The Wand of Destiny was only separated from his own phoenix wand by a slab of marble. Could this be the reason for its behaviour? Did it sense that here lay what has mended him, what has fused the broken parts back together? Harry remembered what had happened near Durmstrang, where Grindelwald had fallen; and he also remembered the tingle of the wand in Dumbledore's house – just as Aberforth was talking about the dark wizard. The Wand of Destiny was not around then. It was incomprehensible, like so many other things...

The wand slowly calmed down, stopped shaking, stopped vibrating, and Harry got up from the mud, cleaned himself off, and did the spells. The animal rested its huge head on the marble tomb; Harry stroked the beast once more, then turned his back on it and Dumbledore, and with a heart not a little lighter, started back down the muddy path without answers. He walked along the lakeside towards the woods, where he still had work to do, passing Hagrid's hut, and looking in through his window on the way. The gamekeeper was not at home, though Harry wished to speak to him. He went on, and found, almost instinctively, the little path he had so often trodden, and knew well where it ended.

The sound of the rain slowly died away as the canopy, spreading out like a wide umbrella, became connected as Harry continued deeper into the forest. He pulled the hood off his head and pushed his wet locks of hair away from his forehead. He lit a small flame on his wand and walked by its light. The cobwebs thickened, strange white orbs hanging from the branches of the trees, signalling to the intruder whose property he was heading for. Harry was not particularly bothered about going into the nest of the acromantulas; he was not in the least afraid of them, nor of the other terrors of the forest that had frightened many away. Harry knew what dwelt in the woods, he feared no unknown dangers, no wild beasts sneaking behind oak trunks. Once upon a time, he had realised that death was like that: only the unknown, the intangible, caused fear...

And yet, Katie's death had pulled him back from some superior indifference, perhaps planted in him by Dumbledore's words. Would the fearlessness the professor had taught him be indifference? Not to be frightened of death, but to accept it, not to fight it, and so become its master, its conqueror... The scythe of death is fear, and if you don't fear it, it no longer seems the alarming enemy that Voldemort thought it was – that was what Dumbledore had taught him.

And is he not afraid of it? He has not feared for his own fate for very long, but death is still frightening – it could still frighten him through others. If those flashing emerald bolts of lightning had struck not Katie Bell but Ron or Hermione or Ginny, Dumbledore's words would have vanished into nothingness in an instant. Is not death still master over him?

A thick log lay crosswise over the path, and Harry had to bend down to crawl under it. Nasty cobwebs and slime clung to his robes, which he cleaned off with an impatient gesture. A few more steps and he was inside the nest of the acromantulas. Already the car-sized spiders were crawling towards him from their burrows, descending from the heights on a thin thread, but Harry flicked his wand. A loud crack and a blinding flash shot out from the end, spreading like a wave through the nest, and the monsters retreated into the shadows. The ground was hard and musty ("That smell again!"), Harry's footsteps tapped as if he had been walking on stone.

It must be here somewhere... He scanned the nest with his burning wand, looking for the black glimmer, but couldn't find it. Perhaps the Death Eaters had trampled it into the ground and buried it...

'Accio Resurrection Stone!' Harry said loudly, holding up his wand. He didn't really believe the spell would work, as he had never been able to summon a Horcrux so easily.

And yet, a few steps away, a small, broken, black pebble popped out of the ground with a soft thud, straight into its owner's hand. The Resurrection Stone rested there again in Harry's palm.

He needs to hide it in a safer place, he thought. He was too arrogant with his hidden treasures, just like Voldemort. He thought no one would ever find out the secret of his cloak, and it had already cost an innocent life. He could not let that happen to the Stone...

He swung his wand once more to clear the eight-legged creatures hungry for human flesh from near the exit, then walked back the way he came. Within half an hour he found himself out of the forest, the rain had stopped, the black clouds had moved on, and only grey fluff remained in the sky, blocking out the sun. The sky seemed as grey as it had been in his visions when he had lain under the dead beech tree, or at the big house when he had first met the hooded stranger. He knew now that it had all begun under the beech tree, that back then he had fallen asleep for a brief moment and had been where the hooded stranger had, but he had woken up so quickly that he saw nothing but the grey sky and the dead tree.

The beech tree stood a few metres away, near the lake. He wanted answers, help to find Marius, and... No, he couldn't kill him. His hand would freeze at the last moment. He wouldn't be able to, even when Sirius had fallen through the curtain, when Dumbledore had fallen from the top of the tower...

He went up to the beech tree, touched the bark, closed his eyes to see if anything would happen, but he didn't know what to expect. He sat down at the base of the thickest protruding root, pulled his legs up, put his back against the trunk and closed his eyes again.

Hours passed and Harry was slowly drifting off to sleep. He saw changing images in his sleep, faces from the past, Dumbledore, his parents, Sirius, Lupin and Tonks, Fred and Dobby and Cedric, all those whose deaths he had to reckon with, all those he mourned, all those who gave him the strength to defeat Voldemort.

When he woke up, the rain had started again, and he was disappointed not to see Marius' mysterious enemy.

'Hey, you!' someone called out, and Harry raised his head sleepily. 'Mr Potter?! Oh, sorry, the young ones said there was an intruder in the park.'

It was Professor John Eakle, head of the Gryffindor House, with his wand out. Behind the red-bearded dwarf wizard, three little students huddled under a large umbrella, blinking at Harry with wondering eyes.

'I'm an intruder, Professor,' Harry replied, though he didn't know what had made him say that. 'You are right, I have no business here...'

'Come on, Mr Potter, Hogwarts is always welcome to see you!' the teacher waved a hand and put his wand away. 'But don't just curl up under the tree, come in and be our guest for dinner! What on earth possessed you to sleep under a tree during this damned weather, anyhow?'

Harry sighed.

'I just... I just sat down to look at the lake, and I fell asleep...' he lied. 'I'm sorry I scared the children. I'm gonna go...'

'Don't be silly, Mr Potter, come in and warm yourself.' Eakle persisted, but Harry declined the invitation and said goodbye. He felt the eyes of Professor Eakle and the children on his back until he reached the gate and stepping out, disapparated.

He arrived in the garden of the Burrow and, cleaning the mud off his trainers, entered the kitchen. Mrs Weasley was busy at the sink, her husband and her son Charlie were sitting at the dining table smoking their pipes. Ron held Hermione and Ginny, both girls leaning sadly on his shoulders, staring into the dancing fire of the fireplace, and Hermione sniffling occasionally. Percy sat beside them like a pin, Harry thought he was cursed with a body-binding charm. He suspected that not a word had been spoken between them since they returned from the funeral. When he entered, they looked up and said hello, but didn't ask where he'd been.

'Mr Weasley,' said Harry, 'Where is George?'

The man swallowed and gestured towards the stairs.

'He's in his room, Harry. But I don't think he wants to see anyone right now.'

'I'll try anyway...' Charlie put down his pipe.

'Why?' he asked in a sharp voice. 'What do you want from him?'

Harry was on the stairs when he stopped and looked back at Charlie. He hesitated for a moment about what to say.

'I'll talk to him,' he said quietly.

Charlie pushed his chair back, squeaking, and stood up.

'You're not helping him by saying it's your fault!' he growled at Harry, but Mr Weasley took his son's arm in a soothing grip.

'Charlie!' growled Ron warningly, but no one paid him any attention. Mrs Weasley sniffed at the sink, her back still turned to them.

'It's Marius' fault,' Harry said simply, and went up the stairs.

His black robe rustled behind him, and he held the tiny stone in his fist. The room was still Fred and George's residence, according to the nailed-up, chalet sign. Harry knocked on the door, and was not the least bit surprised that there was no answer. He pushed down the doorknob and entered the room, which was still full of boxes of untried products from the Weasley's Wizarding Wheeze shop. George perched like a dove on one of the boxes, his back to the door, staring out of the window.

'George?' he said quietly.

The boy peered back.

'Harry?' There was a slight surprise in his voice. He was probably expecting his mother or father to try to start a conversation again, as they had been doing for the past week. But Harry had been avoiding him ever since, almost running away from him, and he was putting off looking him in the eyes again.

The hours spent under the beech tree were good for one thing: they made him realise that he had work to do, more important than finding Marius – that could only come after he had done something more important than revenge. Death was among them again, it must be dealt with, and in this he might be able to help.

'George, I...'

'Don't bother, Harry,' the boy interrupted. 'It wasn't your fault. And you don't need to tell me how sorry you are, because it's as boring as Percy's report on... I don't know what...' He slapped his palm on his knee and let out a short, laughing breath.

'It's something else why I'm here,' Harry confessed. 'But you're right, I've been avoiding you because I feel that...'

'I'm telling you not to say it's your fault!' George snapped, but there was no anger in his voice. 'By Merlin's beard, you are worse than Mum. If she so much as looks at me, she starts crying... I'm really beginning to think I'm a dementor.'

Harry just stared; he had never seen anyone process the death of a loved one like that. He looked more closely at the boy, and noticed that he held a small notebook in his hand; when George saw Harry looking at it, he folded it up and held up the cover: 101 Squib Jokes it said in colour-changing, swirled letters.

'Katie gave it to me,' George said again, 'There are some good ones, but I think most of them are pretty dry...' he flipped through the little book. 'Ah, this is one of my favourites: Three wizards are harvesting grapes. Which one is the Squib? The one for whom its sour.'

George was disappointed to see that Harry didn't even smile.

'There, I can't even make you laugh anymore,' he concluded. 'This is the end.'

Harry was beginning to think it was too much for him, but he had to keep trying, to find out how the boy feels before trying to help him.

'George...'

'I wanted to marry her, you know?' he cut him off again.

'No, I didn't,' Harry said, and noticed that the forced nonchalance in George's voice had gone. But he still spoke in an incredibly light tone.

'And I used to hate that girl!' he laughed softly. 'She was always picking on me and Fred, and she was always looking for an opportunity to snitch to Filch. I even hit a bludger at her once, she made me so angry, that's why we lost that game against Ravenclaw when you were in the infirmary. I was a third year – she was a second year... She really wanted to win that game, even though we told her we had no chance without a Seeker. I remember she wanted to poison Terry Boot with some laxative to increase our chances...' George was grinning now, and Harry was stunned by the stream of words. 'But somehow Fred accidentally drank it... I can't remember how he even got the cup. Oliver shouted at Katie... but she stood up against him. I've never met such an annoying little goose in my life!'

Suddenly he stopped talking and made a face as if he had found some great truth on the floor.

'I wanted to marry her...' he repeated, barely audible. He wiped a tear from his eye in anger. 'God do I hate self-pity, man...' he looked up at Harry. 'Is it always this lousy?'

Harry nodded.

'It is,' he replied. 'And it will never completely disappear. Sometimes you forget... then it's good.'

George shook his head.

'I don't want to forget, Harry. I can't forget Fred either... just looking in the mirror... Hell, I've even thought about growing a beard just to get away from him. But I always find myself wanting to see him...'

Yes, Harry knew exactly how he felt. He was always longing for Sirius and his parents, he couldn't help but wonder what it would be like if they were alive, by his side, supporting him.

The words were now gushing out of George:

'With Katie, I could forget about him... She was like... She wasn't a replacement for Fred, she was different. She taught me how to be whole on my own again. Without Fred, I was half a man for a long time...'

'And now you feel like that again?' Harry asked, straining to get the lump out of his throat.

The boy was silent for a while, staring at his shoes with a frown, as if he needed to think hard about something.

'No,' he said finally. 'No. What she had given me is... worth so much more than to feel already empty again, or... half-human...' he suddenly looked up at Harry. 'Sit down already, don't just stand there like some angel of death!'

Harry was a little startled by the comparison, but immediately took a seat opposite George on top of another box.

'I don't feel like half a man now,' he repeated. 'Fred and I were one, we were always referred to as Fred and George, the Weasley twins, or "those two good-for-nothing scoundrels..." Without each other, we were not whole. But Katie was. We weren't together because I was her other half, or any of that romantic bullshit... We were together because she liked me... that's just it. She could always tell us apart, did you know?' he looked up at Harry again, who shook his head. 'Yes, she was the only one who always knew who was Fred and who was George.'

He fell silent again, and did not speak again for a while. Harry was amazed at how much strength this boy had; he had never been able to express his feelings like that, he kept them inside, digested them, and sometimes they burst out. George, on the other hand, was calm, with no flame in his eyes waiting to break out.

Harry wondered if the boy would have opened up in the same way to one of his siblings, or to his parents. Perhaps he would have, if they hadn't looked at him with such pity and sorrow, and Harry understood why the Weasley boy was bothered: he and his brother in their prime were the last people anyone would have pitied.

'You know what's ridiculous?' George snorted after a long silence. 'I don't have a single picture of her. Just this book. Nothing else...' he sighed sadly, and looked up again. 'I miss her, Harry, utterly... I would give anything if I could just see her one more time, even for just a moment...'

Harry was waiting for this. He wanted to be sure he was doing the right thing, he didn't want to offer the opportunity until he knew whether it would cause irreparable harm, more pain, more inappropriate attachment. He wanted to heal, not torment the boy further.

'I can help you with that.'

For a while it seemed as if George hadn't heard what he said, or hadn't understood the meaning of the sentence, because he was sitting opposite him, leaning on his knees. Then slowly he raised his head and looked Harry in the eye.

'What are you talking about?' he muttered, confused.

Harry held out his clenched fist, then opened it. The small black stone in his palm glistened dustily. George took it from him.

'Three turnovers. Think of her and she'll be here. But then you have to let her go!'

He said no more, got up and went to the door.

'Is that the...?' said George, incredulously, but he made no reply; he went out, closed the door of the room behind him, and went down to the kitchen.

It was half an hour before he heard the door open. Not a word had been spoken in the kitchen since then, Harry sat silently between Ginny and Percy, occasionally glancing at Hermione. Harry still hadn't changed, knowing that when George returned the stone, he would have to put it somewhere no one would find it. For the moment he didn't think of a good hiding place, he just sat and occasionally sipped from his glass of pumpkin juice.

At George's arrival, everyone's heads snapped up, and Mrs Weasley took a few steps towards the stairs and looked up at her son. George walked past her, not looking at her as she stammered his name with tears in her eyes, and went to Harry, who did not move.

'Thank you,' he said, holding out his hand. Shaking hands, he subtly handed him the Resurrection Stone. Harry slipped it into his pocket and stood up from the table – it was then that he noticed everyone staring at him.

'Mum, my stomach is growling,' George turned to Mrs Weasley. 'Could you warm up the soup?'

Before he stepped out the back door, Harry heard Mrs Weasley sobbing as she threw herself on top of him and wrapped him in a tight embrace.

He needs to hide the Stone, Harry began to muse, but he hadn't even reached the wooden fence when the door swung open behind him and Hermione came sliding out, followed by Ron and Ginny.

'Did you give him the Stone?' Hermione hissed at him the question.

'What? Which...?', Ron was puzzled, and Harry held up the small pebble. 'The Resurrection Stone?! I thought that was left in the forest!'

Harry shrugged.

'I went there and got it.'

Ginny shook her head and Hermione sked disapprovingly, while Ron gazed at the Stone with an awe as if he was seeing the eighth wonder of the world.

'Does this mean that Katie...' Ginny said carefully, but she didn't dare finish, as if she was about to say something inappropriate.

'I explained the rules to George. He just said goodbye. That's what the Stone is for,' Harry pointed out.

'You promised Dumbledore you wouldn't use the Stone!' Hermione reminded him, and Harry could see that she was not even glancing at the pebble resting in his palm. He quickly put it back in his pocket.

'The Stone is not evil, Hermione,' Harry defended it. 'Don't lump it together with dark objects, please!'

Harry knew he had done the right thing. Dumbledore had been careful to hand it to him so as not to throw him off the path, and he had been just as careful with George.

'What are you going to do with it now?' Hermione asked.

'I'll hide it and we won't use it anymore,' Harry said without hesitating. 'I just don't know where yet...'

'Put it where Voldemort hid that necklace-horcrux,' Ron suggested, as if it were a matter of course.

'And who are you drinking the poison with, smart arse?' Ginny interjected.

'Oh... right... true' Ron's ears flushed, but it gave Harry an idea.

'If the cave wasn't a good place, the sea is...'

Hermione looked up. 'You want to throw it in the sea?' she asked, surprised.

'Why not? It hides it forever. We'll never find it again.'

'What if you want to use it again?' Ron asked innocently.

Harry saw Hermione stare at him with a piercing look in her eyes as if she was about to do something inappropriate.

'I don't want to use it.'

'But don't we want to find Marius?' Ron opened his arms. 'We don't know anything about him! What could be easier than trying to track down a ghost or two... errr... Snape, I suppose! Snape was his nephew, he must have known a thing or two about him!'

'Ron, no!', Hermione cut him off, and Harry thought the same.

'We can't bother the dead with our own problems,' Harry said calmly, putting his hand on Ron's shoulder. 'We have to deal with this ourselves.'

He had no thought of waking Dumbledore or Snape, disturbing their peace, and dragging them here by the power of the Stone like mere witnesses to the Ministry. He couldn't do that to either of them.

Ron poutedly surrendered.

'All right, you know it better!' he waived a hand resignedly. 'But just so you know, we're not doing very well. Dawlish has no idea where to look for Marius – and even if he did, what on earth would he do with him?'

Harry knew this was true, he remembered what a circus it had been last week at the Auror Office. The forensic task force led by Dawlish and Proudfoot had turned the Strangled Cat upside down from basement to attic, and the building was locked down for good. The vampires were moved out, but they forgot to provide them with temporary housing. Hermione heard the news a day later, when one vampire had already been burned in the dreary spring sun, and it was she who had found them shelter. Eventually they were moved into Black House, which Harry had not visited for some time and had no intention of using as long as there was a place for him elsewhere.

'How are we going to find Marius, Harry?' Ginny wondered helplessly, and Harry had no idea either.

They were not allowed to follow him to the other foreign schools, only to Durmstrang, but Marius was unlikely to return there now that Moloh had taken his place. He knew, however, that the blue-skinned man had not yet completed his mission.

'We won't find him,' said Harry. 'He'll find us, again. He'll come for the Cloak, he needs the third Hallow. And if he has that, maybe the other two.'

He saw the fear on his friends' faces, and he didn't blame them. Marius might not be as powerful a wizard as Voldemort, but he seemed to have armed himself against death in a similar way to Riddle, and he was much more effective at it. Could he have done the six horcruxes, achieved the seven splits of his soul that Voldemort had desired but never achieved? Harry did not know, but he trusted that he had not.

'I'm going to throw the Stone into the ocean,' he decided, and stepped out of the ring of his friends. 'That's the safest thing to do.'

Ginny stopped him.

'What do we do?' she asked with an almost pleading face. Harry could see in her that she wanted nothing more than to do something, to stop Marius, to get revenge, to stop others from meeting the same fate. The same fire burned in her eyes that Harry loved and appreciated so much.

'Practice the patronus spell,' he told them. 'Practice, for you will need it.'

He took a few more steps, then turned on his heel, into the black nothingness, far from the Burrow, onto a stony road that ran past a small village. Not far from him, three Muggle men were swearing at each other with strong Irish accents as they worked on repairing a car. Harry fished the cloak of invisibility from his pocket and draped it over himself, trudging on to where he could hear the wild roar of the sea. The village was quiet and peaceful, nestled among beautiful green hills, as if conjured from a postcard. He passed the village tavern, where a creaky signboard sported a faded clover in green paint, and turned onto a dirt road that a sign said was a tourist trail to the coast.

It was no accident that he had come to this place – the children from Riddle's orphanage had been brought here to get some fresh air and play out in the open, and the villagers had no idea what lay beneath them. Harry had never been here before, only deeper down here, apparating on a cliff ledge with Dumbledore when they came for the necklace.

As the metres went by, the bush grew thicker and thicker, forming an impenetrable barrier in places, which Harry could only clear with a few Reducto curses. Was it his imagination, or were there really more thorny plants? And some of the thorns were growing abnormally large, some longer than a ring finger. He paused for a moment to catch his breath, and when he looked down at his feet, he noticed that he was stamping on many wriggling worms with his shoes.

He was beginning to understand what was going on, but he dared not charm a fire so close to a Muggle settlement. The cave lake, that horrible place imbued with concentrated black magic, lay just below. Corruption and malice seeped up through the earth, poisoning the soil, the stones, the crawling insects... Voldemort had hardly thought of that, or he hadn't took into account, otherwise he would have hidden the horcrux somewhere else, somewhere where it would not leave such an obvious trail. Dumbledore must have guessed what lived in the depths. Harry could almost see the old wizard arriving in this village, following Riddle along the path of his life, as far as he left a trail, to where he left the most obvious one.

But that's not why Harry was here. He no longer cared what was lurking in the depths, Voldemort was finished once and for all. He went on, and after the short climb, a fantastic sight opened before his eyes: the bottomless abyss below him, almost vertical, and the endless sea before him, as far as the eye could see. The weather was clear, and the clouds that had been pouring down rain seemed like distant wisps of fluff just beyond the mountains. A fierce wind tore Harry's cloak, so he took it off and folded it in his pocket, after making sure he was alone at the abyss.

He took out the small black stone and held it in the palm of his hand. For a moment it crossed his mind that he could cast some spell on it, make it invisible, lock it in a common pebble, or transfigure it. But he quickly changed his mind, remembering Dumbledore's words, "...he had no thought that I would one day seek the traces of magical concealment." So he left the stone unchanged, not wanting to make the mistake of Voldemort, who might still be alive and rampaging through the world today if he hadn't been so arrogant and simply thrown away a piece of his soul in a tin.

Harry took a deep breath and stepped to the edge of the overhanging rock. He pulled back his clenched fist... but didn't throw the Stone.

His hand dropped, and for a moment he cursed himself for the nonsense that had occurred to him, that had kept him from doing what was right: getting rid of this thing.

Harry swallowed. Dare he do it? - he asked himself. Is it even allowed to do that? His mind was like a churning sea; as the wave rose, he was overcome by the urge, the driving force to, indeed, to do it, because it was the only way to know how to defeat Marius. More than anything, he wanted to know, but the price to be paid would be a sinful act that made him wince, and he felt his clenched fist begin to tremble.

'It's just for a few minutes... It's not how long that matters. You need help... But not his! He is the only one who can help...'

Harry stepped back from the cliff, afraid that what he was about to do would send him over the edge. His hand released its grip, and the Stone slowly slipped from his palm between his forefinger and thumb. His heart was pounding wildly, as if it wanted to leap out of his chest... Perhaps it would be better, it would prevent what he was about to do...

He turned over the Stone... then once more... and once more. For a moment he thought the spell had failed, but then a sickening whimpering sound hit his ears and he looked to his right.

He had to close his eyes for a moment at what he saw.

In the bushes a small, blackened creature resembling a skinned child was crouched, legs drawn up, hunched in a fetal position, two skinny hands covering its face from Harry's eyes, as if some terrible, terrifying power stood before it.

'Don't... don't hurt me!' the creature whimpered. 'Don't hurt me, please!'

'I didn't call you here to kill you again,' Harry replied quietly, and he could hardly bear to look at the hideous figure, with black blood oozing from the skinless flesh of its body, giving it a slimy, shiny appearance.

'Don't hurt me...' the creature kept saying, in a high, hissing voice. 'Don't... Don't...'

Harry stepped closer to it, and it moved back in the wet grass as far as the thick bushy branches would allow. The thorns dug deep into its flesh, but it didn't seem to bother it, only from Harry was terrified.

'No... please, I beg you...'

'Silence!' said Harry, with a little anger in his voice. 'I have to ask you something. If you answer, I won't hurt you.'

'Don't hurt me! Don't...'

He crouched down and forced himself to stare into the eyes of the pitiful creature. Its eyes were bloodshot, its irises a narrow slit like a reptile's, exactly as he remembered. He was surprised that he was no longer afraid of those eyes, which for seven years, ever since he had known them, had always held the promise of death.

'Answer me,' said Harry. 'Do you know a man called Marius Prince?'

The creature stopped snarling and lifted its gaunt hands from its face, its ugly mug glaring at Harry.

'Marius... Prince?'

'Yes. Do you know him?'

A sound reminiscent of a rasping whimper came from his throat, and he slowly nodded his monster head.

'So you know him,' Harry said, beginning to fear that the tortured creature had gone completely insane and was unable to comprehend what he was saying to him. 'Can you tell me what happened to him?'

Harry's heart was pounding like a hammer in his chest, and he could feel it in his face.

'Yes...' he replied in a drawn-out way. 'Yes... I know...'

'Tell me!' ordered Harry.

The creature whimpered, but slowly lurched forward and rose to all fours, still looking up at Harry with the fear of being struck at any moment. Harry had never seen anything more pitiful than it.

'Marius... he's dead,' the creature howled, 'I... killed... him.'

Harry frowned and was about to interrupt, but then didn't.

'It's been a long... long... time... since. You haven't even... lived.'

'How did it happen?' asked Harry, when the monster had stopped talking. 'How did you kill him?'

But this time the creature did not respond. Harry waited for minutes for the continuous whimpering to form into mumbling, slurred words. But there was no response, and it was beginning to make Harry angry.

'How - did - you - kill - Marius?' he repeated the question, and to emphasize his demand, he pointed his wand at the creature. He was stunned to find that the magical device had begun to twitch again, but this time in a different way to the elder wand: magic was gathering at its tip as it pointed at the monstrous face, as if waiting to unleash its destructive power.

The creature finally spoke again:

'If I... tell you, you... will... send me... back.'

It wasn't a question, it was a statement, but he was shaking so badly that if he could have done it, he would surely have tears in his eyes.

'Yes,' said Harry, crumbling the black stone between his fingers, 'Yes, I'm sending you back, because you belong there now.'

The creature threw itself to its feet and began to moan.

'No! Please... please, don't... don't send me back! I beg you!' he whimpered. Harry shook his head.

'That's not up for discussion,' he said. 'When we're done, you're going back to where you belong.'

'Then... I won't... help.'

Harry's face was contorted with anger. There's this miserable little worm at his feet, demanding! His rising rage was enough to cause a golden flame to appear at the end of the wand, dancing on it, waiting to wrap the twisted nightmare, their eternal enemy, in its destructive embrace. Harry restrained himself, controlled his temper, and the golden flame faded.

'If you tell me what you know, I'll consider it,' Harry lied, but he couldn't seem to fool the creature – he never could.

'No! You will send me back! You... will send... me back... there!' he screamed bitterly.

Harry straightened and nervously ruffled his hair. The movement was enough to make the haggard beast writhe in terror, like a kicked animal.

'This can't be happening!' snarled Harry to himself. Even like this he still can't get the upper hand, he still can bargain his way to a small opportunity. Should he do what he asks?

'I'll tell you... everything,' the monster moaned, his lungs beeping. 'Everything... you want... to know. Marius... he didn't... die... like the others.'

Harry looked down at him again. What would Hermione do now? She would not have summoned this horror. And what would Ron decide? He would kick him until he told him the answer. Ginny would probably share Hermione's opinion and slap Harry on the spot for what he's already done, let alone what he's about to do.

He raised the wand and made a small circle in the air. The moment it moved, the creature screamed in panic, but Harry didn't hurt it. The earth and mud, loosened by the mid-morning rain, began to flow slowly and viscously from the bushes towards the creature, enveloping its sore bare legs, crawling up its panting chest, and wrapping its head around it. The shapeless mud settled like skin on the body, slowly taking the form of a red eye, a lipless, slit-like mouth and two tiny, snake-like nostrils, then solidified as if the sun had burned out a clay pot made by a bungler.

'That's all I can do,' Harry told him. 'You got a few hours.'

The creature had taken flesh, a real but grotesque, sick body, from which Harry knew well he would not be able to squeeze a drop of magic, and he could already feel it steadily weakening under the weight of the invaded spirit, like the small animal bodies in which this broken soul had previously hidden. He stood up before Harry, and though he still trembled, his bloodshot eyes gleamed with a relieved calm that he had for a moment escaped from the place of no return.

And Harry knew with absolute certainty that this was the worst decision he had ever made in his life, a decision he would regret a thousand times over, and one he knew he would never tell a single person as long as he lived. That he, the very one born to rid the world of it, would call back evil and make a Faustian bargain with it to overcome another, perhaps even worse threat.

'This body will not last long,' he made clear. 'The magic will wear off soon, and then you'll die again. Are you sure you want to do that? Would you die again for a few hours of life when you were so afraid of dying?'

The creature nodded with a shaking head. Harry accepted its answer, put the wand away and turned to the sea. Summoning up his muscle power and his magic, he threw the Resurrection Stone so far that he could no longer see the splash, where it finally sank into the salty, freezing water.

Then he turned back to the creature.

'Now, Riddle,' he said to him, in an uncompromising tone, 'you will tell me everything I want to know about Marius Prince!'