The war they'd wrought knew no bounds now that the castle's defenses had crumbled; Sharlen ducked from the spells surging into their ruined hall over the heads of the mourning group by the edge. From the darkness outside, the curses flooded in.
Harry and Ron grabbed Hermione and pulled her to the floor, and Sharlen ran at a crouch toward them, casting a shield around Fred's body. Percy seemed unwilling to move from his own place, shielding his fallen brother with his own body.
"Let's move, now!" Sharlen shouted, grabbing hold of Harry with her free hand. In the light of the spells soaring over their heads, she saw him shake his head.
"Percy!" Ron shouted, grabbing his older brother and pulling him to no avail. Tear tracks cut through the grime and soot on his face as he shouted that there was nothing they could do for Fred.
Hermione screamed as an acromantula tried to climb through the hole in the castle wall, briefly obscuring the spells from fighters on the ground. Harry and Ron shouted together as they reared back with Sharlen, the three of them Stunning the spider, sending it jerking horribly back down to the ground, the way it came. Over the edge, Harry and Sharlen rushed forward to send a barrage of Stunning Spells down the castle wall at the others making their way up, sending them to the side and out of sight—but the spells were coming their way again.
"Let's move, NOW!" Harry shouted, pushing Ron and Hermione ahead of them while Sharlen levitated Fred's body low over the ground and away from Percy. Realizing what she was doing, Percy got up and followed them down the remainder of the corridor and out of sight around a turn. Safe from the onslaught of attacks, Sharlen settled Fred's body in a nook out of the way and took off after the trio; Percy ran, shouting furiously, after Rookwood.
She found Harry weakly helping Hermione restrain Ron, whose eyes streamed furiously with tears as he said he wanted to go too, that he wanted to kill Death Eaters. Hermione, ever the voice of reason, said through her own tears that they had to keep hunting to truly finish this, that only they could finish this. Sharlen stared hard at the ground to spare herself their agonized auras, trying to think.
"Look inside him, Harry," she said darkly. "Look inside his mind. We find him, we find the snake."
Hermione's wide eyes went between the two of them but no objection came. Ron straightened himself somewhat with great difficulty, one arm gripping Hermione's waist.
Harry closed his eyes as Sharlen stepped forward to take his hand.
It took several long moments for Sharlen to orient herself. Her first instinct was disdain—her father stood in a room adjacent to a dilapidated dock with Lucius Malfoy, and they didn't appear to be at Hogwarts at all. Lucius was imploring her father to call off the attack and seek Harry himself, his voice high and careful. Her father was berating Lucius, telling him to fetch Snape and bring him there. Straining her focus, Sharlen could just barely hear the rush of water rolling back over the smallest rocks on the shore.
Harry pulled himself out of Voldemort's mind and Sharlen released his hand, both of them saying, "He's at the Shrieking Shack," in unison.
Ron and Hermione nodded their heads dutifully, Hermione muttering in outrage that Voldemort was hauled up in the Shrieking Shack, not even fighting. The three Gryffindors looked more exhausted than she had ever seen them. Sharlen felt she had never been more awake in her life.
"Let me fly ahead, I'll be fastest," Sharlen said, turning as if to jump out the massive hole in the castle wall. Harry pulled her back roughly, and she found his brow furrowed fiercely as she whipped back around to him.
"We stay together," he said firmly. His eyes baring into hers seemed to be trying to dig into her thoughts as he moved one arm around her waist, the other up to hold her face. "You and I have to stay together."
"I'll meet you there," she told him, their noses touching. He was gripping her painfully, and she read the disbelief all around him as he looked at her, hard. "I can get near Nagini. I will see you there."
Hermione tugged on Harry's jacket and he reluctantly turned without another word and ran off with her and Ron to head through the fray to the Shrieking Shack. They pulled the Invisibility Cloak over themselves and disappeared. Sharlen transformed into an owl and flew ahead to meet her father.
She flew as fast as her wings would carry her, her joints screaming in protest and muscles on fire. Her lack of sleep and food were catching up to her, but she glared ahead, driven with purpose as she told her body it was almost time for it to give out forever. She kept her eyes on the horizon before her, no time to be distracted by the fury of spells, fires, and creatures below her.
The shouts, screams and roars steadily dulled as she drew closer to the dark shack. She swept around the perimeter in a large arc, attempting to pinpoint where they could be. She spotted her father down by the boathouse.
As she approached, she was shocked to see Snape already there with him. She held her breath, spying the snake, and swooped down behind her father without a word. He barely looked over his shoulder at her, and Nagini turned around instinctively and bared her fangs at Sharlen. "Stay back, sister," the great snake hissed.
Snape's eyes widened to see her, lips parting slightly. She tightened her grip on the basilisk fang behind her back.
"Nice of you to join us, my daughter," Voldemort said, still facing away from her. Sharlen's eyes stayed on Snape. "Quite a nasty job you made of your husband, though I suppose he never really stood a chance with you."
"I suppose you're right," she said carefully, trying to keep him talking as she inched closer to the snake. "He had to be punished for laying his hands on me."
"Strange to find Truth Serum in his system, once we finally found him," Voldemort hissed, glancing at her over his shoulder. In Parseltongue, he beckoned Nagini closer to him. "What did you need to know so badly, I wonder?"
"Let's not pretend you don't know what I know, father," Sharlen growled, bracing herself. "I'll give credit where credit is due. This ends tonight."
"Indeed it will," he agreed easily, examining the Elder Wand in his hand, "and when it's done, you'll need some serious re-educating. You've greatly disappointed me." With that, he turned back to Snape, who, like Lucius, was imploring him to stop the attack, to let him bring Harry to him here instead.
Voldemort ignored him. Instead, he addressed Snape regarding the Elder Wand and its ineffectiveness to him.
Sharlen looked back and forth between the two men and the snake, momentarily distracted by their conversation as she tried to position herself as closely as possible to Nagini. Snape kept asking him to let him go find Harry, to bring him here. Nagini kept her head raised, following Sharlen and eliciting long hisses of warning as Voldemort retold his troubles with his yew wand failing to kill Harry, with Lucius's borrowed wand also failing to kill him.
"It answers to you and you only," Snape assured Voldemort, hands behind his back calmly.
"Does it?" Voldemort asked quietly.
"My Lord?" Snape responded, a small smile on his face to feign good-natured confusion.
"The wand, Severus," Voldemort said in his calm, clear voice, "cannot serve me properly because I am not its true master. The Elder Wand belongs to the wizard whom killed its last owner."
Sharlen moved her eyes back to her father, faltering at his words. "What?" she said in a small voice to the men that were locked in each others' gazes.
"You killed Albus Dumbledore," Voldemort continued despite her. "While you live, Severus, the Elder Wand cannot truly be mine."
Snape and Sharlen protested at the same instant, Snape raising his wand.
"There is no other way. I must master the wand, Severus, to master Potter at last."
To her horror, her father slashed his wand through the air, slitting Snape's throat open.
"Nagini," Voldemort hissed, staring at Snape. "Kill."
"NO!" Sharlen screamed, both hands out to restrain the snake as she struck Snape one, twice, three times. The fang was in her hand and she swung it up to pierce Nagini, struggling with her thick body as she attacked and thrashed around. Nagini jerked back for mere seconds before Voldemort flung Sharlen away, blocking her attacks. Nagini struck Snape again and again, Sharlen screaming in protest from her place against the wall.
"Say your final good-byes to our great friend, Sharlen," Voldemort hissed, releasing his bind on her. "Then I expect you to meet me in the Forbidden Forest. Come, Nagini," he continued in Parseltongue, gathering the snake in his robes, "I need to keep you safe."
Sharlen flung herself over to her Master and Harry, Ron, and Hermione, who had been hiding in a tunnel, came through the door seconds later when they were sure Voldemort had gone. Harry fell down beside her, pressing his hands to Snape's throat to help keep it closed as Sharlen held his hand in hers, hyperventilating.
"Ab...absolutely not…" Sharlen panted shakily, barely able to form sounds, her words mostly breath. "Don't you dare…"
Snape's free hand found the amber pendant at her chest with great difficulty and held it lightly. "Lily…" Tears began to leak from Snape's eyes as they moved between her and Harry. "T-take them," Snape gasped, gesturing to the tears that flowed.
"Hermione, give me something," Harry demanded, briefly removing one of his hands from Snape's throat. Sharlen's grip was white on his hand she clutched in her lap, shaking so violently she was nearly convulsing. "A flask, anything," he added as Hermione quickly rifled through her bag and handed him an empty vial. Harry held the bottle to Snape's face, allowing the tears to stream in. Memories swirled within them, glinting against the glass.
"Bring them to the Pensieve," he muttered, and Harry nodded, still awestruck. Snape turned his eyes to Sharlen painfully.
"You knew all along, didn't you? What I am?" she cried, biting her bottom lip. With great difficulty he nodded, more blood gushing between Harry's fingers as he kept pressure on his throat. "That's why you didn't want us to be together."
"I tried," Snape gasped, his eyes darting between hers. There were tears in her eyes despite herself. "I tried to spare you… both…"
"I understand now," she assured him, her voice steady with conviction although she was blinded by tears. He gripped her hand fiercely with his last ounces of strength. "I understand. I'm sorry I didn't listen."
"I love you," Snape gulped.
Sharlen gave a sharp inhale, biting her lip as hard as she could, her sobbing making it nearly impossible to get the words out. "I know. I know you do."
"I'm sorry I couldn't protect you," he said, fresh tears falling. "I tried, always."
A few quicker breaths followed a final sigh, and her Master was gone. Harry shakily put a bloody hand on her shoulder, gripping the small vial of tears protectively in the other. Sharlen's eyes widened and she stared at his lightless eyes that saw nothing, reaching to clutch him, wanting to shake him. "How can you leave me now?" she shouted, fists full of his robes. "Just a little longer! I still need you!"
With great difficulty Hermione, Ron, and Harry pulled her off of Snape, though she put up a good fight trying to get back to him, screaming and cursing while her tears flowed freely.
"I STILL NEED YOU!"
It wasn't until Voldemort's voice filled the air that she fell silent.
It reverberated through the walls and the floor, shaking the core of them. "You have fought… valiantly. Lord Voldemort knows the value of bravery."
Sharlen straightened up, face set and murder in her heart.
"But you have sustained heavy losses. If you continue to resist me, you will all die, one by one. I do not wish this to happen. Every drop of magical blood spilled is a terrible waste," her father's voice continued. It told them he was merciful and commanding his troops to retreat so they could dispose of their dead with dignity. Then he spoke directly to Harry, guilting him for allowing others to die protecting him. Sharen looked up at Harry to find his eyes on her as well, both standing very still as they listened. Voldemort gave Harry one hour to meet him in the Forbidden Forest, or else battle would recommence, this time with Voldemort entering the fray himself.
Harry and Sharlen kept their eyes locked on each other in a silent understanding while Ron and Hermione shook their heads and said not to listen to him. They led the way back to the tunnel, saying they should all go back up to the castle to think of a new plan. Harry steered Sharlen to the entrance, insisting she go ahead of him. It was clear to both of them that their time together was almost gone.
As Sharlen crawled along the tunnel behind Ron and Hermione, rage pounded in her ears. She could think of nothing but ending her father once and for all. It was so clear to her now what had to be done. All that remained was to say goodbye. She mechanically kept moving, one limb ahead of another, ears ringing in the silence, wondering what could possibly suffice. Memories of her time with Harry kept flashing through her mind's eye, vivid and visceral. One last, long gaze… one last embrace… one last kiss, none of it seemed worthy.
When they emerged beneath the Whomping Willow, they found the grounds completely dark and still. No torch lights shone from the castle walls, no yelling or fighting erupted around them. All was quiet and still, most of all the bodies strewn about the dark grounds.
"Where is everyone?" Hermione's voice rang in the darkness.
Ron led them up to the castle, Hermione close behind at his shoulder while Harry and Sharlen walked side by side. Since their gazes released before entering the tunnel in the Shrieking Shack, they were reluctant to meet again. Following Ron to the Great Hall, Sharlen began to realize that may have been their great goodbye she had been planning as they moved underground.
The Great Hall was packed with people but supremely quiet. As the four of them stood in the large entrance, they took in a doleful scene of mass injury and mourning. All about them were rows of the dead, their mourners around them, and the able-bodied helping Madam Pomfrey to treat the injured. Fred's body was obscured by his red-haired family around him, each of them in terrible states of anguish, huddled close to each other. Ron and Hermione silently went to the group to join them.
Sharlen and Harry stayed where they were, now able to see the bodies of Lupin and Tonks lying next to Fred's as the Weasleys adjusted to engulf Ron and Hermione. Sharlen did not look away from Lupin's face. She did not look to Harry, to see his agonized expression or aura. She kept her eyes locked on Lupin's slack mouth and disheveled hair, on his limp fingers dangling over Tonks's as they lay side by side. When Harry's fingers found and laced together with hers, she kept looking. When they both tightened their grips on each others' hands, she kept looking. Even when at last he let go, turned away from the scene, and made for the marble staircase with haste, she kept looking.
She knew he could not bear another goodbye tonight. With one last, long look at Mrs. Weasley, Ron, and Hermione, Sharlen too turned away, walking with purpose back out the front doors they had recently entered. She did not watch Harry running up the staircase away from her.
Descending the front stairs of the castle entrance back to the grounds, she moved past the bodies on the ground, looking straight ahead. She reached into the pocket of Hermione's jeans and took up the basilisk fang once again. Harry's last words to her at Dumbledore's funeral found their way into the forefront of her mind with very different meaning. "If you love me at all, please don't force me to be the one to kill you."
Trusting her limbs more than her wings, Sharlen picked up speed and ran into the Forbidden Forest at a full sprint, the basilisk fang held tightly in her fist and the amber necklace banging against her chest every few steps. She felt no need to fly one last time, to chase any distraction from her destiny. Snape's last breaths were loud in her ears, chorusing with her own blood pumping, running to her death to finish this. After her, it would just be the snake. She had to give Harry his best chance.
She ran through the dark trees, never stopping or slowing, until she found the clearing where her father and all his Death Eaters stood, waiting for Harry. Many of them were surprised to see her as she slowed, becoming more purposeful with her movements, peering around trees as she approached. Voldemort's smirk became a close-lipped, satisfied grin, tilting his chin down to consider her with red eyes flashing. She stopped about twenty feet before him, glaring defiantly, her hair wild and gaze blazing.
"I hope you're happy," she spat at him, and he laughed.
"I will be when your boyfriend is out of my way at last," he told her, jeers chorusing up amongst the Death Eaters. Several of them didn't laugh and continued, behind their Lord's back, to glare at her hatefully—most likely they, like Rowle, were friendly with her late husband. She addressed them.
"Don't be sore with me for destroying a rapist," she called, looking to Rowle. His lips snarled into a grimace. "You'll all get what's yours."
Voldemort let out a high, cold laugh. "And who will deliver it? You, my daughter? My girl?"
Sharlen shook her head, feeling no fear. Her fury left no room for it within her. "Not me. I'm merely making way for those who are meant to deliver. This is my only true purpose."
"Despite your noble quest, surely you know best of all here that I can't be killed," he said darkly, still smiling. Sharlen realized then that he truly didn't know what she knew: that she, herself, was a Horcrux. Back in the Shrieking Shack when he had taken Nagini and left her with her Master, he thought she didn't know she, too, housed a precious piece of his soul. He felt sure that only he knew this last secret—the secret that would prolong his life.
Sharlen shifted, waiting.
"But there's hope for you yet," he continued. "I, your merciful father, need only re-educate you. In time, you will be able to resume your real destiny, beginning the purest wizarding line. In fact, we shall begin now." He raised his wand and shouted, "Imperio!"
Sharlen's left shoulder shrugged down and back as if she'd been shoved, but she knew, with her death moments away, that he had no hopes of controlling her. His soft voice in her head demanding she come to his side was the smallest of annoyances and nothing more. "I'm not yours anymore," she told him, her voice ringing clearly through the night. "I never was, despite what you made me."
"I see my error in having Snape train you," he told her, barely recovering, furious it hadn't worked.
"You overestimate my powers, as always" she said quietly, "and underestimate the power in facing mortality."
At this, her father's thin lips curled into a terrifying grin, his teeth bared as though fighting a laugh. Gripping his sanity by inches. "You've sent Harry Potter on a foolish errand."
"Did I?" she asked coldly, smirking. Her eyes moved from his to Bellatrix's, a few feet from his left side, and his cold-burning, furious slits followed, frowning something awful. "You might find you've given me more assets than my Master alone. My ghost, for one. Who knows all your little secrets," her father's eyes widened, following hers back to Bellatrix, "and where they're hidden."
There were several seconds of hesitation where Voldemort weighed the pros and cons of revealing the Horcrux to Sharlen if she was bluffing, but her smirk and mention of his mother seemed to subdue him. He rushed at Bellatrix, who shrank back in fear. Gripping her left forearm roughly, he tore the silver bracelet from her wrist and considered it at arm's length, chest moving visibly as he lost the battle at steadying his breathing and his temper. Once it was in his grip, Voldemort waved the Elder Wand before it. His face melted in horror to see the transfiguration on it undone and a silver hairbrush left in his clutches instead of the unharmed Horcrux he expected.
Sharlen felt immense satisfaction to watch him scream and dissolve the brush in green fire before rounding back on her, no longer able to masquerade as calm or in control. "I know now why you wanted so badly to protect me," she told him, clutching the fang firmly by her side. Voldemort's eyes widened the smallest fraction fearfully. "And with my death," she said loudly as she raised the fang before her and pointed it inward, eyes narrowing as his grew, "I bring yours closer."
Voldemort's scream made a haunting background as Sharlen plunged the fang into her stomach where her ribs split, close enough to her heart to be quick. Bright red blood surged to the surface of the wound as the pain of it staggered her to her knees, teeth clenched as she drove it deeper inside of her.
At first, nothing happened beyond her father's demands that the Death Eaters find a phoenix, but as the poison released, it called from her depths a dark black cloud echoing her father's shouts of protest, a great, deafening roar exploding over her as she fell to her back with the fang deep within her.
She watched the cloud of her father's soul fade away into nothingness, leaving her to look up at what could be seen of the starlit sky through the canopy of trees around the clearing. Dark, ink-like blood flowed from the wound, obscuring the red of her own that came before. As her blood coursed the poison further through her, everything began to grow quiet, as if shrinking. She felt strange, a sensation flooding through her mind and out to her limbs that felt unfamiliar at first. She realized it was calm—that every muscle in her body was relaxed.
The poison was warm, burning, and behind it chased a calming cold, penetrating deeply into every small crevice of her. Someone tore the fang from her stomach but with a final, even breath, she knew the Horcrux that lived inside her had been destroyed and it was safe, at last, for her to fall asleep.
Harry did not know Sharlen was bleeding out on the forest floor. He did not know the Horcrux within her had been destroyed, had not felt its destruction burst within him as he had with the others. His mind was too far away to register it, up in Dumbledore's office, entrenched in the memories from Snape that he'd added to the Pensieve. It was a collection of so many things—pieces of his past Harry had never dreamed he'd have the opportunity to access. So many of them featured his mother, Lily.
He saw Snape with his mother, over and over again as they grew up and went to Hogwarts. Snape begging Dumbledore to protect his mother, to protect his whole family when Voldemort learned of the prophecy. Snape mourning Lily's death while Dumbledore watched piteously and declared his new life's ambition should be to protect him, Harry. And then, with bated breath snapping Harry more presently into his own consciousness, Snape holding a swaddled baby with black hair that laughed and turned into a fluffy ball of white feathers, a tiny owl, diving from his arms to try and fly and turning back into a baby as he caught her in his arms just above the hardwood floor of his home. The baby was still laughing as he frowned down at her, his burden written in his expression. The scene blurred again and changed to Snape pacing Dumbledore's study fretfully, talking about Sharlen.
"She's just a child, how can I send her to him?" Snape shouted anxiously, not looking at the Headmaster.
"Surely you don't think she'll come to harm with Harry and his Muggle family?" Dumbledore asked softly.
"Not right away," Snape muttered, stopping with his hands leaning heavily on the desk. His head fell, a curtain of unclean black hair over his face. "He's ordered me to confuse her reality. She is already distressed so much of the time with all these visions, these colors she sees around people. She has to constantly be convinced that what she's experiencing in real time is her reality and not these visions she has. She is unstable. They could bring each other great pain."
"Maybe having a purpose, a friend," Dumbledore interrupted, "would help her to make sense of her gifts."
"Gifts?" Snape scoffed. "She is cursed with them. They haunt her, and it doesn't end when she wakes or sleeps." Snape straightened up with a tired sigh. "Sharlen has already begun to fear sleep, and waking. She forces herself to stay awake until her mind cannot take the exhaustion. Some nights… some nights I have to give her a Sleeping Draught. She is forever in the lives of others. Keeping her magic in check is a huge task."
"She has already shown magical ability?" Dumbledore asked, genuinely surprised. Snape nodded. "But she is only six years old. Does she seem dangerous?" Harry wondered if Dumbledore was thinking of his sister Arianna.
Snape nodded again. "To herself, out of fear. Generally, she… She is obedient and thoughtful. Trusting, unfortunately." His brow furrowed as he looked to the pink of the sunset beyond the tower, both lips sucked inside his mouth. "These magical outbursts have been going on for two years now. She was only four the first time she started a fire in her palm." He laughed a little, remembering. "She was cold."
Snaps turned back to the headmaster, shaking his head, the glimpse of amusement gone. "Occlumency is helping… she is better able to shut down her mind than she was even two months ago. He is most pleased about it."
"How have you been in contact with Lord Vol-"
"Don't say his name," Snape growled through gritted teeth.
Now Dumbledore scoffed. "Severus, be reasonable. Don't ignore me."
"He always has access to her," he whispered to the ground. "He is too weak to reveal himself, too weak to be or do anything, but he leaves traces."
"What traces, Severus?"
Snape's jaw clenched. "He sends snakes, with messages. For me. That's how he assigned her this task."
"To be Harry's imaginary friend," Dumbledore said simply. "To what end?"
"I have no idea."
Both men were quiet for several minutes.
Then the floodgates opened. "I'll have to be with them, watching," Snape declared, talking very fast. "I can't send her off into the world unsupervised. She's too young, too fragile. It's insane. What if she does magic around him? She's seen nothing of the world. She will be overwhelmed. Frightened."
"I think that is wise." Dumbledore sat down at his desk and said firmly, "You must see this task through, Severus. Watch them this first summer and then you'll be able to let her off on her own while you teach here. You may find her resolve surprises you."
"How can you know?"
"I don't."
"So you agree, then," Snape muttered, standing tall. "You agree she should be Potter's imaginary friend. This unstable young witch, anchoring a ghost and unable to be touched without visions overtaking her senses and frightening her, unable to sleep without seeing unknown and unpredictable horrors—you'd have me submit her to the outside world. To The Boy Who Lived. You'd give her this burden."
Dumbledore nodded once. "I think they will be good for each other. I think if they can grow close, she will have a better time making sense of her abilities. She is a child, Severus, who has never had any social interaction with other children. She has never seen another child, never played, never known the best parts of this life. Something she and Harry likely have in common." He stood and joined Snape's side. "You should be cautious of the meaning of this task, which is no doubt sinister in nature, but at this juncture… It could be wildly beneficial. Merciful, even."
The scene changed to the meadow near the Dursley's house where Harry's six-year-old self had escaped from Dudley, sat in the tall grass with knees drawn to his chest, Snape and Sharlen standing in the foreground, their backs to the real Harry watching it unfold. The younger Sharlen was marvelling at the brightness of the early summer noon, the high, tickling grass, the dirt beneath her feet, the warmth of the sun. Happy tears were in her eyes. "Master Severus, thank you for bringing me here!" she gasped, overcome by her fortune of being outside. She was impossibly small and sickly, just the way Harry remembered her. He caught himself holding his breath.
Snape did not respond.
"Master, who is that?"
"A boy. You are to be his friend."
"Friend?"
"Yes," Snape said heavily, releasing her gloved hand and kneeling before her. She looked at him dutifully. "He is lonely, like you. But it is very important, Sharlen, that you do not show him your magic. And do not touch his skin."
The young Sharlen looked down at her gloves.
"Only he will be able to see you. No one else will know you're there, do you understand? You're his imaginary friend only."
Sharlen turned her big, pale eyes to look at her Master, significant understanding etched on her little face less than a foot from his own. "I'm… imaginary?"
Snape closed his dark eyes and clenched his jaw again, sallow skin tight and pale. "Yes," he choked out. "I will be back for you later." He stood and nudged her in the direction of the younger Harry. "Go."
Sharlen wasted no time, testing her legs at a faster pace than a walk with unsure footing, parting the grass with her tiny frame. Snape tapped the top of his head with his wand, casting a Disillusionment Charm so the two children would be unable to see him, though in the memory he remained in sight to Harry.
The bright green eyes of his younger self turned up to Sharlen as she clumsily jumped and ran over to him, and Snape's fists clenched tightly.
The scene changed again many times to other conversations between Snape and Dumbledore, and when it was done, Harry emerged from the Pensieve, understanding finally that he, Harry, was the very last Horcrux that must be destroyed that night.
Sharlen stirred in what initially felt like a grassy meadow, long reeds tickling her skin, but she opened her eyes to nothing but stark whiteness. She sat up hesitantly, too concerned with shapes forming in her perception to care that she was apparently naked. As her eyes adjusted to the absolute light that surrounded her on all sides, she began to see that there were reeds of tall grass and she was seemingly on a hill in a meadow. The dirt beneath her was white, the sky above was white. She reached out to touch the grass and felt it scratch her fingers. She pulled the blade from the ground.
"You won't be here for long," came a familiar voice behind her. It was uncanny because, for the first time in her limited memory, it wasn't trembling with fear. Sharlen looked over her shoulder to see Merope in long golden robes, clean and ageless and still, her eyes pointing different directions. Sharlen stood, shaken up by how calmly she'd spoken. It seemed impossible for her to exist in this form. Sharlen realized that she looked remarkable but still not beautiful.
"Where is this?" Sharlen asked, walking toward her. She didn't bother to cover herself; this person, of all people, surely knew her.
"Probably some place your soul feels safest," Merope told her, glancing around. "A meadow, it seems?"
Sharlen nodded and looked around as well. "What do you mean, my soul? Why do you say it like it's separate from me?"
"It always has been," Merope said simply. "And now your body's been destroyed, your soul is all that remains."
"My soul?" Sharlen asked again, looking down. "But I still very much have a body right now."
"Here, yes. A manifestation. What you are now is a free and unburdened soul: your awareness, memory, and individual mindset. The mundane physicality was left behind when you destroyed the Horcrux within you."
"'Mundane physicality,'" Sharlen repeated sourly, remembering physical encounters with Harry, remembering pain and endurance, and resenting it all being referred to as mundane.
"That's right. Even if you had chosen a different way to destroy the Horcrux, you wouldn't have been able to return to your body," Merope explained, quickly adding, "though your choices were no doubt limited, there aren't many ways to destroy one as you well know. The soul and the body can never be reunited. But with the basilisk venom, it was only after your body was destroyed beyond repair that the poison could destroy the Horcrux. With your brain and heart ruined—"
"I understand. I didn't kill myself with the intention of returning," Sharlen said quietly. Regret began to course through her. "Well, what other way would there have been? What would destroy a Horcrux without destroying the physical, living body?"
"Avada Kedavra, most likely," Merope said. "It leaves no mark on the body."
"My father never would have killed me, you know that," Sharlen said.
"But someone else could have."
Sharlen was growing tired of this discussion. In fact, she had never felt so tired in her life. "And you're… outside of me. Free of your anchor."
Merope smiled brightly. "For that, I cannot thank you enough. Really. This will sound insensitive, but… I've been waiting for you to die for a long, long time."
Sharlen nodded. "And what about the others? My father is still alive. A Horcrux remains."
Merope shook her head. "Your concerns are done. Your fight is over. You did everything you were meant to do. The fight that remains belongs to them."
"So my purpose really was just to die," Sharlen muttered, more a statement than a question. Merope nodded with a sad smile. "I have waited so long to meet you, to know you," she said quietly, stepping up closer to Merope. "All that time, with you but never knowing you."
"We can be together now," Merope told her. "It's time to go Beyond. Death has been biding his time for you."
Sharlen began to nod but felt something distant calling her. Whose voice was that? She tilted her head with her brows furrowed, trying to identify the voice. It was Harry's. She gave a little gasp and turned around, but all she saw was the whiteness.
"Sharlen," Merope called her, taking a step back. "It's time."
"Not yet," she whispered. She didn't know how to get to him, but she felt the pull inside her chest. "I'll follow you soon."
Merope nodded and walked away, becoming more faded as she increased the distance between them. Sharlen closed her eyes and took a breath, the bright light behind her lids fading to a pitch black. When she opened them, she stood, dressed in the jeans and bralet she'd died in, beside what appeared to be the ghost of Remus Lupin and facing a very much alive Harry Potter.
Sharlen smiled sadly at Lupin, whose spectral eyes looked cloudy in return. They silently understood the other's fate and faced forward. Harry was looking at each of them in turn but stopped on his mother. Across from Sharlen stood the image of James Potter, and on his left were Lily Potter and Sirius Black. The five of them stood in a half circle around Harry.
"You've been so brave," Lily told Harry, her smile wide as she looked at him as though trying to make up for all the years she'd been unable to. Harry was speechless until after his father said he was nearly there and they were proud of him. "Does it hurt?" Harry asked, and Sharlen could hear the shame in his voice, but was startled to realize she could not see his aura. As Sirius told Harry that dying was quicker and easier than falling asleep, Sharlen felt within her a horrible absence—Merope's. She felt as if she had been cut in half and wondered if this profound loneliness was what her ghost had been experiencing all those years she was held captive.
Now Harry was mourning Lupin's death and Lupin told him his son would know someday what his mother and father had died for and hopefully understand.
When Harry's eyes found her, his face pinched with pain.
"No."
"I'm sorry. No goodbye seemed enough," she told him, surprised at her own icy resolve. Harry reached for her and her hand, somewhere between ghost and flesh, was unable to meet his. Whatever they were, it was not of the physical realm. Tears fell from Harry's eyes. "I had to go. I had to give you your best chance."
"You owed me nothing," Harry told her, his own resolve waning. Perhaps she should not have come when she heard his call.
"I owed you everything," Sharlen whispered, smiling up at him. She longed to touch him and her inability to do so was agony. Every second on this Earth weighed heavily on her chest. "You made my life worth living, and the chance to destroy my father was worth dying for." She stepped closer to him and made as if to stroke the ends of his hair over his forehead, but she went through them. "Please don't think of me with sadness. Not after everything that's happened." Harry looked back up to meet her eyes. "You were right, I am more than what he made me. I am more to you, and that will always be enough."
Harry nodded once, twice, and turned back to his mother and father. They all assured him they would stay close to him until the very end.
Then, Harry turned and continued toward the clearing where he'd face Voldemort once again, where her ruined shell remained, still dripping dark into the Earth.
Sharlen saw the Resurrection Stone slip from Harry's fingers and fell away, moving onward with the others, leaving the living to their worldly battles.
