Chapter 24: Literature

The wand was removed from Harry's hand, but Harry, of course, didn't notice. He didn't see the figure above him blurring the air with beams of light and swishes of cloak. He didn't see the noseless man fall, and he didn't feel himself rise into the air, barely holding onto the crystal in his hand. The crystal he'd turned into a horcrux with his murder and his hate. The horcrux that he'd changed back with crippling remorse.

He didn't feel his head hit the door on the way out of number 12 Grimmauld place and he was unaware of the rubbery sensation of side-along apparation as he was transported outside the Hogwarts gates.

Albus, on the other hand, was acutely aware of everything. He could smell Wister's cologne as it was blown into the air by Voldemort's wake as he fell to Albus's curse. He saw the same breeze disturb the small pile of ashes on the ground in front of Harry's twitching body. There was nothing in the pile. There was no limp baby bird. There was no egg. The dust blew away.

Albus was keenly aware of his clenched insides.

He levitated Harry and heard the soft thump as his head made contact with the doorframe. He paid special attention not to brush Harry's skin with his own as he apparated them back to the gates of Hogwarts, and was careful to disillusion both of them before entering the grounds.

His arm was raised, wand high directing the floating man in front of him.

Albus's hand was not shaking with rage; it was still with a fierce determination as he ascended the steps to the double doors. His invisible body was graceful and hard like a panther before a kill. Two…three…four flights of stairs. Two secret passageways. Up the hidden Headmasters' Elevator from the fourth floor to the seventh. He was striding down the seventh floor hall, his body a perfect picture of dangerous elegance.

His mind was not.

His thoughts hissed and spat like boiling oil. Stray emotions threw themselves around like whips. His aura was raw, cringing and jabbing.

It was thus that he discovered a presence in his office before he arrived.

Minerva. She was completely consumed with anxiety and concern.

Albus stopped in the middle of the hall, his body finally betraying some of his mind's qualms. He turned around as if to go back down the hall. He turned back towards his office. He turned around again towards the hall, but changed his mind and spun back towards his office, clearly gripped by a rare moment of indecision.

His aura fizzled around him, lashing and crackling. He felt as Minerva approached, descending the escalator of his office. That was enough to make up his mind. He turned back down the hall and made to walk briskly down it but stopped as he heard thunder—no, footsteps, coming from his destination.

Hagrid. Albus felt protectiveness and suspicion roll off the half giant.

Albus was trapped. There was no way he'd be able to slip by Hagrid without doing magic that Minerva might notice. He couldn't to go this office, and he couldn't have anyone see him now.

He turned his head and did a double take. It had probably been the first double take of Albus Dumbledore's life, but Albus wasn't worried about anyone noticing his uncharacteristic surprise. He was more worried about the door that had appeared in the wall next to him.

He'd spent over fifty years in the castle (though most would argue that he looked not a day over forty), but had never seen a door on that particular patch of wall.

He thought he'd seen all of the passageways and moving staircases and trick doors. The rate at which the castle surprised him had slowed. With enough experience, even the people stopped surprising him.

Except Harry. Harry had been the first surprise in a while.

Harry surprised him every day.

Harry floated limply in the air next to him in the soon-to-be occupied hall. The thunderous footsteps drew nearer from his left. He heard the escalator grinding to his right.

He took a breath like a seven year old about to dive into a pool, opened the door in front of him, and was sucked into the room drawing Harry behind him. The door snapped shut behind Harry and there was silence except for Albus's invisible breathing.

Harry was unconscious but was still twitching midair. Albus let him fall to the ground, a little faster than would be comfortable had Harry been awake. He made to conjure a chair and bindings for Harry, but the room beat him to it. A chair appeared in the middle of the room, chains wrapped around each arm. It was the same as the chair in the courtroom at the ministry.

Albus hid his feeling of disconcertion from his invisible face in front of the empty room.

He levitated Harry into the chair. The chains sprung to life immediately and pulled Harry upright, binding him tightly to the back of the chair.

Albus removed the disillusionment charms on both of them and sat down in a chair that appeared behind him. A light flicked on over Harry's head, illuminating only Harry, the chair, and a foot of stone floor around him. It cast hard shadows on his face. The light glared off the sheen of sweat on his ghostly white face and flashed off his miraculously intact glasses.

Albus conjured himself a glove on one hand. Careful not to let his skin touch, he reached into Harry's robe pocket and, with some difficulty, drew out Harry's wand. He conjured a small wooden box and placed the wand within it.

Albus had discovered how to cut Harry off from his auras. He'd tested his theory the day he'd attacked Harry on the lawn and taken his wand. He attempted to recreate the effects. He twiddled the Deathstick in his fingers before putting a few well chosen enchantments on the box. He nodded in satisfaction and put the box at his feet.

His eyes landed back on the figure in the chair in front of him.

Albus made to take off his glasses but realized he wasn't wearing any. He pinched his nose and squinted into the blurry deluge of light from above him. He let his hands drop to his lap. There he discovered the unmistakable wire frames of half moon glasses, just like the ones that had shattered earlier in the day on the mountain side. He lifted them to his face, curiously. They cleared his vision. He looked around.

Albus took his glasses back off and placed them delicately in his lap. He massaged his temples and pinched the bridge of his nose.

A light flicked on to his left. Albus put his glasses back on.

The light was softer than the one on Harry. It illuminated a table on which there were several objects. Albus stood up and moved closer to inspect them.

On the table there was a large stone basin. Albus knew what it was; it was a pensive.

He moved closer to the table.

Something shining on the table caught his eye. As he moved closer, he identified it as a small phial filled with clear liquid.

"Accio Veritaserum!" he guessed, correctly identifying the contents of the tube. It flew to his hand, and he shook it lightly before replacing it on the table.

"I suppose some information will be necessary at this point," he muttered to himself. "But I'll start without forcing him," he finished louder, like he was chastising the room's lack of faith.

He pursed his lips and strode over to Harry. He took a deep breath with his eyes closed and his brow furrowed. He stepped into the circle of light. He put his wand over Harry's heart. He drummed his fingers against the slender piece of wood for a moment, maybe uncomfortable that the instrument that had murdered a phoenix was in his hand. He tucked a stray lock of auburn hair behind his ear and muttered, "Ennervate!"

Harry's body lurched forward like he'd been defibrillated, but sunk back against the chair, still unconscious.

Albus frowned, but knew better than to try again. He did not, however, know why the elder wand had failed to awaken Harry. He wanted to know why.

It was then that he noticed another illuminated table. On it was a thick, gnarled book.

Albus crossed the dark room to it and picked it up gingerly.

The Study and Magical Manipulation of the Soul had a cover as thick and rough as bark and had brittle pages. It inspired feelings of heartbreaking sentimentality. Albus felt like the book was something he'd both loved and something that had hurt him, though clearly he'd never seen it before.

He looked around the room and was only slightly surprised to find a comfortable looking armchair and lamp in one corner. He sighed in impatient resignation and went to sit in the chair, settling the heavy book on his lap.

He opened to the first page. On it, in flamboyant, hand written script was a table of contents.

The Functions of a Soul
The Parts of the Soul
…Body
…Personality
…Spirit
The Whole Soul
…An owner's experience
The Split Soul
…Procedure
…An owner's experience
Horcruxes: a failed experiment
…Theory
…Procedure
…Failure Analysis
Re-Piecing a Split Soul
…Theory
…Procedure
…Description
The Soul Out of Body
…Possession of Animals
…Possession of Humans
…Possession of Objects
…Wandering Soul
The Soulless Body
…The Dementors' Kiss
…Failed Possession
…The Soulless Body: A Description
The Soul after Death
…A Ghost's Dictations
…The Theory of "Beyond"

Albus's eyebrows were almost touching his widows' peak as he finished reading the page. Albus hadn't been interested in the soul until he'd met Harry. He'd never come across any literature about the soul, except referenced abstractly in the context of possession and dementors and metaphor.

Though it was hardly the time to be doing educational reading, Albus didn't have anything else to be doing, so he sunk himself into the tome, his face growing closer and closer by the hour.

He occasionally looked up at Harry. Each time it happened, it was sudden, like he'd noticed him there for the first time and was startled. Harry continued to sweat unconsciously in the chair.

Hours passed, and Albus read on into the night. His checks on Harry became less frequent.

His emotions flashed across his face as he moved through the journal. His face read intense fascination as he accumulated the basics, and turned to shock and eventually horror as the author described the splitting of a soul and the process of making a horcrux. His blue eyes glistened in the weak light as he waded through the description of the painful remorse, and by the time he read about the post-death soul, his mouth had fallen open in wonder.

He looked up lost in thought. His eyes glazed, and the room was still. The air was charged with a meaningful silence.

Albus's stomach growled.

Albus started out of his chair and the book fell to the ground with an almighty thud. He bent and picked it up, then placed it on a stand that had appeared next to the lamp. He put his half moon glasses on the table and rubbed his strained eyes.

Clearly having caught onto the room's functions, Albus cocked his head in thought for a moment before a small table appeared, set for a meal for one, but, naturally, no meal appeared.

"Gamp's law," grumbled Albus, imagining that Harry probably knew how to transfigure or conjure food. Albus, on the other hand, would need to find existing food.

He edged over to the door and hesitated before cracking it open. He peered outside, preparing to summon food to him, before he noticed what hall the door opened onto.

The door was directly across from a painting of a large bowl of fruit. He was in the hallway outside the kitchens. Albus pursed his lips and took a step out of the room, making sure the door was wide open. He ventured out into the hall slowly, like a trapeze walker. He reached out to the painting and began to tickle the pear. It started giggling and then it started chuckling then-

Slam.

Albus whirled around to find the wall empty. The door was gone. He nearly flicked the pear in frustration.

Albus had been mistaken. His Ennervate spell had, in fact, worked. A consciousness within Harry had awoken. It was lamenting the loss of its body, but felt warm and safe inside Harry as long as it was sharing a body with a pure, intact soul. As it was, Fawkes was sharing with a soul that had known darkness and had chosen to reject it. Harry's remorse had wiped away the stains spilled by his rampant ego. It had distilled his paranoia to a simple awareness. It had made his joy innocent and his instincts unclouded by doubt. The poisonous magic of the horcrux had been leeched from his system and even his body was sweating out physical impurities.

Most importantly, the denial had been wiped from his heart. The fog of ignorance had been lifted, and Harry's soul rang with love, as it once had when he was a boy.

Harry could feel his love beating in his chest like ocean waves every time he inhaled and exhaled. He could feel it bending and blowing away all other thoughts like a gale force over a forest. But at the same time, Harry felt like a little boy, skinny and pale, sitting in the middle of a cold, empty room, still twitching from what felt like years of burning pain. He hugged his knees to him, shaking and crying. It was to this boy that Fawkes's soul sang.

The song grew louder in Harry's unconscious soul, and the boy cried on. As the music reached a crescendo, the boy looked up from his knees, his face tear streaked.

Harry woke up. The light above him made him slam his eyes shut again. A tear emerged from his contracted features. He tried to move his hands to cover his face, but he was bound tightly to a rigid chair. He shifted uncomfortably.

The moment he registered that the chair was uncomfortable; however, he felt the chair soften. He was still bound, but he seemed to be sitting on cushions. The light above him softened, and as Harry's eyes adjusted, he could see a table with a pensive, and a table with a book. Beside the book was a pair of half moon glasses.

He felt as if a fist was grabbing the bottom of his esophagus and his eyes prickled. From inside him, he heard the song of the phoenix, encouraging, supporting.

Harry opened his mouth in surprise, which slowly turned to a smile of ecstatic relief that he had not entirely lost—murdered his friend.

His only friend, as it appeared.

Fawkes's soul was living comfortably within Harry, as far as Harry could tell. Fawkes only seemed to wish he could fly again on his own wings.

Harry sniffed, and vowed to learn to fly.

He would do anything for Fawkes, who had saved his life, his soul, his love. He would do anything for Fawkes, who had died to save Harry from himself. He found himself realizing he was also grateful to still be in the fifties, even if he was tied to a chair. He realized he just wanted to see Albus again.

Albus.

Harry knew their next meeting would not be pleasant. He knew that Albus was disgusted with him—with reason.

Harry just wished there was something he could do to earn the right to Albus's trust, and eventually actually earn his trust. He wished there was something he could do to prepare himself for Albus's impending distain.

When he thought about it, though, anything to do besides sitting in a chair would have been nice.

He heard a rustle of paper and looked down. On his lap was Dame Dove's Tactful Tips for Perfect Partners.

"Oh, other friends Come and Go, but you are always what I need," Harry sighed to the room, his voice coming out rather raspy. Promptly, a table appeared next to him with a glass of water on it. An absurdly long straw sprouted out of the glass and stopped in front of Harry's mouth. He smiled and took a drink. When his thirst had been quenched, he looked back down at the piece of parchment.

Being tied to a chair, he had nothing better to do than to read. His face went red hot when he read the title again, but something compelled him to continue reading.

Dame Dove's Tactful Tips for Perfect Partners

1.) Know yourself.
2.) There are many languages of love. Learn which ones you speak to show affection, and which ones you like to hear. Learn which ones your partner speaks, and which they like to hear.
3.) Tell the truth.
4.) Your partner is different than you. Find out all the ways. Learn some, love the others.
5.) Emotional labor is more worthy than any manual chore. Learn what your partner is doing for you that even they don't know they're doing. Reciprocate it.
6.) Jealousy is a fear of promises unkept. Promise promises. Assess assumptions.
7.) You know what, if I fucking ask you what you want to do in bed, don't you dare say "whatever you want, Cauldron Cake" because I swear to Merlin I'll vomit in your mouth next time because that could be my fucking fetish, Honeyduke. Consent matters.
8.) Lean on each other, but don't hold each other up.
9.) Feelings are real, even if the cause is not.
10.) Anything you feel now will likely still be a part of your relationship in six months. Make sure those are good feelings.
11.) Sex isn't intimacy. Orgasms aren't sex. There are many different kinds of sex.
12.) Listen not just to listen, but to hear.
13.) It can be easy to imagine that others share your worries and fears. The best way to solve problems is to realize that they do not exist. Express and discuss your fears.
14.) Break up when you need to. If you find yourself fantasizing about an amicable ending, you should have already ended it.
15.) Relationships between people of any age can be broken into two dynamic archetypes - adult/child, and adult/adult. Successful romantic relationships are of the later.
16.) Speak fantasies. They may be closer to reality than you think.
17.) Those who primarily concern themselves with the approval of others and those who seek to be part of systems are rarely compatible.
18.) Encourage exploration and learning. All types.
19.) Strive to support unconditionally the person your partner chooses to be. Expect nothing less in return.
20.) Learn what power dynamics might be at work. Age. Money. Experience. Race. Gender. Communication only survives on an even playing field. Start mowing.
21.) Relationship success is not measured by whether or not the relationship ends, but by how much better each partner leaves the other.
22.) Any fight could be a conversation.
22.5) Keep some things just for you.
23.) Floss.

He actually laughed out loud at some of the tips, his voice coming from his throat like water from long-dry spring.

"Huh," said Harry at last, looking up from the paper. He heard the phoenix song laughing gaily in his head and had a strange feeling he'd end up wanting to reference the list.