Chapter 26: There and Back Again

Harry landed hard on his feet with Albus a moment behind. Harry didn't concern himself with hiding his blush from Professor Dumbledore's blown kiss, but turned to Albus.

"What do you think?"

"I must say I am finding the evidence…irrefutable," he replied, thinking. "Harry, I must say everything I witnessed first hand today is screaming at me to put you back in that chair." Harry flinched. "But I…My instincts are telling me…Would you like to take a walk?"

"Really, sir, I'd prefer the chair," said Harry, sarcastically.

"Harry, listen to me! Don't punish yourself—"

"Albus!" said Harry warningly. "Either turn me in for my murder or don't, but you won't see me punishing myself. I have had my soul put through…put through," Harry stopped, his voice constricting.

"Agony," Albus proffered. Harry nodded.

"My soul has been put through agony and I did it to myself. I had a choice to keep that bloody horcrux or to submit myself to excruciating pain and I chose that over living with a ripped soul. I chose to care about…about…" Harry stopped again, catching his breath. "I chose to care about Wister Bloom," he plowed on. "That he had…", Harry sniffed, suddenly congested. "Had knee caps and eye lashes.

"Please, Albus, don't expect to catch me punishing myself with sitting in uncomfortable chairs. 'Oh, no, sir I mustn't have sugar in my tea! I'm atoning.' That wouldn't be atonement. That would be stupid. It would be selfish and insulting." Harry felt a distinctly phoenix-esque compulsion to keep explaining. Fawkes wanted Albus to know.

"Instead of letting my soul stay ripped, I ripped away every part of me that did this. Every trace of me that would do this is gone. All of the reasons. What I'm left with is no reasons for what I did. No excuses. Nothing to hide behind. It's just raw," he spluttered. "So much seems to be gone, I don't even know myself anymore."

Albus looked like he was going to reach out to hug Harry, but Harry cut him off with more words.

"But when the burning stopped —" Harry rubbed his eyes. "How long has it been? Weeks? Months? — I could see everything for exactly how it was. Wister is dead. I killed him because I wanted to hurt Voldemort. I killed him because what I wanted to do was more important than his life. There's nothing in me that could do that anymore, so there's nothing left in me to punish because it burned away. The part of my damn soul that made me think I was more important than others rather that just confident—that's..." Harry groped around his thoughts. "It's just gone. I bet I wouldn't even be able to cast Avada Kedavra.

"My point is... my point is," Harry said, finding himself somewhat winded, "torturing myself isn't going to get anywhere—I'm going to live with this for the rest of my life. –And I'm grateful. It will keep me…honest."

"And what honesty," said Albus when he knew Harry was finally done.

"Dishonesty hurts too much," said Harry flatly.

"I meant thank you for volunteering this account to me," said Albus, his face softening.

"Well, keeping it to myself," said Harry, rolling his eyes, "is a whole different bit that would burn." And it was true. Harry somehow new that, for the time being, keeping secrets from Albus was distancing them: something he couldn't do anymore because he knew it had partially caused his actions in the first place.

"Let's take a walk," said Albus, pulling Harry out of his thoughts.

Harry nodded, and then his head drooped. "You called the dementors?"

"Harry, I said I believed you."

"But I—"

"You said you were not going to punish yourself—"

"Well, maybe I—"

"Did you make that whole speech under the assumption that I was going to do it for you?"

"No, I—"

"A walk, Harry."

Harry stood still, rubbing his upper arm looking sheepish.

"Oh, please get your wand and let's go!"

Harry waved his hand through the air and a second later, his wand had rocketed out of the enchanted wooden box and snapped to his hand. Albus shook his head numbly.

Albus sighed and looked at the ceiling. "Maybe when I trust you implicitly, I'll let you show me how to do that."

"You'll let me show you?" They strode out of the Room of Requirement.

"Or maybe beg on my knees. Do you want to stop by your tower to get your things?" asked Albus.

"What, you mean these things?" asked Harry, waving his hand through the air dramatically like a muggle magician. In his hands appeared his missing soul objects un-shrunken: the hat, the record, and the bowling ball. He promptly dropped the bowling ball on his foot with a thud and groaned. "OW, fuck damn." The bowling ball began to roll away down the corridor. Albus walked calmly after it.

"Does everyone swear like that in the new century?" He paused. "May I?" he asked when he reached the bowling ball, offering to pick it up.

Harry could think of no reason why he didn't want Albus Dumbledore to be touching part of his soul, so he shrugged and nodded, shaking his foot to mend his broken toe.

Albus lifted the ball, testing its weight in each hand.

"This feels different," said Albus, referring to Harry's aura.

"Guess I had a lot of pent up paranoia. Spent the first sixteen years of my life running from a dark wizard who kept possessing my school teachers, and then spent a career only surviving because I did bother to check in the cereal box for dark wizards—that actually happened—I guess I got a lot of unnecessary fears and, well, I think the difference you're seeing is the difference between paranoia and constant vigilance."

Albus handed Harry the bowling ball. Harry shrunk it, made a special pocket in his robes, and put the bowling ball in along with the hat and record. They resumed their walk.

"What happened to the part of you that was in the broom?" asked Albus.

"I can't remember," he said, but then images began to flash through his mind, fiery and oversaturated from the memories of Fawkes, and he began to narrate them aloud. "That part of my soul wandered around lost on the mountainside where it…er…was released." Albus grimaced. "Fawkes went and found it and brought it back to me in that blue crystal. The crystal sort of absorbed it for a bit. Um…I only had my wand with me—and I didn't know how to moderate my…exposure to that part that was in the broom…and, to be honest, I didn't want to. It got turned into a horcrux and back—and now…I think it's back here," said Harry pointing to himself. "Now it's…under control."

They reached the front door and descended the steps to the sunlit grounds.

"So you did go to Hogwarts," stated Albus.

"Mmhmm," hummed Harry. "I was a Gryffindor. Hogwarts was my first—and only, I guess, home."

"It's been my greatest home too," said Albus.

"Not to belittle your love for the castle, but…er…I don't suppose you've ever really explored it…" said Harry, smiling sheepishly.

"Whatever do you mean?"

"Well, I imagine you were a bit of a teacher's pet. You didn't ever, you know, wander off the beaten path, did you?"

"Yes, yes, as a matter of fact, I did."

"Field trip?"

"It just so happens that while you may have been beating paths, I was spending my time beating records such as youngest writer ever featured in Transfiguration W-"

"Yeah, I get it," said Harry. "We both beat a lot as teenagers."

Albus looked absolutely astonished. "I most certainly—"

"Did. But really, have you ever even been inside the forest?" he joked, as they reached the edge of the trees.

Albus's eyes glinted and he smiled mischievously. He pushed past Harry and began picking his way through the trees.

"Albus! Wait up!"

Albus moved quite quickly through the trees and didn't turn around. Harry tried catch Albus, but stopped calling after him. This was not the section of the forest in which to be yelling.

They walked for five minutes. They walked for ten more minutes. They walked for twenty after that. And then Harry knew where they were going and he caught up with Albus just in time to break into a clearing.

The clearing.

The clearing was carpeted with bluebells. They glistened in the sunlight with dew that hadn't yet evaporated.

"How did you know where this was?" asked Harry, already somehow knowing the answer.

"I've been here before," said Albus. "It was about two years ago."

Harry nodded.

"The bluebells are new," added Albus.

Harry fumbled in his pocket and pulled out the blue crystal. His former horcrux. His former life raft, so to speak, through time and space.

"That, on the other hand, is not new…" said Albus, eyeing the crystal with interest.

"You came here when the crystal was here," said Harry.

"Yes, I did. It was bigger then."

"I was inside it."

"I gathered as much."

"How did you find it?"

"Armando Dippit died here. The crystal killed him. I have a feeling he was doing something foolish."

"Did you touch the crystal?" Harry asked.

Albus nodded.

"I have a feeling you woke me up," said Harry quietly. "Er, thanks," he added.

"You're welcome, but why do you think that?"

Harry felt his face grow hot, and he rubbed the back of his head. "I was dreaming about you when I woke up."

"I see."

They stood in silence on the edge of the clearing. Neither wanted to trod on the bluebells. Also, there seemed something innately wrong with sitting in the middle of this clearing in the sparkling sunlight. Like something sacred would be broken.

The silence lasted, each man lost in his own thoughts. Finally, Albus turned to Harry.

"Are you ready to go back?"

"To my time? No. I like it better here. People see me for who I am here. And you—"

"To the castle, Harry," interrupted Albus, raising an eyebrow.

"Oh."

Harry nodded embarrassed. He looked back from where they came. The forest was dark and he was not sure he knew the way back.

Albus silently closed the distance between them and put his arms tightly around Harry, hugging them close and tight.

"What what what what what are you doing?" asked Harry, breaking the moment. His breath was leaving him quickly.

Albus pulled back to look at him. "I'm so sorry, Harry. I should have asked first. Will you apparate us back? I'm not sure I could find the way if we walked, and I can't apparate inside the school grounds. Of course…you could teach me at some point—"

"I, Oh— Of course. I mean—Sure, yes," stuttered Harry. With Harry's nod, Albus put his arms back around Harry, who was more calm due to the advanced warning and request for his consent. "Are you ready to go?" Harry asked, still paying more attention to the feeling of Albus's rumbling voice vibrating his chest than to his own words. Help me, Fawkes.

Albus hummed his assent. Harry hesitated, but put his arms gingerly around Albus's back, keenly aware of the body under his fingertips. Harry shut his eyes tightly and reopened them to regain his concentration before jumping through space.

They landed back on the edge of the forest where they had entered.

Harry was breathing conspicuously hard as they detached.

"Is it so difficult that it leaves you out of breath?" asked Albus.

"No," said Harry truthfully. "I was—it was—er." He halted full-stop and closed his mouth, not wanting to say "when you touch me I can't breathe." It burned not to say it. He distracted himself. "I'm not sure how I'm going to teach you. I could only do it after I…woke up. I have faith, though. If you can do this—" Harry prodded Albus gently with his joy-hat aura. Albus gasped and Harry pretended not to notice. "—without being stuck in a the blue crystal, I think you could learn to apparate inside the grounds."

"I'm fairly certain I could," said Albus. "After all, I nearly beat you in that duel. I daresay you can't be much more powerful than I," he teased. "In fact, I think we tied unfairly."

"Is that a challenge?" asked Harry, his wand suddenly in his hand.

Albus twinkled.

"Now?"

Albus's twinkle intensified.

"CROCKETT!" They wheeled around to look up at the castle where Minerva McGonagall raced towards them. Albus stepped out from behind Harry, his wand already slipped back into his robes. Harry pocketed his own wand, too.

"Albus, oh Albus! Where have you been! I've been—You don't know—We couldn't find you—I thought you were—And here you are just—" Minerva reached them and Harry's smile from earlier faded.

Minerva looked as if she hadn't slept. Her hair was unkempt and her fingernails were bleeding. She was shaking slightly.

She looked between Harry and Albus for a moment.

"What do you have to say for yourself? Clearly, you're in no mortal danger," she said coldly. "The students saw you disappear with Harry in the middle of class, and the things they said, Albus!" She stopped and looked at Albus, hard.

"I thought you were dead. I thought you'd both been killed. Or that he—" she pointed a finger at Harry, "killed you."

Albus had put his hand to his cheek as if Minerva had slapped him, his mouth open.

Harry jumped in. "It's my fault, Minerva! I—um…"

Minerva didn't seem to hear Harry.

"Oh, Albus! Why didn't you tell me when you got back! How could you?"

Harry looked between Minerva and Albus. A tear trickled down Albus's stricken face.

"I'm so sorry, Minerva," he whispered. "I'm so sorry," he repeated.