A/N: This chapter was mostly beta'd by Toki Mirage. Thanks, Mirage. A special thanks to Nessi who bounced me through this for several hours over skype. I think we've got the rest of the fic all worked out.

Chapter 42: The Second Vault

"But...but that's Albus," said Minerva.

"Yes...yes it is," said Harry slowly.

"But...he just went into that vault...the vault with the wand. I thought you said some friend of yours had that wand."

"Albus...is my friend."

"Crockett," she growled.

"Shh! Keep your voice down," said Harry.

"But Albus killed Fawkes?"

"Well, no. I...it was...an accident...and...well, it's a long story."

"Right. Well, he's already gone in to the vault. Why isn't the door closing?"

"Well," said Harry, thinking, "the original owners of these objects were very different from each other. Ignotus valued family and friendship and would have only wanted to let in people who he had under the cloak with him. Antioch, on the other hand, was a greedy, bragging man who probably would have enjoyed showing off the contents of his vault to lots of people. That or it's stuck."

"Right, so, is this what you were worried about? Him getting into that vault? Is it dangerous in there? Is there some sort of trap?"

"Well, no," said Harry. "Actually, it could be— I don't know what's in there." Harry realized that there very well could be some sort of trap in the vault. It almost seemed likely, but for what may have been the first time in his life, it occurred to him that the consequences of rushing in to save Albus might be worse than letting him fend for himself. Who ever said people didn't change?

"So, what are we still doing here? Shouldn't we go save him?"

Harry made a pained expression. "He really shouldn't know we're here."

"Well, if he didn't know, why else would he be here? I've never seen him visit Gringotts before."

Harry rounded on her. "Did you tell him anything?"

"No! No, really. I didn't."

"Minerva, this is very serious. What did you tell him?"

"Nothing. Just...I think he'd gathered that it was off campus."

"And did he tell you where he was going when you saw him this morning?"

"Er...well..." she suddenly looked worried. "He...did say Gringotts."

"And you didn't think you should mention that?" asked Harry incredulously, forgetting to keep his voice down.

"How was I to know he was coming to these vaults? You didn't exactly tell me about the whole wand business. So, if he has the wand and knows what it is, why were you keeping all this from him?"

Harry glanced nervously at the antechamber. The door to the other vault was still open.

"Alright, Minerva." He needed to find a way to convey the gravity of the situation without betraying Albus's secrets. How was it he'd managed to keep the secret about Neville's insane parents all those years ago? Oh right. No one had ever asked him. "Do you know that bloke Grindelwald?"

"Um, the evilest tyrannical wizard of our age? Yeah. I remember."

"Yeah. Right. So, he was a fairly brilliant wizard, but he became really powerful when he got this wand...Albus beat him in a duel and took the wand, knowing it was very dangerous in the wrong hands. Albus uses the wand, but all this," he gestured to the vaults, "will have brought up painful memories."

"Painful memories of putting a dark wizard in his own prison, freeing the people he enslaved, and taking his super-wand? What, is he allergic to catharsis?"

"Well...painful memories of Grindelwald himself, I suppose. See, Grindelwald might have gone into the vault when he had the wand and...left things."

"Right, well, Albus is already in there. The damage's been done. Let's go help him."

"Agh. No. See," said Harry. He hesitated, trying to think up a partial truth. The problem was, he couldn't tell Minerva that Albus wanted the stone. That was too much information. Harry was starting to get a crick in his neck from stooping to fit under the cloak with Minerva.

"Ok, so tell me this, Crockett. How would going out there and seeing him make things worse?"

"Well..." Harry thought. If they went out, Albus would find out about Harry's vault. He would find out about the cloak. Those revelations, in and of themselves, would do very little harm. In fact, Harry would love to share those secrets with Albus, but Albus would know that if Harry had the vault, then he also must know about the Hallows in general. Albus would surely begin to ask questions, and Harry was one of only two people alive who knew the Resurrection Stone was just sitting in Gaunt's shack.

Also, because Minerva was there with him, Albus would find out that the vault was the mysterious project. Without Minerva there, Albus might have assumed that the vault was something Harry just hadn't bothered mention, but if it was "the project," then he'd know Harry had kept it from him intentionally. Harry had kept the project from Albus but not from Minerva, and that might rouse his suspicions, not to mention that it could hurt his feelings that Harry'd confided in Minerva and not him.

An unwanted side effect of the whole situation was that Minerva might decide it her business to investigate into Albus's Grindelwald history. But, Harry reckoned, if they stood there for much longer under the cloak together, Harry wasn't sure he wouldn't let something slip by mistake, especially with Fawkes whistling madly in his head.

The more he thought about it, rushing in was looking like the best idea. Ok, so people don't change that much.

At least Harry knew rushing in could help a few things, and he knew how to fix a few of the flaws in the plan.

"Ok. Come back here for a sec." Harry and Minerva wobbled back from the doorway a bit into the vault. "Let's take off the cloak. I'm getting a crick in my neck."

"Are you going to answer my question?" She batted the cloak off herself.

Harry quickly pulled the cloak tightly back around himself and moved slightly so she wouldn't know where he was. "I'm really sorry about this, Minerva. See you in a few."

"What? Crockett! What! No! You can't!"

Harry exited the vault, leaving Minerva trapped inside yelling at him.

He bit his lip. "She's...gonna kill me," he muttered, and he walked invisibly into the vault of Antioch Peverell.

Unlike Ignotus's vault which led straight into a living room, Antioch's had a long stone corridor at its mouth. Harry edged as quietly as possible down the corridor. He saw that there was an opening on the right side at the end of the corridor, and there was a dull light coming from it. He couldn't hear anything but his own heartbeat and breathing. He didn't know if that was a good sign for Albus, or a bad sign.

What would he find? Piles of gold? A library? A veritable museum like the one in his vault? What sort of treasure would be there?

He rounded the corner, and there was gray antechamber with a door at the opposite end.

The man did like a walk, thought Harry. He carefully felt out the door with his magic for safety before carefully pulling it open.

On the other side of the door was an unlit, gray room. There were no torches, and indeed, no brackets for torches. There was just a door on the other end, and Harry went to it, opened it, and went through. He stepped into the next room and his breath was taken away by the sheer size of it. The room felt like the Hall of Prophecies, the Room of Requirement's Lost Objects room, a cathedral of shelves.

The shelves were empty.

Some were even broken, their wood splintered or just...hanging off uselessly. All of it was covered in dust.

The room was the size of a large cathedral. The floor would have fit a football pitch, if football were played indoors on dust rather than grass. By wizards. In vaults. With shelves.

The ceiling was made to impress. Harry thought a full vault this size would be impressive. Someone had made big plans.

Harry wandered through the vault, his invisible feet making prints in the dust like they would in snow. This dust, Harry thought, is what would happen if snow could die somehow rather than melt.

And then he spied a disturbance in the dust. It was a pair of prints— a large shoe with a somewhat pointed toe and a prominent, square heel. That would be Albus's. Harry followed.

The prints stopped and turned, wandered, and continued. Harry could imagine Albus looking up at the arching ceiling, walking over to a shelf and running his hand down its side, stepping onward. Harry was seeing what Albus had seen. Harry wondered if Albus had felt the same thing too as he looked at the empty, graying shelves, the walls that had been stripped of their brackets, the accumulating dust.

But then there was a door at the end of the tracks. Harry was sure there was something beyond that door. Obviously, Antioch had overbuilt a bit and had left a room quite unused. The next room would be full of gold and artifacts, just as Harry's vault was. This was, after all, the vault of the owners of the most powerful wand ever.

Harry opened the door and was disappointed to find...just another room. But there! Across the hall was a giant, magnificent set of doors— doors that actually resembled the front doors of Hogwarts. Harry knew that's where the real vault was. The cathedral was just for the junky spillover. Behind those doors would be the most amazing...

He pushed the doors open and there was...

Albus.

Only Albus, sitting on the cold gray floor against the gray stone wall. He sat with his legs drawn up, his glasses perched by the lenses on one of his bent knees. He fiddled absently with his gold planet pocket watch.

And then Harry understood why the vault was empty. The wand was for arrogant, greedy people. The vault would have belonged to distrusting people, for they themselves weren't trustworthy. Why would they store treasures in the vault that could be stolen by thieving, murderous, untrustworthy men? Why fill a vault for someone else? Why fill the vault for one's own murder?

Harry took off his cloak, and Albus looked up. He met Harry's eyes with a gaze that had no room for surprise. Albus looked all around the room, lost, and then he looked back at Harry. Harry wandered over slowly and sat next to Albus in the dust.

They were silent for a moment.

"Is this what you were keeping from me?" asked Albus. His deep voice was horse and quiet.

Harry took a breath. "Yes."

Albus's eyes slid shut and he nodded, his head eventually falling to rest against the wall. His auburn hair was so vibrant against the gray...

"Why?" he breathed.

"All of the reasons I should have," said Harry.

"And what reasons were those, Harry Potter?"

Harry was silent.

"That you knew to hide it says enough. And how did you come about knowing my innermost secrets? "

Harry hesitated. "I...picked them up over time, so to speak. The times were always—"

"What do you know about Gellert Grindelwald?" interrupted Albus.

"Ah...well, he wasn't around in my time. He was locked in Nurmengard..." As soon as Harry said that he regretted it. It wasn't the answer Albus deserved.

"You were friends," said Harry. "You followed him and helped him, and then one day he changed into a dark wizard. You avoided him as he got more and more powerful, but then one day you met him. You took the wand and locked him in his prison."

"We were lovers, Harry. I worshiped him, gave him everything he wanted. My intellect, my body, my heart, my soul. I was seventeen. I didn't know...I didn't know..." Harry reached out with a trembling hand and put it on Albus's back. "He didn't change. He was always the same, but I never noticed, Harry." His voice was becoming tighter. "If he had killed my sister, I could hate him. Instead, he turned me into a monster."

At that, Harry reached around to pull Albus closer. Albus allowed himself to lean against Harry's shoulder. Harry, for his part, was trying his best to non-verbally communicate, no one would hold a monster this tightly, but he let Albus talk.

"I think he always knew I would stop him. I knew there could have been traps in here for me from him. There could have been curses that would have killed me. There could have been letters, memories. Memories he knew I feared above all others. He would know what to put here to hurt me. He knew my weaknesses, magical and otherwise..." He sniffed and leaned into Harry. He gave a shuddering sob and then buried his head in Harry's shoulder. The two of them sat there silently and let the cold of the vault seep into them.

"I didn't think it would be empty," Albus whispered.