A/N: Hey guys. This is the last chapter before the epilogue. I really hope you like it. I worked hard on this chapter. Thank you, Matt and Nessi, for supporting this addiction of mine (even if I published this before you edited it. Sorry =D.) To Nessi, for long nights listing to me talk (mostly to myself) over skype, and to Matt who was my teacher through all of this and a professional book reviewer, and he still actually wanted to read this shit and give me feedback =P.

Anyway, enjoy this chapter. I had fun writing it.

Chapter 71: Between a Crystal and a Hard Place

Harry's brain was having trouble keeping up with what was going on. His first instinct was to ask "and is there a surname that goes with that?" but somehow he knew that this little boy was the Merlin. As in, "Order of Merlin," and "thank Merlin!" and "Merlin's shorts!" and "Merlin's saggy left—"

"I have so many questions for you," whispered Albus.

"Yes, and I promise they will all be answered and more, but now you have a job to do. I am taking down the protective enchantments around the castle. You will be able to apparate to the upper floors, but you will need to replace the enchantments soon thereafter. This is not a safe time. I know you can do it. You are one of the most powerful wizards I have ever heard of, one of the best men I have ever met, and the best headmaster Hogwarts has ever seen. Go well, Headmaster."

A tear glistened on Albus's cheek.

"Thank you."

He smiled at Merlin, smiled at Harry, and vanished without a sound.

"Harry."

"Er…yes?" Harry found himself much more intimidated now that he was alone with Merlin.

"You have a choice to make. I am dying, and with me the castle's magic will go. You have the power to take my place."

Harry's heart sank. Why did it have to be him? Why did it always have to be him? And why, oh why did it have to be right after he'd found Albus? Hogwarts had been his home for years, his only real home, and he felt like he owed it to the school, but Harry didn't want to live out the rest of eternity in a basement. Especially not when he knew Albus was so close…

Merlin waved his hand and a staff appeared in front of him.

"Do you know what this is?"

"Er...a staff?"

"Yes. My staff. Before wizards used wands, they used staffs. Soon they'll be using matches, and then tiny little splinters of wood that they'd lose all the time. But yes, this is my staff. Please look at it."

Harry knelt down in front of the boy Merlin. The closer he got, the younger and sicker Merlin looked. His dark curls stuck to his forehead, damp with sweat. Harry looked at the staff. It was made of some wood that twisted as it grew, and at the top, a few branches came together to form a cage around—

"That crystal. Is that—"

"You've seen it before."

It was the very same kind of sky blue crystal that had knocked Harry on the head, grown all around him, and taken him into the past. It was the same blue crystal—down to the shape and size— that now sat in his tower.

"Do you know what it does?"

"Er…Magic?"

"It manipulates life and souls. If it touches someone, it will absorb his or her soul and redistribute it to wherever it sees fit. Headmaster Armando Dippet lost his life that way. The crystal can also absorb a soul that is roaming free in the air. You were dead, Harry, when the crystal struck you in the Department of Mysteries in the future. Your soul was in the air, in the room, and the crystal absorbed it. However, you were in a room with many things, so the crystal reallocated your soul to the most magically powerful number of objects: seven. Then you stayed there for ten years, and each part of your soul grew in its object until each could function independently as a separate soul. When you woke up, you were much more powerful, and each part of you was more potent.

"And each time one of those objects broke, the crystal was there to bring it back to your body. Fawkes carried the crystal to the mountainside where your broom broke to retrieve your soul, and brought it back to you. You had the crystal in your hand when Fawkes died, and that's why when Fawkes's body was killed, his soul and that part of your soul went back into you. You even had the crystal with you when you broke your wand and gave Fawkes a new body."

"How do you know all this?"

"I am a castle. I see and hear everything that goes on within the gates. And what I don't see and hear, I can deduce. I was not born yesterday, by any stretch of the imagination.

"But we must talk about your decision. If you put your magic in this castle, you would likely never be able to use magic anywhere else. Also, there's another condition. Seven must know who you are, what you are, what you were. Albus is one, Fawkes is another, Nicolas Flamel might as well be a third. There must be four more."

"Why?"

"Secrets poison the soul, Harry. A confidant is a powerful asset."

"What?"

"It's because I said so!" For once Merlin sounded the age he looked until he wheezed and coughed so that his whole little-boy frame shook with a sickness that would only take the ancient. "You must tell them everything that has happened to you."

"Everything?"

"Everything."

"You aren't selling this job very well. I'm not sure I like the idea of living here in this basement for the rest of eternity."

"Why, dear boy, would you do that?" Harry thought it was strange to be called "dear boy" by someone who looked like he was six. "Who, but a man such as I, would choose to live in a basement for a thousand years?"

"Who, but a man like you, would ask me to?" Harry muttered.

"You haven't understood me, Harry. Your soul is in seven parts. Only one part of your soul would need to reside in the castle—the part of your soul with your magic. The rest of you could do as it pleases. For you, powering this castle would feel as easy as breathing."

"But my magic is…it isn't what it used to be."

"It would return."

"How does this end?" asked Harry.

"You will die," said Merlin.

"It'll kill me?"

"I was merely stating that everybody dies."

"And Albus?"

"He will die, too."

Harry frowned even more. He remembered the future, thinking of the things leading up to Albus's death. First he got cursed by the ring, and his arm…his arm…his arm!

"Wait. In my time, Albus was cursed by Voldemort's horcrux, the Resurrection Stone. His arm shriveled up and everything, and it was going to kill him. But…but we broke the stone. Here. Now. The curse is gone—and it never hurt his arm in the first place; it put him into a coma. And how could Albus break the stone in the future, when it's already broken?"

"Had you considered that perhaps your professor lied to you?"

"Albus would never lie to me."

"He might if you ask him to."

Harry frowned. "Maybe. But what about his arm shriveling up?"

"I do not know. I suggest you ask your friend Nicolas Flamel."

"Why?"

"Because he might know! Why does anyone ask anyone anything?" Merlin's breath was coming in gasps and wheezes.

Harry nodded. "Alright. I'll do that. Will…will I be able to teach?"

And then something occurred to him that he hadn't thought of for a very long time.

"Voldemort cursed my job."

"Tom Riddle has, indeed, cursed your job. He has unknowingly invoked the old arts, fueling his magic with the excess feelings he has for you. The curse is intended to kill you. I doubt that it will do any such thing."

"What? Why not?"

"A switch of your job contract with that of another professor."

"What? That would be murder!"

"Have you ever met someone who doesn't seem to care about living? Someone who may even be happier without being encumbered by human necessities?"

"Well…er…they always said that Professor Binns was sitting in the faculty lounge one day, and when he got up to teach, he left his body behind. –Are you saying that I should switch teaching contracts with Professor Binns?"

"I'm saying I already did. You, sir, are a History of Magic professor."

"What? How? When?"

"I switched them the instant before you signed your contract in August, and the instant before he renewed his in September. All he wants is to teach. He loathes the habits and rituals of humanity. He has almost starved several times since coming here because he has no interest in doing anything but teaching, including eating, and I hear him muttering about how breathing gets in the way of his lectures. He is the teacher who wishes to be put in a box at the end of the year and brought out again come September."

"But…he always seemed so bored. We all thought he was a terrible teacher."

"Maybe so, but he is happy, and this will be his heaven. As long as he teaches here as a ghost, you are safe, and, as a ghost, he will be immune to the curse."

"But—"

"It's done, Harry. Changing it back would do nothing but get you killed. It is time for you to decide what you will do."

"But…it isn't possible that I do this! There was no one who looked like an older-me in the future."

"Ah…that is one of the perks of being Master of Death. You see, unlike much of the folklore about me—and yes I have read it all—I was not born an old man. I grew up like any normal wizard, and it was in my hundredth year that I found the third Hallow. Having the aches and pains of a one hundred year old man, I often wished to have the body of someone younger. Over the next many years I appeared younger and younger. This is why many assumed that I had been born old and aged backwards; no one could fathom that I had lived so long, nor why I only seemed to get younger with time. Now, I appear as a child. I find I have more energy this way."

"That's…all very interesting, and I do know what you're talking about—I've looked the same for about ten years now—but there isn't anyone who looks like me at any age."

"Well, you may be right, but I suppose that would depend entirely on what you looked like and whether or not you actually saw yourself. Do not make your choice based on your knowledge of the future; listen to your heart."

Harry listened, and it went "boom boom, boom boom, boom boom." He wasn't sure what that meant, but he knew he wanted Hogwarts to live on, magical and wonderful.

"I'll do it."

Merlin smiled a boyish grin, and for a just a fleeting moment, Harry was convinced there was hope for him to live still.

"Take the crystal out of my staff, Harry. It's alright. You can touch it."

Harry reached into the cage of wood and pulled out the shiny, blue crystal.

"What is this crystal called?" he asked.

"Does it need to have a name? Merlinite? Listen, I want you to give these books to the Headmaster." He gestured to the large leather bound tomes in front of him, one which said "To Read," and the other "To Write." "A thousand years of my journal and readings should answer any questions he has."

"Thank you. This will mean the world to him."

"You mean the world to him. Now, take the crystal, and touch it to the floor. The crystal will know what to do."

Harry did as Merlin said.

"And don't do mourning nonsense for me when I die." Merlin stood up on wobbly legs with knobby knees "They held one memorial or some such at every single town I walked out of when I looked old; they all thought I'd died. Oh, I loathe a wake. Have a feast, and tell no one what it's for."

"Alright," said Harry, holding the crystal to the floor. "Thank you for everything, Merlin. I hope…I wish…you are…"

Harry was fading, and Merlin's words echoed in his ears, as if from deep in a well.

"Oh, and when the time comes, Archimedes has the egg."

"I…what…this…ah…"

Harry was gone…flying through the castle, through the walls, through the grounds, through the air. He was life, he was magic, and he was more powerful than he had ever been. He saw everyone and everything in the castle. He bought life to the portraits, and the stairs. He found that there had never been any link between the kitchens and any suppliers; instead, he'd create food for the castle himself. He created a feast's worth, and the house elves got to work. Students and professors flooded the great hall in celebration. Harry made the ceiling light back up with the night sky, and a put on a firework display for them that would go on for hours.

And then somebody was holding him, shaking him.

"Harry! No, Harry, please wake up."

And he opened his eyes, and there above him was Albus.

"Oh, Harry. You...I thought you were…I felt you in the castle and thought... Merlin is dead, Harry, but the castle is alive! It's you—I can feel that it's you. How are you awake? "

"Split soul." Harry struggled to sit up. "Only my magic's in the castle. And…oh!" Something felt odd. He fished around in his robes until he found the hat, the bowling ball, and the record. "These…these don't have my soul in them anymore. They're all back in me—" he patted his chest. "Everything but my magic. And Merlin—he told me to give you those books." Harry pointed to the two books. Harry and Albus were still in that distant basement of the castle. Merlin had vanished without a trace, but Albus had come back for him.

Albus smiled, and a tear dripped down off the tip of his nose and landed, hot, on Harry's face.

"How are the kids?" Harry asked.

"They're all fine. They are just discovering an unreasonable amount of delicious food and a fireworks display in the Great Hall."

Harry nodded in satisfaction, and the two of them left that dungeon in a whirl of flame to go and join the celebration.

Over the next few days, everyone could tell that there was some type of change there in the castle, but nobody could really put a finger on it. Harry spent his first few weeks as the castle adding secret passageways all over the school, and discovering old ones that no one had ever seen before. Now that he was the castle, he knew where all of the secret rooms were. He liked to take Albus to visit them, and somehow all of the rooms seemed to have beds whenever they got there.

Once, on a Saturday night, Harry used his magic to find out when Albus was walking through the castle to dinner. Instead of letting him get to the Great Hall, Harry changed the corridors so that Albus's route took him to the extra-forbidden section (or so Harry called it) of the library where Harry was waiting to surprise him with giant magical Music Roses and a private dinner.

Harry's normal magic returned; he could teach his lessons normally, though when he first started, the spells seemed to come out of the walls rather than through his fake wand.

Harry thought long and hard about the four people he would tell his story to—how he'd lived in the future, become Master of Death, was sent back in time, and now, was the magic of the castle. He did as Merlin suggested and told Nicolas first. Very little of it came as a surprise to Nicolas, and he already knew most of the story anyway. Right before Harry left Shell Cottage, he remembered something.

"So…Merlin told me you might know the answer to this," said Harry. "Say somebody's arm shriveled up and turned black. Do you know what would cause that?"

"I suppose putting it in a fire would have that effect."

"Oh! Yeah, I suppose…Er…anything else?"

Nicolas sighed. "Once, a long time ago, I was imprisoned in Spain for about eight months and was cut off from my supply of elixir. That which you described happened to my left arm, up to about half way to my elbow. When we drink the elixir of life, that becomes our life force, and when it goes away, we do not age, wither, and die; we just wither and die. If a drinker is younger than the age at which he might have died in normal circumstances, his life force switches back to normal and he might live until he died naturally, but for someone like I, who have long overstayed our original invitation," he smiled, "I would just wither and die. It's all very natural, and when it happened to me in Spain, it didn't hurt at all. Anyway, in that prison, I was able to concentrate the withering into just my arm so that I could live as long as possible without the elixir. I was oh-so surprised when the arm came back to life... But normally, I think it happens to the whole body equally and quickly."

Something clicked into place…

Albus was taking the elixir of life, and he and Nicolas would destroy the stone, so Albus would run out of potion. He must have stocked up enough to have some every month for over four years, and then his arm would shrivel—but it wouldn't hurt like a curse would, and that eased Harry's mind. It meant that Albus had control over his own death.

Minerva was the next person to whom Harry told his story. She was his best friend and she deserved the truth. Harry expected her to curse him into oblivion for lying so completely to her for months, but she did not. She gave him a hug, and said "thank you for trusting me."

Next he told Hagrid. Hagrid, too, hugged him and, blubbering, told him "I knew there mus' be summat special about ya, Harry!"

Third, he spoke to Alastor Moody. Moody had been up and about, hopping around on crutches and one leg, attending classes as normal. He was as quiet, surly, and shrewd as ever. Harry held him late after class one Thursday and presented him with the magical prosthetic leg he'd made.

"And, would you sit down?" Harry asked after Moody had tried out the leg a bit. "I have something to tell you."

He told Moody everything, and when he was done, Moody's expression was the same as ever.

"Sounds about right. Thank you for the leg. May I go, or were you going to resume the wandless magic lessons?"

Harry chuckled. "I'll teach you anything you want to know, but let's keep the rest of your limbs, eh? And I don't want you poking your eye out or something."

He thought long and hard about the last person to tell. He'd considered Professor Flitwick and Penny Flamel (though, years later, he discovered that both of them had figured it out through a combination of piecing together gossip and sheer intelligence), but whom he finally decided on was Peeves.

Merlin, having decided that Peeves was going to be a nuisance as soon as he showed up in the castle, had kept him locked up for almost a thousand years. Peeves identified Harry immediately as the new power source of the castle, having battled against the last one for centuries, and began terrorizing Harry and his classes. Harry finally caught him, made him stay still, and told the whole story and explained that he wasn't going to lock him up again as long as he respected Albus and didn't interrupt classes. Peeves behaved well from then on—or, behaved relatively well, anyway.

In mid April, on one beautiful spring Tuesday morning, a classroom full of fifth years showed up at Harry's office door, all quite alarmed.

"We didn't know how to get to Dumbledore's office—"

"We thought he might be here—"

"We thought you should know—"

"Will he keep teaching?"

"It just that—"

Their jumbled words eventually got across the message that Professor Cuthbert Binns had passed away and was still in his classroom, lecturing away as a ghost.

That weekend, they held the memorial service for him, but the ghost of Cuthbert Binns didn't attend; at that time he was busily working on a lesson plan for his second years, smiling a pale smile for nobody but his work.

Harry and Albus spent their summer together. They spent most of the three months on an unplottable private island somewhere around Hawaii, the deeds for which Harry found in Ignotus's vault. Harry fell off his hammock laughing when Albus came out of the beach house in flip-flops, swim trunks, and a white sun-screen nose. He'd had a very similar picture in his mind in his youth when imagining what Dumbledore did in his summers, but the real thing, auburn hair and bare, tanned skin, was way hotter.

While they were there, Albus received a thick envelope. He grimaced. Before he slit it open, Harry asked him what he thought was in it.

"My guess? I would say it's the Ministry again. They've sent me a letter already this summer offering me the position of Minister of Magic."

"Poor baby."

"They seem to think I had something to do with fixing the school and saving all of those students—they don't seem to understand that I had as little idea as anyone else what was going on until you fixed it."

"I didn't fix it. I got kidnapped and then I touched a rock to the ground."

Albus chuckled and slit open the envelope with a letter opener that he wandlessly conjured.

He looked through the envelope, through photos and forms until he found a cover letter. He scanned the top line a few times, and then smiled.

"The Chocolate Frog Company wants to put me on a card."

Harry laughed.

"Is that going to be a problem for you, sir?" He stuck his tongue out.

"I have wanted to be on a Chocolate Frog card since I was two," said Albus. "Possibly before."

He and Harry spent a full day brainstorming the different facts Albus could put on his card—Harry didn't tell him that he already knew the final card would read that he had conquered Grindelwald, worked with Nicolas Flamel to find the twelve uses of dragon blood, and that he enjoyed tenpin bowling and chamber music.

In mid-August when they returned to Hogwarts, Harry moved from his tower to live with Albus in his. Fawkes popped in shortly before Harry finished moving. He grabbed his perch from Harry's old room, and teleported it to Albus's office and put it on the desk. He went to Albus, who stroked his feathers and smiled, and then to Harry, who transformed into a phoenix to say goodbye.

The second Harry was in his phoenix form, Fawkes grabbed Harry's tail with his talons, and teleported him an inch above the golden perch. Harry quickly grabbed onto the perch so that he didn't fall over, and Fawkes didn't land at all. He sang a song like a laugh, and took off, out the open window. They saw him again once in a while; he popped in from time to time to see how they were getting along without him, but he never stood on that golden perch again, for it was no longer his; it was Harry's, and Harry would spend a number of years perched there.

And even though almost all of Harry's soul was back in his body, sometimes, late at night, when it was just Harry and Albus together in their big purple bed, both of them swore they could hear chamber music playing through the distant halls of Hogwarts.

They didn't hear from Voldemort for a good many years-or at least no sooner than they expected to, and for that time, neither Albus nor Harry could have been happier.