A.N. – Here is the second moment (of what is shaping up to be many) of this collection. Again, it involves apparition. This time, a different party pays the price. This piece is less violent, but more sad this time around. See Ch. 1 for the disclaimer. Oh, and I have a C2 called Luna's Pensieve. It's full of Luna-centric stories that I feel have not received the recognition they're due. The stories there are far more uplifting than the content here.

Moment 2

The salt air was biting to the already haggard Harry and Dumbledore as they shambled their way out of the sea cave which had held a horcrux. Dumbledore was unsure if he'd even be able to remain standing if it weren't for his student steadying him. Their prize had been hard-won, and Dumbledore knew his time was rapidly running out. He hoped that Harry would be able to at least bring him home to Hogwarts before that time came.

The Headmaster felt the tension in the body holding him snap taut as Harry prepared for his first attempt at side-alonging someone. Dumbledore did his best to brace himself and keep contact with Harry as the familiar but always disconcerting sensation took hold. Unbeknownst to either party, Harry's mind was at war as the journey unfolded. Harry's mind was of a single thought: to get to Hogsmeade and then Hogwarts to save Dumbledore.

The horcrux affixed to his curse scar, though, felt the swirling dark energies of his master infusing the cave they'd just left. It craved contact with the host it had lost, and was very reluctant to part with the affirming feeling of being close to Voldemort once again. And, as the horcrux was intrinsically part of Harry, the desire to stay seeped into the otherwise dead-set mind of the teen as the apparition took place.

The duo landed, none too gently, outside The Three Broomsticks in Hogsmeade. The blanketing night, with no electric glow to permeate it, masked their arrival near completely. There was only a grunt of pain from Dumbledore as his all-too-frail body collapsed to the dirt and Harry fell on top of him. The boy stirred not a muscle as the aged Headmaster tried to roll the prone body off of him. In his current state, it took two tries. Harry ended up on his back, frame just as rigid as it had been the moment they departed. The Gryffindor made no move to acknowledge his new position, a fact which made Dumbledore's brow furrow.

Rosmerta bustled out of the pub they landed before, the wards around the establishment having triggered when interlopers came by after business hours. Her whole countenance changed when she saw who was sprawled by her front door. Lowering her drawn wand and gathering her dressing gown about her, she rushed over to check on the just-now-sitting-up Dumbledore. He shrugged off her well-meaning attempts to help him and instead beckoned her to examine the still silent Harry with him.

What they found was not promising.

His chest rose and fell with the tell-tale signs of breathing, but they found his eyes had gone unfocused when his eyelids were nudged open. Shaking Harry did not stir him, nor did Rosmerta's casting of Rennervate. Dumbldore, gathering what little strength he had, raised the Elder Wand and set about diagnosing the issue. What his scan told him, after 30 long seconds, made his already pale face go slack.

The horcrux residing in Harry was gone. The lingering effects of the malevolent hitchhiker were evident upon Harry's psyche. What Dumbledore, for the life of him, could not find was any other mental patterns active inside Harry's mind. Other than residue from Tom's soul fragment, Harry's brain was, for all intents and purposes, uninhabited. By all accounts, Harry should be dead, yet his autonomous systems were running just fine in absence of the brain commanding their functions. It was if the horcrux had fled, and it had taken the whole of what made Harry Potter who he was with him.

Albus Dumbledore was left staring, teary-eyed, at the husk of the Boy-Who-Lived. Here, in stark tangibility, were all of his failures coming to fruition. He had no time to give consideration to the dangerous possibility of a piece of Voldemort floating out on the aether. He had no consideration for his own quickly declining state of health. And, as Madam Rosmerta shakily pointed out the sickly green Dark Mark raised above the Astronomy Tower in the distance, the vaunted Leader of the Light could only bury his head in his hands at the crumbling of so many years worth of work.