Chapter 76: Confession and Atonement
Albus opened his eyes as he slowly drew to his feet, fear inside him at what he had just witnessed. Harry had faced Tom at long last… he was struck with the Killing Curse before he saw them both collapsed in the middle of the Forbidden Forest.
No matter what the outcome, he was sure that Harry would be here… the question remained was… would it be possible for him to return?
He left the office-like space as he wandered through the thick mist… terrified and yet excited at the same time. He wanted this chance to be able to speak with Harry again, of course he did; this was what he had been wanting for a long time. Yet the thought of what he would find frightened him more than anything else.
He wandered through the bright mist as it continued to shift and form around him—he knew that he was drawing close. Eventually he walked on long enough that he heard something… a noise that he had never heard before, nor could he claim that he knew.
The small soft thumping's of something that flapped, flailed, and struggled. It was a pitiful noise, yet also slightly indecent. As if coming from a broken and deplorable creature… and it was coming from somewhere close by…
And he finally came out and into a wide area where the mist was less dense around him. That was where he saw them…
Harry was kneeling next to a creature that he knew, sadly, what it was. Or rather who it was. It was Tom… the part of Tom's soul that had been inside Harry without any of them knowing. This was what he had been reduced to when he was so desperate to resort to such dark magic to try and remain immortal. A small, naked child, curled on the ground, its skin raw and rough, flayed-looking, and it lay shuddering on the ground where it had been left, unwanted, stuffed out of sight, struggling for breath.
Albus felt his heart ache at the sight of it, yet his eyes were drawn immediately to Harry, who was slowly starting to stretch his hand out towards the fragile creature… yet could not bring himself to do so.
For one horrible moment, Albus feared that Harry was a part of this world as well… at least until he realized that there was something different about him. The flow of time seemed to continue to move around Harry. This was not possible for the people who join this world for the dead… time stands still… while time is everything for the living…
Albus understood at once what this meant.
And joy began to fill every part of his being. It was as if phoenix song was filling his entire heart and soul at the thought of what this all meant.
Harry was continuing to try and force himself to touch the creature, yet it was clear from how he was moving his hand that he could not bring himself to do so. There was nothing that he could do to help though…
"You cannot help," he said as he walked forward, with nothing able to stop the spring in his step. Harry jumped back to his feet before he spun around so that Albus could see his face. The countless bruises and cuts that Harry had born throughout this whole night—this whole year—were gone. His eyes no longer held that aged, haunted look that made him look so much older than he was; he didn't even need his glasses anymore as he stared at him in shock. While there on his forehead… his scar—the symbol of all the suffering in his life—was gone.
He just couldn't stop the flood of happiness that was rushing through him as he spread his arms wide, a part of him wanting to embrace the young man, but he refrained himself from doing so.
"Harry," he called joyfully, "You wonderful boy. You brave, brave man. Let us walk."
Harry was continuing to gape at him in utter amazement as he followed him just a short distance away, still within hearing range of Tom's destroyed soul. But that was where Albus spotted two seats forming in front of him. He sat down in one of them while Harry joined him right at his side, who was still staring at him in amazement.
"But…" Harry began, his tone full of astonishment yet also very calm, "you're dead."
"Oh yes," Albus confirmed straightforwardly, still smiling broadly at him.
It seemed to take a moment for those words to fully sink in for Harry, who then asked hesitantly, "Then… I'm dead too?"
"Ah," Albus said, feeling his mouth spread into an even larger smile, though he wasn't sure how it was possible. "That is the question, isn't it? On the whole, dear boy, I think not."
They looked at each other as Harry stared in confusion.
"Not?" he repeated, as if sure that he heard wrong.
"Not," Albus confirmed for him.
"But…" Harry gasped out, his hand going up to his forehead to feel around, most likely for his scar. Albus felt a chuckle rising up in him when he saw Harry's hand freeze when he just realized the scar was gone.
"But I should have died – I didn't defend myself!" Harry gasped out anyway, "I meant to let him kill me!"
And it was for that reason that he was still alive. Albus could not begin to describe the he was feeling at that moment. He could not remember feeling so happy for a long, long time.
"And that," he nodded in agreement, "will, I think, have made all the difference."
Harry glanced at him and asked simply, "Explain."
Why explain when he had a feeling that Harry already knew the answer to that. He twiddled his thumbs together as he reminded him, "But you already know."
Harry blinked as he looked ahead of him as he was starting to put the pieces together. "I let him kill me," he said finally, "Didn't I?"
"You did," Albus confirmed as he nodded, wanting him to go on. "Go on!"
"So," Harry went on slowly as Albus could see the realization settling in on his face, "The part of his soul that was in me . . ."
Albus was nodding eagerly as Harry was finding the answer and then asked, ". . . has it gone?"
"Oh yes!" Albus cried out happily. "Yes, he destroyed it. Your soul is whole, and completely your own, Harry."
"But then . . ." Harry began before he slowly turned his head over his shoulder to where the small, maimed fragment of Tom's soul remained… unable to move on or go back to where it wanted to. The noises it was making seemed to have distracted him for a moment—or maybe he was also starting to guess what it was.
Harry glanced back at him and asked worriedly, "What is that, Professor?"
For a brief moment, his happiness faded slightly as he thought of how tragically that Tom's fate was to be. Such a waste of natural talent… he could have done so much good in the world… could have gone down in history for something other than what he chose to become.
He could not bring himself to tell Harry just what it was… even though he suspected that Harry already figured it out.
"Something that is beyond either of our help," he informed him softly.
"But if Voldemort used the Killing Curse," Harry started again, "and nobody died for me this time – how can I be alive?"
Albus looked back at him as he reminded him gently, "I think you know. Think back. Remember what he did, in his ignorance, in his greed and his cruelty."
Harry may not always had Hermione Granger's gift for answering questions right away in class, but with the right prodding, he knew that Harry always arrived at the answer on his own in the end. And as he patiently waited for him to think it all over…
He was watching how his gaze continued to drift all around him and Albus wondered just what it was that he was seeing.
He wanted to ask… but Harry answered, his eyes wide as he figured it out.
"He took my blood…" he whispered.
"Precisely!" Albus nodded, and then he went into a full explanation to what exactly happened. "He took your blood and rebuilt his living body with it! Your blood in his veins, Harry, Lily's protection inside both of you! He tethered you to live while he lives!"
In Albus's opinion, there was no greater form of love between a parent and child… and the love that Lily held for her son was so great that it lives on inside Harry's very skin. Lily Potter made a sacrifice to protect her son that Halloween night. The power of that sacrifice caused Voldemort's curse to backfire when he tried to kill Harry when he was only an infant. That love remained in Harry's veins all this time… and when Tom needed blood from an enemy to rebuild his body—he chose to take Harry's blood for he believed that he would be able to bypass over Lily's protection and touch Harry. Tom took something so pure and intended to use it for an disgusting use… however, Lily's protection was still inside Harry—the same protection in Voldemort… and as long as that blood, Lily's sacrifice, was inside him then he could not kill Harry. The moment Voldemort took Harry's blood, he had doomed himself. A part of the enemy he sought to kill now lived inside him!
"I live . . . while he lives?" Harry gasped as he stared at him. "But I thought . . . I thought it was the other way around! I thought we both had to die? Or is it the same thing?"
In some ways it was… however, Tom unknowingly bound Harry to life while his Horcruxes were being destroyed one by one. In his selfishness, in his arrogance of believing he was the most powerful, Tom never once stopped to think about how important it was to have a soul that was whole and intact.
But as he thought that over, Harry was looking back at the tormented soul fragment before he asked him, "Are you sure we can't do anything?"
"There is no help possible," Albus sighed. Tom had no one to blame but himself for what was awaiting him here. Yet, there was still time… and though Albus found it difficult to believe, he wanted to believe that Tom could use whatever time was left to make the first right decision he ever made in his life. only then would he be able to spare himself such a fate.
"Then explain… more," Harry asked and Albus smiled again, almost feeling like they were back at Hogwarts and Harry was asking about an assignment that he had a hard time understanding.
"You were the seventh Horcrux, Harry, the Horcrux he never meant to make," he explained. While Tom had wanted seven Horcurxes, he had always meant for that final piece of his soul to remain inside his body. He never intended to make eight… much less to accidently transfer a part of his own soul into his enemy.
"He had rendered his soul so unstable that it broke apart when he committed those acts of unspeakable evil, the murder of your parents, the attempted killing of a child," Albus went on, "But what escaped from that room was even less than he knew. He left more than his body behind. He left part of himself latched to you, the would-be victim who had survived."
Tom never even realized what had happened for he never believed souls to have any true meaning, other than to help keep him alive. He saw no real use for a soul, of love and kindness… and for those reasons, he never sought to understand them. Had he have bothered to fully learn from his past and see just what it was that he lacked, then he never would have touched Harry's blood. But because he believed that he knew more than anyone else, in his hurry to gain more power, he never bothered to do so and it cost him.
"And his knowledge remained woefully incomplete, Harry! That which Voldemort does not value, he takes no trouble to comprehend. Of house-elves and children's tales, of love, loyalty, and innocence, Voldemort knows and understands nothing. Nothing. That they all have a power beyond his own, a power beyond the reach of any magic, is a truth he has never grasped," Albus continued as Harry listened in amazement. "He took your blood believing it would strengthen him. He took into his body a tiny part of the enchantment your mother laid upon you when she died for you. His body keeps her sacrifice alive, and while that enchantment survives, so do you and so does Voldemort's one last hope for himself."
He smiled at Harry, who was still staring at him.
"And you knew this?" he demanded in hushed tones, "You knew – all along?"
"I guessed," Albus laughed a little. "But my guesses have usually been good."
They then sat in a comfortable silence for a long time afterwards, as they continued to stare off at the mist's almost hypnotic charm, like seeing new-fallen snow sparkling in the sunlight.
"There's more," Harry finally spoke up with another question, "There's more to it. Why did my wand break the wand he borrowed?"
Ah, Albus wondered if he would ask about how his wand had destroyed Lucius the night that they left his aunt and uncle's house.
"As to that, I cannot be sure," he answered. Well, it was half true. He had a good theory as to what happened there, though he could never be one hundred percent sure if it was true.
"Have a guess, then," Harry offered and Albus could not help but laugh at that.
"What you must understand, Harry, is that you and Lord Voldemort have journeyed together into realms of magic hitherto unknown and untested," he explained, "But here is what I think happened, and it is unprecedented, and no wandmaker could, I think, ever have predicted or explained it to Voldemort."
He looked forward again as he thought more of what happened that night when Voldemort had pursued Harry and how those golden flames erupted from the end of his wand to protect him.
"Without meaning to, as you now know, Lord Voldemort doubled the bond between you when he returned to a human form," Albus said, stepping back to try and explain it from the beginning. "A part of his soul was still attached to yours, and, thinking to strengthen himself, he took a part of your mother's sacrifice into himself. If he could only have understood the precise and terrible power of that sacrifice, he would not, perhaps, have dared to touch your blood…"
Luckily, for them all, he never bothered. For it was probably the only way that they could finish Tom off without resorting to having to take Harry's life.
"But then," he added thoughtfully, "if he had been able to understand, he could not be Lord Voldemort, and might never have murdered at all."
He knew that Harry was still looking at him and so he added, "Having ensured this two-fold connection, having wrapped your destinies together more securely than ever two wizards were joined in history, Voldemort proceeded to attack you with a wand that shared a core with yours. And now something very strange happened, as we know. The cores reacted in a way that Lord Voldemort, who never knew that your wand was a twin of his, had ever expected."
He looked back at him and he could see in Harry's green eyes that he was dumbfounded at what he was hearing. He smiled a little wider as he acknowledged, "He was more afraid than you were that night, Harry. You had accepted, even embraced, the possibility of death, something Lord Voldemort has never been able to do. Your courage won, your wand overpowered his. And in doing so, something happened between those wands, something that echoed the relationship between their masters."
Two halves of the same coin… almost complete opposites in each and every way… it was as if by nature the two of them had to clash.
"I believe that your wand imbibed some of the power and qualities of Voldemort's wand that night, which is to say that it contained a little of Voldemort himself," Albus finally came out and admitted, talking about all that he suspected. "So your wand recognized him when he pursued you, recognized a man who was both kin and mortal enemy, and it regurgitated some of his own magic against him, magic much more powerful than anything Lucius's wand had ever performed. Your wand now contained the power of your enormous courage and of Voldemort's own deadly skill: What chance did that poor stick of Lucius Malfoy's stand?"
None at all. That kind of power against a simple wand that did not belong to Tom never would have worked.
"But if my wand was so powerful, how come Hermione was able to break it?" Harry pressed him.
"My dear boy, its remarkable effects were directed only at Voldemort, who had tampered so ill-advisedly with the deepest laws of magic," Albus answered. "Only toward him was that wand abnormally powerful. Otherwise it was a wand like any other . . ." He suddenly realized what he said and added kindly, "Though a good one, I am sure."
Once again he waited for Harry to talk again, ready to answer any questions he had.
"He killed me with your wand," he said at last.
"He failed to kill you with my wand," he corrected. "I think we can agree that you are not dead – though, of course," he added, realizing that he may be taking for granted the tremendous courage and willpower it took for Harry to confront Tom like how he had done, "I do not minimize your sufferings, which I am sure were severe."
"I feel great at the moment, though," Harry confessed as he looked down at his hands, which were clean and unscathed before he glanced around at the area again and asked, "Where are we, exactly?"
"Well, I was going to ask you that," Albus asked as he also glanced around. "Where would you say that we are?"
It was something that he noticed before… over this last year when he greeted those souls passing through here, there were times when they were asking just where they were and when he asked them where they thought they were, the answer was always different. Perhaps it was a place that meant a great deal of meaning for them… which would explain why he first woke up in a place that resembled his office.
And he wondered just what it would be for Harry.
"It looks like King's Cross-station," he said slowly, "Except a lot cleaner and empty, and there are no trains as far as I can see."
Albus could not help but laugh, truly surprised by the answer.
"King's Cross station!" he asked in enjoyment, "Good gracious, really?"
"Well, where do you think we are?" Harry challenged.
"My dear boy, I have no idea," Albus confessed. "This is, as they say, your party."
This place was different for everyone. This was just how he sees this world. Maybe the train station meant something special to him… the first time that he was truly entering a world of magic and leaving the muggle world far behind, perhaps? Leaving one world to another he knew nothing about?
But now, Harry was glaring at him, and Albus realized too late that his words were both cryptic and a little insensitive.
"The Deathly Hallows," Harry said sharply and the smile was wiped from his face like he had been slapped.
"Ah, yes," Albus whispered. He knew that this was coming. He had been preparing for it… but he had just been so happy to see that Harry had survived that curse, to be able to speak with him again, that he had momentarily forgotten about it.
"Well?" Harry asked firmly, waiting for an answer.
He had been dreading this… he knew that Harry had every right to be angry, even hate him. The fact was that he had manipulated him since he was a young child, or at the least the situation that they were involved in. In fact, Albus could not forgive himself so did not expect Harry to ever be able to do so. Nonetheless, he owed him answers to any questions that he wanted to ask. There was no need to lie or keep anything hidden any longer.
"Can you forgive me?" he asked without looking at him as he felt the tears welling up in his eyes, not even bothering to try and keep it all hidden any longer. "Can you forgive me for not trusting you? For not telling you?"
This was what he wanted all along. He yearned to be forgiven, for Harry to understand why he had done what he done.
"Harry, I only feared that you would fail as I had failed. I only dreaded that you would make my mistakes. I crave your pardon, Harry. I have known, for some time now, that you are the better man."
He wasn't sure when it was, yet somewhere along the way Albus had realized what that scar truly was. Something he never wanted to believe… something that was too horrible for him to ever think about.
All he could do was watch over the situation and do what he felt was right.
Ever since Harry entered his first year, Albus had been worried about the part that he would have to play for Voldemort's inevitable end… he knew that Tom had survived, weak and half alive at the time, but there would be a day that he would return. He should have realized that he had already fallen into a trap when he refused to tell him that day in the Hospital Wing about why Tom had wanted to try and kill him.
Maybe Albus did not need to tell Harry the full contents of the prophecy… but for him to at least understand his role in the future. But the idea of seeing that horrified look on his young face was too much for him to imagine.
He just couldn't do it.
Even though he knew that it was what led to so much suffering, he had a feeling that he would have done the same thing all over again. He could not bear the thought of even discussing something like this to a child. Those protective feelings only grew stronger as the years went by, even when he knew in his heart what that scar truly meant, he never could bring himself to admit it.
It was terrible for him to have known, to have guessed, what would happen. How he knew that the boy he had come to care so much for would one day have to sacrifice himself. That was why he worked so hard to try and find another way, another way of destroying the piece of Tom's soul that was in Harry without costing his life in the process. Yet no matter how hard he searched, he could not find any other way to destroy a Horcrux without destroying the vessel…
At least… until the night that Tom had returned to power. When he had learned of how Tom selfishly used Harry's blood to do so, at that one moment he knew… he knew that Tom accomplished the very same goal that he, himself, had been fruitlessly searching for. Tom had found a way to save Harry without him even realizing it.
Still… he knew the kind of path that was laid out ahead of the boy… he knew that it was to be dark and difficult… with no guarantee that he would live to see the end. He watched as the connection between him and Tom continued to grow… when he was telling him of the Horcruxes last year, while knowing the truth, was more painful than he could ever say.
How many people could do that? To protect those you love happens on instinct… yet what Harry had to do was so much harder. Not many would be brave enough to go through that… once more proof that he was a better man than he ever was.
"The Hallows," he murmured grievously, "the Hallows. A desperate man's dream!"
"But they're real!" Harry said hurriedly, seemingly taken aback by seeing his reaction.
"Real, and dangerous, and a lure for fools," he moaned out as he remembered how Aberforth had told him the full truth. "And I was such a fool. But you know, don't you? I have no secrets from you anymore. You know."
"What do I know?" Harry asked, sounding baffled and Albus sighed grimly before he turned his whole body to face him.
"Master of death, Harry, master of Death!" he said firmly. "Was I better, ultimately, than Voldemort?"
"Of course you were," Harry choked out, like he couldn't believe that he would say that. "Of course – how can you ask that? You never killed if you could avoid it!"
"True, true," Albus said and those words were to him like water to a man dying of thirst. "Yet I too sought a way to conquer death, Harry."
"Not the way he did," Harry reminded him and it was so strange that after all this, Harry was actually defending him from the words that he was saying. Why was he bothering? Albus was only speaking the truth here. "Hallows, not Horcruxes."
"Hallows not Horcruxes," Albus nodded in grim agreement, "Precisely."
He paused, the words felt like someone had shoved a hot poker down his throat and speaking was painful.
Harry may have sensed this and asked, "Grindelwald was looking for them too?"
Albus closed his eyes as those memories entered his mind. He forced himself to nod, speaking a truth that he had never spoke of to anyone for almost his entire life.
"It was the thing, above all, that drew us together," he confessed quietly. "Two clever, arrogant boys with a shared obsession. He wanted to come to Godric's Hollow, as I am sure you have guessed, because of the grave of Ignotus Peverell. He wanted to explore the place the third brother had died."
Perhaps he thought that if he looked around long enough, he would find a Hallow. It turns out that he wasn't completely wrong for the Potters had lived in Godric's Hollow for many generations and thus, kept the Invisibility Cloak since Ignotus.
To think that he would meet him not long after his mother's death… it was easy for him to have gotten drawn in when he so resented having to look after his siblings in that house rather than go out into the world and do great things. He had forgotten what was truly important in that short time.
"So it's true?" Harry asked at once. "All of it? The Peverell brothers –"
"—were the three brothers of the tale," Albus finished, "Oh yes, I think so. Whether they met Death on a lonely road… I think it more likely that the Peverell brothers were simply gifted, dangerous wizards who succeeded in creating those powerful objects. The story of them being Death's own Hallows seems to me the sort of legend that might have sprung up around such creations."
Stories have a habit of growing larger and more amazing the more times they are told. So it did not seem unlikely that such a tale would border upon that of a fairy tale… though he found that all stories, whether they are for children or otherwise, do have truth woven in there somewhere.
"The Cloak, as you know now, traveled down through the ages, father to son, mother to daughter, right down to Ignotus's last living descendant, who was born, as Ignotus was, in the village of Godric's Hollow," he went on before he finally opened his eyes and smiled back at the look of amazement on Harry's face.
"Me?"
"You," he nodded, though he wasn't sure why Harry was acting so surprised. Since he had already guessed the same thing only a few months ago.
"You have guessed," he reminded him gently, "You know, why the Cloak was in my possession on the night your parents died. James had showed it to me just a few days previously. It explained much of his undetected wrongdoing at school! I could hardly believe what I was seeing. I asked to borrow it, to examine it. I had long since given up my dream of uniting the Hallows, but I could not resist, could not help taking a closer look…"
And he truly meant it. All that he wanted to do was just examine it, he had every intention of returning it once he got the chance to do so. He smiled a little as he remembered how the infant Harry was so attached to the Cloak and did not like it when they tried to take it from him.
Perhaps he should have known right away that child was more special than he could imagine. It was almost like he knew better than to let him have contact with the Hallows again after so many years.
"It was a Cloak the likes of which I had never seen, immensely old, perfect in every respect…" he confessed before the smile faded and he spoke bitterly, "and then your father died, and I had two Hallows at last, all to myself!"
It wouldn't have been the first time. Had he left the Cloak there, would it have changed anything? Could it have protected the family?
"The Cloak wouldn't have helped them survive, though," Harry said quickly. "Voldemort knew where my mum and dad were. The Cloak couldn't have made them curse-proof."
"True," Albus sighed grimly. "True."
There really wasn't any way for him to know for sure. It was all that he could do to keep himself going forward. At least this way, the Cloak was passed along to the true heir when the time was right.
"So you'd given up looking for the Hallows when you saw the Cloak?" Harry asked when he had fallen silent.
"Oh yes," he confessed faintly. He had grown older and wiser as the years went on, and he learned the hard way that he and the Hallows were a dangerous mixture. Yet… he just did not seem to be able to learn his lesson completely…
And the parade of mistakes he made when he was obsessed with those objects marched across his mind's eye. He could not bear to bring himself to even look at Harry in the eye as shame filled his whole body.
"You know what happened. You know," he said softly. "You cannot despise me more than I despise myself."
"But I don't despise you –" Harry said at once and it was like he was wrapped up in a warm blanket at those words. Maybe Harry was just saying it, he did not care… for they meant more to him than he could ever say. But he wasn't going to try and hide anything anymore, he promised himself that he would tell Harry everything, and he owed him that much.
"Then you should," he said firmly, taking a deep breath. "You know the secret of my sister's ill health, what those Muggles did, what she became." His sweet little sister reduced to a fragile, frightened girl who wasn't aware just how powerful she was. "You know how my poor father sought revenge, and paid the price, died in Azkaban," he added. "You know how my mother gave up her own life to care for Ariana."
He understood… he understood why his father never told anyone what had happened to Ariana, but was that for the best? Was there more that they could have done? That he could have done?
"I resented it, Harry," he admitted, the words feeling like poison leaving his body having kept those feelings locked inside all these years. He looked up, but still unable to look Harry in the face as he stared over his head and off into the distance.
"I was gifted, I was brilliant. I wanted to escape. I wanted to shine. I wanted glory," he confessed. He had been a young man, just leaving school with perfect marks and so many connections already, getting his chance to go out and see the world for the first time only to be told that his mother was dead and he had to do the responsible thing and return to care for his siblings. Was it so wrong to want to be free and earn glory?
"Do not misunderstand me," he added, hoping that Harry would not think that he did not care. "I loved them, I loved my parents, I loved my brother and my sister, but I was selfish, Harry, more selfish than you, who are a remarkably selfless person, could possibly imagine."
He knew that had it have been the other way around… he knew that Harry would never have resented such a responsibility. He would have taken care of Ariana in a heartbeat if it had been him…
"So that, when my mother died, and I was left the responsibility of a damaged sister and a wayward brother, I returned to my village in anger and bitterness," he continued on, finding it easier to keep talking, "Trapped and wasted, I thought! And then of course, he came…"
With a great effort, he forced himself to look down and into Harry's eyes again.
"Grindelwald," he went on, "You cannot imagine how his ideas caught me, Harry, inflamed me. Muggles forced into subservience. We wizards triumphant. Grindelwald and I, the glorious young leaders of the revolution."
He had only intended to care for Ariana until Aberforth had finished school. He had compromised with himself that he could handle a year or two looking after her until his brother left Hogwarts. Once there, he would be allowed to leave and do amazing things in the world, making sure to send money and any other supplies that they needed.
But all that went out the window when he met with Gellert Grindelwald.
"Oh, I had a few scruples. I assuaged my conscience with empty words. It would all be for the greater good, and any harm done would be repaid a hundredfold in benefits for wizards. Did I know, in my heart of hearts, what Gellert Grindelwald was?" he asked, not sure if he was really speaking to Harry or to himself anymore. "I think I did, but I closed my eyes. If the plans we were making came to fruition, all my dreams would come true."
"And at the heart of our schemes, the Deathly Hallows! How they fascinated him, how they fascinated both of us! The unbeatable wand, the weapon that would lead us to power! The Resurrection Stone – to him, though I pretended not to know it, it meant an army of Inferi!" he shivered. How could he have ever turned a blind eye to all that? How could he have not realized just how many people would have to have been killed to have such an army? Wasn't that what Tom did?
He sighed deeply, regretting his past actions so greatly that he felt his insides shrivel up in shame. How could it have taken so long for him to realize what Grindelwald truly was? Why did he only see it until the damage had already been done?
"To me, I confess, it meant the return of my parents, and the lifting of all responsibility from my shoulders," he sighed. Though now that he thought about it, they wouldn't truly be back, would they? He knew that now… but to him, way back then, he supposed that he wanted to force it to be true rather than believe it.
"And the Cloak… somehow, we never discussed the Cloak much, Harry," he went on, "Both of us could conceal ourselves well enough without the Cloak, the true magic of which, of course, is that it can be used to protect and shield others as well as its owner. I thought that, if we ever found it, it might be useful in hiding Ariana, but our interest in the Cloak was mainly that it completed the trio, for the legend said that the man who had united all three objects would then be truly master of death, which we took to mean 'invincible.'"
Invincible… how easy was it to come to the wrong conclusion from that one word?
"Invincible masters of death, Grindelwald and Dumbledore!" he scolded himself, almost forgetting that he was speaking to Harry. "Two months of insanity, of cruel dreams, and neglect of the only two members of my family left to me. And then… you know what happened. Reality returned in the form of my rough, unlettered, and infinitely more admirable brother."
Regardless of whatever else that Aberforth was, there was no doubting his loyalty to those he loved. There are only some things that you can see clearly when you look through another's eyes… and he could see how clearly that Aberforth was able to see what Grindelwald… and himself… truly were.
"I did not want to hear the truths he shouted at me," Albus confessed, "I did not want to hear that I could not set forth and seek Hallows with a fragile and unstable sister in tow. The argument became a fight. Grindelwald lost control. That which I had always sensed in him, though I pretended not to, now sprang into terrible being. And Ariana…" he croaked on, his voice becoming thicker with grief as tears began to fall, "after all my mother's care and caution… lay dead upon the floor."
All the emotions, all the pain and heartache that he had done his best to bury inside him suddenly erupted until he could not hold it back any longer. His feelings broke through the walls he worked so hard to build until he was crying for the first time in years.
He suddenly felt Harry's hand reach out and grab hold of his arm very tightly, offering him silent comfort. He clung to this security as he let everything that had been so desperate to escape for so long out, and finally he was able to regain control once he felt his tears run dry.
"Well, Grindelwald fled, as anyone but I could have predicted," he continued on when his voice was steady. "He vanished, with his plans for seizing power, and his schemes for Muggle torture, and his dreams of the Deathly Hallows, dreams in which I had encouraged him and helped him. He ran, while I was left to bury my sister, and learn to live with my guilt and my terrible grief, the price of my shame."
Harry let go of his arm, yet he knew that he was still looking at him. Yes, he knew Harry's feelings of guilt and grief all too well… the only difference was that he knew that he had no one to blame but himself for what became of his sister. Whereas Harry, who blamed himself for the deaths of people like Sirius, Cedric Diggory, and his parents… none of those deaths were his fault.
"Years passed. There were rumors about him. They said he had procured a wand of immense power. I, meanwhile, was offered the post of Minister of Magic, not once, but several times," he responded as he shook his head. "Naturally, I refused. I had learned that I was not to be trusted with power."
"But you'd have been better, much better, than Fudge or Scimgeour!" Harry suddenly burst out.
Albus gave him a smile he did not truly feel as he personally felt that Harry was giving him far too much credit. He never tried to lie… but he could admit that he had a habit of telling half-truths whenever it felt convenient for him. All that he could do was to ask for forgiveness.
"Would I?" he asked heavily, the doubt inside him rolling around until he felt sick. "I am not so sure. I had proven, as a very young man, that power was my weakness and my temptation. It is a curious thing, Harry, but perhaps those who are best suited to power are those who have never sought it. Those who, like you, have leadership thrust upon them, and take up the mantle because they must, and find to their own surprise that they wear it well."
He learned that a long time ago. It was strange how that worked… people start off with the best of intensions, yet they felt that they need power in order to carry out those intentions… but eventually they grow to love the feeling of having power and they cannot ever bear the thought of giving it up. Therefore, they become desperate to keep it… until the good intentions become bad…
Wasn't that what happened with Cornelius?
"I was safer at Hogwarts," Albus went on, "I think I was a good teacher –"
"You were the best -" Harry said quietly.
Albus froze at those words.
"- you are very kind, Harry," he told him candidly, feeling as if someone was squeezing his heart. "But while I busied myself with the training of young wizards, Grindelwald was raising an army. They say he feared me, and perhaps he did, but less, I think, than I feared him."
He looked at Harry once again to see the unformed question on his face.
"Oh, not death," he answered before Harry even asked. "Not what he could do to me magically. I knew that we were evenly matched, perhaps that I was a shade more skillful. It was the truth I feared. You see, I never knew which of us, in that last, horrific fight, had actually cast the curse that killed my sister. You may call me cowardly," he said before he added when he saw Harry open his mouth, "You would be right, Harry. I dreaded beyond all things the knowledge that it had been I who brought about her death, not merely through my arrogance and stupidity, but that I actually struck the blow that snuffed out her life."
That had been what haunted his mind for all these years. Who was it who had struck the spell that killed her? He did his best not to dwell on it… though during those long nights when there wasn't anything else on his mind, the thought would come out of nowhere and give his conscious no rest.
"I think he knew it, I think he knew what frightened me. I delayed meeting him until finally, it would have been too shameful to resist any longer. People were dying and he seemed unstoppable, and I had to do what I could," he sighed again, feeling old as he remembered the battle that he had with Grindelwald. "Well, you know what happened next. I won the duel. I won the wand."
There was another long silence between them and Albus was silently hoping that Harry did not ask if he ever found out who it had been who struck Ariana. Truth by told, Albus did not know even after all these years. He wasn't sure why he was suddenly thinking about it, but he was reminded of when Harry was only eleven years old and they were sitting in front of the Mirror of Erised together. He supposed that he could be aware of this kind of pain better than anyone… that was why he understood why it held such a powerful pull over the boy, who had never even seen what his parents looked like before that moment.
"Grindelwald tried to stop Voldemort going after the wand," Harry said at last, "He lied, you know, pretended he had never had it."
Albus looked down at his lap as he nodded, still feeling the tears on his face. He did know that much… maybe… a part of him… did come to recognize that he had done some terrible things and this was his attempt to reconcile with him before his death.
"They say he showed remorse in later years, alone in his cell at Nurmengard," he informed Harry, "I hope that is true. I would like to think that he did feel the horror and shame of what he had done. Perhaps that lie to Voldemort was his attempt to make amends… to prevent Voldemort from taking the Hallow…"
"… or maybe from breaking into your tomb?" suggested Harry, and Albus nodded again as he dabbed at his eyes with a corner of his sleeve.
"You tried to use the Resurrection Stone," Harry then pressed on. It wasn't a question, it was a statement and Albus nodded.
"When I discovered it, after all those years, buried in the abandoned home of the Gaunts - the Hallow I had craved most of all, though in my youth I had wanted it for very different reasons - I lost my head, Harry," he confessed miserably, "I quite forgot that it was now a Horcrux, that the ring was sure to carry a curse. I picked it up, and I put it on, and for a second I imagined that I was about to see Ariana, and my mother, and my father, and to tell them how very, very sorry, I was . . ."
But instead, it destroyed his hand and ultimately claimed his life. His just desserts for his foolishness.
"I was such a fool, Harry," he answered simply, "After all those years I had learned nothing. I was unworthy to unite the Deathly Hallows, I had proved it time and again, and here was final proof."
"Why?" Harry demanded. "It was natural! You wanted to see them again. What's wrong with that?"
Because the dead should be allowed to rest. He had no right to try and pull them back from beyond the veil like how he wanted to do so. He had known for some time that he was never meant to unite the Hallows.
"Maybe a man in a million could unite the Hallows, Harry. I was fit only to possess the meanest of them, the least extraordinary. I was fit to own the Elder Wand, and not boast of it, and not to kill with it," he said, not that he would want to use the wand to kill any more than it already had done. "I was permitted to tame and use it, because I took it, not for gain, but to save others from it."
The soul reason he took the wand from Grindlewald all those years ago was to make sure that it wouldn't be used the wrong way ever again. He had kept it safe and been forced to remain on guard at all times in case he was ever attacked and the wand would be won by another. And he had done so… up till the very last moments of his life anyway…
"But the Cloak, I took out of vain curiosity, and so it could never have worked for me as it works for you, its true owner," Albus went on. "The stone I would have used in an attempt to drag back those who are at peace, rather than enable my self-sacrifice, as you did. You are the worthy possessor of the Hallows."
He patted Harry's hand, trying to convey all that he was feeling through this small gesture. And that was when Harry looked up at him and he smiled for the first time in a long time. Albus could not believe it… after all that he had done, all the suffering and lies that he had kept from Harry all his life… did this mean… he had forgiven him?
"Why did you have to make it so difficult?" Harry asked shrewdly and Albus gave him a rather nervous smile, not sure how he may react to his explanation.
"I am afraid I counted on Miss Granger to slow you up, Harry," he confessed. The fact was that he knew that Harry was a little too much like him when he was young when it came to hot-headedness and rashness. He wanted Harry to prove that he could rise up where he, himself, had once failed but he also wanted him to do so without putting Harry at any more risk than he already was. He wanted Harry to learn and experience just what it truly meant to be 'Master of Death'.
"I was afraid that your hot head might dominate your good heart," he admitted. "I was scared that, if presented outright with the facts about those tempting objects, you might seize the Hallows as I did, at the wrong time, for the wrong reasons. If you laid hands on them, I wanted you to possess them safely. You are the true master of death, because the true master does not seek to run away from Death. He accepts that he must die, and understands that there are far, far worse things in the living world than dying."
Death is scary only because we don't know what will happen to us when it is our time. But you cannot run from it forever… sooner or later, death comes for us all. You cannot live forever, nor can you take anything in life with you when you do. It is as natural as living a long life and all we can do is hope that the memory that we leave behind will be remembered.
"And Voldemort never knew about the Hallows?" Harry asked, his smiling fading a little.
"I do not think so, because he did not recognize the Resurrection Stone he turned into a Horcrux," Albus declared, having wondered about that more than once in the past. "But even if he had known about them, Harry. I doubt that he would have been interested in any except the first. He would not think that he needed the Cloak, and as for the stone, whom would he want to bring back from the dead? He fears the dead. He does not love."
Which was what made his existence so sad.
There will be no living soul to mourn Tom's inevitable death… soon… it will all be over for him. This war will come to an end for all the pieces are set in place and are in motion. It's like this was all meant to be from the very beginning…
"But you expected him to go after the wand?" Harry asked and Albus nodded.
"I have been sure that he would try, ever since your wand beat Voldemort's in the graveyard of Little Hangleton. At first, he was afraid that you had conquered him by superior skill," he stated before he smiled fondly, knowing that he did beat him by superior skill in the end.
"Once he had kidnapped Ollivander, however, he discovered the existence of the twin cores. He thought that explained everything," Albus informed him, feeling piteous for Tom once again, whom he had hoped that he would have started to see things clearer at that moment. "Yet the borrowed wand did no better against yours! So Voldemort, instead of asking himself what quality it was in you that had made your wand so strong, what gift you possessed that he did not, naturally set out to find the one wand that, they said, would beat any other. For him, the Elder Wand has become an obsession to rival his obsession with you. He believes that the Elder Wand removes his last weakness and makes him truly invincible. Poor Severus . . ."
He shut his eyes for a moment to think of Severus and he hoped that the pain that he had been carrying around inside his heart all this time was gone and that he was able to find a sense of peace.
"If you planned your death with Snape, you meant him to end up with the Elder Wand, didn't you?" Harry suddenly asked.
"I admit that was my intention," he admitted grimly, "but it did not work as I intended, did it?"
"No," Harry murmured as he looked back down at his lap. "That bit didn't work out."
The silence that followed was the longest one yet. It seemed like neither of them had anything to say after all that… however, a part of him felt strangely… relieved… like the weight he had been carrying around inside him for almost a hundred years had been lifted. For the first time since he was a young man, he felt that he could breathe properly again.
But eventually, Harry looked back up at him and asked, "I've got to go back, haven't I?"
He knew this question would come up, and he gave him his answer.
"That is up to you," he told him simply but honestly.
Harry blinked in surprise.
"I've got a choice?"
"Oh yes," Albus smiled back, remembering about what Harry said about thinking that they were in King's Cross. "We are in King's Cross you say? I think that if you decided not to go back, you would be able to… let's say… board a train."
"And where would it take me?" he asked wonderingly.
"On," was all that Albus could say for he could not fully answer that question just yet. Only that he would soon board that train as well. There was only one last task that must be done and that was to see the end of this war. He could wait a little longer… for if he guessed things right, this battle was almost all over.
Once it was, then and only then, would he be able to rest in peace.
At long last, Harry stated, "Voldemort's got the Elder Wand."
"True," he agreed, "Voldemort has the Elder Wand."
Harry hesitated for a moment before he asked, "But you want me to go back?"
That was the question wasn't it? As happy as he was to see him again, he did not believe that it was Harry's time. As much as he would want to see all of Harry's suffering finally end, the world needed him, as well as all the people that he loved, and who loved him just as much. Just think of all the people who would be heart-broken should Harry chose to go on?
"I think," Albus said carefully, not wanting to tell him what he should do any longer, but rather to give him a choice by being honest, "that if you choose to return, there is a chance that he may be finished for good. I cannot promise it. But I know this, Harry, that you have less to fear from returning here than he does."
Harry looked up and looked over his shoulder to where Tom's destroyed soul continued to tremble and cry in the distance. Albus knew what he was looking at and felt that he needed to clear it up. What Tom will become, he had done it to himself. Death is only bad, if you lived such a life… but if you led a good life, it will be the best thing you will have going.
But more than anything else, he wanted Harry to see if Harry will see that however evil and monstrous that Tom is, he was still someone to be pitied.
"Do not pity the dead, Harry," he said softly, "Pity the living, and above all, those who live without love. By returning, you may ensure that fewer souls are maimed, fewer families are torn apart. If that seems to you a worthy goal, they we saw good-bye for the present."
He knew that the battle was won. Now that he said it, he knew that Harry will go back to ensure that others don't go through what he went through. He may be pushing Harry back to a world full of pain and loss, but if there was any out there who could pull through this and overcome it, it would be him. More than anything, he wished Harry to continue to live and spend the rest of his life in peace. He more than earned it…
Already the mist was filling the air once again and Harry was slowly starting to fade from view before Harry even nodded and sighed as he stood up. Albus followed suit as the two turned to look at each other in the face. Harry was almost as tall as he was now and all the unspoken feelings that he wanted to say seemed to pass between them in a silent understanding. It did not matter if Harry forgave him… he at least understood why he did what he did… and accepted it. That was more than enough.
"Tell me one last thing," Harry asked as he continued to fade away, "Is this real? Or has this been happening inside my head?"
Albus could only beam down at him as he laughed out happily, "Of course it is happening inside your head, Harry, but why on earth should that mean it is not real?"
And then he was gone…
But Albus was still smiling, knowing that he would see Harry again… though he hoped that it would be a long, long time with many happy years in between.
(I was planning on covering the end of the wear in this chapter as well, but I could not bring himself to go on after reaching the end here. So I decided that the next chapter will be the war's end. And then the Epilogue after that. I'll be having my next semester of classes tomorrow so I have no idea when I'll have time to put up the next chapter, but I do hope that you enjoy this one, which I know that we've all been looking forward to.)
