Chapter 54:

There was silence, there was nothing. Everything was empty. And yet, there had to be something, her face was on the ground. Something was wrong though. She was lying, but even as she willed herself to move, to see what was around her, she could not, nothing obeyed her.

It seemed forever before she finally, at least, opened her eyes.

There was a bright mist around her, but it was no mist she had ever experienced before. The surroundings were not hidden by a cloudy vapour, rather the cloudy vapour had not yet formed into surroundings. The floor on which she had lain on seemed to be white, neither warm nor cold, but simply there, a flat, blank something on which to be.

And she sat up. She didn't seem hurt, but still something was wrong. The hands, she instantly noticed were not her's, reached for the face, it seemed something was missing.

A sound reached her through the unformed nothingness surrounding her. The small soft thumpings of something that flapped, flailed, and struggled. It was a pitiful noise, yet also slightly indecent. She felt like she shouldn't hear it, like she was eavesdropping on something furtive, shameful. It made her uncomfortable though she didn't know what it was.

It seemed something had happened for she moved towards robes that had appeared, and pulled them on. Every time she saw the arms, the legs, they were all wrong. They weren't her's. Where was she? She'd been in the Great Hall before?

She felt the robes upon her, they were soft, clean, and warm.

She looked around, she had no idea of the place before her. The longer she looked however, the more there was to see. A great domed glass roof glittered high above in sunlight. Perhaps it was a palace. All was hushed and still, except for those odd thumping and whimpering noises coming from somewhere close by in the mist…

She turned, unwillingly and without asking to, on the spot. The surroundings seemed to invent themselves before her eyes. A wide-open space, bright and clean, a hall larger by far than the Great Hall, with that clear, domed glass ceiling. It was quite empty. There was no other person there, except for —

She recoiled. She had spotted the thing that was making the noises. It had the form of a small, naked child, curled on the ground, its skin raw and rough, flayed-looking, and it lay shuddering under a seat where it had been left, unwanted, stuffed out of sight, struggling for breath.

For some reason she felt fear, but it was misplaced. The fear wasn't her's, she did not think the poor piece of soul, left to die, was frightening, more pitiful.

It seemed to hit her like a tone of bricks. The fear was not her's, because it was Harry's. She was Harry right now. And yet, she couldn't feel herself like she usually could. All she had was her thought process it seemed. Harry was the one in this place, experiencing this. Harry was the one who was afraid of the soul.

That next thought stumped her. How did she know it was a soul?

Alicia, having realised what was wrong with the placement of things, was now standing beside Harry. She realised why he had touched his face now, for he was not wearing his glasses. She thought he looked rather odd without them.

But where was Harry? He was supposed to have walked into the forest? He was supposed to have—

Alicia couldn't comprehend it. Harry couldn't be dead? Well, he was supposed to be, but how could she be here? Just because she had a piece of his soul? Did that mean this wasn't real, or had his mind ventured to a place so obscure?

She looked at Harry and wondered if he could see her, he'd been able to before? For some reason she didn't bother trying to gain his attention. She simply watched him as he edged nearer to the soul, the soul in which, Alicia believed to be the piece of Voldemort that had once been in Harry, broken, torn, meddled with.

"You cannot help."

Both twins spun around. Albus Dumbledore was walking toward Harry, sprightly and upright, wearing sweeping robes of midnight blue.

"Harry." He spread his arms wide, and his hands were both whole and white and undamaged. "You wonderful boy. You brave, brave man. Let us walk."

Alicia stared at him as she felt Harry's surprised, but he followed Dumbledore as he strode away from the flayed child that lay whimpering. Alicia followed, silently, and nonexistent. After all, it seemed she wasn't really here, she was seeing what Harry did. Though where here was she had no idea, and why he was here… Of course there were stories of death and what happened, some believed you went to hell, or heaven, some believed there was the in-between place were judgement was served, the border between the living and the dead. If she wanted to put some sort of solid thought to the place, that's what she would pick. Harry wasn't dead, or with the dead, or she could not be here, it was not possible. Harry hadn't ever entered Voldemort's mind while he'd been in his half-dead, non-human state, so how could she enter his if he was dead? Dumbledore was also here, so it couldn't be a living place.

Dumbledore had lead Harry to two seats in which he sat and Harry fell into the other, staring at his old Headmaster. Dumbledore was exactly as he should have been, long silver hair and beard, piercingly blue eyes behind half-moon spectacles, crooked nose…

"But you're dead," said Harry.

"Oh yes," said Dumbledore matter-of-factly.

"Then… I'm dead too?"

"Ah," said Dumbledore, smiling still more broadly. "That is the question, isn't it? On the whole, dear boy, I think not."

They looked at each other, the old man still beaming.

"Not?" repeated Harry.

Alicia couldn't help but smile. He wasn't dead. What was he doing here then?

Alicia felt hope fill her, was Harry going to survive? Was Voldemort's soul effected by the curse and Harry's left untouched, as Dumbledore had predicted would be one of the outcomes?

"Not," said Dumbledore.

"But…" Harry raised his hand instinctively toward the lightning scar. It did not seem to be there. "But I should have died — I didn't defend myself! I meant to let him kill me!"

So Voldemort had killed Harry? He had gone? He had sacrificed himself. Alicia felt so proud of him, and so sad at the same time.

And yet that hope was still billowing below the surface. She was watching Dumbledore, hanging, waiting for him to explain, to tell her what she wanted to hear, the only reason of her worth being here for.

"And that," said Dumbledore, "will, I think, have made all the difference."

Happiness seemed to radiate from Dumbledore like light, like fire. Alicia had never seen him like this.

"Explain," said Harry.

"But you already know," said Dumbledore. He twiddled his thumbs together.

"I let him kill me," said Harry. "Didn't I?"

"You did," said Dumbledore, nodding. "Go on!"

"So the part of his soul that was in me…"

Dumbledore nodded still more enthusiastically, urging Harry onward, a broad smile of encouragement on his face.

"… has it gone?"

"Oh yes!" said Dumbledore. "Yes, he destroyed it. Your soul is whole, and completely your own, Harry."

"But then…"

Harry glanced over his shoulder to where the small, maimed creature trembled under the chair.

"What is that, Professor?"

"Something that is beyond either of our help," said Dumbledore.

"But if Voldemort used the Killing Curse," Harry started again, "and nobody died for me this time — how can I be alive?"

"I think you know," said Dumbledore. "Think back. Remember what he did, in his ignorance, in his greed and his cruelty."

He had taken Harry's blood, created a double bond… Alicia remembered. She still didn't understand how that saved Harry though… did the bond, that was still in Voldemort, cause Harry to be unable to be killed by Voldemort?

"He took my blood," said Harry.

"Precisely!" said Dumbledore. "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 life while he lives!"

"I live… while he lives?"

But did that stop Voldemort from dying while Harry was alive, extra soul piece in Harry or not? Or did it only work one way because it was Harry's blood? Alicia was so confused. It seemed Harry was too.

"But I thought… I thought it was the other way round! I thought we both had to die? Or is it the same thing?"

Harry glanced back at Voldemort's soul again.

"Are you sure we can't do anything?"

"There is no help possible."

"Then explain… more," said Harry, and Dumbledore smiled.

"You were the seventh Horcrux, Harry, the Horcrux he never meant to make. 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. 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.

"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.

"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."

Was it because Lily's spell didn't protect Voldemort? Hang on, wasn't she, Alicia, enough to keep Harry alive with the protection then? She was even more confused.

"Wouldn't Alicia do that though? She has the protection too?" Harry said

"Ahh, but Voldemort was coming to kill you that day, it was you who needed the most protection." Dumbledore said "The sacrifice protects Alicia, but it was initially aimed at you, oh Lily protected you both, that there is no doubt in, but the fact that you were the target is important."

Well that sounded stupid. Alicia believed.

Dumbledore smiled at Harry, and Harry stared at him.

"And you knew this? You knew — all along?"

"I guessed. But my guesses have usually been good," said Dumbledore happily, and they sat in silence for what seemed like a long time, while the creature behind them continued to whimper and tremble.

"Alicia knew." Harry said

"Yes. That brave, brilliant girl. I never could have guessed her to the make the connection so quickly. I guess you could say I underestimated her, or I hoped, she would be spared of knowing."

"She knew after we found out what Horcruxes were." Harry realised

"Yes. She knew when I said that Nagini was a horcrux, that you must have been as well, as the connection was the same. She also put together what that meant."

"I'd have to die… that's why she said that, why she was crying."

"It's one thing to walk to death to protect others, it's a complete other to let your last and only family member do it. She was most unselfish and brave." Dumbledore sighed.

"She knew she couldn't tell me until I needed to know." Harry said. Dumbledore nodded again. "She's been sitting on this all year."

"Do you feel sorry?" Harry nodded and Alicia smiled

"I don't know if I could have done it if she hadn't told me that I had to, that she knew… she told me not to worry about her."

"And yet it is her I worry about most." Dumbledore admitted. Alicia rolled her eyes. She wasn't a child.

"There's more," said Harry. "There's more to it. Why did my wand break the wand he borrowed?" An Answer Harry had been sitting on ever since that incident. Of course he would demand to know.

"As to that, I cannot be sure."

"Have a guess, then," said Harry, and Dumbledore laughed.

"What you must understand, Harry, is that you and Lord Voldemort have journeyed together into realms of magic hitherto unknown and untested. But here is what I think happened, and it is unprecedented, and no wandmaker could, I think, ever have predicted it or explained it to Voldemort.

"Without meaning to, as you now know, Lord Voldemort doubled the bond between you when he returned to a human form. 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… But then, if he had been able to understand, he could not be Lord Voldemort, and might never have murdered at all.

"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 twin of his, had never expected.

"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.

"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. So your wand recognised him when he pursued you, recognised 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?"

"But if my wand was so powerful, how come Hermione was able to break it?" asked Harry.

"My dear boy, its remarkable effects were directed only at Voldemort, who had tampered so ill-advisedly with the deepest laws of magic. Only toward him was that wand abnormally powerful. Otherwise it was a wand like any other… though a good one, I am sure," Dumbledore finished kindly.

"Alicia guessed something like that." Alicia looked surprised, had she? But it came to her like it was thrown before her and under her nose.

"You'll find it's because of Voldemort." Alicia said and everyone looked at her "I felt it pull on your hand when it moved. You might find that after yours and his wands clashed together so often that your phoenix wand recognises Voldemort."

"But that's impossible." Hermione said

"I don't think it is. You need to remember Harry and Voldemort's wand have a connection, there's no telling how they'd act around one another. Wands can think for themselves remember, as Ollivander always said 'the wand chooses the wizard'."

"Like I said, she is extremely brilliant for her age. Her guesses seem, much like mine, rather precise."

They were silent again for a moment, or several moments, time didn't seem to exist here.

"He killed me with your wand."

"He failed to kill you with my wand," Dumbledore corrected Harry. "I think we can agree that you are not dead — though, of course," he added, as if fearing he had been discourteous, "I do not minimise your sufferings, Alicia's too, which I am sure were severe."

"I feel great at the moment, though," said Harry, looking down at his clean, unblemished hands. "Where are we, exactly?"

"Well, I was going to ask you that," said Dumbledore, looking around. "Where would you say that we are?"

Alicia looked around, she could not understand where they were. But Harry it seemed had some idea.

"It looks," he said slowly, "like King's Cross station. Except a lot cleaner and empty, and there are no trains as far as I can see."

Alicia looked around with a raised eyebrow, but as she was connected to his mind, she began to see it.

"King's Cross station!" Dumbledore was chuckling immoderately. "Good gracious, really?"

"Well, where do you think we are?" asked Harry, a little defensively.

"My dear boy, I have no idea. This is, as they say, your party."

So this was the boarder world, or what ever other explanation there might be. The party to see if he went up, down or where ever it was souls went.

"The Deathly Hallows," Harry said and Alicia turned in time to see that these words had wiped the smile from Dumbledore's face.

"Ah, yes," he said. He even looked a little worried.

"Well?" Dumbledore suddenly looked, for the first time, less than an old man, much less. He looked fleetingly like a small boy caught in wrongdoing.

"Can you forgive me?" he said. "Can you forgive me for not trusting you? For not telling you? 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."

Perhaps he was taking about Harry not letting the Hallows corrupt him, though he had been very close, had it not been for Dobby, Alicia wondered what Harry would have done. Dumbledore had been so driving towards him, he'd lost his sister, and he'd put on a cursed ring just to apologise, or so Alicia assumed.

Harry, may have gone down a similar path, but it seemed the grief had stopped him.

Luckily for us. Alicia thought.