Harry stood with his arms wrapped around himself as though he were cold, staring numbly at the walls of Dumbledore's office. Guilt and loathing seethed within him and he felt he would be ill with it; never before had he wished so heartily that he could be anyone other than himself...
The flames in the fireplace leaped and glowed green, startling Harry out of his reverie. He backed away from the fireplace and watched as Dumbledore unfolded himself from the flames, followed closely by...
"Neville?" Harry asked in dull disbelief. Neville was holding a blooded handkerchief to his nose, and had made some attempts at wiping blood from his face and neck where it had dried.
"Mr. Longbottom adamantly refused to be escorted to the hospital wing. He demanded that he be brought to you immediately." Dumbledore did not look at Harry; rather, he strode over to Fawkes's perch, reached inside his robes, and withdrew the tiny, featherless phoenix from an inner fold, depositing the hatchling in the ashes beneath the perch. "You will be pleased to hear that none of your fellow students will suffer permanent harm from tonight's events."
Harry tried to acknowledge that fact and be glad about it, but his misery was almost a physical thing now, a hum that he couldn't expel from his ears. He barely even noticed Neville coming up behind him and rubbing a hand on his back in what was clearly meant to be a soothing gesture.
"Madam Pomfrey is patching everyone up as we speak," Dumbledore continued. "Ms Tonks may require some time at St Mungo's, but a full recovery is expected."
Harry nodded.
"In fact, I would dare say that due to his refusal to accept healing, Mr. Longbottom here currently has the worst of it," Dumbledore added in that maddeningly calm voice.
"Actually, Professor, I'd say Sirius has the worst of it," Harry said in a horrible voice. He could almost feel Neville wince behind him. Dumbledore bowed his head sadly.
"I know how you are feeling, Harry," he began.
"No you don't," Harry interrupted in that same raw voice. Neville stepped around Harry then, grabbing Harry by both forearms, ignoring the bloody handkerchief in one hand.
"I do," he said in a low voice, looking very seriously at Harry.
"STOP IT!" Harry bellowed, jerking out of Neville's grip and turning his back on him and Dumbledore. He rubbed his forearms where Neville had held him, breathing heavily.
"There is no shame in what you are feeling, Harry," Dumbledore said behind him. "In fact, that you can feel pain this keenly is your greatest strength."
Harry's hands made themselves into fists, as though fists could contain the white-hot anger that churned his stomach.
"My greatest strength? You haven't got a clue...no idea..." Words spun through his head, connecting to unformed thoughts and making them impossible to say. He fell into a seething silence.
"Then tell me," Dumbledore said calmly.
"No! I don't want to talk about it -"
"Harry, this suffering proves that you are a man! Pain and grief at loss is part of being human -"
"THEN I DON'T WANT TO BE HUMAN!" Harry exploded, his rage bubbling over and filling him with boiling vitriol. It roiled, seeking an outlet, and he grasped one of the delicate silver instruments and threw it as hard as he could against the far wall, where it shattered into a hundred tiny shining pieces.
"Harry!" Neville exclaimed, moving as though to grab hold of him. He faltered as Harry snarled at him, drawing back as though he had been burned.
"I DON'T CARE!" Harry yelled, grabbing the closest object to him - a lunascope, some tiny sane portion of his mind noted - and throwing it into the fireplace, narrowly missing Neville. "I'VE HAD ENOUGH, I DON'T WANT TO BE HERE ANYMORE, I DON'T WANT TO SEE ANY MORE, I WANT OUT, I WANT IT ALL TO END, I DON'T CARE -"
"You do care," Dumbledore said sadly. "You care so much you feel as though you're being ripped to pieces. Please trust me when I say I understand."
"NO! I DON'T CARE!" Harry bellowed, so loudly it hurt his throat. He suddenly felt like a trapped animal, and stalked over to the door, shouldering Neville out of the way as he went.
"Harry," Neville said as he passed.
"JUST GET OUT OF HERE!" Harry yelled, his voice breaking. "GO!"
"No." Neville took a step and put himself between Harry and the door.
"LEAVE ME ALONE!" Harry drew his fist back. Neville stood calmly.
"Punch me if you want," he said, looking Harry square in the eye. "I'm not leaving you. Not like this."
Harry screwed up his face against the roaring sobs that were beating at his chest, demanding an outlet now that words couldn't possibly do.
"Harry," Dumbledore said gently, "I would like you to sit down and listen to me. You are not nearly as angry with me as you should be, and I wish to explain myself and my actions which led to the events of this evening."
Harry felt his strength drain out of him like water from a sieve, his rage spent and no longer able to sustain him. He suddenly did want to sit down, very much. He numbly allowed Neville to lead him to one of the chairs in front of Dumbledore's desk and sat, staring into middle space and paying little attention as Neville took the chair next to his and did not release his hand, but continued to hold it.
Harry knew that the glazed expression he wore was extremely rude, as was the way he was only half-listening to Dumbledore's monologue, but he just couldn't bring himself to care. He thought he wished Neville would let go of his hand until he realized that his own grip was far more desperate than his friend's, and he realized that it was that grip that was anchoring him to reality at that moment. Now he didn't dare let go, lest he be washed away on Dumbledore's words to a place where he couldn't feel the anger and the guilt that he had every right to suffer.
Despite himself, he somehow became caught up in Dumbledore's narrative. Hearing him detail Harry's every year at Hogwarts, and how it related to why Dumbledore felt responsible for the evening, gave his anger something to latch onto, instead of swirling inside him without a target or reference.
His brain seemed to awaken as Dumbledore said the word "prophecy." He actually jerked slightly, which caused Neville to twitch in surprise.
"The prophecy's smashed," Harry said dully.
"I broke it," Neville said in a miserable tone. "I kicked it and...I'm sorry, I didn't know..."
"You did not destroy the prophecy itself, Neville," Dumbledore said kindly, "merely the record of the prophecy. The prophecy was made to somebody, and the person it was made to can and does recall it perfectly."
"Who?" Harry and Neville both asked together.
"Me," Dumbledore said simply. "On a wet winter night some sixteen years ago, at the Hog's Head, in a private room where I was interviewing a new applicant for the post of Divination professor. I was not inclined to continue the study at Hogwarts, but the applicant was the descendant of a very gifted Seer, and I decided it would be polite to give her the benefit of the doubt. I am sorry to say I was unimpressed, and cut the interview as short as courtesy would allow.
"However, as I was leaving..." Dumbledore rose from his chair and walked to the black cabinet next to Fawkes's perch. Undoing a latch, he drew from the cabinet the basin in which Harry had first seen his father tormenting Snape, first discovered the complete truth about Neville's parents even before Neville himself was comfortable sharing... Dumbledore placed the Pensieve back upon his desk and raised his wand to his temple, extracting a thin gossamer thread of memory as he drew it away and placed it in the basin.
From the basin, a shawled, bespectacled figure rose up and revolved slowly. Harry felt a sharp pang of recognition, but he had only heard her use the hoarse, sharp tones she spoke with once before.
"The one with the power to vanquish the Dark Lord approaches... Born to those who have thrice defied him, born as the seventh month dies... And the Dark Lord will mark him as his equal, but he will have power the Dark Lord knows not... And either must die at the hand of the other for neither can live while the other survives... The one with the power to vanquish the Dark Lord will be born as the seventh month dies..."
The room fell silent as Sibyll Trelawney receded back into the basin. It was a quiet thick enough to cut, and Harry felt that he was doing so as he cleared his throat.
"What...did all that mean?" he asked.
"It meant," Dumbledore said heavily, "that the one person who will have the only chance of defeating Lord Voldemort once and for all was born nearly sixteen years ago, at the end of July, to parents who had already defied Lord Voldemort three times and lived to tell the tale."
Harry felt as though he were suffocating slightly. "So...it means...me?"
Dumbledore did not answer immediately, but sat down slowly behind his desk, studying both Neville and Harry with a careful eye.
"Here is the odd thing," he said finally. "It may not have meant you at all. The prophecy could have applied to either of two wizard boys, both born that year at the end of July, both having parents who had escaped Lord Voldemort three times. One, of course, was you. The other..."
It was unnecessary for him to continue, as Neville had suddenly gone very rigid and pale, staring at Dumbledore in disbelief. His hand had tightened on Harry's to the point where Harry could no longer feel his fingers.
"It might not be me, then?" Harry found himself asking. "It might be..." He could not help but glance over at Neville, who had furrowed his brow and was now studying the carving on Dumbledore's desk with an air of profound astonishment.
"Ah, I am afraid that, without a doubt, the prophecy refers specifically to you, Harry," said Dumbledore. "You must take the entire prophecy into account. The final identifying factor of this boy is that Voldemort will 'mark him as his equal.' And so he did, that night when he came to kill you. He chose you, not Neville, as his greatest threat."
"Could he have chosen wrong?" Harry blurted, then felt his stomach churn as beside him, Neville drew in a very shaky breath.
"Voldemort had a choice between two boys from strong wizarding families," Dumbledore said. "He had to determine which was the greatest danger to him. Do notice, Harry, that despite his creed that only full-blooded wizards are of any value, he instead chose the boy born from the Muggle-born mother to be the one most likely referred to in the prophecy. He chose the boy with Muggle blood, one like himself, and in trying to kill you transferred powers to you that he did not intend - not only marking you as his equal, but facilitating that equality."
Harry felt Neville's grip on his hand relax infinitesimally, but his mind was reeling too quickly for him to spare much thought for his friend at the moment - he had to know -
"Why did he try to kill me as a baby?" he demanded. "Why not wait until Neville and I grew up, and decide then who was more dangerous?"
"That would likely have been more prudent," Dumbledore said, "Except that his information about the prophecy was incomplete. His informant did not hear the entire prophecy; he was removed from earshot before he had the chance to hear the half about marking as an equal. Consequently, he could not inform Lord Voldemort that to attack would be to bequeath the very power that would destroy him."
"But I don't have power like that!" Harry protested. "I don't have anything he doesn't have, I can't fight like him, I can't possess people, I -" he fell silent as Dumbledore held up his hand.
"In the Department of Mysteries," he said, "there is a room that is kept locked at all times, because the force kept and studied inside is so very powerful and wonderful and terrible. It is this power, Harry, that you - and I daresay Neville - possess in such quantities that Voldemort has none of, and is blinded to. It was this force that caused you to go after Sirius tonight, but also saved you from the possession of Voldemort, because he cannot bear to be touched by such a thing. In the end, Harry, it was your ability to love that made you more powerful than Voldemort."
Harry squeezed his eyes shut to stave off thinking about Sirius, about his hand in his godfather's death, about his guilt. "The end of the prophecy...neither can live..."
"While the other survives," Dumbledore finished.
"One of us has got to kill the other," Harry said flatly.
"Yes," Dumbledore responded.
Nobody in the office spoke for a very long time. Harry could hear the echoes of students making their way to the Great Hall for breakfast and he marveled that anyone could still want food, could still be happy, could neither know nor care that Sirius Black was dead and gone forever.
"I must say," Dumbledore said, causing both Neville and Harry to jump in surprise, "that I find it very curious that the two young men the prophecy could have referred to have managed to find themselves in each other's company, and be so close-knit, at that." A twinkle in his eye suggested that he knew exactly the kind of undercurrents present in the friendship between Harry and Neville, and Harry was surprised and somewhat grateful to find that he could still do something so normal as blush. "It seems to suggest to me that your fates may very well be intertwined, bound together on the evening of that prophecy. Imagine, what may have happened had you not met on that first train to Hogwarts?"
Harry looked over to Neville, who offered a small, crooked smile and squeezed Harry's hand. Despite the emotions still churning within him, Harry found himself returning that same small smile.
The notion did not bear thinking about.
Neville started pacing as soon as he and Harry had entered the empty common room that evening. Harry watched him, somewhat bemused.
"Something's got you a bit wound up," he said finally. Neville looked over.
"Were you ever planning on telling me?"
"Telling you what?" Harry asked. Neville made a small impatient sound.
"That I could have been the one Voldemort went after. That the prophecy could have referred to me."
"Oh." Harry's brow screwed up as he tried to remember. "I thought I had, when I told everyone who would listen about everything Snape had done, and why."
"No," Neville said with exaggerated slowness, "You didn't. Must have slipped your mind, little unimportant detail like that."
"I don't see why you're so worked up. The prophecy didn't refer to you. Would knowing have changed anything?"
"Obviously it does, if Time's gone out of its way to make sure I know this go round."
Harry cocked his head to the side. "I hadn't thought of it that way."
"Course not," Neville said in an odd tone. "You don't tend to think about things other than how they affect you. You're a little blind to the concept of collateral damage."
Harry's eyes narrowed. "Are you calling me self-centered?"
"Yeah, I suppose I am."
They glared at each other from opposite sides of the couch for a moment, then Neville broke the eye contact, running a hand through his hair and studying the couch cushions.
"I'm sorry. I'm just...still worked up from...from Sirius." He looked back up. "I'm sorry you had to live through it again. It's bad enough one time."
"Yeah, well," Harry shrugged and crossed his arms tightly across his chest. "Sorry I never told you. You're right, of course, you did have a right to know." He shook his head. "I thought I had."
"Well," Neville said thoughtfully, "I probably would have taken it badly anyway."
The conversation dwindled.
"I kind of wish I'd been able to keep my dad's wand this time," Neville said quietly. "I'd thought maybe...since things were different this time..."
Harry reached over and gave Neville's shoulder a squeeze. Neville's mouth twisted in a small smile and he absently reached up to clasp Harry's hand.
Harry froze, resisted the sudden urge to tear his hand away. It wasn't the first time Neville had performed that gesture - it had happened several times in the last few hours, even - but it was the first time it had happened when they were fully aware of what they were doing and where and when they were. Always before, it had been a part of whatever situation they were living, something that felt natural at the time, given their close friendship and only barely concealed feelings for one another. And now...
Harry swallowed. It felt natural now, too.
He didn't know why that should bother him, but the more curious thing was that a part of him didn't seem to be bothered at all.