Dumbledore

He let Draco disarm him. He didn't expect the boy might kill him. He had tried before, and he hadn't tried hard enough. It wasn't really as difficult as people seemed to think. Although many refused to believe it, Albus Dumbledore was only a man. A tired, old man, for Merlin's sake! If he was still alive, it meant the one trying to kill him had not wanted to succeed. And now Draco was standing in front of him, with a wand pointing straight at the old man's heart and… talking. Just talking. Putting off firing the Killing Curse, as though it was a particularly unpleasant bit of homework. Draco, Dumbledore thought, was a good person, deep down inside, and if a good person doesn't kill you right away, they never will. Perhaps there was even a chance…

XXX

He heard loud footsteps of somebody running up the stairs, and a moment later four more people arrived at the top of the tower. He knew them, of course. Three of them had been his students once. The fourth one… well, that's a long story… Of course, the Headmaster would have preferred to meet his old students under different circumstances. He would have preferred to see them make different choices in life.

He felt quite sorry for those people. Like Fenrir Greyback for example. The poor man really believed that what he was determined who he was! This was, of course, pure nonsense. Unless you believed it, that is. Belief could make it painfully true. And many of Voldemort's supporters believed in it. Dumbledore believed that it was their weakness. He spread this belief among his own supporters, hoping that they could make it so.

They wouldn't kill him, either. Fenrir wanted to, but the others had stopped him. It was Draco's job. They seemed to believe it might upset Voldemort if someone else did it instead. It probably wouldn't, he just wanted Dumbledore out of the way, that's all. How silly of them.

And even if he died now, it didn't really bother him that much. He had done what he had to. He had done what he could. Everything was up to other people now, anyway. He was just an old man, quite useless, except for his knowledge, which he had passed on to others. Oh, they said he was the most powerful wizard alive. He might have been. But he was still just an old man. They said he was the only one Voldemort was afraid of. He probably was. But that only meant Voldemort was frightened of an old man. The trick was to let people say those things until they believed them, to give them something, or someone, to believe. But now they could believe in the young hero he had trained.

XXX

'Severus… please…'

Ah, Severus. A good man, even if he won't admit it. No "Bwahaha! Guess what I'm going to do now? I'm going to kill you!". Just 'Avada Kedavra!'

Albus Dumbledore's body fell down from the tower. Albus Dumbledore himself did not.

'So this is the end?' he asked.

YES, Death confirmed.

'What a pity,' Dumbledore said 'I still had some things left to do.'

WE COULD TRY TO PLAY SOME KIND OF GAME FOR YOUR LIFE, Death suggested helpfully, NOONE EVER WINS, BUT MANY PEOPLE TRY.

'No, no. It is fine. You know, to a well-organized mind death is just another great adventure(1)…'

For a moment they watched in silence, as the group of Death Eaters ran down the stairs, followed by Harry. Dumbledore smiled as the boy hit one of them with a Petrificus Totalus.

'He's good, isn't he?' the Headmaster said, as he began to fade away.

(1) Contrary to popular belief, this does not mean a mind that makes plans. Poor old Professor Binns had the kind of mind that made plans. He had never had any great adventures in his life or in his afterlife. He also refused to believe that he was dead.