Revealed

"What is it Dumbledore?" Harry asked.

The innocence of his still youthful eyes, looking at the old wizard with an unswerving trust, made Dumbledore wince with guilt.

"You can tell us anything sir," said Luna.

"It's just not something that's so easy to say," Dumbledore's voice quavered, for the first time showing an emotion that Harry, and especially not anyone else, had ever seen show through those piercing blue eyes and half-moon shaped spectacles. It was guilt, mixed with a grief immeasurable. Instinctively, Hermione reached out her hand and grasped his old, wrinkly, wise hands.

"Sir, we need to know."

For some reason it was with those words that Dumbledore suddenly changed, as if realizing that his own feelings could not be the most important thing. He remembered Horace Slughorn. There was a real danger out there, a threat that had not seen an equal in many years, and the information that he so wished to withhold simply could not be kept in the dark. In one large breath, he suddenly became that portrait of composure and wisdom so familiar to the students of Hogwarts. Harry wondered if, behind closed doors, this was the real Dumbledore.

"Well," he said gesturing to the One Ring, "I believe this right here used to be a horcrux."

A long pause hung in the air for several moments.

"My horcrux."

Never before had Hermione been at such a loss for words. It was as if a switch, the one that was in charge of running that incessant factory of questions and debates which she called a mind, had just broken. She could not think, could not feel, and her jaw simply could not bring itself to close. (Ron had a fleeting fantasy in which this happened every Sunday when the Quidditch game was on).

It was, surprisingly, Ginny who spoke first. She was always one to put things in perspective. "So what, one person more in the millions that die every day, and we get our headmaster back?" She looked from Dumbledore, who had a slightly shocked, yet deeply grateful, expression on his face, to her friends. "I mean, it's not like he murdered some innocent muggle right?"

She looked back to Dumbledore, "right?"

He bowed his head, looking sheepishly at the ground, "I'm fairly certain he was a Death Eater."

"See!" Ginny looked around, slightly exasperated at her friends' unchanging expressions.

Harry was the first to recover.

"She's right Dumbledore. I'm just glad to have you back." But in the back of his mind, he knew something wasn't right. The guilt that Dumbledore was showing simply did not match killing a Death Eater for personal gain. But then again, it could just be the memory of what the horcrux had done to them before, of all the evil that had come from its many uses. And, of course, one couldn't help but make certain comparisons, however fleeting they might appear in someone's thoughts.

"But how does it all connect?" Luna asked, a question that would've have been on Hermione's mind too if she wasn't just waking from a small coma. Ginny made a mental note to talk to her about that later. Never before had she acted this way, with such shock and complete unresponsiveness. It was as if, for a moment, she was a bear in hibernation.

"That," Dumbledore said, quite relieved to be changing topics, "is actually quite interesting."

He looked through his mountainous pile of books, pulling out one from somewhere in the middle of the stack. Pulling out his wand, he muttered a couple words under his breath and the book opened immediately to the desired page. Now facing all of the young wizards was a picture of Mt. Doom., the roaring pit of fire down which the One Ring was sent to be destroyed.

"You see, I believe it was a gateway," Dumbledore's eyes gleamed with excitement, but at the same time a frown creeped out around the edges of his mouth. Fear and apprehension filled the room, as well as several questions from Hermione.

"So Middle Earth has its own portkey and the hobbit sent us his ring," Ron muttered under his breath. "Who would've thunk it?"

Rolling her eyes, Hermione asked, "but if this came from Middle Earth after you died, then how was it a horcrux?"

"Ahh," Dumbledore said, "Why don't you take a closer look Hermione."

Up to this point, the Ring had been sitting untouched on the table, as if no one wanted to put a hand on it for fear of being sucked into Frodo's living room. Now, however, curiosity got the best of them. All clambering to get a good look, the five almost instantly saw something familiar in it's glimmering gold surface.

"The Resurrection Stone," Harry breathed.

"Yes," Dumbledore said, "seems as if our old friend has a hidden power."

"You mean to say," Luna said, wide-eyed, "The Resurrection Stone is a gateway between worlds too, just like Mt. Doom?"

Dumbledore nodded heavily. "When I opened a path from the Afterlife through the Stone, I also inadvertently created a connection with another world. And the Stone didn't just combine with the One Ring," he breathed deeply,"It also let out a couple things I believe to be much more treacherous."