'You are the worthy possessor of the Hallows … 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.' – Albus Dumbledore to Harry Potter, Deathly Hallows, p. 577.

It seemed Harry's brain had fogged up. He stared at Dumbledore with Fawkes on his shoulder. In his memory, he had become more entity, presence, than a man. Yet here Harry was, facing the truth in all of its obscenity; that Dumbledore was ultimately a very old wizard who wasn't even taller than him.

Harry desperately tried to think of something to ask, something to confirm what he was seeing. He half hoped McGonagall would say something, but didn't need to look at her to see she was thunderstruck too.

He thought back to something only they would know, that nobody else would, but so much of the war was public now. It was strange to think of the time when Voldemort was barely returned, and they were still continuing the charade of their lives in school or work, as if they weren't just giving him time to organise a coup. In that moment he realised how far he had come from the skinny seventeen year old, how much he had allowed the tangle of it all – the deaths and the near-deaths and the wishing for deaths – to unravel into common knowledge.

The last time Harry had heard Dumbledore's voice was when they were both without pulse, and he was unsure if this Dumbledore had anything to do with that of the train station. And the time before that, the man was still dead, living on only in Severus Snape's dying memories …

At once, Harry thought of the memory he'd trespassed on, of Snape confessing his life-long devotion; his obsession with Harry's mother and the way he had proven it to Dumbledore. The Deluminator given to Ron, and how it had led to Ron's return – and how he had stumbled through the forest, led by the silver light of a doe Patronus.

'What was Severus Snape's Patronus? What form did it take?'

McGonagall turned to stare at Harry. Dumbledore, too, looked up from stroking Fawkes' breast with a single finger – Harry saw his hand was no longer shrivelled and black. The long forefinger paused and attention was switched to staring at him impenetrably.

'A doe,' Dumbledore said simply. Harry felt McGonagall's eyes keenly, now burrowing into the side of his skull. He had half expected a preamble, something less abrupt – he certainly had not come to expect brevity with the old Headmaster. But perhaps he was simply angry at the world at large, and maybe his thoughts were clouded by the anger and emotional growing pains of his childhood.

Harry turned and nodded at the headmistress. She stared inscrutably back at him. The air began moving around them again as it breathed a sigh of – something.

'Is it – I – Dumbledore? Sir?' Breathless, Harry was unsure what he was asking. He had no questions, and somehow all of the questions too. Articulation was impossible.

'I gather it has been a fair few years.' Dumbledore sighed by way of answer and stared wistfully about himself. 'Yet – I feel as though I passed along this shore merely yesterday afternoon. You have grown wonderfully, Harry. I cannot tell you how felicitous I am.'

'You're surprised?' Harry asked, a curl of stubbornness and perhaps even anger whirling it's way around his gut.

Dumbledore's brown creased, and he was suddenly intense. 'Absolutely not. I have always had the utmost faith in you and your abilities.'

'You were dead,' Harry said bluntly. 'How could you have any idea of what happened after that?'

'I was dead. And guessed at this, of course. But my guesses have, usually, been good.'

'How can you have guessed?' McGonagall asked harshly as if it were a dirty word. She had regained some of herself. Dumbledore's eyes flickered between them both as he spoke.

'Because I did not need to guess at Lord Voldemort's desire for immortality. It is the most dependable thing of all. I knew he would take your blood, Harry, to strengthen himself. I was certain it would tether you together until you were able to realise what needed to be done to be free from the piece of him that lived inside you for so long.'

'To get him to kill me, you mean.' Harry said, without sharpness. He was tired and felt McGonagall's eyes switch to him again as he remembered his death was known to only very few. 'You've explained this to me before,' Harry went on, 'in King's Cross.'

'Have I?' Dumbledore asked, smile breaking the solid lines of his face. 'I don't recall.'

Harry thought about the tears and the story of Gellert Grindelwald. He thought about how Dumbledore seemed to be waiting there for him, for all that time, to relieve himself finally and fully of all secrecy and guilt. Harry doubted the man was lying, yet he certainly doubted the man could forget their conversation either.

'We talked about the Hallows, too,' Harry said quietly, following a half-formed hunch and watching Dumbledore closely. There was a stiffness developing in his smile, and an alteration in his eyes that was impossible to trace.

'I must confess… I do not believe this will be the final mention of the Hallows between us, Harry.'

None of them knew what to say. Dumbledore looked, above all, tired, and Harry felt suddenly guilty for pushing him. It was like in King's Cross all those years ago – any bitterness or resentment melted away as soon as Harry remembered Dumbledore was just a man, like the rest of them, who was flawed and had spent his entire life repaying the world for his arrogant youth.

Harry did not want to continue in this vein. It was a quick realisation; that for the time being it did not really matter how Dumbledore was here. Really, when you moved past theories and the disbelief, that was all that counted. Everything in their lives had led them to this moment, and there was no rewinding the past. Magical theory could wait … mastering death could wait. For now, Harry wanted to accept the Map's truth, and wanted to allow himself to feel happiness that Dumbledore was back.

It struck Harry, too, that before him was one of the only men who could understand the strange position he was in. Both had lived through early grief, horribly publicised, and both had fought a duel that they alone could win. They were both public property from that point onwards, and had watched the dream of a subdued existence slip between their fingers even if it had vanished long before that fight.

Harry couldn't imagine the pain of having to duel Ron, or perhaps more aptly, Ginny, to then be celebrated for it. He thought about becoming friends with one of them from the depths of loneliness from the Dursley's, of realising one day the evil intent hidden behind their easy smiles, and how he had been swept along with it all. The terror he would feel, seeing the lengths it had grown to. Harry thought of having to hide that shame from the world, repenting every day by living out what was the worst fear of his youth: hiding away.

In maturity, Harry understood Dumbledore's deep fear of himself even though he had never experienced it. And that was why Harry forgave him, and honoured him through his son. He hoped that Al, James, Lily, his godchildren, nieces and nephews – all the students in the castle above them, would have the strength and bravery to stand up to their own worse impulses or closest friends. Dumbledore's words from so many years ago trickled into Harry's thoughts; of the true bravery, in standing up to your friends. And then bizarrely, Sirius', flitting through after – that light and dark lived within them all, but it was which you chose to live by that truly made the difference.

'Sirius,' he had said it aloud. Both heads whipped to him. 'I – he's at the Ministry. It must be him, really him – now that—'

'Now that Albus is back,' McGonagall said faintly. She looked at Harry steadily. 'You are sure, Potter? That the Map tells the truth?'

'It showed Peter Pettigrew. Even the Cloak couldn't trick it.' Harry couldn't help it – his eyes flickered over to Dumbledore when he mentioned the Hallow. McGonagall took up the Map and stared at their dots.

'I will never know,' she muttered in disbelief.

'I suppose I am at your mercy,' Dumbledore said, looking blissfully unconcerned.

'Don't be foolish,' McGonagall snapped. Dumbledore hummed, and patted Fawkes.

'The Ministry will never take this as evidence,' Harry said slowly, thinking. 'Kingsley might … but that's about it. And I don't want everyone knowing about it, either.'

'Wise,' said Dumbledore.

'So your boys may continue sneaking down to the kitchens?' McGonagall asked tartly, raising an eyebrow.

'Don't want anyone getting ideas … though a bit for that, I suppose,' he said sheepishly.

'Why not have me arrested?' Dumbledore asked, as if wondering about the weather next weekend. He looked amused; 'I give you my word I shall go quietly when the Aurors arrive.'

Harry looked at him incredulously. The very idea of someone arresting Albus Dumbledore was insanity. 'We haven't got a way to prove who anyone is yet,' Harry said, half-expecting Dumbledore to have a solution to that too.

'I assume you are still good friends with Miss Granger? And Mr Weasley?' Harry nodded. 'Well, I shouldn't expect too long a wait. You three have always solved and riddles facing you before. I have utmost faith in you to find the answer to this issue, too.'

They stared at each other for a long few seconds. Harry suspected Professor McGonagall, too, was trying to think of some other miraculous course of action.

'Well, Mr Potter,' McGonagall said, clearly coming up short on ideas. She turned to Harry who hadn't the energy to pull his jaw back together. She looked faint. 'I suggest you escort your new interviewee up to the castle. I shall mend the tomb.'

'An Auror!' Dumbledore exclaimed, clapping his hands together and turning to Harry fully after he waved a disgruntled Fawkes away. 'Wonderful! I do so enjoy when students achieve their goals.'

Harry must have said sorry thousands of times between explaining Sirius' appearance to Dumbledore and the stares of hundreds of children. The eyes didn't stop on the way through the Ministry, either, and neither did Dumbledore's quiet reassurances and chatter.

Winnie and Rupert, too, stared at the old Headmaster as if Merlin had come for a visit. In all fairness it may as well have been for them, as they were a generation of small children when the war arrived, and so had never quite managed to attach the name to a living, breathing man. They found it farcical that Dumbledore had ever deigned to eat with the students in the Great Hall at all, barely comprehending the fact he had once been a teacher.

Quite traumatically, Harry had also walked in on a younger Teddy entertaining Albus by walking about in Harry's dress robes, Dumbledore's face taken from the Chocolate Frog card that lay at their feet. Tripping up over the white beard which was far longer than he was tall did nothing to help the image, nor did a pre-pubescent boy's shout of surprise coming out of the face help either.

(It was nothing on the gnarled version of Lord Voldemort Teddy had created from imagination when he was nine, though.)

It seemed almost immoral, to shove Albus Dumbledore into a cell in the Ministry. Proudfoot and the older Aurors shook their heads, disgusted, and even Dawlish scowled at Dumbledore with a venom Harry was unused to seeing not directed at him. He privately thought it was a bit rich, coming from a man who had happily tried to arrest what he knew as the 'real' Dumbledore from his own office so many years prior.

His Aurors kept asking questions about Hogwarts and the case, and Harry kept grumpily deflecting them. He sat slumped at his desk in a strange limbo – he brewed what had happened since yesterday evening in his head, and reduced it to mulch. He couldn't even talk to Kingsley – he was in endless talks with probably important witches and wizards. Roberta, cube closest to his open door, kept looking at him with her single eye.

When it was drawing close to five in the afternoon, she paused on her way out to question a witness to a dud case she'd been putting off for days. She watched him stare at the report he had been half-heartedly working on as he mulled over what on earth he could do with the situation. 'Why don't you send out those filing memos?' She asked, trying to chivvy him into easy, dull work to pass the time before going home.

Harry, who had been slowly preparing to leave, jolted upright. 'Thank you!' He shouted brightly, seizing a crumpled old memo with numbers scrawled on the corner. As Roberta backed away looking concerned, Harry nearly broke his quill in his hurry.

News on what we talked about? Need to talk soon – development. Going home now. Must tell Ginny.

Harry

He tapped his wand into the middle, and it began folding itself into a messy shape. He had never mastered the intricacies of keeping the lines neat and crisp like Hermione and Percy. On one of the wings, he wrote Hermione's name, and on the other DMLE. He shoved it into the air, and it whistled off through the cubicles only a little lopsided, clipping the crown of Thomas Cresswell's head in the process.

Deciding it was now close enough to home time to rush off, Harry followed the purple paper out. He tried hard not to look down the corridor where Sirius was – where he was mostly sure Sirius was – trying to avoid running down it and throwing the door open. He hoped Dumbledore was all right, too, though he had looked reasonably content humming to himself on the wooden bench they'd left him on.

In the Atrium, Harry was drawn into the flow of black cloaks also heading to the fireplaces. He bowed his head to avoid drawing attention to himself – even now, employees occasionally accosted him with gusto – but he was foiled by a little man sprinting around the edge of the Fountain of Magical Brethren with a large camera.

'Mr Potter!' He shrieked, making the witch jump next to him as he bellowed inches away from her ear, 'what do you have to say about the Minister's interview on the Network—'

'How did you get in here?' Harry scowled, shouldering past and staring at the end fireplace in the hope it would jump closer to him by sensing his sheer desperation.

'Why did you go to Hogwarts? What are they trying to achieve?'

'If I knew that, it'd be over by now,' Harry said, nearing the fireplace, ignoring the queue system.

'How many are you holding so far, Mr Potter—' Harry shuffled closer, feet away from the low flames, the flash of the camera startling him and leaving marks on the inside of his eyelids, 'Potter! Potter – who are they? Should we be concerned—' Harry mumbled an apology when he stepped in front of an old red-faced warlock, but finally stepped into the grate, 'What if they're not all like this Potter – what if Death Eaters—'

As the Ministry whirled away from him, Harry's stomach jolted. It wasn't the Floo. Many Death Eaters died during the war, the battle … just because their names weren't carved into stone in the Ministry didn't mean it didn't happen. And many people who sympathised with them had died, too, even if they weren't valued as a member of Voldemort's closest few …

Harry fell out of his own fireplace, too distracted to land properly. He sat up, groaning, hating the way his body was beginning to betray him.

'Well,' Ginny said patronisingly from the doorway, staring at him on the floor. 'That's what it was. Dead people.'

'It's not – why do you think it's dead people?'

Ginny looked at him pitifully. 'Honestly, Harry. I can read between the lines.' She turned back into the kitchen. Harry stared at her retreating back. Clearly, Kingsley hadn't been as subtle as he'd planned.

As he pulled himself upright (with annoying difficulty), Harry brushed his trouser legs and shouted through to her. 'I don't know what Kingsley said! I was at—'

'Hogwarts, I know! He mentioned you!' She shouted back. Harry walked through and saw her clasping an empty mug. Next to her sat Teddy, hair pink, and across was Ron with a scowl on his face.

'Dead people?' Ron asked, looking disgruntled. Teddy shifted in his seat, looking uncomfortable with the potential for conflict lying in the air. 'You tell us about all the boring robberies, but you don't tell us about dead people walking around?'

'They're not—' Harry began telling them that they weren't actually dead people, that they were some group trying to make an obscure point, but – they were dead people. He looked at Ron and suddenly saw traces of Fred … looked at Teddy, wide-eyed, so much more dreadful, and saw Remus Lupin's eyes.

Harry's mouth opened and closed like a goldfish. Hermione, true to her word, hadn't mentioned anything to even Ron. But it wasn't as if she had had the time yet. That morning was years away. He struggled to think of a worse time and place to talk about this to Teddy.

He sat heavily down on the bench, reaching for the teapot in the middle. It was empty. His hand brushed over letters from Mrs Weasley and Bill and Fleur – he saw more pieces of parchment under them, too.

'Who do they look like?' Teddy asked, downcast. He didn't seem to really want the answer. Ginny and Ron's eyes fell on him immediately, and Harry dully remembered Teddy was meant to be off with friends in Ireland. He must have come back because of the radio, must have realised too, and Ginny and Ron had been here talking it through with him.

'Marlene McKinnon … Fabian Prewett … Sirius.' Ron swore loudly. Harry, exhausted, ignored Ginny's rising voice and Teddy's eyes. He reached into his cloak and threw the blank Marauder's Map down onto the table.

Ginny did not notice. She had stood, and was boiling the kettle. Teddy stared at the parchment without realising what it was, whereas Ron's eyes turned round.

'Why've you got that?' He asked slowly, reaching for it. He didn't bother to activate it, but seemed to use it as a prop to think as he turned it slowly back and forth in his hands.

'Snatched it off James,' Harry said, willing Ron to come to come to the logical answer he was trying to show so that Harry could, selfishly, avoid the mess of having to explain aloud with Teddy sitting and watching.

Ron was deliberating quietly. Harry thought he would have to push him along, and so tapped the table near him. Ron looked up, and Harry tilted his head towards Teddy in the universal parental method of explaining that I'm not saying it all in front of the kid without any words at all. He couldn't bear to send Teddy out of the room; didn't want to treat him like a child in the way he had so hated when he was younger. But he needed someone else to know – someone else to help him.

'Pettigrew,' Harry said beseechingly, eyes flickering downwards to the Map. Teddy perked up in vague recognition but looked puzzled, and Ron looked back and forth comically between Harry and the Map in his hands. Ginny turned abruptly to look at the table.

'What do you …' Ron turned his hands about for a moment. The radio crackled in the background. 'Dead people …' He said again. As it always was with Ron, his face froze in shock as he realised all at once. He spun to look at Harry fully. 'No,' he breathed; Harry nodded and closed his eyes.

Ron swore again and threw the Map back down on the table as if it was responsible for the truth. 'Who…?' Ron asked, and Harry said Albus Dumbledore's name again, lowly, reflecting somewhere in the back of his mind that he had said that name more in the past hours than in the past years.

'Dumbledore and Sirius …' Ron said in disbelief leaning back in his chair heavily. 'What a … this is … I can't believe …'

Teddy's hair was turning darker and darker. 'Is that the Map?' He asked eventually. He looked at Harry again with Remus Lupin's eyes, and Harry could only nod with a lump in his throat.

AN: I would rather not dwell on the quality of this chapter - I hope the next will be better. I do not like my characterisation much at all here, nor the way I went about things. But I also completed it, eventually, and am at a loss for alternatives, so my only wish is that you like the chapter enough to continue.

Slightly deflated, slightly pleased it's moving steadily on.

Please let me know your hopes for who is next and how! Thank you so much for reading - it means the world.