King's Cross

Arthur lay face down, listening to the silence.

He realised he was perfectly alone and no one was watching, because no one else was there.

But he wasn't sure he was there himself.

A long time afterward, or perhaps no time at all, it came to him that he must still exist, more than a disembodied thought, as he felt himself lying on a surface of some kind. This meant he still had a sense of touch, meaning what he lay against existed as well.

As he reached this conclusion, he was aware that he was completely naked. It didn't concern him, since he was sure he was all alone.

He started wondering, since he could feel that he may also be able to see. So, in opening them, he realised he still had his eyes.

He found that he lay in a bright mist, though it wasn't like mist as he had ever experienced. His surroundings weren't hidden by cloudy vapour, which seemed as though it hadn't yet formed into surroundings. The floor he lay on seemed to be white, neither warm nor cold, but was simply there, a flat, blank something on which to be.

He sat up, his body completely unscathed.

Arthur then heard a noise that reached him through the unformed nothingness that surrounded him.

It was small, soft thumpings of something that flapped, flailed and struggled. It was pitiful and slightly indecent.

It made Arthur feel like he was eavesdropping on something furtive and shameful.

He now wished he was clothed.

The moment he wished this, robes appeared a short distance away. Instantly, he put them on. They were soft, clean and warm. It was amazing how they just appeared out of nowhere the moment he wanted them.

Arthur then stood and looked around and the longer he looked, the more he saw.

He saw a great, domed glass roof that glittered high above him in sunlight. Naturally, he assumed he was in some palace.

It was hushed and still, excluding those odd thumpings and whimperings from somewhere nearby in the mist.

Arthur turned slowly on the spot and his surroundings seemed to be inventing themselves before his very eyes.

It was a wide open space, bright and clean, a hall significantly larger than the Great Hall, especially with the clear, domed glass ceiling. It was quite empty. He was the only one there, except for -

He jumped back, having finally spotted the thing that made the noises.

It had the form of a small, naked child, curled on the ground, its skin being raw and flayed, shuddering under a seat where it was left, totally unwanted, stuffed out of sight, struggling for breath.

Arthur didn't want to approach it, yet he found himself drawing nearer, ready to jump back at any moment. He soon stood near enough to touch it, but didn't even come close to desire that. The thing just repulsed him.

"You cannot help."

Arthur spun and saw Albus Dumbledore walking towards him, sprightly and upright, wearing sweeping midnight blue robes.

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

Stunned, Arthur followed him as Dumbledore strode away from where that flayed thing whimpered, leading him to two seats that Arthur didn't notice before, set some distance away from under the high, sparkling ceiling.

Dumbledore sat down in one of them and Arthur sat in the other, staring at his old Headmaster's face. His long silver hair and beard, his piercing blue eyes behind half-moon spectacles, the crooked nose, all as he remembered, yet….

"You're dead." He said.

"Oh, yes." Dumbeldore said matter of factly.

"Then… so am I." Arthur said sadly.

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

The two looked at each other, the old man still beaming.

"I'm not?" Arthur asked.

"You're not."

"But…." Arthur said, raising his hand to the lightning scar, which didn't seem to be there anymore. "But… I should be dead, I didn't defend myself! I meant for him to kill me!"

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

Happiness radiated from Dumbledore like light, like fire. Arthur had never seen him this content.

"How, exactly?" He asked.

"You already know." Dumbledore said, twiddling his thumbs together.

"I let him kill me, right?"

"You did." Dumbledore nodded. "Go on!"

"Then the part of his soul that was in me is now gone?" Arthur said.

"Oh, yes!" Dumbeldore said, smiling still. "Yes, he destroyed it. Your soul is whole, and completely your own, Arthur.

"Then…."

Arthur glanced over his shoulder, to the creator that still trembled under the chair.

"What is that thing, Professor?"

"Something that is beyond either of our help." Dumbledore told him.

"So if Voldemort used the Killing Curse and no one died for me this time… then how am I still alive?"

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

Arthur knew right away what he meant as he looked around, starting to consider where they're at isn't really a palace, as there are chairs set in little rows and there were bits of railing here and there.

"He took my blood."

"Precisely!" Dumbledore said. "He took your blood and rebuilt his living body with it! Your blood in his veins, Arthur, Rose's protection inside both of you! He tethered you to life while he lives!"

"But how can that work if we're supposed to both die?"

He was distracted momentarily by the whimpering and thumping of the agonised creature behind them.

"There really is nothing we can do for it?"

"There is no help possible."

"Please explain to me about this. About me being a Horcrux." Arthur requested, making Dumbledore smile.

"You were the seventh Horcrux, Arthur, 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, Arthur! 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."

Dumbledore smiled at Arthur, whose face showed realisation.

"And you knew when I told you he took my blood, didn't you?" He asked, realising what that gleam of triumph meant, that he can still live after all.

"I did." Dumbledore said happily before they sat in silence for what felt like a long time as the creature behind them continued whimpering and trembling.

"Thing is…" Arthur spoke, wanting to see if Dumbledore could answer something. "...why did my wand break the one Voldemort borrowed?"

"As to that, I cannot be sure."

"Well, why don't you make a guess." Arthur said, making Dumbledore laugh.

"What you must understand, Arthur, 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, Arthur. 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' 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?"

"Then how come Chrys was able to break my wand?" Arthur asked.

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

Arthur then sat there in thought for a long time, though it could've been seconds.

"He tried to kill me with your wand."

"And failed." Dumbledore smiled gently. "I think we can agree that you are not dead - though, of course…" He added, like he feared he was being discourteous. "...I do not minimise your sufferings, which I am sure were severe."

"Yet I feel fine at the moment." Arthur said, looking down at his clean, unblemished hands. "Just where are we, exactly?"

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

For some reason, Arthur knew, based on what he saw already.

"Well, it looks like King's Cross station, just cleaner and empty. And no trains."

"King's Cross station." Dumbledore chuckled immoderately. "Good gracious, really?"

"Well, where do you think we are?" Arthur asked defensively.

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

Arthur didn't exactly know what he meant, but he decided to press on with other matters.

"Professor, about the Deathly Hallows…."

His words wiped the smile off Dumbledore's face.

"Ah, yes." He said, looking a little worried.

Arthur looked at him and, for the first time ever since meeting him, Dumbleodre looked less like an old man and more 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? Arthur, I only feared that you would fail as I had failed. I only dreaded that you would make my mistakes. I crave your pardon, Arthur. I have known, for some time now, that you are the better man?"

"Oh, Dumbledore." Arthur said, sad to hear the tone of his voice and to see him shed tears. "Of course I forgive you. We understood why you didn't tell me about the Hallows upon learning of them and reading your diary. Thing is, though, I never cared for power."

"The Hallows." Dumbledore murmured as he shook his head. "A desperate man's dream! A lure for fools. I was such a fool. But you know, don't you? I have no secrets from you anymore. You know."

"Know what, exactly?"

Dumbledore now turned his whole body to face Arthur, tears still sparkling in his brilliantly blue eyes.

"Master of death, Arthur, master of Death! Was I better, ultimately, than Voldemort?"

"How can you ask that? Of course you are. You never killed if you could avoid it!"

"True, true." Dumbledore said, like a child seeking reassurance. "Yet I, too, sought a way to conquer death, Arthur."

"Not like he did." Arthur pointed out. "You were after the Hallows while Voldemort was trying to make Horcruxes."

"Hallows…" Dumbledore murmured. "...not Horcruxes. Precisely."

There was a pause, the creature still whimpering, but Arthur didn't look behind them.

"You and Grindelwald were obsessed with the Hallows." Arthur said, moving onto the next thing to talk about.

Dumbledore closed his eyes for a moment before nodding.

"It was the thing, above all, that drew us together." He said quietly. "Two clever, arrogant boys with a shared obsession. He wanted to come to Godric's Hollow, as I am sure you have guessed, because of the grave of Ignotus Peverell. He wanted to explore the place the third brother had died."

"Because the Peverells created the Hallows and were the brothers of the tale." Arthur said.

"Oh yes, I think so." Dumbledore nodded. "Whether they met Death on a lonely road… I think it more likely that the Peverell brothers were simply gifted, dangerous wizards who succeeded in creating those powerful objects. The story of them being Death's own Hallows seems to me the sort of legend that might have sprung up around such creations. The Cloak, as you know now, travelled down through the ages, father to son, mother to daughter, right down to Ignotus' last living descendant, who was born, as Ignotus was, in the village of Godric's Hollow."

He then smiled at Arthur.

"Me." Arthur said with a smile as well.

"You. You have guessed, I know, why the Cloak was in my possession on the night your parents died. John had showed it to me just a few days previously. It explained much of his undetected wrongdoing at school! I could hardly believe what I was seeing. I asked to borrow it, to examine it. I had long since given up my dream of uniting the Hallows, but I could not resist, could not help taking a closer look…. It was a Cloak the likes of which I had never seen, immensely old, perfect in every respect… and then your father died, and I had two Hallows at last, all to myself!"

His tone was now unbearably bitter.

"But the Cloak wouldn't have helped them survive." Arthur said. "Voldemort knew where my parents were and the Cloak wouldn't have made them curse-proof."

"True." Dumbledore sighed. "True."

Arthur waited, though Dumbledore didn't speak, so he had to prompt him.

"You gave up looking for the Hallows already when you saw the Cloak."

"Oh yes." Dumbledore said faintly, forcing himself to meet Arthur's eyes. "You know what happened. You know. You cannot despise me more than I despise myself."

"But I don't."

"Then you should." Dumbledore said, drawing a deep breath. "You know the secret of my sister's ill health, what those Muggles did, that she became an Obscural. You know how my poor father sought revenge, and paid the price, died in Azkaban. You know how my mother gave up her own life to care for Ariana. I resented it, Arthur."

Dumbledore stated baldly, coldly, looking over the top of Arthur's head into the distance.

"I was gifted, I was brilliant. I wanted to escape. I wanted to shine. I wanted glory. Do not misunderstand me." He said with pain crossing his face, making him look ancient again. "I loved them. I loved my parents, I loved my brother and my sister, but I was selfish, Arthur, more selfish than you, who are a remarkably selfless person, could possibly imagine. So that, when my mother died, and I was left the responsibility of a damaged sister and a wayward brother, I returned to my village in anger and bitterness. Trapped and wasted, I thought! And then, of course, he came…."

He looked directly into Arthur's eyes again.

"Grindelwald. You cannot imagine how his ideas caught me, Arthur, inflamed me. Muggles forced into subservience. We wizards triumphant. Grindelwald and I, the glorious young leaders of the revolution. Oh, I had a few scruples. I assuaged my conscience with empty words. It would all be for the greater good, and any harm done would be repaid a hundredfold in benefits for wizards. Did I know, in my heart of hearts, what Gellert Grindelwald was? I think I did, but I closed my eyes. If the plans we were making came to fruition, all my dreams would come true. And at the heart of our schemes, the Deathly Hallows! How they fascinated him, how they fascinated both of us! The unbeatable wand, the weapon that would lead us to power! The Resurrection Stone - to him, though I pretended not to know it, it meant an army of Inferi! To me, I confess and you no doubt know, it meant the return of my parents, and the lifting of all responsibility from my shoulders. And the Cloak… somehow, we never discussed the Cloak much, Arthur. Both of us could conceal ourselves without the Cloak, the true magic of which, of course, is that it can be used to protect and shield others as well as its owner. I thought that if we ever found it, it might be useful in hiding Ariana, but our interest in the Cloak was mainly that it completed the trio, for the legend said that the man who united all three objects would then be truly master of death, which we took to mean, invincible. Invincible masters of death, Grindelwald and Dumbledore! Two months of insanity, of cruel dreams, and neglect of the only two members of my family left to me. And then… you know what happened. Reality returned, in the form of my rough, unlettered, and infinitely more admirable brother. I did not want to hear the truths he shouted at me. I did not want to hear that I could not set forth to seek Hallows with a fragile and unstable sister in tow. The argument became a fight Grindelwald lost control. That which I had always sensed in him, though I pretended not to, now sprang into terrible being. And Ariana… after all my mother's care and caution… lay dead upon the floor."

Dumbledore gasped before he started crying in earnest.

Arthur reached out, glad to see he could touch him, and gripped his arm tightly until Dumbledore gradually regained control.

"Well, Grindelwald fled, as anyone but I could have predicted. He vanished, and his dreams of the Deathly Hallows, dreams in which I had encouraged him and helped him. He ran, while I was left to bury my sister and learn to live with my guilt, and my terrible grief, the price of my shame. Years passed. There were rumours about him. They said he had procured a wand of immense power. I, meanwhile, was offered the post of Minister for Magic, not once, but several times. Naturally, I refused. I had learned that I was not to be trusted with power."

"Yet people would say you'd be much better than the likes of Fudge and Scrimgeour." Arthur said.

"Would I?" Dumbledore asked heavily. "I am not so sure. I had proven, as a very young man, that power was my weakness and my temptation. It is a curious thing, Arthur, but perhaps those who are best suited to power are those who have never sought it. Those who, like you, have leadership thrust upon them, and take up the mantle because they must, and find to their own surprise that they wear it well. I was safer at Hogwarts. I think I was a good teacher -"

"I'd argue you were the best."

"You are very kind, Arthur. But while I busied myself with the training of young wizards, Grindelwald was raising an army. They say he feared me, and perhaps he did, but less, I think, than I feared him."

"Oh, not death." Dumbledore continued, answering Arthur's look of confusion. "Not what he could do to me magically. I knew that we were evenly matched, perhaps that I was a shade more skillful. It was the truth I feared. You see, I never knew which of us, in that last, horrific fight, had actually cast the curse that killed my sister. You may call me cowardly: you would be right, Arthur, I dreaded beyond all things the knowledge that it had been I who brought about her death, not merely through my arrogance and stupidity, but that I actually struck the blow that snuffed out her life. I think he knew it, I think he knew what frightened me. I delayed meeting him until, finally, it would have been too shameful to resist any longer. People were dying and he seemed unstoppable, and I had to do what I could. Well, you know what happened next. I won the duel. I won the wand."

Another silence fell upon them.

Arthur couldn't ask if Dumbledore did finally know who struck his sister dead. Partly because he didn't want to know. He now knew what he saw when looking into the Mirror of Erised and why he understood Arthur's fascination with it: he saw his family, whole and happy.

They kept sitting in silence for a long while, the creature's whimpering now barely disturbing Arthur.

Eventually, he said "Grindelwald tried to stop Voldemort from going after the Elder Wand, you know. He lied, saying he never had it."

Dumbledore nodded, looking down at his lap, tears glittering on his crooked nose.

"They say he showed remorse in later years, alone in his cell at Nurmengard. I hope that it is true. I would like to think he did feel horror and shame of what he had done. Perhaps that lie to Voldemort was his attempt to make amends… to prevent Voldemort from taking the Hallow…."

"And to keep him from defiling and breaking into the tomb of the man he loved." Arthur said, revealing that he knew of the true nature of their relationship.

This made Dumbledore gasp and sob for a moment before he dabbed his eyes.

There was another short pause before Arthur spoke.

"You were cursed because you tried to use the Resurrection Stone."

Dumbledore nodded.

"When I discovered it, after all those years, buried in the abandoned home of the Gaunts, the Hallow I had craved most of all - though in my youth I had wanted it for very reasons - I lost my head, Arthur. I quite forgot that it was now a Horcrux, that the ring was sure to carry a curse. I picked it up, and I put it on, and for a second I imagined that I was about to see Ariana, and my mother, and my father, and to tell them how very, very sorry I was… I was such a fool, Arthur. After all those years. I had learned nothing. I was unworthy to unite the Deathly Hallows, I had proved it time and again, and here was final proof."

"How? You only wanted to see them again, to say sorry for what you've done. I don't see anything wrong with that." Arthur frowned with sorrow for the man that endured too much for anyone to go through.

"Maybe a man in a million could unite the Hallows, Arthur. I was fit only to possess the meanest of them, the least extraordinary. I was fit to own the Elder Wand, and not to boast of it, and not to kill with it. I was permitted to tame and to use it, because I took it, not for gain, but to save others from it. But the Cloak, I took out of vain curiosity, and so it could never have worked for me as it works for you, its true owner. The stone I would have used in an attempt to drag back those who are at peace, rather than enable my self sacrifice, as you did. You are the worthy possessor of the Hallows."

Dumbledore patted Arthur's hand as Arthur smiled up at the old man.

"Why did you have to make it difficult for me?" He asked, making Dumbeldore's smile tremulous.

"I am afraid I counted on both Mr McGonagall and Miss Ranger to slow you up, Arthur. I was afraid that your hot head might dominate your good heart. I was scared that, if presented outright with the facts about those tempting objects, you might seize the Hallows as I did, at the wrong time, for the wrong reasons. If you laid hands on them, 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."

"Did Voldemort never bother learning about the Hallows?"

"I believe that was the case, because he did not recognise the Resurrection Stone he turned into a Horcrux. But even if he had known about them, Arthur, I doubt that he would have been interested in any except the first. He would not think that he needed the Cloak, and, as for the stone, whom would he want to bring back from the dead? He fears the dead. He does not love."

"And you naturally expected him to be after the Elder Wand."

"I have been sure that he would try, ever since your wand beat Voldemort's in the graveyard of Little Hangleton. At first, he was afraid that you had conquered him by superior skill. Once he had kidnapped Ollivander, however, he discovered the existence of the twin cores. He thought that explained everything. Yet the borrowed wand did no better against yours! So Voldemort, instead of asking himself what quality it was in you that had made your wand so strong, what gift you possessed that he did not, naturally set out to find the one wand that, they said, would beat any other. For him, the Elder Wand has become an obsession to rival his obsession with you. He believes that the Elder Wand removes his last weakness and makes him truly invincible. Poor Severus…."

"So if you planned your death with Snape, would that mean the wand was supposed to lose the capacity of being mastered?" Arthur asked.

"I admit that was my intention." Dumbledore said. "But it did not work as I intended it, did it?"

"It didn't." Arthur said with a knowing smirk.

The creature behind them was jerking and moaning as the two sat without talking for the longest time.

The realisation of what would happen next came gradually, akin to softly falling snow.

"I need to go back, don't I?"

"That is up to you."

"I have a choice?"

"Oh yes." Dumbledore smiled. "We are in King's Cross, you say? I think that if you decided not to go back, you would be able to… let's say… board a train."

"Where would it take me?"

"On."

Silence again.

"Voldemort has the Elder Wand, you know."

"True. Voldemort has the Elder Wand."

"Do you want me to go back?"

"I think that if you choose to return, there is a chance that he may be finished for good. I cannot promise it. But I know this, Arthur, that you have less to fear from returning here than he does."

Arthur glanced back at the raw looking thing that trembled and choked in the shadow beneath the distant chair.

"Do not pity the dead, Arthur. Pity the living, and, above all, those who live without love. By returning, you may ensure that fewer souls are maimed, fewer families are torn apart. If that seems to you a worthy goal, then we say goodbye for the present.

Arthur nodded and sighed, knowing what he was going to do. Leaving this place isn't going to be as hard as walking into the Forest, as it was warm, light and peaceful here, knowing he'd head back to pain and fear of more loss.

He stood as Dumbledore did, looking for a long moment into each other's faces.

"One last thing." Arthur said. "Is this all real? Or is it just happening inside my head?"

Dumbledore beamed at him, his voice sounding loud and strong in Arthur's ears even though the bright mist descended again, obscuring his figure.

"Of course it is happening inside your head, Arthur, but why on earth should that mean that it is not real?"

Arthur smiled back at these words.

This is it, one more chapter and Arthur will end it all.