A/N: New chapter for this fic, hope you all enjoy! Do comment/review, it always puts a smile on my face!
0
The end of sixth year, in a secret meeting a mere week before Dumbledore's death.
Midnight.
Blackness outside encroaching on the castle. Sky not shifting with stars, but empty with the anticipation of the coming war. Though windows blocked the Scottish air from penetrating the castle, a chill spread through its halls as though nothing could stave off the impending destruction.
Harry Potter tingled from that chill, despite how numb everything else felt.
Within the headmaster's office, Harry sat hunched on an armchair, robes hanging off his body, masking the jitters of his legs. Masking the nerves, the worry, the dread.
Dumbledore stood opposite to him, hands gripping the penseive as though his life depended on it. Wrinkles protruding as though scars rather than markers of old age.
One other sat to Harry's left. One he hadn't expected.
The tension in the air—the Sword of Gryffindor would struggle to slice through it. Harry shivered, cold attacking him, and his gaze slid towards the wooden floorboards on its own.
Brown, swirling floorboards that almost seemed to house the faces of screaming ghosts.
Harry quickly averted his eyes.
The bright candles hovering above them flickered in a non-existent wind, and lowered as though eavesdropping on their conversation.
After what Harry had seen in the penseive…silence was his only response.
Dumbledore shattered the quiet.
"You understand, my boy, do you not?" the headmaster said.
A rhetorical question.
One not meant to warrant an answer.
So Harry didn't bother.
"You understand the stakes with which fate strings us along in this rather facetious game called life."
Poetic, sure, but Harry's mind couldn't process anything other than what he'd seen earlier. In the penseive. Conversations between Dumbledore and Snape, conversations discussing the prophecy at length and its implications, conversations that all but confirmed that—
"The boy must die," Snape said from beside Harry, and Harry didn't dare look at the potions master's expression, for he might glimpse something other than hatred and contempt.
And that scared Harry more than he wanted to admit.
As though everything in his life, what was left of it anyway, was uprooting itself and flipping on its head.
"And he must do so at the hands of the Dark Lord," Snape finished.
The wind outside lashed at the stained glass windows, rattling them as though trying to break into Hogwarts and strangle Harry to death before Voldemort got a hold of him. Clouds lurked outside, their beady eyes glaring at Harry, whilst the ebbing darkness seemed ready to propel him towards the fate that Snape described.
That he had to die. At the hands of Voldemort. And nothing he did could change that reality.
Fate, after all, could never be cheated. To do so would be to rip the fabric of the universe itself.
"Because I'm a horcrux?" Harry asked, if only to break the silence.
"Precisely," Dumbledore said, still unable to meet Harry's eyes. He said it so nonchalantly, so casually, as though about to award five points to Gryffindor for the correct answer.
"An inadvertent horcrux formed from the Dark Lord's power that night," Snape said, his voice as grave as Harry's destiny. "Such an occurrence, of course, to be predicted is impossible, a fool's errand."
"Is Voldemort aware of this?" Dumbledore asked.
The responding silence was all the confirmation they needed.
Voldemort knew, and he knew damn well. Of course he would. It was a fragment of his soul, after all.
Which meant, at one point or another, Harry could run no longer. He could gallivant around wizarding Britain, searching for each horcrux and destroying it in turn. One after the other, sure.
But in the end, at some point, he would have to sacrifice himself. For the greater good.
At that moment, for some reason, a reason he couldn't yet fathom, Hermione's face popped into his mind. That smile, beautiful and pure—what would his existence be without it? The bushy hair, untamed and free—he'd never be able to run his hands through it again.
It wasn't fair on him. It wasn't fair on Hermione. God, the world just wasn't fair in general.
But death was the destroyer of pleasures, and Harry would have to face it head on.
"Is it me dying," he asked, "or the horcrux inside me?"
Dumbledore, still, was afraid to look at him. "There is no way of knowing. My instincts, however, tell me that it is not one or the other, but both."
"Bloody fool," Snape muttered beneath his breath. "Raising a child to act as a lamb to the slaughter."
Another silence. Laden with the dread of what was to come. An all out war, in which the Boy-Who-Lived, a symbol of resilience for the wizarding world, would have to die at Voldemort's hand.
"I have made many mistakes," Dumbledore said. "I am imperfect, flawed as the rest of humanity is. All I can offer, young Harry, is an apology. Sorry for being inadequate in finding another path to victory…one that did not involve…this."
During his last words, he turned to face Harry. The pain in those watery eyes was so palpable, so raw, that Harry couldn't forget them, even after death.
At that time, Harry remained frozen. Unmoving. Mind the opposite—constantly whirring. Ideas flowing through him as though he'd turned into Hermione during the middle of an exam.
"What if… Voldemort's going to use the killing curse on me, that's a fact, right?"
Harry's question filled the air like air filled a container.
Dumbledore nodded, and Harry turned to Snape to get his confirmation. It was given, by means of a small turn of the head.
Snape always made things overly complicated.
Harry continued. "What if…what if the wand he uses is bonded to me? Then it can't truly kill me, right?"
"Voldemort can use any wand on the planet, Harry," Dumbledore said, running a hand over his wrinkled face. "A wand of his own, or of his death eater associates. To assume or plan for the wand with which he kills you to be your own…"
"A fool's errand," Snape muttered, each syllable smacking Harry's ears. "Planning such a thing is as impossible as cheating death, Potter. Perhaps moreso, in fact."
Another heavy silence. A silence that weighed on Harry. That weighed on them all.
Until one of them broke it with a lifeline—in the literal sense.
"However…there is one way," Dumbledore said, and now he looked at Harry, dead in the eyes, no longer fearing that gaze. "There is one way."
They leaned in, huddled together, as Dumbledore offered his idea.
1
Sorry, Hermione.
I'm so sorry.
I'm so, so sorry.
It took every ounce of strength within Harry not to turn back.
Not to return to Hermione's side.
Not to embrace her and forget about his whole plan of dying.
His steps were light, invisibility cloak across his body lighter, the Sword of Gryffindor attached to his hip as heavy as a ton of lead.
The sword which he'd taken from Hermione's bottomless bag, right as they were exiting the tunnels and joining the fight. A fact Hermione had likely forgotten about in the heat of battle and risk of death.
A sword Harry was saving for a particular moment.
A moment soon arriving.
A moment of fate.
His movements through the battlefield were hurried, unkempt like his hair, Malfoy Manor turning from an elegant mansion to a razed no-man's-land right before his eyes.
The grass, once well-groomed and neat, had been shanked ten ways till Wednesday. Blood splattered across dirt like a deathly painting class, whilst shouts and screams raked the air along with every breath Harry sucked in.
Shouts and screams—the origins of which Harry couldn't identify.
Were they the last cries of death eaters before death overtook them?
Or were they Harry's comrades dying in the throes of battle?
Fierce winds ruptured Harry's eardrums half the time, as though attempting to nullify his senses. He stepped across uneven dirt, heart flying like a thousand stupefies were cast against it every second.
Every long, painful second.
But Harry had conviction to win the war. Conviction deep in his chest, pumped into his veins with every heartbeat.
And there was only one way to win, as he and Dumbledore had discussed over a year prior, in the headmaster's office.
Only one way to destroy all the horcruxes.
The scent of death loomed over the manor grounds as Harry whipped around its left side. Death eaters, freshly joining the battle, ignored the invisible Harry.
It took every ounce of self-control not to turn and snipe them in the back with violent slashing curses.
The slightly metallic stench of dead bodies crept beneath Harry's invisibility cloak and stormed his nostrils like a death eater charge. He breathed it in, as though the rancid sensation would steel his nerves against fate.
Nerves that tingled his aching legs the closer he got to the manor entrance, from which death eaters were spurring forth, wands at the ready, eyes gleaming behind those masks.
But no matter what attacked Harry's senses, only one image flashed in his mind as he neared the manor itself, wherein Voldemort cooped up like a king in his castle.
Only one image—that of Hermione Granger's face. A crestfallen face, as she realised what had happened to Harry, what Harry had done to himself.
But this was war, where death tested the veracity of love. And to win it, Harry had to risk losing it all forever.
He approached the opening that led to the manor's front door, crouching beside bushes that glared at him. Spiky bushes, branches and spindles protruding as though wanting to ensnare him.
One wrong move, one wrong sound, and Harry was dead for. Under an invisibility cloak, his spells were muted—if a death eater clocked him, he was dead.
He and Dumbledore had concocted a plan, along with Snape's help. And Harry would act that plan out, to the death.
A death eater charged through the opening between rows of bushes, and Harry slipped in behind him with deft movements and bated breath.
He was in.
The noise of war dimmed behind him, as though insulating him from the fighting. As though marking a separation between himself and the others.
Between himself and Hermione.
Harry sighed, let out the breath, but another death eater came hurtling out, eyes glaring, wand gripped hard.
"Better take out those muggle fuckers," the death eater shouted, before a manic laugh overtook Harry's senses.
The death eater disappeared, having sprinted towards the battle, yet that laugh rang in Harry's mind, echoed like a mantra signalling that the end was near.
That his end was near.
More death eaters would come. More death itself would fling into their lives. But Harry was committed to ending the war, and for that, he needed to reach the top.
The front double door to the manor, antique in style, was blown wide open as though daring him to enter. Death eaters inside readied their masks and robes before storming out.
Wands raised to raze Harry's friends to the ground.
Harry wanted to kill every, single one of the death eaters.
Wanted to slam cutting curses right between their eyes.
Then watch life spill out, blood gurgling like a broken tap, eyes rolling into the back of their useless brains.
He wanted to jam that knife Hermione had given them right into their chests.
Hear their screams, revel in their last cries before death.
But Harry had heavier goals that weighed his legs down as he approached the front door.
Another death eater stepped out, eyes scanning the grounds to find a muggleborn or blood traitor to kill.
Harry slipped inside the manor behind the death eater, breath held tight in his cinched throat.
The fighting dimmed behind him, shouts and screams and howls crawling to a stop as though time itself had slowed.
Harry was inside the manor, out of the flame and into the fire.
The beginning of the end—
Now was it.
1
The manor's innards were as extravagant as Harry had imagined, given what he'd seen of the Malfoys already. A high ceiling leering down at him as though sensing his blood traitor status. Stairs that crept up to floors where death eaters and Voldemort himself watched the battle from.
Hallways lined down each flank of the main floor, leading to countless rooms that had housed death eaters for long enough.
Murderers lived here, murderers still yearning to kill, and Harry could imagine blood stains instead of the red curtains shrouding before those corridors.
Cobwebs, as though placed specifically to fit the dark aesthetic, linked down the walls like vines ready to snare Harry in their grip.
Harry shivered despite the heat shifting through him akin to a boiling spell. He snuck a hand, beneath the invisibility cloak, to his pocket, where the spare wand from the fallen guard in the tunnel was stashed.
Another wand sat idle too, but Harry thankfully wouldn't need it.
His wand holster ensured more firepower, should he require it.
Harry was alone, the Boy-Who-Lived turned Boy-Who-Loved, but he would never be the Boy-Who-Lost.
Harry was a winner.
And he would win once again.
He approached the stairs, trepidation nearly shattering his bones with every tremble. The marble floor squeaked slightly from his slow steps, but the hurried bangs of more death eaters joining the fray masked the sounds.
Harry stepped onto the staircase, bannister jutting into his left side as if wishing to gut him there and then.
He climbed, shoulder pressed against the railing, to the top, reaching the left turn.
A death eater was staring at him.
For a second, Harry's heart smashed against his ribs, eager to break out from fear.
But the death eater's glare was empty, blank, and he slinked down the stairs without another look back.
Harry sighed, before his breath halted again.
Sucked back in from anticipation.
Voldemort's voice—he could hear it.
Louder than a dragon's roar.
Like some cosmic megaphone was blasting his voice down from what little remained of the heavens above wizarding Britain.
"HARRY POTTER MUST COME TO ME. HARRY POTTER MUST DIE."
Voldemort repeated that, over and over again, all whilst the boy in question slid up the remaining stairs and planted himself against the wall.
Sweat dripped from his forehead and onto his robes, causing the invisibility cloak to slip against his frame.
But Harry caught it. Just in time. And stood by an unlit candle that had long since burnt out, watching the opening in the next room.
Through which Lord Voldemort himself was present.
Sitting on a throne of sorts overlooking a large, open window.
A gust of wind whooshed into the room, deafening yet silent all at once.
And beside Voldemort, slinking across the ground, was Nagini.
Eyeing Harry dead on.
Magical snakes, after all, used smell more than sight.
An invisibility cloak wasn't nearly enough to hide himself from the snake.
But Harry wasn't supposed to hide.
He gripped the Sword of Gryffindor in hand, eyeing Nagini head on, and crept forwards.
Towards that door.
Plan in motion, mind set on what he had to do.
Harry sucked in a charged breath, as though magic itself crackled in the opening of that room.
Time dilated as if a cosmic hourglass was held in the balance.
One step.
Another.
Harry was in the room.
And Nagini was lunging at him.
Harry threw the cloak off himself, whilst seven death eaters and Voldemort turned to face him.
Shock cast on all their expressions.
Except for Snape, of course, who was in the know.
Nagini flew at Harry, and Harry raised the Sword of Gryffindor.
Except there was a trick.
Hermione had miniaturised the sword using a shrinking spell.
Which meant the weight remained whilst the sword became a dagger.
Much easier to hide, much easier to swing.
And Nagini fell—
"Cease, Nagini," Voldemort yelled.
—right into Harry's trap.
The blade sliced Nagini open, green blood spurting everywhere as the snake's scaly body flopped onto the ground.
Dead.
Voldemort's shrieks of pain overpowered the throbbing in Harry's scar.
Harry clutched his head, the searing sensation near-slicing his skull open, but regained his bearings just about.
Stuffed a hand in his pocket, ignoring the wind blasting his hair about. Ignoring the glares of every other death eater in the room.
Ignoring the flash of Hermione's face before his eyes.
That crestfallen expression wrapping over his heart and its every beat.
"Expelliarmus," Harry shouted, flicking the wand out from his pocket.
The spare wand.
Aimed at Voldemort's foot.
Just as Voldemort shot back, "Avada Kedavra."
Harry would have to die to find out whose spell hit first.
0
"A fool's errand," Snape said. "A total and utter lack of any modicum of intelligence—"
"Solutions, Severus, often appear worse than inertia," Dumbledore said. "But inaction is truly the worst of all."
Dumbledore's office. Seconds after the headmaster had relayed his idea to Harry and Snape.
Harry had frozen in his seat, the faint smell of burnt wood drifting over from flames in the fireplace.
Every molecule in his body was stiff, as though Dumbledore's mere words had immobilising magic attached.
The chandeliers above appeared to dip further, as if privy to their secret plan, and their lights dimmed to match the lowering of Harry's voice.
"So I still have to die, then?" he said, gaze burrowing into the floorboards. "The end is the same, isn't it?"
"A moment of intelligence from Potter for once," Snape said, throwing his hands up as he stuffed back in his seat. The glare on the man's face, enunciating every wrinkle in an orchestra of frustration, could not be understated.
"Harry is, perhaps, the most intelligent of us all," said Dumbledore, rubbing his beard. "But yes, to answer your question, you must still die. The prophecy must still be fulfilled. This is but a small chance in the weathered wind."
Dumbledore sighed. "I have asked of you much, Harry. Far too much for a child to bear. For the sake of the wizarding world, I shall have to ask once mor—"
"He is not doing a single thing," Snape roared. The fireplace crackled as though cowering in fear, and birds loudly flapped their wings beyond the window. "Setting children on mythical self sacrificial missions as though a lamb to the slaughter—"
"I'll do it."
Harry's voice was low, but the words raised themselves to Snape and Dumbledore.
"I'll do it," he repeated.
"Of all the insolent, imbecilic things to do—"
"I'm the one dying here," Harry shot at Snape. "I think I'll make decisions for myself."
Snape's glare was palpable, the vein running along the side of his head looking like it wished to smack Harry into another dimension. But the professor remained silent, lips shut, with his beady eyes doing the talking.
Telling Harry that he was making a grave mistake.
A mistake that could land him in a grave.
"Sacrifices must be made," Dumbledore said.
"Easy to say, is it not, when you are not the one sacrificing his life?" Snape returned.
"It doesn't matter either way," Harry said. "It's the only chance we have, so I have to take it. I'll have to do it."
"And what if you fail?" Snape said, voice both sharp and soft at the same time.
Harry breathed in the heady smell of the fireplace, let the air back out in a whoosh. "I guess we'll find out when that happens, eh."
"We shall practice, of course, Harry," Dumbledore said. "Practice the timing of the expelliarmus—that is the key to it all. If you time it correctly and your aim rings true, we shall make it through."
That rhymes, a morbid part of Harry noticed. The part that didn't want to think about dying at all.
The other parts were, naturally, focussed on his inevitable death.
"So I aim the spell at his foot or some other weird place," Harry said, "just before he hits me with the killing curse?"
"I shall repeat my question, Albus—what if he fails? A question you seem to evade at every point."
"And you, Severus, do not understand the point," Dumbledore said. "Harry, should he choose to sacrifice, will die. That is, I regret to say, an inevitability. This is merely a lifeline—that perhaps it is not he who will die, but only the horcrux within him, for one's own wand cannot kill oneself."
"But we use the disarming curse all the time in class," Harry noted. "Doesn't that mean my wand probably belongs to some random Hufflepuff?"
"Magic knows the difference between play fighting and real fighting," Dumbledore said. "Magic understands the intention, understands the stakes—perhaps far better than even we do."
Dumbledore sighed, looked away from Harry, and stared at Fawkes, who sat on his perch and eyed them warily.
The phoenix yawned, flapped its wings twice, before burying its head in its neck and entering slumber.
"You hit that spell first, Harry, and you will have a chance," Dumbledore said.
Harry followed the headmaster's gaze. The smell of burning wood entered his nostrils, as if reminding him that his life would soon turn to flames. Flames that, one day, he would have to put out.
The moon outside jeered at him, its paleness matching the shade of white Harry's skin had taken out of fear. Light smacked against the window, along with a rattling wind, but nothing could penetrate the melancholy that floated across the headmaster's office.
Harry rubbed his hands against each other, fingers seeking comfort from within because the outside had failed for the last seventeen years.
"So we practice, and then do it," Harry muttered, more for himself than the other two with him.
"That is right, Harry," Dumbledore said, though Harry didn't know at the time that, within a week, the headmaster would die. "We shall practice, in utter secret, and pray that the complexities of magic work in our favour."
"A fool's errand," Snape repeated in that snide voice for what felt like the millionth time.
But Harry—Harry only thought of Hermione. And making a world in which she felt safe. In which she could thrive, not live in fear.
And that strengthened Harry's resolve.
His resolve to make the ultimate sacrifice.
To sacrifice himself.
0
Research was the one component that occupied most of Hermione's seventh year spent outside the castle. Research into horcruxes, research into Da Vinci and Newton, research into spells and battle techniques to practice with the Order.
In that tent, with nature and Harry and Ron her only company, the withered fragments of parchment laid out before her presented all she could do.
The rough texture of paper beneath her fingers was comforting. The pages reminded her of the heady scent of Hogwarts library, on the second floor, where she spent many a day completing homework and researching bits and pieces to squeeze into her essays.
Whilst wind whipped the tent walls to and fro, cold bit into her skin beneath her thick jumper, and terror slipped into her heart like a devil's whisper—
Hermione pored her eyes over words of wisdom, over thousands of years of wizarding genius, attempting to visually nickel whatever she could. For her sake. For Britain's sake.
For Harry's sake.
Whilst research sunk into her mind like a permanent fixture, Harry's condition worsened. The locket, when around his neck, caused migraines worse than anything she'd ever seen.
Searing pain would strike Harry almost at random. Screams, usually during the night, jolted Hermione out of sleep. Echoing across her eardrums. Ringing like an alarm in her mind.
She'd flash her eyes open. Then flash out of bed.
Cold floor smacked the soles of her feet. Noises of wind ruptured the clearing outside. Rustling leaves more like howls of the night. The damp scent of childhood nature transformed into sniffs of dread with every breath.
But Hermione, in the dimness of the tent, reached both hands out to fling some sense of direction into herself. And her legs would move, almost automatically, to those pained groans of Harry.
Because she only sought Harry. No matter what tiredness filled her bones. No matter the aches soaking across every muscle in her body. No matter the quaking in her chest at the prospect of Harry in danger.
Hermione would kneel beside Harry's bed, utter panic wracking her heart. Push herself onto the rough mattress, lean over his shaking form.
Hand on his forehead.
Hot. Way too hot for her comfort.
Sweaty too, beads trickling down like a stream of pain. Trickling down from his scar, as though the lightning was leaking.
"You all right?" Hermione would say. "Wake up, Harry, please."
He'd shake a couple times more, shivers violating his skin, breaths escaping in pants as though he was being burnt. Then another scream, louder than the first.
So loud that Ron, standing guard outside, would come in to see the commotion.
But he never interrupted Hermione's caring, thankfully, heading back outside whilst Hermione nursed Harry.
Lifted up his head with tender fingers. Whispered sweet nothings, more for herself than him. Pried that bloody locket away from his neck, all whilst noting the way his skin switched from hot to cold, temperatures as wild as that unkempt hair.
"Is that y-you, Hermione?" Harry would ask, one hand fixed to his scar, the other limp by his side.
Always, Hermione grabbed that fallen hand. Flinched from its dark chill. Tried to infuse a bit of warmth into Harry's skin, all whilst he winced from the hurt puncturing his scar.
"We defeat him, and it'll all be over," Hermione muttered on one occasion. Her knees jabbed the ground, bones jutting into the dirt. But her body didn't waver from its position beside Harry.
She would stay there, fighting by him, right till the end.
He was sweaty, beaten and bruised, bloody. And yet, the heavenly scent of freshness emanating from him couldn't be mistaken. As though only through him would Hermione find her paradise.
And anything without him would be hell on earth.
"Nothing much, just the scar hurting as usual," Harry said, smiling through a flinch of pain. He pried Hermione's fingers open, then interlaced his own fingers with hers.
Connected. From hands to heart.
But why was his scar hurting? Why was the locket affecting him in the scar, and not anywhere else?
Alongside her research into Da Vinci and spells and everything magical, Hermione located old scrolls regarding horcruxes. The kind of stuff even Professor Dumbledore would forget lurked in the old halls of the library's forbidden section.
And one particular finding intrigued Hermione. Scared her too. Downright frightened her.
Most horcruxes created were of things inanimate, or magical objects without souls. Trinkets. Family heirlooms. Historic artefacts. Sometimes useless objects one would not think anything of otherwise.
But others, evil wizards and witches seeking immortality for themselves and their progeny, would make their children horcruxes too.
For as long as the horcrux survived, it was as immortal as its host. Whether inanimate, or a real person.
And, usually, those horcruxes, due to a person's soul being violated in such a way, would mark themselves with a distinctive scar.
A scar like Harry Potter's.
Which meant…Harry would have to die. Be killed. Just like the other horcruxes. And given the prophecy's implications, Voldemort would need to deal the final blow.
To win the war, Harry Potter would have to die. For human horcruxes alone couldn't be terminated without the person's death too. Any other possibility was out of the question. And Hermione, deep down, knew that no amount of research could reverse fate. Not even time travel.
And the guilt in Harry's eyes confirmed one thing. He knew that fact too—the inevitability of his own death.
Hermione would struggle alongside Harry, fight as much as the will within her would allow. And pray to whatever God was out there that someone as pure as Harry Potter—
Someone like that would find a way out of the clutches of pure evil.
As always, whilst leaning beside Harry's bed, Hermione squeezed his fingers. Ran her hands through his hair. Until, slowly, the pain in his scar subsided, and sleep filled his breath once more.
One day, Hermione feared, such sleep would be permanent.
And, with the way they brought the fight to Voldemort, that day would come sooner rather than later.
Unless…unless a miracle occurred.
1
White.
Pure white filled Harry's vision. The purest white he'd ever seen, stretching from one horizon to the next, in all directions, utterly mesmerising and yet dread-inducing at the same time.
As smells of a stale nothingness fused with his breathing—if he was even breathing—Harry asked himself one question. The one question reverberating across his mind as soon as the pure white burst into light.
Had he died?
Had he passed onto the next life?
And if he had, was this infinite white void what the next life had to offer?
The strangest sensations tickled his skin—the sensations of neither heat nor cold, neither comfort nor discomfort, neither roughness nor softness.
Just an utter neutrality, constantly waving over his body as he stepped once forward. And found the movement easy. One step, then another.
Body unfazed from the constant fighting he'd escaped. From the shouts and screams of warfare. From the adrenaline fuelling every muscle.
And in the distance, as he walked, he spotted a familiar beard. Long, too long, floating like a hovering candle in Hogwarts. A beard belonging to the bloody old coot who sat in the headmaster's office at the castle.
Harry—if his suspicions were true—hadn't the time to waste.
Sprinting over to where he'd seen the beard, more features popped into existence before him. As though the pure white void held magic within its pores to transfigure people from nothing. A mouth above that long, winding beard. Eyes framed with glasses, a sharp nose, a kind yet wise look directed right at Harry.
Wrinkles not for days but decades, flowing into each other as though etched in as streams of wisdom.
A gentle smile, a knowing smile. Robes of a deep purple, eccentric as the old wizard himself, swishing as the man took slow steps towards a hurried Harry.
Because Harry had one question to ask.
"I'm not dead, am I, Professor?"
Dumbledore's smile didn't let up. "One cannot say whether you are within death or without. I daresay the choice is yours to make."
Hermione's face flashed before his eyes. And that infinite white, for the first time, appeared to change colour. Appeared to mould itself to the face of Harry's beloved.
An utterly beautiful face. One that filled him with hope, with drive, with love.
God, stay in this white space, or save the world and reach his love again?
That choice was easy.
"How do I get back?" Harry asked.
Dumbledore pointed a bony finger behind Harry. "A gallop back the way you arrived should do it—"
Harry was already sprinting. Back the way he came.
For there was a world to save. And a life to live. A life of love, of cherishing, of peace.
And only one battle with Voldemort remained to achieve it.
So Harry sprinted.
Sprinted into the light.
A/N: Well, I hope everyone else enjoyed that chapter! The next one was planned to be the last, hopefully, although there may be scope for a final epilogue chapter. Probably will be, since this thing has ballooned a lot more than I anticipated.
Also, I promise the binary references and 0s and 1s will come into play. In case anyone is still confused by that.
In any case, comment/review if you can, and again I hope you enjoyed! Have a nice day wherever you are!