The house was in a clearing, tucked away in the middle of one of the most dangerous forests in Northern Ireland. Jarren Moss had fought and evaded all manner of beasts to get here, he was shivering uncontrollably, he couldn't feel his fingers, but if what he'd been told was true it would all easily be worth it.

He trudged through snow that pulled at his boots with every step, down a fenced pathway to a wooden door, and he knocked three times. A strip of metal on the door slid aside, revealing a pair of eyes that stared at him from the other side. "Who would knock upon the disciple's door?"

Jarren reached into his pocket, found a small, impossibly smooth stone, and a slip of parchment. He pulled out the parchment and squinted down at it. "One who seeks salvation," he said, the heat of his breath sending plumes of fog into the air, "and believes in miracles."

The door opened, just wide enough for Jarren to slip through, before it was closed and locked behind him. The man before him was thin, gaunt even, but his face was friendly. "Welcome, Jarren. My name is Lang. The disciple is excited to meet you."

"And I am excited to meet him." Jarren paused. "Her?"

Lang smiled. "Him. This way."

The room was small, a living room of sorts, with a fireplace burning away and thick rugs covering much of the floor. The armchairs looked comfortable and well-used.

Lang led him from the room, down a corridor where the temperature slowly dropped off, until they reached a metal door with what must have been over a dozen locks lining the frame. Lang tapped his wand against the door, then started drawing a complex pattern on the metal. There were many clicks as he ran his wand against the surface, until finally he stopped, and the door swung slowly open.

The temperature dropped further.

Lang ushered him through, the door closed behind them, and it was suddenly so cold he felt like he was back outside. No, it was colder.

Frost lined the steel walls, the floor was slippery. He looked closer. The floor was ice.

The room was small, devoid of anything but a man sitting in a chair in front of a small pool of water, about the size of a bathtub that had sunken into the ground. Somehow its water wasn't frozen over. There was something in the pool… a body. Jarren's heart quickened, but before he got a better look, the man stood from the chair.

He was tall. His face was young, handsome, his mousy brown hair tousled, but his eyes were aged. Colder than the room. There was a scar above his left eye, leaving a small strip in the eyebrow, and a second scar stretching from the corner of his mouth to his right ear.

"Disciple?" said Jarren slowly. "The, erm… Mr Disciple?"

A smile touched those cold eyes for an instant, making him look ten years younger. "My name is Dennis. Dennis Creevey. And you are Jarren." It was not a question. "It's good to finally meet you."

Jarren nodded. "You too."

Dennis stepped aside and gestured to the pool of water behind him. "Take a look."

Jarren crept forward, stopped before the edge of the water, and let out a heavy, heavy breath that held the weight of five years of hell. "It's him," he said, not believing his eyes nor his words. "It's really him."

The body was naked. The face was instantly recognizable, for there was once a time when it had been on the front page of every magazine in wizarding Britain. His messy black hair spread out around his face, longer than Jarron remembered in the pictures. There was a beard growing too, not long but surprising. There were many differences, but it was certainly him.

"Why does he look so different?" he asked.

"The pool," said Dennis. "It is not just water. It's mixed with crushed bicorn horn, and two other extremely rare, extremely expensive materials - five vials of phoenix tears, and the afterbirth of three unicorns."

"Unicorn dew," said Jarren, nodding. He gazed in wonder. "You're attempting the Lazarus potion."

"I'm not surprised you're aware of the potion. Your knowledge is why I got in touch with you, after all. You're touted as one of the most gifted alchemists in generations, you know."

But Jarren wasn't listening. "The potion has only ever been theoretical. No one has ever been able to create the right conditions, let alone assemble all the necessary materials."

"That is because the final material," said Dennis, watching Jarren carefully, "has only existed once before, in all of history."

"Oh, right," said Jarren, pulling the small, smooth stone from his pocket and holding it out to Dennis. "It's not quite the same as the original, nor, I suspect, as powerful. I am no Nicolas Flamel, unfortunately."

The stone was red, gleaming, looking almost like a liquid. Lang and Dennis gazed at it, mesmerized.

Jarren, in turn, still stared at the pool, enraptured by what he saw. "It was my understanding that he was thin, when he was alive. Thin and seventeen years old."

For it wasn't just the beard that was different. The body was bigger than it should have been, the muscles toned and defined. The face looked older, too.

"He's been aging these last five years," said Lang eagerly. "The potion is essentially a life juice, isn't it? He's been growing and aging in it, almost like it's feeding him. He requires no other nutrition, and he doesn't excrete, but he's…"

Jarren looked at Lang sharply. "But he's alive?"

Lang shook his head. "No, this is a dead body. There is no doubt about that. It has no pulse, and there is absolutely no brain activity. But it's as though there's still a link to life within it. A normal dead body shouldn't be experiencing these changes in the pool - if anything, the decomposition process of a normal body would be accelerated by the potion, and it would be nothing but bones and dust by now. But not him."

"Somehow," said Dennis, "he is still tethered to the world of the living. That is our working theory."

"If you don't mind my asking," said Jarren, "how in the world did you obtain his body? They say it disappeared after the Battle of Hogwarts, and no one has seen it since."

"A number of people have seen it since, actually," said Dennis with a wistful smile. "I was at the Battle of Hogwarts, as a matter of fact. Didn't manage to steal it then, though. It traded hands only on the blackest of markets, and Death Eaters caught up with most of those people before too long. The moment I got my hands on it, I had to disappear." He held his hand out. "May I?"

"Of course," said Jarren, passing him the Philosopher's Stone he had poured so many hours into.

Dennis held the stone before him, looking at it as though he still couldn't believe it was really here. "It's been a long five years." He glanced at Lang. "But we managed to hold onto our hope."

"That we have," murmured Lang. They both looked incredibly tired.

Dennis turned back to Jarren. "My older brother worshipped him, you know. Like he was some sort of messiah." He breathed deeply. "They both died at Hogwarts that night. Who would have thought, five years later, that I would be the one to hope and believe so dearly that he's our savior?"

"Life is full of surprises," said Jarron quietly.

"It is." Dennis turned to the pool finally. "It's time." He exhaled slowly before letting the stone slip from his fingers. It dropped into the pool with a small splash.

For a few seconds, the three of them looked upon the face of Harry Potter, the chosen one, the boy who lived, until one day he died. After all these years, could he really live again?

There was silence for so long that Jarren, for the first time in his life, began to doubt his own abilities. To create his own Philosopher's Stone? How arrogant was he? He should have spent more time on it. No, less. He should have spent less time on all of this, for it was clearly a complete waste of-

The water started bubbling, frothing, spitting. In an instant it became a deep red, as though they had filled the pool with blood, and the bubbles were red, the thin plumes of smoke that rose were red, and for a split-second it was like Jarron had unlocked a memory, tucked away in the farthest reaches of his mind, visceral and raw: his mother's womb. It was an instinctual moment of sensing everything, but before he could make sense of anything, there was nothing.

Then a bright light.