Chapter Twenty-Four: Goodbye
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Another tomb. White marble this time. On the shores of another castle.
Another funeral.
Harry turned his eyes to the sky, watching the angry clouds gather above the Forbidden Forest, and wondered when the world would stop burning around him.
Fawkes was there. He soared, his red shape a blot against the colorless sky. And in the space he left behind, his song echoed. It was the same song he'd sung that day on the edge of the mountain. A keening swell of wind, like the Earth was the one that hurt. It was a feeling more than a sound, and it vibrated through Harry's chest and settled somewhere in his bones.
Down at the front of the lawn, Dumbledore's body, wrapped in a cloak of glittering stars, was lowered into a white marble tomb that grew around him, pieces of stone flowing from the air to merge into one unbroken whole. Harry turned his head away, his eyes scrunched shut. And in the darkness, the tomb he saw was broken open. Split to pieces; the stone an angry, icy black.
His chest was so tight he could barely breathe. He glanced around, the hazy view of the packed lawn shimmering into focus as he blinked away the stubborn tears. He stood at the edge of the procession. The others had gone on ahead, but he couldn't seem to move past the point where he stood, on the edge of everything. No matter how he'd tried, he couldn't draw any closer to the burnt and broken body of Albus Dumbledore. To look upon the sobbing mess that was Hagrid near the front. No, he couldn't sit beside the people he loved and watch them put another body into the ground.
Not when he was responsible.
The idea had cemented within him over the days since they'd found Voldemort's empty tomb in the broken earth — a tomb not at all unlike this one. The realization had grown heavy, settling in his stomach like lead. Solidifying the air he breathed, until no matter how hard he strained or how his lungs tightened, it never seemed to be enough. He was drowning somewhere in the space between where the air ran dry and that painful knowing had taken its place.
He had botched the job.
And not only that, but he had botched every job since. And now that he had, now that he knew, he still couldn't make any sense of it. Couldn't begin to guess where Voldemort's body had gone. When it happened. What it meant. Had the cup done it? Was he alive? There were so many questions swirling in his mind. But he didn't ask whether it was his fault.
It was his fault.
He was useless. If he had done so much as the bare minimum of his job — caught Rookwood in Hogsmeade instead of letting the Death Eater have the best of him — then they may at least have had answers. But he'd let Rookwood escape. And Voldemort was gone. And the cup was gone. And they had nothing.
Fawkes's song grew louder and, looking up, Harry saw the phoenix soaring past him. Circling above the front row, where Kingsley and McGonagall sat. Where Hagrid still wept openly, his heart-wrenching sobs mixing with the mournful melody and the closing of a speech that was lost in the wind before it ever reached his ears. It didn't matter. Dumbledore was gone. And he had lied. And now the world was burning. No words would fix that.
He glanced at the witches and wizards around him. They were looking away, their attention occupied by the white tomb. By the short man speaking from the platform beside it. No one had a glance to spare for The Boy Who Lived. The Boy Who'd Killed.
The Man Who Failed.
He turned, stepping lightly away from the lawn. His "goodbye" was little more than a whisper. No one saw. It was just as well.
Hogwarts was empty. Harry's footsteps echoed through lifeless corridors. They seemed dreary without the pattering of a hundred footsteps, squeals, and shouts that usually bounced off these walls. Without them, the very stones were hollow. Or perhaps it was simply Dumbledore's absence that painted them in this bare and empty grey.
He climbed higher, shifting from staircase to moving staircase. The stones slid beneath his feet. The Room of Requirement, they had said, was on the seventh floor. They'd meant to go together once the service was over, but he couldn't wait any longer. The room would appear when he had need of it. That was what Ella had said. And now his need was far stronger than his resolve. They had waited too long already. Surely, the wall would open up and let him in.
But when his feet drew to a halt, he found himself four floors short of where he'd intended to be. Beside a familiar stone gargoyle. He swallowed, his lips and throat suddenly terribly dry, and approached the stone statue. The gargoyle didn't ask for a password. Harry laid a hand against its stone shape and it sprang aside in silence, revealing the achingly familiar spiral staircase. It was moving. As if he were fifteen again, and the last decade was lost to time. If he just stepped onto the stones, perhaps Dumbledore would be there, waiting.
Dumbledore wouldn't be there. Dumbledore was dead.
He stepped onto the stairs.
The office looked much as he remembered it, if a little more cluttered. There were boxes piled on the desk. Shallow wooden containers stood beside them, half filled with parchment rolls and scraps of loose papers. As if someone had taken up the job of sorting them before stepping away. The work half-done. McGonagall, perhaps. As Deputy Headmistress, she would inherit this office once the permanence of her position was approved by the governors. She wasn't typically one to leave things unfinished, but if they weighed so much as this… He supposed there were things even Minerva McGonagall couldn't stand through like a weathered stone, even if it seemed like she'd survived every storm that came her way without so much as bending.
He stepped to the desk, his eyes roaming vaguely across its messy surface as the air trembled with the snoring of a hundred headmasters and headmistresses. Did those parchments hold answers? What had Dumbledore known? But what did it matter now? Ella had already told him everything. Unlike Dumbledore, she hadn't chosen to keep him in the dark.
Though she had. Without choosing to. Unintentionally.
He forced his eyes shut, twisting his head sharply away. As if the motion would banish the thought. He was the one who had chosen not to read, after all. It was on him as well. She couldn't have known.
He still felt shame for his anger.
He glanced up, searching for some small bit of reprieve, and his eyes met familiar blue ones. Albus Dumbledore was watching him from the confines of a gold-framed painting above the desk.
"Professor," Harry said quietly. His voice sounded rough, as if the horcrux were in his throat, instead of wherever it lived in his head or heart, and his words were pushing past it. He cleared his throat, and the horcrux sank back into the invisible space that tumors occupied.
"Harry." Dumbledore observed him over interlocked fingers. His eyes didn't glint behind the half moon spectacles in the way Harry remembered. Perhaps it was the paint.
Harry watched him, and in his chest his heart beat harder. Pulsing in rhythm with his bitter anguish. Dumbledore said nothing, content to let Harry lead the conversation for once. Of course, it wasn't really Dumbledore. But he supposed it was the next best thing.
"You know why I'm here," Harry said finally, though not ten minutes ago he'd had no intentions of stepping foot into this office again. Dumbledore considered him for a long moment.
"It always comes down to Voldemort, does it not? That is simply the way of it between us."
"You lied to me." The words were listless. They held no anger. No bitterness. Just the dull sting of truth.
"Ah," Dumbledore said, and bowed his head. "Inadvertently. It was never my intent."
"You said that he was dead," Harry said accusingly.
"He was dead," Dumbledore agreed.
"And now?"
"I cannot say." Dumbledore looked sad. His painted eyes seemed to shimmer. Just a blending of the paints in the light that fell through the arched windows. "But there is no proof that he is not. Unless"— he eyed Harry with mild curiosity —"you have such proof at your disposal?"
"His body is gone," Harry said softly.
"So it is."
"The cup as well."
Dumbledore glanced down and said nothing.
"Did you know?"
"I cannot say," Dumbledore repeated, meeting his eyes once again. "I am merely a reflection, Harry. Paint. And memory. Rather insubstantial, I am afraid."
Harry nodded. "But you knew about them. The horcruxes." The word still felt strange on his lips.
"I did."
"And me?" His voice cracked very slightly, and for a moment he was nearly glad that Dumbledore wasn't real. Until the pain of it washed over him once again.
"Ah." Dumbledore looked sad again. "I did not know. But your connection with him. I suspected."
"And you didn't tell me." This accusation, too, was dull; its sharp edges worn away by days of grief. He had no strength left for anger. Everything he had was spoken for already. Tasked with the job of keeping them all alive. Even if he wasn't in the end.
"How could I have?" And for a moment Dumbledore looked almost pleading. "How could I tell you that you were meant to die when I had grown to love you? I needed time. To find another way. To make sense of the prophecies swirling around you. And then, Harry, you gave me the answer. You Traveled. And you brought back the greatest gift. A solution I had only ever dreamed of."
"The Union," Harry whispered, bitterness creeping back into his voice. "But it wasn't the gift you thought, was it?"
"Was it not?" Dumbledore studied him, his gaze piercingly alive. "It was always one or the other, you see. The destruction of the horcruxes, or the Union. And the Union was strong enough to overpower the horcruxes. But not, it seems, to destroy them."
"And you didn't double check?" His voice was bitter again. Strong enough to leave an aftertaste. "You didn't search them out? You've had years and years and years to find them. To destroy them."
Dumbledore was quiet for a long moment, studying his painted fingers, and when he spoke at last, he sounded like the barest shadow of himself. "An old man's folly. The world spoke of peace. And I wished it to be true. So I listened."
Harry looked away. He wanted to rage. He wanted to curse that Dumbledore, with all his wells of knowledge and all his cleverness and brilliance should have known better. Should have done something. Should have stopped this, squished even the possibility of it before it could take root. That he should never have allowed himself to die and left this mess behind. But he wasn't a broken boy anymore. He was a broken man… who'd lived. And healed. And loved. And he, too, understood the lure of peace.
"Snape said they were asleep," he said finally, choosing to focus on the problem at hand. After all, there was no changing the past. "Useless. That's why you left them, isn't it? So how could they awaken?"
"I had a theory, I imagine. Nothing more."
"And you still won't share it?" He felt the bitterness rise up again, stronger than before. "Even now?"
Dumbledore looked profoundly sad. "You misunderstand, Harry. I wish dearly that I could share it. But I have told you all I know. You see, I am a memoir incomplete, and I am afraid the information is lost. Time was of the essence that night, and I had, after all, never intended to die. And for that I am more sorry than I can say."
Harry nodded once more. He had expected as much. There would be no easy answers. "So we don't know how Rookwood's done it. What his plans are…"
"I am afraid not."
"Voldemort could come back," Harry whispered. "He could try to destroy the world we've rebuilt."
"He could."
"My scar. It burned when I saw he had gone. Does that mean he's back already?"
"I cannot say that it does, nor that it does not."
"How can you not say? Is it another thing you can't remember?"
Dumbledore fixed him with a most piercing gaze. "You must understand, Harry. The turnings of Voldemort are not so black and white as that. And your scar is not — forgive the analogy — a Voldemort detector. It is far more complicated than that. His soul is broken. Ripped apart by the darkest of magics. A piece of that soul lives in you. A piece which, to some capacity, thinks and feels, and hurts. And it is that piece which burns, now that it is awake. It matters not where the other pieces reside."
Harry looked away, shuddering. He felt as unclean as he had at fifteen, sitting in this very office, when Dumbledore had confirmed the fear that had rooted within him.
"Am I… am I going to lose myself, Professor? Am I just going to become like him? Like Voldemort?"
And now he knew the truth. He hadn't become like Voldemort. He didn't need to. As long as he lived, Voldemort could live too.
"Yes," Dumbledore said, reading him as easily from beyond the veil and paints that cloaked him as he ever had in life, "a part of Voldemort is a part of you, Harry. A part you have been trying to hide away for a very long time. You fear that if you acknowledge it, accept it, it will infect you. That it will change the essence of who you are. But perhaps it is Voldemort who is infected, having lived all this time with your capacity for love. If you were to accept—"
"I will never accept this!" Harry cut in angrily. "He killed my parents. Cedric. Countless others. I haven't forgotten! I don't want anything of his. Not this power he's given me. And certainly not a piece of his bloody soul. And what's the cost of all these gifts I never wanted, Dumbledore? If it turns out that I must die, so be it. But why should Ella have to live with that?"
"I understand."
"Do you?" Harry turned away bitterly, his eyes aimlessly shifting along the surface of the desk once again.
"I am, after all, dead," Dumbledore said gently from behind him. "And while there is nothing to fear in death, Harry, I should not wish that you will join me quite so soon. I may not have all the answers, but I have never known you to give up before the battle has even begun. This fight is not over. A version of you has lived through this very ordeal before."
"I know," he said quietly. "I know. But I can't count on that. Everything's changed, and nothing is certain."
"Perhaps," Dumbledore agreed. "But there is more than one path up any mountain, Harry. And if you have lost your way, it is not too late to turn back and find another road. I only insist that you keep walking."
Still staring firmly at the desk, Harry reached up and brushed a hand against his eyes. Behind him, silence thickened.
"I fear I have delayed you too long," Dumbledore said at last. "Forgive me, Harry. There are things you need to do, are there not?"
"Yes," Harry managed. He took a deep breath, fighting to regain control of his voice.
"Before you go, there is something I want you to have," Dumbledore said softly behind him. Harry waited, still looking firmly away. "The box on the desk. The thin one, do you see it?
"This?" Harry reached for it, extracting it from beneath a parchment scroll. It was light despite its size.
"Yes." Dumbledore sounded sad again.
"What is it?" He slipped it open and let out a sharp intake of breath. "Your wand…" He glanced back at the painted old man.
"Yes," Dumbledore repeated. "With recent events being what they are, it seems best to not leave such things lying about a graveyard. As Ella was prudent enough to remind me."
"You're buried at Hogwarts," Harry pointed out. "Rookwood would never—"
"Nevertheless," Dumbledore said, his voice sounding slightly more cheerful. "I've decided it would be much more beneficial to give to you than lay it to rest with my withered old bones. Surely, you will have more use for it."
"I have a wand." He placed the box back on the desk. "Let Aberforth have it."
"I think not," Dumbledore said. "I insist. A dead man's wish, Harry. Surely, you will not refuse?"
Harry let out a breath and picked up the box again. "I'll keep it safe. But I don't know what I'll do with it."
"That is all I ask." Dumbledore inclined his head in parting. "I dare say, you will know what to do with it in due time. Goodbye, Harry." And with that, he slipped sideways beyond the frame of his portrait and vanished, leaving Harry alone in the silence.
Ella couldn't remember when it had been, during the service, that she had started to cry. But by the time Albus vanished beneath the hard, white, unbroken marble, there had been no tears left in her. She merely sat and watched in perfect silence as the last traces of him were sealed away. As if she were a bystander, trapped in some terrible dream that just looped on and on. A nightmare where Albus fell again and again, his body burning. Falling to ash. Leaving them all behind with none of the answers. And there would be no waking up.
She sat there for a long time when it was over, her thoughts running wild to latch on to just a small piece of the Albus she carried in her memories. He stood there, his light blue eyes twinkling, and smiled. He sat, studying her, his hands steepled across the polished surface of his familiar desk.
"Have you thought, Ella, about adjusting the connection between the Stone's magical reservoir and the outward force of your will?"
He would never be there to advise her again. Never. The thought stung at her crusted, swollen eyes. She blinked, but there were no tears left. None. She was full of bitter grief, and yet so empty.
"Are you ready?"
She glanced up to see that Daniyel had laid a hand on her arm. He offered her a pained smile. Beside him, Siggy nearly mirrored it, her eyes locked on Ella with understanding. She nodded and let Daniyel pull her to her feet.
The others stood around him, and Daniyel turned to Siggy with an apologetic expression as they fell in with the crowd and started walking down the center aisle between the rows of seats.
"There's something we need to do now. I'm sorry. I'll owl you later, all right?"
Siggy nodded, her hand lightly gripping Daniyel's arm before she let him go. "Of course, I understand." She kissed his cheek, gave Ella the smallest of smiles, and hurried away after nodding to the others.
"We better hurry," Hermione said quietly. "Let's find Harry." And she led them through the morose crowd, until they reached the outward edges of the seating that had been arranged on Hogwarts's main lawn.
A part of Ella hadn't expected Harry to be there when the service was over, but when she stared around for his face in the crowd, she felt her heart sink slightly into her stomach. She should have insisted he sit with her, join them. But he had looked so stubborn in his stoic refusal, and she had been too weary to persist. Even after all this time, all those years of Abstract Healing, he still withdrew into those shadowy corners when darkness came. When it came for him, anyway. He was solid as stone when it came for her.
"Where's Harry?" Ron said, frowning. He was glancing around in mild indignation. "Doesn't he know we have a magic room to search?"
"Ron, be quiet," Hermione breathed, also glancing around the Harry-free space. "Did he say anything, Ella?"
She shook her head. Harry didn't need to say anything. She already knew exactly where he'd gone.
She turned away, heading toward the castle. "He'll have gone on ahead." She wondered if he'd at least stayed for the service. How much of it had he spent searching without them? When, when would Harry finally learn to accept help?
They wended carefully through the crowd of students and others who had come to pay their respects to Dumbledore, veering off towards the castle as others dispersed across the lawn. The castle doors were thrown open, the Great Hall set up with tables laden with food, and no one gave them a second glance as they stepped into the achingly familiar Entrance Hall and began to climb the marble stairs. The crowd thinned out as they climbed higher, and by the time they reached the fourth floor and sought out the secret staircase that would take them directly up to seven, they were quite alone.
Robert, Daniyel, and Ron hurried on ahead, and Hermione fell into step beside Ella as she drew in a weary breath and began to climb the ridiculously steep stairs. Hogwarts had far, far too many staircases. Of course, they had never bothered her before when she was young and fit, and not freshly pumped full of chemo. She sighed, dragging her feet up the steps.
"How are you feeling?" Hermione asked, keeping pace with her.
"Oh, you know. All right."
"It's not too bad, the chemo? You just started your third round yesterday, right?"
"Yes. Fine," Ella huffed. She stumbled slightly on an uneven step and Hermione grabbed her arm, steadying her. Ella cursed inwardly, catching the wall with her other hand. She flushed. "Really, I'm fine, Hermione. It's these bloody stairs. I'm perfectly capable of walking…"
"Of course." Hermione nodded and let go of her arm, her expression chagrined, and Ella felt a hot flash of guilt. Of course, Hermione had only ever meant well. It was just that between the grief and fear she still carried, and the exhausting fog of the chemo, every time someone dared ask if she was all right, she wanted to scream. No matter their intentions. Of course she wasn't all right. But who the bloody hell wanted to hear that, anyway? Though she supposed Hermione, perhaps, actually might.
"Down to 3,800," she said, by way of apology, resuming her trek up the stairs. "Hannah says it's a good drop."
"That's wonderful!" Hermione said enthusiastically, hurrying after her. "That's nearly a 75% drop from your last cycle, isn't it?"
Ella paused, glancing back with her eyebrows raised. "That's impressive maths. I'm surprised you remembered the last number."
"Of course I did." Hermione gripped her arm lightly. "And I haven't forgotten the research either."
Of course, the research. Hermione had been perusing the Magical Archives on her behalf. She was the reason that Ella had found the support group to which she clung so tightly, especially now as everything else fell apart. She let out a small breath and glanced down in shame, a pained smile working its way across her face.
"I thought you'd be too busy now, dealing with Gringotts," she admitted. "Reading the books…" She'd just about forgotten it all herself, between the horcruxes, and Dumbledore dying, and Harry's mounting depression. There was hardly time to feel sorry for herself, much less look for alternative magical treatments to the chemo.
"Well, yes." Hermione looked slightly uncomfortable. "But I can handle both."
Ella considered her, her eyes trailing across Hermione's face. She looked nearly as pale and worn as Ella felt. "You don't need to do this for me," she insisted, for what felt like the hundredth time. "Honestly, I'm fine, Hermione. You've already done so much, and I have Hannah in my corner. It's Harry I'm worried about."
"Me too." Hermione glanced away, but not before Ella caught a flash of the lost expression in her eyes. It was a look she had seen in the mirror far too often as of late, and seeing it reflected in Hermione's face now left her shaken. What had Hermione seen that could make her lose faith?
"Have you finished them, then?" she asked tentatively.
"Mm-hmm." Hermione didn't turn around or elaborate.
"What… er—" Ella muttered, pausing as she contemplated the best way to frame the question. What did you think, Hermione? What did you think of these books that could've been your very detailed biography before they went off the rails? Surely it had been bizarre. Perhaps Hermione already regretted it. Before she could formulate a sentence, however, Robert appeared at the top of the stairs.
"Harry isn't out here."
"No?" Ella hurried the rest of the way up, glancing around the corridor, empty save for the giant tapestry of the dancing trolls on one wall, and the polished door set into the stone opposite, pulled partly ajar. "Was the Room open?"
"No, we opened it." Robert glanced warily around the corridor as they stepped toward the door. Ron and Daniyel were peering inside, wearing rather bemused expressions.
"Bloody brilliant," Ron muttered, his eyes trailing across the stacks and stacks of hidden things, stretching to the cathedral ceiling. "D'you reckon he's inside?"
"Harry?" Ella called out softly, but the sound barely traveled, her voice swallowed up by the hush of the room. If Harry was already searching for the horcrux, there would be no way to tell without stepping into the Room. She sighed, turning away from the doorway. "Maybe someone should wait out here in case we missed him. Ron?"
"Why me?" Ron frowned.
"You're the only one who isn't familiar with the Room and the diadem," Hermione said, laying a hand on his arm. "Sorry."
"All right," Ron said, still looking a bit put out.
"Try not to look suspicious, mate," Daniyel offered. "If anyone comes by—"
"Right, I'll just wait over here and pretend I'm learning the ballet." Ron stepped toward the tapestry of the trolls. "Observing the arts."
Footsteps abruptly sounded down the corridor and they whirled, stepping in front of the door, though there was really no hiding it from view. Fortunately, it wasn't necessary, and Ella smiled in relief, the knot in her chest loosening.
"Harry!"
"Sorry," he said, joining them in front of the tapestry. "I didn't mean to run off."
"It's OK." Ella reached out, slipping her hand briefly around his. His eyes looked rather red, and she felt her heart clench painfully. "Where were you?" she asked softly.
"Er— talking to Dumbledore."
"Mate," Ron said slowly, while Ella frowned, "er, Dumbledore's dead."
Harry flushed slightly, glaring at Ron. "I meant his portrait."
"Oh!" Ella said, the knot in her chest loosening slightly. Of course, Albus's portrait! She had forgotten… "Did he have any useful information?"
"No," Harry said shortly. "Nothing."
"Ah," she said, disappointed. Though she thought it would still be worth visiting the portrait, for closure if nothing else. "Well, are you ready?" She squeezed his hand.
Harry nodded. "Let's do this." And he stepped to the partially open door, the rest of them following.
The room was vast, larger even than she imagined. She thought the Quidditch pitch could easily fit inside this place, all the way to the highest hoops and sky beyond. It was dim and dark and somewhat beautiful. Dust-filled shafts of light filtered in through tall windows to light no less than twenty shadowy alleys between towering walls of useless things. She thought there were more alleys still, in the shadows beyond. The air felt stale in a quiet sort of way. As if everything within these walls was asleep. Had been asleep, untouched, for centuries. When Robert spoke, his words were nearly swallowed by the heavy silence.
"We'll spread out. There's six of us. Let's try these three and these three," he said, gesturing at the alleys on either side of the door, which Hermione softly closed behind them. The quiet of the room grew louder. "Send up sparks if you see an enormous stuffed troll, all right? If we don't find it, we'll try the other paths."
"Let's do it," Ella said brightly, and hurried into the alley immediately to her right. There were the soft thuds of Harry's and Ron's footsteps heading into the adjacent alleyways before they faded into the silence, swallowed by the mountains of things piled up between them. She forged ahead, speeding past a collection of broken chairs that looked as if they had been eaten through by some sort of acid. Past a trunk piled high with clothing of a most questionable nature that she thought had surely come from some Muggle shop. Past a ceiling-high stack of books with cracked spines beneath a blanket of dust.
The room grew darker as she walked further in, so she withdrew her wand, lighting it with a circular flick of her wrist. The wandlight trailed across bottles and vials, half filled with slimy, shimmering substances. Across bloody, rusted swords. Across a stack of empty cages with nothing inside but tiny skeletons that made her cringe in horror. Something batlike flew suddenly at her head with a soft rustle of wings, and she ducked with a scream, whirled around, and her wandlight landed on the underbelly of a troll. It was huge, nearly fifteen feet tall and towering to the ceiling. If she hadn't looked up, she might have simply walked past it. Might have mistaken its massive legs for hairy pillars. She had, after all, never actually seen a troll before.
She took a small moment to inwardly thank the bloody bat, then stepped past the troll to ensure there was a turnoff behind it leading to the right. There was, so she lifted her wand into the air and sent forth a shower of glowing sparks, her face breaking into a grin. She had thought it would be difficult to track down the tiara in this giant mess of a room, yet the stuffed troll was right there, in the first aisle she'd checked. Bloody brilliant. Maybe this would be easier than they had thought.
It wasn't. The Vanishing Cabinet proved impossible to find.
"I don't think it's here," Hermione said finally, after they searched for near twenty minutes, doubling back to check the adjacent aisles. "Maybe it wasn't ever moved in here from the first floor. Did Fred and George even, er, push Montague in there?"
"Montague? When?" Harry asked, frowning.
"Fifth year?" Hermione glanced between Harry, Ron, and Daniyel. "Maybe you weren't here, Harry… But we didn't have an—"
"If Fred and George shoved Montague into a Vanishing Cabinet, I definitely would've heard about it," Ron jumped in.
"Well then maybe it's still wherever Fred and George found it," Ella offered.
They were back before the stuffed troll, peering down into the dark alleyway beyond. It was narrow, winding, with stacks of books perched precariously on either side, threatening to fall at the slightest upset.
"Either way, we're looking for a left turnoff," Hermione said with a sigh, shining her wandlight down the shadowed alley. Ella watched its light bounce off creased spines and broken bottles and swirling dust. "It shouldn't be too far down. It says Harry only ran a short way."
But there were five separate turnoffs within a "short way" of the troll, some wide, some narrow. One nearly blocked off entirely with a large pendulum clock that had fallen over. Its sharp edges sliced through Ron's robes when he tried to squeeze past, and he cursed exhaustively while Hermioned healed his shoulder and Harry charmed the clock out of the way. It was down that alley, after another three turns down tiny passageways, that they finally tracked down the acid-washed cupboard, and even then they weren't sure it was the right one. It was dark, its true color indiscernible in the dimness. Its face was blistered and peeling, and when Daniyel managed to pry open the door, they spotted the telltale cage with its five-legged skeleton shoved behind several books of Dark magic.
"There!" Daniyel said with excitement, swinging his wand around in a large circle.
They whirled, Ella's heart beating with nervous apprehension, but there was no tiara glittering in the narrow shaft of light. Instead, Daniyel's wand had illuminated a chipped bust lying sideways on the floor at the foot of a nearby crate. Hermione lifted it slowly, brushing her hands against its cracked exterior as she set it on top of the cupboard. Its nose was missing, and Ella spotted shards of it littered across the floor.
"I thought you found Voldemort's tiara," Ron said, disappointed, and Harry, Ella, and Daniyel burst into sudden laughter. It seeped all the way down to Ella's stomach, lightening her. And seeing the smile flit across Harry's face filled her with warmth.
"We're in the right place," she said with a grin, tamping down the laughter. "The tiara should be somewhere around here, Ron."
They stepped back, sweeping their wands meticulously through the space. Mounds of detritus glittered in the wandland. Rusted goblets. Half empty bottles of dark amber liquid. A bronze canon, wreathed with layers of spiderwebs. A broken harp.
She stepped closer to the cupboard, sweeping her wand over the forgotten, lost, and broken things. Beside her, the others did the same, their lights crisscrossing as they searched through centuries of contraband stretching to the cathedral sky.
Harry found it quickly, she told herself, staring into the mess of things nearest to the cupboard in search of the barest glitter of metal or jewel. He had minutes. He grabbed the tiara and shoved it on the statue and ran. It's nearby. It's somewhere nearby.
But there was nothing. Nothing atop the cupboard. Nothing squeezed into the shelves that surrounded it. Nothing lying on the floor or wedged into the piles of rubbish that towered above them. They searched for over an hour before they were forced to concede the truth. The tiara was gone.
If it had ever been there at all.
A/N: I know, I know, we're missing another one. How very curious. Insert upside down smiley here.
Happy New Year, everyone! I hope 2025 brings you joy.
Rina