Chapter Text
The truth.
Finally, the truth.
Rosa lay where she’d fallen on the carpet, tipped her head back and laughed.
She’d been so stupid.
Sitting in this room, with Dumbledore, so sure that she was learning the secrets to victory, when she’d always been a pawn being moved around a gameboard she’d been too blind to see.
She was a gambit.
A sacrifice to put Voldemort in check.
All this time she’d been expendable.
Living on the Headmaster’s grace and borrowed time since the moment Voldemort marked her. Or maybe even before.
Maybe she’d been born to die.
To walk calmly and cold-bloodedly to her execution without even raising her wand to defend herself.
She rolled onto her back, put her hands over her face, and noticed that they were trembling.
And why wouldn’t they be?
She was terrified.
All those times she’d narrowly escaped death she’d never really considered what it might be like to actually die. Her will to live had always been stronger than her fear.
Now she wished she’d had a little less will to live.
If it had happened the night she fled Privet Drive, or in the graveyard, or the Chamber, it would have been over quickly. Before she had time to know it.
Now every minute, every precious second that remained of her painfully short, pointless little life would be consumed by knowing it.
Knowing also that Dumbledore had betrayed her.
That he’d given her the crucial task of hunting down the horcruxes and not anyone older, wiser, more powerful or more qualified, because the task was dangerous, and if she died in the execution, it would be no great loss. In fact, it would be another blow against Voldemort.
How neat.
How elegant.
Slowly, she sat up, hugging her knee to her chest and feeling all of a sudden like she was very small. Like she was young and cold and entirely helpless.
Like she might still fit on the rickety little cot in the cupboard under the stairs.
Dumbledore had known she wouldn’t run.
He’d known she would keep going until the end, even though it would be the literal death of her.
That was why he’d taken the trouble to get to know her. So that he could be sure she’d do her duty.
Dumbledore knew, as Voldemort knew, that she wouldn’t let anyone else die for her, not when she’d been given the power to stop it.
He’d also planned for what would happen when she failed.
Even once she was dead, one horcrux remained, Nagini.
But Ron and Hermione knew what needed to be done. They would carry on the mission and Voldemort would be killed by their hand or by someone else. Maybe not tonight, or tomorrow, but someday.
His soul was too brittle now to make another horcrux.
If he attempted it so much the better, it would fly apart and be destroyed.
Any way she looked at it, the best thing she could do for her friends, for her classmates, for all the innocents that Voldemort threatened, was die.
It wasn’t right.
It wasn’t fair.
But it was Fate.
Neither would live, neither would survive.
Just like that.
“Fuck you, Albus Dumbledore,” she said to the empty office, her voice a rasping croak like she hadn’t spoken for years.
She stood up and limped over to the wall where Dumbledore’s portrait hung, empty, like all the other portraits in the Headmaster’s office.
“This is your bloody mess, and you expect a little girl to mop it up for you?” she said. “FUCK YOU!”
She tore the golden frame off the wall and smashed it on the floor, her chest heaving.
She whirled around and swept her arm across the desk sending papers and other sundries flying. Snape’s things, not Dumbledore’s, but the mindless destruction, felt righteous in the wake of her despair.
She scraped a hand through her hair and whirled around looking for something else she could destroy and knowing that it didn’t matter.
It didn’t matter how many portraits she tore down, how many books she shredded or even if she blew out the tower wall in a rage and announced her location to every Death Eater and Dark supporter on the grounds.
She was going to follow through with Dumbledore’s gambit. She didn’t have any other choice.
At this point, she was just wasting time she’d never had to begin with.
She caught sight of her wild-eyed reflection and the string of the moleskin pouch wrapped around her neck and remembered suddenly the message on the snitch.
I open at the close.
She dug the little golden ball out of the pouch.
“It’s time,” she said. “Do you hear me? It’s over!”
The metal shell broke open, splitting neatly in half, and Rosa caught the stone as it fell.
It was the Stone.
Blacker than night, the crack that had once run through the centre of the line representing the Wand had healed and disappeared since she’d seen it last.
For a moment she considered summoning Dumbledore and giving the old man a piece of her mind, or else begging him to tell her that she had it wrong. That this hadn’t been the plan all along.
Absently, she turned the Stone between her fingers three times, and with a shimmer like a mirage, a man appeared.
He was very tall and thin, and he seemed ancient although he didn’t look so old, his thin brown hair was slicked back from his boney face and his eyes were dark and deep.
In one hand he held a cane of dark wood capped with a handle of milky white stone and on the other Rosa noticed he wore a thick signet ring with another white stone.
“Well, this is about what I expected,” he said in the kind of quiet authoritative voice that made you sit still and pay attention.
“Who are you?” Rosa asked, her voice still croaky from emotion.
She reached into her pocket and clutched her wand ready with a curse on her lips for all the good it would do her.
The man. Whoever he was, wasn’t solid. In fact, he resembled nothing as much as the Diary-Riddle that Rosa had faced in her second year. Mostly solid but still somehow not all there.
“You know who I am, child,” the man said. “Think for a moment and the answer will come to you.”
He said unconcerned leaning up against the headmaster’s desk with a casualness that didn’t suit his grave, serious appearance.
Rosa was about to reply that she had no idea who the man was and demand that he stop playing games, when the answer came to her.
“Death,” she breathed.
“Good,” he said dismissively. “Now. Let’s begin.”
“Begin?”
Death gave her an arch look.
“The bargaining, child,” he said. “Or have you lost interest in prolonging your life?”
“No,” Rosa said quickly. “No, I want to, if…if it can be done.”
“Very well. I can give you more time, but not here in this world, it would be in another world. One adjacent to this one, but out of step,” Death explained. “And there would be a cost.”
“What cost?”
A hint of a smirk tugged at the corner of Death’s thin mouth and Rosa felt a chill crawl down her spine.
“A favour for a favour,” he said. “I will take you out of time and allow you to live out the rest of your natural lifespan in this other world, if you agree to accompany a group of Champions from that world on their quest.”
“Why?” Rosa blurted, before quickly trying to backpedal. “Er—I mean, what for?”
Death gave her a piercing look, and for a moment it seemed like he wouldn’t answer, but eventually he began to speak again.
“True chaos is the most dangerous thing in any world. It is powerful, but dangerous. Volatile. In the greater workings of the universe all things must have a balance. When that balance tips too far to one side or the other the world is destroyed and much like the destruction of a star may bring about a black hole the destruction of one world may destroy many before balance is achieved.”
“And this world you want to send me to is out of balance?” Rosa guessed.
“Not entirely,” Death conceded, drumming his long fingers on the edge of the desk. “It may yet stabilize without intervention, but I am not in the business of taking unnecessary risks with the fabric of reality.”
Rosa swallowed thickly.
“What do I need to do?”
Death gave her another long look.
“You can’t tell me?” she guessed again. “Because that might upset the balance.”
“The realm teeters on the edge of a knife, stray too far to one side or the other and it will fall apart,” Death said.
“Brilliant,” Rosa huffed. “Is there anything you can tell me?”
“Mind your tone,” Death said sharply. “You may have united my Hallows, and earned yourself a Champion’s status, but that does not make you equal to one such as I.”
Rosa fought the urge to cringe away from the quiet reprimand.
“Apologies,” she said instead in her softest most contrite voice.
Death seemed mollified and he turned his gaze away from her and out the tower window.
“First and foremost, you must assist the Champion of Life, Bellflower Baggins,” he said. “It is she who will be your contact and your guide in Middle Earth. She does not know it but she is about to embark on a Quest that will change the face of Middle Earth twice-over,” Death explained. “I will say that you are uniquely suited to assist her and the reason for that will become clear in time. For the moment, you are to act as a messenger. I will drop you into the world by her garden gate, you will go up to her door and let her know that the Grey Wizard has invited thirteen dwarves to her home for dinner. Once that message is delivered events will begin to unfold as they are meant to.”
“Alright,” Rosa said. “That seems easy enough.”
“Your job will become more difficult as her journey progresses,” Death warned. “Keep on your guard. Once your life ends in Middle Earth whether by sword, sickness, or the slow decay of time you will return here at once and be forced to face your own destiny, child. You will not have a second opportunity to barter for more time.”
“I understand,” Rosa said stiffly. “I’m ready.”
Death regarded her for a long moment and then nodded.
“In that case, I wish you good fortune, little Champion.”
Death raised both of his pale hands and pushed suddenly, like he meant to shove her off a cliff without ever touching her.
For a moment nothing happened, and then the shock hit her like a hammer-blow to the chest and all of a sudden, she was tipped over some invisible edge, wheeling her arms to try and find her balance and then finally, inevitably she fell.