Chapter Text
Voldemort was just as creepy in death.
His red eyes were open, slitted and staring up at the ceiling. Harry leant over the white shell of what had been Tom Riddle and stared into his snake-like face. A morbid, intrusive urge overtook him and he reached out to press a fingertip against one of the waxen cheeks. It felt sick – wrong – to be here in this room. Harry half-expected Voldemort to wake up and grab him, fill his blood with that familiar fire and searing pain.
The body stayed where it was.
Sickness rolled through Harry’s belly, but the reluctant sense of fascination kept his knees glued to the floor. This man – or what little man there had been left in him by the end – had been woven into Harry’s whole life. He was gone, now, and all the scattered pieces of his soul with him. Including the one that had lived inside of Harry.
Harry shivered. He pressed harder with the pad of his finger, feeling the bones and teeth underneath. He wanted to score the flesh away, punish this empty husk for what it had housed, but there was no point. Harry fell back onto his haunches and crawled backwards until his back hit the wall. The image of that deformed, thumping thing at the King’s Cross inside his head sprang to mind; he hated himself for the wave of pity that followed.
Harry dropped his head into his hands, scrubbing his scar.
He just wanted to sleep.
Two restless hours in his old bed in Gryffindor hadn’t exactly refreshed him, and Harry could feel the hysteria beginning to pull at him. He couldn’t go back up there and face the Weasleys. He couldn’t stay in this room with that empty, staring skull.
He couldn’t leave this room and look at the other bodies.
Frozen, Harry panted into his palms. The three wands stored safely in the pocket of his sweatshirt poked into his stomach. He would have to return the wand to Malfoy – and to Dumbledore, he thought, and the idea made him dizzy. He did not want to open that tomb. He thought of Dumbledore’s portrait up in the headmaster’s office, of the tears he had shed at Harry’s victory, lined face shining with pride, and he felt his own eyes begin to burn.
What the hell was he supposed to do now?
The door of the chamber creaked open, and Harry was on his feet in an instant, wand drawn – firing off a Stunner before he allowed himself time to think.
The spell missed Mr Weasley’s head by an inch.
Harry let out his breath in a rush, eyes wide. His brain seemed to have jammed; he didn’t lower his wand, only stared at the smoking pockmark in the wall.
Mr Weasley didn’t react; he didn’t even draw his own wand. He was looking at Harry with caution and the same awful understanding he often saw on Hermione’s face. He stepped further into the chamber and closed the door behind him.
“What are you doing down here?” Mr Weasley asked softly.
Harry licked his lips, knuckles white around the handle of his holly wand, chest heaving. The smoke from the Stunning Spell dissipated, leaving no trace. His head was spinning. The world around him felt like a dream.
“Lower your wand, Harry. I’m not going to hurt you.”
Of course he wasn’t. Mr Weasley had never hurt him. He stowed his wand back in his sweatshirt, hands trembling. He shook his head, trying to clear it.
“Sorry,” Harry mumbled. “I didn’t realise it was you.”
“I know,” said Mr Weasley. He had a palm outstretched in front of him, a sign of peace, or perhaps an attempt to calm. His kind eyes raked Harry up and down. “Have you slept?”
Harry ran a hand through his hair, making it even more of a mess. “A bit, yeah.”
Despite his exhaustion, he had kept waking in a panic, fearing for Ron and Hermione’s lives, for Ginny’s, for all of them. After the brief moments of relief at seeing Ron and Hermione fast asleep in the room with him, thoughts of the rest kept slamming into him over and over – Fred and Remus and Tonks. Colin. Hedwig and Dobby and Mad-Eye and all the others, it all cascaded through his mind, jumbled and out of order, rendering sleep quite impossible.
“Maybe you’d like to go back up to bed?” Mr Weasley suggested, gaze shifting carefully between Voldemort’s body and Harry’s face. “I don’t think you really want to be in here.”
He didn’t, but he balked at the notion of walking with Mr Weasley back to Gryffindor. Fred was one of the bodies out there in the hall. Harry didn’t understand how Mr Weasley could even manage to look at Harry right now.
“I, erm – ” Harry glanced at his watch for the time; it occurred to him with a jolt that Mr and Mrs Weasley had given it to him for his birthday, and he stopped looking at once, shoving his hands into his sweatshirt. His fingers brushed against the wands.
“No,” he said finally. “Kingsley said he needed to meet with me, I think I’ll just go find him.”
“That can wait,” said Mr Weasley, that understanding in his expression only growing more pronounced. “No one’s going to begrudge you a lie-in.”
“Honestly,” Harry told him, “I’m alright. I’d rather find something to do.”
“I know,” Mr Weasley said again. His lips turned up, but the gesture held only sadness. “Kingsley’s still at the Ministry, Harry, and nearly everyone else is resting. Come away from here at least…”
He took hold of Harry’s shoulder, guiding him gently toward the door. He gave Voldemort’s body a discomfited glance, and his hand tightened on Harry’s arm.
“What’s going to happen to him?” Harry asked, jerking his head at the body.
Mr Weasley frowned and ushered Harry through the doorway. “I’m not sure. If you have an opinion on the matter, I’m sure it’ll be taken into account. But you needn’t worry about that right now.”
Harry stopped as Mr Weasley pulled the door closed. Did he have an opinion?
Mr Weasley was looking at him worriedly. “He can’t hurt anyone else, Harry. He’s gone.”
Harry swallowed. “It doesn’t feel that way.”
He hadn’t meant to say it, but that’s all that had been racing through his mind since Voldemort had hit the floor with that hollow thump. This couldn’t be real; surely Harry was stuck inside a false reality. Voldemort had always been a danger, even when Harry hadn’t known it – especially then, even. Harry’s body and mind and soul did not seem to know how to cope with anything different.
The Great Hall was empty for the moment. The house tables stood glistening in the merry sunshine streaming in through the windows, down from the magical ceiling…There were marks on the floor: jagged cracks left over from Mrs Weasley’s fight with Bellatrix, and burn marks from the flames that had erupted at the center of Harry’s duel with Tom.
The BANG of their spells colliding stabbed into Harry’s eardrums all over again.
“Harry,” said Mr Weasley. He looked as though he were thinking of pulling Harry into a hug, but Harry’s eyes drifted to the shroud he knew was hiding Fred’s body, and he backed away quickly.
“I think I’ll just have a shower,” said Harry, not meeting his eye.
“Alright,” Mr Weasley told him quietly. “I’ll walk you back.”
“That’s alright, you don’t need to – ”
“Forgive me, Harry, but I’d rather not leave you alone right now.”
Mr Weasley still kept a respectful distance, but his eyes were tight with concern.
Harry stared at the wall. “I can look after myself.”
“You can,” Mr Weasley agreed, “but whether you will is my worry.” His voice lowered. “You need to give yourself time, Harry, and at the moment you need to rest. Have you eaten anything?”
Harry had tried, but the sandwich he’d had Kreacher bring him had tasted to him like ash and dust. “Not really,” he admitted. “I’m not hungry.”
“We’ll find something,” Mr Weasley told him anyway, and held out his arm in the direction of the Great Hall doors.
Harry relented, too tired to argue, and followed Mr Weasley along the path back to Gryffindor Tower.
Mr Weasley waited until Harry was ensconced on the common room sofa with a cup of steaming tea before he settled himself into one of the squashy armchairs. He seemed to lose himself for a moment, staring into the embers of the empty grate in the fireplace, before he looked back at Harry and offered him a tired smile.
“Try and drink some of that,” he said, nodding at the cup in Harry’s hands.
The absence of Fred hung heavy in the air around them, and Harry fixed his gaze on the carpet. He wanted to say something – anything – that would ease Mr Weasley’s pain…but he knew better than anybody that there was nothing that could do that. He gulped down some of the tea. It burned his throat and he set it down.
“How come you’re awake?” Harry asked, simply to cut the crackling silence.
The whole castle seemed to be sleeping still, though it was nearly noon, but Mr Weasley had managed to find him all the way down in the Great Hall.
“I couldn’t sleep,” Mr Weasley explained. He picked absently at his palm. “I kept wanting to check on my children.”
Harry thought he might throw up; the tea rankled in his belly. You have permitted your friends to die for you. Voldemort had told many lies in his time, but this was not one of them, Harry knew. A ringing pressed on his ears, his fingertips went numb. Fred was gone. Fred was gone, and it did not feel right…it didn’t make sense that George was sleeping upstairs, alone for the very first time in his life…
Harry burned to tell Mr Weasley how sorry he was, but he couldn’t bring himself to say it, to look at the man’s face – he stood instead.
“Just going to go shower,” he offered lamely. “Thanks for the tea.”
“Of course, Harry,” Mr Weasley said, looking up at him far too kindly. “Try to get some sleep.”
“You too,” Harry mumbled, and took the stairs two at a time.
No wonder Mr Weasley had looked at him like he had.
Harry stared at himself in the bathroom mirror. He had been too exhausted to change his clothes before falling into bed earlier, and he took in his appearance for the first time in nearly two days. He was covered in blood; some of it was his, he realised.
Some of it was not.
His face and body were littered with cuts and bruises, and a few oozing burns he reckoned he’d missed after he and Ron and Hermione had healed themselves after Gringotts.
Gringotts. That had been – Harry poked at his sluggish brain – not even twenty-four hours ago. That surreal feeling intensified, leaving Harry scrambled and blinking at the reflection in the mirror. His eyes fell to his chest, where a nasty raised mark radiated out from the center like a ragged explosion. It spidered out over his heart and was surrounded by deep, black bruising.
Harry supposed he should have expected to see it, but that didn’t stop the nausea from rising.
Green light and Hagrid’s screams, feeling utterly terrified and trapped and finally free –
Harry retched into the sink.
Ron and Hermione were both still fast asleep when Harry finished up with his shower. Hermione had fused Harry’s old bed together with Ron’s after some deliberation about sleeping arrangements; she hadn’t been able to bear the thought of being away from either of them in the girls’ dorms, and the single beds were a bit small for even two of them, especially these days.
Harry had been too grateful for a soft mattress to collapse onto that he hadn’t even had time to consider how awkward he usually might have found this, or the fact that it felt to him that the three of them had now transcended that sort of awkwardness anyway.
Nine months living in the wilderness together, clawing for survival with trampled boundaries and little privacy would do that to a friendship, he supposed. That, and admitting to your best friends that you’d had someone else living inside your body your whole life.
Though freshly washed, Harry felt that dirty feeling creeping through him. He couldn’t bring himself to regret telling them about it even so; they had deserved to know. They deserved everything.
Harry pulled on a clean t-shirt and brushed his fingers through his damp hair as he sank onto the edge of the giant bed. Ron sighed in his sleep on the far side, burying his head further into the pillow. Harry’s heart seized. They’d made it – all three of them.
Harry laid back and pulled the covers up, settling in next to Hermione. Her hand twitched, and she curled her fingers in Harry’s shirt without waking. The tension in Harry’s body eased ever so slightly, and though sleep did not come, Ron and Hermione breathing next to him was a temporary balm to his aching wounds.
He closed his eyes and pretended to be asleep when Hermione got up hours later and tiptoed out of the room.
“She’s gone on the hunt for breakfast,” Ron explained through a yawn as Harry blinked his eyes open. He scrubbed his face and grimaced at the darkness outside. “Dinner now, I suppose. Dunno. Reckon I could do with a wash.”
“I think that would benefit all of us, yeah.”
Ron smothered him immediately with the nearest pillow. Harry chuckled, batting it away; the sound felt odd in his throat. “Hermione left the bag just there last I checked,” he said, pointing down the foot of the bed. “Some of your clothes should still be clean.”
Ron grunted and rubbed his eyes again. He seemed – smaller, Harry thought.
For a second Harry could feel Fred’s body in his hands again, hauling the weight of it down the corridor into an alcove with Percy.
“You shower,” Harry muttered. “I’ll go see if I can find Hermione.”
He felt uneasy not knowing exactly where she was.
Ron nodded and got up to search through the beaded bag before stumbling into the bathroom.
Harry sat up and swung his legs over the edge of the bed. His whole body felt sore and achy as though he were sickening with flu. His eyes fell on Seamus’s bed; with a start he realised Dean was tangled up in the bedsheets with Seamus, snoring away. They were holding onto each other in sleep. Harry stared at them, a funny sensation pressing on his chest, then finally looked away.
Harry frowned; Neville was nowhere to be seen.
The dormitory felt colder than it should have done for the start of May, and he slipped his sweatshirt back over his head, snatched up the three wands from under the pillow, and pocketed them as he began to search for his trainers.
Soft voices came from the common room when Harry reached the bottom of the spiral staircase. His heart flipped, but he made himself keep going. Neville was sat safe and sound in a corner, Harry was relieved to see, chatting with Oliver Wood and Angelina Johnson. Others were scattered about the room – including Luna, Harry was surprised and pleased to see. She smiled kindly at him from one of the study tables.
Ginny had come down, along with Bill, Fleur, and Percy. Mr Weasley was still sat where Harry had left him.
The talk in the room died down at once when he entered. Ginny got up and made a beeline for him. She flung her arms around his neck and let out a breath as though she had been holding it in too long.
Harry clutched at her, unable to discern if he wanted to hold onto her forever or hide from her and everyone for the rest of the evening. The familiar scent of her shampoo steadied him and he let go, pulling away to look at her face.
Ginny’s eyes were red-rimmed and glassy; he didn’t think she had slept much.
“Mum’s still upstairs,” Ginny whispered. “George is – he’s gone down to the Great Hall. Bill tried to get him to come away, but he wouldn’t.”
Her voice hitched, and she squeezed his hand so hard it hurt.
Harry tried to think of what he might possibly say to offer some shred of comfort to her, but nothing came. He squeezed her hand back. “Do you know where Hermione’s gone?”
“She’s asking for some food to be sent up for all of us – you, especially. She didn’t think you’d fancy going back out into the school just yet.”
Under different circumstances, this would have suited Harry just fine. As it was, he couldn’t bear the weight of the stares he could see coming from the rest of the Weasleys and all the others out of the corner of his eye. The walls of the room seemed to be closing in, the fire in the grate burning hotter than it should.
“There’s something I’ve got to do, actually.” The elder wand sat heavily in his pocket. If he didn’t do it now, he wasn’t sure he would ever be able to find the strength again.
Ginny brushed her fingers against the side of his neck. “Can I come with you?”
Harry nodded fervently, squeezing her hand again. “Please.”
He ducked out of the portrait hole without looking at anyone else, Ginny close behind him. He threw his invisibility cloak over them both, and they picked their way down the staircases around mounds of debris and blood-stained stone. The school was changed, a foreign land Harry did not recognise, and he felt like a misplaced spirit navigating the halls.
They passed others here and there, people helping clear up or speaking quietly with one another or simply sitting on the floors, despondent. Ginny never asked where it was they were going.
It was late enough in the day that the sun was already setting when they slipped out of Hogwarts’ front doors. Harry spied Hagrid tending to the sprawling body of a fallen centaur; he was covering it in a makeshift shroud, arranging the limbs carefully into a more dignified position. Harry briefly wondered if Firenze was aware of the passing of one of his comrades. He was too numb to think on it much.
Ginny remained steadfast beside him as they rounded the shore of the lake.
The white tomb came into view – the sight nearly blinded Harry with the last rays of the day’s sun shining happily, unknowingly, down upon the marble. He stopped a few meters short of it, heart beating wildly in his chest. He saw Dumbledore’s remains through Voldemort’s eyes again and felt the warmth leech from his face, his hands. Now that no one else was around, Harry let go of Ginny’s hand and ducked out from underneath the invisibility cloak, moving forward on wooden legs.
The tomb’s cover had been repaired since Voldemort’s desecration of it – there was neither seam nor blemish to indicate it had ever been broken apart. Harry swallowed thickly and pulled the elder wand from his pocket. It seemed to wave almost of its own volition and, without Harry uttering a word, the marble cover levitated an inch into the air and slid smoothly to rest on the ground against the side of Dumbledore’s grave. Harry stepped up to it.
Dumbledore – the body – lay there, still and peaceful and looking just the very same as it had always done in life. He was exactly as Harry remembered him, and nothing like him.
Of course it is happening inside your head, Harry, but why on earth should that mean it’s not real?
Harry felt the wetness on his cheeks but paid it no heed. He reached out carefully and took Dumbledore’s ice cold hand in his own. The elder wand hummed against Harry’s skin as though begging to stay with him, pleading not to be relinquished by its master. He turned the elder wand in his fingers, handle side up, and laid it very gently on Dumbledore’s chest before letting the ancient hand rest upon it once more. He stood there for a long while, staring, hardly able to bear looking at Dumbledore’s lined face and entirely unable to look away.
“He would be so proud of you,” Ginny said behind him, so softly he almost didn’t hear it.
Harry couldn’t disagree, knew enough to realise that Dumbledore was proud of him, wherever he was.
The bit Harry wasn’t so sure of was whether he deserved it or not.
When the tomb was shut once again, it seemed to seal a piece of Harry away with it.
There was shouting when they entered the school again, coming from the Great Hall.
Harry and Ginny glanced at each other and ducked through the giant doors, pulling the cloak off as they went.
George was standing at the other end of the hall by the rows of covered bodies, nose-to-nose with Charlie and redder in the face than Harry had ever seen him.
“You’re not taking him anywhere!” George shouted into Charlie’s face.
Charlie held up his hands and said something too quietly for Harry to hear. Ginny separated from him and went immediately to her brothers. Harry hesitated. He did not want to intrude, and he did not think he could stand to be here, but he didn’t want to leave Ginny alone either, especially after she had kept him company at Dumbledore’s grave.
“We don’t have to move him yet,” Charlie was saying soothingly as Harry approached. “Bill’s going to check the Burrow in a bit, we’ll have to wait on his word anyway. Mum and Dad want to try to be home tomorrow…they – they want us all together.” His voice broke.
“Together,” George repeated, dazed, as if he could not understand the meaning. “Together.”He stared past Charlie at nothing. Ginny touched George’s arm lightly, and he startled. He shook his head, glancing around wildly.
“No. No,” George gasped, fists clenching and unclenching at his sides. “We can’t go home yet. Where’s Fred going to…where’s he going to sleep?”
Charlie swallowed audibly. He reached out for his brother, pulling at him. “George…”
George was still shaking his head, over and over. Charlie’s burly arms went around him, tugging him in against his chest.
George fought him, struggling. “Where’s he going to sleep?”
“We’ll look after him,” said Charlie, tears spilling over his cheeks. “He’ll be alright. You both will.”
George wailed then and stopped struggling, sagging into his brother’s hold. He gripped Charlie as though that was all that was holding him together and let loose another blood-curdling howl.
Other people along the laid out bodies – other family members that had woken up or finally arrived at the castle to sit vigil to their own loved ones – began to cry afresh, too. Some silently, some not. It echoed off of the hall’s high, magical ceiling.
Ginny put a hand on George’s back as he cried out his pain.
Harry stood there, adrift. He was no comfort to anyone here – not now. He had played his part in all of this already, he had done what he was meant to do, and now he did not have a place. No job to do. Feeling empty, Harry wondered vaguely whether Kingsley had returned from the Ministry yet. His feet moved of their own accord as he backed away from the Weasleys.
He turned, and his gaze fell immediately on Remus lying several rows down. Harry froze, a black chasm yawning through his insides. There was a woman kneeling nearby, and Harry recognised Andromeda Tonks. She had uncovered her daughter’s face, and her son-in-law’s beside her, and was staring down at both of them in still silence.
She was the only one left to mourn either of them, Harry realised. No one else but Harry himself.
And their new baby son.
The yawning chasm threatened to swallow Harry whole. Andromeda looked up then, and saw him. Her eyes softened slightly, and she seemed about to call over to him.
Harry turned suddenly without a word and made for the doors before anyone else could get his attention.
Kingsley had returned to the castle, and Harry received a summons to meet with him in the headmistress’s office. A deep weariness pervaded Harry’s body at the thought of the discussions he was about to have, but it gave him an excuse not to return to Gryffindor just yet, and for that he was grateful.
The battered gargoyle was still looking quite lopsided and punch-drunk and let him pass with a half-hearted wave. McGonagall and Kingsley both rose from their seats as he pushed open the door at the top of the staircase, which Harry frankly found a little disquieting. The gesture being directed at him felt entirely too…respectful. Kingsley clapped him on the shoulder and gestured him into a chair.
“Haven’t you been able to sleep?” Kingsley asked him, peering at him in concern.
Harry scrubbed a hand over his face; he must look a fright. “Not much,” he admitted. George’s keening wail kept echoing in his head.
“We won’t keep you long,” said McGonagall quietly. “Only I thought it best to ensure there aren’t any loose ends we’re not aware of that need attending to. The things you said before the end…it does all seem extraordinary.”
Harry tried to grind his befuddled mind into gear. Was there anything he needed to tell them?
It attached itself to the only living thing left in that building –
An involuntary tremor rippled through him. It was gone; the Horcrux was gone, he reassured himself, and no one else need know about it now. He clamped down on the nausea climbing up through his throat.
“Are you going to be ill?” Kingsley asked urgently, reaching for the rubbish bin.
Harry shook his head, ears ringing. After a minute he felt a bit steadier. “Word is loads of the Death Eaters have already been captured. Is that true?”
“Yes,” Kingsley assured him. “A few are still on the run – Macnair, Mulciber, Jugson – but we believe many of the most dangerous are in custody. Auror headquarters is chaos at the moment, so we’ve got Dolohov and Greyback downstairs in a couple of the old cells until we can transfer them. The Carrows, too.”
“They’re still here?”
Harry’s feelings about this must have shown on his face, for McGonagall looked at him with worry. “They are well-contained, Harry, I promise you.”
“I want to see them,” said Harry.
The worry in McGonagall’s expression deepened; she and Kingsley exchanged a look. She clasped her hands together tightly. “I’m not certain that would be wise.” Her eyes softened as she looked at him. “They do not deserve your attention, Harry; you have done far, far more than enough. Leave all the rest to others now.”
“Hear, hear,” agreed a quiet voice from above their heads. Harry looked up. Dumbledore had sidled silently back into the portrait that had been empty a minute ago. He smiled down at Harry, his expression tinged with sorrow. Harry averted his gaze.
Dolohov. Greyback. Remus’s open, empty eyes staring up at the enchanted ceiling’s stars overhead. “I want to see them,” Harry repeated flatly.
Kingsley heaved a sigh. “I’ll take you down to the dungeons, if you truly wish. It’s your choice.”
Harry didn’t see much of a choice. Those wizards and witches had murdered people he cared for, people he loved. He needed to look into their eyes. To see what he couldn’t have said, but it was a pull he could not ignore. Besides, if he was going to be an Auror – and now that Voldemort was nothing more than a cold rotting corpse several floors below, Harry reckoned he really would be an Auror now – he was going to have to get used to facing people he’d much rather strangle to death with his own bare hands.
Something occurred to him, then, on the tail of that thought.
“Has anything been done with the body yet? Voldemort’s,” he clarified.
“No,” said McGonagall. “Not yet.”
“We should burn it,” Harry suggested, suddenly very sure. “Make sure nothing’s left. No grave, no marker. Let him fade away for good – he would have hated that.”
The flayed infant-sized bit of Voldemort that had lain suffering in King’s Cross swam in front of Harry’s bleary eyes again. He ruthlessly ground out the spark of sympathy it elicited.
Kingsley hummed low in his throat.
“A fitting end, I think,” nodded McGonagall. She lowered her voice as she asked Harry, “Would you like to be present for this?”
“No,” said Harry. “Maybe. I – I’m not sure.” He pressed at his eyes underneath his glasses for a moment, feeling stretched and threadbare.
“You don’t have to decide right now,” McGonagall told him. “I’ll ask Hagrid to see to it later, if he’s agreeable. I’ll ensure he speaks with you beforehand.”
Harry jerked his head, blinking against the spots in his vision. Moisture gathered at the corners of his stinging eyes; the urgent need for sleep buzzed under his skin. With an enormous effort, he pulled his thoughts back in line.
“Have you got time now?” Harry asked Kingsley. “To show me where Greyback and the others are?”
Kingsley still looked unhappy about it. “Yes. But then I’m handing you straight over to Molly.”
“Before you go, I’d like to ask,” said McGonagall, “‘Neither can live while the other survives’...that is what you said to Voldemort, as though he should understand the meaning.” She hesitated, clearly reluctant to hear the answer. “This phrase - it sounded to me like it might have come from the lines of a prophecy.”
Harry gave her a wry smile. He knew exactly what that had cost her to ask; she had never put any stock in the Divination department.
“It was,” said Harry. “That’s why I didn’t want anyone to help me. I knew how it had to be if there was any chance of finishing him for good, whether I wanted it that way or not.”
“That’s what Dumbledore meant,” Kingsley said. “When he told me and Remus that you were our best hope. That’s what he had us guarding at the Ministry, then…that knowledge.”
Harry nodded. “He told me the night Sirius died.”
Kingsley made a sound in his throat. McGonagall’s expression filled with an anguish that Harry found hard to look at.
“He never told you that’s what it was?”
“No,” Kingsley told him. “Only that Voldemort and his followers were to be kept from it at any cost. Some of us had our suspicions, of course – as did the rest of the magical community. The ‘Chosen One’ rumblings and all that…”
Harry scowled. He dreaded to think what they were going to start saying about him now.
“You also mentioned Horcruxes,” McGonagall went on.
“He made six of them,” he told them, and Kingsley swore under his breath.
“That’s what you came to the castle to find,” McGonagall surmised.
“Yes. We had two left to take care of…”
That’s not true, now is it, a voice that sounded much like Voldemort’s seemed to whisper to him.
Harry tapped his finger on his knee. “His snake was one of them, Neville took care of that,” he said, pride swelling up inside him. “The other – Ravenclaw’s diadem – was destroyed by Fiendfyre.”
“You found Ravenclaw’s diadem?” asked Kingsley, sitting up straight.
Harry nodded, smirking in spite of himself at Kingsley’s plain interest. He'd forgot Kingsley had belonged to Ravenclaw House.
“But it’s gone?”
Harry winced. “Yeah. Sorry about that.”
Kingsley shook his head and sighed. “Ah, well. Better for all of us in the end, I suppose, though it would have been nice to hold it just once. What was it like?”
McGonagall cleared her throat, trying to hold back her amusement. “Perhaps that is a conversation best left for another time; we should let Potter free, don’t you agree?”
“Of course! You look dead on your feet, Harry. Everything else can wait. We’ll let you know if anything’s needed, eh? And believe me, we’ll do our best not to need you.”
“Cheers,” said Harry gratefully as he tried to massage away the headache squeezing his temples.
“I’m quite certain there won’t be any stopping word of the Horcruxes spreading like wildfire outside these walls, but perhaps we can move slightly ahead of the rumours to mitigate the damage. I would regret to see any would-be copycats rise in Voldemort’s wake with similar ideas,” said McGonagall darkly.
Harry’s stomach turned at the thought, but it was impossible to ponder that now.
“On that note,” said Kingsley, rising from his chair. “Shall we?”
Maybe dying and coming back had scrambled his brains around, Harry mused.
As he followed Kingsley down the stone steps that led to the dungeons, Harry’s eyes kept drifting to strange blurred spots just outside of his field of vision, but there was nothing there when he really looked. The whole castle seemed to thrum with it, this fuzzy unnamable energy. It set Harry’s teeth on edge. He kept pace with Kingsley, constantly scanning his surroundings.
They passed the dungeons Harry was most familiar with, past the Potions classrooms and the stretch of wall which hid Slytherin’s common room, and descended several more flights of fusty stairs before stepping out into a long, chilly corridor marked with barred cells.
There was an eerie silence here: no sound or movement, only the thick sense of awful, shocked defeat in the air. Goose flesh raised on Harry’s skin; he made his way down the corridor, shivering in his worn sweatshirt. A beat of that silence, then –
A clawed hand shot out between the bars of the nearest cell, grasping wildly at the empty air in front of Harry as animalistic growls echoed off the walls.
It was Greyback.
Kingsley pivoted immediately to serve as a block between the bars and Harry, wand held high. His face was firm, made of stone. “Watch it, Fenrir. We wouldn’t want you to lose that arm, now would we?”
The werewolf leered and panted as he drew his arm back. He licked his sharpened teeth, hungry eyes pinned to Harry. “Little boy,” he cackled. “Little bastard, look what you’ve done! You’ve got no idea, do you? Nothing but a whelp, look at you, let me out of this cage and I’ll give you a real fight, eh? No tricks or magic words – just my teeth in your gut – ”
“That’s enough,” said Kingsley sharply.
Harry stepped closer to the cell, stopping within a hair’s breadth of Greyback’s reach.
“Harry,” Kingsley warned him, but Harry ignored him.
He looked at the man who had turned Remus’s life into a living hell, and felt nothing. No pity. No curiosity. Only a sheer white-hot rage that kept him on his feet like sheets of steel plating his bones. Numbly, he thought how very much he would like to take Greyback up on his offer.
Harry’s lips quirked. He pointedly eyed the slimy walls of Greyback’s cell. “Big words for someone inside a cage. I’d get used to that if I were you – you’re going to rot in one for the rest of your wretched life.”
Greyback lunged for him again, scrabbling through the bars. Harry stood his ground, unflinching, until Kingsley put a hand on his shoulder and led him away.
Harry glanced into the next cell, the feral snarls still reverberating all around them, and was brought up short.
Malfoy and his parents were all sat huddled together on the stone bench jutting out of the wall. Lucius and Narcissa both had a hunted look about them, pressed in close to Draco on either side. Draco looked up at Harry past his mother’s shoulder; his face was half-covered in blood, his eye blacked and swollen.
“What are they doing down here?” Harry asked without thinking.
Kingsley’s gaze moved between Harry and the Malfoys. “They fought for him, Harry. They’re Death Eaters.”
“He is dead.” Narcissa’s sharp nails digging into his chest…
Draco’s drawn face, his eyes flickering uncertainly, unwilling to give Harry up, to identify him to Bellatrix…
Harry swallowed. His thoughts felt like they were trying to swim upstream through tar. He did not know why it surprised him so much to see them all there. Kingsley was right, after all – they were Death Eaters. The hawthorn wand felt heavy in his pocket. He needed to return it to Draco, that was only right. It didn’t truly belong to Harry. But he couldn’t hand it over to a prisoner, could he?
Harry rubbed his temple, trying to soothe away the pain that had been creeping up his skull for hours. Draco was still looking at him.
A glob of spit landed with a splat on Harry’s shoe, and he jerked his head round.
Dolohov was there at the next door, dirty face set against the bars of the cell he’d been thrown into together with the Carrows; the siblings lay unconscious and still, slumped over each other in the far corner.
Kingsley made a sharp movement with his wand, propelling Dolohov backwards several feet. “Watch yourself, or you’ll be Stunned for the duration until your transport to Azkaban.”
Dolohov spared him a sneer before his eyes snapped back to Harry. “Prince Potter, deigning to visit the dregs of us, eh?” he whispered. He crept closer to the front of the cell again, his expression a mask of pure hatred. There was a strange look in his eye, almost wild. Intently focused. He pressed his face back to the bars. “You could have been something, do you know? We all thought so…after that night.”
Harry felt Kingsley shift closer to him, wand still held out protectively.
“You might have had all of us at your back…we would have followed you, as we followed him. But you chose…you chose, and now you’re nothing.” Dolohov’s lip curled. “You’ll get what’s coming for you, Potter.”
Kingsley’s hand closed around Harry’s arm. “Come. You needn’t listen to this.”
Harry resisted, gaze boring into Dolohov as he drew his own phoenix wand. “Scourgify,” he said, calm and clear, cleaning the spit off his trainer. He smiled pleasantly and tucked his wand away again. “Rot in hell.”
Harry gave in to Kingsley and turned to go. All of a sudden he didn’t want to be here anymore. The headache was worsening, pounding under his skin. The air was still thick with that odd energy; he felt jittery and unsteady.
“I killed her first,” Dolohov said from behind them, and Harry froze.
“Don’t listen to him,” Kingsley said urgently in Harry’s ear and tugged again at his arm.
“I made him watch, you know – the Order’s little pet werewolf – made him watch the light go out of the eyes of that wife of his. Worthless, half-blood bitch.”
Harry spun around, wrenching out of Kingsley’s grip. “Shut up.”
“They had a pup, didn’t they?”
“I told you to shut – your – mouth!”
Harry could feel a spark between his fingers, white static filling his head, filling the air. The Malfoys shifted in their cell, Greyback paced back and forth, snarling. Kingsley shifted on his feet.
Dolohov smiled at Harry, all teeth. “Poor, poor pup – he’ll have to grow up without his Mummy and Daddy, now won’t he? I may be trapped in this cell, Potter, but there are still others out there, and there always will be. When they come for you – and they will come for you – maybe they can do the kid, too, eh? A two-for-one special? Put all the orphans down, put you all out of your misery – ”
“SHUT UP!”
Harry’s body imploded, finally giving in. The burning static that was singing along his skin wrapped around him, smothering him, and he rebelled against it viciously with blinded eyes and a wordless shout. Dolohov flew back into the stone wall of his cell with a sickening crunch and fell to the floor in a heap. Shouts rang out from the other prisoners. Kingsley stumbled backwards a few steps, hands held up to shield his face from the inexplicable energy cracking like a whip through the corridor.
A great shiver wracked Harry’s body, his knees buckling. He blinked, disoriented, and sucked breaths into his chest with difficulty. His vision was blurred again. The smell of ozone hung in the air.
“Harry?”
Harry looked at Dolohov’s body, wondering distantly if he was dead. No, his chest was moving –
“Harry!”
Kingsley was holding him by the shoulders, wide-eyed. He had a strange look on his face. Concern and…something else.
“Are you alright?”
Harry nodded automatically and pressed a hand to the side of his head. It felt like it was cleaving in two. The smell of ozone began to fade; Greyback was snarling again. Kingsley said something that Harry couldn’t decipher.
He felt even more exhausted than before, if that was possible. Something wet tickled his upper lip, and the worry on Kingsley’s face deepened. Harry swiped at his face, blinking. His fingers came away red – his nose was bleeding. Harry pinched it out of habit and tilted his chin down. The cobblestones swam in front of him and, next thing he knew, Kingsley was pulling him back towards the end of the hall.
Harry glanced about as they ascended the first few steps and caught Malfoy’s eye. He had separated from his parents and was leaning against the cell door, watching Harry and Kingsley retreat, face dark and clouded.
They got up two flights of stairs before Harry braced himself against a wall and lost his lunch, which was really just a mouthful of tea and bile. The warm weight of Kingsley’s hand settled on his back as he leaned over.
“Let’s get you to the hospital wing.”
Harry shook his head and sniffed, eyes streaming. Kingsley conjured a handkerchief and passed it to him. “Thanks,” Harry mumbled, straightening and wiping his face. His throat stung. Grimacing, he vanished the small pool of sick and swallowed. He began to limp up the rest of the stairs, Kingsley at his flank.
“What happened back there?” Kingsley asked him quietly.
The familiar deep timber of his voice soothed Harry slightly. He took a breath, and the tremors in his hands started to subside. He shook his head again, more than a little spooked himself and unwilling to admit it.
“I reckon I’m just tired,” Harry croaked. “Lost control.”
Kingsley nodded as though this were perfectly understandable. “I’ll see if someone can track Poppy down, perhaps she’s got some Dreamless Sleep in her stores.”
“I don’t want – ” Harry started but stopped abruptly as they emerged from the dungeons into the entrance hall.
A contingent of about a dozen Gringotts goblins stood at the threshold of the open front doors; the goblin at the front appeared to be engaged in an animated argument with Bill Weasley. Other people were milling about the room, peering out of the Great Hall or down from the grand staircase with interest at the unexpected scene. Harry saw Mr and Mrs Weasley and Ron and Hermione stopped halfway down the stairs, looking on.
“What’s going on here?” Kingsley demanded as he and Harry approached the group.
Bill looked round at the Minister, two high spots of colour in his scarred cheeks and a deep crease in his brow. “Kingsley, thank Circe – this is madness.”
“That,” interjected the lead goblin, “is a matter of opinion. We must adhere not only to the institution’s bylaws, but the laws of our Goblinkind. We have the authority here, Weasley.”
“Blodruk,” said Bill with what appeared to be his very last shred of patience, “you must have heard, I know you have – you’re well aware of what he’s just done, for all of us!”
“Yes, I am,” said Blodruk. His black eyes fell upon Harry. “That does not change things, I’m afraid.”
Harry looked between Bill and Blodruk, trepidation growing quickly. “Change what things?”
“What exactly is the problem?” Kingsley repeated in a tone that brooked no defiance.
Bill brushed a hand through the strands of long hair falling out of his ponytail. His fist tightened around his wand. “They’re here for Harry.”
Kingsley frowned deeply. “Pardon?”
Blodruk cleared his throat and turned to Harry. Another goblin stepped up beside him, holding a thick pair of gold cuffs.
“Harry Potter,” said Blodruk, loud enough for the whole hall to hear, “you are hereby remanded to the custody of the officers of Gringotts Bank on charges of identity fraud, burglary, and the unauthorized handling and theft of a XXXXX classified dangerous beast. You will surrender your wand. You will submit to the authority of goblin law as it is required to be carried out.”
Blodruk leveled him with a beady stare.
“You will face just punishment for the egregious crime of violating the most olden and ancient statutes of Gringotts Bank.”