Harry regained consciousness slowly. It was as though one moment he had not existed, and the next he simply was.

He opened his eyes and was greeted with an endless sea of shades of white. He was lying down, so he sat up, realizing that he was on a bench. It dawned on him, then, that he was naked. As he had this thought, a set of robes appeared on the bench beside him.

He stood the rest of the way up and dressed himself. After he had finished pulling the robes on, he turned in a slow circle, surveying his surroundings. He realized that he was in what appeared to be an other-worldly version of King’s Cross Station. Because the real King’s Cross was not completely devoid of color the way everything here, except for Harry, was.

And, mere moments after he had that realization, Harry’s turning brought a child into view. Despite how far away the child was from Harry, they were readily visible due to the stark contrast of their silhouette against the white backdrop. The child was standing mutely and staring steadily at him.

Harry took a step towards the child, and the child took a step back from him.

He paused then, and returned the child’s stare. The longer he stared, the more... unsettled he began to feel. Harry thought that something about the child seemed familiar, and, pushing past the unsettled feeling, he tried to take another step towards the child, holding his hands up to make himself appear as non-threatening as possible.

It didn’t work, because the child took another step back, matching Harry’s pace.

Harry stopped again and squinted, trying to get a better look at the child so he could figure out what was so familiar about them. He must have been trying too hard though, because he could have sworn he saw the child flicker into transparency, then back again.

He was startled out of his staring contest when he heard, “Hey there, pup.”

Harry whirled around and saw that Sirius was standing just behind him. “Sirius?” He asked disbelievingly.

“Is that anyway to greet your favorite Marauder?” Sirius said, holding his arms up for a hug.

Harry rushed forward into Sirius’s waiting arms. Harry felt safer in Sirius’s arms than he had felt in ages. Sirius squeezed him tightly, then held Harry out at arm’s length. Harry blushed under the scrutiny and looked away.

“You look too skinny, Harry. Have you been eating enough?” Sirius asked worriedly.

“I’ve been doing my best. But, uh, what’s with that kid?” Harry asked, twisting in Sirius’s arms so he could point at the child. His stomach turned oddly when he realized that he couldn’t see the child anywhere.

“There was a child, somewhere…” He realized that he no longer knew exactly where the child had been, because the shades of white that the station was comprised of didn’t provide any noteworthy landmarks to help him remember where he’d seen them.

“Oh,” Sirius said solemnly. “I was hoping you wouldn’t have to see that.”

“See what?” Harry asked sharply, ready to get mad again about adults keeping secrets ‘for his own good’.

“That was the remnant of Voldemort’s soul,” Sirius said.

Harry inhaled, and then stepped back out of Sirius’s grasp entirely. “Voldemort’s soul? What was it doing here? And where is ‘here’? I’m dead, right? So where’s everyone else?”

“About that,” Sirius said, “you’re not as dead as you might think.”

“But,” Harry protested, the memory of being hit by Voldemort’s Killing Curse coming suddenly into his mind, “I was hit by the Killing Curse, I should be dead.” He wasn’t quite sure why he was protesting, but it just didn’t seem fair that he had once again survived something that had killed so many other people.

Sirius pulled him back into a hug. Without letting go, he said, “Oh, pup.”

Harry slowly brought his arms back up to hug Sirius back. It seemed they were going to have this conversation while hugging. “So, how am I not dead? And what was Voldemort’s soul doing here?” Harry asked.

“The answers to those two questions are related. And, well, I think you already know most of it. Think about the fact that there was a piece of Voldemort’s soul here. Think about the fact that Voldemort was able to follow a soul-tie to find you,” Sirius said.

The realization of what he was slammed into Harry with the force of a freight train. He’d had a piece of Voldemort’s soul in him. A piece of Voldemort’s soul– a horcrux, a distant part of his mind offered helpfully. A small slice of panic started to dig into Harry’s gut, but then Sirius squeezed him tighter and most of the panic receded.

“Hey there, it’s alright. You’re not a horcrux anymore. No matter what you decide, you will never be a horcrux again,” Sirius said soothingly.

“Decide?” Harry asked, his voice slightly muffled by the press of Sirius’s chest against his face.

“Decide if you want to go… on, or not. But let’s not talk about that just yet. You asked, earlier, where everyone else was. Well, I can tell you that your parents wanted desperately to see you, and they would be here if they could. But since only one of us could come to greet you, I was getting ready to fight your parents for the right, but then the most shocking thing happened,” Sirius said.

Harry was listening to what Sirius was saying, so he was mildly curious as to what happened next. But a large part of his mind was occupied with basking in the warmth of the hug and the soothingness of the vibrations of Sirius’s chest against his cheek.

“James and Lily told me to come. And I know you probably wanted to see your parents, but they sent me because, well, we know each other better. And if one of them came, they’d only have the chance to meet you for a bit before you’d have to go again. And they figured that you’ll have an eternity to get to know them, one day,” Sirius said, periodically rubbing soothing circles into Harry’s back.

Then he finally broke the hug, and Harry felt its loss keenly. It was abated somewhat by Sirius taking his hand and guiding him to a bench a little ways away. They sat down facing each other, Sirius still holding Harry’s hand tightly in his warm hands.

“But we still have some time, so what’ve you been up to since we last chatted?” Sirius asked lightly.

Harry paused and sorted through the memories of the past couple months and immediately rejected anything from his time at the Dursley’s. He didn’t want to bother Sirius with things that didn’t matter, especially since he got the feeling that Sirius had already known what was going on in his life and was just asking to make conversation. That left the past week or so to talk about.

“Well, McGonagall appointed me to be the Quidditch captain. Uh, we started the DA again. Oh! And I made a new friend, he’s a transfer from America, so he doesn’t get all caught up in my fame, which has been really nice...” Harry trailed off.

Sirius began to look a little agitated, and Harry had to review what he’d said to make sure he hadn’t said something wrong or bad or upsetting, but he genuinely couldn’t think of anything that could have been.

“Oh? A new friend, you say? Tell me more about them,” Sirius said, a little too quickly.

Harry hesitated, giving Sirius an odd look. Then he shrugged it off, deciding that Sirius must be interested in the oddness of getting a new yearmate so late in their education.

“Well, his name is Eli, he’s in my year in Gryffindor. He ended up getting dragged along with us when we found the horcruxes, and wasn’t freaked out and didn’t hate me or anything for it. Oh, and I think there’s someone who doesn’t like him, because he got hit with a really cruel prank spell while he was just walking outside the other day,” Harry said, searching his mind for anything else Sirius might be interested in hearing about.

He couldn’t think of anything though, so he trailed off into silence.

Sirius still seemed off as he said, “That’s cool, that’s cool, and he didn’t seem, I don’t know, at all familiar to you?”

Harry frowned lightly and said, “No, should he have?”

Sirius muttered something to himself, then he shifted in his seat and squeezed Harry’s hand tightly. “Never mind. Anyways, I have a bone to pick with you,” he said seriously.

“Did you say that just for the pun?” Harry asked. He had no idea what Sirius was talking about, the clear topic switch didn’t give him any clues as to what the new topic was. Not to mention the phrasing made him wonder if Sirius was just joking, or if he was actually mad about something.

“You,” Sirius said, releasing Harry’s hand from one of his own and gently poking Harry in the chest with it, “have got to start valuing your own life more. I cannot believe– well, I can believe it, because it’s you, but somehow that makes it worse, anyways– you sacrificed your life for Snape, of all people.”

Harry flushed and rubbed at the back of his neck with his free hand. “Voldemort was going to curse Snape in the back, though!” he protested weakly. “And Snape had just healed me, it was the first thing he did when he arrived. I don’t think he even stopped to see what the rest of the situation was, he just, came over to heal me right away. And he made sure my friends were safe, though I still don’t know why he did that. And if Voldemort wanted Snape dead, he can’t be that bad, can he?”

“We’re talking about you, pup,” Sirius said gently, “and I know it’s hard to accept, but your life is worth just as much as anyone else’s. You don’t have to be the hero.”

“But,” Harry said, “Voldemort was going to kill him. I had to do s–”

“You didn’t have to do anything, but I can see that this isn’t going to be something I can just convince you of in the little time we have, so I’ll let it go, so as to not waste any more of our precious time. Just know that there are many people who love you, and more importantly, I love you too.”

The warmth of Sirius’s words made Harry feel as though he were still being hugged. He smiled and said, “I love you too.”

Sirius released Harry’s hand, then grabbed him in another bear hug.

They remained like that for several long moments, and Harry gratefully soaked in the affection. Then Sirius released him and said, regretfully, “Speaking of time, I think we’re running out of it, so why don’t we talk about those choices I mentioned earlier?”

Harry felt a pang at hearing they were running low on time. He didn’t want to leave Sirius so soon, it felt like he’d just gotten here. “What choices?” Harry asked.

“As you know, Old Snakeface hit you with an Avada Kedavra. Normally, that would be it, the end of the line, etc etc. But you’ve never been ordinary and this is no exception. Prior to being hit by the curse, you were a horcrux. An accidental horcrux, really, because Voldemort never meant to make you one. The details of it are esoteric and–” Sirius swooped his hand over his own head.

“–way over my head. But basically, when he tried to kill you as a baby, part of his soul fractured off of his already piecemeal soul and latched onto you. That’s why you have that connection to him and that snake of his. And that’s why you saw that child.” Sirius gestured vaguely off into the distance, as though to imitate when Harry had tried to point out the child.

“But now, you’re not a horcrux. Your soul is whole and free. However, because of the ritual Voldemort used to make his new body, and the fact that Voldemort himself was the one to hit you with the Killing Curse, you got to come here, to King’s Cross Station. Which brings us to the choice you have. From here, you can board a train, and go on–”

“On?” Harry asked curiously.

“You know.” Sirius gestured airily. “On, the beyond, the afterlife, whatever you want to call it. Or you can go back and live your life.”

Harry opened his mouth to say something, but then Sirius continued, “We have enough time for you to give the decision some thought first. I know this is going to sound hypocritical coming from me, but don’t rush into a decision. And you should know that, whatever you decide, I will love you.”

Harry closed his mouth again and fixed his gaze on something off in the distance. He could see his parents again, he realized. If he boarded a train, he’d get to stay with Sirius and his parents, all of whom loved him. He’d never have to see the Dursleys again.

But then he thought about what he’d be leaving behind. He wouldn’t be able to see Ron or Hermione again. Or Ginny or Neville or Luna. He would never actually get to know Eli. He’d never get to teach the DA again. He’d never get to date anyone again. He realized, with a jolt, that if he went on, his only kiss would forever be with Cho.

He’d never get to have a future, if he went on. And, as he brought his gaze back into focus to look at Sirius, he knew that he did want a future. “I have to go back,” Harry said, a tinge of sadness in his voice. Because he would miss Sirius terribly, but Harry thought Sirius would understand.

“I thought you would say that,” Sirius said. He got to his feet and continued, “Give me one last hug before you go.”

Harry stepped into the hug and did his best to absorb as much of the warmth and affection as he could.

“I’m going to miss you, Sirius,” Harry said into Sirius’s chest.

“I will too, pup, I will too.”

Harry nodded into Sirius’s chest, and when Sirius squeezed him again, he felt his emotions finally catch up with him. He sniffled helplessly as he started crying, and then he tried to pull away so he wouldn’t get his tears or snot on Sirius.

“Hey now, none of that,” Sirius said, sounding choked up himself.

“I’m sorry, I just–” Harry said, voice still muffled by Sirius’s chest.

“I know. I know. But remember,” Sirius said, “This is not goodbye. It’s so long for now. Because we’ll see each other again, many, many years from now.” He finally released Harry from the hug and took a half step back.

“I love you, Harry,” Sirius said, taking another step back.

Harry wiped away several more tears, but it was a losing battle. “I love you too, Sirius,” Harry said, voice distorted by his crying.

And as King’s Cross Station faded away, he thought he heard Sirius shout, “And make sure you name a kid after me!”

Severus continued to hold onto Harry’s wrist for what felt like an eternity. The rest of the world continued to move around him, but he sat in the middle of it all, motionless.

Eventually, he heard a loud sound of distress from somewhere near him, and his awareness slammed back into his body. Harry was dead, but there was still work to be done. Severus leaned forward and closed Harry’s eyes. He climbed to his feet and looked around the throne room, trying to find who had elicited the distressed sound.

As he looked around, he saw that Voldemort was on the ground with several Death Eaters clustered around him. That clearly hadn’t been it, so he looked beyond them to where he’d last seen Dumbledore. And he saw that Dumbledore was also on the ground, and that Nagini was circling his body, as though to prevent anyone from approaching.

Severus realized that Dumbledore must have been grievously injured or otherwise incapacitated, because he was completely immobile where he lay upon the ground.

The sound from earlier repeated itself, and Severus whipped his head around, resuming his search for the source, and then he finally realized it was Fawkes. The phoenix was now landing by Dumbledore, and Severus started over towards them. He wasn’t sure what he was going to do to get past the snake that had managed to fell Dumbledore, but he felt as though he had to try.

Suddenly, when Severus was still several meters from where Dumbledore and Nagini were, Fawkes took off again. Dumbledore didn’t seem as though he had been healed, though, which was curious. And then, even curiouser, Fawkes flew towards Severus. He could now see that the Sorting Hat, of all things, was clutched in Fawkes’s talons.

Severus tracked Fawkes’s progress over to him. Then, when the phoenix was directly overhead, Severus saw the bird drop the Sorting Hat.

He automatically reached up to catch it, and because he couldn’t think of anything else to do with it, he put it on.

“Hello,” the Sorting Hat said pleasantly.

“Hello,” Severus replied reluctantly. It was odd to be wearing the hat again after so long. It now fit him properly, like a hat ought to fit, so he was able to continue his walk towards Dumbledore and Nagini without having his vision impeded.

“You know, I always enjoy it when I get the chance to talk to a student years after I’ve Sorted them,” the hat said.

Severus nodded absently as he was derailed in his path to Dumbledore by Travers. He pulled out his wand and prepared to flatten the man.

“Because it gives me the opportunity to see how you grow beyond the house you’re Sorted into as a child...”

Travers opened with a weak cutting curse that Severus easily absorbed into a shield. He parried with an overpowered Stupefy, hoping to end this quickly.

“...of course, I always say we Sort too soon... In any case, you are certainly one of the more interesting cases–”

Severus missed what the hat said next because, after dodging Severus’s Stupefy, Travers had cast a sonic curse, and Severus had to move quickly to block it. The hat was still chattering away, though, and he next heard:

“...quintessential Slytherin. But now the lines are blurrier. Being a spy and lying to Voldemort’s face took real, dare I say it, bravery! In fact...”

Finally, Severus was able to nail Travers with Expelliarmus, followed quickly with Incarcerous. He snapped Travers’s wand over his knee and dropped the pieces. Then he continued over to where Dumbledore was lying, his body entirely too still. Severus still had no game plan, he just knew that he had to try to do something for the man who had been the only one to give him a chance to be there.

“And there it is!” the Hat exclaimed. Then, contracting as though it were being squeezed, the Hat dropped something onto Severus’s head. Something very dense, and very heavy.

Severus paused and whipped the hat, along with– whatever it was– off his head. He looked into the Hat and saw that it now held a sword. He pulled it out and saw that it was Sword of Gryffindor.

He had the fleeting thought that the Gryffindor attitude was truly contagious, but then the sight of the sword jogged Severus’s memory.

This was what Harry had used to kill the Basilisk only a couple of years ago. And basilisk venom was one of the ways to destroy a horcrux. After the incident at Christmas, in the Department of Mysteries, Severus had known that Nagini was very likely a horcrux. Severus looked at the sword with new appreciation, thankful for the possibility that he might actually be able to do something about Nagini with it.

He resumed walking over to Nagini, and when he drew near, paused and simply stared at the snake. He was looking at her to try and find a weakness, and to formulate a plan of attack.

However, before he could manage either of those things, the snake stopped her circling to face him. And Severus automatically adopted a duelling stance, modified so he could keep both hands on the hilt of the sword.

Then the snake lunged at him, and Severus cut into her side with the sword as he dodged, managing to score a deep wound along her scales. He whipped around to face Nagini again, and saw that she had also circled around. This time he altered the way he was holding the sword, so that he could swing it with greater power, and when she lunged at him again, he brought the sword down hard.

And sliced the head off of Nagini.

He heard someone burst into applause from somewhere behind him, but he ignored it in favor of hurrying over to check on Albus. He knelt down to the ground and took Albus’s hand in his. Now that he was this close, he could see the puncture wounds from the snake in Albus’s side.

“Albus?” He asked, unsure if Albus was conscious or not.

“Severus?” He replied, his voice less lively than it normally was.

Reassured that the man was still alive and conscious, he asked, “Why didn’t Fawkes heal you?” He had to assume that Dumbledore had sent Fawkes away for some reason. Which was ridiculous, because a serious perk of having a phoenix was so it could heal you at a time like this.

Albus coughed, then said, “Because I told him not to. He can only heal someone once a year, and if he healed me, he would not be able to help Harry.”

“You fool,” Severus said angrily, “Harry is dead.” He looked over his shoulder, trying to spot the bird, to see if he could wave it back over.

“Harry may yet survive,” Albus said.

Severus whipped back around to face Albus. “What,” he gasped.

Albus nodded solemnly, and Severus tossed another look over his shoulder to where Harry was, then looked back at Albus.

Albus said, “Go see to him, Severus.”

Severus gratefully released Albus’s hand.

“I have to go,” he said quickly in farewell, then sprinted back over to where Harry was. Fawkes was crying onto the spot on Harry’s chest where the Killing Curse had impacted. Severus slid to a halt beside the boy and fell to his knees.

He grabbed Harry’s wrist, then stopped and forced himself to take a deep, calming breath before even trying to find the pulse, worried that if his own heart was beating too quickly, he’d feel his own pulse against Harry’s veins. Now that he was settled, he gently held Harry’s wrist in his palm and prodded at the veins slowly, looking for the pulse.

His heart began to sink when the veins remained still beneath his touch. He should have known better than to trust Albus like that, should have known better than to allow himself to hope.

Severus began to set the wrist back down, when he felt something flutter beneath his fingers. His own heart slammed back into action, pounding loudly in his ears, and he checked the wrist for a pulse, one last time.

And this time, he felt it.

A relieved smile began to settle onto his lips, and he searched Harry’s face for any signs of consciousness. The smile fell off his face when he saw that tears were leaking out of Harry’s eyes.

The first thing Harry felt was the ache of having to leave Sirius behind. Next, he became aware of all the aches and pains that had been blessedly absent at King’s Cross. But even now, they were oddly distant. It was though the warmth of Sirius’s farewell still lingered on his soul, pushing the pain back to the edges of his awareness.

Then he realized that he was still crying, and tried to lift his hand to wipe it away.

His eyes snapped open. Something prevented his hand from moving, so he bolted into a sitting position, panicked thoughts of being restrained by Voldemort running through his mind.

The thoughts were halted in their tracks by a stampede of confusion when Harry saw that it was Professor Snape holding onto his wrist, and the confusion only increased when he was that Professor Snape was looking oddly upset.

A moment later, Professor Snape dropped his hand and ordered his features, looking as expressionless as he normally did.

“Are you alright?” Harry asked.

Professor Snape gave him an incredulous look, then said, “You just died.”

Harry flushed and looked away as he said, “I’m fine, though.”

Then Bellatrix cackled loudly with glee and exclaimed, “My lord! He lives!”

This galvanized Harry to get to his feet as quickly as he could, drawing his wand as he went. He could sense Professor Snape standing up behind him as well.

Looking around, he saw a cluster of Order members gathered off to one side of the room, but at the sound of Bellatrix’s laugh, they moved as a group towards the remaining Death Eaters that were gathered around. Harry noticed that the Death Eaters were standing around the place where he’d seen Voldemort, but he couldn’t actually see Voldemort now. He wondered if Voldemort had been knocked back too.

Harry decided, when he saw Voldemort getting to his feet, that Voldemort must have also been knocked out. Harry shifted his stance into something more duel-ready.

Then Professor Snape stepped in front of him and said, “Harry, get back.”

Harry frowned and stepped out from behind him. Before he could say anything though, Bellatrix said, in that terrible baby-talk voice of hers, “Aww, is Sevvy-poo the traitor trying to protect Potter? How touching.”

Then she lashed out and threw some kind of non-verbal spell at Harry. Harry quickly shielded against it, and then Professor Snape engaged Bellatrix instead.

Then the group of Order members launched a new attack against the rest of the Death Eaters. They quickly spread out throughout the throne room, until Harry and Voldemort were facing each other alone.

“Potter,” Voldemort said, then, drawing Harry’s attention from where he’d been watching the action around him.

“Voldemort,” Harry said.

Voldemort drew his wand and Harry prepared to defend himself. But then, instead of pointing it at Harry, he whipped around, pointed his wand at what Harry finally realized was Dumbledore, and shouted, “Expelliarmus!”

Harry fleetingly hoped that Dumbledore was alright, but he couldn’t spare any further thought for him because he had to keep his attention on Voldemort, who was now stowing his own wand into his robes.

“I know, now, why I have failed to kill you so often,” Voldemort said, stalking to the side.

Harry followed his motion in the opposite direction, so that they were circling each other.

“Our wands are too connected to cast properly against each other, but you see now that I’ve switched wands. That will not be an issue again,” Voldemort said.

Harry faltered for a moment in his circling, feeling a pang at the loss of one of the few protections he had, but quickly resumed his motion.

“Do you think you could actually manage to point your wand at the right person, this time?” Harry asked mockingly.

Voldemort narrowed his eyes and flicked his gaze over to where Professor Snape and Bellatrix were still duelling each other. “At least this time, you won’t be jumping in front of a curse meant for someone as worthless as Severus.”

Harry rolled his shoulders back as he side-stepped. “Worthless? To you, maybe. But to the side of the light, he’s invaluable– it’s not just anyone who can spend years spying on you and live to tell the tale.”

“I know how he treats you,” Voldemort said, sounding perplexed. “Why, then, do you defend him?”

Harry rolled his eyes, and then regretted it a bit. All this circling was making him a little dizzy, despite how slow they were going. “Because I’m not the most important person in this war, and because I can see that he has worth beyond how he treats me. And maybe you view a person’s worth purely as their ability to be useful to you specifically, but that’s because you’ve never known the truly important things in life.”

Voldemort laughed mockingly. “And what are these oh so important things that you say I have never experienced– wait, no, let me guess. It’s Dumbledore’s favorite: the power of love,” he spat the word as if it were poison.

Harry thought he heard a pop of apparition, but quickly discarded the thought to focus on Voldemort.

“It is,” Harry said simply. Then he continued, thinking of the memories that shone golden in his mind. His memories of times with his friends and with Sirius, and what he imagined his parents must have felt for him to sacrifice themselves for him. “It’s friendship, it’s love, it’s family. Those are the things that make us human, and those are the things that matter in life.”

Voldemort stopped circling, and so Harry stopped too. There was a flicker of motion in Harry’s peripheral vision, and he hoped it wasn’t something dangerous.

“We will see what is truly important when your dead body lies at my feet,” Voldemort snarled.

They took a half-step towards each other, and Voldemort cast “Avada Kedavra,” the same time that Harry cast, “Expelliarmus!” And seconds after Harry’s spell cleared his wand, Professor Snape careened to a stop directly in front of Harry, mere seconds before Harry would have been struck– and killed– by the curse.

Harry automatically stepped around him to grab Dumbledore’s wand from the air from where it had been ripped from Voldemort’s grasp.

His hand had just closed around the wand, when he heard Professor Snape cast, “Avada Kedavra.”

Harry watched the spell’s progress until it collided with Voldemort’s chest.

Then Voldemort collapsed, his body striking the ground with a mundane finality. His body looked so much smaller and shrunken in death, in the absence of his malicious ego. His hands were empty, and as Harry approached the body, he saw that the snake-like face held no expression at all.

Even the crimson eyes were, now and forever, blank.

Then Harry spotted Riddle’s phoenix feather wand poking out of his pocket, and so he bent down to pick it up. It was too dangerous to simply leave that lying around, so Harry stuck it in his pocket, where it joined his growing collection of wands.

“Harry, get away from him,” Professor Snape said urgently from behind him.

Harry didn’t see the point though, so he gestured at the body of Tom Riddle and said, “He’s dead now. There’s nothing more he can do.” Then Harry swung his head around to stare at Professor Snape, who was walking over to him and said, “And, speaking of death, shouldn’t you be dead too?”

Professor Snape had arrived by Harry’s side, and was now quietly muttering under his breath, casting spells on Riddle’s body. After he finished casting, Professor Snape closed his eyes slowly, then opened them again. He looked around the room and Harry copied the action, finally seeing that the only people still standing were Order members.

Then Professor Snape said loudly, to the room at large, “Voldemort is dead.”

Everyone seemed to exhale a sigh of relief at this, and Harry felt his shoulders relax too.

Professor Snape turned to Harry and quietly said, “To answer your question, I am... not sure why the curse failed to affect me.”

Harry looked down and rubbed at his mildly aching chest and, after he had the vague hope that whatever was keeping his other aches and pains at bay continued to do, had an idea of what had happened with Professor Snape.

“I think that maybe it’s like what my mum did for me. Because I–” Harry faltered, then continued on, “I jumped in front of that curse to save your life, so Voldemort wasn’t able to touch you.”

There was a moment of silence, then Harry frowned and said, “But why were you close enough to jump in front of the spell? What happened to Bellatrix?” He didn’t ask what he really wanted to ask, which was why Professor Snape would have tried to sacrifice his life for Harry, because of course Professor Snape hadn’t known that he would be able to survive the Killing Curse.

“I had just beaten Bellatrix, when, unfortunately, she managed to apparate before I could finish her off. Then I rushed over to join you against Voldemort, conveniently in time to jump in front of his curse.”

“So that’s what the pop of apparition I heard was–” Harry started to say, but he was interrupted by Fawkes squawking loudly.

Harry whirled over to where the bird was, and saw that Fawkes was flapping his wings angrily. When Harry’s eyes landed on the bird, however, Fawkes settled down. Then Harry noticed that Fawkes was sitting by Dumbledore’s frighteningly still body. Harry looked down at his left hand, where he was still clutching Dumbledore’s wand, and felt his heart sink.

He rushed over, sure that Fawkes must have had a reason for getting their attention. He noticed, distantly, that Professor Snape was right on his heels.

When Harry drew near, he was able to see that Dumbledore was still alive, if barely. There was a worryingly large pool of blood around his body.

“So, you are alive,” Dumbledore said weakly.

Harry nodded and said, “I am.” Then he glanced at the wand again. Dumbledore’s hand was lying on the ground, palm up, by where Harry was. Harry placed the wand in Dumbledore’s hand, and said, “Here’s your wand back, sir.”

Dumbledore’s closed lightly around the wand and he asked, “How did you get it?”

“Well, Voldemort disarmed you, and then I disarmed Voldemort,” Harry said.

Dumbledore’s fingers uncurled from the wand. He said, “Then the wand is yours.”

“What?” Harry asked, making no move to take the wand. “That doesn’t make any sense, it’s still your wand.”

Dumbledore coughed shakily. Then he said, “It is yours. Take it.”

Harry shifted uncomfortably.

“Just take it, Harry,” Professor Snape said, galvanizing Harry to finally reach out again and reluctantly pick up the wand.

“Look, just because Dumbledore says it’s mine, doesn’t mean it is. Watch,” Harry said, giving the wand a wave like he had with his Phoenix feather wand in Ollivander’s shop five years ago. And then he froze in shock when the wand emitted a shower of sparks. After a beat of stillness, he slowly lowered the wand.

“It is yours,” Dumbledore repeated.

Harry discarded, for the moment, the oddness of the wand transferring ownership just like that in favor of asking, “Why are you still bleeding, sir? Why hasn’t Fawkes healed you?” Because he realized that Fawkes was simply standing near Dumbledore, and not crying on his wound like he ought to be.

“Fawkes has already cried once this year. He will not be able to heal me,” Dumbledore said.

Harry looked around frantically, as though Madam Pomfrey or any healer at all would appear. “Has anyone tried to get a healer?” He demanded.

Dumbledore shook his head minutely. “There is no need. It is almost my time to go onto the next great adventure.”

“You mean you have not had anyone call for Pomfrey?” Professor Snape sounded furious. Harry saw him draw his wand out of the corner of his eye.

“She will not be able to help me,” Dumbledore said.

Professor Snape said, “She can at least try. You just want to die like a martyr.” Then he cast his patronus– a bird of some kind– and told it to go tell Flitwick to urgently send Madam Pomfrey with a portkey.

“Before I go, it is time for one of our number to recognize the other for who he is. Severus… he deserves to… know.” Dumbledore said, his voice now beginning to falter.

Harry looked between the two men, a bad feeling rising in his chest. He had absolutely no idea what Dumbledore meant.

Professor Snape shook his head sharply.

Dumbledore heavily turned his head towards Harry and locked eyes with him. Dumbledore said, more faintly than before, “Severus is…” He gasped for breath for a moment, then continued, “Eli.”

“What?” Harry whispered. He replayed the words in his head: ‘Severus is Eli’. “What do you mean, ‘Severus is Eli’?” He fleetingly remembered Seamus and Ron saying that Snape was pretending to be McGonagall, could he have actually been pretending to be someone else entirely?

Whispering now, Dumbledore said, slowly, haltingly, “I sent… Severus undercover. As Eli.”

“Is it true?” Harry asked, breaking eye contact with Dumbledore, a tide of anger and betrayal beginning to rise within him.

One look at Snape told Harry all he needed to know, even before Snape said, “It is.”

Harry staggered to his feet as the anger and betrayal swamped his senses, making him see red. “You lied to me,” Harry snapped bitterly, not sure if he was speaking more to Snape or to Dumbledore. Then, to only Dumbledore, Harry said, “You swore not to lie to me, you reminded me of that today, in your office. The place where you swore in the first place. How–” He forced himself to stop as he spotted Madam Pomfrey hurrying over to him.

The portkey must have arrived.

“Move,” she snapped at Harry and Snape, pulling her wand out and muttering as she waved it in intricate patterns over Dumbledore.

Dumbledore’s eyes were closed, and he didn’t even twitch as Madam Pomfrey continued her work, her motions seeming to grow more frantic as she went. Then, suddenly, her shoulders slumped forward and her motions slowed. A moment later, they stopped entirely and she said, “I was too late.”

Harry said, “Is he–”

“Not yet,” Madam Pomfrey said, cutting him off. “But he will be soon. If you want to say goodbye, now is the time.”

Harry felt all the steam he’d built up in his chest escape him. His anger didn’t seem so important in the face of losing of the man he’d looked up to as a mentor for so long. Even if he hadn’t turned out to be a very honest mentor, after all. He got back down and placed his hand over Dumbledore’s.

“Good luck on your adventure,” Harry said quietly.

“Goodbye, Albus,” Snape said.

The other members of the Order were beginning to crowd around, so Harry withdrew his hand and got to his feet, weaving his way out of the crowd. There were some chairs alongside one of the walls, so Harry made his way over to one of them and sat down heavily in it.

And as soon as he was comfortable, all the aches and pains that he’d known were hanging about the edges of his awareness came crashing over him. He curled into himself, wishing desperately he had someone there to help him. But Madam Pomfrey was busy, and now that Harry knew about Eli, Harry doubted Snape would bother pretending to be nice again.

Harry felt as though he had lost two people, though it felt like the loss was a long ways away. He was beginning to feel emotionally exhausted after the hellish day he’d had. And he felt like he had lost two people, not counting Dumbledore, because he’d found out that Eli wasn’t even real. And Harry had just begun to feel as though he could actually trust Snape, and then Harry had found out that the man had been lying to him.

=At least Dumbledore had told Harry the truth now, because this way Harry hadn’t fully fallen for Snape’s game, whatever it was, and could guard himself against any future tricks Snape tried to play.

A small part of Harry wondered why Snape had bothered to be nice to him before Harry had found out that Snape was Eli, because Snape could have easily been as nasty as ever to Harry, and Harry wouldn’t have thought anything of it. Then Harry decided that Snape must have gotten so used to pretending to like Harry that Snape had forgotten that he didn’t need to pretend when he was in his own body.

Glancing over at the group of people crowded around Dumbledore, Harry saw that most people seemed to be done saying their farewells. He slowly got to his feet then and made his way over to the group, hoping that they would be going back to Hogwarts soon.

He desperately needed to see his friends. His real friends.

As he drew near the group, he heard Madam Pomfrey solemnly say, “He’s gone.”

Harry faltered in his step as the realization that Dumbledore was well and truly dead sank in. A small, childish part of him had still been convinced that Dumbledore would live forever, even though he’d known objectively that that wasn’t the case.

A moment later, he recovered enough to resume walking. He approached Tonks, who was standing off to one side.

He quietly asked her, “How am I supposed to get back to Hogwarts?”

She glanced at him out of the corner of her eye and said, just as quietly, “I think Pomfrey has a portkey that everyone going back to Hogwarts can take. The rest of us will be here for a bit to take care of the bodies.”

“Bodies?” He whispered.

Tonks turned to face him fully and said, “You didn’t know? Remus and Moody were killed.”

Harry felt a sharp pang at their loss. Remus had been the last living connecting to his parents and to Sirius, and Harry had hardly gotten to know him outside of school. This was quickly followed by the sting of guilt, because neither Moody nor Remus would have been here to die, if it weren’t for Harry.

He didn’t know what to say, so he nodded. He’d have plenty of time to work through his feelings later. Then he said, “I’m going to ask Pomfrey about that portkey.”

Tonks gave him a worried look and said, “Alright, I’ll see you around.”

“See you around,” Harry echoed, then slowly worked his way through the crowd to where Pomfrey was standing over by Dumbledore.

“Excuse me,” he said as he approached her, “Tonks said you have a portkey to Hogwarts?”

She blinked. Then she turned to face him and said, “That’s right, I’ll be activating it soon.”

“Alright,” Harry said.

Then Pomfrey reached out and gently took one of his arms. She tsked gently and said, “And you will be coming to stay with me for a little while. I haven’t heard the whole story, but I am sure that you need medical attention.”

Harry would have protested this, but he was beginning to feel like he was on the verge of collapse, so he only nodded weakly in response.

As he stood and waited, he slowly surveyed the group of people still hovering by Dumbledore. Unfortunately, in doing so, he made eye contact with Snape, who immediately headed towards Harry.

Harry felt himself stiffen slightly, ready for a confrontation.

Snape said, “Harry–”

“Don’t call me that,” Harry interrupted.

And Snape took a step back, his face closing off into the blank mask Harry was used to seeing.

Snape turned away from Harry slightly to face Madam Pomfrey and said, “We ought to go now.”

She nodded and pulled a tightly wound roll of bandages out of her pocket. “Everyone grab on,” she said, holding it out.

Harry placed his finger on the roll, standing as far away from Snape as he could manage. Then Harry took a deep breath.

And, as the portkey activated and the world began to whirl wildly around him, Harry realized, suddenly and unexpectedly, that he was about to head to Hogwarts to begin the rest of his life.