Harry Potter and the Master of Death [Complete]

Chapter Ten - The Finality of Death

Harry blinked as his eyes came back into focus. Ghostly images swam across his vision. To his amazement, the hooded figure still stood over him. Behind it, a tree had cracked vertically down its truck and was smouldering from the killing curse.

The creature seemed to be looking at him from the black recesses of the hood. Where its face should be there was nothing, an empty void as black as night. Harry raised the wands again, but in a movement faster than his eyes could register, the thing plucked them from his grasp and hurled them far into the forest. Hermione was still behind him, clutching him, sobbing softly.

This was death... this thing standing before them. Suddenly Harry knew it. The creature leaned closer to him and put out its cold white hand, palm side up, the long fingers fluttered clearly demanding. Harry knew now, had always known perhaps, what he had to do. He reached into the pocket of his jeans and slowly extracted the Resurrection Stone. He dropped it into the creatures waiting palm not wanting to touch it.

Hermione let out a shriek and lunged forward but Harry held her back, blocking her momentum with his body.

The things spider-like fingers closed around the stone and it rose quickly to its full height. It moved away from them and they watched as it held up the stone and turned it thrice.

The air shimmered, wavered and a blurred shape appeared and solidified immediately into a man. Harry's heart leapt and he let out a sharp sound, half elation and half fear. Before the creature stood the tall, powerful figure of the greatest Wizard Harry had ever known... Albus Dumbledore.

Harry immediately thought that somehow, Dumbledore had come to rescue them. By some magic that only Dumbledore could know, the kind, grey-bearded Headmaster had tricked the creature into summoning him and now Dumbledore would defeat it and everything would be alright again. Perhaps he would even be able to stay, for if any Wizard could come back from the dead it would be Dumbledore.

But instead of summoning the Elder Wand and cursing the creature, Dumbledore smiled sadly and reached out for the hooded figure. He drew it into his open arms and they embraced.

Harry opened his mouth... to yell... to scream... to warn Dumbledore, but Hermione grasped his arm suddenly and pointed. As Harry watched Dumbledore broke the embrace and stood back as the black hood fell away and the reapers robes slide to the ground. Standing before them was a woman, her long straw coloured hair shone, in fact, she gave off a strange luminescence that at first seemed to be a trick of the darkness and starlight, but then he realized she was a ghost. Her face was familiar to Harry, he had seen her before, and then Hermione leaned and whispered softly in his ear. "It's Ariana."

Of course, now he recognized her from the portrait in Aberforth's room at the Hog's Head Inn. This was Ariana Dumbledore... Professor Dumbledore's sister... but how and, more importantly, why?

Dumbledore turned to Harry and Hermione then and with his usual congeniality he smiled and said simply. "Excuse us for a moment." He and Ariana turned and walked off into the forest leaving Harry and Hermione in stunned silence.

He had so many questions burning inside. Questions that demanded answers, but only Dumbledore could explain and he had disappeared from view. Hermione was talking a mile a minute, but Harry couldn't concentrate on what she was saying, his mind reeled and he shook his head to try and clear it without success.

He turned and jogged out into the woods for no real reason other than to have something to do. After a moment's searching, he found his wand sticking out of the ground. The Elder Wand lay just a few feet away and he retrieved them both. Having the wands made him feel slightly better, more in control. He took his time returning to the clearing, not wanting to talk to Hermione right now. He needed time to think. But when he got back she was sitting on the ground against a large tree. He sat down next to her and was thankful that she seemed to have talked herself out and was now willing to just be with him, wordlessly.