Just to Be, Just to Live
Just to be is a blessing. Just to live is holy.
Abraham Joshua Heschel
"It's going to be all right, sir," Harry said over and over again, more worried by Dumbledore's silence than he had been by his weakened voice. "We're nearly there… I can Apparate us both back… Don't worry…"
"I am not worried, Harry," said Dumbledore, his voice a little stronger despite the freezing water. "I am with you."
Harry dragged the frail old man from the chill of the sea, supporting Dumbledore as best he could. When Dumbledore stumbled, Harry held him up. "It's going to be all right, Professor," Harry said. He didn't know if he was trying to reassure him – or himself.
"No," Dumbledore whispered, his face pale and slack. His hands shook, and he leaned ever more on Harry's shoulders. "No, Harry, for me, it will not be all right again."
"Professor?" Harry asked worriedly.
Dumbledore turned almost blank blue eyes on Harry. They passed over the younger man's lines around his mouth, frown-creases upon his forehead, the ugly scar that meant so little to the one who bore it – the gaze finally settled on Harry's emerald-green eyes, eyes dark with the knowledge of one who had seen and fought Death.
Yes, a worthy successor.
"Professor?" Harry prompted again.
"I am dying, Harry. I have been dying for a very long time."
"No…"
"It is true, Harry," Dumbledore gasped as he felt a searing stitch in his side. "There was a vile curse on the ring Horcrux."
"Yes, I know, Professor –"
"Do you? That curse was meant to kill me, Harry, yet I am still breathing."
"Professor Snape stopped it –"
"Only it's progression, Harry. The damage it had already done meant that, at my age, I could expect to live only about a year longer."
"No…"
"My time is almost up." Dumbledore rubbed his chilled right arm, trying to prevent it from losing feeling. "I had hoped for more time with you, Harry, more time to teach you."
"You have done a lot for me –"
"But not enough, my boy, not enough."
"Anything from you is enough, Professor."
"Thank you, Harry," Tears welled up Dumbledore's eyes. "That means a lot to me."
"Do you think you're up to Apparation?"
"No – no, I need to sit down…"
Harry helped Dumbledore to a rock. The old man massaged his brow, trying to ward off a magnificent headache.
Soon…
"Professor?" The worry in Harry's voice brought Dumbledore back from his thoughts, his pain.
He took a deep, shuddering breath. "Harry, I have an idea."
"Sir?"
Dumbledore continued, "I can feel Death knocking, Harry, and I no longer fear him; I just want to make sure that the world will not fall in my absence. Disarm me, Harry."
"What?"
"Use Expelliarmus on me, Harry, and take my wand."
"But –"
"Do not question, Harry; act."
"Expelliarmus!" Dumbledore's wand flew into Harry's hand.
"Good."
"Sir?" Harry's brow knotted in confusion.
"Now listen, Harry, and listen very closely: When I am gone from my body, put your wand and mine in one hand, and grasp one of my hands. Understand?"
"Yes." Harry wanted to know why Dumbledore was asking this of him.
"You will understand fully in time, Harry. I have another instruction: When my soul has left my body, and all is said and done, I want you to take a few strands of my hair. Understand?"
"Yes." Harry was even more confused – he could not see where Dumbledore was going with this.
"I want you to take my place."
"What?"
"If Albus Dumbledore falls, Harry, what will happen to the world?"
"Chaos." Harry replied immediately. "They rely on you to solve all their problems, Professor."
"You see it too. Yes, chaos – all that I have worked for, all that we have worked for, will fall. However, if Harry Potter falls, what will be the world's reaction?"
"They really wouldn't care, other than the Weasleys, Hermione, and Remus."
"Which is why you can tell them that you have replaced me, that you – Harry – are not dead, and that I – Albus – was going to die anyway, so we made it so that the Boy-Who-Lived is dead, and Albus Dumbledore will continue to lead the Light against Voldemort. Will you do this in my memory?"
"Yes, I will. I never liked being the 'Chosen One,' anyway."
"Probably about as much as I liked being the defeater of Grindelwald." Dumbledore shuddered as the night chill seemed to freeze his bones. "I think it is time for us to Apparate back to Hogwarts, Harry."
"If you're ready, sir." Harry pulled Dumbledore to him, and they whirled through space, through compression to tight to describe.
They appeared at the very Gates of Hogwarts. The Dog Star shone on high, twinkling beside the quarter moon. Dumbledore nearly fell, but Harry stayed him. "Alright, Professor?"
"For now, at least."
Harry kept one eye on the path on their way to the Doors, but the other was on Dumbledore's face. He watched as the professor grew paler, as the lines on his face became deeper, as the brightness of his eyes leeched away. Harry was nearly overcome with sorrow – the man was old, and had been old for as long as Harry had known him, but Dumbledore's age had always seemed trivial compared to the electric energy and cheer he exuded. Not so, now - now looked every inch his 167 years.
A tremor shook through Dumbledore's body, making his bones tremble and his breathing rattle.
Soon…
They approached the great Doors. Dumbledore placed a hand on a specific spot, opening a door wide enough for two to walk abreast. They were thankful for that – Dumbledore weakened more and more by the second, and if Harry had needed to release him, he may well have fallen.
They reached the hospital wing – barely. Dumbledore shuddered with every breath, and he had stopped trying to walk on the last landing.
"Madam Pomfrey?" Harry called in the cavernous hall. "Madam Pomfrey?"
The nurse bustled in from her sleeping quarters. "Good heavens! Professor Dumbledore! What happened? Never mind that for now; help me get him onto a bed…"
Harry heaved Dumbledore onto a cot. The old man's skin had taken on the pallor of a corpse, and he knew it.
Soon…
"Madam Pomfrey?" Harry said.
"Mr Potter?"
"He has asked me to take his place."
"He what?" The nurse looked blank.
"After tonight, Harry Potter will be dead, and Albus Dumbledore will still be alive – except that it will be I that looks like the Professor, and he will look like me in death."
Understanding lit her eyes. "I'll leave you to it, Potter. I'll tell no one of this."
"Thank you, Madam."
When she was out of earshot, Dumbledore turned to Harry.
"Harry…" he croaked.
Harry took his hand. "Professor?"
"None of that, now. He is coming soon." Dumbledore's eyes locked with Harry's. "Remember that no matter who you resemble, you are still Harry Potter."
"I will do as you have asked me, sir." A thought occurred to him. "What about Ginny? I can tell her, right? And Ron and Hermione?"
"Yes, they will need to know in order to help you. Don't forget Remus, Harry; he loves you like a nephew, and he would die for you."
"I will remember, Professor."
Dumbledore smiled wanly. "After tonight, you will be the professor, and I will be beyond caring that you've got all my titles."
A quiver wracked his body. Dumbledore resisted crying out, but the effort left him sweating.
Soon…
Harry wiped the sweat from Dumbledore's brow. Harry recited a prayer that a kind young priest had taught him when he was a boy. "Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with you…"
Dumbledore's eyes closed slowly, unwillingly.
"Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb, Jesus…"
He took in a great, shuddering breath.
"Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners now…"
And Dumbledore exhaled slowly. His chest did not rise again.
"And at the hour of Death. Amen."
Tears dripped from Harry's eyes and onto his hand, a hand that still grasped Dumbledore's. He wept, not holding back as he had with Cedric, or pushing his sorrow into his anger, as with Sirius. This death was different – not caused by a jet of brilliant green light, or by a Veil in the wrong place, but by a curse that took a year to kill its victim.
Harry took his wand and Dumbledore's from his pocket. As his fingers closed around both wands and Dumbledore's hand, a spark jumped from Dumbledore's wand to Harry's, and from Dumbledore's fingers to Harry's.
Harry felt a beard sprout from his face, at first black, and then lightening to white. His hair grew long, and his glasses morphed from black and wire-rimmed to little half-moon things. His nose became crooked, his fingers leaner, his skin more wrinkled.
Dumbledore's hair darkened and grew shorter, and his beard faded into nothingness. His nose straightened, and Harry's glasses perched upon his nose. His skin lost its wrinkles and its pallor, and beneath his eyelids twinkling blue eyes morphed to brilliant emerald green.
Harry blinked. To his sight, he lay dead on the pallet, not the one he knew as Albus Dumbledore.
A second jolt jumped from Dumbledore's fingers to Harry's, this one causing no physical changes. Harry wasn't sure that anything had happened, until he realized that he had all of Dumbledore's memories as well as his own. He still thought of himself as Harry, but now he was Albus as well.
Remembering Dumbledore's – his? – words, Harry took a few hairs from Dumbledore's – his? – head.
Footsteps clattered in the hall, distracting him from looking through all his memories. He slipped the wands into his pocket and turned away from the body to see Ron, Ginny, Hermione, and Remus in the doorway.
Harry smiled at them. "Please, stay there a moment. I have something I need to tell you."
Ron and Hermione exchanged a look. "Professor," Hermione began, "does this have something to do with Harry?"
"You could say that. My office?"
They complied, but Ginny was looking at him suspiciously, and Ron and Hermione were determinately not looking in each other's eyes.
Harry barked the password to the gargoyle, having it move aside. He strode up the staircase, not caring to wait for the stairs to stop moving, or looking back to see that Remus and the others were following.
Harry sat in Dumbledore's chair, and steepled his fingers beneath his nose. "This evening, two people left the school to search for things that will destroy Voldemort. One of them sustained a mortal injury earlier in the year, and his soul has left the world as of," I glance at my watch, "fifteen minutes ago. His body lies in the hospital wing."
Ginny's eyes went wide. "Harry's… dead?"
Harry shook his head closing his eyes to avoid the telltale Dumbledore-ian twinkling. "I didn't say which of them was dead."
Hermione said, "Professor Dumbledore died of the curse on the ring?"
Harry lifted his eyebrows. The others turned to her incredulously. "What?" Remus asks. "You're telling me that he," he pointed at Harry, "isn't Professor Dumbledore?"
"No. Harry, why were you stringing us along like that?"
I sighed. "How did you figure it out?"
"I didn't." she said. "Ron did."
"And I just put the signs together." Ron put in.
"Which were?"
"You had two wands in your hand, both of which you slipped into your pocket. You looked nervous when you saw Hermione and I, and even more nervous when you saw Ginny."
I smacked myself in the forehead.
"And if you do that in front of the uninitiated, they're going to think Albus Dumbledore is possessed. Dumbledore just doesn't do things like that."
"How did you do it?" Ginny asked quietly. "Why did you do it?"
I turned to her. "Dumbledore was dying. Tonight, he did a few things that accelerated the process. By now, he had realized what his death would mean for the Wizarding World."
"Chaos?"
"Exactly. So he asked me to take his place, to use his body, name, and memories in order to live out his life and mission – to see Voldemort defeated, and to have peace in the world."
"But now Harry Potter is dead."
I shake my head. "The body of Harry Potter is dead. The name of Harry Potter is dead. The memories, life," My eyes bore into Ginny's, "and loves of Harry Potter are the things that I am."
Author's Notes:
If anyone would like to take this oneshot and run with it, feel free. However, I'd appreciate a PM telling me - I want to read what others think about this.
Thanks!