1A/N: Hey guys! I am so so so sorry for taking so long to get this up! I know it's taken me forever. But here it is. Hope you like it!

...

If there was one thing Harry hated about being in the past, it was having to tell everyone that they were going to die. The look on everyone's faces when they found out what was in store for Sirius was terrible. No one deserved his fate. And things were about to get worse with the questions he was sure to come from Remus. As if reading his mind, Remus chose that time to speak.

"I die too, don't I? It was me you were talking about the other day. I'm the werewolf." Harry smiled sadly.

"You're too smart for your own good, Remus." He looked at the others and realized that while they all looked shocked to find out that they were to lose yet another friend, Remus seemed to accept it with no questions asked.

"So - so that means - you said - I have a son?"

"Yes," said Harry. "I may as well tell you the whole story. I met you on the train in my third year; I'm still not sure why you took the train. Anyway, you were the new Defence teacher, and Ron, Hermione, and I shared a compartment with you because everywhere else was full. You were asleep, though, and we didn't know who you were. About halfway through the train ride we stopped. Everything went cold and it felt like all of the happiness was being sucked from the world. Then we saw the dementors. I heard screaming and I passed out, but before I did, I saw you stand and cast your patronus. The next thing I knew, we were moving again and you were giving me chocolate.

"You taught me a lot that year. I went to you and asked you to teach me how to defend myself against dementors. They were surrounding the school that year because of Sirius' escape from Azkaban. You started me off with a boggart, since mine takes the shape of a dementor. It took a lot of hard work, but eventually I managed to produce a corporeal patronus. I'm sure you were surprised when it took the form of Prongs. There was only one problem with you being a teacher; you couldn't come to class during the full moon. So we had Snape -"

"Snape!" Burst out Sirius. "Snape's a teacher?" They all looked surprised; everyone except Lily.

"I expect he teaches potions," she said. "He's amazing in that class."

"You're right, Lily," said Harry. "He did teach potions. But he always wanted the Defense position. Anyway, Snape taught us when Remus was away for the full moon; taught us about werewolves and assigned us an essay on them. He hoped someone would figure it out. It was Hermione who did, but she didn't tell anyone, not even me and Ron. One night, we were down at Hagrid's hut, because his pet Hippogriff was going to be put down, and Ron was attacked by a big black dog. It took him to the Shrieking Shack, and Hermione and I followed. There we found Sirius, transformed back into a man. We were scared because at that point, we didn't know he was innocent. But then you arrived, and we thought we were saved. Until you hugged Sirius like an old friend. That's when Hermione dropped the bomb about you being a werewolf.

"Long and short of it is, Hermione and I went back in time, saved Sirius three times, ran away from werewolf-Remus, and saved Buckbeak the Hippogriff. It was an eventful night. Anyway, after that, Snape 'let slip' that you were a werewolf and you decided to resign. I didn't see much of you again until my 5th year, when Dumbledore had restarted the Order. That's where you met Tonks."

"Wait," said Sirius. "You can't mean little Dora, my cousin, who is five years old?" Harry nodded.

"The one and only," he said, before extracting a memory and tapping the pensieve with his wand. A young woman with violet hair emerged, as did a much older-looking Remus. This Remus was covered in scars and looked tired and rather ill. Memory-Remus began to speak.

"And this is Nymphadora -"

"Don't call me Nymphadora, Remus," said the young witch with a shudder, "it's Tonks."

"Nymphadora Tonks, who prefers to be known by her surname only," finished Lupin.

"So would you if your fool of a mother had called you Nymphadora," muttered Tonks.

Remus looked horrified, whether because of his obvious shabbiness, or because of his obviously-much-younger wife, Harry couldn't tell. "Don't worry," he said. "You aren't married yet. That doesn't happen for almost two more years." Remus didn't look any better. "Anyway, on with the story. I saw you a few times that year, during the holidays. You fought at the Ministry with me and held me back when Sirius - when Sirius was killed. I wanted to go after him, try to save him, but you told me that he was beyond hope.

"My 6th year, you went undercover for the Order, trying to get the werewolves on our side. You looked terrible, always miserable, but if you looked bad, Tonks looked worse. You were pushing her away, and you kept telling her that you were too old, too poor, and too dangerous."

"It was after my brother, Bill, was attacked by Greyback that you finally let her in," said Ginny, adding a memory to the pensieve. From it's depths rose several people crowded around a bed in which a young man with long red hair and many gashes across his face lay. Among the crowd were an older Remus and Tonks, the latter of whom looked sickly and pale, and a beautiful girl with silvery hair that was dabbing ointment on Bill's wounds.

"You see!" said a strained voice. Tonks was glaring at Lupin. "She still wants to marry him, even though he's been bitten! She doesn't care!"

"It's different," said Lupin, barely moving his lips and looking suddenly tense. "Bill will not be a full werewolf. The cases are completely -"

"But I don't care either, I don't care!" said Tonks, seizing the front of Lupin's robes and shaking them. "I've told you a million times. . . ." And the meaning of Tonks's patronus and her mouse-coloured hair, and the reason she had come running to find Dumbledore when she had heard a rumour that someone had been attacked by Greyback, all suddenly became clear to Harry; it had not been Sirius that Tonks had fallen in love with after all.

"And I've told you a million times," said Lupin, refusing to meet her eyes, staring at the floor, "that I am too old for you, too poor... too dangerous..."

"I've said all along you're taking a ridiculous line on this, Remus," said Mrs. Weasley over Fleur's shoulder as she patted her on the back.
"I am not being ridiculous," said Lupin steadily. "Tonks deserves somebody young and whole."

"But she wants you," said Mr. Weasley, with a small smile. "And after all, Remus, young and whole men do not necessarily remain so." He gestured sadly at his son, lying between them.

"You got married that summer," said Harry, continuing the story. "I wasn't there; you had to keep it small and quiet due to the prejudice against werewolves, but Tonks was overjoyed. Then you found out that Tonks was pregnant." At this point, Remus' face had paled considerably, and he was now looking a bit green. "You were horrified, thinking that your child would be born a werewolf, and you offered to help me on my quest to defeat Voldemort. I called you a coward for even considering leaving your wife alone while she was pregnant. Hermione yelled at me afterwards, but it was exactly what you needed. You went back to Tonks and saw your son born, and he wasn't a werewolf. We were at Bill's when he was born. You came rushing in with a picture, and you asked me to be his godfather. You were so happy."

Harry picked up a picture frame from his desk and turned it to show them. They all watched as Harry picked up a little boy and swung him around and turning to face the camera. Ginny was also in the picture, smiling at Harry and the boy. "That's Teddy," said Harry. "That picture was taken on his second birthday. They watched as Teddy scrunched up his face and turned his hair from Harry's black to Ginny's red. Remus nearly fell over in shock.

"He's a metamorphmagus?" he asked. Harry nodded.

"He takes after his mum. Anyway, on with the story. Soon after Teddy was born, you were called to Hogwarts for the Final Battle. Tonks had initially agreed to stay home with Teddy, but she couldn't bear leaving you to fight without her, so she left him with her mother and joined the battle. You were killed by Dolohov, and she was killed by Bellatrix Lestrange. You both fought so hard..." Harry paused, collecting himself.

"What I'm about to show you is something that I haven't shown anyone other than Ginny." He pulled a memory from his temple and placed it in the pensieve, before touching the surface and disappearing. He landed on the grounds of Hogwarts, late at night. The others appeared beside him. Ginny looked near tears, knowing what she was soon going to see.

Harry swung the Cloak back over himself and walked on. Someone eyes was moving not far away, stooping over another prone figure on the ground. He was feet away from her when he realized it was Ginny. He stopped in his tracks. She was crouching over a girl who was whispering
for her mother.

"It's all right," Ginny was saying. "It's okay. We're going to get you inside."

"But I want to go home," whispered the girl. "I don't want to fight anymore!"

"I know," said Ginny, and her voice broke. "It's going to be all right."

"Leaving Ginny was the hardest thing I have ever done," said Harry. "I wanted her to know that I was there; where I was going. I wanted to be stopped, to be dragged back, to be sent back home where I could be safe and away from Voldemort."

Ginny was kneeling beside the injured girl now, holding her hand. With a huge effort Harry forced himself on. He thought he saw Ginny look around as he passed, and wondered whether she had seen someone walking nearby, but he did not speak, and he did not look back.

He could no longer control his own trembling. It was not, after all, so easy to die. Every second he breathed, the smell of the grass, the cool air on his face, was so precious: To think that people had years and years. Time to waste, so much time it dragged, and he was clinging to each second. At the same time he thought that he would not be able to go on, and knew that he must. The long game was ended, the Snitch had been caught, it was time to leave the air...

The Snitch. His nerveless fingers fumbled for a moment with the pouch at his neck and he pulled it out.

'I open at the close.'

Breathing fast and hard, he stared down at it. Now that he wanted time to move as slowly as possible, it seemed to have sped up, and understanding was coming so fast it seemed to have bypassed thought. This was the close. This was the moment. He pressed the golden metal to his lips and whispered, "I am about to die." The metal shell broke open. He lowered his shaking hand, raised Draco's wand beneath the Cloak, and murmured, "Lumos."

"The Resurrection Stone," said Harry."Turn it three times in your hand and you have the power to see the dead."

The black stone with its jagged crack running down the centre sat in the two halves of the Snitch. The Resurrection Stone had cracked down the vertical line representing the Elder Wand. The triangle and circle representing the Cloak and the stone were still discernible. And again Harry understood without having to think. It did not matter about bringing them back, for he was about to join them. He was not really fetching them: They were fetching him.

He closed his eyes and turned the stone over in his hand three times. He knew it had happened, because he heard slight movements around him that suggested frail bodies shifting their footing on the earthly, twig-strewn ground that marked the outer edge of the forest. He opened his eyes and looked around. They were neither ghost nor truly flesh; he could see that. They resembled
most closely the Riddle that had escaped from the diary so long ago, and he had been memory made nearly solid. less substantial than living bodies, but much more than ghosts, they moved toward him, and on each face, there was the same loving smile.

James was exactly the same height as Harry. He was wearing the clothes in which he had died, and his hair was untidy and ruffled, and his glasses were a little lopsided, like Mr. Weasley's.
Sirius was tall and handsome, and younger by far than Harry had seen him in life. He loped with an easy grace, his hands in his pockets and a grin on his face. Lupin was younger too, and much less shabby, and his hair was thicker and darker. He looked happy to be back in this familiar place, scene of so many adolescent wanderings. Lily's smile was widest of all. She pushed her long hair back as she drew close to him, and her green eyes, so like his, searched his face hungrily, as though she would never be able to look at him enough.

"You've been so brave."

He could not speak. His eyes feasted on her, and he thought that he would like to stand and look at her forever, and that would be enough.

"You are nearly there," said James. "Very close. We are... so proud of you."

"Does it hurt?" The childish question had fallen from Harry's lips before he could stop it.

"Dying? Not at all," said Sirius. "Quicker and easier than falling asleep."

"And he will want to be quick. He wants it over," said Lupin.

"I didn't want you to die," Harry said. These words came without his volition. "Any of you. I'm sorry."
He addressed Lupin more than any of them, beseeching him. "Right after you'd had your son... Remus, I'm sorry."

"I am sorry too," said Lupin. "Sorry I will never know him... but he will know why I died and I hope he will understand. I was trying to make a world in which he could live a happier life."

A chilly breeze that seemed to emanate from the heart of the forest lifted the hair at Harry's brow. He knew that they would not tell him to go, that it would have to be his decision.

"You'll stay with me?"

"Until the very end," said James.

"They won't be able to see you?" asked Harry.

"We are part of you," said Sirius. "Invisible to anyone else."

Harry looked at his mother. "Stay close to me," he said quietly. And he set off. The dementors' chill did not overcome him; he passed through it with his companions, and they acted like patronuses to him, and together they marched through the old trees that grew closely together, their
branches tangled, their roots gnarled and twisted underfoot. Harry clutched the Cloak tightly around him in the darkness, travelling deeper and deeper into the forest, with no idea where exactly Voldemort was, but sure that he would find him. Beside him, making scarcely a sound, walked James, Sirius, Lupin, and Lily, and their presence was his courage, and the reason he was
about to keep putting one foot in front of the other.

His body and mind felt oddly disconnected now, his limbs working without conscious instruction, as if he were passenger, not driver, in the body he was about to leave. The dead who walked beside him through the forest were much more real to him now than the living back at the castle: Ron, Hermione, Ginny, and all the others were the ones who felt like ghosts as he stumbled and slipped toward the end of his life, toward Voldemort.

"You see, I had to die. I was the seventh Horcrux." Lily gasped. Harry was not surprised that she was the only one who knew what it was. At the others' bewildered looks, Lily explained.

"A horcrux is an object in which you conceal a piece of your soul."

"I thought he would come," said Voldemort in his high, clear voice, his eyes on the leaping flames. "I expected him to come."

Nobody spoke. They seemed as scared as Harry, whose heart was now throwing itself against his ribs as though determined to escape the body he was about to cast aside. He hands were sweating as he pulled off the Invisibility Cloak and stuffed it beneath his robes, with his wand. He did not want to be tempted to fight.

"I was, it seems... mistaken," said Voldemort.

"You weren't."

Harry said it as loudly as he could, with all the force he could muster. He did not want to sound afraid. The Resurrection Stone slipped from between his numb fingers, and out of the corner of his eyes he saw his parents, Sirius, and Lupin vanish as he stepped forward into the relight. At that moment he felt that nobody mattered but Voldemort. It was just the two of them.

The illusion was gone as soon as it had come. The giants roared as the Death Eaters rose together, and there were many cries, gasps, even laughter. Voldemort had frozen where he stood, but his red eyes had found Harry, and he stared at Harry moved toward him, with nothing but the fire between them.

Then a voice yelled, "HARRY! NO!"

He turned: Hagrid was bound and trussed, tied to a tree nearby. His massive body shook the branches overhead as he struggled, desperate.

"NO! NO! HARRY! WHAT'RE YEH - ?"

"QUIET!" shouted Rowle, and with a flick of his wand Hagrid was silenced. Bellatrix, who had leapt to her feet, was looking eagerly from Voldemort to Harry, her breast heaving. The only things that moved were the flames and the snake, coiling and uncoiling in the glittering cage behind Voldemort's head.

Harry could feel his wand against his chest, but he made no attempt to draw it. He knew that the snake was too well protected, knew that if he managed to point the wand at Nagini, fifty curses would hit him first. And still, Voldemort and Harry looked at each other, and now Voldemort tilted his head a little to the side, considering the boy standing before him, and a singularly
mirthless smile curled the lipless mouth.

"Harry Potter," he said very softly His voice might have been part of the splitting fire. "The Boy Who Lived."

None of the Death Eaters moved. They were waiting: Everything was waiting. Hagrid was struggling, and Bellatrix was panting, and Harry thought inexplicably of Ginny, and her blazing look, and the feel of her lips on his.

Voldemort had raised his wand. His head was still tilted to one side, like a curious child, wondering what would happen if he proceeded. Harry looked back into the red eyes, and wanted it to happen now, quickly, while he could still stand, before he lost control, before he betrayed fear. He saw the mouth move and a ash of green light, and everything was gone.

He lay face down, listening to the silence. He was perfectly alone. Nobody was watching. Nobody else was there. He was not perfectly sure that he was there himself.

A long time later, or maybe no time at all, it came to him that he must exist, must be more than disembodied thought, because he was lying, definitely lying, on some surface. Therefore he had a sense of touch, and the thing against which he lay existed too.

Almost as soon as he had reached this conclusion, Harry became conscious that he was naked. Convinced as he was of his total solitude, this did not concern him, but it did intrigue him slightly. He wondered whether, as he could feel, he would be able to see. In opening them, he discovered that he had eyes.

He lay in a bright mist, through it was not like mist he had ever experienced before. His surroundings were not hidden by cloudy vapour; rather the cloudy vapour had not yet formed into surroundings. The floor on which he lay seemed to be white, neither warm nor cold, but simply there, a flat, blank something on which to be.

He sat up. His body appeared unscathed. He touched his face. He was not wearing glasses anymore. Then a noise reached him through the unformed nothingness that sur rounded him: the small,soft thumpings of something that flped, flled, and sruggled. It was a pitiful noise, yet also slight indecent. He had the uncomfortable feeling that he was eavesdropping on something furtive, shameful.

For the first time, he wished he were clothed.

Barely had the wish formed in his head than robes appeared a short distance away. He took them and put them on. They were soft, clean, and warm. It was extraordinary how they had appeared just like that, the moment he had wanted them...

He stood up, looking around. Was he in some great Room of Requirement? The longer he looked, the more there was to see. A great domed glass roof glittered high above him in sunlight. Perhaps it was a palace. All was hushed and still, except for those odd thumping and whimpering noises coming from somewhere close by in the mist...

Harry turned slowly on the spot, and his surroundings seemed to invent themselves before his eyes. A wide-open space, bright and clean, a hall larger by far than the Great Hall, with that clear domed glass ceiling. It was quite empty. He was the only person there, except for-

He recoiled. He had spotted the thing that was making the noise. It had the form of a small, naked child, curled on the ground, its skin raw and rough, flayed-looking, and it lay shuddering under a seat where it had been left, unwanted, stuffed out of sight, struggling for breath.

He was afraid of it. Small and fragile and wounded though it was, he did not want to approach it. Nevertheless he drew slowly nearer, ready to jump back at any moment. Soon he stood near enough to touch it, yet he could not bring himself to do it. He felt like a coward. He ought to comfort it, but it repulsed him.

"You cannot help."

He spun around. Albus Dumbledore was walking toward him, sprightly and upright, wearing sweeping robes of midnight blue.

"Harry," He spread his arms wide, and his hands were both whole and white and undamaged.

"You wonderful boy. You brave, brave man. Let us walk."

Stunned, Harry followed as Dumbledore strode away from where the flayed child lay whimpering, leading him to two seats that Harry had not previously noticed, set some distance away under that high, sparkling ceiling. Dumbledore sat down in one of them, and Harry fell into the other, staring at his oldheadmaster's face. Dumbledore's long silver hair and beard, the piercingly blue eyes behind half-moon spectacles, the crooked nose: Everything was as he had
remembered it. And yet...

"But you're dead." said Harry.

"Oh yes," said Dumbledore matter-of-factly.

"Then... I'm dead too?"

"Ah," said Dumbledore, smiling still more broadly. "That is the question, isn't it? On the whole, dear boy, I think not." They looked at each other, the old man still beaming.

"Not?" repeated Harry.

"Not," said Dumbledore.

"But..." Harry raised his hand instinctively towards the lightning scar. It did not seem to be there. "But I should have died. I didn't defend myself! I meant to let him kill me!"

"And that," said Dumbledore, "will, I think, have made all the difference." Happiness seemed to radiate from Dumbledore like light, like fire: Harry had never seen the man so utterly, so palpably, content.

"Explain," said Harry.

"But you already know," said Dumbledore. He twiddled his thumbs together.

"I let him kill me," said Harry. "Didn't I?"

"You did," said Dumbledore, nodding. "Go on!"

"So the part of his soul that was in me..." Dumbledore nodded still more enthusiastically, urging Harry onward, a broad smile of encouragement on his face. "...has it gone?"

"Oh yes!" said Dumbledore. "Yes, he destroyed it. Your soul is whole, and completely your own, Harry."

"But then..." Harry glanced over his shoulder to where the small, maimed creature trembled under the chair. "What is that, Professor?"

"Something that is beyond either of our help," said Dumbledore.

"But if Voldemort used the Killing Curse," Harry started again "and nobody died for me this time, how can I be alive?"

"I think you know," said Dumbledore. "Think back. Remember what he did, in his ignorance, in his greed and his cruelty."

Harry thought. He let his gaze drift over his surroundings. If this was indeed a palace in which they sat, it was an odd one, with chairs set in little rows and bits of railing here and there, and still, he and Dumbledore and the stunted creature under the chair were the only beings there. Then the answer rose to his lips easily, without effort.

"He took my blood," said Harry.

"Precisely!" said Dumbledore. "He took your blood and rebuilt his living body with it! Your blood in his veins, Harry, Lily's protection inside both of you! He tethered you to life while he lives!"

"I live... while he lives! But I thought... I thought itwas the other way around! I thought we both had to die? Or is it the same thing?"

He was distracted by the whimpering and thumping of the agonized creature behind them and glanced back at it yet again. "Are you sure we can't do anything?"

"There is no help possible."

"Then explain... more," said Harry, and Dumbledore smiled.

"You were the seventh Horcrux, Harry, the Horcrux he never meant to make. He had rendered his soul so unstable that it broke apart when he committed those acts of unspeakable evil, the murder of your parents, the attempted killing of a child. But what escaped from that room was even less than he knew. He left more than his body behind. He left part of himself latched to
you, the would-be victim who had survived.

"And his knowledge remained woefully incomplete, Harry! That which Voldemort does not value, he takes no trouble to comprehend. Of house-elves and children's tales, of love, loyalty, and innocence. Voldemort knows and under stands nothing. Nothing. That they all have a power beyond his own, a power beyond the reach of any magic, is a truth he has never grasped.

"He took your blood believing it would strengthen him. He took into his body a tiny part of the enchantment your mother laid upon you when she died for you. His body keeps her sacrifice alive, and while that enchantment survives, so do you and so does Voldemort's one last hope for himself."

Dumbledore smiled at Harry, and Harry stared at him.

"And you knew this? You knew all along?"

"I guessed. But my guesses have usually been good," said Dumbledore happily, and they sat in silence for what seemed like a long time, while the creature behind them continued to whimper and tremble.

"There's more," said Harry. "There's more to it. Why did my wand break the wand he borrowed?"

"As to that, I cannot be sure."

"Have a guess, then," said Harry, and Dumbledore laughed.

"What you must understand, Harry, is that you and Lord Voldemort have journeyed together into realms of magic hitherto unknown and unprecedented, and no wandmaker could, I think, ever have predicted it or explained it to Voldemort.

"Without meaning to, as you now know, Lord Voldemort doubled the bond between you when he returned to a human form. A part of his soul was still attached to yours, and, thinking to strengthen himself, he took a part of your mother's sacrifice into himself. If he could only have understood the precise and terrible power of that sacrifice, he would not, perhaps, have dared to touch
your blood... But then, if he had been able to understand, he could not be Lord Voldemort, and might never have murdered at all.

"Having ensured this two-fold connection, having wrapped your destinies together more securely than ever two wizards were joined in history, Voldemort proceeded to attack you with a wand that shared a core with yours. And now something very strange happened, as we know. The cores reacted in a way that Lord Voldemort, who never knew that your wand was a twin of his, had never expected.

"He was more afraid than you were that night, Harry. You had accepted, even embraced, the possibility of death, something Lord Voldemort has never been able to do. Your courage won, your wand overpowered his. And in doing so, something happened between those wands, something that echoed the relationship between their masters.

"I believe that your wand imbibed some of the power and qualities of Voldemort's wand that night, which is to say that it contained a little of Voldemort himself. So your wand recognized him when he pursued you, recognized a man who was both kin and mortal enemy, and it regurgitated some of his own magic against him, magic much more powerful than anything Lucius's wand had ever performed. Your wand now contained the power of your enormous courage and of Voldemort's own deadly skill: What chance did that poor stick of Lucius Malfoy's stand?"

"But if my wand was so powerful, how come Hermione was able to break it?" asked Harry.

"My dear boy, its remarkable effects were directed only at Voldemort, who had tampered so ill-advisedly with the deepest laws of magic. Only toward him was that wand abnormally powerful. Otherwise it was a wand like any other... though a good one, I am sure," Dumbledore finished kindly.
Harry sat in thought for a long time, or perhaps seconds. It was very hard to be sure of things like time, here.

"He killed me with your wand."
"He failed to kill you with my wand," Dumbledore corrected Harry. "I think we can agree you are not dead though, of course," he added, as if fearing he had been discourteous, "I do not minimize your sufferings, which I am sure were severe."

"I feel great at the moment, though," said Harry, looking down at his clean, unblemished hands.

The memory fast-forwarded.

"I've got to go back, haven't I?"

"That is up to you."

"I've got a choice?"

"Oh yes." Dumbledore smiled at him. "We are in King's Cross, you say? I think that if you decided not to go back, you would be able to... let's say... board a train."

"And where would it take me?"

"On," said Dumbledore simply.

Silence again.

"Voldemort's got the Elder Wand."

"True. Voldemort has the Elder Wand."

"But you want me to go back?"

"I think," said Dumbledore, "that if you choose to return, there is a chance that he may be finished for good. I cannot promise it. But I know this, Harry, that you have less to fear from returning here than he does."

Harry glanced again at the raw-looking thing that trembled and choked in the shadow beneath the distant chair.

"Do not pity the dead, Harry. Pity the living, and above all, those who live without love. By returning, you may ensure that fewer souls are maimed, fewer families are torn apart. If that seems to you a worthy goal, then we say good-bye for the present."

Harry nodded and sighed. Leaving this place would not be nearly as hard as walking into the forest had been, but it was warm and light and peaceful here, and he knew that he was heading back to pain and the fear of more loss.
He stood up, and Dumbledore did the same, and they looked for a long moment into each other's faces.

"Tell me one last thing," said Harry. "Is this real? Or has this been happening inside my head?"

Dumbledore beamed at him, and his voice sounded loud and strong in Harry's ears even though the bright white mist was descending again, obscuring his figure.

"Of course it is happening inside your head, Harry, but why on earth should
that mean that it is not real?"

"I didn't have to go back," said Harry. "I didn't want to at first. The thought of being with all of you... I wanted it. But then I thought of Ginny, and Ron and Hermione, and the Weasley's and Neville and Luna and Teddy. I wanted to be with them. So I went back."

By the end of the whole story, Lily was in tears. She went up to Harry and hugged him.

"Harry, I can't - I can't believe you went through all of that. You are so brave."

"Thanks Mum," he whispered. "I think you all need to go to bed now. It's been a long night." They all nodded and headed for the door. Once they had left, Harry turned to Ginny. "I'm so glad I came back to you," he said before kissing her.

...

A/N: I have had a few comments on the fact that I'm using a lot of memory scenes from the books. I apologize if you're getting fed up with it. From now on, I am going to do my best not to use it. There are some parts of the story that I just thought it added to.