This is a story I wrote for a January contest in DLP, about an Apocalyptic/Dystopian world. It got the second place (2).

The Last Enemy to be Destroyed

My reading was interrupted – first, I felt the approaching presence, and then, but a second later, there was a frantic knock at the door. The noise rang quietly, but the barely audible hum of magic reached me, dancing on the dying sound waves. It whispered the true identity of the visitor and withered to nothingness.

He had seen it, then – witnessed the most powerful force in the world. He had chosen to come here, to find me, and now he was going to choose again. A short smile shone on my face for the briefest of seconds. Choice – or the illusion of it, for that matter – was one of the things I took great value in.

My gaze ran around, taking me a second to check the surroundings out of pure habit. The office I was in deserved to be called venerable – numerous conversations had transpired inside it, every meeting of great importance. Here, wizards and witches would come in with their own, fixed opinion and would wound up with their their world turned upside down. Not unlike how I envisioned it happening today.

I glanced back at the paintings – all of them covered with black drapes, unseeing. Even though their presence would not have mattered one bit, I knew that the newest arrival would only have found distraction in them – thus, they had to be removed from the equation.

Not a thing seemed out of place.

I placed the leather bound journal down and took a deep breath. The scent of thousand year old parchment rushed to me, the dust of hundreds of pages that had been read here, the ferrous aroma of old blood and the faintest trace of primal, recently dowsed flames.

"Come in, Mr. Potter," I called.

The door opened and he tore inside with his wand held high, in the stance of a professional duellist. At nearly twenty years of age, he was lean, healthy, and strong. His powerful stride was measured – Harry was showing off his experience in finding the best position to stand in the office – close enough as not to let me out of his sight, but far enough to give himself a chance to react to anything that I might have thrown his way. There was a slight limp in his left leg – the remnant of his last fight that he was concealing rather well. That final clash had claimed his last friend from the school years, but Harry still prevailed – even more, he emerged victorious – a lone victor in the silent battleground.

He wore his usual robes – a simple, silvery grey colour, with a small accent of red for his Hogwarts House at the top; otherwise plain but for the small insignia of the Ministry of Magic. Potter, as all trained wizards do, had fallen into something of a habit, and I could guess at this unseen possessions rather accurately. A couple of potion flasks were hidden in his robes, stashed somewhere next to a spare wand – the essentials most Aurors were taught to have with them at all times.

The robes had been enchanted with a weak shield charm – to give an extra protection without making it come up upon most magical means of observation – certainly not fooling the ones I was employing. The small golden ring that he had crafted into an emergency Portkey months ago shone on his finger. The Portkey would be useless inside the castle, but he had still brought it here. Perfect.

"I knew I would see you return here, one day," he pronounced carefully, as if he could cut himself with his own words. His green, deep eyes, reminding me of his mother – a fierily young witch, if anyone asked me – were filled with barely concealed contempt, mixed up with confusion and a drop of uncertainty. "You knew what I would – or rather wouldn't – find in Albania. I want an explanation."

I flexed my fingers, and Potter twitched nervously – he seemed to be under the impression that I would attack him. As he had been trained, his mind was already searching for an opening to start launching spells, at the very first sign of danger.

"I'm unarmed, Mr. Potter." I pointed at the Death Stick, lying proudly in the middle of the old desk, its magic humming excitedly at the edge of my senses. "There is no need to fear me."

He shook his head, the messy hair jostling aside to give me a clear look at the famous scar. At the same time, his eyes homed in on the other trinket on the table.

"Yes," I confirmed for his benefit. "This is your father's cloak. I believe your friends have enlightened you with its significance in the years past."

His eyes would have concealed the surprise from most – he had been trained well, but I knew him more than any other wizard. I knew for a fact that Harry had searched for the cloak a handful of times, having even gone to Goblins for an inquiry about it – without any tangible progress. He just ground his teeth, and took the Cloak being on display as a silent insult. Then, he steered the conversation back to the beginning.

"I don't believe it – you really knew what would happen. And you're sitting there, like you're still my friend, no, you envision yourself as my grandfather." He grunted despondently. "You don't want to talk, fine. Pick up your wand. Let's end it – you are the last enemy I need to face."

"Not killing me while I am defenceless is noble, but foolish," I allowed, not even looking at my wand, the first conquest, the grand step towards the new order. "A thing that a true Gryffindor would suggest. Alas, it has already ended, and I have no reason to fight you."

The wandtip began glowing with that eerie green, reflected and strengthened in his eyes.

"Mr. Potter," I began after a pause. It was a play on his part – many a spell carried the green colour, and that was one of the older tricks in the trade. "I have known you throughout all your life, and you are everything but a cold blooded killer. I am old, I have no weapon–" I raised my injured hand up for a better effect. "And you haven't yet darkened your soul. I am no Voldemort – you don't need to kill me."

"You have always stood there – high above the other wizards – you always knew what was going to happen before it would, yet you allowed too many to die. My parents. My friends. Everyone. Me." He was hissing through his clenched teeth. "I hate you."

I placed my injured hand back on top of the desk, tapping it with withering fingers. It hurt, but I had grown used to it. "It was not my intention to cause you harm, Harry."

"Don't – don't call me that!" he exclaimed, losing his composure completely. "You are not the man I trusted! You have betrayed me, betrayed what I believed you to be. You sent me on fake trail, to catch a spell that was cast from this very castle – and you allowed the ritual to be complete – it's the same as if you had killed them all!"

"Oh?" My gaze found his eyes, brushing lightly on the edge of his mind. Nothing intrusive, just a mental equivalent of glancing at someone's back after they have passed you in a busy street. He had become better, but he still could not notice the Legilimency nor its significance. He still believed in me. My eyes started twinkling then. "I still remember as you came to Hogwarts on your first year. Bright, happy and excited for knowledge."

His wand arm twitched. "How could you?"

"Harry," I said, watching the barely noticeable shiver that the familiar way of my address had caused. "We have talked about this. Many times, in fact."

"I don't believe it." His hand gave way, and he let it fall down. His stance was still watchful, but I had given him no reason to think I was a threat. "You're still on about this. I did not buy it the day you told me I needed to die to his spell, and I don't want to hear it now."

"But it is true. Everything I had done, everything that I had achieved, was for the Greater Good."

"There is no such thing as greater good!"

"This is how it turned around," I weighted the truth on my tongue. It was salty and harsh. I leaned back slightly, looking for comfort in the chair. "You were the one that I could have called my last true friend, the last one who knew me completely. Someone, who I could have opened to; could have given the truth to. And this is how you throw away everything I have taught you?"

"Your vision of the world is madness. It's unnatural – perverse. What measure is the Greater Good if you have to destroy to reach it?"

Ages ago, I was the one asking the very same question, at a wandpoint, no less. That time, it ended in a duel, fierce and spectacular, where I had to resort to the vilest of magics to defeat my opponent. We shook the world with our spells, employed everything short of impossible – yet, no exact account of that duel exists. No one knew the true depths I had to dive into in order to come out victorious. Yet – I won.

Gellert was already half-dead, when he asked a question of his own – 'how can you judge my road if you are walking right next to me?'.

It turned out that I could not – even the duel itself had proven it – when I had to save the world from an incredible bloodshed, I fell onto the very philosophy I tried to deny myself. For the greater good of everyone, I had to employ the very darkness I was trying to stop. I gave up deceiving myself then – when I wrestled the Death Stick from the cooling corpse, I knew, that however much I would have liked it – I still was the same. The old journal I never threw away was bristling with the beliefs I continued to hold.

However, Gellert's choice of employing pure power, as a tool to achieve the better world, led him too far away from his true goal. Slowly, he wrapped his intentions, only ever caring about himself in the very end. I learned that lesson the hard way, but I would not repeat his mistakes.

"It is coming together as we speak," I pointed out, shaking myself out of the old memory. What I had achieved here today was fundamentally different than what Gellert could ever hope to achieve. It was an ambition on the whole different scale. "We will have another chance – a way to apologise for our misdeeds – to right all wrongs. To start with a clean slate, to live anew, to be better. I promise that you are going to have a chance to meet your parents, even."

That was the first mistake I performed in that evening. His eyes narrowed and I was looking at the tip of the wand once more.

"Don't talk about my parents," he threatened with steel ringing in his voice. "Murderer."

"I only ever killed two," I admitted, trying to soothe him with a drop of honesty. "Gellert and Ariana – you would not count her, but still believe I am to be responsible. I seem to have a gift," my voice wavered with deep pain in my heart, "for killing the ones I love."

"You let Snape reveal the prophecy to Voldemort."

"He loved your mother, Harry." I tapped the fingers onto the table once more. "He died for her. For you."

"You pushed him to do that!"

"I never did anything." A sharp pain tore at my arm – the reminder that my time here was running short. There still was enough, though. I did not want to die before I completed everything. I could not. "Professor Snape was a sad man, Harry. He was living in the past, treasuring one feeling he thought dear, clutching to it – I believe that was the reason he was so cross with you. You had her eyes and everything that reminded him about the man whose place he wanted to be in. Regret and love is the worst possible combination in a man."

"And you killed him."

"He made his choice." I sighed. "It was by no way one of mine. I wanted him to live, yet, he had sworn an Unbreakable Vow he could not keep."

"You have been working against me all along!" he suddenly exclaimed. "And you're lying into my eyes!"

"I am not." It was both true and a lie – I wasn't now, but I had been. "You are the best student I have ever had."

He reached out with his Legilimency, strong, ferocious, like I taught him, but at the very same time, much, much more. I recoiled back. "You have grown strong."

It appears that he had more skill than I imagined, because he found a stray thought, something that was locked behind a thousand locks. Then again, I was dying and might have gotten careless. Or, in the midst of the final moments, I have tricked myself and in truth, wanted him to know it – when one lives as long as I had, not only you learn to live with your mental quirks, but can start using them to their fullest potential.

He saw me then – etching runes into the very stone foundations of the castle, using it as a gigantic magical focus, for a ritual that would consume the world, casting the spell with the wand than was Death. How I used the foundations of the work from my teenage years – a plan laid down in a rather pretentious journal I had saved throughout the years. How I used Voldemort's withering curse that was plaguing me, unleashing it upon the countless millions.

"You!" He recoiled back as if slapped. He had seen the darkness lurking inside my heart; tasted it, tearing back away, looking sick. "It wasn't Voldemort. It was you. And you have the gall to deny everything again!"

"Yes," I nodded and moved my uninjured hand in a wide circle. "This is my work. These are the last moments of my life – and the first ones of the new beginning."

"I would kill you for this." Harry slumped against the wall, defeated. "But you are already dying."

"You can," I added. "Or, you can let me go painfully – the curse is rather strong. I will die, and soon, you will be the last." It was not a threat, nor a warning, just the naked, raw truth. "The one to witness the next great adventure of the world."

"No one else survived?" he asked then, broken. "Not a single one?"

"No. In this, they had no measure of choice, no true decision to make, and I resent myself for that part. But it was all–"

"For the Greater Good!" Harry shouted and launched a Reductor Curse at the nearest cabinet. It exploded, showering us with parts of difficult to make, expensive instruments. Most of these useless for either of us in this dawn of new age; even if they could be attributed some sentimental value for their past. "I have been trained to fight Voldemort all my life – hexes, curses and jinxes. Mind, body and soul – you have moulded me for this one task, one and only – to defeat Tom Riddle. And I was a perfect tool – I believed that you loved me as a grandson, as a true son. You raised me to strand both great and humble, brave and smart, and asked only to turn away from the dark arts. But you did it yourself; you have created that ritual long before you were struck with the curse from the ring."

He launched another spell at the place where Fawkes would have been perched upon, had he not left me forever, years ago. There was a sudden burst of flame, reminding me of his companionship, but it wasn't the phoenix. That was a firestorm, contained and bent to its casters will, scorching the wall so much, that the old bones of Hogwarts creaked. Fawkes would have been proud. Had he been alive.

"We defeated him – I defeated him with your help – barely," he spoke glancing at my withered hand. "I even died once. But you cautioned that it wasn't over. That he had a ritual prepared, just on the chance that he would die – the last revenge of the dark lord. I went to help you find it, trusting you, the Minster of Magic, the Headmaster of Hogwarts, the Chief Warlock, the Head of the International Council of Wizards, holder of so many titles and fame; I trusted you, my mentor and friend, to keep everyone safe. You took my trust, spat on it, warped it, and destroyed everything."

I nodded. "You being away was a perfect chance – the last opportunity, and I took it. You have returned to Hogwarts, just after I finished the ritual – for all I know, something similar to the fake one you were supposed to be on the lookout for."

"Why?" He asked. "Why would you sacrifice everything you cared about? Why would you doom the World itself?"

"I care about them as same as ever. Human lives are the most precious thing in the world," I repeated what I have said many times, with the very same conviction I always had.

"And yet, you step on them, in order to reach some sort of Greater Good?"

"Yes." I coughed – it was followed by another cough, and then, I was fighting a losing battle against the severe coughing fit. I was old and my body was breaking apart.

Harry was waiting. In my long years of experience, I have seen many instances of grief and shock, and every time, it follows a predictable pattern, dependable on the type of the person in question, on the beliefs of those around him.

But, if you put a man into a situation where he is completely lost, where he has plunged into the immeasurable depths of shock, the human mind – it cannot comprehend some things – it becomes unpredictable. The loss of your friend hits hard, the death of a loved one stabs deep into the heart – and the enormous tragedy you witness firsthand, it bites into your soul, leaving a mark for the future.

Here, my brightest pupil had returned from the deep forest of Albania, to find echoing emptiness. Not a single drop of life, not a single soul to see. Empty streets, silent buildings, withering plants and dead trees. Shock and confusion caused him to run to the ministry, but I wasn't in my office. Then, judging correctly, he had moved to Hogwarts, a tracking charm showing his progress through the empty wasteland, in the centre of which, the old castle stood pulsing with powerful magic.

When he reached one of my oldest offices, it was already over – the ritual was complete, the sacrifice had been made. This scale of destruction, the infinite amount of death he saw in my mind, was too much. Too much to comprehend, too much to reason with – too much to be angry at.

The human mind – a miracle and a curse, same as our emotions are – Harry could not, even in the face of such atrocities, punish me for my crimes. He had to adjust. To refocus and mend his thoughts into an understandable way. Only then he would exact vengeance upon my old, twisted soul.

If there was hell – I would have burned there for what I had done. For what I sacrificed. But it was all for the Greater Good, and that had excused me of the true price.

There still was one last thing to do. One action to finish the play. I finally caught my breath and straightened.

"You have to understand," I began explaining, probably the last lecture of my life. "Why I did this – it was your question for me. It is as we talked – everything is done for a reason and this – ending – has it too. I have caused the end of the world, because I know that there is yet another adventure."

"I know how much you like to talk about not fearing death," he interjected. "But I believe that you still experience fear. If not for the death itself, but for the pain your curse has brought you. You want to enrage me, to end your suffering – that is why you have been behaving like this. That – Albus," my name was said like it was a curse worse than Avada Kedavra. "Is called fear. You're not as fearless as you want to be. And I'm not going to kill you. You have minutes left, old man – and know that I despise you more than anyone I have ever known, as you die and start rotting."

"I did not leave you alive just to reduce my pain," I said with conviction – I wasn't afraid of pain – physical pain could only hurt so much. "You are alive, because you are in possession of a certain object."

His eyes narrowed as he took in the only thing he had received from me, seemingly ages ago. The small ring on his finger. "This?"

"The Resurrection Stone." I chuckled disbelievingly, having expected more of him. "You never have wondered about the engraved symbol of the Hallows, never allowed your curiosity to run amok?"

"I suspected this," Harry clarified, smiling weakly to himself, like having remembered an old joke. "But I know the fate of Cadmus Peverell as well as you do."

"And you never gave in to the need to use it?" I asked, genuinely surprised for the first time since his entrance. "To try and have a heartfelt chat with your parents?"

"It was why you gave it to me," he said slowly, weighting the words on his tongue. "You did not want to get ensnared with its allure, but wanted me to have a perfect distraction."

"No – I let you keep it, for I hoped, and not in vain, that you would be able to resist the temptation, to turn away something that I never could. And you did – that is why I believe you will be perfect." A sudden spike of pain made my face twitch uncontrollably. I took a few deep breaths. "All the Deathly Hallows are in one room at last, in the way they haven't been since their creation. Each and every one of them an impossible object with inspiring qualities. The Wand that can spread death as fast as a speeding thought, a Cloak that conceals its master as if he never was, and the Stone that is a whisper of the Death itself. "

"And now, that you have two of them, you want the Stone back?" Harry grimaced. "To become the Master of Death? To do what – to rule the dead world?"

"Only the Master of Death can rule in the Dead World, to turn the tide of Death to his will. But your assumption is false." I couldn't feel my hand anymore – it had withered to the point where trying to move would leave it a dead, decaying lump of old flesh, so I stilled my movements. "I could have joined them together years ago – could have become the Master, could have been so much more... But I know myself, Harry, and I am not the one who I'd like to have seen to stand upon the dying world."

"What?" He was gaping at me. "You mean – me?"

"I have given you the chance to take the ring, presented it to you a year ago, to wear and guard, and you accepted it. Thus – you have formed the connection with death – death, which has followed you since your first year of life. Harry, you know death better than anyone else – and I helped you understand it even more – each loss, each time you saw someone die before your very eyes... It is a connection you cannot sever, now, that you have felt the world die – and the allure of the stone – you could hear it calling in your dreams, I know – you still fought it. You mastered it. You are the true Master of the Resurrection Stone – a tool you have never used, nevertheless, a tool in your hands. If Voldemort claimed to have walked the path of immortality further than anyone else in the world, you are the one who has walked the path of Death."

The castle shook – the last island of existence in the decaying reality. The world we knew was no more. The lone window outside had been covered, else the powers outside would have been already visible – we both felt it though, this ever rising storm of magical energy. Only the three Hallows were holding what remained together – frozen, in the final moment between life and death, existence and void.

"Your father has left you the cloak. I withheld it from you – I taught you how to hide by yourself instead. I have used it, even, but I never owned the Cloak as much you wield the Ring – I was keeping it for you. It is rightfully yours. To hide, to be unseen, unnoticed, untouchable. The ultimate safety, the fortress that Death cannot reach into, one you can only chose to leave, never forced. It is yours, by ancient right. Take it."

There was a taste of old magic that I couldn't get off my tongue – the Cloak accepting its Master.

"Lastly – there is the Wand."

I moved my uninjured hand into the folds of my robe, drawing out the old wand I killed Gellert with. The wand that cast the curse ending Ariana's life – I was sure of it now, having dwelled so deep into Death that I could accept it as truth. It was appropriate to use it now. For the last time. And whatever would be the outcome–

He felt the energies swirling, and as I have taught him for numerous days, preparing him with the duel against Voldemort, teaching him to deflect spells and respond so well, that even in shock, even in surprise, his body knew what to do.

The deadly bolt from my wand slammed into a silver shield, dissipated into the ground and his return silent Expelliarmus had been faster than ever. He wasn't trying to kill me, after all – I marvelled at my student's decisions. It seemed that either he wanted me to suffer – for some things truly are worse than the final breath of Death – or, Harry could not bear the thought of actually killing his former mentor, however much he hated me then.

I tried to deflect the spell, to gather all my fleeting strength, but as I have suspected, the Death Stick had been longing for a new master, after all these years of being held back. My powers were too depleted, my vision was too blurry and my wand arm was too slow.

The precise beam of scarlet light slammed into my chest, sending me sprawling back, my wand flying away, my blackened hand falling down with the sickening crunch – dissipating into dust in mere moments. I think I lost my senses to pain, for I don't remember what happened in the next minute.

Then, I was sitting, leaning at the wall, drawing in panting breaths, feeling my body decaying fast, seconds causing as much damage as years of life couldn't manage. The castle was shaking like a wild steed. My vision was blurry, and the rapid, uneven movements weren't helping me any.

"The Wand," I continued on, weakly, but still stronger than I had feared, feeling the rapidly declining supply of my leftover power. "You have bested me, wrestling the ownership of it from me. It doesn't care if I am a helpless old man, and you are a young, powerful wizard. It has left me. It is yours. You have all three Hallows now, and my time here is over."

He was standing high, taller than I ever remembered him to be. The castle was creaking in pain, shouting in surprise, energies pumping under the foundations, trying to reach the Headmaster's Office.

"Take it," I urged. "Don the Cloak and claim the Wand."

"Why?" he whispered. "Why me – what do you want me to achieve with this?"

The walls around us cracked and fractured, eerie light shining through the cracks, the window of my old office shattering, the shutters disappearing with a loud bang. I could not control myself as I glanced at the outside. It was a mistake.

There was nothing there.

Empty, swirling winds of chaos, lights of the dead – that bright, blinding presence from the end of the road, end of the tunnel – the world was no more – only an old, dying man, a table with the old journal, and all three Deathly Hallows with their Master.

I heard Ariana whisper something – she was crying, and talking between the sobs. It was quiet, too quiet for me to hear. But I only smiled my weakest smile through all my life. "All is going to be well, Ariana, I'm with you."

"Albus!" Harry shouted. "You deserve death like no other, but don't you dare die now! What is going on?!"

Who was he, again? I looked at his green eyes, glowing like a killing curse. Ah – he was the one.

"You are the Master of Death," I acknowledged. "I have dreamt of you many a time."

"Dumbledore!"

"Yes, that was my name." I tried shrugging, but I couldn't feel either of my shoulders, much less my hands. His shout did bring back memories – I almost forgot the most important thing of them all. I found the focus anew – and I found his eyes. He was scared. "When the world was still alive. It is dead – that is good. It has withered beyond recognition, beyond any means of repair. It has died, and all the bad things are dead. All the Hate, all the Destruction, all of the Evil. Gone forever."

"But you have killed everything that was good, too!"

"No. You are alive – and you are one of the purest men I have ever known. I have raised you to be like this – I have treasured your heart and your capacity of love. You know compassion, you know love, and you will understand my sacrifice, when all this is over and done. You have done a similar sacrifice, when you went to stand before Voldemort – your whole life has been a preparation for this."

The walls fell, leaving only the table and the two of us floating inside the storm of nothingness. I focused on Harry, trying my best not to even glance the wrong way, for the current would have caught me in an instant, and I wouldn't get another chance like moments before. Ariana was calling me, someone was singing, screaming, pleading, crying, talking. They wanted me to look, to understand, to die, but I needed to be sure he would make the right choice.

The Master of Death – I looked at him once more. A single man, carrying all the power of death. The destruction that I wrought had been terrible, but every living being has to die, everything ends – I just rushed it along. And now, when everything was destroyed, he was glowing with all the raw power that it gifted to him. All the potential lives of every living being, the strength of the depths of the Earth, the power that Sun gave him by flickering out of existence, the strength of all the Universe, joined with him in Death.

"The world is over!" He shouted through the rising growl of the hungry winds, ones tearing through my flesh and bones, adding my feeble strength to his. "There is nothing to be found after!"

He was wrong. The storm was the expression of Death, of final moments, but he only was starting to notice that everything was waiting for him. So much power cannot exist in one place for too long – there would be a release. He was going to have to direct it, either consciously or not. A seed of the New World. A world as pure as its creator.

"Don the Cloak, and take the Wand – and I will tell you what to do to save the world."

He listened – Harry reached out, took his father's Cloak wrapping it around his shoulders. Then, he snatched the wand from the table, making everything shine even brighter, as the sudden onslaught of power shook him to the very core of his soul.

The table was no more, the room had ceased to exist. Was I gone too? I do not know, for I was so enthralled with that very moment of grandeur – the Master of Death, standing atop the Dead World, the pinnacle of power, the ultimate expression of the clash between Life and Death.

"What now?" He asked the nothingness, the ring disappearing from his finger, only to reappear in his left palm in that very same instant.

"Think about the World, Harry, call it inside your heart, and use the Stone." I managed to voice the last thought, before disappearing completely.

Three turns should do it.

And then, there was everything.

Author's Notes:

(1) there is no marker nr 1, just smoke and mirrors.

(2) from the bottom (3)

(3) there were three participants only