As ever, standard disclaimers apply: JKR's not mine. No one buys mine. (yet) LOL!
With one final thrust of raw power Harry Potter finished the Last Great Battle (as it would come to be called). As for the young man himself he had no thoughts of the present much less of the future. All he could think of was how quiet the world suddenly was. So quiet. So... dead. With not even a glance at the seered crater where his enemy had so recently stood, he turned and stagggered down the knoll. He'd not had any intention of stopping (not that he'd had any intention of anything at all for that matter) until a weak moan captivated him. Then he did halt in mid-step. His mind opened up and he looked at the devestation all about. The moan came again and this he tracked. To a mound of struggling burnt black rags. The pile of burnt cloth twisted and roiled and then overturned and revealed a blood soaked face beneath long scraggly black hair. "Professor! Harry gasped and rushed to the now still form. He knelt beside the man but didn't reach out to touch him.
"Potter," the deep whisper cracked uncharacteristically. Dark eyes opened but remained unfocused. "Savior of--" raqgged coughing interrupted but the man forced himself to continue, "...wizarding world."
"Please sir--"
"No. I... I must congratulate..."
"Professor, please."
"Good bye, Potter."
"Professor, there are healers, I'll call one--"
"No. Waste of... time. For someone... Listen!" One ruined hand lifted from the folds of the blasted cloth. "Listen," The whisper again dissolved into choking coughs. Without thinking about it, Harry clasped the older man's hand in both of his own.
"Sir--"
"Don't think on it... overmuch... Potter. Harry..."
Panickstricken all of a sudden, Harry lifted his head and cried out, "Headmaster! Headmaster! Dumbledore!"
He'd heard nothing but suddenly the Headmaster was standing nearby. "Harry."
"He's dying. I didn't mean. I didn't--"
"No one expected you to take on Tom by yourself child. Yes. Another of my children is dying too soon. Severus, child. You never had a chance. I am sorry."
"Doesn't matter, Albus... Albus?"
"Child."
"Cold."
"I know."
"Tell him... I never mattered."
"I can't."
A terrible sob wrenched from Harry's throat. He didn't know why. It wasn't as if he'd ever felt any affection for the man.
"Not his fault."
"True. Harry, he's right you know. This also is not your fault." With that the Headmaster reached down and took the Potions Master's other hand and that's when Harry realized what was so very wrong. Albus Dumbledore wasn't corporeal any more.
"Sir!"
"I know Harry," the image smiled wistfully. "I'm afraid I've gone and died as well."
"You're a ghost then?"
"No, Harry." Dumbledore sat down on the ground and lifted the dying wizard's head to cradle him in his lap. "I have lived long and my soul has lived many lives." He smiled down at Severus Snape as that wizard exhaled his last breath. "You, Harry, have a soul that has also lived many lives, though not as many as mine own."
"Not James--?"
"Of course not, child."
"But I look like him."
"And you look like your mother. Most children do, you know. But no, a soul cannot be born into a body when it is already alive in another." The old wizard shook his head in frustrated amusement at the convoluted wording. "No, his is another soul."
"What about Ron and Hermoine?"
"Oh, Hermoine's is a very old soul! My yes. Ron is much younger, of course. But Severus' is younger still. This was his first life, Harry." At that the old soul leaned down and brushed a kiss on the dead man's forehead. A glow that followed the length of the body slowly emerged like a butterfly from a chrysalis. But the glow was only vaguely human. Rather it fluttered like a dark tattered cloth held only because Dumbledore embraced it. "This was his first life and it went so wrong."
Harry frowned, slightly overwhelmed at all this information and the bizarre transformation going on in front of him. "So... Reincarnation, then."
"For some of us." Dumbledore smiled softly. "Albus Dumbledore was my last incarnation, Harry."
"Erm... doesn't that mean... you are supposed to go to Nirvana or something?"
"Yes. I have. I am a Guide for other souls. This is my Nirvana." The tattered soul of Severus Snape still mostly formless began to shrink. As it did it slowly took on a human form again. A youth, a child, an infant at last in Albus' arms; and then it was no longer tattered. Albus looked down at the innocent, unfettered soul with complete and unconditional love.
"Sir? What about Lord Voldemort?"
Dumbledore's face clouded over for the briefest moment. "His soul no longer exists."
For his own part, Harry was relieved. He took a deep breath and looked at the infant soul twitching strangely in Dumbldore's arms. "He doesn't look very comfortable. Will he be reborn now?"
Oddly, Dumbledore didn't answer immediately. Rather his head went up as if searching for something in the area. Then he shook his head. "There is no place for him yet." He smiled encouragingly. "But you still have this whole life ahead of you, dear boy. Make it a good one for everything is so wide open for you now." The ancient soul leaned forward and placed a cool pressureless kiss on Harry's cheek. "There's agood boy," he said and Harry wasn't sure to whom that was directed and he couldn't ask for now he was alone, with only Severus Snape's empty husk of a body for company.