* * *

            ELARA'S FEET HIT SOLID GROUND AGAIN; HER KNEES BUCKLED A LITTLE AND THE GOLDEN WIZARD'S HEAD FELL WITH A RESOUNDING CLUNK TO THE FLOOR. she looked around and saw that she and harry had arrived in dumbledore's office.

            everything seemed to have repaired itself during the headmaster's absence. the delicate silver instruments stood again upon the spindle-legged tables, puffing and whirring serenely. the portraits of the headmasters and headmistresses were snoozing in their frames, heads lolling back in armchairs or against the edge of their pictures. elara looked through the window. there was a cool line of pale green along the horizon: dawn was approaching.

            "lara. . . . ?" said harry quietly.

            "i know," she said, wrapping her arms around his middle tightly.

            the silence and the stillness, broken only by the occasional grunt or snuffle of a sleeping portrait, seemed almost unbearable to her. if her surroundings could have reflected the feelings inside her, the pictures would have been screaming in pain. she tried not to think, she only wanted to focus on harry, how warm he was, and how safe she felt.

            "i'm so sorry," mumbled harry into her hair, "its all my fault."

            elara pulled away from him, but her arms were still wrapped loosely around his middle.

            "hey, no," said elara in the softest voice she could manage, "its not your fault."

            "but — "

            "i want you to say it."

            harry shook his head.

            "but if i hadn't been so stupid, if i had just listened to hermione — "

            "i also didn't listen to hermione. harry, its not your fault," said elara, gently emphasizing every word.

            "do you think its your fault?" said harry, and elara looked down at her feet.

            "we're talking about you, harry."

            "it's not your fault, lara," he said, pulling her back into his embrace.

            "its not yours, either," mumbled elara into the crook of his neck.

            it was unbearable, she would not think about it, she could not stand it. . . . there was a terrible hollow inside her she did not want to feel or examine, a dark hole where sirius had been, where sirius had vanished.

            "if you want to leave, i understand," said harry, his voice shaking.

            "what? why would i want to leave — "

            "ever since you've started hanging around me, you just get hurt, or — or thrown into danger, and i can't — i can't believe i just didn't fight it."

            "i told you that i'd never leave you; i'm not going anywhere," said elara gently, bewildered as to where this is coming from.

            "i don't want me to be the only reason you're here," said harry shakily. "you're much stronger than i am, much more powerful, you'd just be wasting your talent helping a screw-up."

            "we are not going back to square one with this mentality," said elara firmly. "harry, what color did my hair turn when we first kissed?"

            harry smiled, "pink."

            "you are not a screw-up. i love you. but, i'm also doing this because when injustice becomes law, resistance becomes duty. and maybe because it's dangerous."

            harry cracked a small smile, and elara's heart skipped a beat. it was working, she was cheering him up.

            "but your hair is white," said harry, his face falling again.

            "harry, listen to me. i'm not going anywhere. i told you in the beginning that i was going to be with you until the very end, and i keep my promises. i'm not going anywhere."

            a picture behind them gave a particularly loud grunting snore, and a cool voice said, "ah . . . my great-great-great granddaughter . . . and harry potter." 

            phineas nigellus gave a long yawn, stretching his arms as he watched elara and harry with shrewd, narrow eyes.

            "and what brings you here in the early hours of the morning?" said phineas. "this office is supposed to be barred to all but the rightful headmaster. or has dumbledore sent you here? oh, don't tell me . . ." he gave another shuddering yawn. "another message for my worthless great-great-grandson?"

            elara glared at phineas. phineas nigellus did not know that sirius was dead, but elara could not tell him. to say it aloud would be to make it final, absolute, irretrievable.

            a few more of the portraits had stirred now. harry strode across the room and seized the doorknob.

            it would not turn. they were shut in.

            "i hope this means," said the corpulent, red-nosed wizard who hung on the wall behind dumbledore's desk, "that dumbledore will soon be back with us?"

            the wizard was eyeing them with great interest. elara nodded and forced a smile, wondering why harry was tugging on the doorknob.

            "oh good," said the wizard. "it has been very dull without him, very dull indeed."

            he settled himself on the throne-like chair on which he had been painted and smiled benignly upon elara and harry.

            "dumbledore thinks very highly of you two, as i am sure you know," he said comfortably. "oh yes. holds you in great esteem."

            elara nodded and forced another smile. if dumbledore thought very highly of them, why have they gone an entire year without answers? why had he avoided them?

            the empty fireplace burst into emerald-green flame, making harry leap away from the door, and elara turn to stare at the man spinning inside the grate. as dumbledore's tall form unfolded itself from the fire, the wizards and witches on the surrounding walls jerked awake. many of them gave cries of welcome.

            "thank you," said dumbledore softly.

            he did not look at elara and harry at first, but walked over to the perch beside the door and withdrew, from an inside pocket of his robes, the tiny, ugly, featherless fawkes, whom he placed gently on the tray of soft ashes beneath the golden post where the full-grown fawkes usually stood.

            "well," said dumbledore, finally turning away from the baby bird, "you will be pleased to hear that none of your fellow students are going to suffer lasting damage from the night's events."

            dumbledore was for once looking at them directly, and though his expression was kindly rather than accusatory, elara could not bear to meet his eyes.

            "madam pomfrey is patching everybody up now," said dumbledore. "nymphadora tonks may need to spend a little time in st. mungo's, but it seems that she will make a full recovery."

            "oh, thank merlin," said elara, sliding into a chair after feeling a huge rush of relief that made her head spin.

            she was sure that all the portraits around the room were listening eagerly to every word dumbledore spoke, wondering where dumbledore, elara, and harry had been and why there had been injuries.

             "i am going to ask that you, elara, do not interfere or try to calm harry down during the first part of our conversation," said dumbledore. "harry, i ask that you try to refrain from yelling."

             "what are you talking — ?"

             "it is my fault that sirius died," said dumbledore clearly. "or i should say almost entirely my fault — i will not be so arrogant as to claim responsibility for the whole. sirius was a brave, clever, and energetic man, and such men are not usually content to sit at home in hiding while they believe others to be in danger. nevertheless, you should never have believed for an instant that there was any necessity for you to go to the department of mysteries tonight. if i had been open with you, harry, as i should have been, you would have known a long time ago that voldemort might try and lure you to the department of mysteries, and you would never have been tricked into going there tonight. and sirius would not have had to come after you. that blame lies with me, and with me alone."

             "am i to understand," said phineas nigellus slowly from elara's left, "that my great-great-grandson — the last of the blacks — is dead?"

            "yes, phineas," said dumbledore.

            "i don't believe it," said phineas brusquely.

            elara turned her head in time to see phineas marching out of his portrait and knew that he had gone to visit his other painting in grimmauld place. he would walk, perhaps, from portrait to portrait, calling for sirius through the house. . . .

            "see, i owe you an explanation," said dumbledore. "an explanation of an old man's mistakes. for i see now that what i have done, and not done, with regard to you, bears all the hallmarks of the failings of age. youth cannot know how age thinks and feels. but old men are guilty if they forget what it was to be young . . . and i seem to have forgotten lately. . . ."

            the sun was rising properly now. there was a rim of dazzling orange visible over the mountains and the sky above it was colorless and bright. the light fell upon dumbledore, upon the silver of his eyebrows and beard, upon the lines gouged deeply into his face.

           "i guessed, fifteen years ago," said dumbledore, "when i saw the scar upon your forehead, what it might mean. i guessed that it might be the sign of a connection forged between you and voldemort."

            "you've told me this before, professor," said harry bluntly. elara reached for his hand and intertwined their fingers, sensing harry needed to sort of physical reassurance.

            "yes," said dumbledore apologetically. "yes, but you see — it is necessary to start with your scar. for it became apparent, shortly after you rejoined the magical world, that i was correct, and that your scar was giving you warnings when voldemort was close to you, or else feeling powerful emotion."

            "i know," said harry wearily.

            "and this ability of yours — to detect voldemort's presence, even when he is disguised, and to know what he is feeling when his emotions are roused — has become more and more pronounced since voldemort returned to his own body and his full powers.

            "more recently," said dumbledore, "i became concerned that voldemort might realize that this connection between you exists. sure enough, there came a time when you entered so far into his mind and thoughts that he sensed your presence. i am speaking, of course, of the night when you witnessed the attack on mr. weasley."

            "yeah, snape told me," harry muttered.

            "professor snape, harry," dumbledore corrected him quietly. "but did you not wonder why it was not i who explained this to you? why i did not teach you occlumency? why i had not so much as looked at you for months?"

            elara could see now that dumbledore looked sad and tired.

            "yeah," harry mumbled. "yeah, lara and i wondered."

            "you see," continued dumbledore heavily "i believed it could not be long before voldemort attempted to force his way into your mind, to manipulate and misdirect your thoughts, and i was not eager to give him more incentives to do so. i was sure that if he realized that our relationship was — or had ever been — closer than that of headmaster and pupil, he would seize his chance to use you as a means to spy on me. i feared the uses to which he would put you, the possibility that he might try and possess you. harry, i believe i was right to think that voldemort would have made use of you in such a way. on those rare occasions when we had close contact, i thought i saw a shadow of him stir behind your eyes. . . . i was trying, in distancing myself from you, to protect you. an old man's mistake . . .

            "voldemort's aim in possessing you, as he demonstrated tonight, would not have been my destruction. it would have been yours. he hoped, when he possessed you briefly a short while ago, that i would sacrifice you in the hope of killing him."

            he sighed deeply. the images of voldemort speaking through harry and harry screaming in our agony was almost overbearing. elara's eyes watered again and she whipped them away quickly.

            "sirius told me that you felt voldemort awake inside you the very night that you had the vision of arthur weasley's attack. i knew at once that my worst fears were correct: voldemort from that point had realized he could use you. in an attempt to arm you against voldemort's assaults on your mind, i arranged occlumency lessons with professor snape."

            he paused. elara watched the sunlight, which was sliding slowly across the polished surface of dumbledore's desk, illuminate a silver ink pot and a handsome scarlet quill. elara could tell that the portraits all around them were awake and listening raptly to dumbledore's explanation. he could hear the occasional rustle of robes, the slight clearing of a throat. phineas nigellus had still not returned. . . .

            "professor snape discovered," dumbledore resumed, "that you had been dreaming about the door to the department of mysteries for months. voldemort, of course, had been obsessed with the possibility of hearing the prophecy ever since he regained his body, and as he dwelled on the door, so did you, though you did not know what it meant.

            "and then you saw rookwood, who worked in the department of mysteries before his arrest, telling voldemort what we had known all along — that the prophecies held in the ministry of magic are heavily protected. only the people to whom they refer can lift them from the shelves without suffering madness. in this case, either voldemort himself would have to enter the ministry of magic and risk revealing himself at last — or else you and elara would have to take it for him. it became a matter of even greater urgency that you should master occlumency."

            "but i didn't," muttered harry. "i didn't practice, i didn't bother, i didn't even ask elara for help, i could've stopped myself having those dreams, hermione kept telling me to do it, if i had he'd never have been able to show me where to go, and — sirius wouldn't — sirius wouldn't —

            "i tried to check he'd really taken sirius, i went to umbridge's office, i spoke to kreacher in the fire, and he said sirius wasn't there, he said he'd gone!"

            "kreacher lied," said dumbledore calmly. "you are not his master, he could lie to you without even needing to punish himself. kreacher intended you to go to the ministry of magic."

            "he — he sent us on purpose?"

            "oh yes. kreacher, i am afraid, has been serving more than one master for months."

            "how?" said harry blankly. "he hasn't been out of grimmauld place for years."

            "kreacher seized his opportunity shortly before christmas," said dumbledore, "when sirius, apparently, shouted at him to 'get out.' he took sirius at his word and interpreted this as an order to leave the house. he went to the only black family member for whom he had any respect left. . . . black's cousin narcissa, sister of bellatrix and wife of lucius malfoy."

            "how do you know all this?" harry said. elara's heart was beating very fast. she felt sick. she remembered worrying about kreacher's odd absence over christmas, remembered him turning up again in the attic. . . .

            "kreacher told me last night," said dumbledore. "you see, when you gave professor snape that cryptic warning, he realized that you had had a vision of sirius trapped in the bowels of the department of mysteries. he, like you, attempted to contact sirius at once. i should explain that members of the order of the phoenix have more reliable methods of communicating than the fire in dolores umbridge's office. professor snape found that sirius was alive and safe in grimmauld place.

            "when, however, you did not return from your trip into the forest with dolores umbridge, professor snape grew worried that you still believed sirius to be a captive of lord voldemort's. he alerted certain order members at once."

            dumbledore heaved a great sigh and then said, "alastor moody, nymphadora tonks, kingsley shacklebolt, and remus lupin were at headquarters when he made contact. all agreed to go to your aid at once. professor snape requested that sirius remain behind, as he needed somebody to remain at headquarters to tell me what had hapened, for I wias due there at any moment. in the meantime he, professor snape, intended to search the forest for you.

            "but sirius did not wish to remain behind while the others went to search for you. he delegated to kreacher the task of telling me what had happened. and so it was that when i arrived in grimmauld place shortly after they had all left for the ministry, it was the elf who told me — laughing fit to burst — where sirius had gone."

            "he was laughing?" said elara in a hollow voice.

            "oh yes," said dumbledore. "you see, kreacher was not able to betray us totally. he is not secret-keeper for the order, he could not give the malfoys our whereabouts or tell them any of the order's confidential plans that he had been forbidden to reveal. he was bound by the enchantments of his kind, which is to say that he could not disobey a direct order from his master, sirius. but he gave narcissa information of the sort that is very valuable to voldemort, yet must have seemed much too trivial for sirius to think of banning him from repeating it."

            "like what?" said harry.

            "like the fact that the person sirius cared most about in the world was you," said dumbledore quietly. "like the fact that you were coming to regard sirius as a mixture of father and brother, or the fact that you were very close to elara. kreacher, by christmas, had already picked up that you cared for elara greatly. voldemort knew already, of course, that sirius and elara were in the order, that you knew where sirius was — but kreacher's information made him realize that the one person whom you would go to any lengths to rescue was sirius black. however, ideally, he would've wanted elara, but since you both cared about him, voldemort knew she would've come along."

            "so . . . when i asked kreacher if sirius was there last night . . ." 

            "the malfoys — undoubtedly on voldemort's instructions — had told him he must find a way of keeping sirius out of the way once you had seen the vision of sirius being tortured. then, if you decided to check whether sirius was at home or not, kreacher would be able to pretend he was not. kreacher injured buckbeak the hippogriff yesterday, and at the moment when you made your appearance in the fire, sirius was upstairs trying to tend to him."

            there seemed to be very little air in harry's lungs, his breathing was quick and shallow.

            "and kreacher told you all this . . . and laughed?" he croaked.

            "he did not wish to tell me," said dumbledore. "but i am a sufficiently accomplished legilimens myself to know when i am being lied to and i — persuaded him — to tell me the full story, before i left for the department of mysteries."

            "and," whispered harry, his hands curled in cold fists on his knees, "and hermione kept telling us to be nice to him —"

            "she was quite right, harry," said dumbledore. "i warned sirius when we adopted twelve grimmauld place as our headquarters that kreacher must be treated with kindness and respect. i also told him that kreacher could be dangerous to us. i do not think that sirius took me very seriously, or that he ever saw kreacher as a being with feelings as acute as a humans —"

            oh no. dumbledore was quite right, but the look on harry's face said it all.

            "don't you blame — don't you — talk — about sirius like —" harry's breath seemed constricted. "kreacher's a lying — foul — he deserved —"

            "kreacher is what he has been made by wizards, harry," said dumbledore. "yes, he is to be pitied. his existence has been as miserable as your friend dobby's. he was forced to do sirius's bidding, because sirius was the last of the family to which he was enslaved, but he felt no true loyalty to him. and whatever kreacher's faults, it must be admitted that sirius did nothing to make kreacher's lot easier —"

            "DON'T TALK ABOUT SIRIUS LIKE THAT!" harry yelled.

            he was on his feet, furious, ready to fly at dumbledore. elara sat back in shock. she should've treated krecher well. she just sat by and did nothing. if she had just been nice. . . .

            "what about snape?" harry spat. "you're not talking about him, are you? when i told him voldemort had sirius he just sneered at me as usual —"

            "harry, you know that professor snape had no choice but to pretend not to take you seriously in front of dolores umbridge," said dumbledore steadily, "but as i have explained, he informed the order as soon as possible about what you had said. it was he who deduced where you had gone when you did not return from the forest. it was he too who gave professor umbridge fake veritaserum when she was attempting to force you and elara to tell of sirius's whereabouts. . . ."

            "snape — snape g-goaded sirius about staying in the house — he made out sirius was a coward —"

            "sirius was much too old and clever to have allowed such feeble taunts to hurt him," said dumbledore.

            "snape stopped giving me occlumency lessons!" harry snarled. "he threw me out of his office!"

            "i am aware of it," said dumbledore heavily. "i have already said that it was a mistake for me not to teach you myself, though i was sure, at the time, that nothing could have been more dangerous than to open your mind even further to voldemort while in my presence —"

            "snape made it worse, my scar always hurt worse after lessons with him — how do you know he wasn't trying to soften me up for voldemort, make it easier for him to get inside my —"

            "i trust severus snape," said dumbledore simply. "but i forgot — another old man's mistake — that some wounds run too deep for the healing. i thought professor snape could overcome his feelings about your father — i was wrong."

            "but that's okay, is it?" yelled harry, clearly ignoring the scandalized faces and disapproving mutterings of the portraits covering the walls. "it's okay for snape to hate my dad, but it's not okay for sirius to hate kreacher?"

            "sirius did not hate kreacher," said dumbledore. "he regarded him as a servant unworthy of much interest or notice. Indifference and neglect often do much more damage than outright dislike. . . . the fountain we destroyed tonight told a lie. we wizards have mistreated and abused our fellows for too long, and we are now reaping our reward."

            "SO SIRIUS DESERVED WHAT HE GOT, DID HE?" harry yelled.

            "i did not say that, nor will you ever hear me say it," dumbledore replied quietly. "sirius was not a cruel man, he was kind to house-elves in general. he had no love for kreacher, because kreacher was a living reminder of the home sirius had hated."

            "yeah, he did hate it!" said harry, his voice cracking, turning his back on dumbledore and walking away. the sun was bright inside the room now, and the eyes of all the portraits followed harry as he walked. "you made him stay shut up in that house and he hated it, that's why he wanted to get out last night —"

            "i was trying to keep sirius alive," said dumbledore quietly.

            "people don't like being locked up!" harry said furiously, rounding on him. "you did it to me all last summer —"

            dumbledore closed his eyes and buried his face in his long-fingered hands. elara watched him, this uncharacteristic sign of exhaustion, or sadness, or whatever it was from dumbledore, made her curious. 

            dumbledore lowered his hands and surveyed harry through his half-moon glasses.

            "it is time," he said, "for me to tell you what i should have told you five years ago, harry. and elara, i will be filling you in on every order meeting you have been restricted from. please sit down. i am going to tell you everything. i ask only a little patience. you will have your chance to rage at me — to do whatever you like — when i have finished. i will not stop you."

            harry glared at him for a moment, then flung himself back into the chair opposite dumbledore and grabbed elara's hand again. dumbledore stared for a moment at the sunlit grounds outside the window, then looked back at harry and said, "five years ago you arrived at hogwarts, harry, safe and whole, as i had planned and intended. well — not quite whole. you had suffered. i knew you would when i left you on your aunt and uncle's doorstep. i knew i was condemning you to ten dark and difficult years."

            he paused. harry said nothing.

            "you might ask — and with good reason — why it had to be so. why could some wizarding family not have taken you in? many would have done so more than gladly, would have been honored and delighted to raise you as a son.

            "my answer is that my priority was to keep you alive. you were in more danger than perhaps anyone but myself realized. voldemort had been vanquished hours before, but his supporters — and many of them are almost as terrible as he — were still at large, angry, desperate, and violent. and i had to make my decision too with regard to the years ahead. did i believe that voldemort was gone forever? no. i knew not whether it would be ten, twenty, or fifty years before he returned, but i was sure he would do so, and i was sure too, knowing him as i have done, that he would not rest until he killed you.

            "i knew that voldemort's knowledge of magic is perhaps more extensive than any wizard alive. i knew that even my most complex and powerful protective spells and charms were unlikely to be invincible if he ever returned to full power.

            "but I knew too where voldemort was weak. and so i made my decision. you would be protected by an ancient magic of which he knows, which he despises, and which he has always, therefore, underestimated — to his cost. i am speaking, of course, of the fact that your mother died to save you. she gave you a lingering protection he never expected, a protection that flows in your veins to this day. i put my trust, therefore, in your mother's blood. i delivered you to her sister, her only remaining relative."

            "she doesn't love me," said harry at once. "she doesn't give a damn —"

            "but she took you," dumbledore cut across him. "she may have taken you grudgingly, furiously, unwillingly, bitterly, yet still she took you, and in doing so, she sealed the charm i placed upon you. your mother's sacrifice made the bond of blood the strongest shield i could give you."

            "i still don't —"

            "while you can still call home the place where your mother's blood dwells, there you cannot be touched or harmed by voldemort. he shed her blood, but it lives on in you and her sister. her blood became your refuge. you need return there only once a year, but as long as you can still call it home, there he cannot hurt you. your aunt knows this. i explained what i had done in the letter i left, with you, on her doorstep. she knows that allowing you houseroom may well have kept you alive for the past fifteen years."

            "wait," said harry. "wait a moment."

            he sat up straighter in his chair, staring at dumbledore.

            "you sent that howler. you told her to remember — it was your voice —"

            "i thought," said dumbledore, inclining his head slightly, "that she might need reminding of the pact she had sealed by taking you. i suspected the dementor attack might have awoken her to the dangers of having you as a surrogate son."

            "it did," said harry quietly. "well — my uncle more than her. he wanted to chuck me out, but after the howler came she — she said i had to stay." he stared at the floor for a moment, then said, "but what's this got to do with . . ."

            "five years ago, then," continued dumbledore, as though he had not paused in his story, "you arrived at hogwarts, neither as happy nor as well nourished as i would have liked, perhaps, yet alive and healthy. you were not a pampered little prince, but as normal a boy as i could have hoped under the circumstances. thus far, my plan was working well.

            "and then . . . well, you will remember the events of your first year at hogwarts quite as clearly as i do. you rose magnificently to the challenge that faced you, and sooner — much sooner — than i had anticipated, you found yourself face-to-face with voldemort. you survived again. you did more. you delayed his return to full power and strength. you fought a brilliant fight. i was . . . prouder of you than i can say.

            "yet there was a flaw in this wonderful plan of mine," said dumbledore. "an obvious flaw that i knew, even then, might be the undoing of it all. and yet, knowing how important it was that my plan should succeed, i told myself that I would not permit this flaw to ruin it. i alone could prevent this, so i alone must be strong. and here was my first test, as you lay in the hospital wing, weak from your struggle with voldemort."

            "i don't understand what you're saying," said harry.

            "don't you remember asking me, as you lay in the hospital wing, why voldemort had tried to kill you when you were a baby?"

            harry nodded.

            "ought i to have told you then?

            "you do not see the flaw in the plan yet? no . . . perhaps not. well, as you know, i decided not to answer you. eleven, i told myself, was much too young to know. i had never intended to tell you when you were eleven. the knowledge would be too much at such a young age.

            "i should have recognized the danger signs then. i should have asked myself why i did not feel more disturbed that you had already asked me the question to which i knew, one day, i must give a terrible answer. i should have recognized that i was too happy to think that i did not have to do it on that particular day. . . . you were too young, much too young.

            "and so we entered your second year at hogwarts. and once again you met challenges even grown wizards have never faced. once again you acquitted yourself beyond my wildest dreams. you did not ask me again, however, why voldemort had left that mark upon you. we discussed your scar, oh yes. . . . we came very, very close to the subject. why did i not tell you everything?

            "well, it seemed to me that twelve was, after all, hardly better than eleven to receive such information. i allowed you to leave my presence, bloodstained, exhausted but exhilarated, and if i felt a twinge of unease that i ought, perhaps, have told you then, it was swiftly silenced. you were still so young, you see, and i could not find it in me to spoil that night of triumph. . . .

            "do you see, harry? do you see the flaw in my brilliant plan now? i had fallen into the trap i had foreseen, that i had told myself i could avoid, that i must avoid."

            "i don't —"

            "i cared about you too much," said dumbledore simply. "i cared more for your happiness than your knowing the truth, more for your peace of mind than my plan, more for your life than the lives that might be lost if the plan failed. in other words, i acted exactly as voldemort expects we fools who love to act.

            "is there a defense? i defy anyone who has watched you as i have — and i have watched you more closely than you can have imagined — not to want to save you more pain than you had already suffered. what did i care if numbers of nameless and faceless people and creatures were slaughtered in the vague future, if in the here and now you were alive, and well, and happy? i never dreamed that i would have such a person on my hands.

            "we entered your third year. i watched as you finally found elara, who's recklessness and headstrong attitude begun to keep you in check more than hermione did, i dare say. even then, i knew there was something different about her. i watched from afar as you and elara struggled to repel dementors, as you found sirius, learned what he was and rescued him. was i to tell you then, at the moment when you had triumphantly snatched your godfather from the jaws of the ministry? but now, at the age of thirteen, my excuses were running out. young you might be, but you had proved you were exceptional. my conscience was uneasy, harry. i knew the time must come soon. . . .

            "but you came out of the maze last year, having watched cedric diggory die, having escaped death so narrowly yourself . . . and i did not tell you, though i knew, now voldemort had returned, i must do it soon. and now, tonight, i know you have long been ready for the knowledge i have kept from you for so long, because you have proved that i should have placed the burden upon you before this. my only defense is this: i have watched you struggling under more burdens than any student who has ever passed through this school, and i could not bring myself to add another — the greatest one of all."

            elara waited, but dumbledore did not speak.

            "i still don't understand."

            "voldemort tried to kill you when you were a child because of a prophecy made shortly before your birth. he knew the prophecy had been made, though he did not know its full contents. he set out to kill you when you were still a baby, believing he was fulfilling the terms of the prophecy. he discovered, to his cost, that he was mistaken, when the curse intended to kill you backfired. and so, since his return to his body, and particularly since your extraordinary escape from him last year, he has been determined to hear that prophecy in its entirety. this is the key he has been seeking so assiduously since his return: the knowledge of how to destroy you, and the knowledge of how to weaponize elara."

            the sun had risen fully now. dumbledore's office was bathed in it. the glass case in which the sword of godric gryffindor resided gleamed white and opaque, and behind them, the baby fawkes made soft chirruping noises in his nest of ashes.

            "the prophecy's smashed," harry said blankly. "i was pulling neville up those benches in the — the room where the archway was, and i ripped his robes and it fell. . . . elara threw hers."

            "the things that smashed were merely the record of the prophecy kept by the department of mysteries. but the prophecy was made to somebody, and that person has the means of recalling it perfectly."

            "who heard it?" asked elara, though she thought she knew the answer already.

            "i did," said dumbledore. "on a cold, wet night sixteen years ago, in a room above the bar at the hog's head inn. i had gone there to see an applicant for the post of divination teacher, though it was against my inclination to allow the subject of divination to continue at all. the applicant, however, was the great-great-granddaughter of a very famous, very gifted seer, and i thought it common politeness to meet her. i was disappointed. it seemed to me that she had not a trace of the gift herself. i told her, courteously i hope, that i did not think she would be suitable for the post. i turned to leave."

            dumbledore got to his feet and walked past elara and harry to the black cabinet that stood beside fawkes's perch. he bent down, slid back a catch, and took from inside it the shallow stone basin, carved with runes around the edges. dumbledore walked back to the desk, placed the pensieve upon it, and raised his wand to his own temple. from it, he withdrew silvery, gossamer-fine strands of thought clinging to the wand, and deposited them in the basin. he sat back down behind his desk and watched his thoughts swirl and drift inside the pensieve for a moment. then, with a sigh, he raised his wand and prodded the silvery substance with its tip.

            a figure rose out of it, draped in shawls, her eyes magnified to enormous size behind her glasses, and she revolved slowly, her feet in the basin. but when sibyll trelawney spoke, it was not in her usual ethereal, mystic voice, but in harsh, hoarse tones elara had never heard her use once before.

            "THE ONE WITH THE POWER TO VANQUISH THE DARK LORD APPROACHES. . . . BORN TO THOSE WHO HAVE THRICE DEFIED HIM, BORN AS THE SEVENTH MONTH DIES . . . AND THE DARK LORD WILL MARK HIM AS HIS EQUAL, BUT HE WILL HAVE POWER THE DARK LORD KNOWS NOT . . . AND EITHER MUST DIE AT THE HAND OF THE OTHER FOR NEI-THER CAN LIVE WHILE THE OTHER SURVIVES. . . . THE ONE WITH THE POWER TO VANQUISH THE DARK LORD WILL BE BORN AS THE SEVENTH MONTH DIES. . . ."

            the slowly revolving professor trelawney sank back into the silver mass below and vanished.

            the silence within the office was absolute. neither dumbledore nor harry nor any of the portraits made a sound. even fawkes had fallen silent.

            "professor dumbledore?" harry said very quietly, for dumbledore, still staring at the pensieve, seemed completely lost in thought. "it . . . did that mean . . . what did that mean?"

            "it meant," said dumbledore, "that the person who has the only chance of conquering lord voldemort for good was born at the end of july, nearly sixteen years ago. this boy would be born to parents who had already defied voldemort three times."

            "it means — me?"

            dumbledore surveyed him for a moment through his glasses.

            "the odd thing is, harry," he said softly, "that it may not have meant you at all. sibyll's prophecy could have applied to two wizard boys, both born at the end of july that year, both of whom had parents in the order of the phoenix, both sets of parents having narrowly escaped voldemort three times. one, of course, was you. the other was neville longbottom."

            "but then . . . but then, why was it my name on the prophecy and not neville's?"

            "the official record was relabeled after voldemort's attack on you as a child," said dumbledore. "it seemed plain to the keeper of the hall of prophecy that voldemort could only have tried to kill you because he knew you to be the one to whom sibyll was referring."

            "then — it might not be me?" said harry.

            "i am afraid," said dumbledore slowly, looking as though every word cost him a great effort, "that there is no doubt that it is you." 

            "but you said — neville was born at the end of july too — and his mum and dad —"

            "you are forgetting the next part of the prophecy, the final identifying feature of the boy who could vanquish voldemort. . . . voldemort himself would 'mark him as his equal.' and so he did, harry. he chose you, not neville. he gave you the scar that has proved both blessing and curse."

            "but he might have chosen wrong!" said harry. "he might have marked the wrong person!"

            "he chose the boy he thought most likely to be a danger to him," said dumbledore. "and notice this, harry. he chose, not the pureblood (which, according to his creed, is the only kind of wizard worth being or knowing), but the half-blood, like himself. he saw himself in you before he had ever seen you, and in marking you with that scar, he did not kill you, as he intended, but gave you powers, and a future, which have fitted you to escape him not once, but four times so far — something that neither your parents, nor neville's parents, ever achieved."

            "why did he do it, then?" said harry, who felt numb and cold. "why did he try and kill me as a baby? he should have waited to see whether neville or i looked more dangerous when we were older and tried to kill whoever it was then —"

            "that might, indeed, have been the more practical course," said dumbledore, "except that voldemort's information about the prophecy was incomplete. the hog's head inn, which sibyll chose for its cheapness, has long attracted, shall we say, a more interesting clientele than the three broomsticks. as you and your friends found out to your cost, and i to mine that night, it is a place where it is never safe to assume you are not being overheard. of course, i had not dreamed, when i set out to meet sibyll trelawney, that i would hear anything worth overhearing. my — our — one stroke of good fortune was that the eavesdropper was detected only a short way into the prophecy and thrown from the building."

            "so he only heard . . . ?"

            "he heard only the first part, the part foretelling the birth of a boy in july to parents who had thrice defied voldemort. consequently, he could not warn his master that to attack you would be to risk transferring power to you — again marking you as his equal. so voldemort never knew that there might be danger in attacking you, that it might be wise to wait or to learn more. he did not know that you would have 'power the dark lord knows not' —"

            "but i don't!" said harry in a strangled voice. "i haven't any powers he hasn't got, i couldn't fight the way he did tonight, i can't possess people or — or kill them —"

            "there is a room in the department of mysteries," interrupted dumbledore, "that is kept locked at all times. it contains a force that is at once more wonderful and more terrible than death, than human intelligence, than forces of nature. it is also, perhaps, the most mysterious of the many subjects for study that reside there. it is the power held within that room that you possess in such quantities and which voldemort has not at all. that power took you to save sirius tonight. that power also saved you from possession by voldemort, because he could not bear to reside in a body so full of the force he detests. in the end, it mattered not that you could not close your mind. it was your heart that saved you."

            harry closed his eyes. "the end of the prophecy . . . it was something about . . . 'neither can live. . . .' "

            " '. . . while the other survives,' " said dumbledore.

            "so," said harry, "so does that mean that . . . that one of us has got to kill the other one . . . in the end?"

            "yes," said dumbledore.

            for a long time, none of them spoke. somewhere far beyond the office walls, elara could hear the sound of voices, students heading down to the great hall for an early breakfast, perhaps. it seemed impossible that there could be people in the world who still desired food, who laughed, who neither knew nor cared that sirius black was gone forever. sirius seemed a million miles away already, even if a part of elara still believed that if she had only pulled back that veil, she would have found sirius looking back at her, greeting her, perhaps, with his laugh like a bark. . . .

            "i feel i owe you another explanation, harry, and elara too," said dumbledore hesitantly. "you may, perhaps, have wondered why i never chose you two as a prefects? i must confess . . . that i rather thought . . . you had enough responsibility to be going on with."

            elara looked up at him and saw a tear trickling down dumbledore's face into his long silver beard.

            "professor. . . ." said elara quietly, "what was in my prophecy? uncle lucius said it explained why i'm such a powerful seer."

            dumbledore sighed after a moment's hesitation.

            "harry, i am going to have to ask you to step outside. you may return to your dormitory if you wish, but you also may wait until i have finished discussing the contents if elara's prophecy with her."

            harry nodded, his eyes expressionless, but on his way out, he planted a kiss on elara's cheek. despite the dire situation, elara smiled. as soon as the door shut, dumbledore began rubbing his temple.

             "i didn't dare say this with harry here," began dumbledore cautiously, "but the weight you bare is much greater than harry's."

            anxiety bubbled in elara's stomach.

            "what do you mean?"

            "it's better i show you" said dumbledore, pulling a silver memory strand from his temple with his wand and tapping the surface of the pensieve. professor trelawney rose out of the water again.

             "SHE WEARS STRENGTH AND DARKNESS EQUALLY WELL, SHE'S HALF GODDESS, HALF HELL. EITHER HELLFIRE OR HOLY WATER, BORN OF THE ENEMY — A CHANGELING, A LIGHT, A MARTYR. HAUNTED BY THE GHOSTS OF PAST, PRESENT, AND FUTURE, TRAVELLER OF DREAMSCAPES. GIRL, WARRIOR, IMMORTAL, PRINCESS, HEROINE. SELECTED BY DELPHI'S OWN HAND, PROTECTOR OF THE CHOSEN ONE, SAVIOR OF MAGIC. THEY SHALL RUN WHEN SHE GOES TO WAR, FOR DARKNESS COWERS BEFORE HER."

            there was nothing but silence as elara drank in every word professor trelawney spoke. there was so much, martyr, protector, savior, warrior, heroine, she didn't know where to start asking.

            "martyr — " elara tried to say, but her throat was dry.

            dumbledore nodded gravely. elara couldn't speak. a lump had formed in her throat. speaking meant breaking down in the middle of dumbledore's office and crying until her throat was raw.

            "i've suspected since you first came into my office last year. i had no idea who the praedo malorum was, until you told me you saw harry's name coming out of the cup before it happened."

            it was as if elara had went mute. she opened her mouth to say something, but she closed it again. moments passed before she found her voice again.

            "when. . . . am i supposed to — "

            "that, i don't know. however, i'm sure when the time comes, you'll know."

            elara nodded, still dumbstruck.

            "i'm supposed to protect harry?" asked elara in a small voice.

            "you already have," said dumbledore in an almost fond voice. "your urge to protect harry in the graveyard was what allowed you to break from the bonds that would hold any other normal seer."

            "i still don't — "

            "selflessness, elara. i have never seen someone with as much heart as you do."

            "and the 'hellfire' part — ?"

            "you've met anya, have you not?"

            elara blinked. how did dumbledore know who anya is? have they been talking? why didn't they tell elara? she nodded.

            "anya is more educated in the field of prophecies than i. i visited right after i had left school. she said you have some extra abilities — things no normal witch or wizard could do."

            "i have superpowers?" said elara in disbelief. "like, from the marvel comics hermione gave harry?"

            dumbledore chuckled.

            "not quite superpowers," he said with a trace of a smile, "they're very limited. even using them for a short amount of time could drain you of energy."

            elara was silent for awhile, formulating her next question.

            "so, does 'hellfire' mean that my extra ability is fire?"

            dumbledore nodded. the same question she'd had since she heard the prophecy came rushing back into her mind. a lump formed in her throat again.

            "is there. . . . is there any chance that i  — you know, can come back from being dead? like — like not stay dead?"

            his eyes were all she needed. it was slim to none. her heart was heavy with the thought of losing everything she had. andromeda, ted, nymphie, harry, ron, hermione, ginny, luna, neville, aspen, fred, george, aurora. if asked three years ago, elara would be okay with the thought of sacrificing herself in war. but that was different now. she had a real family, real friends, and someone she loved desperately. 

            "professor, please, just tell me — "

            "there's a three percent chance," said dumbeledore sadly.

            "oh."

            they were silent for a long while. 

            "anya — anya can explain it better than i can. but i shall try. the ancient magic that exists where anya resides has always chosen someone to protect the balance of good and evil in time of desperate need. the reason why the percentage is so low, is because there's only been a few recorded people who are similar to you in history. after you've fulfilled your prophecy, there is a chance of revival."

            "i don't — i have to — i almost just died and now you're telling me i'm the jesus reincarnate? are you sure you've got the right person?"

            dumbledore cracked the smallest of smiles.

            "anya will be training you this summer and throughout the next year. she wishes you come to loco veteres instead of visiting it in your head. however, when you're at school, you will have to dream."

            "okay," said elara.

            "i'm so sorry," said dumbledore sadly, "i never wanted this to fall on your shoulders."

            "i can handle it."

            elara wasn't even sad. she just felt numb. but somehow, that was so much worse.

            "heavy lies the crown, elara. you are the only one who can bare it well."

            "i will," said elara as she placed her hand on the door knob, ready to fly out the room.

            once she did, she almost tripped over harry sitting on the stairs, his back against the wall. there was no time to react, as harry stood up and attacked her in a hug. she had never been hugged like this before. harry's face was in her neck and he was clutching at the fabric of her shirt on her back. elara almost began crying right then, but she remembered dumbledore telling her to be strong.

            "i can't lose anyone else," said harry quietly, his voice stricken by tears. "please, i can't lose you."

            elara felt like throwing up. she won't be there. he will lose her.

            "you have me," she said shakily, "until every last star in the galaxy dies, you have me."

            maybe today was a day for mistakes. for lies. for empty promises. so, elara made an empty promise to herself;

            i will survive.

* * *

AUTHORS NOTE

-- so. what do you think?

written: march 13, 2020
published: may 25, 2020