Death's Alchemist Chapter 3 (Patreon)

Chapter 3

“Henry Potter,” the man said, offering his hand once again.

Harry took it this time, and didn’t even manage to return his own name, so Dumbledore offered it for him: “This is a new acquaintance of mine. Harry Peverell. He is visiting his family's old manor up on the hill.”

Henry’s eyes narrowed thoughtfully. “Really? You were able to get in?”

“It’s my family home,” Harry supplied quietly.

His quiet tone might have sounded evasive, but he was still reeling from one revelation after another. He had barely begun to understand what had happened.

Dorea was back to poking and prodding him with her wand while the two had their exchange. 

“Interesting,” Henry offered. “No one’s been in that house in my lifetime, to my knowledge. Dad, what about yours?”

Charlus, who was standing by the door still, just shrugged. “Not that I can recall.”

Three sets of intelligent eyes fell on him, while Dumbledore just watched him, with clear interest on his face. Harry nearly drowned in the moment. “It’s complicated. I can assure you, though, I am a Peverell. No one can cross through the wards without our blood.”

Henry looked like he wanted to say something, but Charlus stopped him by clearing his throat. The young man merely ran a hand through his messy hair, before grinning. “Sorry, Auror mode is hard to turn off at times. It was nice to meet you, Mr. Peverell, but I am afraid I am on night shift tonight, so I will see you around sometime. If I catch you in the village, I’ll buy you a butterbeer; maybe we can talk more about that old house on the hill. It’s got a lot of interesting legends around it, and since you must be new around here, maybe I can shine some light on your family.”

The suspicion was obvious, but Harry was grateful his…cousin?…wasn’t going to question him further. Dorea, for her part, accepted a kiss on the cheek from her son, before the man patted his father on the back as he went by, gesturing for Charlus to follow him, leaving just the three in the study.

At last, Dorea shook her head. “I think you are lucky to be alive, Mr. Peverell. I really think you should go see a specialist. Your body is radiating with ambient magic.”

Glancing at Dumbledore, then stepping around to look Harry in the eyes, the woman asked, “Were you dabbling in ritualistic magic? That is very dangerous, young man.”

Harry held his hands up in surrender. “No, if I created a ritual, it was incidental. I was conducting an alchemical experiment. It went a little wrong, but I had to be in my ancestral home to conduct it; that's why I returned.”

It was a flimsy excuse at best, and Harry doubted he had fooled either of them. Dorea asked no more questions, however, and continued her examination, whispering incantations that brought brief pain followed by relief. “Well, I have repaired most of your physical injuries, but I would highly suggest seeing that specialist. Your magic seems okay, but there is something unique about what I am seeing here. I don’t even know how to explain it.”

“Alchemy is a very tricky subject,” Dumbledore offered helpfully. “If he was buried in an experiment, anything could be lingering on him magically. I will keep an eye on my new young friend, and make sure he doesn’t hurt himself.”

Harry felt like that comment was loaded, but said nothing as he rose to his feet. “Thank you, Mrs. Potter. I really do feel better already.”

The woman pursed her lips for a moment, before shaking her head. “Well, I hope we meet again under more pleasant terms. I suspect you have quite the story to tell, young man.”

Harry didn’t get a chance to say farewell to Charlus; he was gone when they went out the front door of the house, and Henry was likely already arriving at the Ministry of Magic for his shift.

Harry and Dumbledore offered a wave over their shoulders as they crossed out of the front yard and back onto the cobblestone of Godric’s Hollow.

“You knew I was connected to them,” Harry accused softly.

They had walked several houses beyond the Potters’ home before Dumbledore finally spoke, “I was confirming a suspicion.”

Harry continued forward, though the stiffness in his stride had little to do with his injuries now. “Were you?”

Dumbledore’s tone remained mild. “You look remarkably like them.”

Harry said nothing.

“The hair is perhaps the most obvious similarity,” Dumbledore continued, glancing toward him. “Though I did not expect Mr. Potter, Henry Potter, that is, to give you the Auror questioning. For that you have my apologies. Henry is a bright young man, and always very curious.”

Despite himself, Harry nearly smiled at the bit of information, and briefly found amazement in the fact that he had just had an interaction with members of his family he was never given a chance to meet.

Dumbledore allowed the silence to settle between them for several steps. “Neither Charlus nor Dorea recognized you.”

“No,” Harry agreed.

“But you recognized them?” Dumbledore questioned.

Harry’s grip tightened slightly around the traveling cloak Dorea had insisted he wear over his damaged robes. Dumbledore stopped walking. Harry managed another two steps before turning back toward him. The village continued around them, distant conversation drifting from an open window while a pair of children chased one another across the lane. Dumbledore stood quietly beneath the afternoon sun, his expression neither accusing nor triumphant. Simply observant.

“Are they your—”

He stopped. The question did not need to be finished.

Harry looked past him toward the Potter houses, their roofs still visible above the hedges. Families lived inside them. Potters argued over meals, played Quidditch in their gardens and complained about untidy hair. They were not names carved into stone or faces preserved in photographs. They were alive.

“No,” Harry answered eventually, though the word came with difficulty. “Not exactly.”

Dumbledore studied him for another moment. “But they are family.”

Harry met his eyes. “Yes.”

It was the first completely honest answer he had given Dumbledore that revealed anything important, and both men knew it.

Dumbledore resumed walking without pressing further. “I thought they might be.”

Harry followed after him, irritation slowly pushing through his exhaustion. “You brought me there to test them.”

“I brought you there because Dorea is an excellent healer.”

“And because they were Potters.”

Dumbledore inclined his head, conceding the point without apology. “It seemed unwise to ignore the resemblance.”

“You could have asked.”

“I did.”

Harry frowned.

Dumbledore glanced at him, the faintest hint of amusement touching his expression. “I simply did not use words.”

Harry stared at the man for several seconds before shaking his head. “You really haven’t changed.”

The amusement disappeared. Dumbledore slowed again, though this time he did not stop. “That is a rather peculiar observation from someone who claims we have only just met.”

Harry immediately realized his mistake.

Dumbledore looked ahead toward Peverell Manor in the distance, allowing the silence between them to remain. Another piece had fallen into place for the older wizard, and Harry knew it. Yet, to Harry’s immense relief, Dumbledore did not turn the observation into another question. He simply continued along the road, his hands disappearing into the pockets of his robes while Fawkes circled lazily overhead.

Harry followed. For several minutes, that was enough. His injuries had kept his mind occupied since waking. Pain, confusion, Dumbledore, the Potters, Henry—each revelation had come quickly enough that Harry had never truly been given time to understand what had happened to him. He had reacted to each new problem as it appeared because that was what he had always done.

Now there was nothing demanding his immediate attention. Nothing except the truth. Harry glanced toward Fawkes. The phoenix swept across the afternoon sky, scarlet wings brilliant beneath the sun, and suddenly the impossible reality of the day came crashing down upon him all at once Thirty-four years.

Harry stopped.

Thirty-four years.

His breath caught painfully in his chest. He had gone back thirty-four years. Ron. Hermione. The Weasleys. Flitwick. Ginny. His home. His life. They were gone. No—they weren't gone. That somehow made it worse. They were still there. Thirty-four years away. Harry imagined Hermione and Flitwick returning to Peverell Manor and finding the laboratory destroyed. The transmutation circle burned into the table. His notes scattered across the floor. Perhaps the Hallows would be gone. Perhaps everything would be gone.

They would search for him. Of course they would. Hermione would refuse to accept that he had simply vanished. Ron would tear apart half of Britain looking for him. Molly would wait for an owl that never came. His stomach twisted. They would never find him. Harry's breathing quickened. He had to get home. The thought came with such force that everything else disappeared. He had to get home. He had to get back to Ron and Hermione. Back to the Burrow. Back to Flitwick. Back to the life he had spent years rebuilding after the war.

His knees weakened beneath him.

“Mr. Peverell?”

Dumbledore’s voice sounded distant.

Harry tried to answer, but the words would not come. The road seemed to shift beneath his feet. He took one unsteady step before his legs finally buckled, and by the time he realized what had happened, his knees had struck the grass beside the lane.

Dumbledore moved toward him immediately. Harry barely noticed. Thirty-four years. He dragged a hand across his face and tried desperately to slow his breathing. A trill sounded directly in front of him. Not overhead. Not somewhere beyond the trees. Harry looked up. Fawkes had landed only a few feet away. The phoenix tilted his head, studying Harry for a moment before stepping closer. Harry remained frozen as the bird approached, until Fawkes finally pressed the side of his head gently against Harry’s cheek. Harry closed his eyes. The warmth of the phoenix was familiar. Painfully familiar. For one fleeting moment, Harry was twelve years old again.

He was beneath Hogwarts, terrified and bleeding from the basilisk’s fang while the creature lay dead only feet away. Tom Riddle had been standing over him. The diary had seemed impossible to defeat. Harry had believed he was dying. Then Fawkes had saved him.

Harry opened his eyes. The phoenix remained beside him, patiently waiting. It almost felt as though the creature were telling him the same thing it had all those years ago. 

You are not alone.

Harry swallowed heavily. His hand rose slowly, fingers brushing through the brilliant feathers along Fawkes’s neck. The phoenix leaned into the touch, and Harry released a shaky breath he had not realized he was holding.

He had survived the Chamber. He had survived Voldemort. He had survived the war. He had survived Death itself. Thirty-four years may have been impossible, but Harry had dealt with impossible before.

Another breath. Then another. The panic loosened its grip. Harry finally pushed himself back to his feet, brushing the grass from his knees. Dumbledore stood several paces away, concern plainly visible upon his face, but—perhaps understanding that Harry needed the illusion of privacy—he had not moved any closer.

Harry gave Fawkes one final stroke before offering the phoenix a grateful nod. “I’m okay.”

Dumbledore looked unconvinced.

Harry did not blame him. He glanced toward Peverell Manor rising above the hill in the distance. “I need to get home.”

“Thirty-four years,” Harry said quietly. “There are people waiting for me, Professor. I have to get back to them.”

The words nearly caught in his throat. Harry forced himself to continue. “Let’s get back to the manor.”

Dumbledore nodded without comment. They resumed the walk. Fawkes took flight again, but remained closer this time, drifting between the trees rather than disappearing into the sky.

When they finally reached Peverell Manor, Dumbledore stopped before the entrance. Harry placed his hand against the old wooden door. The wards recognized him immediately, and the locks shifted one after another before the door swung inward.

Dumbledore remained outside. Waiting. The gesture was subtle, but Harry understood it. The invitation he had given earlier did not necessarily extend forever. Whatever Dumbledore suspected about him, the man would not simply assume he was welcome inside Harry’s home.

For a moment, Harry stared into the empty manor. It looked nothing like the home he remembered. No books. No journals. No Hermione sitting at his table telling him to eat. No Flitwick studying the newest collection of runes across the wall. Just dust, old furniture, and thirty-four years separating Harry from everything that belonged there.

He stepped across the threshold. Then, without looking back, Harry raised one hand and gestured for Dumbledore to follow. Dumbledore did.

Harry went straight toward an old chalkboard resting against the far wall, his wand already in hand. With a precise sweep, the dust vanished from the slate and the surrounding floorboards, the motion almost automatic after years spent working in laboratory settings where contamination, clutter, and imprecision could ruin months of work. Conjuring a piece of chalk between his fingers, Harry immediately began scribbling across the board. He would have to start from nothing. Every note he had written, every translation he had cross-referenced, every failed equation and successful transmutation from the better part of five years of research had been left thirty-four years in the future. The journals themselves would be here somewhere, hidden throughout the manor exactly where Harry had eventually discovered them, but he would have to find them again, reorganize them, translate them, and rebuild everything he had known. The thought should have been overwhelming. Instead, Harry attacked the board with something bordering on desperation. This time, however, he had one advantage he had never possessed before. He was no longer alone. Standing directly behind him was one of the greatest magical minds in history and one of the few living wizards Harry knew to have truly mastered alchemy.

Dumbledore said nothing. He moved slowly to stand beside Harry, his expression growing more intent with every new line appearing across the slate. Harry barely noticed him. Transmutations. Calculations. Arithmancy. Magical temperatures. Astral projections of the coming moon cycles and planetary alignments. He sketched the Hallows, the workbench, the sheet of glass, the furnace, the wooden stave, and the pattern carved across its surface. He recreated the placement of the Elder Wand, Resurrection Stone, and Invisibility Cloak as precisely as memory allowed, then filled the empty spaces surrounding them with every equation he remembered using to control the reaction. Once he began, the details came faster. Small corrections appeared beside larger formulas. Ratios were crossed out and rewritten. Harry marked the temperature increases he had used beneath the glass and drew the sequence in which the magic had begun flowing toward the center of the design. He had no idea how long he stood there. Minutes could have become an hour without him noticing. By the time the chalk finally stopped moving, nearly the entire board had disappeared beneath his reconstruction of the experiment. Harry stepped back, breathing hard, his eyes racing across the work faster than his mind could properly process it.

Frustration overwhelmed him before reason could catch up. “You were the most brilliant magical mind of the century. One of the few living masters of alchemy.” Harry turned toward Dumbledore, desperation creeping into his voice despite every attempt to control it. “What did I do wrong? I never had a teacher in this subject. Everything I know came from the journals I found here, from experiments I pieced together myself, and from years of trying to understand work written by people who had been dead for centuries. I must have made a mistake somewhere.” Harry gestured sharply toward the board. “Something in the temperature. The sequence. The intent. One of the calculations. Anything. There has to be something we can identify, and if we can understand what went wrong, there has to be something we can do to fix it.”

Dumbledore did not answer him.

His eyes remained fixed upon the chalkboard.

After several seconds, the older wizard stepped forward and conjured a piece of chalk of his own. “May I?”

Harry nodded immediately.

Dumbledore went to work.

“I need more information,” he said, adding several marks beside Harry’s astronomical calculations. “You have recorded some of the planetary positions, but I will need all of them. The moon as well, not merely its phase but its precise position when the reaction began. If there were any unusual magical events occurring that evening, however insignificant they seemed at the time, I want those recorded as well.” His chalk moved toward Harry’s rough drawing of the laboratory. “Your workbench—we will recreate it. Precisely. Material, dimensions, orientation within the room. The furnace too. If we are to understand the reaction, we must rebuild the conditions as completely as possible, even if we cannot recreate the experiment itself.”

Harry watched the man work, the frantic pressure inside his chest easing slightly simply because someone else was finally treating the impossible as a problem that might be solved.

“We will also need the composition of the glass,” Dumbledore continued. “Was it conjured?”

“Made from sand and fire,” Harry clarified. “No conjuration. I was following the journals. They were very particular about material origin.”

Dumbledore nodded thoughtfully. “Reasonable. Alchemical structures often retain properties tied to the history of the material itself. Conjured glass may possess the appearance and physical qualities required while lacking the necessary magical ancestry.”

Harry blinked. That particular explanation had taken him nearly six months to infer from the journals.

Dumbledore had reached it in seconds.

For the first time since waking, Harry felt something dangerously close to hope.

“The stave?” Dumbledore asked.

“Rowan.”

“Untreated?”

“Originally. I carved the rune myself.”

“And the temperature beneath the—”

Dumbledore stopped.

The chalk hovered inches from the board.

Harry followed his gaze.

The older wizard was staring at the three objects Harry had drawn around the transmutation pattern.

The Elder Wand.

The Resurrection Stone.

The Invisibility Cloak.

Dumbledore's face had lost much of its color.

His eyes moved from the objects to the equations surrounding them, then slowly back again. When he finally spoke, his voice had become noticeably quieter. “Your formula indicates an extraordinary amount of magical arithmancy directing power from three independent sources toward a single conjunction.” His eyes settled upon Harry’s crude sketch of the triangular symbol surrounding the artifacts. “Your drawing would seem to suggest…”

He trailed off.

Harry waited.

Dumbledore swallowed before turning toward him. “Did you truly assemble all three?”

Silence filled the room.

Harry stared at the man before him. The Dumbledore Harry had known had warned him against chasing the Hallows. He had insisted Harry focus on Horcruxes instead, understanding better than anyone what temptation the three objects represented. Harry had listened because there had been a war to win and Voldemort to destroy. Afterward, however, things had changed. Voldemort was dead. The Horcruxes were gone. Harry possessed the Elder Wand, had inherited the Cloak, and knew where the Stone had been abandoned. There had seemed little reason he could not pursue the mystery once the danger had passed. Yet Harry also knew more about Dumbledore now than he had when the man was alive. He knew what the Hallows had once meant to him. He knew about Grindelwald. Ariana. The years of guilt and temptation attached to the very objects Harry had casually gathered beneath one roof. He could only hope that by 1969, enough years had passed for the man before him to resemble the Dumbledore Harry remembered.

“I did,” Harry confirmed.

Dumbledore gave the smallest nod, but his complexion remained pale.

“I kept them apart for years,” Harry continued carefully. “At first, I thought I was just being superstitious. Maybe overly cautious. I knew what the stories said about gathering them together, and even though I didn’t believe most of it, something about having all three in the same room always bothered me. Eventually I convinced myself that was ridiculous.” Harry glanced toward the board. “I held them all at once. Nothing happened. No surge of magic. No voice from Death. No revelation. Nothing.”

Dumbledore's expression tightened almost imperceptibly at Harry’s choice of words.

“So I stopped treating them like mystical objects,” Harry continued. “I treated them like what the journals suggested they actually were. Alchemical creations.”

His attention returned to the Hallows drawn across the board.

“The experiment wasn’t something I created that night. I had been building toward it for nearly a year without realizing exactly what I was building. Every journal I uncovered pointed toward the same conclusion. The Hallows were not three unrelated magical objects gifted to three brothers by Death. They were products of alchemy. Extraordinary ones, maybe beyond anything created before or since, but still made.” Harry stepped closer to the board and indicated the three separate branches of calculations. “Antioch’s notes led into Cadmus’s. Cadmus’s work answered problems that appeared in Ignotus’s research. I spent years treating them as three separate projects because history told me they were three separate creations. They weren’t.”

Dumbledore’s eyes moved rapidly across the formulas.

“They were one body of research,” he murmured.

Harry nodded. “That’s what I realized.”

The manor fell silent around them.

“Everything in their surviving notes suggested the Hallows were supposed to be used in some larger alchemical process,” Harry continued. “But the records stop before they ever explain what that process was. No conclusion. No final experiment. No explanation for why three of the greatest alchemical achievements in history suddenly disappear from their own creators’ research.” His voice grew rougher. “I couldn’t understand it. I kept thinking there had to be another journal, another room in this house, another set of notes I hadn’t found yet.”

Harry looked at the board.

Then around the empty manor.

“Maybe there never was.”

Dumbledore said nothing.

Harry’s eyes settled upon the equations he had reconstructed from memory, the Hallows sitting at their center.

“Maybe they did finish the experiment.”

His voice had dropped almost to a whisper.

“And now…”

Harry looked toward Dumbledore.

“Look what I’ve done.”

Dumbledore looked immensely troubled, his eyes returning once more to the rough sketches of the Hallows on the board. For several seconds, he seemed to forget Harry was standing beside him entirely. His gaze moved from the Elder Wand to the Stone, then to the Cloak, following the equations connecting each artifact into the central design. When he finally spoke, the words were quiet. “This is beyond anything I imagined.”

Silence fell between them. Neither man seemed willing to disturb it. The manor had gone completely still around them, the only movement coming from the occasional flicker of light against the chalkboard as the evening sun slipped lower beyond the windows. Harry studied the equations as if staring long enough might cause some obvious mistake to reveal itself. Dumbledore did the same, though his attention seemed divided now between the work itself and the young wizard standing beside him. For the first time since Harry had awakened, there were no questions waiting to be asked, no new revelation demanding an answer. There was simply the impossible truth written across the board in chalk.

“In our long friendship, I have never seen Fawkes react to anyone the way he reacted to you this afternoon,” Dumbledore said softly. Harry looked toward him, but the older wizard continued studying the board. “My companion is one of my dearest friends, and an excellent judge of character. Were he capable of explaining himself in words, I would be exceedingly interested to know what he knows of you, Mr. Peverell.” Dumbledore finally turned toward him. There was still suspicion in those blue eyes—Harry could see it plainly—but it had changed. The distrust of a stranger had given way to something far more complicated. Curiosity. Concern. Perhaps even the beginnings of belief. “I need an evening to reflect upon everything you have told me. There are notes I have not examined in decades, questions I once abandoned because I believed there were no answers left to find. I suspect I was mistaken.” His eyes softened slightly. “But whatever else you may be withholding from me, I believe you when you say there are people waiting for you. If there is a way to return you to your friends and your family, then we will find it.”

Harry said nothing. He simply nodded, his throat tightening so suddenly that he doubted he could have spoken his gratitude even if he tried. Until that moment, he had been carrying the problem alone. Even after waking to find Dumbledore alive, some stubborn part of Harry had assumed the burden was still his. His mistake. His experiment. His responsibility to undo. Hearing Dumbledore say we did something to him that he had not expected.

“I will return tomorrow,” Dumbledore continued, before pausing as though another thought had occurred to him. “There is, however, one thing I would like to leave you with.”

Dumbledore raised the Elder Wand and flicked it toward the chalkboard. Several of Harry’s hastier lines faded, while the rune both Flitwick and Dumbledore had recognized earlier sharpened beneath the spell. The older wizard stepped closer, tracing the design in the air with the tip of his wand as his expression became increasingly distant. “I should have recognized it before. I was distracted by the structure surrounding it and by the way the symbol had been incorporated into the greater equation.” He hesitated. “The mark itself is remarkably simple. The work built around it is anything but.”

Harry stared at the rune.

Dumbledore lowered his wand. “I later encountered variations of this symbol in an old Welsh runic guide many years ago. At the time, I believed it represented conjunction or convergence, and in a sense that interpretation was not entirely incorrect. The oldest translations use the mark to describe the joining of one state with another.” His brow furrowed as he studied the center of the design. “But the distinction I failed to remember is rather important. It does not describe two things meeting in the same place.”

Harry felt his stomach begin to sink.

Dumbledore looked at him.

“It describes them meeting in the same moment.”

Harry stopped breathing.

The older wizard glanced toward the rune once more, almost as if he disliked the simplicity of the answer now that it had become obvious. “This symbol means time.”

The words struck Harry physically.

His eyes returned to the board, to the rune he had reconstructed from the Peverell journals, to the calculations he had spent years assembling without ever understanding the most basic piece at their center. Time. The answer had been staring at him from the beginning. Flitwick had recognized it. Dumbledore had recognized it. Harry had placed the Hallows around it, fed magic through it, heated the glass beneath it, and then wondered why the impossible had happened.

A bitter laugh nearly escaped him.

What a foolish mistake he had made.

“I don’t understand the equation surrounding it,” Dumbledore admitted, and the confession pulled Harry’s attention back toward him. “Nor do I understand why the reaction carried you here rather than somewhere else, or whether the Hallows themselves determined the destination. I cannot tell you why you arrived thirty-four years before the experiment instead of thirty-four minutes, or why your magic now appears altered.” His gaze drifted over the board again. “There is far more here than I can comprehend in a single evening.”

Harry swallowed. “But you think this is what happened.”

Dumbledore’s expression remained grave. “I think the evidence suggests that whatever you created was intended to manipulate time.”

“Intended?” Harry repeated.

“That is the question that troubles me most.”

Harry stared at him.

Dumbledore gestured faintly toward the sketches of the three Hallows. “You believe the Peverell brothers were working toward a final experiment and that their notes ended before its completion. Perhaps that is true.” His voice lowered. “Or perhaps they learned exactly what their work could accomplish.”

Harry’s eyes moved back to the board.

“And stopped writing,” he murmured.

“Or ensured that no one else could easily follow them.”

That possibility settled heavily over the room.

Dumbledore allowed Harry several moments before finally stepping away from the chalkboard. With a wave of his wand, the piece of chalk he had conjured vanished from his fingers. “Do not attempt anything tonight.”

Harry almost objected.

Dumbledore raised one eyebrow.

Despite everything, Harry gave a weak smile. “You are figuring me out quickly.”

The reaction was immediate. Dumbledore’s expression changed, curiosity returning sharply at another casual familiarity Harry had allowed to escape. Harry closed his eyes and sighed.

“Another conversation for another day,” Dumbledore said at last.

“Please.”

The corner of Dumbledore’s mouth twitched.

He crossed the room toward the entrance, but stopped before reaching the door. For a moment, Harry thought another question was coming. Instead, Dumbledore turned back and regarded him with an expression Harry remembered from countless conversations years in the future—one filled with concern that tried very hard to disguise itself as simple advice.

“Rest, Harry.”

It was the first time he had used his given name without attaching Peverell to it.

Harry noticed.

Dumbledore seemed to notice that he noticed.

“Tomorrow we begin again,” he added quietly.

Harry nodded. “Tomorrow.”

Dumbledore opened the door and stepped across the threshold. Fawkes, who had settled somewhere outside while they worked, gave a gentle trill from the darkness before scarlet wings swept past the window. Dumbledore paused on the path, looking back toward the manor one final time. Then, with a soft crack, he vanished.

Harry stood alone. The silence rushed back in. For several moments he remained beside the chalkboard, staring at the single rune Dumbledore had left sharpened among the hundreds of calculations.

Time.

With this knowledge, Harry went back to the chalkboard, turned it over to the backside, and began working anew. Dumbledore had told him not to attempt anything tonight, but that didn’t mean he couldn’t work through the calculations he could remember. He had five years of notes to catch up on.

For five or ten minutes, Harry worked without stopping, covering the slate with every calculation he could remember. He reached automatically for the tea he had left on his workbench. His hand stopped in empty air. The cup was thirty-four years away. So was the workbench. The cluttered room he had made his own was gone. He looked toward the place where Hermione kept her books. Nothing.

 Then to where his cloak hung. Nothing. The mantel where his first transmutation rested. Empty. The desk where the Resurrection Stone sat. Gone. Suddenly all the equations stopped being theoretical. Hermione would be so upset with him.

The thought made his stomach sink again. Hermione wasn’t even born yet. Ron wasn’t even born yet. All the Weasley children had yet to be born. Most of his friends who had fought beside him hadn’t even been born yet.

Slowly Harry sat on the floor, the world overwhelming him. He wasn’t sure when the first tears started to fall, but soon his face was in his hands. He wasn’t sure how long he sat there.

Eventually, the tears stopped.

The manor had grown dark around him, the chalkboard barely visible, hundreds of calculations disappearing into shadow as evening settled over the valley. Harry eventually forced himself to stand.

His legs carried him toward the nearest window, and Harry rested one hand against the cold glass as he looked down toward Godric's Hollow. Lights had begun appearing throughout the village. Families were sitting down for dinner. Children were being called home. Somewhere among those houses were members of his own family, alive decades before Harry had ever known their names.

For most of his life, Harry would have given anything for that. Tonight, he only wanted the people he had left behind. His forehead settled gently against the window. Sunday suddenly felt very far away. Harry closed his eyes.

“I told them I'd be there Sunday.”