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The best thing Vernon Dursley ever did for me is kill me.
Of course, that’s not what I’m thinking at the time, when his beefy hands are clenched around my throat and I am desperate for air. With every second that passes, my lungs screaming for oxygen, my only thought is for survival. I fight at first, struggling against a man double my size. But then that angry, purple face begins to blur before my bulging eyes, and everything grows dim as my brain begins to shut down. The last thing I remember is trying to push him away with magic, but that obviously didn’t work; shocked by the attack, I don’t think to use magic until it is too late.
Too late to save myself, so I die.
I don’t really understand that I am dead. It is like I am dreaming, but not. I can see the room through a misty veil, though there is no sound. All is silent. The silence is more complete than anything I have ever experienced. Not just a mere absence of noise; it is as though sound does not exist in the world at all.
My perspective of the room keeps changing. At first I am above, looking down at my dead body, lying sprawled on the freshly scrubbed kitchen floor with a huffing and puffing Uncle Vernon standing over me. My face is red and blotchy, glasses knocked sideways, half-dangling off my face. My eyes are open, staring and vacant.
I can see Aunt Petunia screaming, hands pressed her cheeks, eyes wild as her mouth forms a wide, silent wail.
Then Professor Dumbledore is here. He isn’t here, and then he is, pointing his wand at me. I watch from one side and then another, my viewpoint changing ever rapidly, as he casts Rennervate on me. Through the haze, I can see his mouth move and his wand move again and again, but I know those movements will be the only action; I will not stir, because I am dead.
I feel nothing when he drops to his knees and begins pressing on my chest, trying to blow breath into an empty shell through my mouth. How he knows Muggle CPR, I have no idea, but I dimly understand what he is trying to do.
Return life to the dead.
I am behind Dumbledore looking over his shoulder. Then I am next to Aunt Petunia, watching, as she does, the futile attempts to bring me to life. Without a noticeable shift, I am above again, looking down on the tragic tableau as Dumbledore stops his efforts and rises slowly, laboriously, to his feet.
He says something to them, my aunt and uncle. My awareness zooms me in close, so I can see the anger and desperation on Dumbledore’s face in stark relief before my perspective changes yet again and I am across the kitchen as though standing in the doorway, like someone who has just walked in to the scene of a disaster.
There is more talking. I think. I’m really not sure. There is no sense of time. And I can hear nothing. Feel nothing. Do nothing. Think nothing. I am merely a distant observer.
I can only watch myself as I lay motionless, insensate to the world.
And then there is…something. Something I feel, yet don’t feel. I am falling, slowly at first and then ever faster. I am falling, and falling, and falling, but it does not concern me. Nothing about what is happening concerns me. There are no emotions, no thoughts. Simply the impression of falling.
And with a shock of brilliant, white pain, I am back.
Back in my body. I can feel the hard linoleum floor beneath me, hear the hum of the refrigerator, feel the pressure of light against my eyes.
And there are voices. Angry voices, defensive voices. I can’t make any sense of them at first, so surprising is the reintroduction of sound to my world.
The harsh florescent glare of the kitchen ceiling light is so bright it sears my vision. I suppose I blink and perhaps I move; I’m not really sure. But when I hear Aunt Petunia scream, I know the others in the room have been alerted to my return.
Dumbledore’s wizened face suddenly fills my field of vision. His eyes are brilliantly blue and wide with what is likely shock. His glasses are askew, almost falling off the end of his long, crooked nose.
“Harry?”
My name is foreign to my ears. But I finally recognise it. Harry. He’s speaking to me, I realise.
The shake to my shoulder sends a jolt of feeling through me, a strange sensation of pressure and movement.
“Harry!”
I know I blink this time. My eyelids feel odd as they close and reopen. Dark then light. Dumbledore is still there when I have sight again.
I instinctively try to move my tongue, but it feels heavy and uncooperative in my mouth. But the need to speak abruptly feels urgent, and with great effort, I stir my tongue into motion.
“Harry,” I repeat.
I have no idea why the first thing out of my mouth is my own name, but that doesn’t seem to bother Dumbledore. I have a close-up view of his stunned eyes widening and I understand completely his incomprehension. I have spoken.
The dead do not speak.
“Harry!” he gasps, grabbing me by the shoulders. It doesn’t feel as odd to be touched this time. It seems…normal.
My ears are back to normal as well; I can hear Aunt Petunia sobbing and sound no longer echoes strangely in my brain.
My mind is still functioning rather slowly, though. I feel as though I should say something, but have no idea what words to form.
A single syllable pops out of its own accord: “Yes.”
“He’s alive?” Uncle Vernon’s tone is one of sheer disbelief, something I can empathise with.
“He’s alive,” Dumbledore murmurs. I can see the wheels turning in his mind, see how he is trying to process the impossible. There is a look of dawning comprehension before his gaze turns sharp and piercing. I watch him watch me, dissecting me with his eyes.
His expression gentles. “Harry, you can hear me? See me?”
“Yes,” I say again.
“How do feel? Are you in pain?”
I take some time to think about this. I feel strange. Empty yet…not. There is a rushing inside me. Breath, I think, and blood; my body is making itself known in ways I have never considered before.
Then I become aware of more.
“My throat,” I say. As I speak, the dull ache I’ve noticed becomes stronger. I cough and feel the rattle in my chest.
“Impossible,” I hear Uncle Vernon breathe and a terrible fear bursts though me, shocking my senses. My body freezes, my muscles seizing to the point of pain as my eyes follow the sound of his disbelieving tone and I see my murderer standing above me, looking as though he is seeing a ghost.
Am I a ghost? Am I really alive or am I an insubstantial form, translucently white?
When Dumbledore’s hands squeeze my shoulders again, I wonder if ghosts can feel the press of human hands. Can ghosts feel this paralysing fear that is keeping me motionless, causing my heart to race?
Terrified, I shift my gaze away from Uncle Vernon and back to Dumbledore. His face is a safer view.
“Am I…still dead?” I ask. My voice is raspy and rushed.
“No,” Dumbledore says soothingly. “You are alive, Harry. Very much alive.”
Some of the tension leaves me. Then confusion overrides the fear.
“How?”
“I have my suspicions, but we shall not discuss them here.”
I am surprised I can feel resentment. I suddenly feel great curiosity as to how this has all come about and yet the old wizard is shutting me out.
“But I died,” I state. I know this for a fact.
“Yes,” Dumbledore replies. “You did.”
“Uncle Vernon killed me.”
“Yes.” Dumbledore’s gaze tracks up to where Uncle Vernon stands above us. “He did.”
My eyes follow and I stare at the man who’d strangled me to death. Fear morphs into an overpowering sense of fury.
“You!” I break free of Dumbledore’s grasp and sit up. For a moment, the kitchen revolves and my stomach does a very strange swoop and only Dumbledore’s quick hands keep me upright.
“You killed me!” I accuse, so angry I can hardly speak. “You killed me.”
“You’re alive,” Uncle Vernon says stupidly. “I can’t have killed you. You can’t have really died. You’re alive.”
“He did die—”
“I was dead!” I shout over Dumbledore. “I was dead! You killed me!”
I lunge forward towards Uncle Vernon’s legs. I’m not certain what I am trying to do; I am simply acting on furious instinct.
Dumbledore holds me back.
“But how?” Aunt Petunia whimpers behind her hands. “How can this be?”
“Dark magic,” Dumbledore answers, drawing my attention back to him.
“Dark magic?” I repeat. “You performed no Dark magic.”
“Not I. Voldemort.”
“Voldemort? How…what…?”
“I shall explain later. Can you stand? I feel it is best we leave here. Then I can try to answer your questions.”
I’ve never wanted a question answered so badly in my life. I let Dumbledore help me to my feet. I sway, blinking as I struggle against light-headedness. I am acutely aware of my feet as they press into the floor, helping to hold me upright.
I stand for a moment, looking at my aunt and uncle. I loathe them. Hatred fills every cell in my body, sheer unadulterated hatred. Blood beats in my brain and all I can see are their still-stunned faces. Somehow my wand is in my hand—I suppose I Summon it from the floor—and the curse is out of my mouth before I even process my own thoughts.
“Crucio!”
Uncle Vernon screams and collapses to the floor. Aunt Petunia’s shrieks rise to join his as I stare at Vernon writhing in agony on the floor, hatred burning, a hot, orange flame, inside me. A harsh, scraping kind of joy twists inside my belly, forming a small, hard knot that beats in time with my blood.
I dimly hear Dumbledore shouting at me to stop, but I cannot. Will not. This man had taken my life, and even if I have it back, he deserves my wrath. Not my mercy.
My wand flies from my grip. My arm still outstretched, I watch Uncle Vernon’s body sag as the curse is lifted. His huge body trembles and his chest heaves as he fights for breath.
Just as I had, I think viciously. Just as I had when his hands had been around my throat, killing me.
“Give me back my wand.” My voice is so flat, so solid, I almost don’t recognise it. “She’s next.”
Aunt Petunia chokes out a scream and cowers, throwing her arms over her face as if that will protect her, save her from my vengeance.
“No. You’ve done enough.”
“It will never be enough. She stood by, did nothing to stop him.” My voice is rising, rising along with my frustration at not being able to punish my aunt. Punish her for doing nothing to help me. Punish her for years of abuse and neglect.
So dark is my anger, so strong my hatred that Dumbledore’s words barely penetrate the red haze sharpening my vision and dulling my ears.
“…cannot allow you—”
“It isn’t your decision!” I wheel around and confront the man blocking my means to revenge. I attempt to Summon my wand from his hand, but he jerks it away. I can see his knuckles whiten around the wood and know he is struggling to keep my magic at bay.
“Give it to me,” I hiss, trying again to call my wand to my hand. Dumbledore swishes his own wand, knocking me back a step.
“No.” His eyes meet mine calmly and I can see understanding in them.
I know he can’t possibly understand, and resentment that anyone dare think they know how I feel, how it feels to have died at the hands of a man who abused me and belittled me my entire life, rears its head again. It was Dumbledore who sentenced me to being raised by these heads-in-the-sand, heartless Muggles; he has no right to stand there, withholding my wand, preventing me from taking some long overdue revenge.
“I know what has been done to you. You have every right to be angry, to wish to punish them. But I cannot allow you to do so. I cannot stand by and watch you damage your soul this way.”
“It’s my soul to damage,” I growl, but the fury is leaving me, slipping away in the face of Dumbledore’s calm, like dirty water swirling down a drain. I’m abruptly exhausted and have to concentrate on staying upright. I will not fall, will not show weakness in front of these people.
“I believe you have endured more than enough harm today, Harry. And because of that harm, it is no longer safe for you here. We must go.”
With a desperation even greater than that of my desire for revenge, I suddenly want nothing more than to leave this house. Leave the presence of the man who murdered me and the woman who stood by and allowed it.
“Fine,” I snap. “Let’s go.”
“Go pack your things, Harry. I will stay here with your aunt and uncle.”
“Fine,” I say again. Fuelled by hatred, I turn on my heel and leave the scene of my death and my resurrection.
When I return with my trunk and Hedwig secure in her cage, Uncle Vernon is no longer on the floor. He is sat at the kitchen table with Aunt Petunia, both of them ashen-faced.
“I’m ready,” I say shortly. I no longer wish to stay in this house a moment longer.
Dumbledore nods and turns from the Dursleys.
“As you are not licensed, I shall side-along Apparate you to Hogwarts. Keep a tight grip on your things.”
He steps to me and takes my arm. With one last glare of pure venom, I leave the hated house and the hated people who reside in it.
We arrive outside the Hogwarts gate. I cast Locomotor on my trunk, and carrying Hedwig in her cage, we walk in silence to the massive front doors of the castle and through. We proceed directly to the Headmaster’s office.
“Ice mice,” Dumbledore says and the gargoyle guarding the entrance springs aside.
I leave my trunk by the gargoyle and open the cage, sending Hedwig to the Owlery. Then I follow Dumbledore onto the moving stairs and we ride to the top. Once inside the office, he sits behind his desk and motions for me to sit on the other side.
For a long moment, we simply look at one another. Back here at Hogwarts, in Dumbledore’s office with past headmasters snoozing in their frames, everything seems strangely surreal. Had I really died back in the Dursleys’ kitchen? Had Uncle Vernon actually killed me?
“How am I alive?” I ask abruptly, tired of the staring contest.
Dumbledore blinks, as if bringing himself back from deep thought. He gazes at me sadly for a moment more.
“You are alive, I believe, because of what happened when Voldemort attempted to kill you as a very young child.”
Voldemort. Dumbledore mentioned Voldemort back in the kitchen. He mentioned Dark magic. My mother’s voice ricochets through my mind. And I know.
“I’m a Horcrux.”
“Were a Horcrux,” Dumbledore corrects. “You are no longer.”
It’s a lot to take in. My thoughts race as I try to understand, to comprehend what this means.
“I’ve been living with a piece of Voldemort’s soul in me for almost my entire life?” I ask, rather blankly. How is it possible that I didn’t know?
“I believe so. It is the only thing that makes sense.”
“It doesn’t make any sense at all,” I deny. But it does. It makes a horrible kind of sense. The connection I have with Voldemort. The way he manipulated my mind in the past, the way I feel him through my scar.
“I have long wondered about the connection you have to Voldemort,” Dumbledore says, reading my mind.
“You thought that I was a Horcrux?” I demand sharply. “And you never told me?”
The sense of betrayal is huge.
“I wondered,” Dumbledore says heavily. “I hoped I was wrong. I did not tell you because I was not certain, and I did not wish to burden you with such terrible knowledge until I was sure.”
“And now you are,” I say flatly. I’m angry, sick and angry. I’ve been carrying around a piece of Voldemort’s soul for years and Dumbledore never deigned to tell me.
“It is the only thing that makes sense,” he says again. “You were dead, Harry. You were dead for a good ten to fifteen minutes. You had no pulse, you were not breathing. Nothing I did brought you back. I had given up—you were gone. There was nothing I could do.”
“I know I was dead,” I say. “I remember.”
Dumbledore’s eyebrows rise. “You remember?”
“Yes.” I close my eyes for a moment, bringing back the fuzzy memories of my time outside my body, my time among the dead. “I…I was still there. In the kitchen. I could see everything that was happening, but I…wasn’t in my body. I could see myself, lying on the floor. I saw you trying to revive me with spells, then CPR.”
Dumbledore looks stunned. I understand how he feels. I’m still having a hard time believing my own experience.
When he asks me to explain further, I attempt to tell him but words are not adequate. How can I explain what I do not fully understand? My memory is there, but trying to hold it and form it into sentences is like trying to hold water in a sieve.
“An out-of-body experience,” he muses when I fall silent. “There are stories, of course, of people who die and then return to tell tales such as yours.”
“It’s not a tale, it’s the truth. It’s what happened.”
Dumbledore holds up a placating hand. He knows I am angry.
“I believe you. Sincerely. I can only surmise that with the destruction of the Horcrux when you died, your own soul was only…loosened, shall we say, and thus able to return to your body.” He gives me a piecing look. “Did you come back on purpose? Did you make a decision to return to life?”
I shake my head. “It just happened. It felt as though I was falling and then I was back in my body on the floor. Alive.”
“Fascinating,” Dumbledore murmurs, mostly to himself. I can see he is thinking deeply.
My own mind is speeding along, trying to come to grips with what happened to me. I am still upset that Dumbledore suspected I was a Horcrux but did not tell me.
Then it occurs to me, what that really means, and I feel as though I have been hit with a Bludger to the gut.
“You knew I had to die,” I whisper. “You intended for me to die.”
“Harry, I—”
“When were you going to tell me?” I interrupt loudly, my voice shaking. I can’t control it. I feel as though everything is beyond my control. “Were you going to wait until we’d destroyed the rest of the Horcruxes and then break the news to me that I had to die so the last one could be destroyed, too? Or were you just going to keep it to yourself, let me go off and confront Voldemort and try to kill him without knowing?”
Anger boils inside me, and a terrible hurt, as clarity comes to me and I can answer my own question.
“No, of course you weren’t going to let me face Voldemort without telling me. I had to know, didn’t I? At some point—when all the other Horcruxes were gone—you would have had to tell me. Tell me it was my duty to sacrifice myself, to allow myself to be killed so the last Horcrux tying Voldemort to this world could be destroyed and he could finally be killed. You never intended for me to survive the war. You knew I wouldn’t—that I couldn’t be allowed to live, not if Voldemort was to be truly defeated.”
Dumbledore sighs heavily. “When I began to suspect you were a Horcrux, yes, I thought that you might have to die. I did not wish this to be your fate, Harry, you must believe me. I have been researching ways in which to safely remove a Horcrux from a living host without destroying the host.”
“A host,” I snort. “That’s all I am to you, a host for a Horcrux?”
“No, of course not. I care for you—”
“Yeah, you care so much you were going to tell me I had to die to save the wizarding world. How were you going to present it to me? A noble death? A sacrifice like my mother’s? Were you going to tell me I should be proud to be asked to give my life in order to save others?” I don’t know what I feel more in this moment—hatred or horror or hurt. I trusted this man, looked up to him. And all along he knew one day he was going to sit me down, tell me I had to die, then send me off to do so, like a good little soldier.
The part that sickens me the most is that if he had done just that, told me I had to die, that there was no other choice, I would have done it.
“You are angry, and rightfully so. I had hoped to never have a conversation with you such as this. I hoped most ardently that I was wrong about you being a Horcrux. I have been seeking a way to determine if my suspicions were even true, a way to test you and know for certain.”
“Would you have told me then? Would you have told me what you were testing me for, or would you have tried to pass it off as something else?”
Dumbledore gazes at me wearily. “I would have told you. I would have been honest with you.”
“Finally,” I mutter. I don’t care that he hears me.
“Harry, try to look at this from my point of view. My suspicions sickened me—I could hardly bear the thought that you were a Horcrux, that what was inside you would have to be destroyed. That your death might be the only means of defeating Voldemort once and for all. I could not bring myself to give you such devastating news when I did not know for sure if I was correct. You feel that I have been dishonest, that I have kept this from you, but I stand by my decision not to tell you. There was no point in frightening you without proof.”
“No point in telling me I had to sacrifice my life for the greater good,” I say dully.
My anger is slipping away again. In its place I feel resignation. I am aware as I have never been before, not even when Dumbledore revealed the prophecy to me, that my life has never been my own. The course of my life has been predetermined. I am simply walking along the road placed in front of me, blindly believing that I have a future, that I have choices. I almost laugh. Dumbledore told me once that our choices are what make us who we are. My choices were taken from me when I was a year old and a madman marked me as his equal. Planted a piece of his tattered soul in me.
Marked me as a bloody sacrificial lamb.
“Now what?” I ask abruptly. “Are there any more secrets you are keeping from me? Any more suspicions you have about my fate?”
“No,” Dumbledore says softly.
“So what happens now?”
“We keep looking for the other Horcruxes, the ones Voldemort created deliberately. We destroy them. And then…”
“Then I face him. You believe the prophecy still means either I kill him or he kills me.”
“Yes. I do not believe the destruction of the Horcrux that you carried affects the ultimate outcome of the prophecy.”
“And if I refuse?”
I’m pleased to see the utter shock on Dumbledore’s face. It’s never occurred to him that I wouldn’t go along with what he says is my duty, my destiny. My potential death.
“Harry, my boy—” he starts.
I hold up a hand, and in that moment, I realise I do have a choice. I have power in this moment, power over one of the greatest wizards of all time. I can tell him no. I can walk away from this fight.
But it’s not really a choice. Of course it’s not. I’m not going to walk away. I’m not going to selfishly deny the wizarding world of its primary hope for defeating Lord Voldemort once and for all. Dumbledore knows it and I know it.
But things are going to change. My eyes are finally fully open. And from now on, I’m going to have a say in my destiny.
“I’ll fight him,” I finally say, “but not because you say I have to or the prophecy says I have to. It’s my decision. It’s my life and I’m doing what I feel I need to do. I’m not going to be a puppet any longer. I’ll search for Horcruxes and I’ll help destroy them.”
I meet his piercing stare with my own. “And you’re going to do whatever you have to do to get me ready to fight so I actually have a chance at surviving when I confront Voldemort. No more training in secret with a bunch of other students. I want real teachers, ones who know what I’ll be up against. You. Lupin. Shacklebolt. Tonks. I’ll even work with Snape.”
The detestable man’s name is bitter on my tongue, but if working with him gives me a fair shot at winning a duel with Voldemort, I’ll take the bitter.
Dumbledore just sits, watching me for a moment with those damn all-knowing eyes. Then he nods. “I’ll make the arrangements.”
“Yes, you will.”
We stare at each other another moment, my gaze hard. Then, just as I had suddenly needed to be out of the Dursleys’ house, I suddenly need to be out of this office. I stand to leave.
“Harry, I’m sorry—”
“No,” I say flatly, rudely. “I’m done. There’s nothing left to say. I was a Horcrux. I’m not anymore. Now I can focus on ending Voldemort without worrying about him getting into my head. I’ve survived too many near-death encounters to count, and now I’ve actually come back from the dead. I don’t plan on experiencing death again any time soon. I’m telling you, here and now, I will be the one who survives.”
As I walk away from Dumbledore’s office, I think about all that has happened today. It’s so overwhelming, I can hardly make heads or tails of it. I died. I died today.
And yet here I am—again—alive and breathing, having survived the impossible. Death.
I survived, I’m alive, because I was a Horcrux. I was carrying around a bit of an evil Dark wizard inside me—the very thought of it makes me want to retch. Yet the only reason I’m alive now is because of that Horcrux. I’d still be dead, lying on the kitchen floor at 4 Privet Drive, if I hadn’t been a Horcrux.
And because I died, I no longer have that piece of soul within me, tainting me.
I laugh. It’s a hollow, strange sound that echoes in the empty corridor. But I laugh because the best thing Uncle Vernon ever did for me is kill me.