James Potter And The Morrigan Web (110 page)

Harry Potter stopped Dumbledore with a look.

“Headmaster… how is this possible?” he asked again. “And...” He paused, swallowed. Finally, taking a deep breath, he said, “Do you have to go back?”

Dumbledore met his old friend’s bright gaze. “I fear I do, Harry. These bargains are rare and ultimately short lived. I no longer belong to this world. But someone else does, someone who was kind enough to grant me this favour, in exchange for my help with some otherworldly endeavours of his own. But take heart. You never knew that the door between the living and the dead was a two-way door.”

James gasped. “That’s what the Gatekeeper said to me!”

“Ah yes,” Dumbledore nodded. “In that, the creature that calls itself the Gatekeeper did not lie. But it fools itself into thinking it is Lord Guardian of that door. It is not. Trust me on that. Even the Gatekeeper, that great beast of the otherworld, sees but through a glass darkly…”

Harry stepped back sadly, placing an arm around his son’s shoulder.

“I am sorry, Harry,” Dumbledore said, and James could see that the old man truly meant it. “But this is not goodbye. Do take heart. There is much more to come.” He sighed deeply, and then turned away, approaching the swirling smoke of the Mirror. “Oh, and one more thing,” he said, turning to look back over his shoulder, smiling crookedly. “Do say hello to my namesake for me. And for Severus as well.”

Harry nodded and smiled. “I will. And Headmaster, one more request…?”

Dumbledore’s smile widened. His eyes sparkled again. “I know that I forbade it once, but that was when you were young. You are a man now. I suppose… one more look into the Mirror couldn’t hurt. Just don’t let me see you.”

Harry nodded again, gratified.

Dumbledore approached the Mirror, drawing his nephew along with him. “Stay and watch,” he said to the slightly younger man. “Someone wants to see you.”

On the other side of the Mirror, shapes moved, pushing through the silvery smoke. One emerged as a silhouette-- tall, broad shouldered, moving with a sort of reserved impatience.

“You very nearly took too long, Albus,” a deep, grating voice said tersely. “I might have been marooned here forever.”

“My deepest apologies, Merlinus,” Dumbledore answered lightly. “Tardiness has oft been my greatest weakness.”

James’ heart pounded in his chest, and yet he couldn’t quite bring himself to truly believe what he was hearing and seeing.

Slowly, carefully, Dumbledore stepped into-- and through-- the Mirror. The glass bent and rippled like water, allowing him to pass. As it did so, another shape pushed out, seeming almost to pass through the diminishing shape of Albus Dumbledore. This new figure was tall, broad, dressed in dark robes beneath a short leather vest. A deep crimson cloak hung from his shoulders, beneath a rugged face, grey-bearded, with dark eyes as wild and solemn as a full moon at midnight.

It was unmistakably-- and of course-- Merlinus Ambrosius.

James grinned up at him, helplessly, nearly giddy with relief. Merlin met his gaze and gave a stiff smile. “You knew that I would not stay gone,” he rumbled, spreading his large hands. “I do so hate this age. But some of its people…” He switched his gaze from James, to Zane, to Ralph, “I have grown rather fond of.”

Dumbledore’s nephew stood near the edge of the Mirror, staring into the swirling depths, watching after his departed uncle.

Harry stepped forward, approaching Merlinus tentatively.

“Is it really you?” he asked, studying the big man’s face. “I admit, I don’t know you quite as well as I knew the man you just switched places with.”

“It is I,” Merlin confirmed. “And if I am not mistaken, the post of headmaster has just been vacated once again. I assume none would argue if I resumed where I left off one year ago?”

Zane grinned and muttered, “I don’t think anyone would have the guts to.”

“I further presume that my staff is exactly where I left it?” Merlin inquired perfunctorily.

“I think you know very well that it is,” Harry smiled wryly.

Glancing around, James noticed that, along with Dumbledore’s departure, the office had reverted back to what currently passed for its normal state. The Phoenix was gone, as were the clockwork gizmos and shelves of books. Shadows loomed in empty corners. The hearth was cold and dark. The only light in the room was a pool of pale blue, soft as moonlight, which surrounded the Mirror of Erised, emanating from its shifting, restless depths.

“Look,” Ralph suddenly said, his voice hushed. He pointed at the Mirror. Harry and Merlin both turned, stepping aside as they did so.

Figures moved beyond the heaving silvery fog, accompanied by the faint echo of voices. James recognized the sound-- it was the same as he had heard wafting from the portal of Merlin’s portrait, earlier that evening, the sound his father had warned him back from. The man that had recently been Rechtor Grudje watched and listened, his eyes wide, worried, even fearful. The others backed away, forming a respectful semi-circle in the darkness.

Three figures stepped forward from the fog, separating from the seemingly endless throng beyond. James squinted to see them. The one on the right was the tallest, a man with long grey hair, rough as straw and weeded with black. His eyes were blue, like Albus Dumbledore’s, but harder, glaring from a rugged, tanned face. The figure on the left was older than he, but not frail. In the world they occupied, James understood, age had virtually no meaning. Still, her face was lined, careworn. Her hair, however, was still mostly black, piled up in a complicated bun with loose curls framing her face.

The figure in the centre moved to the fore, however, not taking her eyes from the man standing on the opposite side of the Mirror. She seemed younger than him, thin and pale, her own dark hair hanging in waves over a high forehead and down to her narrow shoulders. The expression on her face was tense with interest.

“Who--” the man before her asked haltingly, “Who are you?”

The young woman smiled sadly, affectionately. “Why, I’m your mother.” Her voice was light, ghostly, fluttering like moth’s wings.

“My mother,” the man repeated, as if he had never heard the word before. He drifted toward the Mirror glass, raising one hand to touch it, as if to reach through to the young woman beyond.

James remembered her name from Avior’s diary. This was the unfortunate Ariana Dumbledore, killed in the battle between Albus and Grindelwald. That made the tall man Aberforth, her brother, much more recently deceased, and the older woman, Kendra, the mother of all three Dumbledores, who had met her fate on the night the man on the other side of the glass was born.

Ariana smiled at her son as she regarded him, her face brimming with melancholy affection.

“He looks like him,” Aberforth admitted, speaking to the other two. “Round about the eyes. I couldn’t have said so when I was alive. But now…”

“He does,” Kendra nodded mistily.

“Who,” the man before them asked, his shape barely a silhouette before the glowing Mirror. “Who are you talking about?”

“We’re talkin’ about you, silly,” Aberforth said, his mouth cinching into a lopsided smile. “You look just like him, is what we’re sayin’.”

“No,” the silhouetted figure said, facing his family for the first time in his memory, clearly wishing he could push through the glass to join them. “Who do I look like?”

Ariana smiled more broadly now. The smile lit her face, made her eyes twinkle with that familiar, Dumbledore cheer. “You look like your father,” she said soothingly, studying her son on the other side of the glass. “His name was Timothy. Same as you.”

The silhouetted figure was silent for a long, frozen moment. When he spoke again, his voice was faint, thin with wonder. “My name…” he said slowly, “is Timothy.”

Ariana nodded. “Your name is Timothy,” she agreed. “And you… are my son.”

“I’m your son,” Timothy nodded, more firmly now. “My name is Timothy, just like my father before me. And I’m your son.”

All three Dumbledores smiled at this.

“And don’t you forget it,” Aberforth added firmly.

Gradually, the swirling fog began to reclaim them. They moved back, descending once again into shadows, vanishing into the layers of ghostly voices.

Timothy stood back as well, keeping his eyes on the shifting glass. He mouthed to himself, soundlessly repeating the words that had been given him.

Merlin looked aside at James and Harry. “Go,” he prodded. “The magic grows weak. Soon, the images in the Mirror will again be reduced to mere haunts and reflections.”

James felt his father’s hand tighten around his shoulders.

“Do you want to, James?” he asked.

James didn’t answer immediately. He was afraid of the Mirror. Afraid of what he might see beyond its naked, shifting glass.

“I don’t--” he whispered haltingly, “I don’t want to see Granddad.” He hated how it sounded. The truth was, he wanted to see his lost grandfather very much. But after his experience with the Gatekeeper, when he had been taunted with an image of the departed Arthur Weasley, seemingly alive and well, he didn’t think he could bear such a teasingly bittersweet image again.

To James’ relief, his father nodded. “I know what you mean, son. But the Mirror of Erised is, first and foremost, a mirror of desire. It won’t show you anything you don’t want to see.”

James considered this. “All right,” he agreed. “Then yes. I want to look.”

He remembered what this Mirror had shown his father once before, when he had been younger even than James was now; it had offered him a glimpse of his dead parents. And yet, according to headmaster Dumbledore, that image had only been an illusion, a sort of ghostly echo culled from young Harry Potter’s deepest desires. Tonight, the Mirror seemed to offer more than that. Tonight, the faces it showed seemed real-- not even like ghosts, but more like living people, people who had simply passed on to some other world, easy as someone might walk into another room. Tonight, for one brief moment, those dearly departed could look back, gazing through the Mirror as if it was a window between realities.

James approached the Mirror at his father’s side, and still he hung back.

What if it shows Lucy?
he thought suddenly, an ice pick of guilt stabbing into his heart.
I couldn’t bear that! Not because I don’t want to see her, but because the want is so great that I’m afraid it would crush me!

James needn’t have worried, however. Figures moved beyond the fog, coming to meet him and his father as they reached the Mirror. The first to step forward into the light, James saw, were his long-dead grandparents. James senior wore glasses, just like his son. His hair was greying slightly at the temples, but apart from that he looked no older than the man before him-- younger even. The woman, James’ grandmother, had long, pale hair. Her face was ethereal in the bluish light, less stunningly gorgeous than deeply pretty, as if her beauty was something that shined from within, waking up with her every morning and going to sleep with her each night.

“You’re all grown up, Harry,” the man, James senior, said proudly. “And this is your son, I see.”

“Of course he is,” James’ grandmother said, beaming at James. “Just look at him!”

Harry drew a long, shuddering breath. “It’s good to see you again, Mum, Dad.”

James senior accepted this with a wry smile. “Not quite the same now as it was back then, is it?”

Harry laughed softly. “They say we all get two chances at the parental relationship. I missed yours. I still do. But I’m experiencing that relationship from the other side now.” He squeezed James’ shoulder and glanced aside at him. “I think I just wanted you to see that. And to know that… I’m happier now. I still miss you both-- very much. But… I’m happy.”

Lily and James senior put arms around each other, meeting their son’s smile with gratified smiles of their own. There didn’t seem to be anything more to say.

With that, James’ grandparents faded. They didn’t drop back into the fog, however, but seemed to drift forward, passing on either side of the Mirror’s edge. More figures came forward in their place.

“Wotcher, Harry!” This was a young woman. Like Nastasia, she had bright, bubble gum pink hair. James didn’t know her name, but his father grinned suddenly, his face filled with delight.

“Hi Tonks!” he called happily. “How’s Remus?”

“Ask him yourself,” the pink-haired witch shrugged, cocking a thumb over her shoulder. A man stood behind her, taller than she, his eyes twinkling with recognition.

“Still casting your stag Patronus, eh Harry?” he inquired, slipping forward through the fog.

“Not much need to anymore,” Harry answered, “not since all the Dementors were banished back to the netherworld.”

“And good riddance, I say,” Remus nodded with feeling, slipping past the edge of the glass. “Still, can’t hurt to always have some chocolate handy. And keep an eye on our young Teddy, will you?”

“I will!” Harry promised, raising his voice as the couple passed out of sight.

Another figure emerged. James recognized this one immediately by his lank black hair and thin frame.

“Give ‘em hell, Harry,” Sirius Black said bracingly. “And tell ‘em it’s from me!”