Destined | The Deathly Hallows : Book 7 Part 2

King's Cross

Harry

I lay facedown, listening to the silence. I was perfectly alone. Nobody was watching. Nobody else was there. I was not perfectly sure that I was here by myself. A long time later, or maybe no time at all, it came to me that I must exist, must be more than disembodied thought, because I was lying, definitely lying, on some surface. I had a sense of touch, and the thing against which I lay existed too. Almost as soon as I had reached this conclusion, I became conscious that I was naked. Convinced as I was of his total solitude, this did not concern me, but it did intrigue me slightly. I wondered whether, as I could feel, I would be able to see. In opening them, I discovered that I had eyes. I can hear her sarcastic comeback,"Of course you have eyes you idiot."

I smiled. I laid in a bright mist, though it was not like mist I had ever experienced before. My surroundings were not hidden by cloudy vapor; rather the cloudy vapor had not yet formed into surroundings. The floor on which I lay seemed to be white, neither warm nor cold, but simply there, a flat, blank something on which to be. I sat up. My body appeared unscathed. I touched my face. I was not wearing glasses anymore. Then a noise reached me through the unformed nothingness that surrounded me: the small soft thumpings of something that flapped, flailed, and struggled. It was a pitiful noise, yet also slightly indecent. I had the uncomfortable feeling that I was eavesdropping on something furtive, shameful. For the first time, I wished I were clothed. Barely had the wish formed in my head than robes appeared a short distance away. I took them and pulled them on: They were soft, clean, and warm. It was extraordinary how they had appeared, just like that, the moment I had wanted them. . . . I stood up, looking around. Was I in some great Room of Requirement? The longer I looked, the more there was to see. A great domed glass roof glittered high above me in sunlight. Perhaps it was a palace. All was hushed and still, except for those odd thumping and whimpering noises coming from somewhere close by in the mist. . . .I turned slowly on the spot, and my surroundings seemed to invent themselves before my eyes. A wide-open space, bright and clean, a hall larger by far than the Great Hall, with that clear, domed glass ceiling. It was quite empty. I was the only person there, except for - I recoiled. I saw the thing that was making the noises. It had the form of a small, naked child, curled on the ground, its skin raw and rough, flayed-looking, and it lay shuddering under a seat where it had been left, unwanted, stuffed out of sight, struggling for breath. I won't lie I was afraid of it. Small and fragile and wounded though it was, I did not want to approach it. Nevertheless I drew slowly nearer, ready to jump back at any moment. Soon I stood near enough to touch it, yet I could not bring myself to do it. I felt like a coward. I ought to comfort it, but it repulsed me.

"You cannot help."

I spun around. Albus Dumbledore was walking toward me, sprightly and upright, wearing sweeping robes of midnight blue.

"Harry," He spread his arms wide, and his hands were both whole and white and undamaged. "You wonderful boy. You brave, brave man. Let us walk."

Stunned, I followed as Dumbledore strode away from where the flayed child lay whimpering, leading me to two seats that I had not previously noticed, set some distance away under that high, sparkling ceiling. Dumbledore sat down in one of them, and I fell into the other, staring at my old headmaster's face.Dumbledore's long silver hair and beard, the piercingly blue eyes behind half-moon spectacles, the crooked nose: Everything was as I had remembered it. And yet . . .

"But you're dead," I said.

"Oh yes," said Dumbledore matter-of-factly.