Chapter Two: Found

Chapter Two – Found

Harry reappeared outside the gates to Hogwarts Castle and shook off the uncomfortable sensation of Apparation. He had to focus. With grim determination he entered the grounds and walked up to the great oak doors. No one stopped him; taking a deep breath, he went into the castle.

He had thought he would never return.

The castle was dark and empty. The school was closed for the holiday, and its silent halls felt sad and lifeless after all that had happened over the summer. As he hurried through the corridors, Harry was glad there was no one around, because he couldn't stand the thought of telling anyone what had happened or what he was about to do. He heard the portraits whispering; several tried to speak to him, but he ignored them. He concentrated on placing one foot in front of the other, his wand illuminating the dim hallways, until he reached Professor McGonagall's office in the Transfiguration department. He saw no one...not Filch, not even Peeves.

The door was locked. Harry raised his wand and without a second thought blasted it open. He entered the neat and tidy office and began to tear it apart, heedless of its owner. He was looking for the one thing that could help him now: the Time-Turner that Hermione had returned at the end of their third year. He knew there was only a slim chance that Professor McGonagall had kept it, instead of returning it to the Ministry, but it was his only chance, and he had to try.

It was nowhere to be found. Harry felt his shoulders slump and a wave of despair wash over him. Then he remembered that Professor McGonagall was Headmistress as well; she had moved into the Headmaster's office over a year ago.

Harry hurried to the seventh floor. When he reached the stone gargoyle, he panicked; he did not know the password anymore. Professor Dumbledore had liked to use sweets as his password, and for a while Professor McGonagall had continued the tradition. Yet after throwing every confectionary word he could think of at the door and failing, Harry leveled his wand and began throwing every spell he could think of instead.

They all bounced harmlessly off the stone walls.

Harry shouted at the gargoyle in frustrated desperation. He had to get in and find the Time-Turner. He pounded the wall and then slid down to the floor. He hid his head in his hands, overcome with inconsolable grief and the frantic need to get in so that he could fix what had happened.

He heard a sound in the corridor and looked up. The castle wasn't completely empty: the ghosts had not left, and Nearly Headless Nick was floating down the corridor toward him. Harry stood up, a small shoot of hope blossoming in his chest.

"Nick!" he called down the empty hallway.

"Harry Potter!" said the ghost, looking at him with sad eyes. "You've come back. There is no one here. The school is closed for the summer, and those who stayed have gone to the battle."

"I know, Nick," replied Harry, almost breathless. "It's just that I have to get into Professor McGonagall's office. I need something."

Sir Nick looked at him very seriously with ghostly eyes. "It is over then? The battle?"

Harry glanced away, not wanting to remember the grim scene he had just left behind. He swallowed and told him the truth. "Yes, Voldemort is gone...but it's not over, not for me. I need your help, Nick."

Sir Nick shook his head sadly and sighed. "You cannot bring back the dead, Harry. I've told you that before."

Harry shook his head in return, irritated. "No, it's not that." Not exactly, he told himself. "I need something from Professor McGonagall's office."

Sir Nick studied him closely. "What is it you want?" he finally asked.

"I need . . . I need to talk to Professor Dumbledore, to his portrait." It wasn't true, but Harry couldn't tell him about the Time-Turner, not yet. "Do you know the password?"

Sir Nick was silent as he looked thoughtfully at Harry.

"Please, Nick! It's a matter of life and death. I need your help!"

After a long wait, during which Harry felt his anxiety rise until it was almost unbearable, Sir Nick indicated that he did know the password. "The last time Professor McGonagall was here, it was 'bollocks.'"

Harry almost laughed at the absurdness of it. Turning to the stone gargoyle, he shouted, "Bollocks!" and waited impatiently. To his immense relief, the gargoyle opened, and Harry found himself on the familiar stone staircase that led to the Headmistress's office.

Bursting through the door, he was surprised to find it still very much like the office Professor Dumbledore had kept; Professor McGonagall had not made many changes over the year. The glaring exception, of course, was that there was no phoenix perched near the door: Fawkes had left the castle upon Dumbledore's death. Glancing around, Harry saw the portraits of past Headmasters beginning to stir as he walked in. Sir Nick floated into the circular room behind him.

Harry swallowed hard again and began searching for the Time-Turner. He turned the office inside out searching for it, ignoring Nick's protests and the cries from the portraits, but he came up empty-handed again. In his frustration he pulled out his wand; he was just about to blow up a chair when he heard a soft cough behind him.

"I daresay Professor McGonagall could use more comfortable chairs," began the portrait hanging behind the desk, "but I believe she is rather fond of that one."

Harry whirled around and stared at the portrait of Professor Dumbledore on the wall behind the large desk. He had not spoken with the headmaster's portrait since he had left Hogwarts many months ago, but now all Harry wanted to do was run away again. He didn't think he could bear telling the late headmaster what had happened, what he had done and yet still needed to do. He started toward the door, the horrible sense of failure in his heart threatening to overwhelm him.

"Harry." There was an edge in Dumbledore's voice that Harry had rarely heard; yet when he did, it always stopped him, and he came back to the portrait. He tried to glare, to be angry: hadn't Dumbledore been the one to share the prophecy with him, to name him murderer or victim? Hadn't Dumbledore sent him after Tom Riddle's Horcruxes? And hadn't the headmaster abandoned him then, leaving him to fight Voldemort alone? Yet it wasn't Dumbledore's fault, and Harry felt his face crumple as the tears he couldn't hold back any longer began to fall.

"What has happened, Harry? Tell me." Despite the urgency in his voice, Dumbledore calmly arranged himself at the desk in the picture, peering over his half-moon spectacles at Harry exactly the same way he would if he had been sitting right there in the room.

"It's over," whispered Harry, collapsing onto the chair he had been about to hex and wiping his eyes. "The Horcruxes are gone. Voldemort's dead." He took a deep breath and let it out as a strangled sob. "It's finally over."

Dumbledore closed his eyes, and Harry thought he saw the smallest smile appear on his face; but when the man in the portrait opened his eyes, the smile was gone, replaced by a look of heartbreaking sorrow. "You have done it, then. I am very proud of you, Harry. However, I sense there is more." He waited patiently for Harry to continue.

"They're dead...so many of them," he whispered. He screwed up his eyes as the faces of the fallen flashed through his mind and his heart. "I failed! They're dead because of me...because I couldn't do it right; I couldn't do it fast enough!" Harry felt the howls of grief struggling to escape, but he ruthlessly suppressed them as he wiped his stinging eyes; he had done enough ranting in the headmaster's office over the years. "I have to save them."

Dumbledore looked at him sadly. "I see. Who has been lost?"

Harry told him; by the end he was spitting out names as if accusing the headmaster himself of ending their short lives.

"Harry, I am sorry." Dumbledore stood up and walked around his desk as if he wanted to reach out to Harry. He watched Harry with an expression of pity and grief that ripped Harry's heart out all over again. "I am so sorry. I can only imagine the sorrow you must feel at this moment. Know that they fought bravely and that their sacrifice has brought peace to the world. They..."

"...didn't want to die!" interrupted Harry, his voice breaking. "They didn't deserve to die! They only died because of me, but I should have been the one to die!" He stood up, too exhausted to yell, too devastated to argue. He remembered a time when he would have raged against the pain he was feeling, but now he only felt a cold numbness, along with a grim determination to do what was necessary. "Where's the Time-Turner?"

"Ah," sighed Dumbledore. He passed a hand over his eyes, and Harry felt the same wave of irritation pass over him as he sometimes did when the headmaster showed any sign of weakness or emotion. "So that is what you are looking for. I confess I had not even thought of it."

"Is it here?" Harry demanded. "Did Professor McGonagall keep it?"

Dumbledore nodded slowly. "She did, at my insistence. I did not think to use it again, but felt it would be wise to have one, just in case. As the others were destroyed at the Ministry two years ago, I am glad I did."

"Where is it?" asked Harry bluntly. "I need it."

"Harry, they are gone! You must let them go. Going back won't save them!"

"You're wrong," snapped Harry. "It saved Sirius and Buckbeak. I can change this too, I can save them. I have to." Harry did not tell him about the man he had encountered in the clearing. He gave into his pain for a moment and kicked the offensive chair, knocking it over. "This isn't how it was supposed to end!"

"Yet it has ended, Harry!" said Dumbledore earnestly. "You have fulfilled the prophecy and saved the world from a great evil. Going back won't necessarily change what's happened and save who has died. It could make things worse. You know the rules, Harry. Time travel is a dangerous thing."

Harry shrugged. "I have nothing to lose," he said, feeling reckless. "It can't be worse. Nothing could be worse than what I saw today." He couldn't help himself and started shouting as he paced the office. "You don't know. You weren't there! Let me go! LET ME SAVE THEM!"

Harry didn't think Dumbledore was going to tell him anything, for the late headmaster was quiet so long. He seemed to be debating with himself. He sat down at his desk again and gazed at Harry for a very long time. Finally Dumbledore pulled a shiny gold chain from around his neck. Harry saw a tiny hourglass dangling from the end.

Harry was stunned. Had Dumbledore died and taken the Time-Turner to his grave? How was he going to get it? Had he come all this way only to fail again?

Dumbledore took the chain from around his neck and placed it in the top drawer of his desk. "Look in the drawer, Harry," he said very quietly.

Skeptical, Harry stomped behind the desk and opened the drawer. He had already searched the desk, but to his surprise the Time-Turner was lying in the drawer on top of a pile of blank parchment. Astounded at the magic he had just witnessed, Harry looked up at the headmaster's portrait in speechless amazement. He was moved by the fact that Dumbledore had given him the Time-Turner and didn't know what to say.

"I am trusting you, Harry...like I have before...to do the right thing. I would first suggest a Disillusionment Charm: you must not be seen." He paused. "And, Harry, you must not be killed. The consequences would be too dire to imagine, should you die in the past."

Harry nodded. He was suddenly nervous: he was really going to go back and change the past. He was breaking one of the most important wizarding rules. The last time he had used the Time-Turner, Hermione had been with him, and she had guided them much of the way. This time Harry would be alone, and he would be fighting for far more than the life of a hippogriff and the freedom of an escaped convict.

"Thank you." His voice breaking, Harry turned to leave. Just before he reached the door, he glanced at the portrait one last time. Dumbledore had his head in his hands. "I won't fail, Professor," Harry promised softly. "Not this time."

Dumbledore looked up and smiled wistfully. "I know. Good luck, Harry."

Harry nodded, his throat tight as he left the office. Quickly he poked his head back in, muttered, "Scourgify!" and watched as the mess he had made quickly righted itself. If he were going to fix his mistakes, he would right even the smallest wrongs.

"Thank you, Harry," said the portrait. The great oak door closed. "I hope I've done the right thing," whispered Dumbledore to the empty room.

No one answered.

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A/N: My continued thanks to myownmuggle for all her help on this story! And to J.K.Rowling for the inspired use of the Time-Turner.