The Dementors were closing in, barely ten feet from them. They formed a solid wall around Harry and Hermione, and were getting closer … Harry could no longer see through the press of their black, tattered cloaks. The strange, rancid scent of their hidden bodies filled his nostrils, making him gag. He could barely breathe.
And as the closest bore down upon him, its bony hands clamping down upon his shoulders, holding him in place. As its mouth opened up, splitting open its hideous face into one awful, yawning black-hole, Harry realised that no one was coming. Its blackened, rotting teeth and gaping inhuman eye-sockets would be the last thing he ever saw.
The feel of its raw lips pressing down on his, and the rank taste of its breath would be the last thing he ever felt. And this - his first ever kiss - would really be the death of him. As he was sucked away, into that hollow vortex, leaving all pleasure and hope and joy behind forever.
And then - beyond that last panicked moment of clarity - there was nothing.
He sunk into the darkness.
**
Hermione Granger was crying so hard she could barely speak.
‘I must have passed out,’ she sobbed. ‘There we’re so many of them. Then I woke up they were gone and Harry was - ‘
She became completely incoherent, clutching the prone boy in her arms. Harry’s head lolled back as she embraced him, glassy eyes staring up at Albus unseeingly.
Albus fell to his knees, gently slipping Harry out of Hermione’s arms. The boy was cold to the touch.
‘How - ?’ Albus breathed.
‘H-he was trying to protect Sirius. He’s innocent, Professor. He was innocent. He’s over there.’
Albus observed a dark shape beneath the trees.
‘They got him too. They killed them both!’ She dissolved into heavy sobs. ‘I’m sorry, Professor. I’m so sorry. I tried to fight them. I really did, but I couldn’t do it.’
Albus stared deep into Harry’s eyes, ran his fingers up and down his face, listened to the beating of his heart, the whisper of his breath.
‘He’s not dead,’ he said quietly.
‘What?’ Hermione gasped. ‘What do you - ?’
‘We need to get him up to the castle.’
He acted on instinct, spelling the bodies weightless, guiding the distraught girl on. One step at a time. Methodical. Calm. His mind removed from the present, examining all the possibilities.
**
Madame Pomfrey let out a gasp when she saw them and rushed to examine Harry, peeling back his eyelids and checking his pulse.
‘He’s been kissed, Poppy,’ Albus said softly. ‘Along with Sirius Black. Hermione Granger is unharmed, but she’ll need a bed. She’s had quite a shock.’
‘Oh Albus,’ Poppy cried. ‘The dementors! How could they?!’ Her hand lingered on Harry’s face for a moment then she turned away, busying herself fetching fresh pillows and blankets.
She coaxed Hermione into bed and gave her a potion. In moments, the young girl was asleep.
The body that was once Sirius Black was allocated another bed, but no consideration was made for his comfort.
Madame Pomfrey approached Albus with arms outstretched but Albus wouldn’t let her take Harry from him.
‘Headmaster - ?’
‘I’ll do it,’ Albus said.
He chose a bed for the boy and tucked him in. Plumped the pillows. Smoothed back his hair.
‘There you are,’ Albus murmured. ‘There you are, Harry. You’re alright. You’re alright.’
Poppy was looking at him with concern.
‘Albus, he’s … ‘
Just then, Professor McGonagall swept into the room. She too, gasped when she saw Harry.
‘So it’s true!’ She cried. ‘I didn’t want to believe it. That the dementors would attack a student! And now … poor Harry dead, just like his parents …’
‘He’s not dead,’ Albus said quietly.
Minerva startled. ‘What? Not dead? Whatever do you mean, Albus? He’s been kissed, hasn’t he?’
She looked at Poppy for confirmation.
‘His soul is gone,’ Poppy said solemnly.
‘No,’ Albus said sharply. ‘He’s still here. They did not take him.’ He laid a hand on Harry’s chest. ‘I can tell. I can feel his essence within him. It’s retreated deep, deep inside … Even so, I believe is still among us.’
‘But that’s impossible!’
‘Not for Harry.’
The two woman exchanged a look; They did not believe him.
‘What will we do with him?’ Poppy Pomfrey asked, practical as ever. ‘He can’t stay here forever, Albus. The Ministry will want to take him to St Mungo’s and … well, you know …’
Minerva covered her face with her hands. Soulless bodies were usually euthanised.
‘It’s just a body now,’ Poppy continued. ‘I mean, that’s what they’ll say, Headmaster. You can try and explain, but they’ll be unlikely to believe you. No one has ever survived the dementor’s kiss before.’
‘No one has ever survived the killing curse before either,’ Albus reminded her. ‘I have reason to believe that Voldemort’s attack on Harry bestowed certain powers upon him. Powers that have protected him from the dementor’s kiss. However, the Ministry will not be easy to convince. I have no proof. So we must keep him here.’
‘For how long?’
‘For as long as it takes.’
Albus bent down and caressed his face.
‘We will keep him at Hogwarts until he wakes up.’
Minerva sniffed loudly and Poppy quietly offered her a tissue. They both thought he was in denial. A heartbroken old fool.
It did not matter. Albus knew the truth.
‘Don’t worry, Harry,’ he whispered. ‘I’ll take care of you. I’ll wait for you. I’ll wait forever, if it takes that long.’
**
He made him a secret bedroom in an old, abandoned tower. Like sleeping beauty, from the fairytale, except that Harry had been cursed by a kiss, instead of being saved by one. Who or what could save him remained to be seen.
Few people knew about Harry’s sleeping body and those who did had been sworn to secrecy, magically bound to protect their wounded prince.
As far as the Ministry were concerned Harry Potter’s body had disappeared shortly after the attack. They presumed that some creature from the Forbidden Forest had happened upon him, although rumours naturally abounded.
His primary carer, was Dobby the house-elf, who had easily accepted the task. When Dumbledore explained his duties he listened carefully, eyes wide and wet.
‘Harry will need to be fed and cleaned by every day. He can do nothing for himself. I will come often to visit him but I cannot care for him properly. I am too busy. I need someone to do it for me.’
‘D-Dobby will do whatever Professor Dumbledore asks. Dobby will clean him, dress him, feed him, help him to go to the toilet. Dobby will do everything for Harry Potter!’
‘I am glad to hear that Dobby,’ said Albus softly. ‘I knew that I could trust you with this. You would never do anything to hurt Harry, would you?’
‘Dobby would protect Harry Potter with his life!’
Albus laid a hand on Dobby’s shoulder.
‘You are a good elf, Dobby. I won’t be around forever and I need to know that someone will be there to look after Harry, even after I am gone.’
Then the elf covered his face and wept.
‘Dobby will look after Harry Potter for the rest of his life!’
‘Thank you, Dobby.’
**
Maintaining Harry’s body with magic was fairly straightforward, nourishing his soul however - if indeed he still possessed a soul - was far more difficult. Even Dumbledore, who continued to maintain that Harry was still in there, somewhere, operated on the theory that Harry could not perceive the world around him.
Nether the less, he sat with him, once a week and read to him from his favourite books. On the days of quidditch matches he sat him down, in a chair by the window, with his eyes opened and moistened, so that he could watch the flying.
He encouraged Harry’s friends to visit and talk to him and donate memories that could be slipped, gently, into Harry’s mind. Dumbledore suspected that this, if anything, might be the key to reviving Harry. Again and again, he drew silvery strands from his students’ skulls and deposited them into the unconscious boy.
Each time, he watched keenly, for the minutest fluttering of the lashes or the hitching of breath, but Harry’s body never showed the slightest reaction to what his brain was absorbing.
At first, Ron and Hermione came regularly, and suggested memories of classes, of games and jokes, fights and arguments. But slowly, their visits became less and less frequent, their offerings made with less and less enthusiasm. They no longer believed that any of it could make any difference.
Eventually, Ron Weasley stopped visiting entirely. Hermione held on for longer, making annual visits, but she no longer made any suggestions of her own, submitting meekly to brief mental probing, with neither protest or enthusiasm. In the beginning, he had been bursting with ideas, running up the tower with armfuls of research.
‘Professor, I’ve been thinking, what if we took Harry back to Godric’s hollow, the place he was born? From what I’ve been reading, in Resurrection of the Spirit, triggering memories of one’s childhood can be critical to repairing magical memory damage and spiritual trauma. Perhaps we could ask people who knew Harry’s parents to donate memories of him as a baby? Or perhaps even the Dursleys - well, maybe not - unless you could convince them somehow? They wouldn’t understand, of course, but then they wouldn’t need to be told everything.’
But everything had failed.
Dumbledore saw the moment when Hermione’s last spark of hope had been extinguished. Eight years later, when the memories of her and Ron’s wedding failed to elicit even the twitching of a nerve. He could see that she had been pinning all her hopes on this being the thing that would finally bring him back to them.
Perhaps thinking, somehow, that Harry simply couldn’t bear to miss it. And if he could - if it meant nothing to him at all - then perhaps he really wasn’t Harry anymore.
‘I can’t keep doing this, Professor,’ she said, eventually, a decade on from the dementor’s attack. ‘I need to live my life, without thinking about what parts of it might bring him back from the dead. If the defeat of Voldemort didn’t move him, if my wedding didn’t move him, if the birth of my first baby didn’t move him, then I just don’t know what will. I need to grieve him, Professor. I need to let him go.’
‘I understand,’ Dumbledore said gravely. ‘You needn’t come again. You know he is here, safe and well-cared for. There is nothing more you need to do.’
Released, with a sigh, from the burden of this morbid duty, Hermione left and did not come back again.
**
After decades, the only other visitor that Harry had, besides Dobby and Dumbledore, was Neville Longbottom, who visited annually, on the anniversary of Voldemort’s defeat.
‘It’s so good of you to come,’ Dumbledore told him, each time.
‘I wish I had more for him,’ Neville always replied. ‘My life isn’t very interesting, you know.’
‘I still hope that a simple memory of Hogwarts will bring him back,’ Dumbledore confessed, readying his wand. ‘I share flashes of students jinxing each other in the corridors, thinking perhaps that will remind him on the joy of his life.’
When Neville was gone however, and another year’s tribute failed to raise The Sleeping Prince, Dumbledore was prone to a great fit of despair.
Harry was now older than his father had ever been.
Harry had slept for longer than he had ever been alive.
And Dumbledore would be dead soon.
And all of this, was his fault.
He smoothed back the hair from the young man’s forehead and kissed the warm, soft skin there.
‘Harry,’ he whispered, his voice breaking. ‘Harry, please. Come back to me. Come back. It’s not too late. Please, my dear boy. Please.’
But only his breath caused the eyelashes the rustle, like the leaves of a tree in the wind, for when he withdrew Harry was just as still as he had been on the night he had been kissed.
And Dumbledore wondered whether it truly mattered if Harry’s soul was there or not? If he couldn’t hear, or feel. If he would never wake up. He probably did not dream. He probably did not think.
Perhaps he ought to have let him be euthanised, as the Ministry wanted. Then, at least, his soul might have been released from the prison of his body. Perhaps it had been selfish of him to keep the boy alive.
He had done it more out of guilt than of love. For his failure to protect Harry. For his failure to protect his parents.
And yet he did love Harry, so dearly. As devotedly, as any parent. And he owed it to Lily and James Potter to try, even if there was only the slightest chance. Harry deserved to experience something good in the world, before crossing over forever.
Even if he only woke for one moment, before drawing his very last breath, it would be worth it, for him open his eyes and see the walls of the castle and the blue sky beyond the window, and the flower-twined drapes of his bed, and know he had been cared for until the very last.