New Worlds Emerge

“You know,” Harry said, “I just realized something.”

“Did you,” Theo said, turning a page. 

It had only been three months since they’d killed Voldemort. For good this time, they hoped. While Harry had put the sword of Gryffindor to highly effective use, there were uncremated chunks of Voldemort’s body locked up somewhere in the Department of Mysteries. People were still struggling to put their own pieces back together. None of the students had returned to Hogwarts after Easter holiday, and Harry was getting near daily owls from Hermione about taking N.E.W.T.s at the Ministry. Harry was counting on getting honorary straight Os. What was the point of defeating a dark lord if he still had to do standardized testing?

“I did,” Harry said, draping himself over Theo’s lap, and whatever book he had been reading. 

“Harry,” he sighed. “What is so important that you’ve committed such a heinous act as preventing me from reading? I’m nearly at the end of this chapter.”

“I’m sure it can wait,” Harry said, grinning up at him.

Theo frowned at him. “You insult things you cannot possibly comprehend.”

“I’m the one who gave you that series! I’ve read it! If we start talking about Fitz ‘Chivalry is dead!’ Farseer we will never stop. God, Verity…” Harry started to choke up.

“I’m actually reading Ship of Magic,” Theo said. “Which you are currently crushing.”

Harry grimaced and moved back into his spot. “Sorry!”

“It’s fine,” Theo said tolerantly, smoothing out a page. “Now, what did you realize?”

“I don’t know if anyone’s gone to get Grindelwald’s body. Voldemort just left him dead in his cell.”

“And that’s a problem?”

“Eh, not really,” Harry said. “But I thought it would be funny if we stuck him in Dumbledore’s tomb. As friends, you know? The best of mates. We could knock about Nurmengard, pick up his corpse, pop over to Hogwarts, then desecrate a grave.”

Theo tapped his book thoughtfully. “We have been in the house for a while, not that I have any complaints,” he added, smiling at Harry. 

“Brill,” Harry said, giving Theo a kiss. “It’s a date.”

They broke into Nurmengard Castle. 

Even in summer, the mountain the fortress was on was cold, the wind thrashing against them and reaching tendrils into their clothes. 

The castle itself was a bust. It had been close to a century since anyone had been inside, and it showed. The carpets were threadbare and caked with dirt. The furniture was worn and broken, signs of a struggle. The cabinets and cupboards were empty, their contents long since turned to dust. It had been stripped of everything of value. 

They found bedrooms and wondered who had once slept in the abandoned beds. In the basement they found two drained pools, their stone bottoms gouged in long strips, as if clawed by some great beast. 

Disappointed, they left the castle. Theo spotted a staircase cut into the mountainside, and they followed it up to a hill covered in sparse grass. There they found two birds sitting side by side, their fiery necks entwined. 

“Fawkes?”

The phoenix sang a few notes, looking at Harry with one shining black eye. 

“What’s this?” Harry asked, walking closer. Theo put a hand on his arm, holding him back. “What?”

“He’s a wild phoenix now,” Theo said, watching Fawkes and his companion carefully. “He might not appreciate a human approaching him, or his mate.”

“Mate?” Harry asked. He looked at Fawkes again. “Did you get yourself a girlfriend?”

The other phoenix eyed them contemplatively. She was larger than Fawkes, and instead of burning bright with golden flames, she smoldered. It was like staring in the heart of a fire, or the depths of a volcano. Her coal-black feathers flickered with blue flames. 

Fawkes sang again, and this time the female phoenix joined him. 

“I’m going to assume that’s a yes,” Harry said, smiling at the two legendary birds. “Well, don’t be a stranger. Bring your girlfriend around for dinner. We can make it a date.”

Harry and Theo walked back down the hill, leaving the phoenixes to do whatever it was they were doing. 

The attractions of Nurmengard now exhausted, Harry led Theo into the tower where Grindelwald had been imprisoned. The stairs were cooperative, leading Harry to Grindelwald’s cell in record time. 

“So that’s him,” Theo said, looking at the old, very dead, dark wizard. 

Grindelwald was looking bad. He was dead, of course, so that contributed to his poor state. But the few times Harry had visited him, the man was still clinging to life, however fruitlessly. His cell was filthier than ever, and rather than death by Killing Curse, he looked like he had finally wasted away. There was a small smile on his withered face, and Harry saw the Life and Lies of Albus Dumbledore lay on the floor, opened to the picture of two young boys in summer, openly smiling as if the world didn’t have things like wars and dead sisters. 

Grindelwald still had the socks on. Phoenixes and lemon drops. 

“Yeah,” Harry said. “That was Gellert Grindelwald.”

Getting into Hogwarts wasn’t an issue for them, even with the corpse of a notorious wizard floating behind them. The gates swung open easily, the winged boars standing sentinel let them pass without remark. Harry had rarely had the chance to see Hogwarts in summer, emptied of its inhabitants. Smoke came from Hagrid’s hut in the distance. A few of the school’s owls, freed from their obligations, flew over the Forbidden Forest. The Giant Squid was on the shore, his tentacles spread out and splashing in the shallows. They spotted the sun-dappled flanks of centaurs, venturing closer to the castle than they did during the school year. All the things that hid away while students roamed the grounds had come out. 

They made it to Dumbledore’s tomb. Someone had repaired the cracked marble, but at a word from Theo the lid lifted up. Harry looked inside. 

The wand Voldemort had taken was back in Dumbledore’s cold, dead hands. He looked unfairly peaceful as a corpse. Harry had been having dreams—nightmares—of his experience while temporarily dead. He didn’t know if it had been real, if that was Dumbledore’s conscious soul speaking to him or some bizarre delusion Harry’s own brain had conjured up. If it was the former, Harry hoped Dumbledore found no peace in death. He didn’t deserve it, after the bruising marks he had left on all of them. 

As it was, there wasn’t much room in the tomb for a second body. 

“Budge him up,” Harry said, levitating Grindelwald’s body higher. 

Theo frowned, but began manipulating Dumbledore’s corpse. 

“It’s like playing with puppets,” Harry said, rotating Grindelwald. “Or a puzzle.”

“If you want a jigsaw puzzle, I can buy you a better one,” Theo offered. 

Harry snorted, then cocked his head, wondering how these two decrepit pieces would fit together. “I have an idea.”

“That’s never a good sign.”

It took some time, but in the end Harry had gotten the two old wizards to hold each other in a close embrace. It did take a few charms to loosen up their limbs, and rather than heartwarming the final result was…traumatizing, but they did it. They stuffed the bodies together in Dumbledore’s tomb and replaced the lid, mission complete. 

“Should we add Grindelwald’s name?” Theo asked. 

“Kind of gives it away,” Harry said, frowning. There should be some indication that Grindelwald was here too. He didn’t think anyone else would be cracking open Dumbledore’s tomb for a while. “We could carve the symbol of the Deathly Hallows on it.”

So they did. It looked great. 

“It’s a connection to Godric’s Hollow too,” Harry said. “Where Dumbledore should have been buried. Actually, I don’t want him near my parents. I’m glad we’re not coming back here, I don’t want to have to see this odious monument on a regular basis.”

“Harry!” a voice boomed across the grounds. “And Theo! What are you boys doing here? Shouldn’t you be celebrating?”

“We’re just paying our respects,” Harry said, quickly conjuring some plants to put on the tomb. He wasn’t that surprised to see dark purple aconite. The flowers looked like hoods, like funeral shrouds. It matched the horrible crushed velvet they had rewrapped around both Dumbledore and Grindelwald. It was also very poisonous. Harry was sure the meaning would be lost on someone as kindhearted as Hagrid. Hagrid had, in fact, begun crying, touched by two war heroes visiting their fallen headmaster. 

“Good lads,” Hagrid said, wiping his eyes. “You two were always looking out for others…How about I buy you two a pint? You’re old enough for that, yeah?”

“We would be honored,” Theo said solemnly, studiously avoiding Harry’s eyes. 

Harry suppressed a smile, since he’d just had another excellent idea. He knew Aberforth would get a kick out of this.

“That sounds great, Hagrid,” Harry said, taking Theo's hand. “How about we go to the Hog’s Head?”