Part 20

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After Dumbledore's funeral, Harry toyed with the locket in his hand.

Funny, he thought. How a man as wise as Dumbledore gave his life for a fake thing like this.

Everybody was already on their way to the castle. He sat there even after it became dark, thinking and rethinking everything that happened that day on the Astronomy tower.

Finally, he came to his senses. He stood up, started for the castle.

"Harry!" someone called out.

Harry could make out her voice in an instance.

"What are doing here? Where are your Death Eater friends?" he asked, with as much loathing as he could muster.

"Those who came weren't my friends."
she said in a quavering voice.

"So you're denying the fact that Malfoy was your friend?"

"He was my friend, but-"

"But what Pansy?" he swiveled around, roaring.

But instead of Pansy, he saw the most beautiful girl he had ever laid his eyes on. For a moment, he forgot what he was talking about.

"Who are you?"

"I'm Pansy. Don't you remember?"

"You're not Pansy." Then it hit him. She was disguised as Pansy this whole year. Explained the reason why her behavior took a 180° turn. Explained why she was so good at dueling.

"You're a Death Eater!" he roared, and pointed his wand at her. Stu-"

But before he could finish, she blocked it with a wave of her hand. Then, she dropped her wand on the ground, declaring surrender.

"I won't fight you, Harry. I didn't come for this. I could help you, if you only listened to me."

"I'm not going to listen to an imposter!" he yelled.

"Look, I'm sorry. I'm sorry Dumbledore died. If I knew he were such a great man, I wouldn't take the job, believe me."

"You took part in killing him?" Harry knew it was true, but he couldn't believe it, didn't want to believe it for some reason.

"I'm not around here. I came here from the USA, so that I could help Draco killing him. But after coming here, Draco shut me out, and I didn't know what was going on. True, if he told me, I would help him and he could finish the task sooner. But that was when I didn't know Dumbledore, what he was like, about his wit and wisdom. But now I know, and I feel culpable. I helped killing a great man, and I want to do something to undo the damage I created."

For a while, Harry just stood there. He didn't know what to do. Dumbledore's killer is in front of him, begging him for condemn. He was tempted to kill her, tasting vengeance. But he remembered Dumbledore's kind words, his blue eyes that always twinkled, and the half-moon spectacle that he always wore along with his radiant smile. Dumbledore wouldn't want him to be a killer.

"Tell me why I shouldn't kill you." he said coldly.

"Go on if you want it. But if you take me with you, wherever you live, I would be able to help you. I will help you. You saw how good I was at DADA. I will be proved useful against his army, and you'll need me if you want to fight your best battle. I know a lot of information about them that you people don't."

"What are you talking about?" Harry asked, incredulous.

"Aren't you guys going declare a war against him? I'll assist you if you do so."

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