𝐢. 𝐌𝐈𝐂𝐑𝐎𝐂𝐎𝐒𝐌𝐈𝐂 ; harry j. potter ( UNEDITED )

124. "i miss the part where I was falling hard for you"

"You could never have done that, Harry," she said again and again. "You couldn't have broken into Dumbledore's grave."

But the idea of Dumbledore's corpse frightened Harry much less than the possibility that he might have misunderstood the living Dumbledore's intentions. He felt that he was still groping in the dark; he had chosen his path but kept looking back, wondering whether he had misread the signs, whether he should not have taken the other way. Even with Lucia's soft and convincing words of consolation cannot help him this time.

"You didn't know, Harry. Stop blaming yourself, you're not at fault. If anything, it's that bearded bastard's fault— maybe I should curse him out more than Merlin..." she would always say whenever she could.

But she wasn't all that wrong.

He wasn't at fault.

From time to time, anger at Dumbledore crashed over him again, powerful as the waves slamming themselves against the cliff beneath the cottage, anger that Dumbledore had not explained before he died.

"But is he dead?" said Ron, three days after they had arrived at the cottage. Harry had been staring out over the wall that separated the cottage garden from the cliff, sitting with Lucia who was idly making a flower crown out of the blue flowers that she had picked from the garden when Ron and Hermione had found them; the pair wished wished they had not, having no wish to join in with their argument and instead to continue their time alone.

"Yes, he is, Ron, please don't start that again!"

"Look at the facts, Hermione," said Ron, "The silver doe. The sword. The eye Harry saw in the mirror -"

"Harry admits he could have imagined the eye! Don't you, Harry?"

"I could have," said Harry without looking at her.

Lucia rolled her eyes, annoyed.

"But you don't think you did, do you?" asked Ron.

"No, I don't," said Harry.

"This is like they're playing your devil and angel on your shoulders, Harry," mused Lucia, not looking up.

Harry grumbled under his breath.

"There you go!" said Ron quickly, before Hermione could carry on. "If it wasn't Dumbledore, explain how Dobby knew we were in the cellar, Hermione?"

"I can't — but can you explain how Dumbledore sent him to us if he's lying in a tomb at Hogwarts?"

"I dunno, it could've been his ghost!"

"Well that's impossible," snorted Lucia, not looking away from her final product. "I don't see Dumbledore as someone who's scared of death you know? He would've probably gone on already,"

"What d'you mean, 'gone on'?" asked Ron, but before Lucia could say any more, a voice behind them said, "'Arry?"

Fleur had come out of the cottage, her long silver hair flying in the breeze.

"'Arry, Grip'ook would like to speak to you. 'E eez in ze smallest bedroom, 'e says 'e does not want to be over'eard."

Her dislike of the goblin sending her to deliver messages was clear; she looked irritable as she walked back around the house.

Griphook was waiting for them, as Fleur had said, in the tiniest of the cottage's three bedrooms, in which Lucia, Hermione, and Luna slept by night. He had drawn the red cotton curtains against the bright, cloudy sky, which gave the room a fiery glow at odds with the rest of the airy, light cottage.

"I have reached my decision, Harry Potter," said the goblin, who was sitting cross-legged in a low chair, drumming its arms with his spindly fingers. "Though the goblins of Gringotts will consider it base treachery, I have decided to help you —"