To Kill You With a Kiss

Chapter 1

Take this kiss upon the brow!
And, in parting from you now,
Thus much let me avow-
You are not wrong, who deem
That my days have been a dream;
Yet if hope has flown away
In a night, or in a day,
In a vision, or in none,
Is it therefore the less gone?
All that we see or seem
Is but a dream within a dream.

~Edgar Allan Poe: "A Dream Within a Dream"

...

Perhaps, thought Harry, it was all a dream. Draco, the failed assassin, so deathly pale in the moonlight. Snape's face, distorted beyond recognition, as he points his wand at the man who trusted him and utters the unforgivable curse. Dumbledore's body, lying broken at the bottom of the tower... Perhaps I dreamt it all.

He glanced around the headmaster's office. The desk was still covered in books and papers, as if Dumbledore could be expected to resume his work any moment. Fawkes' cage still stood in the corner, and Harry half expected to catch a glimpse of something fiery and scarlet. But the cage was empty; the door was broken now and dangled mournfully from one hinge. Harry tried to put the door back properly, but it wouldn't stay up. It was no dream. I will never wake up from this. No magic on earth can undo Snape's deadly spell. Dumbledore is gone, and Fawkes left with him.

I am alone, and I don't know what to do. Dumbledore left me a terrifying task: I have to vanquish the most powerful dark wizard the world has ever known. I have to destroy the horcruxes, the hidden objects that house the fragments of Voldemort's dark soul. But I don't know what they are, or where to begin looking. How could Dumbledore simply die, vanish into nothing, and leave me to complete this huge and hopeless task on my own?

Where would a dark wizard hide his soul? How am I supposed to know? Why didn't Dumbledore tell me more about the horcruxes? He knew that I am the one who is destined to face Voldemort in the end, and how did he prepare me? By having me come to his office and share his memories of the past... Was that all the help you could give me, headmaster? Was this the only weapon you had to give me when I have to face the dread Dark Lord? An old man's memories?

Harry's glance lingered on the timeworn cabinet that housed the headmaster's Pensieve. A delicate silver mist wafted from a small crack between the cabinet doors and lingered in the air for a moment before dissolving into nothing.

Harry walked slowly toward the cabinet. Dumbledore's memories... Why did we spend hours delving into recollections of the past instead of going over battle strategies, defensive spells, plans for finding and destroying the horcruxes? Why was he so obsessed with remembering? The oak doors swung open at Harry's touch. The Pensieve stood there as he remembered it, an ancient vessel carved out of plain grey stone. Harry ran his finger over the strange runes carved around the edge, mysterious and meaningless signs he could not decipher. On a shelf above the Pensieve rows upon rows of small glass vials glittered in the luminous mist that rose from the surface of the vessel. Memories of the past, fragments of lost time, trapped in little stoppered bottles... Whose memories were they? Most of the vials were unmarked, but a few were labeled with initials in an elegant hand Harry recognized as Dumbledore's: AD&GG. AD. AD&AD. AD&ED. AD&GG. TR. TR. TR. TR&HP...

Harry frowned. TR. Tom Riddle. These must be the memories of Tom Riddle that Dumbledore had collected, the ones we visited together in the Pensieve. But what is that last one, the vial marked with Tom Riddle's initials and mine together? Harry reached out for the little glass bottle and stared, mesmerized, at the shimmering strands that swirled within. Is this someone's memory of the night when Voldemort tried to kill me, the night when he murdered my parents? Is there some deeper mystery to the events of that night that I have yet to discover?

He unstoppered the vial with a trembling hand and poured its glittering contents into the waters of the Pensieve. Breathing deeply, Harry plunged himself into the radiant silver mist. In the next instant, the world began to dissolve into swirling lights and shadows, and a silver whirlpool engulfed him, pulled him down into its depths. He couldn't breathe, couldn't think...