Ron rushed toward the headmaster's office, his heart lighter than it had been in weeks. For the first time in a long while, he and Harry had spoken properly again, and he got the feeling that things would finally be getting better.
A fragile normalcy had settled between them, a truce, a tentative rebuilding of a friendship that had felt shattered for months.
Sure, he still had his hang-ups, envy gnawed at him sometimes, a constant, low-level thrum of inadequacy when he compared his life to Harry's. The thought of Harry with Greengrass still left a bitter taste in his mouth, the cold Slytherin who embodied everything he distrusted.
He told himself it was just a phase, but the sight of them together when they were together, a quiet, intimate bubble of their own, always made his stomach clench. But Harry was his best mate, and that was what mattered.
Besides, he couldn't deny that Daphne was the hottest girl in their entire year, a fact that had been whispered about in every common room, and if Harry dating her would finally get him to stop moping and being angry at him, then he could overlook the whole Slytherin thing.
He thought darkly that if she ever broke Harry's heart, he was already plotting to sic Fred and George's nastiest experiments on her, perhaps the Exploding Snap that didn't just snap, but turned the victim's hair into a nest of angry gnomes, or the new line of Canary Creams that turned you into a miniature, feather-shedding platypus.
He made his way to the gargoyle, and before he could even utter the password, the stone staircase moved and gave way.
He guessed the Headmaster was already expecting him. He headed inside and found him standing by his desk waiting, and the moment Ron entered, Dumbledore's eyes lit up with a feverish, almost predatory intensity that Ron, caught in his own hopeful daze, didn't notice.
"Mr. Weasley, please come in, come in," the old man greeted warmly, his tone wrapping around Ron like a spell, a familiar warmth that seemed to promise safety and approval, a feeling Ron had desperately missed, a hunger for recognition finally being sated.
For the briefest moment, Ron hesitated. He didn't know why, but something in the man's voice made his skin prickle. It was like a sudden drop in temperature, a silent alarm bell in his gut.
A jolt of unease that felt like a tiny, insistent hand pushing him. He turned around, but nobody was there. He dismissed it as nerves. He was about to meet the Headmaster, after all.
Then, as though jolted by an unseen hand, he found himself stepping forward, the strange feeling fading as quickly as it came, and he closed the door behind him.
Dumbledore, who had been watching Ron's every move, noted the flicker of hesitation. A momentary resistance. Good. That meant the boy was still an open book, his reactions transparent.
He had feared Harry's influence might have made the boy more guarded, but no, Ronald Weasley was as simple and manipulable as ever. His internal clock was ticking, his hand ached with a deep, bone-crushing pain, a constant reminder of the time he had left.
The cloak. He needed it now. The thought of his own mortality, a festering blackness on his hand, filled him with a cold, frantic terror. He had done so much for this moment, had carefully, mercilessly steered lives and destinies toward this very point. He couldn't fail now. He wouldn't.
"Did you get the cloak?" Dumbledore asked eagerly, a note of barely suppressed desperation in his voice.
Ron nodded, pulling a bundled-up piece of fabric from his bag. "Yes, Harr—yes, I found it." He blinked, confusion flashing. What just happened? He had meant to say Harry gave it to him, to clarify that he wasn't sneaking around, but the words had twisted mid-air, replaced by a half-truth.
Before he could even ponder why that happened, Dumbledore all but appeared in front of him and snatched the cloak from his hands, his long fingers trembling as he clutched the fabric, his focus absolute. His eyes, normally twinkling with benign mischief, were blazing with a triumph so profound it was almost frightening.
"Good. Good. You have done well, Mr. Weasley. You have no idea the help you've provided."
Ron flushed with pride at the praise. To hear such words from the greatest wizard of the age was enough to swell his chest with pride. He stood up straighter, the weight of the cloak replaced by the far more comforting weight of Dumbledore's approval. Finally, he was doing something truly important, something that mattered. He wasn't just Harry's sidekick anymore, he was a key player in the war against Voldemort.
"So… we can use it to spy on Voldemort now, right?"
"Ah, yes, yes," Dumbledore said vaguely, his eyes never leaving the fabric clutched in his hands. He was barely listening, his mind already a million miles away, lost in a fantastical dream of power and glory.
"With this, we can have someone sneak into Voldemort's lair and gain information to stop him. You are a true hero, Mr. Weasley, and I'm sure the people of history will remember what you have done here, for this step in helping bring down the Dark Lord."
He spoke like he was giving a speech to a hero who had just slain a dragon, and Ron drank in every word like it was a potion, a sweet validation that tasted better than any cauldron cake. "You can go now, Mr. Weasley," he then told Ron, his tone shifting abruptly to one of polite dismissal.
Ron seemed to hesitate for a moment before he spoke. "Sir, that cloak is very important to Harry, so can he have it back when you're done?" he said, the words tumbling out of him before he could stop them.
He wasn't sure why he had asked, but given the tension between the two since the summer break, he knew that Harry was not so eager to allow this man anything. He had even complained about the man a few times to him and Hermione, but he had still given the cloak to Ron to give to Dumbledore because Ron asked.
He had to at least ensure his friend got the last thing he had of his father back at the end. Dumbledore looked at him before smiling, his eyes twinkling as he spoke to Ron as if talking to a little child.
"Of course, Ronald, I'll make sure Harry gets it back. You have my word," he told him, and that brightened Ron's expression. He bowed his head a little to the man as he turned and left the office.
The moment the office door closed and locked behind him, Dumbledore started casting spells on the door to prevent anyone else from getting in.
This was it, this was it. His moment.
The thing he had long dreamed of in the past, before he and his past lover had given up. He immediately moved to a portrait by the side of the office, the one behind Fawkes's perch.
Behind it was a hidden compartment. He quickly opened it up and brought out the Resurrection Stone. He moved to his desk, dropping the stone, the Elder Wand, and putting the cloak by the side.
He marveled at them, for the first time in whoever knows how long, the Hallows were all together. The air in the office hummed with a deep, resonant magic, the three artifacts radiating a faint, almost imperceptible power that only he could feel, a quiet song of immense power that he alone could hear.
He waited, expecting something, a flash of light, a surge of power, a connection he had longed for. But nothing happened. He grabbed them, putting the cloak on, wearing the ring, and holding the wand.
Still nothing.
The air went still, dead. He dropped them as he started to rage, a deep, guttural sound building in his throat. Was the legend fake? Was it all for nothing? Had all his careful planning been for naught?
"NO!" His voice cracked, raw with desperation, a sound devoid of his usual calm. "The legend is true! I have felt their power!"
He slammed the desk with his cursed hand, pain lancing up his arm. The blackened skin writhed with a dark energy, a constant reminder of his mortality, of the time running out.
The wand had given him power when he first got it, the stone had brought back his friend, and the cloak had made him invisible. He had even felt connections between them.
The wand and cloak before he gave the Potter boy the cloak, and the wand and ring when he got the stone. But now they felt dead. He was missing something. He just knew it.
He just needed to find out what it was before his time ran out, he thought as he looked at his darkening hand. He placed the cloak and stone back into the compartment and spelled them shut with frantic, desperate wards. He stormed out of his office, robes swirling behind him, madness burning in his eyes.
The door clicked shut behind him, and silence rang in the office for a few long seconds before the air shimmered and a wave of mist-like magic waved around the office, and Harry became visible.
He had been there from the beginning, following Ron and even hitting him a little as he made his way in. It was nice to know that Ron cared enough to try to get his cloak back for him because he knew how much Harry cared about it, even if Harry didn't really care much for it being from his father, as he said before.
He had to come up with an excuse for Ron, and he had used magic to prevent Ron from telling Dumbledore that Harry had given him the cloak willingly. It would have been more suspicious if Ron had said that, but in the end, it worked out well.
He moved to the compartment and opened it up, the spells not even affecting him as he opened it and grabbed the stone. He eyed the "cloak" and let out a small laugh, that had just been the bedsheet he had grabbed while talking to Ron.
A simple use of his Authority, and Ron hadn't even batted an eye. And it seemed so did Dumbles, in his joy of getting his hands on the cloak, he hadn't even bothered to check it.
Harry brought out the golden snitch he carried with him and flowed his power through it. A moment later, it looked like the Resurrection Stone. He touched the "cloak" again as he gave it more juice.
He could create illusions, but he couldn't keep them permanent. After all, turning dreams to reality was not permanent, if it were, dream gods would have been the strongest in their pantheons. He closed the compartment and walked out with his prize.
"Hehehe. Thanks, Dumbles. Now for the wand."
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