Harry left Gryffindor Tower alone the morning of Professor Dumbledore’s funeral. He walked quietly through the corridors of the castle, wrapped up with thoughts of all he had learned about both the headmaster and Severus Snape. He let his feet lead him wherever they would, not really thinking or caring where he ended up. He simply wanted to explore the hallways one last time on his own, as he tried to make sense of the confused jumble of feelings inside him.
The corridors were empty; soon the students would be coming down for breakfast, and Harry knew his peace would be over. His journey took him past the Great Hall, and he looked into its dark and silent shadows. His eyes were drawn to the empty chair on the front dais where Professor Dumbledore had sat, and he was struck by a vision of the headmaster, hands spread out in welcome on his first night in the castle. Dumbledore would no longer welcome students to Hogwarts; he had given it up to save one of those students, the one who had turned on him.
As Harry stared into the Great Hall, he thought about all he had learned at Hogwarts, and wondered if it would be enough for what he had to do now. He still felt overwhelmed by the enormity of the situation: Dumbledore was gone, and he, Harry, still had four Horcruxes to find and destroy before Voldemort could finally be vanquished. Although a prophecy from long ago laid the burden on Harry, he had always thought that Dumbledore would be there to guide him. Lupin now knew the evil secret of Voldemort’s immortality, and Ron and Hermione as well; but Dumbledore had been the one to piece together the puzzle, and without him Harry did not even know where to begin looking.
With a sigh, Harry turned away from the Great Hall and climbed the staircase. He soon found himself walking down the seventh floor corridor where he had first found the Room of Requirement. He stopped outside the tapestry of Barnabas the Barmy where the doorway appeared for the secret room and frowned, remembering the last time he had been there. He had used the Sectumsempra curse on Draco Malfoy, and had been looking for somewhere to hide his potions book, the one in which the Half-Blood Prince had written so many helpful notes. A room full of hidden treasures had magically appeared and Harry had stashed the book inside to avoid giving it to Snape. It was the same room Draco Malfoy had then used to sneak Death Eaters into Hogwarts the night Dumbledore died; if Harry had only been paying better attention, he thought he might have figured it out, somehow stopped Draco, so that Snape’s hand hadn’t been forced. . .
Harry walked down the corridor then absently turned back, still thinking about the room, and was not surprised when the door appeared before him. He hesitated, wondering and dreading what he would find within. Nevertheless, he opened the door and stepped inside. “Lumos,” he said, lighting his wand and illuminating the dark space. The large cathedral-like room was exactly the same as the day he had hidden the book, except for one thing: Harry noticed immediately that the large Vanishing Cabinet was gone, no doubt removed or even destroyed after the horrible events it had set in motion.
Harry remembered exactly where he had left the potions book, and his feet took him there automatically. He walked down rows of old, hidden treasures, and wondered how they had gotten there. Soon he came to a large cabinet, on top of which was the bust of an old warlock wearing a wig and a tiara. He had thrown the book inside, marking it to remember the location amidst all the clutter. Yet as Harry stood there, staring at the cabinet, he began to wonder whether or not he should take the book after all.
Snape was the Half-Blood Prince. With all that had happened over the last trying days, Harry had almost forgotten that it had been Snape’s notes which had been guiding him in Potions all year, Snape’s scribblings that had taught him the Levicorpus spell and the horrible Sectumsempra curse. Snape, who had pledged loyalty to Dumbledore, and then been forced to kill the headmaster in cold blood: why was he coming back for a book from a killer like Snape?
Harry felt angry at himself for even considering it. Snape was a conniving, hateful murderer and spy, and Harry didn’t need or want anything from the former potions master to help him on his search for the Horcruxes and his quest to destroy Voldemort. He turned his back, leaving the book shut away in the cabinet.
Remembering what he had seen in the Pensieve, Harry paused; he realized that for all Snape’s faults, Dumbledore had believed in him right to the very end. Snape had turned spy long ago, for tragic reasons, and had remained loyal to the headmaster even when it meant killing the one man who had trusted him. But did Harry trust him? Should he?
Harry turned back again and raised his hand to open the cabinet, then let it fall. Even knowing the truth, he still couldn’t understand or accept that Snape had killed the headmaster; in his mind Snape should have died rather than kill Dumbledore. How could he use a book that had been written by a murderer?
The book was also full of Dark Magic, and Harry had no wish to use such spells. Wouldn’t that make him little better than Voldemort himself, if he were to use Dark Magic against his enemy?
But, argued another small part of him, didn’t he need all the help he could muster in order to find and destroy Voldemort’s Horcruxes? What if there was something “ even Dark Magic - in the book that would somehow help Harry in his final battle to destroy the most evil wizard the world had seen?
The first part of him remembered something Professor Binns had said during his second year: that just because a wizard knew Dark Magic, did not mean that they had to use it. There was little doubt in Harry’s mind that Dumbledore knew Dark Magic; in fact he had used an Unforgivable Curse at the Gaunt house, to destroy the snakes. Yet Harry instinctively knew that Dumbledore had not used Dark Magic on another human being.
Harry decided he would not use it either, no matter the cost. He had tried to cast an Unforgivable twice, and had been unable to summon the cruel emotions needed to power the curse. He had also seen what Dark Magic did to a man’s soul as he watched Tom Riddle slowly evolve into Voldemort in the Pensieve; he would not do that to himself. Hadn’t Dumbledore told him that the power of a pure soul was stronger? Harry knew he would need all of the strength he could muster to battle Voldemort. Hate would not fuel his magic, but love. Harry turned to leave once more.
And yet there might be other spells and potions that could aide Harry over the coming months. Dumbledore had sacrificed himself not only to save Draco, but to save Snape, so that the spy could remain in place to help Harry when the time came to reveal his true allegiance. Snape was now dead, and his scribbled notes were all he could offer in place of his assistance. If Harry rejected the book, it would be as if he were rejecting Dumbledore’s hope that Snape would survive to help him. If he trusted the headmaster, the least he could do was honor Dumbledore’s sacrifice by trusting Snape and using the book as best as he could to complete his grim task.
With a sigh of both resignation and disgust, Harry wrenched open the cabinet and seized the hateful book. He turned his back on the cabinet and quickly made his way toward the door. He was still unsure of his decision to retrieve the book; it felt contaminated now, and heavy with the guilt he was experiencing for even considering opening it again. As he neared the door it became almost unbearable; the book seemed to be almost burning his hands. He walked faster, stubbornly determined to leave the room with the book; but he tripped over a dusty set of ten pins and went sprawling, and it flew from his grasp to land several feet away.
Harry sat up and grumbled to himself, staring at the loathsome object and wondering if there wasn’t something strange going on. He grabbed it, irritated with how difficult his decision had become, and once more contemplated leaving it behind. His eyes absently glanced across an open page: it was a picture of a wizard, lying deathly still in a canopied bed. The caption below read: “The Draught of Living Death.” The ingredients and directions for brewing the potion were listed underneath.
He stared at the page, his mind suddenly numb: hadn’t Snape suggested using the Draught of Living Death to Professor Dumbledore, as a way around the terrible vow he had taken for Narcissa Malfoy? Was it possible that Snape hadn’t really killed Dumbledore on the Astronomy Tower, but that Dumbledore was even now simply locked in a deep sleep, waiting to awaken?
Harry jumped up, his heart suddenly racing with excitement. He hurried toward the door, determined to find Lupin; but then he remembered the rest of the scene in the Pensieve, and his heart sank. Dumbledore had shaken his head at Snape’s suggestion, reminding him that the potion couldn’t trick an Unbreakable Vow, and that the only course of action was for Snape to perform Draco’s task, and kill the headmaster when the time came for the promise to be upheld.
His sudden hope vanished, and Harry almost dropped the book again, disgusted with his childish naiveté. Dumbledore was dead, Snape had been forced to kill him, and no potion was going to change that. Yet something about the Draught continued to tickle at the back of his mind. Unable to put his finger on it, Harry snapped the book shut and resolutely made his way from the Room of Requirement, the book firmly tucked under his arm. He would figure it out later; for now, it was enough that he had retrieved the book. He only hoped that it would indeed prove useful on his coming journey, and that he would not regret his troubled decision.
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A/N: And so we come to the third penultimate chapter! I realized once I began that Harry needed some closure on the book, and decided this scene should make its own short chapter, since the next jumps ahead to the funeral. So yet again something unexpected sneaks in; apparently this story just doesn’t want to end!
Some of you may recognize a good deal of this chapter. One of my first stories was called The Room of Rejection. In that story, which I tried to fit to canon, Harry returned to the Room of Requirement for the potions book, but left it behind. I transcribed a fair amount of that story here at the beginning, but Harry knows much more about Snape now and this changed his decision. So not only have I rewritten JKR’s lovely ending, but I have now given one of my own stories an alternate ending! I do not want to see Harry use Dark Magic, but I do think that it might be wise for Harry to retrieve the book, for any other number of reasons.
I won’t say the next chapter is the last one this time, although perhaps if I keep saying it this story will finally wrap itself up. Thank you for reading, I hope you are enjoying the extended version of what was supposed to be a much shorter tale.