“And that is the story of this portrait,” concluded Dumbledore. He looked once more at the sleeping witch beside him and sighed. “I arrived back at Hogwarts and found the painting in my office, a gift from the staff. Not long after, I placed it in here.”
Harry heard Ginny sniff and saw her wipe her eyes. At some point during the story they had taken each other’s hands. He gave her a small smile before turning back to the portrait.
“But sir,” he asked somewhat hesitantly, “why is she still sleeping?”
The portrait of the headmaster did not answer; his face was sadder than Harry had ever seen him before as he gazed lovingly at his silent wife.
“She is still sleeping,” said a soft voice behind them, “because she is not truly dead.”
Harry turned around, and Ginny gasped: floating behind them in the Room of Requirement was one of the castle ghosts.
The Grey Lady.
“Oh!” Ginny whispered, sniffling again as tears began to run down her face. Harry turned back to the portrait, stunned: for all these years, the headmaster’s wife had been a part of the castle, and yet few people knew who the Grey Lady truly was. The tragedy seemed so much greater, that they had spent so many years together, but only in spirit.
The Grey Lady drifted closer to the portrait, and sat down on a nearby trunk. She smiled at Dumbledore, standing next to her younger self. “Hello, Albus,” she said gently.
“Hello, Cathryn,” he replied, his voice revealing a deep sorrow.
“You are finally awake, I see,” she continued conversationally. Harry imagined her eyes were twinkling. “You always did like to sleep late on occasion.”
Dumbledore chuckled. “Only when I woke up next to you,” he said, and the love he felt for his wife was palpable. Harry was almost embarrassed to be intruding on such an intimate moment, and glancing at Ginny he knew that she felt the same.
“Sir, I’m so sorry, we’ll -” he started to say, but Dumbledore interrupted him.
“No, it’s quite all right, Harry. Please stay.” He continued to gaze at Cathryn, and an awkward silence fell over the room.
Harry desperately wanted to ask Cathryn what had happened, why she had not moved on after her death, but had chosen instead to remain behind in Ravenclaw Tower. Yet he felt such a question might be a dreadful invasion of a very private matter. So he asked another question instead.
“Sir, what happened with the war, and with Grindelwald?”
Dumbledore shook himself as if out of a deep reverie. “The Muggle war continued to deteriorate, and the wizarding world was plunged into its own conflict. I continued to teach at Hogwarts, but joined the fight against Grindelwald’s prejudiced ideas. He was defeated several years later.”
“You are too modest, Albus,” Cathryn chided him lightly, then turned to Harry and Ginny. “He led the battle against Grindelwald’s wizarding army, and single handedly defeated him in a duel, saving Britain from a very Dark Wizard. He then turned down yet another offer to become Minister for Magic. Soon after he became Hogwart’s headmaster instead.” She looked with pride at her husband, who smiled at her sadly.
“Hogwarts is where my heart lies, not with the Ministry,” replied Dumbledore.
“And it was where my heart lived as well,” she replied softly.
Once again Harry had that uncomfortable feeling of intruding on a private moment. To his surprise, Ginny spoke into the silence.
“Is - is that why you stayed behind?” she asked quietly. Harry wasn’t sure what she meant, but Cathryn seemed to understand, and she smiled at Ginny.
“Of course,” she replied. “I wasn’t afraid to die, I just wasn’t ready to leave this world. I wished to spend more time with those I loved, and so I came back to Hogwarts. I’ve spent many happy years here with Albus, and my daughter.”
“Your daughter? Jane?” asked Ginny.
“Yes, she taught Divination here for several years,” answered Cathryn. “She took up the post not long after my death. She died during the first war with Voldemort, just before the prophecy that predicted your birth, Harry.”
Harry glanced up in surprise at his name; he also noticed that she was not afraid to use Voldemort’s name. She laughed as she continued. “Yes, I know about you and the prophecy, Harry. I have been watching over you for quite a while now. Albus is quite fond of you, you know.”
Harry looked at the headmaster’s portrait, his throat tight. He remembered something Dumbledore had told him during his fifth year. The headmaster had gone to the Hog’s Head to interview a new Divination teacher just before Harry was born. Dumbledore had told Harry he wasn’t inclined to continue teaching Divination at Hogwarts, but that he felt obligated to interview the granddaughter of a famous seer. He had met Sybill Trelawney there, and it was during that meeting that she made the crucial prophecy which had ruled Harry’s life since.
“That’s why you didn’t want to keep teaching Divination,” he said softly to the portrait. “You hired Trelawney after Jane died, when she made the prophecy.”
Dumbledore nodded. “I am glad I did, because that is how I learned about you.” Harry couldn’t help but wonder what might have happened if Jane hadn’t been killed in the war, or if Dumbledore hadn’t gone to the Hog’s Head to interview a new professor that night: would Trelawney have still made the prophecy? Would Dumbledore have learned about it some other way? How different would Harry’s life have been?
“Can you move on now?” whispered Ginny, voicing one of the other unsaid questions in the back of Harry’s mind. The devastated expression on Dumbledore’s face told him the answer, just as Nearly Headless Nick had told him a year ago: it was too late for Cathryn to move on. She had chosen her pale imitation of life, and like Nick was fated to live out a spectral existence in the castle. Only now she was parted from her husband in a far more final way.
“The castle ghosts say otherwise, but I believe in love,” she answered, and her face was lit with hope. “We will be together again, Albus,” she said softly.
Harry saw a tear make its way down Dumbledore’s face. Ginny was crying again, and Harry felt his own eyes sting as he finally understood the heartbreaking reality: these two people, so much in love, had been separated in life, and were still parted in death.
“‘Time is too slow for those who wait, too swift for those who fear, too long for those who grieve, too short for those who rejoice,’” said Dumbledore, his voice barely a whisper as he recited the inscription from the golden watch.
“‘But for those who love, time is eternity,’” finished Cathryn, smiling sadly. She floated in front of the portrait and kneeled. She held up a ghostly hand, and the man in the portrait did the same. Their hands met, touching but not touching, as they silently mourned their lives and their love.
Slowly a beautiful, mournful song began to fill the cavernous room: it was a melody that spoke of love and loss, sorrow and sadness. Fawkes the phoenix appeared in a burst of red flame, and perched on top of the portrait.
“Hello Fawkes,” said Cathryn, her voice barely audible as she held back her ghostly tears. Fawkes opened his beak and sung a single, piercing note. It broke Harry’s heart to hear it, and Ginny turned her head onto his shoulder, sobbing.
Fawkes began a second song, full of hope and faith. As he sang, a single tear fell from his golden eyes and passed through Cathryn’s ghostly form. A second tear landed on the great silver frame and ran down the portrait. Fawkes continued to sing, his song rising with an ecstatic crescendo that burst open with an explosion of golden fire, drenching the room in a blinding light.
Harry closed his eyes against the sudden brightness. When he opened them, Fawkes was gone, and the Grey Lady had disappeared. He nudged Ginny, and they looked around for her, but she was nowhere to be seen. A sprig of hope began to bloom in Harry’s heart.
“Harry,” Ginny whispered softly, pointing at the portrait with one hand as the other went to her mouth. “Look at the painting.”
As Harry watched, the woman in the portrait slowly opened her grey eyes. She blinked several times, and looked around with a puzzled expression on her pale face. Dumbledore was staring at her in stunned recognition. Finally, she met his gaze, and a beautiful smile brightened her face. The headmaster took her in his arms, and held her as they both cried tears of joy.
Harry felt tears streaming down his own face as well. He had never seen anything so pure and beautiful as the scene he had just witnessed. He knew he had experienced something very special, and very magical: it was surely the power of love which Dumbledore had often spoken of. Not wishing to disturb the reunited couple any longer, he quietly helped Ginny to her feet. They left the Room of Requirement together, hand-in-hand, their hearts full.
In the portrait, the blissful couple embraced once more. “I do love you,” Albus whispered softly.
“I know,” Cathryn whispered back, tickling his ear with her breath. “And I love you.”
They kissed passionately, and somewhere far away a phoenix sang joyfully for a love lost and now found.
* * *
A/N: And there you have it. I hope you enjoyed the story, with all its moments of sorrow and joy. Many thanks again to mugglemathdork (Ritta!) for all of her wonderful hard work. Thank you to Dawn and Joanna for helping me with my story banner. Thank you to everyone who has read this tale and left a review, I really appreciate all of your wonderful comments!
And one more final thank you to J.K.Rowling for not only allowing us to meet and mourn the character of Albus Dumbledore, but for the enigmatic Grey Lady as well. Now you know her story.