CHAPTER 114: THE DEATHLY HALLOWS, PT 1



Harry nodded, turned the stone over three times in his hand, and spoke: "Cadmus Peverell".

The stone glowed warm in his hand and a mist formed, which twisted and turned until it settled on the shape of a man.

"Néade sé bregus ongrataþ on þín dæg."

Harry grimaced and turned to Professor Dumbledore. "I forgot about that part. I don't suppose you have a sequence of portraits spanning from time the Peverells lived to the present, with two-century gaps so they can translate from each other?"

The old wizard quirked an eyebrow and turned to one of the devices on his desk. After a few seconds of prodding and whispering, the Grey Lady, Ravenclaw's house ghost, appeared.

"Ah, Helena," the old wizard spoke gently. "I apologize for disturbing you today, but I find myself in need of someone of your expertise. As you may notice, we have a... guest, from a very distant past. I believe he died about two to three centuries before you were born. Would you be willing to help us with some translations today?"

"I am honor-bound to serve the Headmaster of Hogwarts," the young woman said crisply, in perfect English. "I will help you, even though there is little left to be a Headmaster of."

"I am grateful, Helena." He turned to Harry, who was suddenly realizing that, unlike the portraits, all the ghosts he knew spoke modern English, no matter when they had died. Were ghosts capable of learning somehow, or was it a part of their magic to update their language over time? "Helena is Rowena Ravenclaw's daughter, who has always been an accomplished woman with a solid grasp of the literature of her time, which makes her familiar with the language shifts from well before her birth."

The ghostly woman turned to the specter hovering before Harry, who was looking at the three of them with a curious gaze.

"Hálettung," she spoke.

"Néade sé bregus ongrataþ on þín dæg," the man repeated.

"He says hello," she translated.

Ah. "Euhm... I am Harry James Potter-Evans Verres; for what I'm told, I'm a descendant from your brother Ignotus," Harry introduced himself. "I was wondering whether you could tell me what exactly this stone does."

The specter gave him a searching look, as Helena Ravenclaw translated this introduction. Then, it chuckled.

"An interesting question. Most ask for how, not what." His dark eyes looked Harry over. "You do not at all look like a Peverell."

"Yes, well, a few generations have passed," Harry answered dryly when Helena had provided this translation. "For what I'm told, it's been about eleven hundred years since you died."

The specter's eyes widened. "That is a long time. Can you prove that you are truly a descendant?"

Does it matter? Harry wondered, but he didn't really want to argue with a vision that was probably just the product of his own imagination. Instead, he reached inside his pouch and drew forth the Cloak of Invisibility.

"Do you recognize this?"

He waited as "Cadmus Peverell" studied the cloak, then threw it around himself to demonstrate its functionality. The specter nodded.

"Well then, heir of Ignotus, the stone simply retrieves the chosen soul from the ether, and gives it shape and speech according to what the soul itself would expect. The soul stays bound to the stone until dismissed, or until it chooses to depart – provided it is capable of such choices."

Questions flooded Harry's mind. This was not an answer that seemed like it would have been drawn from his own expectations. "Why wouldn't it be capable?"

"Disembodied souls cannot have original thoughts," the specter clarified, "nor change their minds once they are settled. You need a body to accommodate change." He smirked. "But before you get any ideas, you will not find me that easy to manipulate. I have considered many eventualities before my death, and as such, my mind is made up with regards to my responses to all situations I could envision."

"Oh, don't worry," Harry reassured the ghost. "I don't intend to manipulate you, I just want to understand." Well, for now anyway. "What exactly do you mean by a 'soul'?"

The image frowned, and Helena's ghost frowned at him as she translated his answer. "Has knowledge degenerated so far in this time that you have to ask such a fundamental question?"

Harry shrugged. "I just want to make sure I get the right answer, and you seem to be an expert."

"A soul is all that a person is," the image answered. "Memories, personality, intellect, inclination."

"But if that is laid out in the soul, then how can brain damage affect it?"

The image frowned again. "I am not sure I understand your question. Are you asking how the body can affect the soul?"

"Euhm, yes?"

"I am not sure of the mechanics, exactly, but the soul is naturally shaped and influenced by the body it inhabits. Why would you imagine it to be immutable? The body – or rather, the brain – is what makes you think, gives you character. The soul is what preserves it."

Harry's heart sank as he parsed the meaning of those words. "Are you telling me that if someone rams a piece of metal through your head and you end up with a damaged brain that turns you more aggressive, then it will change your immortal soul so you'll be damaged for all eternity? And, and if you get Alzheimer's disease – I mean, if you go senile – you'll be stuck like that forever?" Technically, in the view of the world he'd held so far, it was already the case that if you got the wrong kind of brain damage you'd be affected for the rest of your life, and living in a damaged state still seemed preferable over not living, but even so, it didn't take Harry more than a few seconds to see the implications. If the soul was affected by the body, it meant that the moment someone would show the beginnings of mental disease, the right and proper thing to do was to kill them before it got worse. Hell, if there genuinely was an afterlife, you should probably just kill people the moment they were fully developed, before anything could happen that would adversely affect their soul...

"Not quite," Peverell answered with a wry smile. "I see that you think somewhat like my brothers and I used to do, but you are woefully ignorant. The soul alters itself gradually along with the body, but sudden, outside changes are not immediately reflected in it. Over time, it causes strife when body and soul are not united, so eventually the soul must either adapt or move on. However, this process can take many years depending on the shift in the brain, which should leave ample time to repair the issue when a young person is concerned. What is more, the deficits of old age mostly lose parts of a person's character, intellect and memories, rather than truly changing them, and as such the stress on the soul to retain its original facilities is significantly smaller. Indeed, I find that most of the souls I tested with – Muggles and wizards alike – remembered events with greater clarity than their bodies did, even though they were slow to form new memories. Of course, living for many years in a degenerating body does take its toll, but you could imagine the soul of a deceased to be that which the person would have been if all the abilities they lost were restored in the moment before their death."

Harry's mind whirled. The words promised hope. If all this was true, he might really see his parents again – all of them –, might see everyone again. Most people who ever lived were probably still there, waiting to see him in some kind of afterlife...

No.

No. He stamped down on that line of thought before it could run away with him. He shouldn't give himself false hope, only to have it destroyed again. He was jumping to unwarranted conclusions. What was he really seeing here? The image of Cadmus Peverell and the strange things it said might well have been built directly into the stone, in case anyone should ask for a clarification. Or in fact –

He turned around to Professor Dumbledore, who had silently sat down behind his desk. Harry wasn't entirely sure what Dumbledore thought about souls, or whether he even had a complete picture, but Peverell did seem to be channeling much the same ideas as those Dumbledore had stated before. If the stone merely created an image from your mind, the specter could well be drawing on the old wizard's expectations rather than his own, or even from both. The way to test whether the stone actually summoned a person's soul was to find someone who had died with secrets whose veracity could be confirmed in the real world – assuming they would not mind telling either Dumbledore or himself those secrets. It probably couldn't be gained from someone who'd died this long ago.

Still, there was a real, non-zero chance that the vision was telling truth, and he had many more questions, including some which the former Headmaster might not have an answer to.

"The Cruciatus Curse," he demanded from Dumbledore. "It leaves people permanently insane. Would you say that means they lose something, or they actually get new behaviors?"

"Both," the man said quietly. "But primarily the former, I believe. The change in behavior is the result of confusion more than anything else."

"The Cruciatus Curse, if held too long, induces a form of senility," Peverell nodded when the ghost of Helena translated the interaction.

"So if –" Harry began, "suppose a couple were tortured into insanity by the Cruciatus Curse, and they are in their early twenties which means they probably have at least a century left to live... they'll be okay after they die?" This line of questioning was potentially dangerous in Dumbledore's presence, but if the stone didn't actually summon souls, he'd be able to prove it soon enough, and the Chief Warlock was unlikely to act rashly upon the information. All the more so because he was still legally Harry's servant, as Harry had not officially released the House Vows – and while he had removed the magical bonds at the first opportunity, he hadn't actually told Dumbledore and Thicknesse about this.

The specter gave him a piercing look.

"There's little okay about being dead, but their souls may still personify who they once were. A hundred years is a long time, however. The soul would almost certainly be affected."

"So..." Harry summarized. "In a case like this, it would be immoral not to kill those people?"

"Harry –" Dumbledore began in a horrified tone.

The specter frowned. "I suppose in the case of Muggles it might be preferable, if the risk of altering the body is deemed too great... I would not wish to persist in such a state even regardless of the consequences to my soul. But when Healers are available, when the magic is not yet lost, it would seem extraordinarily wasteful."

Harry blinked. "Are you implying that, in your time, people turned mad by the Cruciatus Curse could be cured?"

Peverell's eyebrows flew up. "Are you implying that, in your time, they cannot?"

"Indeed," Professor Dumbledore said gravely. The man had stood up and was now looking at the appearance with a strange expression on his face. "We have lost much of our art, over the centuries. I could not begin to think how such a feat might be achieved."

"You transfer the person's mind from their body to their magic, creating a spirit," Cadmus explained. "Then move the spirit out of the body for security. Assuming extensive testing to locate the seat of the brain-damage, you can then use mind-altering charms to bring the brain back in line with the soul. You can do it without the spirit step, which would of course be necessary for Muggles, but then you run a small risk of affecting the soul, as mind magic is a dangerous field which can have irreversible repercussions."

"Ah," Dumbledore spoke. "I can see why that information was lost. It would be too dangerous to lightly pass on."

"And I suppose this falls under the category 'powerful spells' which the Interdict of Merlin stops you from teaching us?" Harry questioned.

The ghostly man smiled sadly. "Indeed; the stone cannot bypass that. However, I would not lightly do so regardless. I am more than happy to explain things of little importance – especially trivialities which in my time even the smallest of children knew – but I hope I do not offend when I say that I see no reason to trust you with anything dangerous, distant family or not."

Harry smirked. Of course we cannot actually learn anything new from this. "I am not offended, sir. And I hope I do not offend when I say that I see no reason to believe you are anything but a figment of my imagination anyway."

The corners of the specter's mouth twitched upwards. "Not to be lightly convinced, I see. Why would you doubt?"

"Well, for a start, I never really believed that souls existed, before, and I haven't seen any evidence."

The man looked intrigued. "But they do."

"Sure, but can you prove that?"

The man frowned, looking confused. Harry started to wreck his mind for ways to explain the concept, but then stopped.

He said that he cannot have original thoughts, or change his mind. If he grew up believing in souls, and everyone around him held the same beliefs, he may not be able to wrap his mind around the idea of someone who doesn't share them. That is, if he was telling the truth, in which case he's right and I'm wrong. If he's just a vision made from our expectations, there's no point reasoning with him anyway.

But that was a strange idea, too. How could you be the same person, without the ability to change your mind or come up with original thoughts? What exactly counted as an "original thought"? The man had contemplated the novel idea of killing someone who was crucioed into insanity, so he wasn't limited to simply answering questions from memory. Would he be able to solve logical puzzles? Would the soul of a mathematician be able to write proofs as long as they did not involve new proof techniques?

"To give a different answer, then," he spoke carefully. "I don't fully understand it. Even with your explanation of what a soul is, I cannot make predictions as to how it will behave in any given experiment."

Cadmus Peverell shrugged. "I believe I understood my brothers better than anyone, yet when I asked them what they wanted for dinner, I could not always predict the answer. This does not mean they didn't exist."

"All right, that was a bad argument," Harry admitted. Just because he didn't have the full picture didn't mean that the theory was false. It could merely mean he needed to experiment more.

"Let's move on. What happens to the soul after the body dies?"

"It goes into the ether," Cadmus replied. "There, they cannot feel, hear, think... just drift. Centuries can pass by almost unnoticed, as sense of time disappears much like in sleep. There is nothing, in short, unless the soul is called back by the stone or similar magic, or unless the person in life has chosen to stay behind as a ghost, and there is a large enough outburst of magic at the time of their death to anchor them."

Dumbledore's eyes widened. "There is no afterlife?"

Cadmus smirked. "Always people jump to conclusions. They see the soul and assume it has a destiny, some greater life beyond the current. No, there is nothing beyond the here and now. If there was, why would anyone disapprove of murder?"

"But then..." the old man protested. "How can there be justice? Why should there even be a soul if there is nothing for it to go on to?"

"There is no inherent justice in the universe," Harry said tiredly. "There's just us."

Although actually, Dumbledore had a point. For what Peverell had said, the soul had no function at all besides preserving someone's personality and memories, which were rooted in their brain – or apparently, in the case of a spirit, in their magic – while they lived, and which was pointless when they died. Why would there be a soul if it didn't do anything? How would something like that even evolve, or if it was created, what intelligent designer would make something so useless?

"You are both right," the ghostly figure answered with a smile. "I am not certain – I have studied the literature extensively but there wasn't much to go on – but it seems likely that the soul was designed rather than arising naturally. All living beings have something that might be called a soul, a consciousness, but only the human soul retains qualities of the owner's personality, and only the human soul persists beyond death. This strongly suggests the hand of a human, and I believe the Atlanteans have had something to do with it. Unsatisfied with the idea of death, I surmise that they designed a piece of magic that would attach itself to the consciousness and preserve a human mind as well as possible, so they could be recovered after death. An unformed soul is shaped from the ambient magic on birth and starts growing during the first years of a human's life – and since it doesn't rely on a person's own magic, even Muggles obtained souls, either as a side effect or because the Atlanteans still considered those without magic worth saving. Unfortunately, either they never found the way to create a new body to supply to a soul, or more likely the art was lost with Atlantis's fall. In short," he nodded to Professor Dumbledore, "there is a purpose, and there is an afterlife. However," he turned to Harry, "it will have to be of our own making."

"This... is a lot to take in," the old man spoke quietly even as Harry's heart raced and a bright sense of purpose ran through his mind. This rang so true to him that he was suddenly willing to forgo his doubts, to just believe that it was true. This did seem like the kind of thing an advanced civilization of magic users might do. And as for the Peverell brothers...

"That is what you were doing," he breathed. "The deathly hallows – you were trying to end death. To reproduce the Atlantean immortality magics."

"Of course," Cadmus nodded. "Did you think us mere artificers?"

Harry glanced at Dumbledore, who was staring at his wand, a startled expression on his face.

"I think the finer details of your history got lost over the years," he said carefully. 'Actually, you're a children's tale now."

"Oh, are we?" Cadmus's voice, speaking the unintelligible ancient English language, took on a harder tone. "Let me guess. We serve as a warning, and the moral of the story is that you should just accept death?"

"Well, yes," Harry said apologetically. "The story says that the three of you met Death on a bridge after just having tricked him by not drowning or something silly like that. He offered you gifts to fool you. Antioch demanded a powerful wand, you wanted the power of resurrection, and Ignotus, the youngest and therefore the cleverest – sorry, that's how fairy tales tend to go – asked to go forth without getting chased by Death. Antioch got his throat slit in the first Inn he visited, you brought back your fiancée but committed suicide because you couldn't really be with her, and Ignotus lived a long life until he passed the invisibility cloak he was given to his son and met death as an old friend. The end."

The specter looked increasingly angry as Helena translated this summary, but composed himself before speaking. "Well. That is quite far from the truth."

"It is known," Professor Dumbledore volunteered, "among the seekers of the 'deathly hallows', it is known that yours is more than a mere story. That the three of you were powerful artificers, making great devices that could withstand the centuries. Some believe that to unite the three hallows is to master death – to bring, evade and undo – but the wiser ones consider the connection with death to be nothing more than a tale that sprang up as your history turned into myth. Or so I thought, but it seems that we who deemed ourselves wise were the fools in this matter."

"They didn't see it," Harry breathed, connecting the dots. "Of course they didn't, the hallows were 'lost' for centuries, and those who had them were sensible enough not to talk about it much. The wand isn't just powerful, I saw that when you fought Riddle: its main strength is defensive power, isn't it? It makes your shields stronger, and it helps you dodge the Killing Curse, but offensively it's no better than other wands."

Dumbledore nodded, and moments later Cadmus did the same.

"So the wand protects you from murder and accident. There was never any doubt about the stone. And the cloak... Well, everyone thought that was just about invisibility and protection from normal detection charms, but that's because they didn't know about Dementors!"

Cadmus raised a spectral eyebrow. "What about Dementors?"

"People didn't realize that the cloak protects you from Dementors, because they didn't know that Dementors represent Death," Harry explained.

"Well, yes, but..." Cadmus began, looking confused, then he stopped. He blinked a few times, as though suddenly realizing something. "You mean you don't know?"

"Know what?" Harry asked, even as a strange and wonderful suspicion started to dawn in the pit of his stomach.

"The cloak stops death," Cadmus said simply. "No more, no less. There's really nothing mysterious about it."

Harry had trouble finding his voice. "You mean that, while I wear this, I cannot die?"

The specter nodded. "The cloak keeps body and soul united. It helps against Dementors because Dementors sense by drawing out small, replaceable pieces of the soul, but that's just a side effect. The main purpose is that it stops you dying."

A glance at Dumbledore told Harry that the old man was just as baffled by this particular tidbit of information as he was.

"So why does it make you invisible?" He blurted out. "Why not make it so that you can constantly wear it without social repercussions?"

The specter grimaced. "Looking at a person's body when the soul is invisible to you is disconcerting to say the least. Ignotus has experimented with methods to circumvent this issue, but while he has succeeded in making the wearer look less disturbing, he could not make it seem normal no matter what he tried. This is why he combined the protections with an invisibility cloak of our mother's design. The invisibility would hide the true purpose of the cloak from outsiders, and it adds an additional layer of protection: in dangerous situations, where you most want to wear the cloak, it is better to not be seen than to stand out, after all. The true owner can will people to see through it, although there is the obvious flaw that when they are heavily wounded, they may not be capable of willing it any longer."

"Ah." Harry had never tried this, but it made some sense that if he could will himself to see through the cloak, he might be able to allow others to do so as well.

"Besides," Peverell continued, "there is only so much point in constantly wearing the cloak. Ultimately, we all failed to reach our goal... Ignotus might have found a way to stall death, but not disease, age or injury."

"Harry blinked. So if you constantly wear it –"

"– you will never die, but you will slowly fall apart, yes. Eventually your body ceases to function, and you will die the instant the cloak is removed."

Damn. Harry deflated. Of course, no one had ever really invented a device that protected you from death. If they had, they wouldn't have died and passed it on. But still, the cloak sounded like it had a lot more potential than what had initially seemed to be the case.

"Can you mass-produce cloaks like this? And if so, could you teach me?"

The specter looked very serious all of a sudden. "What would you do with them?"

"Stop people from dying to curable diseases for a start! If we don't have the medicine or tools to cure people yet, we just put them under a cloak and stun them or put them in an enchanted sleep or something like that, until we've figured out how to treat their disease. Maybe we can do the same for people dying of old age – we're bound to figure out a solution to aging sooner or later, and it's likely to be easier to keep them alive than resurrecting them afterwards. Although, now that I think about it, if the stone can indeed bring souls back –"

Harry had not expected the burst of laughter that followed this question and interrupted his train of thought. The ghostly figure had a deep, warm laugh, and his eyes shone with genuine mirth.

"Oh, you do remind me of Ignotus – you are a heir of the Peverells indeed."

"So is it possible?"

"No," Peverell said simply. "Not unless you manage to invent a shortcut. Making a single cloak takes years of work, even if you are familiar with the spells Ignotus created, which I suspect you are not since you did not even know what a soul was."

Harry nodded glumly. "There's something else. I have a bunch of dead bodies around, who were preserved right after they died. I think we can fix the injuries in most cases, but with the two people I tried, we couldn't get the heart to restart, even though one of them was in perfect condition. I think that result might be entirely consistent with the soul being gone, though... can I use the stone, maybe together with the cloak, to put the souls back into the bodies?"

Cadmus looked him over, frowning.

"I fear you think entirely too lightly of this," he said seriously. "I do not blame you. Ignotus was not much older than you when we embarked on our quest, and I remember his enthusiasm and ambition all too well. We actually thought we would secure immortality in the first twenty years or so." He looked grim. "And yet, we spent all our lives working, and it wasn't enough. We made progress, but ultimately we failed, and had to leave the job to our descendants."

Harry didn't wilt under the implied rebuke. "I am a descendant, and I intend to complete it."

Cadmus smiled, his wispy eyes meeting Harry's. "I'm glad that another member of the family is willing to follow in our footsteps, but I hope you are truly prepared for the path ahead. It is long, and heavy. You might never finish your self-imposed duty."

"I know." Harry stared back into those eyes, his resolve growing. "But I'm going to at least try."

Cadmus smiled, and looked considering. "I am glad for it. Did you have more questions?"

Harry tried to sort out his thoughts. A large part of him was starting to believe the specter's tale, but a smaller part was urging caution not to believe something too easily just because he wanted to believe it. Even if the story was true, though, it wasn't exactly helpful. It was promising if souls were indeed saved in the ether – whatever that was – for later recovery, but there was an incredibly long path still to go, and all the spells the three brothers had developed would have been lost due to the Interdict of Merlin. He'd basically have to start over, although the specter of Cadmus might give him some pointers – if he could persuade the man (ghost, soul?) to trust him with potentially dangerous information.

In the silence, Professor Dumbledore stepped forward. "If I may ask... was there a prophecy? This has been a point of contention for centuries."

Cadmus turned to him. "There was, in fact. That is part of what started our quest." He smiled at the old man. "Should I regale the true tale of the Peverell brothers?"

"You would indulge the curiosity of an old man for the phantasms he used to chase in his youth," the man replied. He glanced at Harry.

"I don't mind." In fact, it would probably be useful to get the specter talking about his history; it might bring up questions he wouldn't even think about asking otherwise.

Cadmus beamed brightly, leading Harry to suspect that the revelation that his life's work had been reduced to a children's tale with the contrary moral had been a severe strike to his ego, seemed to take a deep breath, and started his tale.

"There were three of us: Antioch, Ignotus and I. Our father a Muggle smith; our mother – Manura Peverell – a witch and the greatest artificer of our age. Indeed, her creations were renowned all over the known world. She took all of us as apprentices, and taught us most of our crafts. The beauty of the Runes, combined with plants and creatures, and the life she instilled in father's work... She taught us that almost nothing is impossible with magic, when you know what you're doing." He sighed deeply. "She was killed in a duel when I was fifteen, Antioch twenty and Ignotus thirteen.

"My brothers and I talked a lot, after that. Father gave us the usual spiel of how death comes to everyone in time, and we should learn to accept it. We disagreed. Unfortunately, our training was incomplete, especially Ignotus's, and father was talking with a local wizard to apprentice him out. Our resolve might have been broken by circumstance and the absolute dismissal of everyone around us, until we heard that prophecy. 'Three shall be their devices by which death shall be defeated.' Those were her actual words. Shall be defeated. We concluded that, if we embarked on our quest, we were destined to succeed, which settled the matter. Together we swore that we wouldn't bow to death, nor allow ourselves to be cowed by the limited views of those who would call us dark, fools or both.

"Antioch, greatly affected by the way mother had died, focused on premature death. He searched the world for defensive and healing magics and developed several defenses of his own. Ignotus and I were more ambitious, and desired to stop death altogether. Ignotus started to study what exactly happens at the moment of death; my own research was focused on the soul.

"As Antioch had been studying the secrets of wand lore before we set out on our quest, his research culminated in the development of a wand which provided the greatest protections magic could afford. It was far from complete, however. The wand is powerful – it can sustain the strain of customized spells which are impossible to cast with normal wands, and can channel near-limitless magical power if required – but it cannot modify or overpower existing spells except those Antioch built it for, self-defense spells. Its protections could not be extended to others easily, nor be turned towards healing without first designing new charms. It was a first attempt; we had only been at this task for twelve years. Unfortunately, it was already sufficient to cause jealousy, and an old friend poisoned him and stole the wand."

"And so Death took the first brother for his own," Dumbledore muttered.

"Yes, I suppose the fairy tale got that part right," Cadmus spoke sadly. "Antioch's death came as an enormous shock to us, and threw off our plans and our faith. We had intended to work on our goal together, we hadn't expected to die before fulfilling it! And then, as Antioch was supposed to be the one dealing with disease and Ignotus, emerged in his studies, had barely even started what would become his life's work, there was nothing I could do when my beloved Liaire contracted Glowpox and succumbed to it three days later. She was then but nineteen, and I twenty-seven, and the only knowledge my research had provided thus far was that there wasn't an afterlife." His voice took on a bitter tone. "It took me seven years before I finally managed to give shape and speech to souls, and then another six years to find individual souls through a connection they made in life. And then, at last, I could be with her again. Or so I thought."

He sighed wearily. "I should have realized it earlier, through my experiments with the random souls I could capture. She was no longer alive; she had lost the capacity for change. She was who she had always been, which meant that she was forever stuck as an immature teenager, even though I had changed. And whenever I would ask her to make a non-obvious choice, she simply could not do it, like a donkey torn between food and water. She could hear new information, but would never change her opinions. And in realizing that, it was like losing her all over again.

"I let her go, and plunged myself back into my research with a zeal. I did a great many experiments, and succeeded in making a permanent artifact to summon souls: the stone you see before you. Having done that much, and understanding the nature of the soul and the ether better than anyone alive, I started looking into ways to return thinking capacity to souls – perhaps in the form of magic, but ideally by creating new bodies for them. Often I worked together with Ignotus whose experiments to stop death coincided with my own in several ways, but he had a wife, he had children, he could not always work. I could, and did. Unfortunately, I was so consumed with my research that I stopped taking good care of myself. Ignotus, using the stone, told me afterwards that his wife found my body slumped over a large sheaf of calculations.

"As for Ignotus... Where my research was focused on retrieving souls from the dead, Ignotus preferred to stop them from passing on in the first place. We reused a lot of each other's discoveries – for example, we both made artifacts to bind a soul in place – and he made his cloak that kept the soul firmly anchored in the body shortly after I completed the stone. Unfortunately, we both knew it wouldn't be enough, as it wouldn't stop aging. He had pinned his hopes on the creation of a Philosopher's Stone, as the cloak could protect him from the worst of the backlash, but the spells on the cloak interfered with the alchemical magic, and that hope was lost. Without this protection, he didn't dare take the risk; he had too much to live for.

"He spent the rest of his life with his wife and three children, both improving the cloak and working on medical research. He discovered a great many things about the functioning of the body and, with the help of his family, developed treatments for various magical and non-magical diseases, including a potion that would have saved my Liaire if it had been available before. However, he never found a way to halt or reverse aging without a greater sacrifice, nor to make a new human body without a soul to inhabit it. And then, as he was nearing the end of his natural life, he lost his wife, his eldest child and all her children in some stupid, senseless war. He told me of that, the last time we spoke. He had been disillusioned with the project for years, but this... he said that we'd attacked the problem from the wrong direction. That we should fix the world before trying to deliver immortality to the wrong people. I disagreed with him, of course, but then, that would have been my response in life; I do not know whether he would have been able to persuade me if I had been able to change my mind."

"The last enemy that shall be destroyed is death," Dumbledore whispered.

Peverell turned to him sharply. "Where did you hear that?"

"James Potter," Dumbledore replied. "Harry's father, an earlier descendant from your brother. It was their family motto, in a sense, an ancient text from the Christian bible. James said that it simply meant to move beyond the fear of death, or so his father had told him."

Cadmus grimaced. "That is a bizarre interpretation."

The former Headmaster shrugged. "In hindsight, I am forced to agree."

"I also disagree with Ignotus's analysis, though," Harry spoke up. "If death is irreversible, you want to get rid of it before spending too much time on things that can be fixed. If it isn't, then knowing that resurrection is possible is likely to be helpful for those other problems. Immortality is the ultimate bribe. Would a small dictator still accept money to screw over the people in favor of large corporations if he knew that doing too much evil would lose him the chance of living forever?"

"That assumes that sensible and well-intended people are always going to be in control over who gets resurrected," the specter pointed out. "But yes, there are arguments either way." He shrugged, then shot Harry a penetrating look. "So tell me... if more than a thousand years have passed, what does the world look like today? Have its ills been fixed yet?"

"Well... no," Harry confessed. "Things have gotten better, I think, but they're not exactly good yet. Definitely not everywhere, and you probably wouldn't like what has become of the magical world."

"Oh?" Cadmus asked, raising his eyebrows.

"A lot of magic has been forgotten," Harry said blandly. "A lot. We don't know how to make artifacts which last for centuries anymore. Witches and wizards have been growing steadily weaker as powerful spells were lost, most likely due to the Interdict of Merlin."

Cadmus winced at that.

"But there have also been some good changes," Harry continued. "Particularly in the Muggle world. The entire magical world has lived in secret for almost five hundred years, and Muggles have invented science – I mean, they systematically started testing their beliefs and figuring out the laws of the universe, except that they didn't notice magic yet, probably because we were hiding it. So now, it isn't good everywhere, there's a lot of places in the world which are still way behind, but at least in the richer countries there's far less poverty and disease, and also not much fighting. Muggles also use all kinds of inventions, which have brought their quality of life much closer to the standard witches and wizards are used to. For example, you don't need magic to talk to someone on the other side of the planet anymore. Kings and emperors have lost most of their power; the people choose their own rulers now."

The ghostly image inclined its head. "So the Muggle world has been gaining, and the magical world only losing?"

"Well, not only," Harry said, remembering himself. "That's really just the vibe I've been getting from the last five hundred years. I think one of the major events after your death was Hogwarts: four powerful witches and wizards built a school where all magical children in Britain and Ireland were invited to learn magic. I think that probably made a vast difference with your time. There are magical schools in other countries too, now."

"All children learning magic in a single place rather than through apprenticeships?" Peverell asked, surprised. "Yes, I imagine it would make a large difference."

Dumbledore cleared his throat. "Don't forget about recent events."

"Oh, right. Compared to your time it probably doesn't make that much of a difference, but the Statute of Secrecy was overthrown last month. Witches and wizards are back under the authority of the Muggle government, and we've made all kinds of cooperation agreements. Oh, and a couple of friends and I destroyed all Dementors."

Cadmus's eyes widened at the last point. "So that stain is finally removed from the world. And you participated? How did you do it?"

"A variation of the normal Patronus Charm which I developed. The key is simply to cast the usual spell with defiance of death as your happy thought. Expecto Patronum!"

Cadmus stared at the glowing figure, and then back at Harry, his eyes filled with considerable interest.

"That is weighty news indeed!" The specter spoke when Harry lowered his wand again. "I am impressed; it would never have occurred to me to do that. Have you tried the stone on any victims of the Dementors?"

Harry shook his head. "Not yet, I wanted to check with you first to know what I should think about the stone in the first place."

"Hmmm. Well, I would be interested whether it works. I know that the soul of those Kissed by a Dementor does not seem to go into the ether, regardless of whether the body survives. However, one possible reading of the ancient texts suggests that a consumed soul stays with its Dementor. If the soul persists rather than being destroyed, you may have liberated them."

That sounded good, unless... "They wouldn't have been aware during all that time, would they?"

"It's enough to make you hope that the souls have been destroyed, is it not?" Cadmus spoke quietly. "I do not know. I have done many experiments during my life, but those with Dementors were limited as there weren't that many around, and I wasn't foolish enough to create some, or evil enough to sacrifice people to it. I should like to know what you find, if only to satisfy my curiosity."

"You can still be curious?" Professor Dumbledore queried. "Forgive me if the question offends, but I have never known a ghost to wonder about facts of the present."

"I am not a ghost," the ghostly figure smiled. "I am a summoned soul. In particular, I am the soul of the person who made this stone, and in life I have placed a significant part of my own magic inside it. This allows me a better memory and awareness of the world than most while I am tied to it, although it will still not allow me to change my mind on any subject."

"I'm happy to try it," Harry said, suddenly very curious for this experiment as well. "I'll need to turn you off to test this though, won't I?"

"Yes, go ahead. But do call me back soon, there is more we need to discuss. And keep in mind that you can only summon specific people, whose life you have touched in some way. I am an exception due to my connection with the stone, but for other people, the stone cannot find a soul merely by the name of the body they used to inhabit in life. It needs to draw the connection from your mind, so you must have known them personally."

Harry nodded. "Is it entirely safe? Can a malicious soul do anything to me?"

"Other than attempting to manipulate you, no. They have no power but speech, and you can dismiss them at any time."

"Thank you." Harry turned the stone over in his hand, and the shade of Cadmus Peverell disappeared.

"Please tell me you're not about to do what I think you are about to do," the old wizard whispered.

"Why not?" Harry asked. "I know it's not a good test due to the horcrux thing and all, but Peverell said it's safe, you said the stone hadn't been tampered with, and this is a question we really want an answer to."

Before the other could argue further, he turned the stone three times in his hand. "Tom Marvolo Riddle."

-o-o-o-o-o-

Author's Note: "Néade sé bregus ongrataþ on þín dæg." is supposed to be the translation of "May the gods smile on your day." If some reader actually speaks old English well enough to provide proper translations, I'd be open to replacing the current sentences. ;)