Time Between Us: Chapter 1 - The Return Ticket

Harry brought a hand to his chest, feeling not pain, but a strange emptiness, as if all the air had been sucked out of him. The memory of the curse—a burst of green light, Voldemort’s voice—was vivid in his mind, but the calm that followed was the strangest part. That wasn’t how he had imagined death.

He rose from the ground, though there was nothing beneath his feet. He took a hesitant step into the mist that surrounded him. He walked for what felt like hours, days, weeks, until something extraordinary happened.

The dense fog trembled and began to recede, giving way to a light so clear and calm that he felt at peace. From the depths of that light, a long, dark shape slowly materialized: it was a station bench, clean and polished, as if it had just been installed. Harry looked up, speechless, and saw a vast arched glass ceiling forming above his head—but beyond it, there was no sky, only more of that endless, immaculate white. Perfect, gleaming iron tracks emerged from nowhere, stretching left and right before vanishing again into the mist. Some trains passed by occasionally.

It was like King's Cross Station. A silent, empty, and pristine version of it. But it was unmistakably the station—of that, he had no doubt.

Dazed, Harry walked to the bench and sat down. The movement was automatic, a need to do something normal in a place that was anything but. And there, seated in that peaceful silence, he did something he had done thousands of times before: he reached for his forehead, expecting the sharp pain from the lightning-shaped scar that had accompanied him for the past years.

But there was nothing. No sharp pain or sense that his head might split in two. Only smooth skin. He took a deep breath, and for the first time he could remember, he wasn’t quite sure what he was feeling. He felt light, as if all unnecessary weight had finally been cut away.

It was that new and strange sense of peace that made the sound, when he heard it, all the more horrible. He sensed that someone—or rather, something—was there.

It was a low, miserable, wet noise, the sound of something writhing in pain. It came from somewhere nearby. Harry turned his head and noticed that, beneath a bench a bit further ahead, partially hidden by the mist, there was something small and dark writhing. For the first time in that place, Harry felt something familiar: a stab of curiosity mixed with a nauseating fear.

The sound was that of an abandoned baby, crying not for comfort, but simply expressing a raw and endless pain. Harry approached, his fear slowly replaced by a revulsion that made him want to recoil immediately.

The thing under the bench was small and shriveled, like a flayed child. Its skin looked like raw flesh, shiny and reddish, stretched over fragile, misshapen bones. It writhed, trembling in spasms that looked far too painful to endure, and Harry felt a knot in his stomach. It was the ugliest, most pitiful thing he had ever seen, and he felt, with cold and absolute certainty, that he didn’t want to help it. That there was nothing he could do to ease its pain. A pain beyond any healing he knew.

Leaving that thing to suffer there, alone, seemed cruel. But the very sight of it felt like a desecration in that clean and silent place. He backed away, his heart pounding, and only then did he realize the presence he felt wasn’t from the creature. There was someone else there.

Sitting calmly on the same bench Harry had been on moments before, as if he’d been there the whole time, was Albus Dumbledore.

He didn’t look like the frail, weakened headmaster Harry had last seen falling from the Astronomy Tower at the end of his sixth year. He was wearing long, flowing robes of sky blue, and his long silver hair and beard gleamed under the light. His light-blue eyes, behind those familiar half-moon glasses, were fixed on Harry with an expression of affection and pride.

A wave of relief washed over Harry, and for a moment, he forgot all about the creature beneath the bench. His questions, his fears, all the confusion this place brought him, seemed to lose importance in the presence of the former headmaster of Hogwarts. A short laugh escaped his lips.

"Of all the things I expected after death, a chat at King’s Cross Station wasn’t exactly at the top of the list." Harry’s voice was clear. He turned to fully face Dumbledore. "Should I assume the Hogwarts Express to the 'beyond' is running late, Professor?"

A smile spread across Dumbledore’s face, and his eyes sparkled with that familiar mischievous gleam.

"Oh, Harry." His voice was just as Harry remembered—gentle, deep, and filled with a quiet amusement. "Who told you the Express runs on a schedule for souls as punctual as yours? Sit down. I believe we have much to talk about."

Harry approached the bench, trying to ignore the noise the creature was still making in the absolute silence. He sat down beside the man, leaned back, crossed his arms, and looked at Dumbledore with a raised eyebrow, irony in his voice.

"Don’t tell me that thing got a ticket for the train too." He nodded toward the creature with his chin. "Judging by the looks of it, I would’ve expected its destination to be a little… hotter."

A melancholy smile appeared on Dumbledore’s lips. He looked from the creature back to the young man in front of him, seeing not just a weary, fallen hero, but the boy he had known all those years.

"Your ability to find irony in the darkest of situations is a quality that never ceases to amaze me, Harry. But no, it doesn’t have a ticket." The old headmaster’s gaze grew distant, showing deep pity as he stared at the fragment of Tom Riddle’s soul. "That… is what’s left of him. The last piece of a soul so mutilated by evil that it can neither move on nor return. It’s trapped here, in this passage."

The weight of that statement hung in the air for a moment. Dumbledore turned his full attention to Harry, his light-blue eyes now serious, meeting Harry’s.

"But the fate of that thing no longer matters. At least, not something for you to worry about. What matters is what its absence means for you."

The sincerity in Dumbledore’s tone disarmed Harry’s defensive posture. The irony faded, replaced by an urgent need for confirmation—to hear the truth he barely dared to hope for.

"He did it, didn’t he?" Harry’s voice rang surprisingly clear in the emptiness. "He destroyed the part of his soul that was inside me."

"Yes, Harry. He destroyed it," Dumbledore confirmed. His calm voice was a soothing balm that spread through Harry’s wounded soul.

The words floated in the stillness of the station. He destroyed it. For a moment, Harry did nothing. He showed no emotion. He just… existed in that moment. A wave of relief so pure washed over him that it felt like flying. Like having a parasite removed from his body after living with it for so long.

His gaze fell once more on the creature beneath the opposite bench. Its wailing was still pitiful, but now, instead of revulsion, Harry felt a trace of a strange and distant emotion: pity. A pity he never thought he’d feel for his worst enemy. What he felt was that Riddle was innocent in all of it. Innocent for never having been understood, or for never having received the attention he needed.

Harry paused for a moment. Were they really so different? What would have happened if he hadn’t met his friends, hadn’t found people who cared about him, and had sought, in the end, only power? Only the feeling of being great.

The Sorting Hat’s words echoed in his mind: “You would have done well in Slytherin.” What did that even mean, in the end? That there was no set destiny, only paths built by the choices we made? That what defined us wasn’t who we could have been, but who we chose to be?

He looked away, shaking off the fascination and the thoughts that seemed to buzz through his brain like a swarm of wasps. His green eyes met Dumbledore’s, and they held the simplest, deepest question.

“So... that’s it?” Harry’s voice was barely a whisper, filled with the same awe he had felt when he first saw Hogwarts. “It’s over?”

Dumbledore looked at him, and in his eyes there was sadness, but also immense tenderness.

“For the part of Voldemort that lived in you, yes. It’s over.” He paused, his gaze growing more intense. “But now, Harry, comes the part that’s entirely yours. Now, you have a choice.”

“Choice?” Harry frowned. The word felt strange, out of place.

“Oh yes.” Dumbledore gestured with his aged hand toward where the perfect tracks vanished into the mist. “You may... board. Move on.”

Move on. The phrase settled in Harry’s mind. He looked into the mist, and for a moment, he thought he could hear the distant whistle of an approaching train. He imagined the relief. A complete and total relief that was almost painful. No more Horcrux hunts, no prophecy weighing on him, no constant fear. Just silence. And guilt. And maybe, just maybe, at the end of that line, stood the silhouettes of his parents, of Sirius, of Lupin, and so many others who had died—waiting for him with smiles, some of which he only knew from photographs. The thought was liberating, a peace so seductive that he could feel the temptation become tangible.

“Or,” Dumbledore continued, his voice pulling him back, “you can return.”

Return.

The word hit Harry like a punch. He looked at Dumbledore, at the calm face, at the eyes watching him with that familiar and unbearable serenity. The peace of the station suddenly felt like a sham, a mockery. And something that had been dormant within Harry, buried under layers of duty and grief, finally stirred. An old, red, burning fury.

A bitter, dry laugh escaped his lips.

“Return?” Harry repeated, and his voice, once a whisper, now sounded like a dagger aimed at an enemy. “Of course. Why not? Just one more thing Harry Potter has to do.”

Dumbledore remained silent, his face showing only a trace of sorrow. That only fueled Harry’s anger.

“A choice... you call this a choice?” He jumped to his feet, his body trembling with a rage he hadn’t felt since Sirius had died. “Where was my choice when you left me on that doorstep, with people who hated me? Where was the choice when I faced Voldemort in my first year? And the second? Where was the choice when the Dementors came for me, or when my name came out of that Goblet? Where was the choice when Cedric died? And Sirius? My parents?”

Each question was an accusation, a stab through the silence of that place.

"You watched me. From afar, from your wonderful tower. You let it all happen. All your half-truths, all your secrets... And why? 'For the greater good.' It was always for the greater good, wasn’t it? But the sacrifice was always mine!"

He was shouting now, his voice echoing in a strange way, with no real echo at all.

"You knew! You knew all along that I’d have to die in the end. You raised me like a pig for slaughter!" Snape’s phrase—so horrible, so true—came from his mouth with the taste of poison. "And now, now, after everything, after I did what you wanted, you sit there, in your private paradise, and offer me a 'choice'? To go back to the hell you helped create?"

Harry stopped, chest heaving, fists clenched at his sides. He looked at Dumbledore, waiting for a defense, an explanation—anything. But the old headmaster just looked back at him, and for the first time, Harry saw something in his eyes that wasn’t wisdom or power. It was the bare face of guilt.

"Tell me why," Harry whispered, his fury draining away. "Why should I go back?"

Dumbledore didn’t move. The light had faded from his eyes, leaving behind a pale and tired blue. The guilt Harry had seen before was now tinged with deep sorrow.

"You’re right," he said, and his voice was low, stripped of any trace of authority—just that of an old man full of regrets. "In almost everything. I’ve made more mistakes than I can count, Harry. Mistakes that cost the happiness and lives of people I loved. And the greatest of them was with you. I burdened you with a weight no one—least of all a child—should have to bear."

He looked down at his hands, clasped in his lap.

"I didn’t raise you like a pig for slaughter. I raised you in the hope that you would become a man capable of doing what Voldemort never could. Of choosing. I gave you information, but the courage, the loyalty, the love... all of that was yours. Your ability to love is what protected you, what brought you here. It was the only weapon I knew Voldemort could never possess or understand."

Dumbledore raised his eyes and met Harry’s. The guilt was still there, but now there was also a plea.

"Why should you go back?" he repeated Harry’s question, his voice trembling. "I have no right to ask you. Your duty is fulfilled. The peace this place offers, that the beyond offers... you’ve earned it more than anyone. If you board that train"—he gave a small nod toward the mist—"you’ll find the rest you deserve. All those you’ve lost would welcome you with open arms. I myself would applaud you for that choice."

A heavy silence fell between them, broken only by the faint crying of the creature curled up under the bench.

Harry looked at it—that pitiful embodiment of a soul mutilated by power and fear. Then he looked at Dumbledore, who was, for the first time, offering him a real way out—no tricks, no hidden agendas. Peace. The end.

And he thought of Ron, of Hermione. Of Ginny.

The answer came to him, clear and simple. It wasn’t for Dumbledore, or the prophecy, or the “greater good.” It was for them. Because the world they lived in was worth it. Dumbledore hadn’t given him a reason to return. He had only reminded him of the reason he’d always had.

The fury vanished. In its place was only the calm weight of certainty. He turned to the old headmaster, giving him an almost imperceptible nod.

He opened his mouth to give his answer, to state that he wanted to return—when something changed.

It wasn’t a sound, but the absence of it. The silence, once peaceful, became heavy, oppressive. The station’s white light flickered, shimmering like a candle caught in a draft. Dumbledore, who until that moment had seemed perfectly composed, stiffened. His eyes widened, locked onto a point in the empty space between the benches, behind Harry.

He opened his mouth to give his answer, to seal his return—when something changed.

Slowly, Harry turned, following the headmaster’s gaze.

On the bench across the tracks, where just a second ago there had been absolutely nothing, a figure was now seated. It was a woman—or something that resembled one. The first thing Harry noticed was her clothing: a black dress made of a fabric that didn’t reflect light, and hair so pitch-black it looked like a void in that bright place.

Then she lifted her face. Her skin was incredibly pale, so translucent that the intricate map of violet veins beneath was visible. She was beautiful, in a terrible and perfect way.

But it was her eyes that made Harry’s heart stop. They were large, almond-shaped, and a vibrant yellow. The pupils were black, and she was watching him—not with malice, but with a distant curiosity.

She smiled, a minimal movement of her pale lips. When she spoke, her voice was surprisingly melodic, but cold. And it seemed to echo across the entire space.

“Albus Dumbledore. How impolite of you,” she said, her gaze never leaving Harry. “Offering the boy a choice that no longer belongs to him.”

The woman’s words—a choice that no longer belongs to him—hung in the air like poison. Harry looked at Dumbledore, expecting the headmaster to correct her, to banish her from this place. Instead, Dumbledore took a step forward, placing himself partially between Harry and the woman in black, a protective gesture Harry hadn’t seen since he faced Voldemort in the Ministry.

“You have no right to be here,” Dumbledore said, his voice tense and frail. “Whatever you are.”

The woman ignored Dumbledore as if he were nothing more than part of the scenery. Her eyes remained fixed on Harry, and the smile returned to her pale lips.

“‘Whatever you are’?” she repeated, with a hint of mockery in her voice. “How curious, Albus. You spent your entire life studying me, fearing me, trying to master me, and now you don’t recognize me?” Her gaze sharpened. “But he does,” she whispered, and the word seemed to slip directly into Harry’s mind. “He knows who I am.”

Harry frowned, his heart pounding in his chest. How could he possibly know?

"After all," the woman added, tilting her head slightly to the side, "a long time ago, one of your ancestors was wise enough not to flee from me. He greeted me like an old friend."

The words echoed in Harry’s mind, overlapping with another voice—Hermione’s—reading a children’s fairy tale in a cold tent. The third brother... greeted Death as an old friend, and went with her gladly...

The Invisibility Cloak. The third Peverell brother. Death.

Now it was obvious to Harry. He was dead; this was the space between life and death. Death was standing before him. This was her domain. Her space. But why was she so focused on him? Why did he feel like she wasn’t just trying to get him to accept his fate?

"The one you call Voldemort—or Tom Riddle, if you prefer," the woman continued, "in his desperation to avoid me, made a novice’s mistake. He tore his own soul, something that should never happen. And worse still, he used another human being as a vessel. That created an... unfortunate consequence. Not even Herpo, I believe, would have entertained such a ludicrous idea." Her yellow, emotionless gaze was hypnotic. "Your death may have freed his soul, but some consequences remain. The natural order of life and death has been disrupted."

She leaned forward in a fluid, predatory motion. Harry had the strange feeling he saw the image of a man—Herpo, the same from the chocolate frog cards—pleading for help within her eyes. "I don’t usually concern myself with the small, chaotic lives of mortals. But you... you are interesting. No one has ever managed to unite the three Hallows—not since I gave them to those three children. My Hallows. You became, for a brief and fascinating moment, my Master. And that... is something I cannot ignore. You created a breach. A desire."

"What desire?" Harry asked.

"To fix things. In a much more entertaining way." A ghostly smile touched her lips. "I can send you back. Not to the moment you died, as Albus was planning." Death looked at Dumbledore as if he were a child. "But to the beginning. To the moment when things first began to go off track. With all the knowledge you have now. With the power to prevent the future you know from ever unfolding."

The offer hung in the station’s silence, an idea that made Harry feel dizzy.

"No!" Dumbledore’s voice came out in a terrified shout. "To alter time in that way... the consequences are unimaginable! Harry, that’s the kind of power that drives men mad. Unthinkable things happen to those who meddle with time! It’s the path of arrogance, the desire to remake the world in your own image, to control and toy with events... it’s a path that leads only to something I cannot even begin to fathom!"

He spoke with desperation, as if he knew exactly what awaited Harry. But Death merely turned her pale face toward him.

"Your rules, woven from fear and failure, are not mine, Albus Dumbledore," she said. "I am the one who makes the rules. And the choice now belongs to my Master."

The title—my Master—hit Harry hard. He, the Master of Death? It was absurd. He felt more like a pawn on a chessboard. But then, like ghosts summoned to his mind, he saw them: Fred, laughing and playing a prank on George. Lupin, smiling at Tonks, their child smiling back at him. Sirius, barking with laughter. His parents, waving at him from a station platform...

The power was terrifying. The temptation, unbearable. He looked into Death’s glowing yellow eyes and saw only curiosity. She didn’t care about good or evil. She wanted to see what he would do. He felt once again like he was inside a plan he hadn’t chosen to be part of.

And if it was for those he had lost, he would sacrifice himself again for the greater good.

"What’s the price?" Harry asked, and though his voice was low, it was firm. He knew something like this couldn’t come without a cost.

Death tilted her head, and a small smile that didn’t reach her yellow eyes curled her lips.

"Direct. I like that in a Master." Her voice had a soft tone. "The price is always balance, Harry Potter. The scales don’t allow such great power to be exercised without an anchor. To rewrite history, the new one requires an equivalent weight. A pain to remind you what is real."

Harry stared at her, the distrust he had learned through years of Dumbledore’s secrets putting him on high alert.

"What does that mean? Be clear."

"Clarity is for mortals, who have little time," she replied, with a hint of impatience. "I offer you the chance to save the souls of your friends, and you worry about the details of your own?" She gestured toward the weeping sound from beneath the bench. "That fragment is gone, but its echo remained in your forehead for a long time. The scar. That will be your anchor. A constant reminder of our deal."

"You want it to hurt," said Harry, the realization hitting cold and unpleasant.

Death’s smile widened. "Pain is such a limited word. Think of it as a reminder—of who you were. Of what you must do. What will happen if you don’t make the right choices."

"Harry, no!" Dumbledore’s voice echoed through the station. "Don’t listen to her! Her price is never what it seems! It’s a trap!"

Harry barely heard him. He thought of Sirius falling through the veil, of Dumbledore himself tumbling from the tower, of Fred, Lupin, Tonks... lifeless bodies in the Great Hall. A headache seemed like a small price. A price he’d pay a thousand times over if it meant bringing happiness to those he had lost.

"If I accept... they’ll live? Fred? Lupin? Sirius?" His voice was hoarse. "All of them? Including my parents? Is that what you’re giving me?"

"I give you nothing, least of all the souls you’d have no power to save in a child’s body," Death corrected, her eyes glowing with a cold and amused light. "I merely place you at the start of the correct path and give you the tools to save them. The final result..."—she shrugged, a gesture that was terribly human—"...will depend on how well you play the game."

It was a trap. He knew it. Dumbledore knew it. The feeling was as blatant as a flashing sign in the middle of a big city. But it was the only one offering him the chance to reclaim what had been stolen from him.

"I accept."

The satisfaction on Death’s face was subtle, but unmistakable. She began to raise her pale hand with its long fingers.

“Harry.”

Dumbledore’s voice made him pause. It was no longer a plea, but a quiet, resigned call. Harry turned to his old headmaster one last time. He was looking at Harry with a weary gaze, as if he bore the blame for everything that was happening.

“The path you’ve chosen... is lonely and full of temptations,” said Dumbledore, his voice heavy with the weight of wisdom born from failure. “The power to remake the world is seductive. It will whisper in your ear, tell you to fix not just the great tragedies, but the small injustices. It will tempt you to create a perfect world.” His blue eyes, now clear and terribly sad, met Harry’s. “But you can choose differently. You can go back to that moment, in the Forest, continue with your story. Can’t you think of your friends? Do you want to try to do things differently? To rebuild?”

Harry looked at the man. He nodded slowly.

“I’m going to try. I’m doing this for them,” Harry said. And then, with a finality that closed an entire era of their lives. He thought of Ron, Hermione, Neville, and most of all, he thought of Ginny. He understood in that moment. He wasn’t sacrificing himself only for those he had lost, but for those who were still alive as well. He added, “Goodbye, Professor.”

Dumbledore closed his eyes for a brief moment, an expression of deep pain crossing his face before he concealed it.

Satisfied, Harry turned back to Death, his face resolute. He was ready.

“A wise choice,” she whispered, and raised her long, thin hand.

With the tip of her index finger, she touched his scar.

There was no pain. There was a sensation of intrusion. Like when Snape had invaded his memories in Occlumency lessons. Or when he shared memories with Voldemort. An absolute cold, not spreading, but concentrated there, on that patch of skin, marking him like fire. It was as if a piece of Death itself had nestled into his forehead.

The white station, Dumbledore, the sound of the creature... all of it began to unravel into strands of darkness, sucked into his scar.

“It is done,” her voice echoed in his mind, like a thought that wasn’t his own. “Don’t disappoint me.”