Sleeping Forever with a Smile

The candle flames in the Headmaster's Office flickered, stretching Dumbledore's shadow long.

He sat silently in his high-backed chair, his gaze fixed on the black diary lying open before him. The name "T.M. Riddle" gleamed an eerie gold in the candlelight, like some kind of curse lying dormant.

A quick patter of soft footsteps came from outside the door, followed by the muffled sound of the stone beast moving aside.

Snape strode in, his black robes billowing like a bat's wings. The moment his gaze fell on Tom Riddle's name in the diary, it froze.

"Where did this come from?" Snape's voice was colder and harsher than usual. His fingers gripped the edge of the diary, his knuckles white with the force.

Dumbledore looked up, his blue eyes weary behind his Half-moon Spectacles. "Harry gave it to me. A first-year student somehow came into possession of it."

Snape's pupils narrowed slightly. "Who was the student?" His voice was low and dangerous. "A Death Eater's descendant? Or...?"

"Ginny Weasley, Arthur's youngest daughter. I believe you know her," Dumbledore interrupted softly.

Snape paused, the sharpness in his black eyes fading a little. He was silent for a moment before finally saying coldly, "I'll investigate."

Dumbledore nodded and said nothing more.

Snape turned and left, the office door closing silently behind him.

Silence settled over the room once more.

Dumbledore stared at the diary for a long time before slowly picking up the quill on his desk. Its tip hovered over the page, and a drop of ink spread silently across it like a black tear.

He began to write.

No one knew what he wrote in the diary, but the candle flames suddenly flickered wildly, illuminating the rare hesitation and resolve on his face. The writing on the page gradually began to glow, faint gold at first, then brighter and brighter, until it was too dazzling to look at.

The light erupted and went out in an instant.

The office was empty.

Only the diary remained, lying quietly on the desk. The writing on its pages had vanished without a trace, as though no one had ever touched it.

A gust of wind blew the door to the Defence Against the Dark Arts classroom open, and Harry froze as soon as she stepped inside.

The man standing at the lectern wore a showy set of violet robes. His curls had been slicked with far too much hair wax, giving them a greasy sheen in the candlelight.

"Merlin's smelly socks..." Harry blurted out a curse.

Hermione immediately jabbed her hard in the ribs with her elbow, her eyes frighteningly bright. "That's Gilderoy Lockhart! The author of Weekends with Werewolves! Five-time winner of Witch Weekly's Most Charming Smile Award!"

Perhaps because Hermione had spoken rather loudly, Lockhart turned and smiled at her. Hermione immediately clutched her heart and fell over.

Ron leaned closer and lowered his voice. "You know him? Why do you look like you've seen a Blast-Ended Skrewt?"

"This guy's just a..." Harry's complaint was cut short by Hermione's fierce glare. "...I mean, I got that wrong." She made a face at Ron, shrugged, and silently mouthed, All show.

A barely audible chuckle suddenly came from behind them. At some point, Draco Malfoy had sidled up to the end of the Gryffindor table, a rare look of agreement on his pale face.

"I think so too," he whispered, glancing quickly at the lectern. "Like a peacock showing off its tail."

He immediately resumed his arrogant expression and strode back to the Slytherin side.

Harry stared after him, her eyebrows nearly disappearing into her hairline. Anyone else could have said that without a problem, but it was a little strange coming from Draco.

How could he call someone else a peacock? Wasn't he one himself?

While Harry was lost in thought, Lockhart suddenly tapped the lectern, and countless pink fireworks burst across the classroom ceiling, forming the sparkling letters of his name. As Hermione and a crowd of girls applauded excitedly, Harry noticed Draco rolling his eyes across the room in a display that could have been considered an art form.

It made a matching pair with Ron's exaggerated eye roll.

Harry, who had been about to roll her eyes herself, held back, unwilling to put herself on the same level as the two of them.

The echo of the bell was still ringing through the corridor when Hermione dashed out like a gust of wind.

She clutched her hardcover copy of Weekends with Werewolves tightly to her chest, her brown curls flying behind her like a hummingbird that had found a source of nectar.

Harry watched her disappear around the corner and, for a moment, seemed to see Hermione in another time and place, running with a book by Lockhart clutched in her arms just the same.

History was far too similar.

Harry could never have imagined that the first time in this life she received the same treatment she had in her previous life, it would be under these circumstances.

Ron stood beside her, his fingers absently rubbing the frayed cuff of his robe.

Sunlight slanted in through the high windows, making the freckles on the tips of his ears gleam.

"Um..." He cleared his throat, his voice half a pitch higher than usual, though the subject seemed chosen at random. "What did you think of that method Lockhart mentioned for driving Sir Cadogan away..."

Before he could finish, a flurry of panicked footsteps approached from the distance.

Neville came stumbling toward them, his round face covered in sweat and the hem of his robe coated in dust. He looked as though he had just crawled out from under the Whomping Willow.

"B-bad news!" He grabbed Harry's arm, out of breath. "Down the corridor... Professor McGonagall and the others..."

Harry and Ron exchanged a glance.

Neville was considered one of the more level-headed Gryffindors and was rarely this flustered. Before he could finish, she had already grabbed Ron and run in the direction Neville pointed, with Neville hurrying after them.

As they followed Neville around the third corner, they saw a crowd gathered there.

The crowd was like an impenetrable wall.

Harry shoved several younger students aside, then froze at the sight before her.

Dumbledore sat propped against the stone wall, his long silver-white beard spread over his chest as though it had been carefully combed.

His right hand was still held as though gripping a wand, while his left arm clutched the black diary tightly. Most startling of all, a faint smile lingered at the corners of his mouth, as if he were merely lost in a beautiful dream.

Professor McGonagall stood nearby, her back straight as a drawn sword. But Harry noticed that the knuckles of the hand gripping her lesson plan had turned white, and her tightly pressed lips had lost all color. Madam Pomfrey held a handkerchief over her mouth, tears spilling endlessly between her fingers and leaving dark marks on the stone floor.

"Everyone, move along!" Snape's voice was like a poisoned icicle as his black robes billowed around him and he drove the onlooking students away.

When he turned, Harry clearly saw that his eyes were red, but the redness was swallowed up in an instant by overwhelming fury.

Harry's knees suddenly went weak.

She saw a crack in Dumbledore's crooked Half-moon Spectacles, Fawkes's golden feather caught on the tip of his shoe, and the gold-stamped name on the diary's cover slowly fading.

"Harry?" Ron's worried voice came from a great distance. "You're so pale..."

The world began to spin. Harry felt everything whirling around her, and in her last moments of consciousness, she heard Voldemort speak softly from within the bracelet:

"How ironic. This time, what killed him was his own obsession."

Darkness surged over her like a tide.

When Harry opened her eyes again, the first thing she saw was the familiar ceiling of the Hospital Wing.

Madam Pomfrey was preparing a potion nearby, the test tubes clinking crisply against one another. Harry tried moving her fingers and found that someone was holding her right hand tightly.

She turned her head. Ron had fallen asleep at her bedside, his red hair spread like a ball of flame across the snow-white sheets.

Outside the window, the setting sun dyed the entire Hospital Wing blood-red.

Dumbledore was dead.

The realization was like a blunt knife, piercing her heart slowly and precisely.

Harry suddenly remembered that rainy night in another world, the sight of Dumbledore falling from the Astronomy Tower. At the time, she had thought it was the cruelest farewell fate could offer.

Only now did she understand that watching him sleep forever with a smile was more heartbreaking than watching him fall.