Almost Here: Chapter Three
Title: Almost Here
Genre: Crossover fic (Harry Potter and Spooks)
Characters: Dumbledore, Ruth Evershed and Danny Hunter
Word Count: 1300 words approx.
Chapter Summary: Ruth has another talk with Dumbledore, though this time a less infuriating one.
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Ruth wondered how long she’d been trapped in the mists for. Certainly, time moved at a different pace here; maybe it stood still altogether. The mists could part and you could see the lives of the living below, people you knew, people you didn’t know. Maybe she sometimes even saw the future and she could certainly see the past.
“You can see the pattern of things here,” Danny had said one day as they watched Harry sit alone on The Thames bench for the umpteenth time. It got less painful the more you watched. You started to distance yourself, though sometimes she’d still find herself reaching down with her fingers through the mist. She could never touch Harry, though sometimes he’d look right at her, a flash of hope across his face, before he would age years upon bitter years once more.
Strangely, Danny never told her to stop watching Harry as he went about his clockwork movements through London. When she asked him why he didn’t mind he would only say it was something Dumbledore was better at explaining.
They sifted through her own, older, painful memories together. Memories of her father dying, memories of her cold, aloof mother. Danny talked about that pain with her, about that guilt. Ruth was beginning to realise that she’d spent a lot of time in life feeling guilty about one thing or another. She was beginning to realise how feelings like guilt and jealousy and fear crippled a person, made a person small.
***
One day (or was it hour? Minute? Second? Some other particle of time and space?) Dumbledore met her in the mists.
“Ruth,” he said, holding out his hands smiling.
She would have scowled but now she knew it wasn’t worth the effort. Dumbledore was eccentric but not necessarily wrong.
He slipped an arm through hers as he drew level with her, his blue eyes kind but stern. “Danny told you that I am the gate keeper between the land of the living and the dead, didn’t he?”
“He did. I assume he was allowed to say so.”
“Oh of course. Did he tell you why I was given this task?”
“No,” she said shortly.
Dumbledore adjusted his half moon spectacles, making an odd face. “Interesting.”
“Do you always have to be so cryptic?”
“People always accused me of being that even when I was alive. I was never cryptic about the things that mattered, but oddly enough, most people never saw that.”
“So... why are you a gate keeper then? Why do you keep coming back to talk to me? I never asked for my own personal gate keeper.”
“No. You don’t get a choice in that.”
“I wish I did,” Ruth muttered, but it was half hearted, without malice.
He ignored her jibe. “When I first greeted you, I told you that it was things like love and sacrifice and bravery that made the difference. I told you that it is things like love and sacrifice that conquer even death.”
“So I’m still here because I loved too hard?”
“You and I both know that’s not true. You’re here because there is hope even in death. Because death is not an ending. Not every time. I commend people like you Ruth, who love so fiercely that they are willing to die for that which they love. I was not so lucky in life. I tried to conquer death. In seeking out my own immortality, I brought about my own death all the more faster.”
“What happened?” Ruth asked, interested despite herself.
“I told you about a dark wizard who tried to conquer death by splitting his soul into seven parts. I did not split my soul. I had not lost my mind quite so badly. But I did try to find the Hallows; the three Hallows that could trick death into never knocking at my door. I tried to defeat death, and so, the Hallows were never mine. I possessed but one, the lesser of the three artefacts and so death came. When he came, it was as a friend, and I had accepted him, but death does not like to be challenged.” Dumbledore paused, waved his arm around the misty surroundings. “This is my punishment.”
“To wander in between forever as some kind of ferry man for the living and the dead? But that’s horrible.”
“Is it really? It’s not necessarily forever after all!”
“You’re mad.”
He laughed, genuine mirth spilling out of him. “I was once, and now, no more. I have been forgiven and I have learnt to forgive myself. Can one ask for any more than that?”
“You told me once that I was here to learn how to hope again, to learn to believe in miracles again. You said I’m here because I loved, and I made the ultimate sacrifice.”
“There are some things that the truly evil, small minded people of our universe can never ever hope to understand.”
Ruth was focussing unseeing on the mists. She was seeing George and Nico and their little villa in Cyprus. She was seeing the bullet go through George’s head, the blood making a small, neat pool on the ground. She was seeing Mani telling Harry to do better next time, seeing Harry unyielding as the boy nearly died for some uranium. She saw Nico going home to Greece without her, saw him turn his face away from her as she tried to act like a mother, even as she knew she could never be Nico’s mother.
There were tears dripping down Dumbledore’s long nose. “It was the kind of job you chose Ruth, but that doesn’t make what happened fair. People like Mani could never understand the kind of complex love you had for those two, could never see how it was powerful as well as a weakness.”
“It didn’t help them. George still died. Nico still has no father. I still feel... guilty.”
“We all feel guilty about some choices we make in life Ruth. In death, you have to let that guilt go and forgive yourself.”
“I don’t believe in miracles.” Besides, she’d nursed that guilt for so long, it was hard to let go of it now.
“Why not? You still love don’t you?”
“Of course I do,” she snapped. “I love Harry. I always will.”
“That kind of all consuming passion for another person can make people do very brave and very foolish things. There was a man I knew once who made terrible decisions in the name of love, but in the end he gave himself, played two parts, to help defeat tyranny. That was true bravery to my mind. What’s more, no one ever knew but me and Harry Potter how much that man gave.”
She gave up on trying to understand the things that Dumbledore was casually referencing. “You’re saying that I gave myself up for love in the end, and that that makes it Ok. Ok that my partner died?”
“No,” Dumbledore snapped, and he suddenly seemed to loom tall and frightening over her. “I am saying that he died because of evil, but you kept fighting that evil anyway. You could have given in. You could have quit. You kept fighting. Why? Because you believed in something. You believed that you could make a difference. That you could protect other lives. That always counts for something.”
There was a slight pause. “You are a very formidable man Dumbledore.”
“I look at things logically. I’ve had the time to look at things logically. If you are here Ruth, it is because there is a reason for you to be here, and as I have told you many times now, that reason is love. It is that brightly burning love that gives hope in darkness and believes in miracles. It is that love that forces you to wait.”
And finally it all made sense. Everything. “You mean...”
And Dumbledore smiled.
Genre: Crossover fic (Harry Potter and Spooks)
Characters: Dumbledore, Ruth Evershed and Danny Hunter
Word Count: 1300 words approx.
Chapter Summary: Ruth has another talk with Dumbledore, though this time a less infuriating one.
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Ruth wondered how long she’d been trapped in the mists for. Certainly, time moved at a different pace here; maybe it stood still altogether. The mists could part and you could see the lives of the living below, people you knew, people you didn’t know. Maybe she sometimes even saw the future and she could certainly see the past.
“You can see the pattern of things here,” Danny had said one day as they watched Harry sit alone on The Thames bench for the umpteenth time. It got less painful the more you watched. You started to distance yourself, though sometimes she’d still find herself reaching down with her fingers through the mist. She could never touch Harry, though sometimes he’d look right at her, a flash of hope across his face, before he would age years upon bitter years once more.
Strangely, Danny never told her to stop watching Harry as he went about his clockwork movements through London. When she asked him why he didn’t mind he would only say it was something Dumbledore was better at explaining.
They sifted through her own, older, painful memories together. Memories of her father dying, memories of her cold, aloof mother. Danny talked about that pain with her, about that guilt. Ruth was beginning to realise that she’d spent a lot of time in life feeling guilty about one thing or another. She was beginning to realise how feelings like guilt and jealousy and fear crippled a person, made a person small.
***
One day (or was it hour? Minute? Second? Some other particle of time and space?) Dumbledore met her in the mists.
“Ruth,” he said, holding out his hands smiling.
She would have scowled but now she knew it wasn’t worth the effort. Dumbledore was eccentric but not necessarily wrong.
He slipped an arm through hers as he drew level with her, his blue eyes kind but stern. “Danny told you that I am the gate keeper between the land of the living and the dead, didn’t he?”
“He did. I assume he was allowed to say so.”
“Oh of course. Did he tell you why I was given this task?”
“No,” she said shortly.
Dumbledore adjusted his half moon spectacles, making an odd face. “Interesting.”
“Do you always have to be so cryptic?”
“People always accused me of being that even when I was alive. I was never cryptic about the things that mattered, but oddly enough, most people never saw that.”
“So... why are you a gate keeper then? Why do you keep coming back to talk to me? I never asked for my own personal gate keeper.”
“No. You don’t get a choice in that.”
“I wish I did,” Ruth muttered, but it was half hearted, without malice.
He ignored her jibe. “When I first greeted you, I told you that it was things like love and sacrifice and bravery that made the difference. I told you that it is things like love and sacrifice that conquer even death.”
“So I’m still here because I loved too hard?”
“You and I both know that’s not true. You’re here because there is hope even in death. Because death is not an ending. Not every time. I commend people like you Ruth, who love so fiercely that they are willing to die for that which they love. I was not so lucky in life. I tried to conquer death. In seeking out my own immortality, I brought about my own death all the more faster.”
“What happened?” Ruth asked, interested despite herself.
“I told you about a dark wizard who tried to conquer death by splitting his soul into seven parts. I did not split my soul. I had not lost my mind quite so badly. But I did try to find the Hallows; the three Hallows that could trick death into never knocking at my door. I tried to defeat death, and so, the Hallows were never mine. I possessed but one, the lesser of the three artefacts and so death came. When he came, it was as a friend, and I had accepted him, but death does not like to be challenged.” Dumbledore paused, waved his arm around the misty surroundings. “This is my punishment.”
“To wander in between forever as some kind of ferry man for the living and the dead? But that’s horrible.”
“Is it really? It’s not necessarily forever after all!”
“You’re mad.”
He laughed, genuine mirth spilling out of him. “I was once, and now, no more. I have been forgiven and I have learnt to forgive myself. Can one ask for any more than that?”
“You told me once that I was here to learn how to hope again, to learn to believe in miracles again. You said I’m here because I loved, and I made the ultimate sacrifice.”
“There are some things that the truly evil, small minded people of our universe can never ever hope to understand.”
Ruth was focussing unseeing on the mists. She was seeing George and Nico and their little villa in Cyprus. She was seeing the bullet go through George’s head, the blood making a small, neat pool on the ground. She was seeing Mani telling Harry to do better next time, seeing Harry unyielding as the boy nearly died for some uranium. She saw Nico going home to Greece without her, saw him turn his face away from her as she tried to act like a mother, even as she knew she could never be Nico’s mother.
There were tears dripping down Dumbledore’s long nose. “It was the kind of job you chose Ruth, but that doesn’t make what happened fair. People like Mani could never understand the kind of complex love you had for those two, could never see how it was powerful as well as a weakness.”
“It didn’t help them. George still died. Nico still has no father. I still feel... guilty.”
“We all feel guilty about some choices we make in life Ruth. In death, you have to let that guilt go and forgive yourself.”
“I don’t believe in miracles.” Besides, she’d nursed that guilt for so long, it was hard to let go of it now.
“Why not? You still love don’t you?”
“Of course I do,” she snapped. “I love Harry. I always will.”
“That kind of all consuming passion for another person can make people do very brave and very foolish things. There was a man I knew once who made terrible decisions in the name of love, but in the end he gave himself, played two parts, to help defeat tyranny. That was true bravery to my mind. What’s more, no one ever knew but me and Harry Potter how much that man gave.”
She gave up on trying to understand the things that Dumbledore was casually referencing. “You’re saying that I gave myself up for love in the end, and that that makes it Ok. Ok that my partner died?”
“No,” Dumbledore snapped, and he suddenly seemed to loom tall and frightening over her. “I am saying that he died because of evil, but you kept fighting that evil anyway. You could have given in. You could have quit. You kept fighting. Why? Because you believed in something. You believed that you could make a difference. That you could protect other lives. That always counts for something.”
There was a slight pause. “You are a very formidable man Dumbledore.”
“I look at things logically. I’ve had the time to look at things logically. If you are here Ruth, it is because there is a reason for you to be here, and as I have told you many times now, that reason is love. It is that brightly burning love that gives hope in darkness and believes in miracles. It is that love that forces you to wait.”
And finally it all made sense. Everything. “You mean...”
And Dumbledore smiled.