Private message to Antonin Dolohov

[alt_sally_anne]

There were several of your fellow Councilwizards who fell in battle whose bodies are still at the school. Savitha Desai, Nisha Desai, Ned Pennifold, Xerxes Glozeman, and Maximus Truncheon. There are also the children of several Councilwizards who fell in battle whose bodies are still at the school, including Isabella Rowle. I assume her body is unclaimed because neither of the Rowles wishes to come here to get it, and not because she is believed to have fought for our side against her parents.

We will be burying our own dead sometime soon on the Hogwarts grounds. We will bury your dead with ours, if that's your choice. They'll be treated respectfully and their graves will be marked so that their families can re-inter them somewhere else later, if they want.

If you would prefer, however, we could send the Hogwarts elves with their bodies to the location of your choosing.

By the same token, if it is within your power to return the bodies of Harry Potter and Neville Longbottom to our keeping, we would appreciate it.

Comments

[alt_antonin]

I will see to the rites for our fallen, yes -- either arrange for them to be returned to their families, or handle the arrangements myself. I'll send my elf to claim them.

I am afraid Harry and Mr Longbottom were cremated before I woke, and their ashes scattered. I am sorry -- it is not how I would have done it. I have not yet spoken the rites for them; if there is anything you wish included, let me know.

[alt_antonin]

...and how did you know Mr Longbottom was present?

Though I expect that is on the list of things you will not answer.

[alt_sally_anne]

I'd love to hear your theories but I'm not going to tell you how I know, no. Other than to assure you that Harry did not escape to tell me.

[alt_sally_anne]

What do you think happens to people after they die? Do you think we'll see them again?

[alt_sally_anne]

Also, I'm not sure what I would ask for you to include, in your rites. I'm not really sure what they're for, exactly.

[alt_antonin]

In my religious traditions, no one dies while yet his name is written.

I have often been on the receiving end of some rather dubious looks when making this claim, particularly as the details are a mystery -- in the oldest sense of the term, unavailable to the uninitiated -- but I have had direct personal experience of the existence of a life after death, and the invocation of the souls from the kingdom of the dead. Yes, I believe in the world thereafter, and that it is the obligation of those on this side of that undiscovered country to keep faith with those who have gone ahead, so that we may be reunited in the world beyond.

I would offer you some further reading, but my library is, alas, slightly scattered at the moment.

It is customary to ask the traveller to carry any messages one wishes to bear to those who have gone forth some time ago. Or to make any last petitions for forgiveness. Or simply to reassure them that their names will not be struck out and their spirits will not be forgot.

[alt_sally_anne]

Then tell Harry his plan worked.

Tell Neville his sister's okay.

And tell them both they'll never, ever, ever be forgotten.

Ever.

[alt_sally_anne]

Also. Since you can't return their bodies, is there any chance you could return their wands?

[alt_antonin]

I do not know what was done with them. I doubt they survive, but I shall make what inquiries I am able.

[alt_sally_anne]

That would be a comfort to me. Thank you.

When you say you've had direct personal experience of a life after death, what do you mean?

[alt_antonin]

To the extent of what I am permitted to disclose to those not of my lineage: I have been present at the invocation of the spirits of those of my blood who have come forth, and perceived information that I did not previously know, given through that channel, later independently corroborated through other methods.

Self-hypnosis, forgotten memories, prior knowledge, external priming, ex-post-facto rationalisations: there are a thousand possible explanations for what I have experienced, and I have thought of all of them. But I prefer, and always have preferred, the numinous one. The mysteries are blood-linked, and separate and apart from the prayers for all the honoured dead that are my wont to perform, but if the souls of those who have come forth from one's own familial line can be communed with, I choose to believe the souls of all those who have come forth continue to exist, in some fashion. And as it is my belief that the transition to the realm of the dead may be more or less difficult for each person as he or she faces the sum of his or her life, but no man or woman dies while his or her name yet lives and is written, I do my part to speed along the souls of those for whom I touched, and who touched me.

Miss Parkinson knows some small part of my practise, actually; if you are curious, ask her. The prayers for the honoured dead that I taught her are not one of the mysteries, but she did find them a comfort. Or appeared to, at least. And Mr Finch-Fletchley has seen the other half of that reasoning

Shall I ask if this is an intellectual exercise, or if you have a particular thrust to this line of questioning? Because if you are waiting for me to tell you that you will see Harry again, of that I am far less certain, and that is why that damned rite was something I would not have done if he had not

[alt_sally_anne]

I can ask Pansy.

Do you think

I can see that you crossed out 'Harry,' and yes I'm asking about Harry, what was it you said about him?

[alt_antonin]

Yes, I was asking if that was the reasoning for your line of questioning, as I'm somehow certain your lot would frown upon my former students doing the textual equivalent of dropping in for a cup of coffee and a spot of conversation, and then I stopped myself because if you had any other motive, it would not have been a kindness to draw the conversation back in that direction.

You will see him again, someday when you make your own passage, may it be many years from now. Until them, remember him well.

[alt_sally_anne]

I don't think anyone much cares if I write to you. Well, they'd tell me I should go to bed, I haven't got much sleep in the last ... I guess it's been a week?

Anyway

Thank you.

I know you'll have to kill me if you have a chance, so hopefully that won't happen. I imagine that you didn't much enjoy having to help kill Harry.

[alt_antonin]

No. No, I did not, but he asked me to help him, and by the point at which I realised what he had done, it was too late for me to do anything other than honour the choices he had made. If you are willing to say -- was it, in fact, Hydra who cast the curse?

There are, indeed, many things I will have to do if I have the chance, ranging from the distasteful to the banal. Fighting my students is not something I ever wanted to do. But I will honour your choices, as well -- wherever they may lead us.

[alt_sally_anne]

Why do you want to know who cast it? Who are you going to tell?

[alt_antonin]

A teacher's idle curiousity, nothing more. And a desire to know to whom else we are all indebted, I suppose.

[alt_sally_anne]

If you get me the wands back I'll tell you who cast the curse.

[alt_antonin]

Very well, then.

Now, I must also advise that you sleep. If you are to be part of this, the faster you learn that one ought never pass up a chance to eat or sleep when the chance is offered, the better.

[alt_sally_anne]

I'm sure you are correct. Good night.

[alt_sally_anne]

I'd forgotten this last night, but the person who cast the curse actually said so publicly.

It was Draco Malfoy.

I hope you'll still return the wands, if you're able.

[alt_antonin]

I see. I had missed him saying so in the aftermath somehow, I don't find it a surprise; I am glad Harry had someone who loved him so well as to he could trust enough for that task.

My agreement was not contingent; I cannot make any promises, but I will try.