dursley [h. g.]

••dursley•• || beyond

Kendra fell asleep on page 394. She only knew it because by the time she got to page 394, she had to read it six times before she eventually just closed her eyes and let herself fall asleep on the page, head face down in the book as though smooshing her face against the yellowed pages was going to help at all.

Kendra knew she was asleep when she was standing in the Headmaster's office at Hogwarts, Morgana sitting behind the heads table, as cheerful as she always was to see Kendra. "Hello, Kendra, darling, I hope you don't mind me hijacking your dreams tonight- it was going to be rather lovely, but not to worry, I've saved all the information for another day. But we have important business," Morgana said, clapping her hands twice. And as though he had stepped out of his empty portrait frame into the head's office, Albus Dumbledore appeared beside Morgana, mildly amused.

"Hello, Kendra," he said, sounding cheerful even in death.

Kendra stared incredulously at Morgana. "It better have been a great dream," she warned. Morgana beamed, taking Kendra's answer as what she wanted it to be

"I told you she'd say yes, Albus," Morgana turned to Kendra's former headmaster with smugness in her eyes. "But that is all besides the point. You are quite possibly as in with Lord Voldemort as you can be at the moment. He has already and will continue to ask you to perform tasks for him and provide him with information."

"All of which is meant to set up to fail," Dumbledore interrupted. "He knows he cannot kill you without risking angering Morgana, and he does not know enough about her to either convince her to be totally loyal to him or eliminate her as a threat. By setting you up to fail he gives himself many outs to whatever situation may arise."

Morgana glared at Dumbledore. "As I was saying," she said loftily, her gaze softening as it found Kendra again. "Though I can't imagine why anyone would want to do it, you are going to need to please the Dark Lord. Because face it, darling, you aren't any closer to finding out how to break that bond. You need more time with those books and after how the morning went, I don't want to put you in more situations than you absolutely must be in."

"Rather simply, you have several options," Dumbledore continued. "You, of course, may take your chances with Lord Voldemort and remain under his command as you have until you can sever your connection to Bellatrix. You may decide to take the role of spy and feed him information until you can sever the connection. And of course, if you decide that you have the knowledge that you need and might study it elsewhere, you could take the books young Mister Malfoy gave you and find a way to escape, though that option certainly warrants its own problems."

Kendra shut her eyes. She was terrible at making decisions, particularly when she didn't really know what she was deciding about. "Remind me again why I need to sever this connection between me and Bellatrix? I mean, once Voldemort is gone can't someone just..."

"It really depends on what sort of connection you have to her," Morgana explained. "I've been looking for signs but I don't know enough to come up with what it is exactly. And because we don't know what the connection is, it is rather possible that she cannot die. And Bellatrix Lestrange is dangerous on her own, in fact perhaps more so."

"I can't stay here," Kendra said finally. "I mean, sooner or later people will start to question as to why Voldemort is keeping a muggleborn around, especially where I am, and he'll have to make a show of killing me to keep the peace with his followers. But if I run away..."

"A show of killing you would be made all the same," Dumbledore replied cheerfully, as though he wasn't discussing the death of his former student. Kendra stared at him deadpan, amazed that he was still so exactly in death as he was in life.