text: Dumbledore's death in the style of Stephen King | Books | The Guardian
  Friday 15 July 2005 09.19 EDT
  First published on Friday 15 July 2005 09.19 EDT
  Harry inched closer towards the figure that lay on the stone cold floor. The eerie green light from the torch cast an ill looking glow in the room. Dumbledore's face had a sallow pallor with a sickly looking tinge upon his pure white beard. He was so still, as if he had been frozen the moment death had overcome him. But that's what death did to you - froze you forever in that instant life vanished from your body. Harry fell to his knees, his eyes vacantly staring through the thin shields of his glasses. Dumbledore had died - just like that - in the space of a few seconds. Dumbledore was no longer alive. Harry stared at the lifeless body, his mind hardly comprehending the enormity of what had just happened. It had been painless, he supposed. A moment of shock and perhaps what felt like a strong blow and then nothing. Harry looked about the room, his eyes drifting to the large cauldron of green steam billowing out in waves. It was so silent in this room; so different to the scene merely minutes before. And he was cold - it was truly cold in this room. Suddenly he sensed a commotion outside the large oak doors but didn't look up. He showed no sign of acknowledgement when the door was pushed open either and there were two gasps of horror behind him. 'Harry!' came the anguished shriek of Hermione, accompanied by the dull noise of Ron buckling to his knees beside him. 'Oh no.... Harry...' a shuddering breath. 'He's dead isn't he?'
  Harry nodded in response. 'What are we going to do?' Ron's voice was broken and Harry listened hazily. He wondered if Dumbeldore knew that in this miserable life, he had been the closest thing Harry had ever had to a parent. Harry bit his lip as he looked at the old wizard. He had never said had he? Never said. And now he wouldn't ever be able.
  His lips tweaked upwards and he cast a sideways look at Hermione. She also looked the sickly colour of the deceased wizard. 'How did it happen, Harry?' She said in a voice that was barely a whisper. 'How....?'
  'What?!' She cried out The green in Harry's eyes suddenly became a blood red and his body went rigid as his mouth widened into an unnatural state. He then started to speak in a voice that did not belong to the sixteen-year-old boy. 'We are one now; we have joined together and it begins now.' With those words, Harry's fingers reached for his wand and pointed it at his two best friends.
  In the silence that followed, the cauldron continued to emit clouds of green smoke. The misty fog of emerald seeped into the corners of the room and trickled out from under the crack of the door to the outside world and beyond. Its shadow morphing into the image of a skull with a snake slithering out of its mouth. A tongue licking along the walls and finally reaching up into the sky announcing the great wizard Dumbledore had died. The End...