“Blimey—but would it still work if Dumbledore broke—?”
“Work? Work? Ron, it never worked! There’s no such thing as a Resurrection Stone!” Hermione leapt to her feet, looking exasperated and angry. “Harry, you’re trying to fit everything into the Hallows story—”
“Fit everything in?” he repeated. “Hermione, it fits of its own accord! I know the sign of the Deathly Hallows was on that stone! Gaunt said he was descended from the Peverells!”
“A minute ago you told us you never saw the mark on the stone properly!”
“Where’d you reckon the ring is now?” Ron asked Harry. “What did Dumbledore do with it after he broke it open?”
But Harry’s imagination was racing ahead, far beyond Ron and Hermione’s…
Three objects, or Hallows, which, if united, will make the possessor master of Death… Master… Conqueror… Vanquisher… The last enemy that shall be destroyed is death…
And he saw himself, possessor of the Hallows, facing Voldemort, whose Horcruxes were no match… Neither can live while the other survives… Was this the answer? Hallows versus Horcruxes? Was there a way after all, to ensure that he was the one who triumphed? If he were the master of the Deathly Hallows, would he be safe?
“Harry?”
But he scarcely heard Hermione: He had pulled out his Invisibility Cloak and was running it through his fingers, the cloth supple as water, light as air. He had never seen anything to equal it in his nearly seven years in the Wizarding world. The Cloak was exactly what Xenophilius had described: A cloak that really and truly renders the wearer completely invisible, and endures eternally, giving constant and impenetrable concealment, no matter what spells are cast at it…
And then, with a gasp, he remembered—
“Dumbledore had my Cloak the night my parents died!”
His voice shook and he could feel the color in his face, but he did not care.
“My mum told Sirius that Dumbledore borrowed the Cloak! This is why! He wanted to examine it, because he thought it was the third Hallow! Ignotus Peverell is buried in Godric’s Hollow…” Harry was walking blindly around the tent, feeling as though great new vistas of truth were opening all around him. “He’s my ancestor. I’m descended from the third brother! It all makes sense!”