Dumbledore paced in his office, every step echoing through the chamber like the ticking of a clock running out of time. His hands were clasped so tightly behind his back that his knuckles were stark white, betraying the storm raging inside him.
The portraits of past headmasters followed his movements with solemn, judging eyes, but he ignored their silent scrutiny. Here, in the privacy of his sanctum, he dropped the mask. The serene smile, the grandfatherly twinkle in his eyes, the carefully cultivated patience and calm demeanor that had carried him through decades of politics, wars, and endless manipulation, all of it cracked, splintered, and fell away.
Confusion. Annoyance. Anger.
He could no longer hold back the tide. With a snarl of pure, incandescent frustration, he slammed a stack of parchments from his desk, sending them fluttering and scattering across the floor like the broken pieces of a grand design long dead. A small, silver clock with a dozen moving hands clattered to the ground, shattering.
"Why?" His voice was sharp, raw, and uncharacteristic. "How did it come to this?" He turned, his gaze sweeping over the portraits of past Headmasters, their painted eyes seeming to mock his loss of composure. Phineas Nigellus Black looked particularly smug.
For years, he had worked on the grand design. Every move, every manipulation, every sacrifice was justified for the greater good. He had foreseen setbacks, but he had always believed he would retain control of the board.
The plan was meticulously constructed. Voldemort would have returned, yes, but he would have taken his time to gather strength, a slow, methodical return that would allow the Ministry to blunder and prove their incompetence to the public.
Dumbledore would have been the lone voice of reason, the lighthouse in the storm, and when the time was right, he would reveal the truth and lead the nation into a righteous war.
Harry, the Boy-Who-Lived, was supposed to play his part, to be the sacrifice that purged the Horcrux inside him, leaving Voldemort mortal once more. The remaining Horcruxes, the diary, the ring, all of them would have been destroyed under Dumbledore's guidance.
He would have led the final battle, a triumphant, unchallenged figure, the savior of wizarding Britain. History would revere him, Albus Dumbledore, the man who ended not one, but two Dark Lords. His name would be etched in eternity, a beacon for all time.
But now? His lips curled into a bitter frown. The entire plan had been turned upside down, crushed, and burned. Voldemort had revealed himself prematurely, slaughtered his own followers in a move Dumbledore still couldn't comprehend. Worse, the Dark Lord had gotten hold of the prophecy, and the orb was gone when he went to check on it.
That alone made every calculation obsolete. Everything had started to unravel at the beginning of the term.
Ever since Harry… ever since the boy had stopped listening, nothing had gone to script. It was as if the boy were a rogue piece, a wild card he could no longer control, and his every move sent ripples of unpredictable chaos across the board.
The Ministry's reaction had been a joke, their bumbling attempts to discredit both Harry only serving to make them seem foolish, but even that had been part of the original script, he knew from the start it would be hard to take the return of Tom.
It was the sudden, unprovoked attack on the Ministry by Voldemort and the subsequent slaughter of his own people that defied all logic, and it was a move Dumbledore hadn't been prepared for.
And then there was the curse. Dumbledore looked down at his blackened hand, the twisted skin pulsing faintly beneath the wrappings. The curse felt like creeping poison, a slow, agonizing death threading deeper into his magic, he could feel his life slipping every second.
He had torn through his personal library, consulted every obscure tome he possessed, even reached out, quietly, discreetly, to contacts who might know something of such vile magic.
The answer was always the same, nothing. This was a curse that was as old as the oldest known magic. How Voldemort got it and learnt it was something that bothered him, yet still he had expected at least some hint, but nothing, nothing at all.
Snape had been his only hope, the man had known a way to slow its spread, a specific potion, a specific potion that could have bought him time. And now Snape was dead.
The surge of rage came again, hot and uncharacteristic. He swept his arm across his desk, knocking quills, parchments, and trinkets to the floor with a furious clatter. He leaned heavily against the wood, chest heaving.
"Why now?" he muttered, his voice low and shaking. "Why must that fool die now?" Yes, fool. Dumbledore was convinced Snape hadn't simply fallen to a miscast spell. He had examined the body. The signs were all wrong. The wounds were inflicted by his own magic, yes, but magic did not turn upon its wielder like that without outside interference.
Someone had done this. Someone had removed his most crucial piece from the board, a piece whose value had skyrocketed because of his condition, and it bothered him, but what bothered him most was that after all of this, his mind kept coming back to one Harry Potter. He tried to think of anything else, but always, always, his thoughts circled back to Harry.
Something had changed in the boy. He had no proof, nothing tangible, but instinct screamed at him. Harry was no longer the pawn. He no longer listened, no longer obeyed, and somehow, somehow, everything began to unravel the moment the boy slipped beyond his influence. The boy had something to do with all this, that's what his instinct was telling him.
Dumbledore lowered himself heavily into his chair, his gaze drifting until it landed on the drawer beside him. Slowly, almost reverently, he opened it and withdrew the small black stone.
The Resurrection Stone.
It sat in his palm, cold and heavy, thrumming faintly with old, strange magic. His lips pressed into a thin line as memory tugged at him. He had tried it, of course.
The temptation had been too great. At first, he had thought to summon Ariana to ask her the question that had haunted him his entire life, whose spell had killed her? His? Aberforth's? The bitter tears of regret and guilt had welled in his eyes, but in the end, he had faltered.
He had not been ready to face the answer. Not her. Not his father, either. Too much bitterness, too much pain, too many pained ghosts of a shared past. So instead, he had summoned Nicolas Flamel.
His old mentor had been gone only a handful of years. And it had worked, truly worked. For a few fleeting minutes, he had spoken with Nicolas as though he stood once more beside him, a brief, bittersweet reunion.
But the summons had been short. The next time, shorter still. And by the fifth attempt, all that appeared were shades, blurred and incomplete, their voices like whispers on a cold wind.
Something was wrong. He had researched, tested, and probed the stone's secrets. And his conclusion had annoyed him, he was not of Peverell blood. The Hallows were bound to that ancient line.
Without the blood, their true potential was locked. He could coax fragments of power, but not the whole. Unless, of course, he gathered all three Hallows together.
That was the key. He already had two. The Elder Wand bent to his will, though its loyalty was… slippery.
And now the Resurrection Stone.
Only the Cloak remained. His eyes narrowed. The Cloak was in Harry's possession. If this had been last year, he might already have had it in his grasp. But now, with the boy estranged and defiant, it would be more difficult. Still, what was difficulty to him?
He rolled the Stone between his fingers, mind racing. The cloak would be his. It had to be. With all three Hallows, even the curse could be undone, he was sure of it.
He would be whole again. Strong again. Immortal even. Voldemort could wait. Britain could wait. All that mattered now was survival. Albus Dumbledore sat back, the gleam of obsession in his eyes. The chessboard had shattered, but the game was not over. Not yet.
Chamber of Secrets
The air in the Chamber of Secrets was cool and still, a welcome reprieve from the corridors of Hogwarts.
Harry stood in the center of the vast, echoing space, the colossal skeleton of the Basilisk a silent, bleached-white spectator to their training session.
Hermione and Ron, cloaked, watched from a safe distance, their faces illuminated by the eerie glow of Harry's conjured light source.
"Right then," Harry said, his voice echoing slightly in the silence. He extended a hand and focused, a shimmering, ethereal blue energy coalescing around his palm before solidifying into a solid, mundane rock. He dropped it to the floor with a heavy thud. "Hermione's idea," he added with a slight smirk, glancing at his friend. "She wanted to see a demonstration of my… capabilities."
Hermione clutched a thick notebook and a quill, her eyes wide with a mixture of academic curiosity and barely contained excitement.
"I just wanted to see what you could do, Harry," she said, her voice a little breathless. "I mean, I've gotten information from different sources, but that's all just stories that others tell me, and the abilities, it's all theory until you see the practical application after all. Plus, you've been so secretive about it, and with everything going on… I thought we could just see." She bit her lip. "Just the physical stuff, of course. I'm not asking about… You know." She gestured vaguely.
Harry nodded, understanding. He hadn't told them about all his Authorities. Not yet.
He took a deep breath, focusing on the raw power thrumming beneath his skin. He moved. One moment, he was still, the next, he was a blur of motion, a streak that zipped across the cavern floor with impossible speed, a soundless thunderclap marking his passing.
Ron's jaw dropped so low it looked like it might unhinge. Hermione, however, just scribbled furiously in her notebook, her quill a frantic blur across the page as she tried to capture every detail.
Harry reappeared beside the rock he had created. He raised his fist, the knuckles glowing with a faint, golden light, and punched. The air cracked with the force of the blow.
The rock exploded into a thousand tiny fragments, scattering in a fine, silver dust that glittered in the light. The sound of the impact was like a cannon going off, echoing in the cavern, and a rush of wind followed, making Hermione's robes flutter. Ron instinctively raised an arm to shield his face, looking profoundly shaken.
Hermione was unfazed. Her quill was a blur as she wrote. "Incredible!" she breathed. "The speed, the force! How does it feel, Harry? Is it like casting a spell, or is it… different? Is it an external force you are channeling, or is it an internal energy you are releasing? Are there any magical signatures left behind? I'm not detecting any lingering magical residue, which is fascinating!"
Harry paused, considering the barrage of questions. It was just so… Hermione. "It's not really like casting a spell," he explained, walking over to them. "It feels… natural. Like breathing, or just moving my arm. The power is just… there. I don't have to think about it. It's part of me now, a constant well of strength. It doesn't drain me, it doesn't tire me, it just… is."
"And your limits?" she pressed, her eyes shining with intellectual greed. "Have you found them yet? How do you know how much force to use? Could you, say, shatter a wall with a flick of your wrist? Or is there a limit to the density of what you can affect?"
Harry shrugged. "I don't know. I haven't really had a chance to test them. I've just been doing enough to get by. But I'm still learning." He had, of course, experimented on his own. He knew the extent of his powers, knew he could do far more than just break a rock. He could tear the very foundations of the school apart if he chose to, but he was not about to reveal that. It was one thing to show them a fraction of his power, and another to show them the full, terrifying scope of it.
"And what about the, the other powers?" Hermione asked, lowering her voice conspiratorially, her eyes flicking to Ron as if to ensure he was still there. "The ones you… took? How do they work? Do they just… appear when you need them? Do you feel different when you're using them? What's the process? Is it a vocal command, or…?"
Harry held up a hand, stopping her stream of questions. "Whoa, whoa, slow down, Hermione. We'll get to that later. And you two have things to do, remember? Prefect duties?" He raised an eyebrow, a clear sign that the session was over.
Hermione's eyes widened as she looked at her watch. "Oh, goodness, you're right! We're going to be late!" She shoved her notebook into her bag, nearly hitting Ron in the head with it, and began to hurry off. "Come on, Ron! We have to patrol the third floor! You know how Filch gets if we're late!"
Ron, who had been staring, utterly mesmerized, at the dust motes still hanging in the air from the shattered rock, snapped back to attention. "Oh, yeah, right. Coming, Hermione!" He gave Harry a wide-eyed look. "You're brilliant, mate," he said, before jogging after Hermione.
Harry just chuckled softly to himself, shaking his head as they disappeared from view. He was glad to have his friends see a small part of his true self. He had been getting tired of keeping secrets. And now that they were gone, he had to get ready.
He opened his hand, a folded letter appearing in his palm. The handwriting was neat, elegant. Daphne. They were meeting today.
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