Author's Note: I saw this idea floating around the Net and decided I had to try it for myself.
For those following my fem Ichigo story? Don't worry. Not abandoning it. But if I only have one idea going at once, I go a little stir crazy, so for now I'm switching between this story and fem Ichigo. I don't want to get tired of either tale, so I plan on bouncing from one to the other.
With that being said...
The Three E's
Chapter One
Aberforth Dumbledore - yes, from that Dumbledore family, he often grumbled - watched with suspicion as his famous elder brother ghosted into The Hog's Head Inn. It was a cold winter's night in 1979, and Albus was wearing a cloak and pointed hat ostensibly to disguise himself, though in reality rather the opposite effect was had. The pointed hat was purple and the cloak was shimmering silver.
Albus always had liked that extra effect.
Brushing off snow, he looked as usual totally out of place at The Hog's Head, a tall and forbidding sooty-bricked sort of place right on the edge of Hogsmeade, the inside composed of a small, dingy room lined with equally sooty windows and filled with candles dying slow, melting deaths on plain wooden tables.
Albus walked right up to Aberforth, openly revealing his gleaming spectacles and his long auburn beard going silver. "Nice job disguising yourself," Aberforth muttered, going back to polishing his glass behind the bar.
Albus looked pointedly at the spotted cloth. "That looks rather unsanitary."
"You know, I did arrange this meeting spot for you," said Aberforth in irritation.
"Yes, and I placed you here," Albus smiled.
"So you could -!" Aberforth began in a hiss. He looked around and whispered mutinously, "So you could spy on people."
Aberforth and Albus were unalike in everything but appearance. They had the same auburn-silver hair and beard, the same glasses, the same piercing blue eyes. But Aberforth dressed himself plainly, spoke plainly, and did not carry the same shining, carefully fortified gleam that Albus possessed. His beard was short, fluffy, and wiry; his glasses were murky; his attire consisted of a coat and boots. Albus was bookish; Aberforth preferred a duel; from the beginning it was not meant to be.
"Hm," said Albus simply. "Where is she?"
Aberforth smirked and pointed. Sitting uncertainly at a table in The Hog's Head, looking around herself and clutching a bejeweled handbag lined with fake jewels, was a woman. She did not look to be much. Frizzy brown hair, pale translucent clammy skin, countless shawls and bangles, enormous thick round glasses.
"Oh, God," said Albus, and Aberforth chuckled.
"I warned you," he said simply. "Divination my arse. Sybill Trelawney wouldn't know a real prediction if it bit her in the -"
"Yes, that's quite enough Aberforth, I do indeed share your reservations," said Albus in a highly displeased voice. "What do you think would happen if I just… never showed up to the interview?" he added longingly.
"She'd tell the press," said Aberforth readily, "that Albus Dumbledore offered to interview her for the position of Hogwarts Divination instructor and then never showed up." Aberforth made a shooing motion in Madame Trelawney's direction with his hand. Albus sighed, braced himself, and walked over.
"Ms Trelawney, is it?"
The woman gave a great, gasping start and looked around. Then immediately she rallied and said in a low, spooky, enchanting voice, "Ah, Albus Dumbledore. Yes, the Fates foretold me that you would know the owner of this pub…"
"I'm sure they did," said Albus flatly, motioning with a hand toward the staircase. Lovely, she was an eavesdropper. "If we could please?"
They started toward the staircase, watched from the shadows by a yellow-skinned man with greasy black hair and a hooked nose. The man glanced around, then scuttled up the stairs after them, prowling. Aberforth watched, his eyes narrowed.
Albus and Sybill Trelawney sat down across from each other at a small table inside a tiny single room in The Hog's Head. The window was closed, snow encrusted, just dark enough not to let in much moonlight over the stiff, cold bed, which was decorated with a dull, olive green cover. A candle burned between Albus and Sybill.
"So. Ms Trelawney. Granddaughter of the famous Cassandra Trelawney. You claim you can see predictions," said Albus, beginning the professor's interview.
"Ah, yes, I am in regular contact with my grandmother," said Sybill in a ghostly, airy voice, knowing full well her grandmother had been dead for fifteen years.
"Oh, really? What does she say?"
Sybill paused. "E-excuse me?"
"Your grandmother. I do miss her dearly at times. What sorts of things does she say?" Albus rolled his shoulders, smiling cheerfully, waiting.
"W-well… well… she said you wouldn't agree with this interview, Professor Dumbledore… that you do not believe in the Fates…"
"She knows me that well, does she?"
"Yes, Professor Dumbledore…"
"I've never met your grandmother." Sybill stopped cold. "And unless you can tell me a real prediction, I'm afraid I'm going to have to leave."
"I - I refuse to do predictions on order like that," said Sybill, straightening and flushing.
"Oh, you do? You did not foresee that as a Hogwarts Divination professor you might be required to show some actual Divination?"
Sybill had gone very red.
Albus sighed and stood to his feet, turning to leave. "Alright, Sybill. We'll try again another year -"
"The one with the power to vanquish the Dark Lord approaches… Born to those who have thrice defied him, born as the seventh month dies…"
Albus turned back around sharply, listening. Sybill's mouth was agape, her eyes rolling around in her skull, the whites showing. Hoarse, harsh words issued from her drooling mouth. She looked almost to be having a seizure, except for what she was saying.
Albus sat back down and listened very closely - and so, leaning forward, did Severus Snape, a spy for the Dark Lord, who was out on the landing.
Just then, Aberforth stormed in on Severus listening. "Spy in my pub, will you!" he roared, grabbing Severus by the collar.
"No - no - wait -" But Severus Snape was arrested down the stairs and thrown out of the pub into the cold, snowy night air.
"And stay out!" Aberforth shouted, slamming the door and leaving Severus lying there. After a moment, he stood, and Apparated away. The Dark Lord had to know.
But Albus was inside the pub, trying very hard to listen to the rest of Sybill Trelawney's prophecy, leaning forward to hear her. He'd gotten the first part: The one with the power to vanquish the Dark Lord approaches, born to those who have thrice defied him, born as the seventh month dies.
Simple enough. There were only two children being born in wizarding Britain who fit that bill, both boys: Neville Longbottom and Harry Potter. But what about the rest of it?
"And the Dark Lord shall mark him as his equal, but he will have power the Dark Lord knows not… And either one must kill the other, for neither can live while the other survives… The one with the power to vanquish the Dark Lord will be born as the seventh month dies…"
Albus sat back, thinking. What he didn't expect was for Sybill to keep talking, still in that same strange, hoarse voice. He looked up in sharp surprise.
"The Chosen One shall be aided in his quest by others… A girl born with the moon's name and a girl born with Guinevere's, neither of whom will grow up as named, shall be raised as the Chosen One's sisters, not of blood but then of blood, marked as equals as well… These three shall in turn be aided by the son of a Death Eater, a plain Muggleborn… and another incarnation of the Dark Lord himself…"
Sybill suddenly sagged, gagged, and sat upright, snorting as if she'd dozed off.
"So - so sorry - what's going on?" She looked around, caught off guard. Albus did a quick Legilimency scan over her mind, and it came back positive. Sybill Trelawney had no idea she was a real Seer, and no concept of the import of what she had just said.
"Professor Trelawney." He held out his hand and beamed. "I'd like to offer you a job."
Sybill was disbelieving, but delighted. He shook her hand, said all the right things, and insisted in a sprightly sort of way that she simply must move into the castle tonight. Then when he'd hurried back down the stairs, he went directly to Aberforth.
"You'd better not have said anything important in there," said Aberforth immediately. "I found Severus Snape lurking out in the hall."
Albus nodded absently, as if he'd already guessed. Which, even Aberforth could admit, he usually had.
"Sybill Trelawney is being moved into Hogwarts tonight," Albus said quietly. "Please… ensure that she gets there safely."
Aberforth looked curious, but he nodded.
Albus bent over the black Pensieve bowl that night, watching the memory of Professor Trelawney's prediction swirl around within it. He'd analyzed every line, and was fairly certain he'd ascribed significance to every detail.
The first part of the prophecy, that was simple. One of the two boys - Harry Potter or Neville Longbottom - would now be chosen by the Dark Lord Voldemort. Who had heard the first part of the prophecy from Severus Snape. Voldemort would unknowingly handpick his own worst enemy, thinking he was destroying that enemy instead of creating it. The only power that Voldemort didn't know was that of Light and Love; any fool could recognize it. So there would be an epic battle of Light and Dark, and one party had to kill the other party, as long as both parties continued to ascribe meaning to the prophecy.
But then there were the Others. The aides in the Chosen One's quest.
Harry Potter was not due to be born with sisters. At least, not biological ones. However… Albus did know of two other Light families. The Lovegoods were due to give birth to a girl named Luna, and the Weasleys were due to give birth to twins - one of which was going to be a girl named Ginevra. They were the two most unlikely families one could think of, but all the signs fit.
It had taken Albus a while to figure the next part out, but it all came to him in a moment. His role in the affairs. Ginevra and Luna could not be raised as Ginevra and Luna. They had to be raised as the Chosen One's sisters, in order for the prophecy to be fulfilled. "Not of blood but then of blood" could refer to an adoption blood ritual, the other part to a changing of names.
This was where the first two problems arose. First, that the Lovegoods and the Weasleys were not planning on giving up their daughters. And second, that he had to pick the right son.
But Albus knew Tom Riddle, and he thought he could do that. Everyone would expect The Great Lord Voldemort, all capital letters, to choose the Pureblood. But The Great Lord Voldemort was a Halfblood named Tom Riddle who had once looked not unlike young Harry Potter was probably going to look.
And Albus Dumbledore was almost one hundred percent dead-set sure he was going to choose Harry. So the three children, now siblings, would be marked together.
The rest of it, he could not decipher. He had his suspicions about Horcruxes, but he could not conceive of any part of Voldemort consciously going against another part of Voldemort. And as for the Death Eater's son, the plain Muggleborn? It was hard to say. That was a lot of possibilities.
But so the prophecy said, the three children stood the best chance together. He would have to try that.
The Weasleys and the Lovegoods lived near each other, several miles outside Ottery St Catchpole, which made it convenient. Both girls were born before Harry Potter, Luna born in February as an Aquarius, Ginevra in March as a Pisces. Upon March, Albus Apparated there late one night, put a silencing bubble around himself, and approached the Weasley house first.
It was a tall red brick building, really just several stories housed on top of an old pig pen, leaning steeply to the side with several chimneys atop it. Arthur Weasley worked in the Misuse of Muggle Artefacts office; Molly Weasley was a homemaker. They and all of their children were redheads.
Albus approached the house silently and slipped inside, winding past the patchwork and the shining wood, up the narrow, shabby staircase and all the way to the very top. That was where the twins were: Ron and Ginny.
He approached the crib. Ginny awoke and started crying, but with the silencing spell that didn't matter. Albus picked her up and took her in his arms. Infant Ron rolled over without waking up. The house was silent.
Albus left silently out through the back door and ghosted across the field, past the trees, and up the hill to the Lovegood abode. It looked like a tiny black castle, almost a chess piece, set high on a hill and surrounded by a creek like a moat. The Lovegoods were eccentric; Xenophilus was the editor of the rag magazine The Quibbler while Pandora was an Unspeakable for the Department of Mysteries. Both pale, blonde, and mysterious to many.
Albus once more ghosted inside the home, climbing past the stacks of things indicative of a hoarding problem, past little floating pieces of paper shaped like birds that drifted gently against his beard as they twirled around the air. Up the stairs, once more, he found Luna's room. He took her up within the silencing bubble; she opened her eyes and cooed at him, but made no other sound.
Albus smiled sadly. Then he waited until he was outside the Lovegood home, and Disapparated.
He reappeared in front of his old childhood home, the cottage in Godric's Hollow, where he was housing the Potters while they were being hunted down by the Dark Lord Voldemort. The cottage was white-faced, ivy flowers curling their way up the front. As he'd gotten the secret from the Secret-Keeper, he simply knocked and entered.
The Potters hurried over to him, looking concerned.
"Lily, James," said Albus Dumbledore; he couldn't imagine how his expression must look after he had essentially stolen a pair of children. "I need to know how much you trust me."
"Unreservedly, sir," said Lily Potter, looking concerned.
Albus gently laid the babies in her arms. "I need you to raise these two girls alongside your son," he said. "I need you to tell everyone the three were triplets, and give the girls names of your own choosing. They're both newborns."
"Oh!" Lily and James looked down, brows furrowed, into the infants' faces. Lily looked up. "But sir, why -?" She paused and looked sympathetic. Albus realized tears were blinding his vision.
"They - they couldn't stay where they were," he managed.
"Professor Dumbledore," said Lily, "would you like some tea?"
He almost gave in. But no, that was the last thing he deserved. "No," he said, waving them away. "No - name them, have the blood rituals done - people have to think they're your children! You must trust me!"
And he hurried out blindly into the growing storm, Apparating away. Lily and James stared after him in bewilderment.
The Potters blocked off all people from reaching them for several months, including, amazingly, their own Secret-Keeper. They didn't hear about the Lovegoods and the Weasleys mourning for their lost children, and they certainly didn't let anyone in on their own secrets. Above all, they trusted Albus Dumbledore.
They had their son in secret, and as promised, they named the children as they would triplets. The dark-haired little boy originally due to be named Harry would be called Edgar instead, while his redheaded sister would be Esmeralda and his blonde sister would be Evangeline.
Once all three children were born, they had the blood ritual done, whispering around a circle while injecting vials of blood into each child's arm. Esmeralda and Evangeline both became Potters, in blood and in name, irrevocably from that point forward.
As proof, the baby girls magically transfigured like they were Metamorphmagi, taking on many of Lily's physical characteristics. Some of their old traits remained, but they became a blend of the old and the new. A Weasley and a Lovegood were both unknowingly transformed into fabulously wealthy, respectable Potters.
Deciding the evidence of a few months wouldn't make that much of a difference, a few days later James threw open the door to welcome Peter Pettigrew and Sirius Black into his home.
"You go off the radar for four months and I come back to find you've had triplets!" Sirius congratulated James, clapping him on the shoulders. "I do not envy you at all! Now, where are my godchildren…?"
Sirius was too excited, a doting Peter wasn't particularly bright, and Remus wasn't there, excluded under the suspicion being a werewolf held. Thus, the secret was safe.
Only Lily, James, and Albus knew the truth. Albus never even told Severus Snape.
On the night of the attack on Godric's Hollow, Lord Voldemort stepped over the dead form of Lily Potter - James Potter's dead form was out in the hall - and up to the crib with the three crying children. He stood at an angle, leveling them with his wand. He thought it was the boy, but he didn't know for certain which one it was. Best to kill them all at once.
The glowing green Killing Curse shot off and with a bang it rebounded. All three foreheads were grazed, but the resulting pushback from three protected people at once was so strong that when it hit Voldemort's mangled, tattered soul, that soul broke off into five pieces.
The main piece, Voldemort himself, flew in fear to the forests of Albania. Three other pieces floated into the heads of the three children. But the one remaining piece?
It siphoned off power from the three children and then wandered off. Memories flitting through its mind, those memories slowly draining away, it went back to the first place it could remember: Woole's Orphanage in London.
It was still there, ready and waiting for him.
The soul piece used the power granted to it by the Potters to form its own one year old infant body. Then, in a fit of magic never before seen, over the following three to four years the soul slowly grew back over time, growing to fit its infant body. The body taken from the magic of the Potters, who now had more than enough to spare.
When the orphanage workers opened the door and looked down on the doorstep the next morning, the name suddenly came to them: Tom Riddle.
Dumbledore nearly jumped the day the alert came from the piece of parchment tethered always to his desk. He looked down - and yes, he was certain of it now.
Tom Riddle's name had just appeared on the one year old children's magical registry.
No one knew. Everyone knew Voldemort had gone to Hogwarts, and some people had known of Tom Riddle, but the only person who knew for certain that the two were the same person was Horace Slughorn. Horace had retired years ago.
Now was the time to act, but the prophecy. The prophecy.
In the end, Albus Dumbledore stayed put and did nothing, wondering if he was just as bad as the elder Tom Riddle.
Meanwhile elsewhere in the world, Draco Malfoy was being raised inside a vast, cold, magnificent mansion… and Hermione Granger was being raised by two ordinary Muggle dentists…
And Lily Potter's Muggle sister, Petunia Dursley, opened her doorstep one morning, looked down, and screamed at the three scarred orphans that had been left lying, with a letter from Dumbledore, on her doorstep.