At Last

Professor Albus Dumbledore was not one to be easily startled or fazed; very few people had ever seen him lose his grip on his serene composure.

However, on this day, a record amount of people spotted the old wizard dashing hurriedly this way and that, his beard unkempt and tangled around his wizened face, not bothering to hide his disquiet. Later, though he himself would not be there to notice it, the headline on the Daily Prophet would read: 'Albus Dumbledore – Cracked at Last'.

It all started when Albus Dumbledore received a frantic knock on his door on a calm morning during the summer of 1991. Many of the professors had gone back to their homes – which strangely, many people did not believe they had – and the school had been deserted with the exception of himself, Argus Filch, Rubeus Hagrid, and Minerva McGonagall, who was preparing letters to send out to the students the following year.

Albus had been slowly melting a lemon drop in his mouth, savoring the balance of the sweet and sour flavor to which he found that no other candy could amount. He closed his eyes and sighed with contentment, valuing the time that no giggling lovers placed themselves outside the gargoyle guarding his door, and no exasperated professors came barging in with the Weasley twins in tow.

They were only in third year, but Albus estimated that they had been in his office more than any of the seventh years combined. He couldn't even begin to comprehend how Molly Weasley could bear it. And to think another Weasley would be coming to the school this year...

He was so far into his thoughts that he was sharply startled by the transfiguration professor pushing his door open with a crash. Albus, trying to look unbothered, hurriedly adjusted the sparkling hat on his head that had become slightly crooked at his twitch of surprise. Minerva was standing at his door, cheeks flushed as if she had just drunk a glass or two of brandy.

"Minerva, my dear," Albus exclaimed mildly, dropping the title of 'professor'. "What has got you in such a state? Nothing has happened, has it?" Yet she remained still for a moment, blankly staring at him.

"Have the Weasley twins returned for an early visit?" he chuckled, abruptly cutting off as he realized that the woman was not laughing, not even forcedly as usual, at his attempt at humour. Instead, he saw Minerva crinkle her nose at him in contempt, and hold out a shaking hand.

In it was a letter.

Albus was confused. "What of this letter? Has a student recently…" he coughed delicately. "Deceased?" Once in the last decade, there had been an incident in which a student had died rather unfortunately on the very day that the letters were sent out. Morbidly, the quill that wrote the letters had written quite clearly as the address:

Off On The Next Great Adventure.

Needless to say, Albus Dumbledore had re-charmed the quill himself many years ago.

Nonetheless, he still could not fathom why his colleague would be standing at his door in such a fashion. What could have made her run all the way up here? It was something that she rarely did due to her fragile knees, which, unfortunately, Mme Pomfrey said were no use trying to cure, as they were just suffering the effects of too many transfiguration mishaps.

However, there was a special case this year.

"Harry Potter?"Albus whispered, almost dreading the response. His heart dropped as Minerva silently nodded yes. It was the year Harry Potter was due to come to Hogwarts. The year that he was supposed to quietly and naively enter the Wizarding World, find loving and supportive friends, and gently be shaped into the hero he was supposed to become.

Everything was planned, and everything was supposed to be smoothly executed.

But what was the problem?

He took the letter she was holding out, curiosity winning over the confusion and alarm that something could have caused a hitch in the road. As he took the letter, his eyes scanned over the eloquent handwriting.

Mr H. Potter. That was good. It would have been quite a shock if he had changed his name for a reason. Albus briefly had a flashback of a young rebellious girl who had convinced her parents to have her name legally changed to – oh, what was it? – Grindy. Of course, that had been many years ago when Grindelwald had held mighty power over Wizarding Britain. Albus shuddered to imagine what would have happened if young Harry had managed to find out about Voldemort, and in an act of defiance, had changed his name to Voldy Potter.

No, Harry did not grow up like that, Albus knew. Harry had grown up in an environment that had caused him to become blindly trusting to people who cared for him, and neutral to those that did not. Coming from a family of anti-magic relatives, Harry would never have been able to convince them to change his name in the first place. Albus felt satisfied, and moved onto the next line.

Stockholm Orphanage.

Oh Merlin, no. Albus closed his eyes silently, his fingers crumpling the paper quietly as he relieved a rush of memories he had kept buried for many years.

Stockholm Orphanage. The orphanage where another baby had been left all alone. The orphanage where another young boy had grown up, facing discrimination and hate from his peers. The orphanage that had helped in shaping, yet twisting, the soul of another, creating a man with neither remorse nor compassion. The orphanage of Tom Riddle, later to be known as Voldemort.

Suddenly, all he could taste was the sour aftertaste of the lemon drop.

"How did he end up in an orphanage?" Albus wondered out loud, trying desperately to find how his plan had gone wrong. It was all supposed to work out perfectly. Petunia, though resenting magic and hiding a deep jealously for those who had any, would take the death of her sister harshly, and take Harry in as the last symbol of Lily Potter; and though his family would neglect him, Harry would keep a good heart and a pure soul, eventually ending up as a gracious and generous person.

After all, that's how it worked, wasn't it?

But unfortunately, fate seemed to have a way of taunting him viciously.

The real question was, how had he ended up in that orphanage?

Minerva seemed to be seething with a ferocity that was rarely revealed in front of the Headmaster. Albus looked up tiredly – hadn't he had enough for one day? Minerva McGonagall's harsh reprimanding could have had anyone on their knees begging for mercy, he knew.

"I told you, Albus," she started loudly. "I told you that night when," she choked slightly on her words, "Lily and James were killed, that Harry should never have gone to his relatives. I can't even fathom what you were thinking when you left a baby on the doorsteps of a bunch of horrid Muggles, Albus. In the middle of the night."

"I thought I was doing the right thing at the time, Minerva –"

She seethed. "The right thing? The right thing? Who on earth would think that leaving a little boy all alone to be loathed by his relatives could be the right thing?"

Albus sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose. "I… I thought that they would treat young Harry as their own –"

Minerva let out a high, shrill laugh that slightly unsettled Albus. "You never thought that, Albus. Anyone who had their heads screwed on right could never have thought that. Those people were horrible, and that other little boy was spoiled to the bone. Nobody changes overnight. If only he had been left with anyone else…"

"I had no choice," Albus countered unenthusiastically. This had been a frequent argument throughout the years. "There was nobody else that he could have been left with."

"Sirius – " Minerva's nostrils flared at the thought of Black. Albus tactfully pretended to examine his fingernails. "Even though he might have been unavailable as a godfather to the boy, there was always a grand choice of families that would have been happy to treat the Boy-Who-Lived as their son. The Bones, the Diggory's, and maybe even the Weasley's! He would have undoubtedly lived a happy life with any of them, and not have been sent to an orphanage!"

"It was for his own good," Albus said firmly, ending the conversation. Minerva shook her head in furious disapproval and said something that nobody had ever said to the Headmaster before.

"No. It was for the greater good," she spat, and turned to storm out of his office. She momentarily stopped and glanced back over her shoulder. "Fix this, Albus. Not for the greater good, but for a little boy's soul." Minerva then walked out, heading towards her office, her dark-green cloak swishing behind her.

Albus sat quietly in his chair for a few minutes, mulling over the revelations that had completely ruined the normal, sunny afternoon. Harry Potter was not with his Muggle relatives. Harry Potter was in an orphanage – an orphanage famous for brutal punishments and strong discipline. Harry Potter might not be the Harry Potter he had been expecting for all these years.

With that thought, he jumped out of his chair as if he had been shocked, and dashed out of his office, Fawkes shaking its head sorrowfully after him.

Albus looked up at the peeling sign that introduced the crumbling building of which he currently stood in front as 'Stockholm Orphanage – Loving Home for Children'. He let out an undignified huff of breath. With an unwelcome sense of déjà-vu, he pushed open the creaking iron gates and strolled up the steps of the front door.

After a brief moment of hesitation, Albus braced himself and gave the door a knock.

Following the sounds of pounding footsteps from the other side, the door was abruptly yanked open by a stern, unpleasant-looking man with thick eyebrows. "What's yer business here, sir?"

"I am looking for a young man who has been residing here for a while," Albus stated calmly, having practiced his speech on his way here. The man peered at him suspiciously, and then motioned him inside with a hairy hand.

"Quickly, now."

As Albus strolled in the door, he took note of his surroundings; nothing much had changed since he was here those long decades ago – with the exception that the old building looked even older, with no reparations done what-so-ever.

Oddly, the whole building was silent. Even with his sharp hearing, no footsteps, no voices, and no sounds of any children living there could be heard.

The man indicated for him to take a seat in the wooden chair in which he had sat many years prior. As soon as he got comfortable, the man spoke in a gruff voice. "I'm Biff Cole, and this orphanage has been in my family for decades now. So what'chu want, mister? You say you're lookin' for a boy? How many d'you want? We've got plenty – just name an age and you can take one home today. No paperwork. Just don't bring 'em back."

Albus stared. This man sounded like he was breeding and selling dogs, not taking care of orphaned children.

Feeling a flash of deep annoyance, Albus said in a steady tone, "Hello, my name is Mr Dumbledore, and I am searching for a specific little boy. I am here to talk to Mr Harry Potter about a private boarding school that his parents have wanted him to attend since his –"

"Harry Potter, you say?" Biff interrupted, a strange gleam in his eyes. Albus sat a little taller, unnerved. This was not unlike the reaction that he had received before, when he had spoken of another young, orphaned boy.

"Yes, his name has been down on our school list for many years, now."

Biff smirked, hands coming together beneath his chin. "Harry Potter, he's a special kind of lad. Always doing strange things, scaring other children – he's an outcast, y'know. He'll never fit in at your school. Are you sure you want him?"

Albus' mouth went dry, and he desperately wished that he had a lemon drop. "What kind of strange things, may I ask?"

The orphanage owner seemed to savor the question. "Well, he's almost the oldest of the lot. Eleven years ol'. Nobody wanted him. His relatives dropped him off years ago 'cause he was terrorizin' them or somethin'. Didn't give too much info. He has this cunning that I've never seen before in any child. He's sneaky." He chortled delightedly. "He's a pretty smart kid, though, I'll give you that."

Leaning in closer, he said in a soft voice, "He used to try and escape, you know. Said he had a place that he needed to go to. Said someone was waitin' for him. I didn't let him, 'course. And then you know what he did? He threatened to get revenge on me. Me! Hah!"

Revenge?

"How – how does he scare the other children?" Albus asked without really wanting to know the answer. Did young Harry also threaten and purposely hurt the other children?

Albus watched as Biff's grimy face formed a thoughtful expression. "I don't really know," Biff grunted, looking a little disconcerted, "you see, I've never caught him doin' anything. But the other rascals just don't like bein' alone with him, see. They never stay in the same room as him."

Thinking that he had put it off long enough, Albus quietly inquired, "May I see him, perhaps?" Without speaking, Biff stood up, grinned unkindly, then pointed towards the direction of the rickety stairs.

"Go help yourself, mister. And if you can, feel free to take some of the other runts with ya…"

After brushing his robes off, Albus nodded politely to the incompetent owner and turned around, heading straight for the stairs without looking back. Throughout their conversation, the whole building had been unnervingly silent. But as the first stair let out a loud creak, a quiet scattering of small feet was heard from above.

A long hallway presented itself before Albus. Contrary to the dirty outer appearance of the orphanage, the upstairs seemed to have been meticulously cleaned; no cobwebs nor colourful toys could be found.

Every door was closed except for one.

Hesitantly, the Headmaster headed towards the open door that seemed to be inviting him in. Behind the many closed doors, he could hear muffled whispers and the scuffles of children fighting to see under the cracks. Before he reached the door, however, another creaked open and a tiny child, no older than the age of five, crept up and tugged on his cloak.

"You betta not go in ther, mista," the little girl whispered, wringing her hands on stained trousers that looked too large for her small body. "You don' wanna see him. You don' wanna go in ther."

Albus was startled at the pure fear that shown in the girl's eyes, and wondered what she had been subjected to by Harry Potter's hands to make her react in this way. Before he could open his mouth to ask, the girl gave a squeak and skittered away from him, pointing her finger at something behind him.

Dreading what he was about to see, Albus slowly turned on the spot as the small girl quickly made her back into her room.

A boy was sitting on the floor, reading a book.

Albus had not heard him come out of his room.

His dark hair was long and mussed, and messy bangs covered the front of his face. While the girl's clothes had been too big for her, his clothes looked like they fit perfectly on his thin frame. Long fingers were slowly tracing across the page of the book, following the words he was reading. He gave no indication that he noticed Albus standing directly in front of him.

The Headmaster could not bring himself to move a muscle as a page flipped, and then another, neither acknowledging the other.

Suddenly, the boy shut the book gently, stood up, and stared directly into the old wizard's eyes. Albus opened his mouth to speak, but found that nothing was coming out of his mouth.

A grin slowly appeared on Harry's young face.

"Why don't you come into my room, mister...?"

"Dumbledore," Albus answered in a voice unfamiliar to himself.

"Hmm."

With that, Harry spun on his heels and gestured him into the room.

Albus quietly followed the boy in, feeling like an animal walking into an obvious trap. The voices from behind the other doors had turned to silence, and the taps of his boots echoed loudly in the hallway. Strangely, Harry's steps did not make a sound.

When he entered the room, a part of him was glad to find that the space seemed quite ordinary, almost to the point of being dull. No animal heads were mounted on the walls and no suspicious blood stains covered the floorboards. He chuckled inwardly at the silly thought, mostly to calm his own uneasy senses.

And the boy who sat calmly in the chair seemed like – well, like a child, and not the monster that the orphanage residents had made him out to be. A small hope blossomed in Albus' heart. Perhaps the boy could turn out to be their saviour after all.

With this burst of courage, Albus smiled at the child in his chair, who was looking directly into his eyes with a blank but friendly expression. "Hello, Mr. Potter. My name is Albus Dumbledore, and I'm the Headmaster of –"

"– Hogwarts, yes, I know," Harry interrupted, but said nothing more. He sat still, his eyes still boring into the headmaster's without a hint of animosity.

Nonplussed, Albus frowned. The boy had never had any contact with the magical world before, had he? This meeting was not going according to plan.

"Have you heard about Hogwarts before, Mr. Potter?" Albus asked cautiously, not wanting to seem like he was interrogating the boy. Harry did not give any indication that he was surprised by the question.

"Yes," he replied, smiling innocently up at him. He green eyes were bright and open, and completely different from the possibly jaded little boy that Albus had been expecting to see.

His hope grew even bigger.

"That is simply great, dear boy," Albus cried. "Your relatives informed you, I'm certain?" Albus remembered too late what Biff had said: 'his relatives dropped him off years ago 'cause he was terrorizin' them...'

However, Harry gave no sudden emotional reaction to the mention of his relatives, for which Albus was both relieved and unnerved.

Instead, Harry shook his head, a benign smile upon his face. "No, I learned from another source. My relatives did not care for me, as I'm sure you already know, being the one who placed me there."

The door slammed shut.

Albus jumped up and pulled his wand out of his cloak. Nobody had been outside the room, he was certain. Had it been Harry's accidental magic? After all, talking about his relatives was most likely stressful for him.

Breathing out a sigh, he made to put his wand away – only to see that it was not in his hand.

Harry had somehow managed to take his wand from his grip without him noticing, and was casually twirling it between his thin fingers in a slow, steady rhythm.

A thrill of horror ran through Albus as he realized that Harry Potter was not at all what he seemed like on the outside.

"You should realise, sir," Harry said calmly, "that when a little boy is left locked in a shed for hours at a time from the age of three, he has to find something to occupy his time." He stopped twirling the wand. "Once he discovers he can talk to snakes without a wide range of vocabulary – well, perhaps reptiles don't have the most rational ideas when it comes to venting unhealthy feelings." A chuckle. "And to think that I was only three..."

Albus shook his head, running his trembling fingers down his beard. "I'm sorry, my boy, I believed that your Aunt would feel a need to protect you –" He broke off as Harry's lips quirked up mockingly; the innocent mask he had donned at the beginning of their conversation was now fully gone.

"Well then, it must hurt your gigantic ego to be so utterly wrong."

Now he wasn't playing around. Albus stood straighter and wordlessly tried to summon his wand back. Although he half-expected it, he felt a rising sense of despair when the wand – his Elder Wand, for crying out loud – didn't even give a slight twitch.

Harry was not smiling anymore.

Across from him, Albus stared back with a chilling gaze under which most hardened wizards would have quailed. "From whom," he asked flatly, "did you hear about Hogwarts? About magic?" Albus startled as Harry unexpectedly leapt up from his chair and walked to his closet, his footsteps muted. The headmaster tried not to register just how much Harry reminded him of a snake, gliding soundlessly across the floor. The closet doors opened.

For a moment, nothing happened. All Albus saw was the plain wooden plank at the back of the closet, upon which a cracked mirror was nailed. There were no clothes nor hooks to hold them; it seemed quite a dull space. Then his eyes moved downwards toward the massive green snake coiled up on the floor. He blanched.

"Isn't she gorgeous?" Harry murmured, eyes glinting with affection. He glanced over at the older wizard's frozen expression, and gave a soft smile, one that finally looked natural on his childish face, despite the situation. "Don't worry. She's perfectly harmless when she wishes to be."

Albus grinned weakly.

"Which is never."

Harry knelt down, crooning, hissing, softly under his breath; the snake awoke immediately, scaled head snapping in the direction of the unfamiliar adult. Threat. She flicked out her tongue and stared into Harry's eyes, as if waiting for a command. Albus unconsciously took a step back, almost tripping over his favourite cloak.

On the other hand, Harry was rolling his eyes at the snake as if it were an old friend – which, Albus supposed, wasn't too far-fetched of an idea. Nothing seemed out of the realm of possibility anymore. "It's funny. I'm not her Master, not at all, but she seems to think I'm worthy of commanding her." He crooned again, and after a moment, giggled at a private joke. "If only you could hear her, Albus Dumbledore. She has many plans for you."

"I..." Albus swallowed, his mouth dry. "Who is her Master, then?"

Harry stroked the snake's head once and stood up, rolling his head and stretching his neck. When he spoke, his voice dripped with derision. "As if you haven't guessed already. You're trembling in fear."

"There is no shame in a man showing fear –"

"Says the coward of a headmaster."

Albus' eyes narrowed in anger. "You've been corrupted, Harry Potter."

"I'd rather be corrupted and have a mind of my own than be used as a pawn in your little games, Dumbledore," Harry seethed, tightening his grip of the wand, knuckles white. "He has changed me for the better. He has given me power you would have suppressed. He has taught me things you would have concealed. He's honest with me about his intentions, and I respect honesty much more than love. Love is fragile, breakable. And you used its fragility to try and mold me into a blind fool."

He was right.

Feeling a century of failures weighing upon him like a boulder on his chest, Albus could only whisper two words: "I'm sorry." But he was eleven years too late, it seemed. No – much longer than that, he thought, as he remembered his sister, blonde and fragile and pale and oh so still.

Despite the headmaster's inner turmoil, Harry seemed quite unperturbed. The boy unclenched his fingers from the wand and resumed twirling it, a serene look on his face. "Apologies are rather useless at this point, and I can tell you agree. Any other questions, Dumbledore?"

"You'll not be coming to Hogwarts," Albus said faintly, his usual confidence and power having escaped him during their meeting.

"'Course I will."

Albus was momentarily speechless. "What?"

"Of course I'll be attending Hogwarts," Harry said matter-of-factly, yawning. "It's what my parents would've wanted. Lily and James Potter would've loved it for their son to attend Hogwarts. How cruel of you to keep their wishes from coming true. I mean, I have a savings account at Gringotts, after all."

"But... you can't." He had forsaken all semblance of composure.

"Why not?" After a momentary pause, Harry opened his eyes wide, green eyes glistening with sudden wetness. "You won't let me go to Hogwarts, mister?" The eleven-year-old seemed smaller, innocent. "I just want to learn magic."

Albus gaped. The corners of his eyes were becoming blurry. He plucked his glasses off his nose and gave them a good wipe on his robe. As he set them back on his face, he felt a familiar weight settle in between the fingers of his right hand; his wand was back. But... of course it was. It always was. It had never left his hand in the first place.

He looked back at the boy.

Harry was sitting on his bed, a worn book in his lap and an eager look on his face. His thin legs swung back and forth. "I really am a wizard, Mr – oh, sorry – Professor Dumbledore?"

"Of course you are," Albus chortled, smiling kindly as young Harry's mouth opened in wonder. His plan was working as just he hoped it would. The orphanage had been but a small obstacle. "You'll get a wand just like this one! Your mother and father would be very proud of you, Harry."

The headmaster shook his head slightly to clear the unexplained disorientation.

Eyes glistening with tears, Harry whispered, "I've always wanted to meet them."

Albus kneeled in front of him and gently placed his hand on the boy's shoulder. "Your parents will always be with you, Harry." He pointed his index finger at Harry's chest. "They will always be with you in the most powerful form: love. Never forget that."

Nodding gratefully, Harry sniffed and got up from the bed. Albus also stood, and walked over to the door.

"I hope the letter I left you will be sufficient," Albus said, "and if not, I –" he broke off, feeling the lump of a letter still sitting in his cloak. "My... apologies, it seems as if I haven't given you the letter at all," he said, trying to hide his bewilderment. He really must be getting old. Harry accepted the letter with a giggle of delight and quickly thrust it in his closet, pausing for a brief second as he fiddled with something within.

In the reflection of the mirror hanging in the back of the closet, unseen to anyone else, his pale irises flashed blood red.

With a final handshake and an exchange of smiles, Albus left the room, feeling quite pleased about how the meeting had went. The halls were silent as he made his way downstairs, and Mr Cole seemed to have retired to his room – which, to tell the truth, was fine for Albus; he had no desire to face the disagreeable man again.

It was as he stepped out of the orphanage itself that the memories of what had happened assaulted him with full force, and he gasped loudly, clutching his head. Albus spun around quickly, then stopped, mouth dropping open in complete shock. The orphanage was gone.

In desperation, he performed every unveiling spell, every detection charm he could on where he was certain the orphanage had been just seconds before. Nothing, nothing at all, resulted from his efforts. He sank to the ground in despair, staring at the fascinating pattern of pebbles embedded in the dirt. A baby adder slithered out of the nearby bushes and hissed at him.

But... what was he doing here again? What was he looking for?

Albus straightened up, brushing his robes off in confusion. He frowned, trying to remember what he was doing and – ah, yes, he was just going to Hogsmeade for a bottle of Madam Rosmerta's finest. With a flick of his wand and a spin of his heel, he apparated to the door of the Three Broomsticks.

The next moment, his head was in his hands again, and he groaned in consternation as memories flashed through his mind: a raven-haired boy sitting in the center of the hallway; a snake curled up, its head rising, tongue tasting the air; his wand, spinning round and round between two thin fingers; and finally, an innocent, trusting young boy looking up at him with reverence.

"Professor Dumbledore, are you quite all right?"

Rosmerta's concerned voice prompted him to lift his head from where he had collapsed against the wall. She was leaning out of the open wooden door, a hand extended hesitantly in his direction. He blinked once. Twice.

"Oh, yes," Albus said, smiling, "I'm perfectly fine. I'm simply looking to purchase a bottle of your finest brew, my dear." She was still frowning slightly from concern, but she nodded and headed back indoors. A few people were staring at him warily from the road. One witch had stopped her shopping to stare at him unguardedly; a bag of dried crocodile intestines dangled awkwardly from her fingers.

He hoisted himself off the wall and stepped inside the pub, giving a friendly wave to the patrons who recognised him.

And then it began again.

Albus rushed out of the warm pub, ignoring the startled mutters behind him – surely the beginnings of unfounded rumours – and repeated aloud to himself, "Don't forget, don't forget, not this time, don't forget," which was a futile effort, as he immediately forgot.

The day went on, as Albus dashed this way and that, ripping out strands of his beard in frustration and wearing the soles out of his boots. After being told of his brother's bizarre actions, old Aberforth Dumbledore, smelling of goats, rushed out of Hog's Head and shouted delightedly, "There's my brother! There's my brother! What'd I tell you fools! He's gone and finally cracked for good!"

According to the whispers of the townsfolk later that day, the headmaster's phoenix had appeared sometime during the proceedings in a burst of flame and sat still on a roof, watching as the wizened wizard lost his head. Then, it had let a single tear fall from its eye before it disappeared, never to be seen again.

In September, a new term commenced.

In the place of the headmaster sat Professor Minerva McGonagall, who seemed to have aged twenty years in the past month. She fiddled nervously with a spoon as she watched the sorting. Although the room had previously been filled with subdued murmurs of excitement and complaints of growing hunger, it was completely silent as a slender figure stepped up to take a seat on the wooden stool. Before the raggedy hat slipped over his face, the boy let his lips twist into a crooked smile.

Harry Potter had come to Hogwarts at last.

The End