I don't own Harry Potter but I would like to…. Ummm…I smell cookies…

Chapter One:

Once again Albus found himself alone in the deserted room, his eyes tilted to the ceiling, trying to avoid the only feature of the empty room drawing him in again. A small teardrop trickled slowly off the end of his long crooked nose. He looked up. Perhaps the new location of the mirror of Erised was, well, for the best. The past would always be his weakness. He stood and gently brushed the dust off the mirror's frame, touching it and seeing its solid structure made him hurt with the past. The dust entered his lungs and he doubled up coughing, that's when she caught his sight again. Ariana. Standing as he once had known her. In her blue dress smiling. Kendra, his mother, at her side. A lost future stood before him and Albus touched the surface of the mirror, and for what he secretly hoped would not be the last time, bid his mother and sister goodbye, as he once had done so many year before.

As he hurried back to the safety of his office pictures of his childhood, a childhood he had tried to hard to forget, drifted wearily through his dazed mind. Taking a deep breath he hurried on, anxious not to be caught near the room. He knew that he never truly forgot. No, it was more a case of not wanting to inflict his past upon the others around him. This way the memories seemed to fade, admittedly slowly, but none the less faded. He recalled a time when he had sworn not to forget, for them. At the time he believed this would be all he could do for them. But as the years dragged by the memories became few and short. Quite inadequate. Nevertheless this was a poor reason to hurt himself by opening up old scars, a poor reason to wander into the room and stare at them, so he could feel them again. Yes, a poor reason indeed.

Albus wondered what had brought him to the mirror tonight, could it be the idea of Lily and James's family in danger, just as his once had been? Or maybe, the thought crossed his mind without his intention, the pictures of his mother and sister in his mind deteriorating had unsettled him. He pushed the thought from his mind. He would not dwell on it, there was an opportunity right in front of him to save a family in danger. He wanted to redeem himself, if their family was kept safe, maybe he could let go of the surging thoughts of that night. As he reached the stairs to his office he spoke in what he hoped was a loud and powerful voice, compared to the real emotions inside of him which were, by all accounts, neither loud nor powerful. "Sugar Quills" he recited the password to himself as the stone gargoyle stepped aside and a large stone stairwell appeared.

Once he had reached the top of the stairs he flicked his wand at the heavy wooden door, remembering that it was the reason his back had begun to hurt again, and stepped inside. His office contained many wonders; there were large windows at the back of the room which looked out onto the forest below, a large collection of miniature dragons stirred on their shelf as he entered, and so many other enchanting artefacts sprinkled around the large room. However Albus's favourite possession was, and had always been, his pensieve. He meandered towards it with the sense that this was for the worse, but his feet felt like they had taken over his body. He stopped, and gazed into the clear surface. Thinking, thinking... His reflection caught his gaze and he surprised himself with his abysmal appearance. An old gray man peered at him, his blue eyes swimming with the ghost of his past, his hands shaking ever so slightly. He stopped, straightened his back and took, with a shaking hand, the dustiest bottle out of the memory cabinet. He peered at the bottles faded label; he could not make out what it said anymore. Without hesitation he pulled the stopper out of the bottle with his frail fingers and emptied its small silvery contents into the pensieve. The paintings that filled the office walls were still very much asleep. So he lowered his head towards the bowl, which contained the memories he hadn't seen in years. As his nose touched the silver liquid in the bowl the memories began to play beneath the surface, and without hesitation he plunged himself into the pensieve, into the past.