The Savior
By: MeTheFanFictionReader
IMPORTANT! Instead of adding on a new chapter I have added on to this one. That's all.
A/N: Hi! I am having trouble writing my other story, and since nobody is voting on my polls, I'm starting this story. I bet I could list billions of stories where Harry is taken in by McGonagall, Snape, and even Septima Vector (the Arithmancyteacher)! Has anyone even thought about what would happen if Dumbledore adopted him after his parents died!? For all those writers out there, I challenge you to write a story like that!
- October 31, 1981
Vernon Dursley was having a weird day. To say it correctly, he thought he was going crazy! That morning, he had seen a cat reading a map on the corner of the street. A cat, of all things! But all the same, he went to bed that night, hoping he was just dreaming.
00o00
A man appeared on the corner the cat had been watching, so suddenly and silently you'd have thought he'd just popped out of the ground. The cat's tail twitched and its eyes narrowed.
Nothing like this man had ever been seen on Privet Drive. He was tall, thin, and very old, judging by the silver of his hair and beard, which were both long enough to tuck into his belt. He was wearing long robes, a purple cloak that swept the ground, and high-heeled, buckled boots. His blue eyes were light, bright, and sparkling behind half-moon spectacles. His nose was very long and crooked, as though it had been broken at least twice. This man's name was Albus Dumbledore.
Albus Dumbledore didn't seem to realize that he had just arrived in a street where everything from his name to his boots was unwelcome. He was busy studying something, and then wiping it off gently with a cloth. But he did seem to realize he was being watched, because he looked up suddenly at the cat, which was still staring at him from the other end of the street. For some reason, the sight of the cat seemed to amuse him. He chuckled and muttered "I should have known."
He shifted the bundle he was carrying over to one hand, and pulled something out of his inside pocket. It seemed to be a silver cigarette lighter. He flicked it open, held it up in the air, and clicked it. The nearest street light went out with a little pop. He clicked it again - the next light flickered into darkness. Twelve times he clicked the Put-Outer, until the only the lights left on the whole street were two tiny pinpricks in the distance, which were the eyes of the cat watching him. If anyone looked out of their window now, even beady-eyed Mrs. Dursley, they wouldn't be able to see anything that was happening down on the pavement. Dumbledore slipped the Put-Outer back into his cloak and set off down the street toward number four, where he sat down on the wall next to the cat. He didn't look at it, but after a moment he spoke to it.
"A beauty, isn't he Minerva." He said holding up the bundle so she could see. He turned to smile at the tabby, but it had gone. Instead he was smiling at a rather severe-looking woman who was wearing square glasses exactly the shape of the markings the cat had had around its eyes. She too, was wearing a cloak, an emerald one. Her black hair was drawn in a neat bun. She looked distinctly ruffled.
"How did you know it was me?" she asked.
"My dear Professor, I've never seen a cat sit so stiffly."
"You'd be stiff if you'd been sitting on a brick wall all day," said Professor McGonagall.
"All day? When you could have been celebrating? I must have passed a dozen feasts and parties on my way here."
Professor McGonagall sniffed angrily.
"Oh yes, everyone's celebrating, all right," she said impatiently. "You'd think they'd be a bit more careful, but no. Even the Muggles have noticed that something's going on. It was on their news." She jerked her head back at the Dursleys' dark living-room window. "I heard it. Flocks of owls… shooting stars… Well, they're not completely stupid. They were bound to notice something. Shooting stars down in Kent. I'll bet that was Dedalus Diggle. He never had much sense."
"You can't blame them," said Dumbledore gently. We've had precious little to celebrate for eleven years."
"I know that," said Professor McGonagall irritably. "But that's no reason to lose our heads. People are being downright careless, out on the streets in broad daylight, not even dressed in Muggle clothes, swapping rumors."
She threw a sharp, sideways glance at Dumbledore here, as though he was going to tell her something, but he didn't, so she went on. "A fine thing it would be if, on the very day You-Know-Who seems to have disappeared at last, the Muggles found out about us all. I suppose he really has gone, Albus?"
"It certainly seems so," said Dumbledore. "We have much to be thankful for. Would you care for a lemon drop?
"A what?"
"A lemon drop. They're a kind of Muggle sweet I'm rather fond of."
"No, thank you," said Professor McGonagall coldly, as if she didn't think this was the moment for lemon drops. "As I say, even if You-Know-Who has gone -"
My dear Professor, surely a sensible person like yourself can call him by his name? All this You-Know-Who nonsense. For eleven years I have been trying to persuade people to call him by his proper name: Voldemort." Professor McGonagall flinched, but Dumbledore, who was unsticking two lemon drops, seemed not to notice. "It all gets so confusing if we keep saying 'You-Know-Who.' I have never seen any reason to be frightened of saying Voldemort's name."
"I know you haven't" said Professor McGonagall, sounding half exasperated and half admiring. "But you're different. Everyone knows you're the only one You-Know- oh, all right, Voldemort, was frightened of."
"You flatter me." Dumbledore calmly. "Voldemort had powers that I will never have.''
"Only because you're too… well… noble to use them.''
"I'm lucky it's dark out tonight. I haven't blushed so much since Madam Pomfrey told me she liked my new earmuffs."
Professor McGonagall shot a sharp look at Dumbledore and said "The owls are nothing compared to the rumors that are flying around. Do you know what everyone's saying? About why he's disappeared? About what finally stopped him?
It seemed that Professor McGonagall had reached the point she was most anxious to discuss, the real reason she had been waiting on a cold, hard wall all day, for neither as a cat nor as a woman had she fixed Dumbledore with such a piercing stare as she did now. It was plain that whatever 'everyone' was saying, she was not going to believe it until Dumbledore told her it was true. The man in question, however, was picking up another lemon drop and did not answer.
"What they're saying," she pressed on. "is that last night Voldemort turned up in Godric's Hollow. He went to find the Potters. The rumor is that Lily and James Potter are...are ... that they're ...dead.
Dumbledore bowed his head. Professor McGonagall gasped.
"Lily and James… I can't believe it… I didn't want to believe it… Oh, Albus…"
A/N: I am sorry about the mix up in Professors in the beginning A/N, I give many thank yous to Qoheleth and LightProud for noticing that and correcting me. Anyway, that is now fixed.
A/N #2: I'd like to make a shout out to my new beta catspaw439! You rock!