Author's note: As my readers would tell me, I really shouldn't start any new stories before I finish my old ones. Still, this one isn't new. The beginning of it has been sitting on my hard drive for ages, and I've decided it's time to stop being nit-picky about it and just post it. Maybe outside opinions will give me the inspiration I need to finally get the ideas I have for it out on paper.
Warnings: This story will contain slash, meaning a male/male pairing. I'm not certain which, yet, but with me slash is sort of inevitable. It also is an AU of the Harry Potter series after the seventh book, which means I'm cheerfully pretending the epilogue never happened.
Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter. I play in JKR's sandbox sometimes, is all. I write this out once per series, so consider me disclaimed. :)
I hope you enjoy.
"If you could have one thing, any one thing in the entirety of the universe, what would it be?"
It hadn't started there, but those words had been the catalyst. He had never been asked the question before, but knew almost without thought what his answer would be; it came to the tip of his tongue in a moment. At once he knew that he had, for years, unconsciously decided to avoid that very thought. If he thought of it, he would want it, and that would be cruel to himself and others—but there it was, the words slowly forming in his mouth with an idle reverence. He exhaled: air, but not an answer. Still, now that he had thought it, he could hardly take it back...
"You have not answered, Glas."
And so, with the jarring realization fresh in his mind, a plan formed. It was impossible, but he had bumped heads with impossibility before and come out standing. Perhaps if his companion had been less inquisitive, it never would have happened. Too late for that now, though, he thought, and knew would consume him if he didn't act. He met his companion's eyes and, before he could truly understand what he asked, the words had been said. "You owe me a debt."
The impossible beckoned.
…
Albus Dumbledore stood very still, poised before one of his office's windows, and looked towards the setting sun. The view, lit by waves of golden red light, was truly a lovely showing of the Hogwarts ground, all rolling green grass and the broad leaves of trees—such were the benefits of having one's office placed on the seventh floor of a tower with westward facing windows, after all. Any observant soul, in looking upon the scene, however, would not think that Dumbledore looked to the scenery at all, but rather to something only he could see. From the weary lines that gathered at the corners of his blue eyes, and the drawn cast of his mouth, one might rightly assume that the matter that held his attention was not a matter he enjoyed pondering.
A snort came from behind Dumbledore, as did a low, amused voice. "Posing for a portrait, Albus?"
To Dumbledore's credit, the reflexive flinch the sudden noise wrought in him was rapidly hidden, and the movement of his turn toward the speaker was smooth. By the time he came face to face with the unexpected conversationalist, his expression had settled into a gentle smile that was only part affectation. "Hmm?" he queried, meeting a pair of dark, flat eyes. "No, Phineas. Only considering the late date."
The aforementioned Phineas, named Phineas Nigellus Black in life, shook his head, looking disgustedly at the carefully carved wooden boundaries of his portrait. "Save your theatrics for the living, Dumbledore. We who are dead think little of your late date, as you so eloquently put it."
Albus, knowing full well that the former Head of the Noble and Most Ancient House of Black was unlikely to offer sympathy, merely smiled all the more widely. Phineas stroked his finely trimmed beard with the palm of his left hand, a gesture that meant that Dumbledore had successfully irritated the portrait. "Lemon drop?" Albus asked, lifting a bowl full of small, yellow candies that he had recently discovered in a Muggle sweet shop, as he was in the sort of mood that caused such an offer to amuse him—an offer made with the knowledge that it could not possibly be accepted.
Phineas' lips thinned, and he looked away. "Is there not some paperwork to which you should be attending?" the portrait asked, with a formality that meant he was hiding offense. Despite his efforts to hide emotion, Phineas had betrayed himself by raising his voice—only slightly, not enough to jolt the dozing portrait directly above him into alertness, but enough to undermine his facade.
Dumbledore's smile faded. "My apologies, Phineas," he said, though he received only another piercing look for his efforts. Attempting to change the topic, he waved one hand at his desk. There, a veritable army of quills operated independently of a human hand, racing across stretches of blank parchment, pausing only occasionally to carefully dip themselves into inkwells, tap off unnecessary ink, and begin again. It was Albus' will and magic that controlled them, though his wand rested in a holster against his arm and not in his hand. This year he could hold one more quill in this fashion than he had been able to the previous year, and two more than the year before that—each year, preparing for the incoming class became just a little easier. "As you can see," Albus said, indicating to the portrait the movement of the feathers, "I have already dealt with the matter of paperwork."
"Ostentatious," Phineas said, clearly.
"But effective, as you will agree, having been a Headmaster yourself. This work will all be completed by the time the students return." Dumbledore looked back to the window at that, casting another look at the fading light.
"How much of the summer remains to us?"
"Two weeks."
"Ah. Only two weeks of freedom before the pests begin to find their way here, then?" Dumbledore had once heard the young Sirius Black describe his great-great-grandfather as the most unpopular Headmaster Hogwarts had ever seen. It was likely this was exaggeration; if it was not, however, the reason behind Phineas' reputation was almost certainly his attitude toward children. "You are too lenient with them, Dumbledore," Phineas had continued as Albus' mind wandered. "They scarcely dared to enter this office without dire cause when I held your position."
"Perhaps they did not," Dumbledore said agreeably, though he did not elaborate on his opinion of Phineas' comment. The sunlight caught and held his eyes with a degree of magnetism, and Dumbledore frowned. "I feel as if something will happen."
"Oh, something will," Phineas said with an air of assurance. Dumbledore looked to him sharply. "It is impossible for nothing to happen, after all, else we would cease to exist." The portrait gave Dumbledore a smug look and fell silent.
Albus turned away, displeased, and crossed to the window. "I fear that Voldemort will be a threat to the students," he said softly. "His strength grows. And there is something in the air." Dumbledore sighed, feeling the creeping certainty that he was, in some way, failing to notice something just before his eyes. "I am not a Seer, but I know something will happen."
"Dumbledore—."
"Do not mock me, Phineas," Albus said, simply to dissuade the portrait before he could begin. The Black was not unknown for taking pleasure in irritating Dumbledore whensoever he could, and Dumbledore was in no mood for such a thing. "I know how improbable it sounds. If I only knew what would happen."
"Dumbledore—."
"Phineas, I warn you—."
"DUMBLEDORE."
Albus turned at that, startled. The portrait above Phineas woke with a start, scowling. "Really, Black, it is terribly rude to raise your voice."
But Phineas paid no mind, which was odd; the former Head of the Black House was not known for taking insults against his dignity quietly. Albus met the dark, delving eyes of the portrait, feeling more than a little bewildered. "Dumbledore," Phineas said again, this time very quietly. "I find that I am inclined to agree with your theory that something unusual will happen, if only because one of your bizarre silver instruments has been frantically trying to attract attention for the past minute. Perhaps you should see to that."
Dumbledore looked away, startled, to glance at the instruments in question. Several tables had been erected merely to support them; silver devices of all shapes and sizes, none with any apparent use, gleamed in the candlelight. One of these objects, shaped a little like a nine-pointed star perched upon a sphere, had begun to let out short bursts of red steam in measured intervals and spin in dizzying orbits across the tabletop. "Curious," Albus said, even as his long strides were carrying him towards the object, "that should remain dormant unless strong magic was being carried out within the Hogwarts ground. Perhaps Minerva—"
Albus never got a chance to complete that sentence—even as he pressed a finger to the detector to silence it, a wave of magic swept through the office, jostling the portraits and shattering a glass bottle of Scotch that Albus had been saving for a special occasion. Dumbledore had never felt anything quite like it. He had before only seen two wizards with the capacity for such magic: himself, and Gellert Grindelwald. Albus had existed within his own magic his entire life, and could no more feel it than one could describe what one's own mouth tasted like; in his battle with Grindelwald, he had been bathed in Gellert's power for hours on end, felt the dark, putrescent waves of it slam into his very bones, and had hated the sensation. Dumbledore had assumed that any powerful magic would feel the same in such a barrage: invasive and dank and chilling. He learned now that this was not the case. While the magic that washed through him was not precisely warm, it was pure in a way Gellert's had not been. He felt this magic as it pressed into him and thought first of moonlight: fear and determination were second, distant thoughts.
"Phineas?" Dumbledore called, voice strained.
"I feel it," the portrait affirmed.
Dumbledore inclined his head and felt the magic grow stronger. "If you would ask Poppy and Minerva to join me, Phineas, it would likely be a wise idea."
For once, the former Head of the House of Black did not protest. With a nod, Phineas slipped away from his portrait, darting through other picture frames and occasionally shoving their inhabitants out of his way, ignoring the cries of protest. Dumbledore did not watch for long—there were other matters to be dealt with.
Slipping his wand out of its holster, Albus stilled the quills with a flick. They toppled at once, splattering ink across parchment, and Dumbledore recognized that he would likely have to rewrite more than one of the documents. It was a strange thought for a moment of such pressing worry, but then Albus had always been prone to such. Feeling more protected, Dumbledore shifted his muscles into the battle posture he had never managed to forget and waited for whatever would come.
In the center of his office, there was a burst of light, and Dumbledore could not close his eyes in time to avoid temporary blindness. He cursed his own weakness and waited for an enemy attack, but was bombarded with nothing more than magic that felt like moonlight. He smelled smoke but felt none of the heat of flames. No attack came. He waited, and still there was nothing. Gradually his eyes began to once more focus on shapes, and then colors as the world came back into focus.
Laying just in front of Dumbledore's desk, in what appeared to be a small crater, was a boy. For a moment, Dumbledore was perfectly certain that James Potter had, in some fit of madness, succeeded in Apparating through Hogwarts' wards despite being rather too young to even begin to attempt such a feat—if any would be capable of such insanity, James Potter would be that one. Then he began to register small differences. The boy was shorter than James, surely, and his black hair longer, long enough to be caught in a short ponytail at the base of his neck. He had smaller hands than James Potter, one of which was curled around a wand of holly which was, again, distinctly not that of James Potter. He was paler than James, too. It took Dumbledore a moment to realize just how pale the boy was, just how still. The boy's chest neither rose nor fell.
Cautiously, Dumbledore approached the boy. When the boy did not suddenly spring to his feet and assault the Headmaster, Albus did not stop until he had reached the boy's side. He hesitated a moment, then sank to his knees. Ever so carefully, he reached out a hand and pressed it to the boy's chest, feeling for a heartbeat. There was none to be found for a long moment, then another.
The single, rapid throb beneath his fingertips was the only warning Dumbledore got before the boy suddenly exited unconsciousness with no small force, hurling his upper body upright in the same movement. The boy's abdomen heaved and contracted rapidly as he gasped for air like some sort of beached fish. Albus sat still a moment, fascinated by this abrupt transition into life. It was not until the boy's eyes shot open, revealing startlingly green eyes, that Dumbledore remembered that this boy could be a threat, and by then it was too late; the boy's hand had caught Dumbledore's with a strength Albus had not anticipated from the deceptively thin fingers, and his eyes caught Albus'.
Dumbledore had first thought the boy to be fifteen, perhaps sixteen—he revised this guess upwards, looking at the young man before him. Those eyes did not belong on the face of any soul younger than at least seventeen or eighteen, and even that was a stretch. Purely from the color, he might have compared them to those of Lily Evans, but now the thought scarcely occurred to him. There was a sort of strength in the young man's gaze, and something that Albus would hesitate to call either wisdom or experience, but was comparable to either. Even with a haze of pain and confusion dimming them, those eyes did not belong to a child; Dumbledore knew then that the magic he had felt stemmed from the young man before him, and took in a breath to prepare himself for the trials of Legilimency.
The young man did something then that Albus had not expected. He gasped, clutched all the harder at Dumbledore's hand, and murmured, "Albus. Mordred and Morgana, Albus, you're alive."
Dumbledore started. "Do you know me?" he asked, and chided himself a mere moment later for choosing that question out of all those he might have asked.
"It worked," the young man went on, as if he had not heard Albus' question. "Le Fey's praises—it really worked. You're really not dead, and I'm really here, and it worked." The young man laughed, a throaty full-bodied laugh of what sounded like joy that devolved into a cough a mere moment later.
Albus Dumbledore sat on the floor of his office with the strange young man who had appeared from the air and found himself asking, "Who are you?"
The young man's cough eased, and then began again when he chuckled. "Your friend," he managed to get out, through the contortions of his chest. There was pain on his face. He caught sight of Albus' face and smiled, as though he was so very familiar with Dumbledore that this was a reunion rather than a first meeting. "My name is Harry."
Then the young man let go of Albus' hand and managed to get out a muffled, "Sorry," in the moments before his back arched to an impossible angle. There was a crack, as if of bone, and then he was on the floor, nearly writhing, eyes rolling back in his head. The young man bit his tongue hard enough to make it bleed, opened his mouth, and screamed like a banshee predicting a death. Before Albus could even move to help, the young man fell still. As the grave, some part of Albus' mind supplied, but no, there was the rise and fall of the chest. The young man lived.
Through the shock, Dumbledore just managed to hear a woman gasp, and then a Scottish voice was asking, "Albus, what—?" Albus looked up to see his deputy headmistress standing in the doorway, looking around the disaster zone of Albus' office in something like horror. Apparently she had no more idea of what she was asking than Dumbledore did, as she fell silent, gaping.
"His name is Harry," Dumbledore repeated before he could get himself under control. Then, with the ease that long years of practice had raised in him, he stepped away from his own tangled thoughts and took control of the situation. "Is Poppy with you, Minerva?"
"I couldn't reach her in time," Phineas said, and Dumbledore realized he had returned to his frame.
Albus merely nodded and cast a wandless Levicorpus on the young man—on Harry. Harry's body went stiff and rose to hover in midair. "We should get him to the hospital wing," Dumbledore said firmly, and Minerva was left no choice but to step back into the hall as he strode towards her. "Hurry," he urged, and she regained her senses with a nod, heading back down the stairs to move the recalcitrant gargoyle out of his way.
"Never a dull day with you, is it, Dumbledore?" Phineas asked as the door swung shut.
As I said, this story isn't new—it's an old idea and a well-outlined one, but one I've been fairly writer's-blocked on. I'm hoping just putting it out there will give me the inspiration I need to finally write the thing.
That said, it's currently November, and I'm participating in NaNoWriMo, so all fanfiction writing is on hold until the month is over. Even when November's done, I have two others works of fanfiction (Lares and I'll Know My Name) which I plan to finish new chapters of and update. So, I can't promise this will be updated regularly, or even at all. Please don't be disappointed if it never is.
One thing you can do, dear readers, if you have gotten to this point and enjoyed the premise, is drop a review. I love hearing from readers—your opinions are what allow me to improve my own writing, and what motivate me to continue work on my stories. I don't particularly care if you tell me about your pets, or your day at work, or about how you really think the odds of millions of dollars raining from the sky are increased this year; I just like to hear from you all.
Poll for those who do review: What pairing, of the following, would you prefer to see in this story? Harry/young!Remus, Harry/young!Severus, Harry/young!Lucius, or Harry/young-canon-character-of-your-own-choice?
Next chapter (if it occurs): Harry deals with the consequences of what he's done, Albus is understandably confused about etiquette, and the Sorting Hat is far too amused.