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QLFC Round: 9
Team: Ballycastle Bats
Position: Seeker
Prompt: The Hunchback of Notre Dame AU
Chapter Length: 932 words.
This was a day of judgement and burning. The day where all who had been found unworthy would be sacrificed for the greater good of everyone else. Albus Dumbledore had long ago given up the guilt he had harboured because he knew that this was for a better cause and he was doing the many a favour.
If it came to it, he would sacrifice the few in order to keep the many safe. Anyone who practiced dark magic were bad. Tainted and unworthy. And they had to be shown the error of their ways. And when they did not listen and they did not take the warnings and change themselves, they would be purified the hard way. Through fire.
He believed very strongly in the goodness of light magic, and he had seen what dark magic could do to people. His once friend had fallen in so deep that he had been unable to come out and Dumbledore was doing what was right. He knew that some did not understand his methods, but that did not matter because he was doing what was best for everyone involved.
If only the practitioners of the darkest of magics could understand just what they had gotten themselves into. If only they could understand that they were tainted. Dumbledore tried to remove the taint. He tried so hard to give them the advice that they needed in order to right themselves from their wrongs but they never listened to him. Their rebellious hearts would be the causing of their doom.
It was as if his expertise it was not important.
Dumbledore turned away from the fires and focused his attention on the castle. The beauty of Hogwarts stood high above the lands, nearly competing with the mountaintops in height. It was a beautiful place and a sanctuary for all those who practised light magic. No dark magic was allowed within its doors.
He fixed his eyes on the grand structure and he could see a small head sticking out of a window up in the Gryffindor Tower. He knew who this head belonged to because he had taken the boy under his wing not too long ago.
The child was deep in darkness the moment they had met, but Dumbledore had tried his best to train the darkness out of him. He brought the child to Hogwarts and took him away from the horrible upbringing he had. And while the boy may have fit well in with the Slytherins, Dumbledore did not want to exacerbate any possible negative emotions roiling inside the child.
So he put the child up in Gryffindor Tower in hopes that the frivolity and happiness of the children there would be enough for him. But it seemed that he did not want to get along with his fellows and found himself alone often.
Dumbledore was worried about him because his experiences had turned him and he had fallen away from the right path. He needed a firm hand to guide him in the right way and Dumbledore intended to be the hand that would lead him.
The child gazed upon at the burning corpses of those who sought to challenge Dumbledore's way of thinking. Those who did not repent of their actions and had continued on with their folly. Dumbledore would not stand for it and if the child had to be forced into a change, then Dumbledore would do all he could to see it come to fruition.
He and the boy's eyes met and Dumbledore tried to force all of his meaning into their joint gaze. See? he wanted to say to the child. See what this has done? See what this leads to? I am trying to avoid having to do this to you.
But Dumbledore knew that the child would not be able to understand him. He was only eleven and the treatment that he had grown up with had obviously not assisted him in any way, but Dumbledore knew that he could fix the boy.
The child had never even touched dark magic, so obviously Dumbledore had a better chance of changing him than he had with Gellert.
Wide eyes gazed down at the stone altar in the courtyard. The very last resort in hopes of purifying the tainted. Fire was considered a good thing. It was said to cleanse impurities from substances and while it was a great loss, Dumbledore believed wholeheartedly that he was saving the mortal souls from other damnation.
The soul, in his opinion, was more important than the body or the temple that housed it. He was doing the right thing. He was doing it for the greater good of them of their souls and of everyone around them.
If people learned by example, then they wouldn't be tempted to fall into the darkness. They would not feel the need to challenge those who were in authority.
Dumbledore had been doing this for ages and he planned to do it for as long as possible. Dark magic was like a disease and it leeched onto the person who was unfortunate enough to use it. He didn't care how many he would have to purify, Dumbledore would see his work be done.
And little Tom, the child who rarely ever came down from his tower, who was disliked by most of the children in the castle, who had never even been outside for fear of people taunting him for his darkness, looked down on the proceedings with a demented smile on his face.
And Dumbledore knew that his hope was all for naught.
A/N: DONE!
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