Albus looked up at the school he had called home for so many years. It had been quite some time since he'd last been here, a student, wide-eyed and so excited he couldn't sit still. He had occupied his time with ministry work, alchemy and the other odd project keeping his mind agile and alert.
Now his second greatest adventure was about to begin.
He was going to become a teacher at the very school he had graduated from just about eighty years prior. It was not his first day at Hogwarts, but it was his first day at Hogwarts as a teacher. It felt like he was starting all over again, fighting to remember which steps you needed to hop over and which staircases changed most frequently.
He had decided to take the train, partially out of a nostalgic need to relive the journey and partially because it was so much simpler than any other form of transportation. He rode in a car in the back, fortunate enough not to deal with the noisy students parading up and down the train. His presence there discouraged them from joining him and he enjoyed the ride in relative peace, looking out the window as the scenery wound by.
These moments were the sweetest in life.
It was this time when he felt like he could reach out and wrap his arms around the whole world. When traveling he was in a different state of mind. Everything seemed, even if just for a second, hopeful. Nothing mattered except for the birds trying to catch up mid-flight. Everything else faded into an eternally moving, melting background.
Of course these moments couldn't last forever and the train stopped, Dumbledore gazing up in awe at the castle perched on the mountainside.
He sat through his first dinner in the great hall at the head table. It passed in a blur, his introduction by the headmaster was a simple nod in his direction. The polite smattering of applause was welcome, but unexpected. These students did not know Albus Dumbledore, nor would they note his importance until he defeated Grindelwald and years later they would look back on their education as lucky for having had him as a teacher.
He passed out of the Great Hall, tracing his steps slowly back to his office. He was too keyed up to sleep and since tomorrow he would be teaching he wanted some time to prepare.
He found his office adequately filled with supplies for teaching. Multi-colored quills for correcting scrolls of homework, magic chalk that would write notes upon the blackboard for you, and a leather bound book to write down and keep track of students' grades. It was comfortable and cozy and a place where he could find solace in the years to come. This was his place in the castle, the place where he felt most at home. Even later when he would become the headmaster he would spend much time with his various transfiguration teachers in this room, because this room had left such an indelible mark on him.
He went to bed that night confident that the next day would be filled with ups and downs. This experience would forge his ardent desire to teach into a sword with which he would cut the ropes of ignorance. It sounded mighty and even just a little bit hokey, but he believed it one hundred percent. Dumbledore had never felt more certain of anything in his life. He would make a difference in the world and he would do it at Hogwarts.