Prophecy of the Deathly Hallows
Author's Note: This story is written in response to twelve of different prompts from twelve different people here on ffnet. I will note on my profile page what these challenges are, if you want to look them up to see where this story is headed.
For those of you who are also reading my other story, Two Blacks Diverged, that takes precedence over this one. If I only have time to post for one, it will be that one. However, my lack of schedule for this little fic may mean updates in close succession, when I find free time. Reviews et al. may entice me to update, though!
Read on at your own peril. ;)
Arc One: Finding Out: Part One
(Gold)
"Gold conjures up a mist about a man, more destructive of all his old senses and lulling to his feelings than the fumes of charcoal." - Charles Dickens
Albus Percival Wulfric Brian Dumbledore was sitting in the seat behind the Headmaster's desk at Hogwarts, the exact same seat he had sat in for over twenty years. His blue eyes were giving off his signature twinkle, the exact same twinkle they had given off for over sixty years. To any casual observer, he would have looked so ordinary (for Albus Percival Wulfric Brian Dumbledore), that they would assume he was feeling exactly ordinary.
That observer would be wrong. A. P. W. B. Dumbledore was feeling thing very much out of the ordinary (even for him). He was feeling a quite remarkable assortment of things, in fact, but they all centered around one great anomaly: a prophecy.
Now, seers make prophecies every day. Most of them are unknown, and those that are known are generally of very little significance. Why, then, was the time's most revered wizard so flustered about a prophecy? Well, that's a good question. The answer is a good one, too.
The prophecy in question had been made by a Hogwarts alumna, Sybil Trewlaney. He had had the experience of hearing it firsthand, during her job interview. Although he hadn't planned to hire a Divination teacher to begin with, he felt he owed her something, and how could anyone be a worse teacher than none at all? If few took her subject (as he would encourage), that would not affect her pay. He felt that he had handled the Trelawney situation very well.
No, what was worrying his was not his newest Professor. It was, instead, what had been overheard by the other young wizard who had come to apply for a position: one Severus Snape. Snape had been waiting outside the room for his interview, and had heard part of the prophecy. As Snape was suspected to be a Death Eater, one of the servants of the Dark Lord Voldemort, this meant that what Snape had heard to the prophecy was potentially in Voldemort's hands. This meant that the Dark Lord could act accordingly.
This wouldn't have been a problem normally, but this particular prophecy concerned that personal Dark Lord's demise. Even worse (for him to know), it stated the terms by which such demise would come about. It ran thus:
The one with the power to vanquish the Dark Lord approaches...
Born to those who have thrice defied him, born as the seventh month dies...
And the Dark Lord will mark him as his equal, but he will have power the Dark Lord knows not...
And either must die at the hand of the other for neither can live while the other survives...
The one with the power to vanquish the Dark Lord will be born as the seventh month dies...
To Dumbledore, it was quite clear what three people the prophecy referred to. The "one" was the son of either Mrs. Longbottom or Mrs. Potter, both of whom were due to deliver male babies at the end of July.
The Dark Lord was obviously Tom Marvolo Riddle, Voldemort himself.
And the "other"? Him, or course. He, Albus Percival Wulfric Brian Dumbledore, was the one spoken of in the fourth line of the prophecy. To make the meaning of the prophecy more clear, he wrote it out to make it a logic puzzle.
Conditions:
I (Albus) can kill the child, but not Voldemort.
The child can kill Voldemort, but not me (Albus).
Voldemort can kill me (Albus), but not the child.
Only one of the three may be alive at the end.
The three possible solutions:
1) I (Albus) kill the Chosen One, who has killed Voldemort
2) the Chosen One kills Voldemort, who has killed me (Albus)
3) Voldemort kills me (Albus), who has killed the Chosen One
Of those, he wanted Voldemort dead, which excluded option three. He also would prefer to live, which made option one preferable to option two. In conclusion, he decided, he would try to make sure he didn't kill the Chosen One before the child killed Voldemort, and if he died before then, so be it. However, he would try his hardest to continue to live, and if he did manage to live past Voldemort's demise, he would stoop to killing the child.
With that matter settled, he opened a drawer in his desk and withdrew a bowl of lemon drops, and proceeded to pop one in his mouth. Voldemort would have a hard time killing him here at Hogwarts.
It did not occur to Dumbledore until over a year and a half later that maybe he could kill Voldemort. He'd just come across the piece of parchment with his notes, and thought that perhaps, while only the child could "vanquish" the Dark Lord, Voldemort still couldn't "live" while he did, meaning he could kill, but not destroy, him.
Perhaps it spoke of the Death Eaters as the part of him that would not be vanquished when he himself was killed. In that case, the child might vanquish him by stepping into his shoes as a new Dark Lord for them to follow, destroying their allegiance to Voldemort. That would be bad. On that assumption, Dumbledore decided a face-off with Voldemort was in order, to kill him and stop his terrorization of the Wizarding World. The DMLE could handle the Death Eaters.
Now, only to plan... Ah, he had it! He would let slip the Potters' location, baiting Voldemort to come. With this in mind, he even had the beginnings of a plan to make it so that, when he had to kill the child, he would not be blamed for it by the public. Genius! One letter to Lily Potter would solve all the problems of both the prophecy and their resident Dark Lord.