Author's note
Written for Season 6 of the Quidditch League Fanfiction Competition
Round 7: Movies that Killed their Franchises
Team: Pride of Portree
Position: Chaser 2
Prompt: The Next Karate Kid (1994)
Optional prompts:
6. (location) Godric's Hollow
9. (emotion) envy
10. (word) watch
Word count (excluding author's note): 1,556
Betas: crochetaway, Claude Amelia Song
Before this round I'd never seen any of the Karate Kid series, but I've learned that the heroine of The Next Karate Kid is a hot-tempered orphan who's good at fighting and likes to solve her problems by jumping into action and sneaking into places she's not supposed to be in… remind you of anyone?
The obvious parallel for the sage and powerful Mr. Miyagi is Dumbledore. So my inspiration for this round is, quite simply, Dumbledore doing what he and Miyagi do best, and sneakily imparting wisdom upon a younger generation.
And just a note on the title: it's a reference to a piece of classic Canadian literature that also dealt with family matters in war and postwar times.
The Watch that Ends the Night
Harry sifted listlessly through a pile of crumbling old parchments, his attention wandering until the corner tore from a page whose nearly illegible title said something about the International Confederation of Wizards' 1878 ruling on the legality of self-lacing boots. He feared if he handled the documents any longer they'd disintegrate completely, so he gave up on his sixteenth attempt at sorting them and turned to look for something else to do.
He surveyed the office, cluttered with books, trinkets, and other debris on every available surface. It was no wonder that no one had bothered to go through Dumbledore's possessions while the war had been going on—Harry was struggling enough with it now that he had nothing else to occupy his time. When he'd agreed to help Aberforth with the task he'd had no idea what he was getting into. He'd seen the headmaster's office many times before, of course, but hadn't known how many undetectable extension charms had been masterfully applied to the various drawers and cabinets. Or how much stuff had been lurking out of sight in the office all these years.
Still, Harry really had nothing better to do. In the immediate aftermath of the war, everyone else was busy with their families. Hermione was by her parents' side as they finished their memory recovery in St. Mungo's. The Weasleys were planning Fred's funeral. Harry wanted to be there for Ginny and Ron but didn't want to overstep any bounds as the family grieved together.
Harry's family matters had been considerably more simple to sort out. He'd received a curt letter from the Dursleys—sans return address—letting him know they'd received word from the Order of the Phoenix that the wizarding war was over. They informed him that they were fine and wished him luck in his 'new life.' He took it as a clear indication that they no longer wanted anything to do with him, and he was happy to oblige their wishes. Anyone else that Harry might have considered family was gone, so there was nothing to do now but while away his time until his friends were around again.
Harry pulled himself from this increasingly depressing train of thought and tried once more to apply himself to the task at hand. A shelf full of small, glimmering vials caught his eye, and he moved to inspect them.
When he picked up the first one, he immediately recognized the contents; the wispy, pearlescent material was unmistakably a memory, pulled from Dumbledore's or perhaps someone else's mind. He turned the bottle over in his hand and spotted a label—this bottle apparently contained Dumbledore's memory of his reception of the Order of Merlin. Harry squashed the small amount of guilt he felt at examining Dumbledore's personal memories in favour of distracting himself from his own thoughts and began to peruse the collection.
He had only read three or four labels before finding one that stopped him cold. He read the label over, making sure he hadn't mistaken the fading script. Godric's Hollow, 1981. His heart was beating faster and faster. Would this vial show a memory of his parents? He tried to calm himself, to think rationally. Dumbledore's family had lived in Godric's Hollow too; there was any number of reasons he might have memories of the place. But 1981… that was precisely when his parents were there in hiding. And surely Dumbledore would have had contact with them since he'd been the one to orchestrate their safekeeping…
Without further ado, Harry darted across the room to the cabinet where he knew the Pensieve to be kept. Following a brief struggle with some boxes stacked in front of it, he flung open the door, retrieved the basin, and uncorked the vial. Some memories were already swimming in the Pensieve—Snape's, perhaps, or Dumbledore's, Harry didn't care—he poured out the contents of the vial and dove into them, desperate for the comfort he knew his parents' presence could provide him.
His guess was correct. He landed in a sitting room, in an unoccupied chair next to Dumbledore and across from his parents. He took in their smiling faces and his heart leapt into his throat; he'd never seen them so clearly. The dusty, tarnished Mirror of Erised had shown them based on Harry's own vague recollections, and the images from Voldemort's wand and from the Resurrection Stone had been little more than ghostly shadows. Dumbledore's memory showed them as he'd never seen them, as if he were right next to them. It hit him, more viscerally than ever before, how very young they were. Hardly older than he was now.
The memory seemed to be of a casual visit. His parents chatted and with Dumbledore, telling them how they kept occupied while they were stuck in confinement, recounting stories about Harry. You'd never know they were on the run from certain death, Harry thought as he watched his mother laugh. He wondered why Dumbledore had saved this memory—it didn't seem to contain anything particularly noteworthy. A quick glance out the window showed a cloudy sky and browning trees—it must have been close to the fall, the time of their death. This thought made Harry's heart sink. Perhaps this was Dumbledore's last memory of the Potters alive.
Suddenly, a cry came from upstairs. James excused himself from the room and returned minutes later carrying a fussy toddler with jet black hair and green eyes. Harry watched his parents shower the baby with affection and was overcome with the curious sensation of being envious of himself. Finally, unable to process the emotions that had been swirling within him, Harry tore his gaze away from his family and looked at Dumbledore, who was watching the scene tenderly and somewhat sadly, as if he knew what strife was in store for them all.
Dumbledore cleared his throat. 'Well, I'd best be going,' he said, standing and reaching for the hat he'd left on the coffee table. Lily and James tried to protest, but their preoccupation with tending to their son won out, and soon they were calling goodbyes as Dumbledore headed through the kitchen toward the back door.
As soon as Harry realised the scene was drawing to a close, he panicked, not yet ready to part with his parents. He willed the memory to rewind and was startled when it quickly followed his instruction. He stared once more into his parents' vivid faces and drank in their presence greedily.
Harry didn't know how long he spent in the Pensieve, watching it again and again until he'd nearly memorised the conversation. It was his wristwatch that drew him from the scene—the watch that Mrs. Weasley had given him on his seventeenth birthday. The six o'clock chiming was supposed to remind him to leave and get ready for a meeting with a Ministry official, but now that he was immersed in the past, there was nothing less he wanted to go and attend to. As he deliberated, he missed his cue to rewind the scene and found himself in a new memory, whatever had already been in the Pensieve.
Harry was about to reverse to his parents' sitting room before he took in this new memory and froze in confusion. It was McGonagall's office, and Mrs. Weasley was wailing in Mr. Weasley's arms while Dumbledore offered his solemn company. Harry had only witnessed Mrs. Weasley crying with this intensity when she'd discovered Fred's lifeless body after the Battle of Hogwarts wound down. He realised with a start that this must be a memory from his second year, when Ginny had been taken into the Chamber of Secrets and her fate was unknown. Right on cue, the door swung open to reveal the younger versions of Harry, Ron, and Ginny, as well a vacant-looking Lockhart.
Harry watched the Weasleys' reunion and noticed something he hadn't noticed when he'd lived the scene himself; that Mrs. Weasley—a woman he'd met only a handful of times before this point—hugged him just as fiercely as she'd hugged her own children. For the first time that day, tears welled in Harry's eyes. He looked down at the watch on his wrist, ticking steadily. How could he have been so stupid? How many times had he politely declined Mrs. Weasley's invitations to visit the Burrow, thinking he ought to give the family time to themselves, without considering that they might actually want him there as part of the family?
He dried his eyes and mentally heaved himself from the Pensieve. Upon resurfacing in the office, the first thing he saw was Dumbledore's portrait, slumbering peacefully on the wall. Suddenly, Harry found himself wondering at the improbability of the placement of these two memories, and his finding them just when he needed to see them, and he eyed Dumbledore's benignly smiling visage with suspicion. Was the portrait behind this? Or was it possible Dumbledore himself could have foreseen and orchestrated this two years in advance? Given what he knew of the man, Harry found himself unable to dismiss the possibility.
However, now was not the time to ponder the matter. He hastily returned the vial to its shelf and made for the fireplace. It looked like his meeting with the Ministry would have to wait after all.