Harry stared into the watery blue eyes he had come to trust for so many years.
"There is one, final memory." Dumbledore said, his eyes saddening behind his half moon glasses. "One of mine, in fact. Just after my last memory, when I invited Tom Riddle to come to Hogwarts."
"Sir?" Harry said.
"Just after I invited Tom Riddle to come to Hogwarts, a woman came to my office at Hogwarts. She came quite some way to see me. And she told me that she was a Seer and that on no accounts should Tom Riddle be allowed into the magical community. I ignored her, saying that I couldn't turn my back on a child just because of a vision one woman had. As you know I've never had great faith in the reliability of Divination. But she appealed higher, and I was forced to review the case."
"What happened? Who was the woman?"
"Well. You'll see."
Dumbledore took an even smaller and more fragile crystal vial from the cabinet with great care, gently unstoppering it and pouring the contents into the pensieve. For a moment the waters turned the darkest blue and then electric yellow before returning to the pearly white. Harry looked on curiously. He had never seen a memory do that before. Dumbledore motioned his blackened hand to the bowl and Harry dipped his head in and instantly felt the falling sensation he was so familiar with.
The scene dissolved to Dumbledore's office. It was instantly recognisable, with its gold gilt frames of the heads of school, the curious instruments and the many shelves of ancient books. The only thing different to where Harry was sitting just moments before was Dumbledore – who was much younger, with a short brown beard and brown hair, and the woman sitting opposite him. She looked so unlike any witch Harry had ever seen he couldn't help but blink. Her blonde hair was cropped neatly and perfectly straight, dropping exactly one inch off her shoulders. She had make-up, but it was applied like a machine, with red lipstick and perfect eye liner. But the most distinctive about her were her Muggle clothes. She wore a navy pinstripe dress suit, with a blue blouse and silver necklace, and high shiny black heels. Harry had never seen anyone so well dressed in the Muggle world, let alone sitting in Dumbledore's office having a conversation with him.
"I'm telling you. The boy must not be allowed into Hogwarts." She said, leaning forward slightly in her seat. "I have not returned here to be ignored or ridiculed. You know that I would not have come back without good reason."
"Alas, Veronica, I know all too well." Dumbledore sank back in his seat, seemingly relaxed. "And the option of Professor is always open if you would like."
"I am not here to review by employment opportunities!" Veronica hissed.
"Yes, I am aware. But unfortunately I cannot do that."
Veronica slapped her perfectly manicured hand down on the desk, shaking some of the scrolls.
"Dumbledore I implore you to listen."
"Veronica I cannot deny a child a place at this school – bar him from the magical community on a hunch!"
"This is not a hunch!" Veronica near shouted. Harry thought she was the type of person to remain very calm, but it seemed not.
"Veronica." Dumbledore said calmly but firmly. "If I denied every child I thought would be unsuitable for this school, it is very likely you would not be sitting here."
Veronica blushed and for a second her eye contact with Dumbledore broke.
"Not harnessing the magic that young children possess can be very dangerous. Tom Riddle poses a greater threat where we cannot see him, where he will learn to use his gifts just the way we teach the children here not to."
"You don't understand." Veronica said, almost pained.
"I'm sure I don't, but unfortunately it will have to remain that way." Dumbledore said placidly.
Veronica stood up and stormed out, and as the door closed the scene dissolved into a pearly mist and it was a few seconds before it cleared again. Harry was still standing in Dumbledore's office, but Dumbledore was standing at the window, and Professor McGonagall was behind him, holding a letter.
"Legal action? How can they possibly try and undermine you? After all you've done for the school!"
"Veronica Hathman has a lot of influence in the Ministry. She was, as you know, offered multiple roles very high up. Some say she could have made it to the top had she wanted to."
"But she didn't." Professor McGonagall said abruptly. "She chose to leave the magical community and pursue a life without magic. So why is she back now?"
"She had another vision. You do remember her time here?"
"Vividly." Professor McGonagall said, sighing a little. "She was in Ravenclaw, but I still remember waking to her screaming about a dream, and her hours in the Infirmary with blinding headaches."
"She had some trouble controlling those visions. The only subject she was fully comfortable in was Divination. But when she left the school full of battling emotions and thoughts, the visions nearly stopped. She got them under control."
"And now she wants you to believe her visions?"
"Indeed. I believe she had a particularly vibrant and repetitive vision about Tom Riddle, the boy I went to visit in a London orphanage." Dumbledore turned away from the window, so finally Harry could see some of the deeper wrinkles that seemed to have appeared since the last memory. "He could speak Parseltongue Minerva. And he already had a lot of control over his magic; more than you'd see in children that age. He had been using it to manipulate people at the home, getting them to do stuff he wanted."
Professor McGonagall blinked. "So you believe what Veronica said?"
Dumbledore sighed. "She came to me describing visions of Tom becoming someone great and powerful. Someone to be feared more than Grindelwald."
Professor McGonagall gasped. "And you believe her?"
"I don't think I can. Although I don't doubt Veronica's ability to see the future, it's never been an art I've invested much of my belief in. Things can change. Life is unpredictable. And now she's asking me to go to Tom and wipe his memory and move him across the world to keep us safe. How can I justify that?"
"It's simply not right to do that to a child. And he'll be better here, under our supervision."
"That's what I said. But Veronica has appealed and they've already set a date for a court case. Just two weeks. As I said; Veronica is very powerful."
"And who's going to testify in Tom Riddle's defence? Who's going to make sure he gets to Hogwarts and learns to control his magic?"
Dumbledore surveyed her over the top of his glasses.
"I am."