Albus Dumbledore and the Wizard's Ruse

Book Three of the Albus Dumbledore at Hogwarts Series

Disclaimer: this is a work of fan fiction based on the worlds created by JK Rowling. The story is written for entertainment and not for profit.

Author's Note: Sorry about the delay between updates. I'm usually much more regular than this but I have been moving house and as such have not had time for anything. As for that reviewer who pointed out that Dumbledore said he never did Divination, here is your answer.


"Sometimes its best not to know what awaits you."

Chapter 11 – The Doom of Divination

If Albus thought that he was going to float on cloud nine for several days in the wake Gryffindor's triumph over Slytherin at Quidditch, he was sadly mistaken. The Tuesday after the match was All Hallow's Eve, the 31st of October, and Professor Cassandra Trelawney indicated to her Divination class that they would be having a lesson starting at eleven o'clock that night. Quite what the batty old Seer was up to, the Gryffindors did not know. But the prospect of a thrilling midnight adventure on Halloween was too much to resist and nobody in the class offered up any protests.

Divination was shared by the Slytherin and Gryffindor third years, which added to the tension of the occasion. As the boys and girls trooped up the long stairwell of the North Tower, shoulders barged into one another and insults were exchanged. The Slytherins were not easily going to forget the injustice of losing to Gryffindor despite capturing the Snitch.

'Silence, if you will, silence.' The voice of Professor Trelawney wafted down the stairwell. Albus craned his neck up and saw the rampant red hair and shoulder-length ear-rings of the renowned Seer. He had long thought of Divination as a woolly discipline, and the bizarre appearance of the teacher didn't improve the impression he had of it. His father had; nevertheless, told him to take it, so here he was. The Gryffindors and Slytherins competed with one another to enter the Divination room. It had a different layout tonight: Professor Trelawney had arranged her poof chairs in a wide circle around a central ring of rocks. Black cloths were draped over the chairs, the walls and from the ceiling. Long, tapered black candles burned with purple-blue flames. The entire room smelled of a strange scent that nobody could quite place. The class did not need Professor Trelawney to tell them to be quiet once they were through the door. The room had an atmosphere of premonition about it, and nobody wanted to be the first to break the silence. Everyone took a seat around the circle, and Professor Trelawney shut the door behind them, turned a key and locked it.

'Greetings to you on All Hallow's Eve,' Professor Trelawney said. She had a mysterious quality to her voice tonight, as though speaking from a different plane to normal human beings. 'I have chosen this night to reveal your respective dooms or destinies.'

A slight murmur went up around the circle. This was a highly unnatural practice and the goosebumps on Albus' skin suggested to him that Dark Magic would be in force tonight. He still hadn't placed Professor Trelawney's motivation for doing this. A thought crossed his mind: what if the person controlling/imitating my father has latched on to Professor Trelawney? He tried to discard the thought but it hung around like a stench in the room for several minutes afterward.

'May I ask a question, please?' said Albus. Professor Trelawney gave a half-frown but nodded. 'Why are you showing us our doom or destiny? Is it not better to approach life without knowing the future?'

'One does not seek out the future,' Professor Trelawney said in her mystical voice. 'The future seeks one out. In one of my visions I saw all of us here on this night and my purpose was revealed to me.'

'We are having this lesson because you had a dream?' Albus asked, incredulous.

'Do not question the Inner Eye of a Seer,' Professor Trelawney said, drawing herself up to her greatest height and radiating some degree of power. Albus was not overawed by her, but knew better than to argue further. Professor Trelawney gave a haughty snort and said, 'very well then, Dumbledore, seeing as you seem not to believe as I do, you shall be the first. Come forth to the ring of fire.'

There was no ring of fire, only the circle of stones in the middle of the room. Albus approached uncertainly, not knowing quite what Professor Trelawney meant, until she cast a spell on the stones and a fire sprung up inside the ring. The flames were a mixture of orange, purple and blue, and Albus swore he could see his reflection in them.

'This is a powerful and complex enchantment,' Professor Trelawney said. She was addressing the entire class, even as Albus stood next to the dancing flames. 'I need complete silence and reverence from everyone in this room in order to proceed.'

Professor Trelawney waited until everyone was sitting stock still and trying not to breathe loudly. Albus looked around at the faces of his classmates, all of whom glowed like copper statues in the firelight. Professor Trelawney swept towards him like an owl, a deck of cards splayed out in her hands, face down.

'Pick a card, boy, pick a card,' she said rather excitedly, as though this were a sort of game to her. Albus duly selected one and turned it over. It was a beautifully painted card depicting a tall white tower in front of a dark cloudy backdrop. A single bolt of lightning arced down from the cloud and struck the tower. Like all magical pictures, the image was labile. The lightning would disappear and then reappear, continually striking the tower.

'What is the meaning of this?' Albus said.

'Be still, child,' Professor Trelawney said. She looked like an escapee from a muggle institution with the fire dancing in her eyes. 'This is the Lightning-struck Tower. It is a symbol of danger and even death. Yes, Dumbledore, either your doom or your destiny is aligned with danger and death.'

Albus felt like spurting out an insolent response, but held his tongue. I could have told you that, he thought to himself. Everyone met death at the end of their life, obviously. Moreover, Albus knew that his future was sprinkled with danger. He only had to think about the current predicament involving his father for proof of that.

Professor Trelawney pushed her hand of cards under Albus' nose again, bidding he take another. He did so, and this time the depiction was of the moon. It seemed innocuous enough, but dark shadows were moving on the ground below the moon. They were indistinct, but in the half-light of the fire Albus would have said they looked like little man-like figures running around. Professor Trelawney seemed clearly impressed by this.

'The Moon, my child,' she said. 'And if my eyes do not deceive me, this card confirms that your destiny involves werewolves. Perhaps you are to become one; otherwise, one will have a role to play in your demise.'

This time Albus could not help but deliver a snort of derision. He, Albus Dumbledore, die because of a werewolf? Even more ludicrous than that was the suggestion that he might one day become one.

'I do not think that…' Albus began, but Professor Trelawney shushed him.

'Silence, child,' she said. 'Take the third card, the third card. It is the vital one, the one we have not yet seen, the one with the answers to all mysteries.'

Even Albus in his cynicism could not resist the magic behind Professor Trelawney's voice and conviction. He took a third card from the deck and turned it over. It was a man on horseback holding aloft a cup.

'The Prince of Cups,' Professor Trelawney gasped. 'Yes, yes, this makes more sense now. I see your future, child. Your destiny is to go on a grail quest, as so many muggles and wizards have done before. You will seek out the Deathly Hallows and on your quest you will encounter werewolves and much danger, even death.'

Albus had to admit, the Seer's predictions had made him curious. But he was sensible enough to realize that, even if these predictions were true, they were hardly helpful. He could not spend the rest of his life on the lookout for this werewolf, if it even was a werewolf that the Moon card had resembled. Albus tried to hand the cards back to Professor Trelawney and return to his seat, but she declined.

'Wait, child,' Professor Trelawney said. 'We are not yet finished. Retain the cards, for when you look into the ring of fire you need the magic of those three cards to empower your vision.'

'What do you mean by that?' Albus said.

'You are to look into the fire whilst holding the cards,' Professor Trelawney said. 'I will cast a spell upon you, and you will enter into the fire and the spirit realm within. Upon your return you can enlighten us all with your findings.'

'What can I expect to see?'

'Why, your future, of course,' Professor Trelawney said. 'Now step toward the flames and keep those cards tightly in your hands.'

Albus did as he was instructed. He looked at Mars moments before Professor Trelawney cast the spell on him. The two friends exchanged nervous glances, but Albus drew strength from his friend's concern. This could not be too bad, he thought to himself. But what if the person controlling your father is controlling her? Albus shuddered. He hoped not.

'Introitus effluvium,' encanted Professor Trelawney. Albus felt a warm sensation enfold him, as though he had been completely wrapped in blankets. An irresistible pull drew him into the flames. He flinched, half expecting to be burned, but nothing of the sort happened. Instead, Albus found himself in a completely different place.

He was standing on the top of a tower with battlements around three sides and a closed door that presumably led to a stairwell on the fourth. Two broomsticks leaned against one of the battlements. High in the air above the tower hung a shimmering green skull with a snake for a tongue. This grotesque image cast a foul and frightful light on the scene that Albus was witnessing. A row of four people in black robes stood alongside a fifth, younger boy with white hair and a pale face who was dressed in what appeared to be Hogwarts robes. Except that these robes looked quite unlike those Albus was used to wearing. He quickly realized that he was somewhere deep into the future, and that this must be the top of one of Hogwarts' towers. Albus looked down briefly and saw that he was invisible. He was only experiencing this as a vision, he realized. He had not actually been transported to the future.

Albus heard heavy breathing somewhere to the left. He turned and saw an old man leaning wearily against the battlements. The man had a long white beard, blue eyes, half-moon glasses and a face that looked very much like the portrait of Albion Dumbledore. But what truly gave away the man's identity was his crooked nose. Albus realized that he was looking at the Albus Dumbledore of the future: a much older, taller Dumbledore. To his dismay he noticed that his future self had a crippled, black hand and looked utterly defenseless against this wall of five intruders. His wand was nowhere to be seen. Albus felt the urge to pull his wand out of his pocket and give it to his older self, but the rules of the vision he was in prevented him from doing so. He discovered that he could neither move nor make a sound. He was only a witness to this scene.

'Now Draco, quickly!' said a man with a brutal face.

The blonde boy lifted up his wand but seemed unable to do anything. His hand was shaking and he looked terrified out of his wits. Albus tried to place the boy's face. It looked familiar, as though he saw a similar face almost every day, but he could not figure it out.

'I'll do it,' snarled a hulking figure, moving forward with his hands outstretched and teeth bared. Albus realized that this was the werewolf Professor Trelawney had spoken of. He winced. Without a wand, his older self would surely be eaten by this savage beast.

'I said no,' the man with the brutal face insisted. He cast a spell at his comrade that sent the werewolf crashing into the ramparts. The werewolf man looked ready to kill the man with the angry face, but Albus sensed that the five people standing there were bound by some common, greater purpose. They were here to kill him, his future self, tonight. He just wished his older self would use some wand-less magic and save himself! Surely after the life that Albus hoped to lead in the future, he would have become a great and powerful wizard? Instead, Albus saw a tired old man with a withered hand who looked more like a muggle than a wizard.

'Draco, do it, or stand aside so one of us…' the woman said in a high-pitched voice, but she was interrupted by the door opening.

In the middle of the doorway stood a man that looked vaguely like an older version of Swarbrick Prince. He had long, oily black hair and a hooked nose, a sallow face and a mean expression.

'We've got a problem, Snape,' said the fourth person in black. 'The boy doesn't seem able…'

Then a sound came that scared Albus half to death. His older self uttered a single word, but it sounded so feeble and pathetic that Albus wondered if this really was his future person.

'Severus…'

The man called Snape pushed the other people aside and strode forward to face Albus' older person. He looked like all the Furies. It was as though a lifetime of hatred was being expressed on his face at that moment.

'Severus… please…' whimpered Albus' older self.

'Avada Kedavra,' said the man called Snape.

As instantly as horror and revulsion struck Albus in the chest, he was whisked away by the vision. He did not see what happened to his older self, but knew that it could only mean one thing: a man called Severus Snape who looked like a relative of Swarbrick Prince was going to murder him on top of one of Hogwart's towers many years into the future, witnessed by four people and a werewolf underneath the green image of a skull and a snake.

Albus tumbled out of the flames and onto the floor of the Divination classroom. He looked up wildly, only half seeing the look of anticipation on Professor Trelawney's face and the curiosity written on the faces of his classmates. Albus let out one long, shrill scream and bolted for the door. He blasted the lock open with his wand and fled down the stairwell before Professor Trelawney could stop him. Her voice echoed down after him, but the blood pounding in his ears made him deaf to her protestations.

Albus ran, and ran, and ran. He did not know where he was running to, but still he ran. He ran almost blindly, stumbling several times on the cobbled floors of Hogwarts' corridors, but this did not stop him. He only wanted to get as far away from the vision, as far away from Hogwarts, as was humanly possible. If it were not for the anti-disapparation charms on the school, Albus would have apparated to the East Indies and sought comfort in his father's arms, regardless of what was wrong with Archaeon.

As it was, Albus ran straight into his mother. He bounced off her aura and landed on his rear end. She was standing in a long white night-dress, but still glowed as though sunlight was pouring through the windows, even though it was midnight.

'The portraits told me you were running unchecked through the halls of Hogwarts,' Lubo said. 'Come, what is the meaning of this?'

'I'm … I'm going to be murdered on …' Albus could not complete a full sentence. He staggered to his feet and ran off again, this time in the direction of Gryffindor Tower. He expected Lubo to follow him but was surprised when she did not. Instead, he felt the tickling of Legilimency as she probed the surface of his mind. Albus rounded a corner and the feeling stopped, but he knew that his mother would know what he had seen.

Albus galloped back to Gryffindor Tower and made straight for his bed. He tore his bed-curtains shut behind him and curled in a terrified ball underneath his blanket. The slightest sound made his heart beat like an African drum, and even the quiet chatter of his friends when they made their entry into the dormitory an hour later gave him chills. They were clearly talking about him, but none had the willpower to open Albus' curtains and talk to him. Not that he wanted them to. No, Albus felt like a pall of evil had settled on him. He was a marked man: a man destined to die by murder in this very place, the supposedly free and safe school of Hogwarts. Albus did not sleep a wink all night, or for the next couple of nights for that matter.


To the members of the Order of Explorers, Adventures and Investigative Magical Apprentices, it seemed like their leader was a living, walking ghost in the following weeks. It went without saying that the adventure to Egypt was postponed following Albus' ordeal in the Divination classroom. Those who had been present were able to recount the details to other members of the Order, but nobody truly knew the reason for Albus' strange behaviour. A few of his friends, namely Mars, Maggie and Edward, continued to accompany him to and from classes. But Albus said little, and reacted even less when spoken to, that his friends began to wonder if he had not turned into an Inferi.

The only proactive thing Albus did in the subsequent weeks was to approach Professor Rolleston after Charms class.

'I wish to discontinue Divination,' Albus said in a monotonous voice. 'I have no wish to pursue that subject further. Please permit me to transfer to Ancient Runes.'

Professor Rolleston tried to extract more of an explanation out of his prize student, but none was forthcoming. What he did notice, as did all the other teachers, was that Albus was completely out of sorts in the classroom. He did not volunteer answers, and when asked would often make mistakes. His wandwork was out of sorts and he seemed perpetually distracted. Albus did not even show up for Quidditch practices, prompting Thomas Jones to demote him to the bench in favour of young Jeremiah Potter. When Albus failed to present for an Order meeting, John Gaunt tried to convince everyone else to elect him as the new leader. The bid was overturned by Albus' loyal friends. Perhaps the most dreadful sign of Albus' deterioration was when he batted Fawkes away when the phoenix tried to rest on his shoulders and cheer him up with song.

Regardless, it was clear to all who knew Albus or had anything to do with him that the very life seemed to have gone out of him. Too many people had Albus' interests at heart to let this go on for very much longer, so by mid-November he was called to a meeting in the Headmistress' office attended by Lubo, Professor Rolleston and Professor Bones, the Deputy Headmaster.

'Albus Dumbledore,' Professor Prewett began, once Albus had been made to take a seat in front of a semi-circle of chairs in which sat the four staff members. 'I have heard numerous reports that you have been neglecting your studies, failing to complete your homework, making rudimentary mistakes far beneath your usual standard, and not attending your extracurricular activities. Do you deny this?'

'No, Professor,' Albus said without a trace of emotion. He was staring at the floor and did not even look up when spoken to.

'I have also ascertained that this slide in your usual standards was precipitated by a Divination lesson undertaken on All Hallow's Eve, is that correct?'

Albus' response was non-committal. He merely shrugged.

'Your mother was able to determine, by Legilimency and by a discussion with Professor Trelawney, that you experienced a vision of your death, is that correct?'

Albus gave the faintest of nods.

'Albus,' Professor Prewett said in a surprisingly soft voice, 'this cannot continue. Unless you tell us what you saw, and why it has affected you so, things will only get worse. We are not here to condemn you, but to help you.'

'Please, Albus,' Lubo added. 'Listen to Professor Prewett, and listen to me. I am dreadfully concerned about you: we all are. Tell us what is the matter and we will make it right.'

'You cannot make it right,' Albus said forcefully. 'I saw it with my own eyes. I am to die at the hands of a man called Severus Snape on a tower here at Hogwarts when I am an old man. I am going to be weak, useless and defenseless against a cowardly murderer. Clearly I have no future as a great wizard. I will be an old man with a withered hand and no wandless magic to speak of. What good is there living if my future is such.'

It was more words put together than Albus had managed in two weeks of conversations, and it also expressed for the first time the feelings that had been blighting Albus' thoughts. He could not rid himself of the image of him as an old man with a withered hand and seemingly no power. If that was his future, he could hardly bring himself to get out of bed each day, let alone go about living his life.

'Albus: listen very carefully to me now,' said Professor Bones. The Transfiguration teacher, who had a lion for an Animagus, came over and crouched beside Albus' chair. His glowing locks of hair and strong face conveyed strength, and Albus felt compelled to listen to the man. Professor Bones said, 'Divination is an incomplete art, and one that must be read with caution. Even visions, however clear they may seem, may be distorted and inaccurate.'

'I know what I saw,' Albus said through gritted teeth.

'I do not doubt you,' Professor Bones said. 'But I am advising caution. Do not assume the veracity of that vision. For all you know, it may be completely inaccurate.'

'But what if it is true?' Albus said, half whimpering.

'And if it were?' Lubo responded with her own question. 'Albus, you only caught a glimpse of that future. You do not know what your future self experienced before his death. You cannot know how he obtained those injuries or came to be defenseless against his enemies. You may yet become the greatest wizard in the entire world, or not at all. Do not judge your entire life on an image that lasted a minute or less.'

Albus was silent as he began to be swayed by the adult's arguments.

'I would also like to add,' Professor Rolleston said, 'that no amount of sulking or protesting against the world can change the future. Whether or not it is your doom to die by murder is beside the point. At some stage, we all die. If we spend our entire lives waiting for that day, then why bother living at all? It is time that you started to live again, and put that dreadful vision out of mind.'

'Excellent sentiments,' Professor Prewett said. 'And I would also like to caution you, Dumbledore, to guard against complacency. Do not assume that vision was the truth. No person is immortal simply because they believe that their death is fixed in time. The future is completely malleable to change.'

'You mean,' Albus said, 'I could find Severus Snape, whoever he is, and try to win him over so that he does not kill me?'

'In a manner of speaking, yes,' Lubo replied. 'But by the look of him, he was very much younger than you and I doubt he is even alive at this time.'

'This is all conjecture,' Professor Bones said. 'Albus, the point that we are trying to make is that you must get back to reality. Abandon these irrational fears of death and start making the most of this present life. If you do not, you risk losing your friends, failing to achieve your best in school, and worse. If you carry on like this, then I can accurately predict that you will be a failure in life. Do you want that?'

'No, sir,' Albus said, feeling rather small.

'Good,' Professor Bones said. 'I expect you to be up to your normal standards in our next Transfiguration class.'

'And I expect the same in all facets of your life,' Professor Prewett added. 'We all understand that you have been through an ordeal, but it is time to put it behind you.'

'Yes, Professor,' Albus said. He looked around at the earnest faces of the four adults, particularly his mother's. 'I promise to start trying again.'

'You are excused,' Professor Prewett said.

Albus got a hug from his mother and was permitted to leave the Headmistress' office. He made his way back to Gryffindor Tower feeling lighter than he had in weeks. He made two silent pledges to himself. The first was to put all thoughts of the vision out of his head and start behaving like the normal Albus Dumbledore. The second was to remember the name Severus Snape, and one day, do whatever was in his power to bring that man over to his way of thinking. Then, and only then, Albus thought he could prevent himself the disgrace of dying by the Avada Kedavra.