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Catherine or Cate

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What Should Have Been

III

Before 'Too Late'

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Albus Dumbledore prided himself on timing. It made for dramatic entrances, improved perceptions and hero moments aplenty. Somehow, this time, he missed his moment. By about five years if the expressions on the faces of the students before him were any indication.

"I'm sorry, Miss Granger," Albus said, busying his fingers with stirring his cold tea. "Could you repeat all that? I thought you said that you know about Voldemort's horcruxes."

The girl huffed.

"Listen to me you aging fraud," Draco Malfoy said lazily where he was reclined in one of the guest chairs opposite, between Hermione Granger and, surprisingly to Albus, Blaise Zabini. "We were infants when Voldemort killed Lily and James Potter. We worked out on our own that the creep has horcruxes after the events of first and third years where two were destroyed. You can help us, and we might be able to help you continue in your current image."

Albus was concerned about what the blond boy didn't say. He felt he was almost being blackmailed.

"We will be the victors, Professor," Zabini contributed. "We will write history. You should consider our offer to be part of this, very carefully."

For teenagers they knew the dance very well.

"Miss Granger…"

"Does not repeat herself," Malfoy said firmly.

"How's your mother, Mister Malfoy?" Albus retorted childishly.

On the left, Granger bristled. On the right, Zabini's expression blanked, but his eyes promised horrible things. In the middle, Malfoy smiled. That was definitely worse. It meant the boy knew something good.

"She's been removed from St Mungo's and is responding better than we expected to her new treatment plan," Draco replied, slowly uncrossing his legs and smiling cruelly.

Albus felt the brush of the mind arts over his shields, but didn't know which student it came from as none of them were meeting his eyes. For an undirected attack, it breached deeply. Albus frowned in concern.

"Have a good weekend, Professor," Malfoy declared as the trio slipped from his office, ending their meeting abruptly.

The moment the office door closed and locked, Fawkes sung a bitter song which Albus ignored as he went to his cabinets. Ripping open the drawer that held all the memories of Tom Riddle and Voldemort, Albus placed his wand to his temple began pulling out other memories, labelling the bottle and filing them away.

Hours later, he awoke asleep in his chair to find his office door ajar and Fawkes absent from his perch.

Albus rubbed his eyes as the feelings of unease settled into his bones.

III

It started small after that.

Every meal he attended, Albus felt an attack on his mental shields, sometimes more which left him headachy and paranoid. He kept careful watch of the Famous Five as the staff called them, but there was no consistency to the attacks.

On the fourth day at dinner, Granger, Malfoy and Zabini were all absent from the meal when Albus still felt the intrusion. He started reinforcing his shields that night because whomever was behind the attacks could do it from a distance and without eye contact. Albus had never heard of that before.

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The next incident occurred about ten days after the initial meeting about horcuxes.

Albus returned to his office to find it empty of all life, including his familiar, but the door to his pensieve cabinet open. He spent hours pouring through the memories but the depth of the swirling liquid had not changed, nor had the colour, nor the consistency.

It was at this point Albus decided that someone was maliciously pranking him.

III

Then there was nothing, for an entire week, there was nothing. No unexplained events, no brushes against his occlumency shields. Granted there was an illness going around the school that had seventy percent of students on bed rest against nausea, chills and fever and classes cancelled, but it stopped.

Albus still could not relax.

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Then Albus discovered some of his teachers already knew some of what the Famous Five knew. Pomona Sprout was helping them by digging up all she could about the use of Horcruxes in herbology, no pun intended.

And if Pomona knew that mean all the heads of house knew.

That would explain the chill to Albus' relationships with each of them in recent months.

III

But Albus thought on things and realised that the events being caused by the Famous Five had been going on for years under his nose and mostly without his knowledge. Minerva had been pivotal in clearing Sirius Black and returning Harry Potter to a magical guardian. Severus knew about the incident with little Astoria Greengrass and the Chamber of Secrets.

They had to have known about the glowing ward stone that protected the school from everything. Hogwarts really was the safest place in Wizarding Britain and it had nothing to do with him. It had everything to do with his staff who were, with a group of students, running the school out from under him.

He had been the last to know about so many things. The Triwizard Tournament had forced their hand, Albus realised belatedly. Otherwise he would still know nothing. He was only allowed to know what they wanted him to know and Tom Riddle's horcruxes was one of the few instances where he knew more than them.

They had asked for his help which meant the Famous Five were at a loss and did not know how to proceed.

Which meant Tom Riddle still had the upper hand, however slight.

Which meant Albus needed to help them, not have them help him.

Which meant giving up power and control over something. Something, if he was honest with himself, he didn't have power and control over anymore, only the illusion thereof.

Which meant Albus had been out played by sixteen and seventeen year olds.

III

Albus looked over to the four Heads of House and Famous Five, plus Zabini, who he had summoned to an empty classroom. He had been working for days. On chalk boards around the room was all the information Albus had gathered on Tom Riddle during the last war. His childhood, his Hogwarts years and everything he could find thereafter. A pensieve stood in the middle of the room with many memories from Albus himself and others swirling around in the hope that the Famous Five would see something he couldn't.

"This is everything I have, everything I know. It isn't much. But we need to do something,"Albus whispered with a wave at the information on the walls. "Before it's too late to stop him for a second time."

"I am not a baby anymore," Harry said moving to stand in front of a chalkboard. "Hermione, tell the Headmaster what we know."

So Albus listened as Granger revealed more information to him while Minerva looked on like the cat who caught the canary, proud of her students and her own hand in events. The Black family library had been pivotal in everything. It had given them the horcruxes information and the blood ritual information that the Five had exploited when Voldemort returned.

"You gave him a body that was sympathetic to what Tom fights against?" Albus asked. "How would that help?"

"Every cell in our bodies, remembers, on some level," Granger stated. "How else could bones, hundreds of thousands of years old tell muggle scientists anything? Using that principle, we swapped the bone of Tom Riddle's father, with one of his Slytherin ancestors who was more sympathetic to our cause, in the hope it would be detrimental to Tom's cause."

"And it would have less imbreeding madness in it as well," Longbottom added from where he was studying a map. "We were hoping it diminished his conviction."

"Did it?" Albus asked looking around to look at his spy, his spy no longer, more than likely.

"Somewhat," Severus declared. "There's less willy-nilly death and destruction. More creative punishments, more planning and he spends more time alone."

"There's less madness because he's soul is more together than apart," Pomona declared. "It's no longer like those last years of darkness. And he will just put it down to having a body again, not knowing any differently."

In one corner Malfoy, Zabini, Greengrass and Harry were muttering together, pointing to different parts of Tom Riddle's life. Albus listened, unashamedly and discovered they were quickly drawing the same conclusions that had taken him years.

"We will stop him," Harry promised.

Albus bowed and acknowledged the changing of the guard. The only thing he could do, because it was almost too late.

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