Disclaimer: Everything you recognize belongs to JK Rowling.
From the last chapter…
"Harry!" Hermone groaned, slapping at his arm playfully. "What if he could turn into a phoenix? I've never heard of a wizard with a magical animagus, but I also never heard of anyone with a phoenix as a familiar. Who knows with the headmaster?"
Harry began to see where Hermione was heading. "And phoenixes are reborn from the ashes!"
"And his body went up in flames at the funeral, before his coffin. Remember that phoenix flying into the blue sky, right before the marble tomb appeared?" Hermione's mouth stretched in a wide smile. "You know, it just might be possible."
Chapter 33
"I don't know," Ron disagreed hours later as he and Harry searched through the rubbish from the Room of Hidden Things.
Harry pulled out his trump card. "When have you ever known Hermione to be wrong? Dumbledore could still be alive. Maybe it's some grand plot to get Snape in on Tom Riddle's good side. His death would have to be believable."
Ron piled old school books in piles by subjects. They'd be useful since Minerva had sent most of the school's spare textbooks out to needy students for homeschooling. "Hermione's been wrong when she had the wrong information. If you think about it, Snape had every opportunity to collect Dumbledore's hair for polyjuice potion. It could be a trap."
Ron's steady tone surprised Harry, and he looked closer at his best friend. "That sounded surprisingly sensible." Harry was only half teasing.
Ron glanced up and shrugged. "We don't have time for nonsense." He smiled wryly. "When all this started, I decided I'd best keep my head on straight if I was going to use my one strength to help."
"Just one strength?" Harry asked in mock amazement.
Ron punched Harry's shoulder. "Strategy and all that. You have the amazingly good and horrible bad luck. Hermione has the brains, and I can create strategy. I can't do that if I'm off losing my temper half the time. Even though I still do. Just quietly." He grinned.
He has a point, thought Harry. "So what's our strategy, O Great One?" Harry intoned, raising both hands over his head and bowing to the floor. He just managed to keep a straight face.
Ron chucked a book at him. "Search through that for the curse someone put on your dad."
"Some jealous hag might have cast one on my mum, instead." Harry said as he turned the book over in his hands. He'd know that worn binding and those dog-eared corners anywhere. The Half-blood Prince's potion book.
"Nah," Ron disagreed. "Everyone loved your mum, from what Remus has said. And don't girls cast a disfigurement jinx or something? Like Hermione did on the defense sign-up fifth year."
"True," Harry acknowledged. "If anyone wanted to kill my dad when he was growing up, it would be Snape." An intense desire to capture his old potions professor tonight and force him to reverse the curse he might have cast held Harry in its sway for one long moment. His vision narrowed in on the book in his hands, and his breathing quickened. But the other part of Harry, the one that hoped Dumbledore was still alive, stopped him. Maybe I'd better take a leaf out of Ron's book before I run off seeking revenge. Else I just might end up dead. He sighed with regret. Running off impulsively was a lot more fun.
Harry set the book to the side to take back to his room. "Did you find that old tiara that was near it? It seemed like junk when I hid the potions book before, but maybe it was Ravenclaw's missing diadem Flitwick talked about earlier. It looked like a crownish type of thing."
"No. Everything got dumped in bags when they packed the Room of Hidden Things. It could be anywhere."
"Yeah," Harry agreed as he settled in for the long haul. "It was probably just a piece of plastic an eleven year old thought was treasure and hid."
Harry burst into the library later that afternoon. He was prepared to drag Hermione away from her books, but he stopped short. Hermione, waving her hands and chattering to a portrait, faced away from Harry, and he could see clearly who she was talking to. Albus Dumbledore's bright blue eyes twinkled at him from underneath a vibrant hat littered with shooting stars that moved and twirled. Piles of socks in the background ensured his painted toes would never know a minute of cold.
"Ah, my dear boy. Come here." He raised a hand, white and supple, to point at this hat. "I've charmed my hat to change color and pattern each day. Variety livens things up as a portrait, you know."
Harry came to a stop in front of his mentor and swallowed the hard lump in his throat ""How much... I mean, do you remember..." He petered off, unable to ask Dumbledore if he remembered dying - or if he even died at all.
"I updated my portrait each day this past year," Albus looked down as he polished his crescent glasses on the edge of his lime green robe. "I knew I was going to die soon, you see." He held up his hand, formerly blackened and useless.
"But...but...Snape killed you! Not your arm!" Harry sputtered with indignation, forgetting for a moment his hopes that the greatest wizard of their time still lived.
Albus Dumbledore yawned and stretched widely, his hands leaving the side of the portrait as he did so.
Hermione, silent till now, spoke up. "I asked him about that, Harry. He doesn't remember, of course, but he won't answer or say a thing against Severus Snape. When I bring it up, he pretends to sleep." She glared at their former master.
Harry stared at her. "Hermione! You, disrespectful? To the headmaster?"
Hermione tossed her hair over her shoulder. "We're fighting a war here, and he's obstructing our efforts!"
"Maybe Snape confunded the portrait." Harry snuck a glance at the portrait. Dumbledore cracked an eyelid, but otherwise gave no response.
Hermione shook her head, a frown pulling at the corners of her mouth. "He just gave me the last bit of information I need to complete the loyalty and imperius clocks. That's not the mark of someone who's confunded." She stood up and began walking in a circle around the table. "The problem is that only one person can be attached per clock. There's too many variables otherwise!"
The stress in her voice caught Harry's attention. In a normal situation, they'd buy as many watches as needed, but clocks had been low on the list of survival items to pack.
Harry stood. "Maybe I can find some old ones we can get working in the Room of Hidden Things. And we found all those mirrors in the basemen; maybe someone in my family collected clocks."
Harry took one last look at the sleeping portrait before turning around to go. Dumbledore's voice stopped him as he reached the door. "Harry, don't forget you need to go home to recharge your mother's spell."
Anger flaring through him, Harry turned on his heel. "That sounds like a recipe to get me killed." He ignored Hermione's questioning glance. He didn't know if this portrait was to be trusted; he'd listen to Dumbledore and Snape tonight and decide then.
Dumbledore smiled sadly before closing his eyes again.
That evening Harry bid his friends goodbye in the apparition room with barely a thought, distracted by what he might hear from his cupboard under the stairs. He'd decided some spying was in order before moving forward with contacting or capturing Snape. Twice now he'd heard sounds in the house in the wee hours of the morning or later.
Both Hermione and Ron had agreed to hold off on telling any adults for at least tonight. Harry planned to bring Dobby under his invisibility cloak, which was the only reason his friends were letting him go tonight. That and the fact that he had to recharge his mother's protection spell.
If Arthur or Minerva yanked these night time trips away from Harry, as they just well might, there was no telling what would happen. A meteor might fall out of the sky and land on the manor, obliterating all within its confines. Or a horde of muggles might suddenly notice the house after a thousand years of living near it and descend upon it in a desperate bid to find food. The resulting conflict would of course attract the ministry due to Harry's bad luck. They'd then have a massive battle – which Harry just might win if his mother's protection spell asserted itself in time. But how many would die?
No, they didn't dare tell Arthur and Minerva yet. Not till he had assessed the situation better. Harry pulled out his wand and cast silencio on Dobby, who jumped around and silently yelled at the top of his lungs with a delighted grin. Harry had trouble giving the bouncing elf a card with block print stating, "I'm silenced."
In case anything happened to Harry, he wanted his friend to have the spell reversed. While Harry couldn't afford to silence his own voice, he cast silencing charms on his clothes and shoes. With a nod to himself, he loosely clasped his hand around the still jumping house elf. Dobby landed and winked them away, sending Harry back into the darkness of the Dursely's house.
Harry chewed vigorously on the puking pastille, once again grateful he'd separated the remedy from the puking part. He ought to recommend to the twins that they market it as an anti-nausea candy for pregnant women. It was better tasting and more convenient than a potion. The twins could make millions off it if things ever got back to normal.
After arranging his invisibility cloak, he once again threaded his arm through the forest of brooms and mops. Aunt Petunia must have stocked up on them just before she left, Harry mused. She could never have too many cleaning supplies. Remembering the years of sweeping, mopping, and scrubbing the kitchen floor set off a ghostly ache in his lower back. His elbow clipped the edge of one handle and it tipped into the broom next to it with a dull thud. Harry froze, listening hard for any sound in the house.
When no alarm sounded, he admonished himself to be careful – if Snape glanced in this here, he might notice if the brooms were askew. After a tense minute, his hand reached the crack under the doorway, and he wedged the flexible string of the extendable ear between the door frame and the door itself.
Harry let out a silent sigh of relief once he'd pulled his hand back underneath his cloak. He should be able to hear any sound Snape made now. Perhaps Snape came here as extra insurance at the behest of Tom Riddle. Although he had no doubt Tom Riddle, in his persona of Alrick Armstrong, was still monitoring his childhood home. In fact, he'd probably been delighted to find out the extent of the surveillance charms placed on his home by the ministry.
Hours later, a muffled curse woke Harry from a sleep filled with restless dreams full of peach colored string morphing into giant crickets whose cheerful chirping echoed in his head. Fogginess fled his brain as he remembered who he hoped to spy on tonight. Severus Snape, the murderer of the possibly dead Albus Dumbledore.
Instead of scintillating conversation between his mentor and the betrayer, Harry instead heard one set of footsteps walk through every room of the house before stopping in the kitchen. Snape grumbled about eating cold food, and he complained again about the mess. No one answered back. Several clunks book-ended by loud squeaks told Harry that Snape had thrown several somethings in the rubbish bin underneath the sink.
Footsteps echoed on the hallway tile, and Harry stopped breathing as those they stopped outside the closet door for seconds that stretched into an eternity. A loud complaint deafened Harry as the footsteps crunching on glass continued on into the parlor. The window in the door must be broken. "If that Potter boy doesn't show up soon, this house will have to be cleaned. I refuse to live in a dangerous pig sty."
Harry had no doubt his former professor blamed him for every bit of that inconvenient mess, regardless of the fact that Harry hadn't stepped foot in the house proper in more than ten months. That inconsequential thought was crowded out by another, more pressing question. Why was Snape waiting for him? Had Tom Riddle given Snape orders to bring him in?
He ground his teeth, anger at his teacher's betrayal overwhelming him again. Two clicks and a long, slow creak distracted him. Harry listened closely, eager for any distraction from his roiling, confused thoughts.
"I've checked all the windows and doors, Albus. They're still locked and there's no sign of the Potter boy."
"Harry, Severus. His name is Harry." Albus's tired tones contradicted, as if he'd lost this argument more than once.
"He's James Potter's son." The potion master's silky tones brimming with derision carried back into the hallway.
"But he's Lily's son, as well."
Now Snape sounded irritated. "Yes, yes. That's why I'm here, after all. Trying to save the life of her ungrateful whelp, who doesn't even have the decency to follow your instructions!"
"Now, Severus," Albus soothed. He sounded like he'd said these words enough times that even he wasn't listening to them anymore. "You know we didn't plan for this. Oh, you made those potions and I made the portkeys for the Weasleys. But the lack of food and stability in the muggle world has thrown a whizbang into all our plans. Perhaps Harry doesn't understand what happens when his mother's spell weakens."
The whisper of feet pacing on plush carpet filled Harry's ears.
"And whose fault is that?" came Snape's waspish reply.
Albus sighed. "I couldn't bear letting young Harry know Tom could attack him each year because his mother's protection spell weakened as he stayed away from this place."
Snape harrumphed. "Instead of sending him home at Christmas with all the other students?"
"I couldn't. You know that. The Dursleys refused to allow him to ruin their Christmas." Outrage sharpened Dumbledore's voice into diamond-hard knives. "The protection spell would have been invalidated if I'd sent him home under those conditions." Albus's voice grew soft. "And I couldn't bear to take the holiday away from him."
The couch squeaked as Snape threw himself onto it. "That boy doesn't need coddling - that will be the death of him yet! I swear, Albus, If you weren't just a portrait I'd try to shake some sense into you."
"If that didn't work when I was with you, my dear boy, it won't work now." Albus sighed. "I wish I could help you more. We'll just have to hope Harry shows up soon, else I fear for the Order and his friends."
"And where exactly are you?" Snape's voice held a sly note that caused the portrait Albus to laugh.
"Even I don't know where Fawkes took my newborn self. Wheedling won't get you anywhere. You'll see me eleven years from now at Hogwarts like the rest of the staff."
Even Harry could hear the amusement in the headmaster's voice, and he held his breath to hear every word better. Maybe Hermione was right!
"How…optimistic of you." Snape replied.
A mock note of pain entered Dumbledore's voice. "That I'll be accepted at Hogwarts?"
More squeaks issued from the couch Snape rested on. "No!" he almost growled, anger threading through his voice now. "The chance of my living through this war are abysmal, as you very well know, Although why you of all people need to go back to first year…"
"Oh, Severus." All levity left Dumbledore's voice. "I've done all in my power to help you live. I still will." False cheer leavened his voice. "My newborn self will need a mentor, you know. I know of no one better than you. With Fawkes putting a block on my memories till I reach an age my mind can handle them, I'm just as susceptible to the foolish mistakes of youth as any other. I know of no one I'd rather have guide me."
Silence filled the room, punctuated only by Snape's slow, deep breathing. When the potions master spoke, his voice sounded tight and rougher than his usual smooth tones. "So I'll look for a red-headed boy who can turn into a phoenix, then?"
Dumbledore's tiny laugh held a world of relief in it. "I won't know how to reach my animagus yet. This burning day thing is a new adventure for me."
Harry could picture his mentor reaching for a lemon drop to pop in his mouth as he twinkled at Severus Snape. Distracted for a moment, Harry wondered if a bowl of lemon drops had been painted into the headmaster's portrait.
A long thoughtful pause followed, and elation filled Harry as he had time to think about the implications of an Albus Dumbledore that still lived, even if as a newborn baby. Harry remembered how ugly Fawkes looked on a burning day – just like a plucked, scrawny chicken. Dumbledore had looked equally haggard in his old age, with his papery, wrinkled skin and blackened arm. He hoped that young baby Albus looked better than the reborn Fawkes. As a wide grin stretched from ear to ear, Harry heard one last thing.
"Any last, impossible instructions, Albus?"
"Live your life and make your own choices, my dear boy. I'm just a portrait now."
"My own choices," Snape's voice was deceptively calm, and Harry tensed as years of potions classes told him an insult or some such witticism would inevitably follow. "Perhaps I'll break my wand, throw myself on the Dark Lord's mercy, and tell him the true secret of immortality."
A delighted laugh rang out. "If Tom had a magical animagus, it would be a dementor, Where's my handkerchief? I haven't laughed this hard in years." Dumbledore chuckled again before sobering. "No, I don't think he'll be chosen by a phoenix. His heart is too black - has known too little love - to be pure enough for a phoenix."
"And where did that glorified chicken of yours disappear to?" Snape asked, his tone deceptively casual.
"Ah, now, Severus, I may be old, but I'm not senile yet! You can't finagle out of me where my newborn self is that easily. Once Fawkes was assured my rebirth went as expected, he delivered me to my new human home and went on to his next great adventure. After enough burning days, my animagus form will become permanent. Then I'll bond with someone as Fawkes did and this line of phoenixes will continue in this world."
Harry's eyes widened in the dark. If phoenixes used wizards to reproduce by making an animagus magical, who had Fawkes been originally?
Snape interrupted Harry's racing thoughts. "The Dark Lord molting. Isn't that an image to inspire terror in the hearts of all magical beings?"
As their conversation devolved into idle chit chat, Harry let the extendable ear drop to the floor and concentrated on keeping his limbs still. He couldn't allow his excitement to betray him into discovery.
One phrase reverberated throughout him. Dumbledore lived! He lived somewhere as a tiny baby. Harry breathed freely for the first time in weeks as he felt the weight of self-inflicted blame lift from his shoulders. He saw once again in his mind's eye the weak, piteous headmaster begging Harry to not make him drink the potion in the cave, but then he banished it with an image of a healthy, bright-eyed newborn, a sprinkling of red hair crowning his head.
Elation filled Harry as he realized he hadn't been responsible for the Dumbledore's death after all.
To be continued…
A/N Special thanks to PsykoJinx for her suggestions that made this chapter better! And thanks to everyone who gave me their thoughts on if Dumbledore should live or die. For those of you who don't want Dumbledore to take over everything – don't worry, he won't! Harry and his friends will have to make their choices on their own, at least in this story.