DISCLAIMER: Could the Death Eaters have won the war if they'd made all their personnel take a half-day course on basic prisoner-handling at any time before half way through Deathly Hallows? If so, I don't own Harry Potter.

NOTE: I didn't realise this needed to be said, but there are appropriate spaces for online airing of sadomasochistic kinks and the reviews column of a Harry Potter Self-Insert Fanfic is not one of them. It's deleted now, but please don't do that again.

CHAPTER 14

I rise and go into the hall. Framed in the front door is a tall figure in a long, dove-grey robes with lilac accents. With long silver hair about his shoulders and a beard gathered in a luminescent cloisonné ring at belt level, and a tasseled hat. I can't pick out much more detail, the light is behind him and Vernon's eyes haven't adjusted yet. Not that that is necessary: there can't be more than one individual answering that description and only one that'd turn up here.

Fuck me, it's Albus Bloody Dumbledore.

"Ah, Mr. Dursley," he says, and suddenly the blue of his eyes is fierce and bright, no matter the lack of light to see them by.

-oOo-

That eye-shine - it's not a simple scan. It's a full-scale legilimentic attack.

It's suddenly very crowded in Vernon's head.

The smell of macassar-oil. Father's belt. The noise of the souk at Tangier. Steel ripping through my chest. I'm sorry, the best we can do for poor Jessie is put her to sleep. The crunch of a breaking nose. I want a divorce. Arianna's dead, Albus, you killed her, you and your fucking sweetheart. I could have had you aborted, you little shit. I'm sorry, Albus, but there are things - I'm afraid it's a blackball -

WHO'S THIS FUCKER? Vernon's roaring in here.

Deck him before he hurts Dudley, I manage to grind out, and then I'm throwing all of the grief and upset I can find at Dumbledore. Every tear and pang of heartache in vets' offices, courtrooms, by hospice beds and in A&E wards. Riddle was always shit at this particular kind of emotional attack, since he mostly didn't have emotions (although by the same token he was mostly immune). I, by contrast, am armed with a lifetime of mental illness to throw. It leaves Vernon free to -

What on earth -? Dumbledore's eyes go wide.

Vernon has covered the distance in three quick strides - I'm not in charge of this body's movement right now, I have BIGGER problems - and given Dumbldore a right feint and left uppercut combination that didn't connect properly but rung the old git's bell. It stops the mental onslaught, so I take back control and grab and lock Dumbledore's wrist and use it to drop him on the doormat. (I know only one formal martial arts move, but I am good at it. Largely because it puts one's opponent in prime putting-the-boot-in position.) There's a hard shape under his sleeve that I feel as I'm giving him the choice between going down or having his elbow dislocated - his wand - and it's the work of an eye-blink to yank the thing out of its holster and toss it over my shoulder while planting Vernon's knee on the bearded face that's now being ground into the hall carpet.

I hear a sharply-snapped incantation in what I think is Hebrew and Dumbledore goes limp under me.

"He'll be unconscious until I wake him," Mme Flamel says from behind me.

"I should resist the urge to give him a good kick in the fork, then, I suppose," I say, a little winded from the burst of speed Vernon put on. "Unsportin' if nowt else. Turns out wizards don't expect to get smacked in the teeth. Worth rememberin', that."

"Sam has said, for a long time, that you shouldn't overlook the possibilities inherent in just hitting the other fellow with a big stick. Crudity has its place, as he puts it."

I knew I liked Sam Hartlib. "I don't think Dumbledore - this is Dumbledore, isn't it?"

She nods.

"I think he expected to be attacking a muggle, not two minds in one head. So while I was dealing with him on the psychic front, Vernon was able to get close enough to lamp him one. Nearly knocked him out, too."

I've added that last for the benefit of Vernon, who's crowing about the whole thing. As well he might, it takes presence of mind to remember your training when it all goes wahoonie-shaped.

"How's Harry?" I ask as I grab Dumbledore under the armpits to drag him out of public view.

"I charmed him invisible and told him to hide. He went in that cupboard just there."

The cupboard under the stairs. So he's been driven back in there. Thanks, Dumbledore. "You can come out now, Harry!" I call out, and the door cracks open just a little bit.

"Is there a baddy still?" Harry says, only just above a whisper.

"Not any more. Your Uncle Vernon knocked him out. While I was fighting him with magic, Vernon punched him." And hurt his hand in the doing, by the feel. I'll ask Mme. Flamel to look at that in a bit.

"Cor!"

"Harry, go upstairs to the tent and in the non-magical stores you'll see a box with those white paper boiler suits in. Go bring one down for me, please."

"Righto!" Harry, eager to be helpful, goes off like a ferret up a trouser-leg. Mme. Flamel only just catches him with the counter to her invisibility spell as he goes by.

"Boiler suit?" she asks as I'm hauling the surprisingly-scrawny but awkward to handle Albus Dumbledore into the living room.

"Basic custody discipline. Deprive the prisoner of anything that could be used for escape or self-harm."

"So we're stripping him."

"I'm stripping him. Your involvement we should discuss and think carefully about, no? I mean, you're the most capable person in the vicinity by centuries of experience alone, but I want to think about the politics of this before Albus wakes up and discovers that you, and by extension Nicolas and all the other alchemists, are involved."

Harry comes back in. "Got a suit. And I found this stick in the hallway! Is it a magic wand?"

"Yes it is, and you're too young to be holding it, Harry, put it down."

"Why?" He does, in fact, put it down, but it's a fair question.

"For the same reason you're not allowed to drive a car. You have to be old enough and you're not, yet. When you're ten, just before you go to magic school, if you've worked hard at normal school and eaten all your greens, we'll get you a wand of your own."

"Oh. Can we keep this one 'til then? I like how it feels."

"It's not ours to keep," I tell him, trying not to think about the possible consequences of giving a ten-year-old the Elder Wand to learn with, "and it's not the right sort of wand for schoolwork anyway."

"Oh. When I'm ten, though? I get my own?"

"If you work hard at school and eat your greens, like I said. Now, do you think you can manage by yourself getting a shower and changed into normal clothes? We've finished all the magic science, and Madame Flamel and I need to have a grown-up talk with this baddy we caught."

Harry nods and dashes off. He likes doing things for himself, it shows what a Big Boy he is, and the showers in the tent are safety-charmed to a fare-thee-well.

Once he's gone, I heave Dumbledore on to the sofa and start unbuttoning and unfastening.

"Once you've got him stripped?" Flamel asks, in a tone of fascinated horror. Apparently she's used to a more … chivalrous standard of prisoner management.

"Tied to a chair. I want a word with this bugger."

"The kind of word that involves pincers and hot coals?"

"No. What made you think I was going to do anything that crass?"

"The way you said 'word'. When Sam takes that tone he generally goes on to remind me he was born in what historians are pleased to call the Dark Ages."

I can't help the snort of laughter. "I'm not saying he's about to have a comfortable experience, but torture wasn't my thing even before I learned what a massive waste of time it was." There have been studies, proper peer-reviewed ones.

"Well, getting back to the point you raised earlier, my presence is neither here nor there, but I think we want Nicolas present while you question him."

"Why's that?"

"He's someone Albus would trust to vouch for you. Also, Nicolas is much better at the binding magic you're going to need to keep Albus under control while you question him. Which will leave me free to keep young Harry safe and comforted."

"That would be helpful, means I don't have to wait for Petunia to get back. And Harry likes you."

"Of course he does, I gave him lollipops. If I might use the telephone?"

"Of course," I say, "and when you've spoken to Nicolas I'm going to need a hand getting this on our guest." I hold up the boilersuit, white and shiny and rustling. Dumbledore is now as naked as the day he was born, his robes and effects piled on the coffee table.

"I think I'll help you with that before I get on the phone. Not only will the poor thing catch his death like that, Harry might come down."

"Good heavens, yes. He's not a pretty sight, is he?" Scrawny and hairy all over is the summary. Not bad shape for a centenarian, which I'd put down to the magic but I know of at least one muggle who was running marathons at 104. While we're getting the suit on him, I check on that scar over his left knee. It might be the Underground, but it's the Underground from a very long time ago. Most of the modern system is missing.

While she's on the phone I bring in one of the carver chairs from the dining room and lash Dumbledore into it securely.

While I'm waiting, I take a look at what I presume is the Elder Wand. It does have the mark of the Hallows faintly incised on the butt end, amid the only carving of an elderberry motif on the thing (it's a lot plainer than the movie prop, as most wands seem to be. Mine's the fanciest I've seen yet.) It's long, slender, tapered to a businesslike point and slightly yellowed with age from the natural creamy-white of freshly-cut elder wood. With it in my hand, I get a sense of calculating, ruthless approval and the feeling that it's happy to be in the hands of someone who is actually dead. Not sure which is creepier.

It feels far more like a weapon than my own wand, or any of the ones I tried in Ollivander's shop. Sure, any wand can be turned to warlike use, but with this wand, the peaceable uses are strictly secondary, however well it may take to them. There may come a time when I need a wand for making war, but I'm not expecting that time to even start before '91, and there's a non-zero chance we'll be able to head the bugger off entirely.

I could hang on to it to keep it out of Dumbledore's hands, but I don't know the man well enough to say how he'd react. Giving it back to him would be safe until he connects me with the body cooking in the garage. If he does - he likely will, it's not going to be difficult to figure out from what I have planned for this meeting - I'll just have to hope that he doesn't administer too serious a beat-down to get the wand's allegiance back. If he bothers at all, that is. He did beat the last owner without it after all, and having the wand's allegiance obscured would fit with his stated aim of breaking its power. Although I have my doubts that it works that way.

I permit myself a small chuckle over the possibility that the wand is confused and that the current Master Of The Wand Of Destiny is actually Vernon Dursley. Unlikely, but hilarious if true.

Mme. Flamel comes back from getting changed and checking on Harry - she has had to explain to him why we can't call the police - and relieves me on watch while I get cleaned up and changed.

"You were right to strip him," she says when I come down. Harry has the telly on upstairs and will be fine by himself for a bit.

"Oh?"

"Indeed. He brought a spare wand, two portkeys, a small case of potions, his spectacles are enchanted in some quite ridiculous ways, his watch is a portable magical surveyor as well as telling the time, and I could be here all night cataloguing the runes stitched into his underthings. Then there's this thing that I'm entirely baffled by for the moment."

It looks like a big, chunky lighter. "It's a put-outer," I tell her, making an educated guess, "possibly the put-outer if he only ever made the one. It's for putting out and reigniting lights. For when he needs temporary darkness for whatever he's up to." There may be more to it than that, of course, it did some additional things later on, but I'm hazy on the details.

She snorts, rather unladylike. "Ridiculous," she remarks. "There's a whole lot of other rubbish, but those were the potential risks." She's got the bag that Dumbledore's smart new boilersuit came in. A deft little bit of wand-work and she's got all his stuff sealed up in it, and a Sharpie from her inside pocket marks the bundle with cursive Hieratic script. "A spell of sealing," she says. "It won't last long in felt pen on plastic, but we shan't need all of the day or two it'll serve."

"Is M. Flamel able to come?"

"He is, and should be here shortly. Your hand, there - let me have a look at that."

"Just bruised, it feels like. If you can do something, I'd be obliged." It's almost certainly not broken, Vernon has boxer's knuckles that wouldn't have broken by just one glancing punch.

"You're right," she says, passing her wand over the outstretched hand, "A soothing charm -" she suits action to words - "and it'll be right as rain in an hour. If it's not, a cold compress and some paracetamol will sort you out by morning."

"Feels better already," I tell her. "Could you put a silencing charm around him, please? I'd like to be able to chat without the risk that he's shamming."

"Cautious; I approve," she says, lifting her wand and setting a shimmering circle in the air around Dumbledore's head. "Although I shouldn't fancy his chances of breaking that sleeping spell unaided. What do you hope to achieve when we wake him up?"

"Well, I have some questions, but I much misdoubt we'll get straight answers out of him and I don't have any truth serums handy. Not that I think they're much use, mere honesty still limits you to what you think to ask and as a trained lawyer, I know just how much lying you can do without once saying anything untrue. I'd go with one of the friendliness potions and repeated obliviation and re-interviewing if we had time for it."

She outright laughs at that. "You've taken the time to think about it?"

"Used to be a boy scout, Madame. Be Prepared was the motto, and I try and live by it when I remember." I flop down on the sofa: Vernon's adrenaline is running its course and he's a little weary. And hungry. Speaking of which, "We should eat before we go to work on Dumbledore. I'm not up to offering you any more than takeaway, I'm afraid."

"Already taken care of, I told Nicolas to pick up enough Indian for the three of us, plus something mild for Harry. He will eat curry, won't he?"

"He's not a fussy eater, so long as there's not too much heat in it he'll be fine. I've cooked biryani for him and he liked that."

"Oh good, Nicolas will have picked some of that up, he knows I like it. Or, at least, the local takeaway version of it at any rate."

"Partial myself. Anyway. The main point of talking to Dumbledore - besides making good and sure he knows he's made a prize arse of himself tonight - is to get him on board if we can, and not interfering if we can't. I suspect it's going to mean the latter, because I can predict some of his likely responses to me and how I've been working."

"Some would say that possession raises ethical concerns, certainly."

"Oh, it does. But it's blatant hypocrisy coming from a wizard. They've all, as a culture, bought into the might-makes-right nonsense that led Albus to his current misfortune. Broke into Vernon's house and attacked him on sight, purely because he could and nobody, as he thought, could stop him. So, after we've let him make a revealing choice of lies and prevarications, we're going to play a little game I've devised called 'Messing with Albus Dumbledore'. He's a schemer, a manipulator and a planner, so if we throw enough complete bollocks at him we should at least give him decision paralysis. If not outright baffle him into cooperation."

"I rather think you're going to have to explain that."

I grin at her. "Seriously. It's one of the great fallacies of human reasoning, the long-range plan. The real world is stochastic, not a chessboard. Dumbledore will probably be trying to play chess, well, fine, but I'm crap at chess, so I'm playing Mornington Crescent."

She gets the reference, and chuckles briefly. "The tactics of the absurd. Appropriate, when dealing with wizards."

We nod at each other. The Trickster is a well-known archetype for a reason and while you can never invoke it - some things you just don't speak the name of aloud if it at all matters - if you play it hard enough and sincerely enough, your opponent ends up with no idea whether it's Duck Season or Rabbit Season.

Nicolas Flamel arrives with two bags of gently steaming foil cartons. While the Flamels are helping Harry choose dishes to sample - Nicolas got a wide selection - Petunia gets home and asks me to carry Dudley in to bed, as he's spark out in the car. I get him upstairs and ready to be tucked in, and go back down to meet Petunia at the bottom of the stairs.

"The Flamels seem nice," she says, contriving to imply that she's not at all influenced by my having told her how legendarily rich they are, "but why do we have an unconscious old man in a boiler suit tied to a chair in the living room?"

The look on her face makes me thank all the powers that be for Petunia's desire not to cause a scene while we have company over, "That would be Albus Dumbledore, who broke in and tried to attack Vernon."

"What, the Albus Dumbledore?"

"The same. While I was dealing with him magically, Vernon took over and thumped him across the jaw."

"Oh." She looks like she's going a little lightheaded.

"Once we've had a bite to eat, we're going to give him a hearty bollocking for everything he's dumped on you and Vernon, among other things."

"You look like you're set up to interrogate him!"

"Well, we'll ask him some questions, but I don't really care overmuch what the answers will be. We're going to rather lay down the law with him about what he can and can't do, which nobody has, or at least not recently judging from the way he behaved."

"And you say Vernon's already punched him in the face?"

"Yes."

"I suppose it would be going too far for me to give him a slap as well?"

"Rather, I'm afraid." Although, you know, tempting.

"Well, good luck. I'll get some pyjamas on Dudley, read him a story if he wakes up, and read quietly in bed while you get on with it. How's Harry?"

"He's had a whale of a time today, and I believe he's getting his bedtime story from Madame Flamel tonight, while Monsieur Flamel helps me with Dumbledore. We'll have him out of the house and everything cleaned up before you're up in the morning."

"Good. Good night, if I'm asleep when you bring Vernon up."

-oOo-

Nicolas Flamel may just be the most genial and affable human being I have ever met. Also, he looks at least a decade older than his wife despite being almost certainly several centuries younger. After dinner, and while I'm leaving Harry in his wife's capable hands for bedtime drills, he busies himself with drawing a magical geometry and a runic spell - Linear A, which I can recognise but not read - around the chair I tied Dumbledore to.

"How long will that contain him?" I ask.

"As long as we need. Unless Albus has learned Mycenean, which I don't think he has by the way, in which case he would need perhaps half an hour undistracted to get through this without his wand."

"I'm thinking of blindfolding him before he wakes up anyway, purely to stop him trying legilimency while we're talking."

"Not through this, he won't."

"Ah."

"Well, we're in business. I've applied a catheterisation charm and some cushioning charms to ensure he's comfortable, and intubated a mild calming potion into him. He's capable of being quite hot-headed, so I thought it wise to forestall the possibility of any abreaction." Nicolas Flamel: genial, affable, and scary. He said that in the same cheerful slightly-French-accented tone he'd used earlier to ask I'd care for another bhaji.

"Good idea. Shall we begin?" I'm probably coming off as rather more calm than is really the case. Albus Dumbledore has the potential to be truly dangerous, little though he's apt to use it, and he has a lot of people with the propensity to follow his orders without question. Vernon, however, wants to punch him again, and the effort to keep that under control is forcing me to be focussed and a bit poker-faced.

Flamel nods, flourishes his wand and incants in probably-hebrew.

"Albus Dumbledore," I say as I see him begin to stir, "it comes to something when you can fail a test of character nobody has even set. Would you care to explain why your actions this evening included breaking and entering and an unprovoked attack on a man who, as far as you knew, was a defenceless muggle?"

There's a pregnant pause. I can see his eyes twinkling as he tries legilimency. Nicolas is behind him, so his attention is fixed on me. "Harry. What have you done with him, whoever you are?"

"Well, most recently," I drawl out, "I made sure he'd brushed his teeth after the hearty dinner he had, and put him to bed. Right about now Madame Flamel is reading him a bedtime story."

"Fox in Socks," Nicolas adds. "Most charming. I shall have to buy a copy of my own. Socks on chicks and chicks on fox! Delightful stuff!" Like he hasn't just forcibly medicated a bound prisoner.

I smile at Dumbledore. "I asked an entirely civil question, you know. And while I've answered yours, you haven't answered mine. You came into this house and committed actual crimes, surely you want to put your side of the story on the record?"

"Is that you, Nicolas?"

"It is, Albus, and I should very much like to hear your answer to Mister Reynolds' question. I knew you were a trifle hot-headed and high-handed, but this does seem a bit much even for you."

"Who is Mister Reynolds, Nicolas?"

"Ah-ah, Albus. You first."

"I have reason to believe that Harry Potter, who I placed in this house five years ago, may have been robbed of his inheritance. I came to investigate."

Oh, for fuck's sake. I hold up a hand to ask Flamel to let me take this one. "Still not an answer, Mister Dumbledore. And for your general fund of information, the embezzlement from Harry's inheritance happened nearly five years ago, and we know about your complicity in it. If you're referring to Harry's Gringotts vault closing, that was the final stage in putting the child's patrimony under competent professional management and away from even the possibility of the thieves getting at it again. As it happens, I made up the loss you're responsible for out of my own money."

"What do you mean, complicity?" Dumbledore's putting on a good display of whisker-bristling outrage at my accusation. He might actually be sincere, of course, not that I give a shit. Negligence is just as culpable as dishonesty.

"You handed an orphan child's inheritance over to his enemies for administration. What did you think they were going to do? As I say, complicity. And still giving no valid account of your actions here this evening, Mister Dumbledore."

"The ministry handles estates, what I did was proper - "

"Complicity by culpable ignorance, then," I drive over his spluttering excuses. "The office of the Seventh Clerk is the administrator of last resort, Mister Dumbledore, did you not take the ten minutes required to have an actual lawyer inform you of that fact? Not have even one trustworthy acquaintance who might have stepped in as a friend of the family, however thin the fiction might have been? What you did was lawful, but don't insult me with the suggestion that you thought it was right. No man your age is that naive. And again, and if you don't answer this time I will presume your motives this evening were entirely criminal and call for the assistance of Magical Law Enforcement, why did you break and enter as a trespasser in this house and magically assault what you clearly thought was the muggle Vernon Dursley?"

Silence. Which he should have been doing from the start, really. I'm finding it slightly amusing being on this side of the interview, most of my previous experience of this sort of thing was sitting next to a sweating suspect who just wanted to get his police bail and go home.

I keep the silence up. I moved the clock on the mantel to a position behind Dumbledore, I don't want him knowing the time. He surely knows the 'let the other guy fill the silence' trick. Thing is, I know it too. He gets to a few seconds past two minutes. Clearly he's unused to not being in a clear position of power and authority and I rather think he's all at sea.

"The ministry handled my father's estate." He's speaking in a small voice, suddenly sounding all of his years old. "I thought that was standard practise. And when Gringotts wrote to say the vault was closing I jumped to the conclusion that the Dursleys had found a way to embezzle the contents. So I resolved to -"

"Jumped to the conclusion, Mister Dumbledore? The vault closed ten days ago, even with a slow owl you've known for over a week. That's a leisurely jump."

"I had to inquire at Gringotts, they told me that Harry's guardians had a muggle court order to close the vault and remove the funds."

"That ten minute appointment took you a week and a half to arrange? No, don't bother answering that, I won't learn anything from whatever lie you concoct. The problem, here, Albus Dumbledore," I tell him, leaning forward in the armchair I'm interviewing him from, "is that you are a considerable practitioner of the rarefied and advanced forms of stupidity open only to the highly intelligent. The main one of which is assuming that if you don't know a thing, nobody else could possibly know more. When I intervened in this family, which they were in crying need of by the way, Vernon Dursley was on the brink of full-blown suicidal ideation, Petunia Dursley not far from a complete breakdown, and both children were being sorely mistreated. They were keeping Harry in a cupboard and that was only the most prominent of their abuses. Since then, I have spent eleven months and considerable sums of my own money - not a penny of which I begrudge - correcting your many and grievous sins against Harry. Most of the things I have done have been, bluntly, finding an appropriate expert and engaging their services. A lawyer, a private inquiry agent, medical professionals, an optician, teachers, bankers, accountants, fund managers, and as you may have gathered from Monsieur and Madame Flamel's presence, even alchemists. Because I am not stupid enough to think I know everything."

Behind Dumbledore Flamel has his knuckles in his mouth and is shaking silently; I don't know which bit has him so amused, and it may just be something I'm not even privy to. It's a bit disconcerting, I'm trying to keep up my countenance of peppery, sarcastic disdain. Still, I'm on a roll and I don't want Dumbledore to get started on whatever he's thinking of to say.

"Shall I recount your sins, Mister Dumbledore? I think I shall. Let us begin with notifying a woman of her sister's death without detail, without sympathy, without even the courtesy of a face-to-face meeting. Let us continue with phrasing that notification in impersonal tones that make a tax demand look like a love-letter. Let us add that this was delivered to her doorstep along with the morning milk and a fifteen-month-old orphan child. Whose welfare you took not the slightest care over from that day to this, I might add. You disregarded every last one of the proper legal steps to transfer care, residence and formal guardianship to Petunia Dursley of her last remaining blood family, and intimidated the poor woman into doing none of it herself by threatening her with unspecified dire consequences if she did not maintain secrecy."

This is, while over-egging it a bit, not an entirely inaccurate characterisation of the letter Dumbledore left with Harry in the small hours of November 2nd, 1981. The most charitable explanation is that he's a complete fucking idiot with the approximate human empathy of a saltwater crocodile. The second most charitable is that he's a bigot who doesn't think muggles' emotions count, not properly.

I don't pause, of course. I've been composing this speech for a while and I'm not letting the old bleeder interrupt. "Then, having made misleading public statements about what you did - not such a great sin, Harry's location did need to be protected - you failed to seek competent advice, as you had assumed a duty to do, and handed Harry's inheritance over to a Ministry office headed by a close relative of one of Tom Riddle's known associates from his Hogwarts days. I ask again, rhetorically, what you thought they'd do? For your general fund of information, you cost the Potter estate considerably more than a hundred thousand galleons, a sum that rises daily as the lost income mounts up."

"But-"

"AH!" I stop him with an upraised hand. "There is more. Having made a perfect horlicks of the situation so far, you then cast mind-altering enchantments on the house where you placed a vulnerable orphan child in the care of people who were already in poor mental health. You may count yourself fortunate that nobody had a violent psychotic episode. Harry is lucky to be alive."

"I didn't know - " he wails. He's been looking more and more distressed. Point against the Evil Dumbledore theory. Which, fair enough, was always unlikely under the stupidity-before-malice rubric. Although he maybe should have fucking listened when Minerva McGonnagall told him there was something wrong under this roof.

"BECAUSE YOU NEGLIGENTLY FAILED TO MAKE ANY ENQUIRY." I let a bit of Vernon's temper out with that. Vernon is actually quite wakeful at the moment, and his choler has been rising as I give Dumbledore the Opening For the Prosecution. "You took on a duty to care for that child, Albus Dumbledore, and you have been failing since the very first day. Except in so far as you have been making things worse for the poor boy, you have five years of culpable inaction to account for. And I've only been recounting the absolute basics, here. The merest necessities of the child's welfare. Perhaps I could understand not inviting Petunia to her sister's funeral - security was at a premium - but not sending word of where the grave was? How was Harry to be taken to pay his respects once he was old enough to understand, even if you took the bigoted view that Lily's sister didn't count as a mere muggle? What of his parents' personal effects did you secure, that he might have something to remember them by, once he was old enough to understand? Nothing. And don't try and give me any excuses on that last part, Dumbledore, we found the records from the Ministry about how they were sold as a job lot to contribute all of three galleons seven-and-ten to the liquidation of the estate. The whole of an affluent family's clothing and housewares for that sum? There was a Knockturn Alley shonky shop marked that as a red letter day, I imagine. Albus Dumbledore, you were complicit in that. Getting keepsakes of his parents for an orphan child is so basic it doesn't even count as common decency - and you didn't do it. Did you even mention it to anyone else? I can't imagine you wouldn't have had volunteers. Foundlings get more care for their feelings than you showed Harry."

I let him have a few seconds to stew on that one, it's the one I'm angriest about. "The measure of your negligence, Albus Dumbledore, your culpable, life-threatening, entirely heartless negligence, is that I, someone of whom you know less than nothing, have been intervening to clean up your mess for nearly a year and the first you knew about it was when the goblins wrote to you."

"Who are you," he breathes, "Some relative of Vernon Dursley?"

I notice that Perenelle has come in. Dumbledore hasn't seen her - we situated his chair carefully - and she directs a very speaking give-me-strength look to the heavens. "Albus," she says, "that is Mr. Dursley. And also Mr. Reynolds. And I have cast soundproofing charms, the boys are both asleep and it would be a shame to curtail Mr. Reynolds' oratory even a little bit. I'm rather enjoying it."

"Perenelle? Who is he? I had no report of anyone intervening?"

"I owe you that bottle, Reynolds," she says.

"What?" Dumbledore's confused.

"I bet her," I say, "that you were having the place watched and you were ignoring the reports. And that you'd admit as much when interviewed, confirming that it wasn't just failure in your duty but knowing failure. Madame Flamel, I'm partial to Barolo, but really any bold, hefty red I can enjoy with a rare steak will suit."

"I shall speak to my vintner. Albus missed the revelation, though." Perenelle has a hand to her forehead, clutching her temples as she speaks. Eye-rolling is considerably after her time.

"He did, didn't he?"

Nicolas steps out into the hall, apparently in danger of actually giggling.

"What -" Dumbledore stops to think back over what was said. "How can you be both Reynolds and Dursley?"

She takes a lecturing tone with him, "Mister Reynolds, Albus, is here in spirit form. Think of him as little Harry's guardian angel. Harry certainly does. Translating liberally from the little-boy-ese, of course."

I can imagine. Magic Jedi Ghost Daddy would be just the start of it. "The essence of the thing, Dumbledore, is that on Harry's fifth birthday I was borne here on the winds of fate to find a child weeping in despair. I have acted through, and to the considerable benefit of, Mr. and Mrs. Dursley, rescuing them from the moral bog in which they were sinking under the weight of your incompetence. With the Flamels' help I will soon have suitable flesh with which to act in the corporeal world and will be able to let the Dursleys live their own lives. I sought them out when I realised I would require an ethically-sourced homunculus. Monsieur and Madame Flamel, you have been most helpful and I am considerably obliged. Vernon will be happy to get his life back ahead of the original schedule we projected."

"You're possessing that poor man!" Albus Dumbledore: Master Of The Bleeding Obvious.

I can't sigh out loud. He's shown no sign of spotting the hint I dropped, but no matter, he has a pensieve. He'll catch it on a second viewing, I hope. "Yes. It's not, entertainingly enough, illegal. Largely, I suspect, because so few are capable of it while also being subject to the Ministry's jurisdiction. Which, by the way, I'm not, since I'm not actually a wizard. Spirit, remember?"

"And alchemist, if you take up Mr. Hartlib's offer," Perenelle adds.

I nod. "I'm seriously considering it, but I do have a lot of learning to do before I can in all good conscience put myself forward as any kind of prospect."

"You're possessing him!" Dumbledore's tone has grown a little more heated. He's been taking a fair old beating so far in this conversation, he probably wants at least some balance in the exchange of allegations.

I return my attention to our prisoner. "You do rather seem to have got stuck on that, don't you, Dumbledore? Vernon's next of kin consented on his behalf. She wants her husband to have a reasonable chance of seeing his fiftieth birthday, you see, which your meddling was denying him. The last eleven months have been a rest cure for Vernon's mind and a considerable improvement in his physical health. He's lost a bit over six stone in the last year, felt the benefits of regular exercise, discovered a whole new hobby, earned the approval of his doctor and dropped his golf handicap by three whole strokes. He has a better relationship with his son, an actual relationship with his foster-son, the esteem of his neighbours and greater approbation from the wider community. His sister telephones him regularly with updates on her recovery from her alcoholism - crediting him with the impetus to get treatment - and he's had a raise in his salary. On the whole, I'd say I've pulled my weight as skipper of the good ship Vernon Dursley. I dare say I might even have done more for him, but I was rather busy remedying your utter, utter dereliction of duty."

"Perenelle, surely you haven't been taken in by this creature's blandishments?"

"I've had ample opportunity to examine him, Albus. He seems to be a decent sort and doing well enough by the children in this house that I wouldn't care to criticise his methods overmuch, especially since he's taking pains to do as little harm as he can and even bring some benefit to the Dursleys. And I can assure you, I've been blandished by better than him and resisted. Tell me, are you jealous that Hartlib wants him for the College after he blackballed you?"

"What?"

"It's a fair question, Albus. You're not nearly naive enough to deny that sometimes we have to do distasteful things to protect the innocent, you certainly don't have the sheer brass neck to suggest that Harry's welfare was at all being looked after, so I can only presume that you're harping on the possession thing out of jealousy."

"Perenelle!"

"After what I've heard over the last few months, perhaps it ought to be Madame Flamel to you, hmm?"

"He's possessing the man, whatever my errors, you must see that that is the act of a dark spirit -"

"What I must see, Albus, is that you're in custody as a result of what amounts to common burglary on the muggle side and muggle-baiting on the magical and you're looking for any mud to throw to shift the balance of prejudice. Although jealousy does seem rather more in your character, based on our brief few decades' acquaintance."

"Don't exert yourself on my account, Madame," I say, "it's not like he's going to tell anyone, is it? Given what he'd have to publicly admit in order to make the report to anyone. Or what would inevitably come out if he tried to make some kind of anonymous tip. The point, Mister Dumbledore, is that at every stage of this interview, you have been offered tests of character. Of, bluntly, fitness to have any involvement in the life of a child. You have failed every last one. This after failing five years of such tests, following which you damned yourself by only actually trying to discharge your duty over the money remaining after the embezzlement you connived at."

"I -"

"Oh do shut up," I tell him, "I might care to hear your side at some point, but not tonight. There are more important matters to discuss. Such as what you know about the prophecy that some inconsiderate arse has crapped in Harry's future time stream."

"How do you know about that?" He snaps, without apparently thinking about it. Yeah, we've got him good and rattled. That was a schoolboy error.

"Ah, so you do know about it." I hold up a hand. "Don't, on pain of being punched in the face again, tell me the wording. If I don't hear it, I can't be affected by it. If you try and blurt it out, I'll ask Monsieur Flamel to charm the memory away after you leave."

He's got the most beautifully confused look on his face.

"For your general fund of information, Mister Dumbledore, while I do remember life as a mortal man - father to three children who I raised to prosperous adulthood, which is why I take such offence at your negligence in Harry's case - I am now possessed of capabilities you cannot possibly comprehend or know. One such capability is taking an external, non-subjective view of time," I have to apply heroic levels of resistance to avoid referring to wibbly-wobbly timey-wimey, "and to be outside time is to know such things exist. To avoid entanglement in them, however, is just common sense."

Again, I don't care if Dumbledore catches on right away, he's got a pensieve. Giving him further cause to doubt in his own righteousness seems like the thing here in the heat of the moment. I was already going to give him shit for treating prophecy as valid - it might be, but on the historical and mythological record they usually seem to be more of a prompt for disastrous decisions than any kind of forecast of future events. (see: mothers, accidental carnal knowledge of) Adding in a hint that he's the dark lord of the prophecy, not Tom, is a spur-of-the moment improvisation. I really shouldn't do this sort of thing, but the words were out of my mouth as soon as the inspiration struck.

Dumbledore remains silent for a moment. Then, "Voldemort knows the first two lines."

I nod. "Implying it wasn't made directly to him, and that whoever it was made to allowed it to leak. Despite literal millennia of bad press about what happens when oracular pronouncements get out into the wild. Is there another line of red in your ledger, Mister Dumbledore?" I'm pretty sure there is. There's a deep, disturbing problem with the books' account of how Snape heard the first two lines of the prophecy, namely that Trelawney remembered it happening. Either Snape heard it all or that incident was staged.

"I didn't know what I had on my hands at first. I thought she was shamming to get the job." There's a desperate tone in his voice. All that condemnation I heaped on him, and this is the point where he realises he fucked up? He goes on, "I didn't realise until the Department of Mysteries started making enquiries. They detect them somehow, send people out to record them." If he thought she was shamming, dumping disinformation within hearing of a known enemy agent isn't actually a bad move. No moral weight comes off Dumbledore, of course, since the obvious reading of those first two lines directly targets children.

"Well," I say, "it would probably be for the best if they could be persuaded to lose that record somehow. Or replace it with a dirty limerick or two."

"But the prediction is made - surely - oh. You, too, fear that Voldemort is not entirely gone."

"I know he isn't gone, Dumbledore. Among the many things you overlooked was that he was unstable enough that his discorporation spawned a shade that clung to little Harry. Implying that he's done something monstrous to keep him from passing on. Whatever the Potters did to protect their son that night kept him safe, but if that protection had failed? You'd have a rising Dark Lord in the skin of a boy hailed as a national hero. A second dark lord, at that, since I'm fairly certain it was a copy of an original that is still out there somewhere."

Dumbledore looks poleaxed. "Then you know the poor boy's eventual fate?"

I look him dead in the eye. "Well, in the immediate future his fate is to have fun at his foster-brother's sixth birthday party, at which he will enjoy silly games and far too much of the suckling pig I'll be barbecuing. Tell me, Albus Dumbledore, were you thinking that the presence of that thing meant the boy had to die before he'd lived a full span of years?"

"Yes?" In which Albus admits he knew there was a problem. At some point I'm going to find out why he did nothing, even if I have to beat it out of him with his own shoes.

"And who did you consult to confirm that? To, perhaps, rule out any possible method of exorcising the child?"

"There is nobody. Nobody with such knowledge of the dark that could be trusted."

"Sure of that, are you? Made full and searching enquiries? Made at least some enquiries? Asked some bloke down the pub? Anything?"

He stays silent. From the look on his face he's only spotting the flaw in his thinking now he's come to speak it aloud. Especially in this company.

"Bit of a theme with you, isn't it, Mister Dumbledore? The high-handed assumption that if you don't know a thing, it can't be known by anyone? That nobody but you can resist the moral hazard of knowing about the darkness? If it helps your conscience any, and christ knows it clearly needs help, Harry has been free of the taint since the second day after my arrival. It's amazing what you can do if the alternative is letting an innocent child die," especially if you have the unalloyed faith of said innocent child lending strength to your arm. Tom really pissed on his chips by trying conclusions with me in that context, "and you're not, you know, so far up yourself you take your own ignorance and raging self-absorption as laws of nature."

Madame Flamel breaks the ensuing silence. "I think I can speak for my husband when I say we're both very disappointed in you, Albus. Did you think we would have stayed our hands in the search for a remedy, had you asked? We have centuries between us, boy. Add in the colleagues who would be glad to consult and the total experience rises to millennia. I'm sure we'd have found at least a few promising approaches to the problem. What in your paltry hundred years have you, to set against such a weight of learning? Hmm?"

"I felt it best to maintain secrecy," he says.

"It's a reason, at least," she answers him, coming around to look him in the face. "But not a very good one. What made you doubt our discretion?"

A long pause. "I can offer no excuse," he says, eventually, sagging in his seat. "With hindsight, I ought to have swallowed my pride. I have presumed often enough on Nicolas's help and only been disappointed once, after all."

"I am glad to hear you recognise that at long last."

While I really want to hear the gossip behind that little exchange - and to follow up on that whole 'blackball' thing from earlier because oh my word that sounds like it's juicy - I'm aware that it's getting late. "Be that as it may, Harry's safe for the time being. We have the protections Lily crafted for him and for this house, we have resources sufficient to any reasonable task ahead of us, and I hope the confident expectation that you will be sharing any intelligence of Tom Riddle's imminent return, should any come up?"

Dumbledore nods at that. "All is quiet, none of my informants have reported anything. For my own part I have been searching for ways he might have secured his hold on life."

"Un-death," I correct him. "I've reason to suspect that despite the psychological continuity with Tom Riddle, the entity that has been cutting about calling itself Voldemort isn't the original human soul. Whatever he did to try for immortality, it destroyed and replaced the original, or at least warped it beyond recognition. I was able to pick through the remains of the copy that was trying to possess Harry. Whatever it was, it wasn't human the way I, for instance, still am." Overselling Tom's abhumanity a bit: while there's no formal psychiatric diagnosis of 'complete arsehole' it is part of the great panorama of human character.

"What could do such a thing?" I'm pleased to note he's not disputing my humanity, but that could just be mere oversight in the heat of the moment.

I shrug. "He was after immortality, and that's the kind of bait that is set for the greatest of transgressions. I'd go looking for something that requires a heavy sacrifice, possibly full human sacrifice. It would explain the abhuman taint, too, since anything that demands human sacrifice and pays for it with soul meddling is likely to warp the petitioner into the bargain. Have you checked with those who taught him while he was at Hogwarts? They may have disciplined him for having unsavoury research material in his possession, for instance." I can't come right out and tell him to go ask Slughorn about horcruxes, Dumbledore is already chary of me over the whole possession thing. He'll want to know how I know, and if I suggest that I'm in any way tainted by the anima of Tom Marvolo Riddle he'll do his nut completely. "Whatever you find, share. What has been done can be undone, that much is axiomatic, but it's unlikely to be easy. Mistrust of allies and refusal to delegate and cooperate should be the other side's problem, not ours."

Dumbledore's eyes narrow at that last. "I notice," he says, "that I appear to have been stripped and tied to a chair. Could we perhaps revisit the point about mistrust of allies in that context?"

I give him a beatific smile. "You entered as a trespasser in order to commit assault, Mister Dumbledore. The very definition of burglary. This after we discovered a whole catalogue of errors and omissions on your part, some of which potentially had quite sinister explanations. Now, you've been somewhat more reasonable in the last little while, but up until this point I had no good reason to believe you an ally and some compelling evidence to the contrary. Our little chat, with the very welcome assistance of Madame Flamel here in pounding sense into your exceptionally hard head, suggests that we might well be able to work together. But you have made a number of serious errors, and I took the view that if we didn't rub your nose in it when you disgraced yourself on the hall rug, you wouldn't learn not to do it again. Be grateful there are children in the house: if not for their presence you wouldn't have even had the comfort of that boiler suit you're wearing. Which I don't want back, by the way."

Nicolas has to step out of the room again, and Dumbledore starts to look positively pissy at me.

"Feel free to be angry at me," I tell him, "I find myself thoroughly able to bear your ill-regard so long as you don't compromise Harry's welfare any further than you already have."

"What would you have of me, then, spirit?"

"Two things. First, you're going to correct a miscarriage of justice. I was able to visit the moment of the Potters' deaths in the course of being sent here, and converse with them briefly. That prompted some consequent investigations, but I don't have enough presence in the wizarding world to follow through properly. Apparently Sirius Black was sent down for betraying them?"

"And murdering Peter Pettigrew, yes. The tale was a considerable scandal at the time, we were all horrified at how misplaced our trust was."

"You'll be all the more horrified to learn that Pettigrew isn't actually dead, and framed Mr. Black for the betrayal. I'm afraid the Potters outsmarted themselves and changed their security arrangements without telling anyone." I hope. One of the Evil Dumbledore theories is that he knew about the switch in Secret Keepers. "Pettigrew was made the only one able to betray them under the terms of the magic protecting them, and he wasn't so much a weak link as a false one. Pettigrew is at large right now, dark mark and all. He's an animagus, taking the form of a common brown rat. Posing as a child's pet, of all things. Can't tell you the name of the kid, beyond that he's a redhead male living somewhere in the west country and has older siblings at Hogwarts. Catch the rat, beat a confession out of him, get Black's trial conviction reversed. Can't be a murderer if the victim isn't dead and a confession from the real accessory to the Potters' murders should sort out that charge, with time unjustly served accounting for whatever other sins landed him in chokey. You're well placed to deal with it, and the political fallout, and I have foreseen that Mr. Black's liberty is critical to timely progress in making Tom Riddle die all the way dead."

"How?"

I rock a hand. "Not so sure yet. Always in motion, the future. Constantly branching with every choice, any seer who tells you there's a certainty in your future is selling something. There are a lot of good outcomes that become possible with Black's early exoneration, though. And it saws off the branches that lead to some fairly horrible ones. Net: strong positive, to a high degree of confidence. Plus, it's the kind of thing that reassures everyone that you're a stand-up guy with worthwhile principles, the backbone to stand up for them, and the skills and drills to actually do something about them. Kind of chap you might actually permit a role in the life of a little boy you care about, know what I mean?"

He ruminates a moment. If he's done his homework, he knows that the Dursleys are now Harry's lawful guardians and could send him to, say, Ilvermorny. Or some other wizarding school that Voldemort doesn't have hangups about. I can't overtly threaten, that'd make him dig his heels in, but he's old and canny enough to take a verbum sap. "I will investigate. If I find a rat animagus where you say I will - your description fits a conveniently small number of households, all of which will offer me at least tea if I visit - then I shall quickly learn if there is an innocent man in Azkaban. As you say, a miscarriage of justice."

I nod. "My willingness to both trust you and consider you reliable rather depend on a successful outcome. You have given scant cause for confidence to date, I'm sorry to say."

"You mentioned a second thing?"

"You need to add a student to Hogwarts' rolls for the academic year starting September '91. Malcolm Reynolds, no middle name, born 30th September 1979." A little discreet spellwork - Tom had picked up the method while working at Borgin & Burkes as part of their work forging provenances for stolen artefacts - added a couple of entries to the central Register of Births at St. Catherine's House. It's a tiny little piece of ritual magic that you have to do on the premises - I hid in the loo for ten minutes with a slate, chalk, candle and a phial of secretary-bird plumes - but remarkably easy on records that don't have a defence against it. The entries at the corresponding local registry office are missing, but it'll be years before they finish computerising and the discrepancy will be corrected by adding the local record rather than treating the central one as spurious. I now have birth certificates proving that I'm both six and twenty-five. All I have to do is pass a driving test, apply for a passport, and sit a few O-levels and I'll have identities that will stand up nicely to 1980s standards. I'm already ahead of the game with a bank account and money, of course.

"You mentioned needing a homunculus earlier," Dumbledore says, his eyes narrowing, "I mislike the idea of an adult returning to Hogwarts to live among children in that way."

I'd been hoping he wouldn't make the connection, but trying to deny it would be counterproductive, and actually more counterproductive if it worked now and was discovered later. Still, I planned for this. "I'm not returning: I never attended Hogwarts in the first place. All of my education prior to coming here was nonmagical. I acquired magic post-mortem, and before you ask I am not telling you how that came about. Speculate on your own time whether that is cannot, will not, or may not. I have been cramming non-stop to be able to follow what the Flamels have been helping me with, but I do still need a basic magical education. In addition to the funding - I understand the ministry subsidy is per head, although I can pay direct if that's easier - you'll have an additional adult on the premises, albeit hidden in the form of a child. Your choice how much you share with your staff, but I recommend an ace-in-the-hole policy. Harry having someone secretly watching his back is a necessity with that prophecy loose. Events will converge on the poor boy."

Dumbledore nods. I'm selling it to him as all but getting a buckshee member of staff if he lets me in, and it's not like he can't give backword if things turn sour between now and '91. Although if that happens Harry isn't going to Hogwarts either, and I better make sure that Dumbledore gets regular updates on how well Harry's doing learning French. After a moment or two of contemplation, he says, "I take your point. How far did your nonmagical education go, if I may ask?"

"Postgraduate qualifications, plural. I'll be able to handle a secondary school curriculum, additional independent study and helping the real children with their education and personal problems and probably still have time for larking about a bit, frankly. Purely to maintain my cover, you understand."

"It is not given to many to revisit their youth." Dumbledore's actually smiling at me, the arse. Like he'll be doing me a favour.

I laugh out loud at that. "If it weren't for the dire need, I wouldn't be. I'm going to be subjecting myself to several years of teenage dramatics and going through puberty a second time, as if once wasn't bloody awful enough. You may have to turn a blind eye to me sneaking out every so often with a bottle of aging potion just for respite's sake."

AUTHOR NOTES

Goodness, it feels good to get that out of the way. I've probably missed loads of Dumbledore's errors in that screed, but this is already a long chapter which is why I'm keeping the notes brief.

I've built the characterisation of Nicolas Flamel from the recorded history of the man and the Crimes of Grindelwald movie: really nice chap, until the chips are down and then BAM! In charge and kicking arse. Nice, but scary. Perenelle Flamel is a blank slate in history, books and movies alike, so I've taken a liberty or two. There should be enough clues now for you to guess which famous historical alchemist she actually is, with a fifty-fifty chance of being right.

Mornington Crescent is the flagship game on I'm Sorry I Haven't A Clue. Those that get it, get it. Those that don't, don't.

Fanfic recommendation: Dudley's Memories by paganaidd, available on FFN and AO3 alike. The sequels whitewash Snape rather more than is my taste, but the first story? Beautiful.