Chapter 23 – Dumbledore

I hid in the Peverell storeroom until Hermione returned. She was not alone. A much younger Dumbledore than I knew led her into the Common Room. Of course, he led her in. She didn't know the correct password. I Apparated to the Witches' dorm rooms and walked down the stairs to join them.

"I didn't say anything in front of the others. I saw no need for Mr. Riddle to know our business. I could tell at once that you aren't Minerva McGonagall, and I've never seen your friend before. She looks old enough to be a seventh year or even a graduate. I've been here at Hogwarts for quite a few years, and I don't recognise her. Now tell me what is going on and what you have done with McGonagall."

"It's complicated. First, know that Minerva McGonagall is safe and asleep in her bed. I used a spell. We came to find Hagrid. It is very important that we talk to him. We haven't met, but you will know me in the future. I'm a Hogwarts graduate from the future. It is difficult, but it is possible to travel through time from certain places. There are magicks which aren't taught at Hogwarts. And I do not speak of dark magic. I know you are familiar with Wizard history, so you know of the priestesses of the Light Guardian and nature religions of long ago. We are priestesses. We came here to find Hagrid. We know that he did something which affected the future. A bad Goddess changed that future. Now we are trying to restore the proper path of history. I would prefer not to tell you too much, because you are important in our history and anything I say may change that history. Shall I wake McGonagall and bring her down to you?"

"Yes, I insist that you do that at once. Tell me this, will Rubeus get in any trouble because of what you want him to do."

"Yes, this is the very thing which becomes the excuse for his expulsion from Hogwarts. We aren't causing that to happen. In our time, it already happened, it is established history, and Hagrid has already recovered from it. You are a big part of that recovery. In our time, Hagrid is our friend. We help each other. This is important. This must be done."

"Finding you walking to breakfast, impersonating one of my favorite students, and in the presence of Tom Riddle. It suggests that you might be in league with Tom."

"No, we have never been allies of Tom Riddle. He tried to murder me and almost succeeded. He has always been an enemy, although he and I also haven't met yet. As far as you know, he didn't recognise that my friend was an imposter McGonagall. I'll get the real McGonagall now."

I walked up the stairs to her dorm room. I removed my 'Off!'. I told her I was a friend and not to worry. I had been forced to apply a spell to extend her sleep. It was past breakfast, but Professor Dumbledore would make sure she was able to eat. He was in the Common Room and needed to speak to her."

"Give me a minute to dress. No, you don't have to leave. I'm not overly modest."

McGonagall and I walked down the stairs together. Our appearance halted an animated discussion between Hermione and Dumbledore.

"Are you all right, Minerva?"

"Yes, but I demand to know the meaning of this!"

Dumbledore summarised what we had told them.

"That is a very iffy tale. They admit that their actions will harm Rubeus."

"Which is the strongest argument for believing them. I'm afraid Minerva is correct. You must tell us more if you expect our help."

"I feel we would need to Obliviate and Confund you, if we did that. Nobody should know their future. It is a path to insanity."

"Why do you need Hagrid?"

"He saved a magical people from extinction on their own world, by establishing and befriending them on our world. We later helped to return them to their world of origin. They can be dangerous, but they are important, and they don't harm their allies. They were once adept at working in the place where history can change and traveling in time is possible. We try not to implement our own value judgement, beyond survival of all the magical peoples. We feel incompetent to seek a finer goal than that, although the temptation is most strong. We seek to preserve history as it was known to exist in our time. We at least know that all the peoples who think have survived in that history, although many individuals were lost. The non-magical have horrible weapons, but all the magical worlds survive. Riddle was very powerful and responsible for many deaths. The Gods and Goddesses of Asgard and Vanaheimer have great power. So much could have gone wrong and wiped out a whole people, or left many, many more dead, but didn't. I'm afraid to trust in an alternate history that others would fashion for us."

"But... the evil Goddess. Dumbledore mentioned that. You say that you are priestesses. I've met two priestesses. They spoke to me when I napped in the forest, several years ago."

"We knew that you knew Victoria Malfoy and Mafalda but didn't realise you knew them at such a young age."

"You know them?"

"I know them well. It was you who first introduced us to them."

"They both had an artifact, passed down to them by older priestesses. Have you such?"

I held out my hand. I was wearing my Mother-of-the-Future ring.

"And this ring was passed down to you from the days of the ancient priestesses?

"No, I made it myself, based upon guidance from the Light Guardian. Whether Keeper rings or Mother rings, apparently what is passed down in my time is the knowledge needed to turn ordinary materials into artifacts, rather than the artifacts, themselves. I currently lead a Quest. I am the Mother of the Future. Ironically, part of my job has become preserving the integrity of history. In this case, the things which happened this year at Hogwarts."

"Mafalda told me about the Light Guardian. It is a religion all but lost to our people. She mentioned the myth of the Mother. You have my attention. Who is your friend? How do you know me? Dumbledore said your friend entered the Great Hall with Tom Riddle. I fear Tom. He is dangerous... and somehow, for one so young, he is very evil. I think of that much evil as needing many years to mature."

"She is my Muse. She was the most talented Witch in her class, maybe of our entire generation. How do we know you? You were our Transfiguration professor. An older you was a member of my Quest team. No, you didn't die, events forced you to go a different direction. Yes, Tom is dangerously evil. We considered killing him, but that would rupture time and history."

"I know Tom is bad, but the only thing which would restrain you from killing him, a Hogwarts student, is that it would be bad for history? That seems cold. If I taught you Transfiguration, show me what you can do."

I turned the furniture to a pile of brooms. I turned it back. I made it look newer. "You need to know that Tom is more than just bad. He becomes far, far worse in future years. Apart from Salazar Slytherin, he may be the most awful Wizard who ever lived. He is responsible for many, many deaths in his struggle to rule us, wipe out non-magicals and Muggle-born, and live forever. He is, or he was - he's dead in my time, sick in the head in a way which is impossible to fix. I knew a Professor McGonagall, who had spent most of her adult life fighting him and his followers."

"He's started very badly, so I'll accept that, for now. Tell me about myself."

"Your uncle is a wandmaker. You dissected some of his wands, about a dozen I think it was, to figure out how they worked. Your most dramatic wild magic, before you came to Hogwarts, was a wild Apparate to escape his wrath; you wish a Witch like yourself could take over the wand-making business; you are attracted to Witches rather than Wizards; you're addicted to Quidditch; and you have a passionate belief in equality for Witches."

"I guess you have met me in the future."

Hermione suddenly seemed worried. "Shouldn't we go someplace safer, before Tom returns."

"He could be close to finished with the errand I sent him on," Dumbledore admitted.

I could tell the portal was opening. I grabbed Dumbledore and McGonagall. Hermione grabbed me. I Apparated us to the Witches' dorm. We sat on the beds.

"Apparation isn't possible within Hogwarts. It is a fundamental magical protection."

"Elves do it all the time. We learned the trick."

I was actually very proud of myself. My Black Stone slept. I was relying upon the Black Stone and circle in the pyramid between worlds and the circle in the Sacred Cavern. I didn't dare to wake my Stone.

"What do you need from Hagrid?"

"Hagrid loves exotic animals. History says that he acquired an egg from a stranger. He cared for the egg. It hatched into a tiny spider. The spider grew and started a clan of thinking spiders. VERY large thinking spiders. The problem is, how can Hagrid get that egg. Well, that's the first problem. As far as we know, there are no Acromantula eggs on Earth, apart from the two in my pocket. The second problem is that history speaks of only one egg in Hagrid's possession. Shouldn't it require a male and a female spider to make fertile eggs and start a spider clan? I have two eggs. I hope they will yield a male and a female spider. I can't be sure of that. It would be most cruel if these eggs yield the same sex spiders."

"And where do you propose that these spiders should live?"

"They have a big cave in the Forbidden Forest. You know, the one where the stones from the ancient magical circle were stored. I know you know about magical circles."

"I have seen one. I assisted the Goblins in tuning it. The cavern was a little unstable and they needed an idiot to enter it. I was fascinated by their tools and their description of the source of magic, so I took the risk. Knowledge often comes at great risk."

"A powerful God told me exactly the same thing."

"I will keep one egg and give the other to Hagrid. Is there anything else I need to know?"

"I guess if you are helping the spiders, you need to know. A student will die this term. Tom will blame Hagrid and his spider. It isn't true. Tom is responsible for the death. The killer is a basilisk that Tom frees from the Chamber of Secrets under Hogwarts. It is the smallest part of Slytherins revenge, but the other part doesn't come until my time. Now what are we to do with the two of you? You now know what you must see as a terrible secret. You'll want to stop the killing of the student. You can't. You'll want to lash out when Tom accuses Hagrid. You can't. You'll want to scream when Dippet declares Tom to be the school hero for stopping the deaths. You can't do that either. You must go about your business as usual. You must help Hagrid when you can. He is to become Hogwarts' game keeper'. You must prepare him for that job and give it to him, when you're headmaster."

"Miss McGonagall. If you are up there, I demand that you come down at once."

"That's Dippet, he's headmaster and a right scoundrel. He fawns on Tom. You had best go down, Minerva."

McGonagall headed down the stairs to the Common Room. I heard from half-way down the stairs "is something the matter, Sir?"

"Tom claims you are a Polyjuiced imposter. He says you were acting very strangely at breakfast. Polyjuice is a potion, which allows one to assume the appearance of another, by the way. Tom knows of these advanced matters and can recognise the effects of the juice."

"This is hardly the first time Tom has accused me of being odd... or weird, or strange, or peculiar, or unnatural, or far too friendly with the Muggle-born, or even of being a Scottish wench who doesn't know her place. For some reason he took a disliking to me my first year and has been beastly to me ever since. He is an awful bully."

"She is an odd one, but she was odd in a different way this morning. She looked like she was on the juice; she acted strangely; when I asked her a question which I knew that the real McGonagall could answer easily, she refused to answer me."

"I refuse to acknowledge Mister Riddle's right to interrogate me. Why should I answer his stupid test questions?"

"This is easily settled. If Tom is correct, you will turn back into your natural form within twelve hours. Well, really eleven hours, since Tom saw you coming down the stairs from your dorm room over an hour ago. You are going to spend those eleven hours with me. Just remember: if Tom doesn't like you, I'm unlikely to be fond of you. Tom - please fetch Professor Manic. I want her to search the Witches' dorms. Before you go, please ask Miss McGonagall the question you previously asked. I will demand that she answer you."

"What did I say to you at dinner last night?"

"You told me that I loved the filthy Mudbloods so much that you suspected I might actually be a Mudblood myself. I was not about to repeat anything so vile. The headmaster gave me no choice."

"Is she correct?"

"Yes, she is. I was certain she was juiced. She still seems strange. Perhaps I was wrong."

"That's fine Tom. It's best to report serious suspicions. Now, off with you, I need Professor Manic."

"That's not good. Can you get us out of here?" Dumbledore asked me.

"Yes, now might be a good time to explore his office. It sounds like he's going to be here for a while."

"It's impossible. Dippet has the Gargoyle trained to a new level of viciousness. It almost took off a student's arm last term. I am not trusted with the password."

"That's alright, we'll go in through the back door. I know the secrets of that route."

We Apparated into the Peverell storeroom and I led us up and down the hidden stairways and tunnels, until we arrived at the rear of the headmaster's fireplace. I couldn't miss that Dumbledore was all eyes during our journey. Clearly, he hadn't seen any of this before. I felt I had made an error in deciding that we must investigate Dippet's office. Why? Because I was curious! I knew it didn't relate to the most important tasks at hand, but I just couldn't contain my curiosity. This was not the sort of mistake which Hermione was consistently good at steering me from.

I worked the peephole to be certain the office was empty, then applied my Mother ring to the appropriate spot. The fireplace pulled away from the wall and we climbed up into the headmaster's office.

"Touch nothing until you put on these gloves," Hermione instructed. There are no portraits here in the headmaster's apartment, but they'll see us as soon as we walk into the office. He doubtless believes these rooms are safest. As you can see, they aren't. We'll begin our search in here."

We found many obscure works on dark magic, mostly not in English. Hermione gave a quick translation of the beginnings of these manuscripts. Two of the manuscripts seemed of particular interest to her. She threw some paper from her carry-all on the floor and created copies of these documents. I saw that she hadn't made exact copies. Hers looked far less fragile.

Dumbledore said several of the manuscripts were ancient, banned totally, and not at all what a respectable Hogwarts professor or headmaster should have in his possession. He looked askance at Hermione's actions, telling her 'I see you copied the worst of them. Does that say something about your attraction to the dark? I see the future Hogwarts provides a very fine education."

"Not so fine. Things went downhill in the age of Riddle. We did spend some time with an exceptional art professor. She taught us the rudiments of what I just did. The rest I learned post-Hogwarts. I take what I think might provide clues to what we face. I am not turning toward the dark."

"Hogwarts has never taught art."

"I think you'll find that it did. Read the documents in the display cases of the storeroom we passed through. I saw your eyes bugging out. Restoring art instruction was one of McGonagall's innovations as headmaster."

I was thinking way too much information, but it seemed impolite to stop Hermione. Dumbledore seemed totally unsurprised by Hermione's last statement, although that Wizard was hard to read. We found nothing which truly incriminated Dippet in dark magic carryings-on. There was an exchange of notes showing the Goblins has payed him to vote in their favor on issues of Gringotts's governance. Dumbledore pocketed those. There was a decorative pottery urn which revealed, when Hermione uncapped it, a truly impressive collection of gold galleons.

Hermione pulled invisibility cloaks from her bag. We pulled them over ourselves, then entered Dippet's office. There was a pile of correspondence between Abraxas Malfoy and Dippet. The letter he was writing requested help in finding "a summer position for a very talented, but indigent, young Wizard named Thomas Riddle: "I've spoken to you of him previously. I have ascertained that this young Wizard shares our interests and is well equipped to advance them." The rest was suck-up blather to one with a far larger pile of galleons than Dippet possessed. We didn't find much else.

I Apparated us to the Quidditch dressing rooms, so that we could chat with Dumbledore and escape detection. As I suspected, we were alone. The Apparate had pushed Hermione over the edge and she was rapidly transitioning back to herself.

"It's good to see who you really are and to avoid a second McGonagall. You've shown me places within and under the castle, which I was unaware of. I believe you are whom you say you are. We must discuss how to handle all this secret knowledge you've brought with you. If you know Hagrid, then you know it's utterly impossible for him to keep a secret. He must receive his egg, without explanation, from a stranger. It's the only way. I hate to cause pain to Hagrid. He has suffered so much at the hands, wands, and feet of the Slytherins. If I say this mission is important, he will willingly undertake it, regardless of the certainty of harm to himself. That's Hagrid. I don't know how much time we have or will need. I want to talk about Riddle. I also am unsure how much McGonagall should be allowed to remember. She is fundamentally sound, but still a female and not the strongest amongst them. I mean no insult and that obviously is more true in my time than in yours. She's probably the smartest, though."

"To be honest, we should tell you that we've read your diaries. You left them to my husband after your death. My husband killed Riddle. It was a fair duel. Riddle had a decade reign of terror, then was bested but lived, then regained his strength and took over the government and wrought catastrophe for one, totally awful year. Then my husband killed him, and we set up a better government. You died right before Riddle took over the government, so unfortunately you didn't see us win, but you were our inspiration. We were both members of Dumbledore's Army. It was an informal thing formed by like-minded students to protect themselves and Hogwarts."

"How many deaths is Tom responsible for."

"I'm not sure anyone has an exact number. I'd say a couple of thousands of magical and nonmagical, with a later emphasis upon Muggle-born. Nobody knows for sure; the terror was as important and helpful to his goals as the actual killing was."

"The student who died?"

"Her name was Myrtle. I'm ashamed not to know her last name. She is a ghost in my time. We all called her 'Moaning Myrtle'. She inhabited the first floor Witches bathroom."

"And you are quite sure we shouldn't just kill Tom right now to spare our community all of these deaths?"

I didn't know what to say. Hermione jumped in "we can't possibly be certain what the best answer is. Messing with time seems very dangerous. The bad Goddess has messed a lot. She is still alive. I fear she wanted us to come here and rip time. All I know is that in our time the world survives and and, despite problems, is in a promising condition. That seems a good thing that we should avoid putting at risk."

"Does Tom kill other students while he's at Hogwarts?"

"We know you know this name, because you wrote of her in your diaries. Jaden Caulfield becomes his girlfriend. When she tries to leave him, he kidnaps her, kills her family, and holds her prisoner to have his baby. We rescued her. Yes, she was a semi-conscious, very slowly aging prisoner for a very long time. Her friend Dilys spent most of her life hiding from Tom, although I'm convinced Tom knew where she was the whole time."

"I fear I may have pushed Tom and Jaden together."

"That's the tale from your diaries. You write a lot. We read all of it, for background about the older Witches and Wizards who opposed us."

"Does Riddle's child live?"

"We don't think so. The evil Goddess told us she just killed her. We found an unidentifiable body. I have samples for Muggle professors to test. They can do tests in our time that won't be discovered for decades from now. The ordinary British, we promised ourselves to stop calling them Muggles, have advanced so far in their technology, compared to today. We can't be certain anything the Goddess says is true. Even worse, she is able to make what she says become true."

"You mentioned a God and Goddess. Who is she. She sound more dangerous than Tom."

"Her name is Frijjo. We are allied with Odin. Frijjo and Vili oppose him. Ve is dead. Freyr is dead."

"Ahh, I loved reading those tales as a student. Hogwarts had a myths course back in my day, so the library had many books about the ancient heroes. I loved the Merlin books. Is he also real? Have you met him."?

"We haven't met him and don't know how real he is."

"Pity. You should know that I've read enough of myths to know that this changing of history of which you speak is called seid. It is among the darkest of the dark magics. Be very careful that it neither corrupts nor destroys you."

"That is my great fear," Hermione admitted. "Fail to learn enough seid; fail to adequately defend seid space; Frijjo or one like her will write us and our world out of existence. She and others have already tried that. It has reached the point that I can't tell if Ginny and I are supposed to be alive or dead or to never have existed. It's awful, but I feel we have no choice but to soldier on. I'm a scholar not a soldier, so this is most uncomfortable for me."

Dumbledore pointedly ignored the obvious fact that tears were streaming down Hermione's cheeks. He pressed on. "So, the big question is, how much of all of this do you need me to remember in order to do what needs to be done, without changing history?

"Dippet will keep pushing at McGonagall. She can't be allowed to remember. She isn't needed to do anything beyond what she would naturally do, so she can't be allowed to remember you or any of this. Together, can we Obliviate and Confund her in a way which can't be discovered, a way which doesn't leave unexplained gaps or oddities in her thoughts?"

"I think we can," Hermione told him more firmly than I felt.

"I perhaps phrased that inexactly. Dippet will be with her for perhaps ten hours. Can we do something that prevents him forcing the truth out of her in that time?"