Albus was slumped in his office surrounded by the various knickknacks he had collected over the years which filled the room with mysterious sounds as they beeped, whirred and blipped in the background, ignored by Albus through the ease of long practice.
The weight on his shoulders had never felt heavier as the man generally accepted as one of the most powerful wizards on the planet felt the stress of the years catch up to him.
He had borrowed the philosopher's stone from his old friend and mentor Nicholas Flamel and was planning on using it to draw out the shade of Voldemort from wherever he was hiding. He had the traps set up and ready but one vital piece was missing.
He had lost Harry Potter.
Albus groaned at his awful fortune.
How could things have come to this?
Twelve years ago, as Albus had been interviewing for the position of professor of divination at Hogwarts, Dumbledore had the answer to all his problems dumped into his lap.
He had been presented with a true prophesy.
Now Albus had been thinking about just dropping the subject of divination all together, not because it wasn't a useful class but simply that the understanding of divination had dropped so far that there wasn't anyone Albus thought could teach the thing. Sybil herself hadn't done much to change his mind and he was prepared to wash his hands of his most wishy washy subject. Sure, the girl could give accurate Tarot card readings but she could barely interpret them herself. She certainly had the talent but not the training which was a shame but there just were too few of them left to teach the next generation.
Whose fault that was could be traced right back to Albus's old friend Gellert Grindlewald during WWII, so much had been lost that could never be recovered.
Albus was one of the few wizards old enough to remember when the class was taught by a fully trained seer. He did not have the talent himself, but he remembered well enough how to interpret something. That skill was rarer and rarer these days.
Sybill Trelawney if she had had a proper teacher could well have been one of the greats. Sadly, the greats were all gone now and Albus was left with the silly little witch sitting across from him.
Best to let the whole thing die and be forgotten.
Then her eyes had rolled to the back of her head her voice had turned throaty belting out what was unmistakably a true prophecy marking a child born at the end of July as the one who could defeat his old student Tom Riddle now going by his new moniker the Dark Lord Voldemort.
It pained him to admit it, but Tom was the better warrior between the two of them. Albus could fight defensively and hold Tom off, but he was old. In any prolonged combat his loss was almost assured. This prophecy could be Albus's greatest weapon against his former student.
Unfortunately, Severus Snape had overheard the prophecy and had rushed off to tell his master all he heard which fortunately was only the first half.
When Voldemort had been simply Tom Riddle Hogwarts student the world had been at war and his divinations professor Geoff Heimdall had been called back to Europe before being executed by Grindelwald. This meant Tom had two years' worth of genuine Divinations under his belt. Enough to think he knew how to handle a prophecy.
Enough to get himself killed.
Prophecy was, at its core, not so different from other disciplines of magic. Much like a charm spell required the intent of the caster along with guiding spell words and wand movements prophesy was much the same though it was powered by something a little bigger and more nebulous.
When many witches and wizards share similar intent magic occasionally takes notice. The entirety of wizarding Britain wished for either the fall or success of Voldemort and magic had answered in the form of this new prophecy.
Much like any other spell without a guiding intent behind it the thing it would fizzle out and die. If however the wizards and witches all had one thing to believe in, like a savior, then magic would respond to the will of the population in order grant everyone's wish.
If enough people believed in the young savior probability itself would bend to bring not just the prophecy to fruition but the outcome the population desired. All Albus had to do is make sure everyone whispered the boy's name in hope and the light would prevail.
The surest way to smother a new prophecy was to ignore it but Tom would not have had the chance to learn that and knowing that prophecies were weakest when fresh would seek to stomp it out.
If the dark lord sought to stop the prophecy, he would unintentionally be acknowledging its legitimacy and feeding his own intent into it, sealing his fate. All Albus would have to do is whisper stories of a hero and Voldemort would be undone by the collective magic of his victims.
The Headmaster's plan worked wildly better than he had anticipated. During the tragedy at the Potter house Voldemort was struck down already showing the potency of the emotions Voldemort had inspired against him but Albus knew his old student still clung to life and went forward with his plan to turn young Harry into a hero in the eyes of the wizarding world until every household whispered the story of the boy who lived in either reverence or fear.
But six years later the woman Albus had left to keep an eye on the boy reported that Harry had gone missing and was possibly dead. Dumbledore had rushed to find the boy but had come up with nothing but evidence of a neglectful home life. Then he had gone to the department of mysteries expecting the worst.
Yet the prophecy was still brimming with power.
Perhaps it was because there was another choice.
There was another who could fill the gap Harry left behind, but Dumbledore found himself in uncharted territory here and had no idea if it was even possible for young Neville to harness the power of the prophecy.
Hopefully he would be able to find Harry before his first year started and if not Albus would have to work overtime to make sure Neville could indeed be the subject of the prophecy.
The years passed with no sign of Harry.
He would have Hagrid take the young Longbottom to Ollivander's and see if Neville reacted to the wand with the same phoenix feather as Voldemort's. That was exactly the kind of thing a prophecy would seek to influence.
Dumbledore sighed.
He had needed to distract Augusta in order to have control over Neville's Diagon Alley trip, the ridiculous woman had wanted Neville to use a mismatched wand. Fortunately, Albus had long experience guiding troublesome people towards his own ends.
He had told her about the missing Potter and asked for her to help tracking him down.
She would be hunting down clues in France for the next few weeks.
He fiddled with his beard as a hopeful thought wormed its way into his head, maybe she would have luck where he was having none.
Other than that, he would just have to wing it.