Dumbledore strained his occlumency shields to end the nightmare and awaken, but he could not. They remained utterly inert.
He glanced away from the window and found Harry Potter standing beside the windowpane. From his place on the window seat, Albus can see that this was a transfigured form, not the real Harry Potter. Suddenly, the elder wand appeared in the boy's hand.
"Give me my wand!" Albus demanded, but the figure ignored him. Around the headmaster, multiple copies of the elder wand appeared in the room, in vases, laid on top of picture frames and along the back of the chairs. Turning back toward the window, Dumbledore saw Tom standing just on the other side of the pane of glass. The Dark Lord saw Potter and the elder wand along with Dumbledore and his greatest treasures in one location. The evil wizard shouted and threatened the house with his wand.
In an attempt to escape from the Dark Lord's coming attack, Dumbledore jerked and stared as his left arm – blackened and excruciatingly painful – broke off at the elbow.
Dumbledore's dream continued as Tom Riddle stepped away from the window and cast a spell toward a door but not at the window where his possessions were displayed. The disabled wizard stared as the Dark Lord's magic formed slowly and crept toward another part of the house. Then he glanced at 'Harry Potter', who vanished in sparkling lights.
'Where has he gone? Is this a dream?' wondered Albus Dumbledore briefly before there was a blast and nothing more.
& CHANGE SCENE &
Investigating a Mysterious ExplosionBuried underneath modern London, the Ministry for Magic constantly monitored all extraordinary blasts of magic in Britain. On paper, these monitors were in place to allow the Obliviaters to ensure the Statute of Secrecy was maintained. Unofficially, the devices allowed the ministry to legally bind the magic of muggle-borns and obliviate their minds of all knowledge about magic. This reduced the number of new magical wizards and witches who might want to challenge the status quo in magical society.
In the afternoon of 15 August, the monitoring devices in the ministry registered a moderately powerful series of magical explosions in a rundown residential section of London. Aurors and Obliviaters apparated onto the surrounding streets and slipped into the cordoned-off area using notice-me-not charms.
It appeared that two blocks of tenements had exploded ahead of schedule. The old row houses were scheduled to be demolished as part of a modernisation plan for new, high-rise apartment buildings. There was no loss of life among muggles. The ministry had no records of any magical residences in the area, so the magical explosions were written off as some hidden and forgotten artefacts from the past. There were penalties for storing unregistered explosives for the muggles, but no corpses or body parts were found in the rubble. (The explosion and milliseconds of heat were intense and burned away all bones and magical artefacts in the immediate area of No.12).
Unlike the other ministry officials, Auror Kingsley Shacklebolt and Auror Dora Tonks remembered the Black family home that stood among the rundown homes on the street. No.12 Grimmauld Place had been the safe house that hid Sirius Black until his death in June. After Black's death, they could not enter the house, and the Order of the Phoenix abandoned the area to the Death Eaters. Once their reports were completed and their shift ended, they apparated to Hogwarts, hopeful of sharing the information with Headmaster Dumbledore.
"I haven't seen him in two days," McGonagall replied to the request to speak with Dumbledore. "He said something about looking for some artefact or other and left on the 13th."
Tonks asked, "Aren't you worried about him?"
Minerva frowned and said, "I'll worry about him if he hasn't appeared by 20 August."
& CHANGE SCENE &
Author's Note: all of Dumbledore's dream scenes occur on 14-15 August while he is under the effects of Treacher's modified dreamless sleep. He keeps waking up and looking around before falling back asleep.