"Yes, yes, is there anything else, Minerva?" Albus asked, unable to keep a certain degree of trepidation from his tone.

Over the past two weeks, in the wake of the disaster that was Harry Potter's kidnapping, everything, and he did mean everything, had gone wrong. He was under attack on all fronts, from political machinations in the Wizengamot and suggestions that he was beginning to show his age undermining his followers' faith in his leadership; to international contacts questioning whether Britain was truly as safe and well-recovered from the War as he had assured them — Gresham had even suggested that they cancel the World Cup, less than two months from the event; to that trollop Zabini and her office attempting to push through new staffing requirements, maximum class sizes, safety inspections...

She was working with Narcissa Malfoy and the Black girl, Albus knew it, he just had no way to prove it, and even if he did, though he hated to admit it, no authority to stop them. It was perfectly legal for the (underage) "Acting Head" of a Noble House to hide the fact that they were an Acting Head from the Wizengamot— (He still couldn't believe the audacity of that particular play — he had thought Andromeda Tonks was on his side! She had been one of the staunchest supporters of muggleborn rights over the past decade, but clearly blood would tell, he thought bitterly.) —in order to collude with voting blocs other than their own and Ministry Department Heads to undermine him, even if it was entirely underhanded and hardly honorable. (The Hat, he thought, must be growing senile in its old age, because Lyra Black was not a Gryffindor.)

And even if Zabini didn't find some way to force him to dismiss half his staff and hire two additional professors for every core subject, he still needed to find at least one Defense Professor — he always needed to find another Defense Professor — and he'd just come from visiting St. Mungo's.

Sybil was...not well. In hindsight, the signs had been building for months, perhaps even years, they simply hadn't noticed, himself and everyone else who might have been able to intervene — too concerned with their own affairs or, as Severus freely admitted, simply disinclined to help the poor woman, whom he had characterised as having been a paranoid, drunken fraud even before Albus had hired her. Severus had also (inadvertently, Albus thought, but one could never be certain with that boy) let slip his suspicions that there had been something of an organised campaign behind her breakdown, rather than the single, tragic incident which appeared to have sparked it off — a series of malicious pranks designed to make it seem as though all of her predictions were coming true, and then when she began predicting ever-more-ridiculous scenarios ("Do you recall, Albus, the morning when she claimed I was wearing yellow?") to make it seem as though she was dictating the events in question. Which, he supposed, in a way she had been, if the perpetrators had been working according to her 'orders'.

"The perpetrators" being Lyra Black, of course. He was certain that insufferable girl was behind it all, even if he couldn't prove it. And Severus was no help at all — he had been genuinely amused by the campaign of harassment, much though he had tried to deny it.

Not, Albus thought, that he ought to be surprised. He had joined the Death Eaters voluntarily, participated in their violent horrors as willingly as any of them. The sadistic pranking of an annoying but ultimately harmless woman into insanity obviously appealed to his sense of humor. And he had not missed the way Severus had been treating the girl — snarky and disparaging, of course, but without the venom he normally reserved for Gryffindor students. If anything, he treated her like one of his precious little snakes, allowing her to enter the Slytherin Common Room freely and arguing against her expulsion when she'd been caught practicing runic casting in the school. He even suspected that Severus had colluded with at least one of her tricks — while he had examined the prank potion she had dosed the school with, he had done nothing to help ameliorate the effects of its second phase, which had left the entire school (save Severus himself) with every appearance of having caught a cold for three days.

And when she had loosed those camouflaged, music-projecting automatons upon the school, Severus alone among the staff had refused to participate in destroying the things, instead simply altering the ones he caught to make them play a different set of songs (in unison), and march through the dungeons in a regular pattern, rather than scuttling off at random. She'd dumped a basket of them in front of him in the staff room demanding to know what the hell they were supposed to be, to which he had replied (smirking, of course) that he'd thought the...Beetles(?) fit the insect motif of the automatons better than the various rock 'n' roll artists whose music she had chosen. (She'd simply stared at him in shocked silence for a long moment before muttering five points to Slytherin, your Honor and stalking out.)

It had been a mistake, forcing the two of them into each other's company for the entire month of December — Albus realised that now. Severus had, as intended, been made miserable by the loss of what little time he had to himself, but the girl's company had clearly begun to grow on him. Not surprising, in hindsight: much as the boy claimed that he and all of his former comrades had detested the girl's mother, he obviously held a great deal of respect for her, even now. (The Unspeakables had told Albus how familiar the two Death Eaters still were with each other when he'd gone to verify her captivity.) If they had met under different circumstances, well... They had been very similar, when they'd been students. Both far too intelligent to relate to their peers, withdrawn and entirely disinterested in being here. (Disinterested in anything other than Tom, in her case, and Lily, in his, to be precise.) But he still had not anticipated that the girl would somehow win Severus over. He hated children!

Albus blamed the misjudgment on the fact that he had not seen the similarities between the Black girl and her mother until it was far too late, too willing to overlook them in his determination not to judge the child for the sins of the parent.

It wasn't until she'd been sitting before him on her own ground, casually ignoring his political position and influence and the law and even the magic he had been flooding the room with, a tactic which he could never remember failing to garner some reaction (most often intimidated reactions), telling him — him — to go fuck himself, grinning and threatening to destroy him in the political arena, escalating their argument well beyond the bounds of sanity, confident that she held every card of value in this game (her certainty and self-assurance utterly infuriating), that he'd seen exactly how similar she was to the Blackheart, in personality as well as appearance. She might be better able to hide it, more light-hearted and carefree than Bellatrix had been at her age, and more...playful, he supposed, but beneath that, they were the same.

Severus had once told him that the War, the entire thing, had been a game to her. Complex and entirely real, the stakes life and death, but a game nevertheless. Tom had seen it as a necessity, perhaps as somewhat of a lesson, making a point that he could not be dismissed or ignored or silenced, but Bellatrix... She had simply enjoyed it, toying with him and the lives of their followers.

And now her daughter was doing the same, playing with him, but this time, rather than being unaware of the game itself, he was unaware of the stakes, the purpose of it all. And despite that, he couldn't not play — there was no feasible way for him to crush her immediately or simply refuse to engage, she would just keep pushing until he must retaliate in some way, or else be so undermined from every direction that he no longer could. And what was he going to do? He wouldn't — couldn't — simply call her out, defeat her in the open as he had Gellert. She was a fourteen-year-old schoolgirl, for God's sake! He could kill her with a single exchange of spells, but to do so would be to betray everything he believed in. (Not to mention, it would make him a monster, and her a martyr.) And she knew it. He'd fallen into their trap, hers and whoever was directing her, underestimated them — he hadn't even seen it coming.

He had certainly underestimated the girl's ability to subvert all those around him, her corrupting influence encouraging the darkness that lurked in all men's hearts, no matter how stringently they might attempt to deny it (or, in Severus's case, not even pretend to make such an attempt), to flourish.

She had even managed to turn Sirius against him!

The House of Black had already been in decline by the time Albus had come into power, in the wake of Gellert's war, but he was beginning to understand exactly why the other Noble Houses — even the Darkest of them — had been so willing, even eager, to see the Blacks fade into obscurity in the 1980s. He could only imagine how much more disruptive an entire House of Blacks — Blacks who had (unlike Arcturus) actually been engaged in Magical British politics and the blood feuds and honor duels of the nobility, Blacks who went around adopting muggleborns and doling out money to even the most subversive of causes on a whim and riding roughshod over the objections of their peers — must have been. It was quickly becoming apparent that even one was incredibly problematic and entirely resistant to any sort of handling.

Which did raise the question who the hell was behind the bloody child — she couldn't possibly be working alone, but he could hardly imagine her following anyone else's direction — and what they wanted, not to mention the question of what Bellatrix was doing, and how her escape was related to her daughter's sudden appearance — because he couldn't imagine they weren't somehow related — and how he was supposed to prepare for her inevitably returning Tom to power when the girl had hidden Harry Potter away and refused to give him back!

The issue had become especially pressing since Severus had informed him of his meeting with Harry and Zabini — apparently the boy was now slipping into Tom's mind in his sleep, which was... The similarities between Harry and Tom which had seemed so superficial when Harry had brought his concerns to Albus after escaping the Chamber of Secrets were quickly coming to seem not so very superficial at all. Legilimency was a rare talent. Not as rare as some, but along with the Parseltongue... Albus was beginning to suspect that there was more to the soul magic Lily had used on her son than he had initially imagined. What, precisely, she had meant to do and how, he had no idea, but... Lily, for all her intuitive understanding of the more...esoteric magics, had been young. There had been no time, no possible way for her to test her ritual, and soul magic was notoriously fraught with unintentional side-effects.

And he couldn't even attempt to investigate the situation more fully, since Severus hadn't managed to convince the boy to stay in Britain. Their meeting had taken place at the Zabinis' residence! He had been in the country — and Severus hadn't even tried to stop him flooing away again, escaping before Albus even realised he was back. When Albus had rebuked the dark wizard, he had had the gall to act surprised that Albus would have expected him to do such a thing! And the fact that Zabini had been with him was no help at all in tracking Harry down. Apparently the boy had admitted that he was travelling with the Blacks for some part of the summer (because his mother was so very busy with Department business, I'm sure you understand, Professor), but he hadn't given a single hint as to where, precisely, they had gone. And of course Severus hadn't happened across the information while he was viewing the memory of Harry's...dream? Vision?

He had admitted that he could have arranged to do so easily enough, but "I can't believe I'm saying this, Dumbledore, but I actually agree with the boy is safer on the move than he would be here, and what would you do if you had him here anyway? Tell him to keep practicing his occlumency and start trying to achieve a lucid dreaming state, I imagine, since I am somewhat more familiar with mind magic, and that is precisely what I told him to do." And Albus could hardly fault Severus for refusing to use legilimency in a thoroughly unethical manner, much as it might have been convenient had he done so, just this once.

Yet there was still a nagging suspicion at the back of his mind, that Severus was not so firmly on his side as Albus had once thought. Yes, he had sworn to follow Albus, to obey his orders, until Tom was entirely destroyed, but Albus was becoming uncomfortably aware how loosely such a vow might bind a clever, conniving man such as Severus. He could hardly imagine and countermand every way the Slytherin might think of to avoid or undermine his orders and, like the Black girl, the only common cause Albus truly shared with him was the safety of Harry Potter. If another faction happened to establish itself with which he found himself more closely aligned, well... He had managed to betray Tom, and the brand his Lord had placed on his very soul held him far more securely than any vow might. Would Albus even know, if Severus began informing on him to the Black girl and her handlers? Had he perhaps even begun to do so already?

No, Albus — you're beginning to sound as paranoid as Alastor. Even to yourself. The only way to get through this was to focus on the problems he could solve, not waste his time pondering questions to which he might never find the answers, jumping at shadows and imagining elaborate, Quibbler-worthy conspiracies against himself. (Though he was quite certain Xeno had been attempting to damage his reputation with that bloody article about his attempting to legilimise the Granger girl — there was going to be a bloody hearing about it!)

One problem at a time, he reminded himself.

He had just come from St. Mungo's, and a conference which had left him feeling more helpless and exhausted than an entire day of back to back interviews and meetings at the Ministry.

The mind healer working most closely with Sybil, encouraging her recovery from her Black-induced psychotic break, was hopeful that she would be able to return to an independent life outside of an institution, perhaps as soon as the end of the summer, if he could simply convince her that she had, in fact, been the victim of a "gaslighting" campaign, rather than cursed unknowingly with godlike powers to dictate the fate of the universe. Thus far, he had been unable to coax her into making a prediction to prove to her that she was not controlling the outcome of the event in question. Albus, likewise, had been unable to convince her that Harry Potter wasn't dead — or rather, she claimed she had predicted that as well, in the hope that she could reverse whatever tragedy she had caused to make him believe the boy dead, thus only proving that she did, in fact, have some power over life and death and fate itself. The healers had, at least, managed to get her to speak again — she had refused for nearly a week after Albus's previous visit, terrified that anything she might say would become true — but he wasn't deluding himself that she would be fit to teach again by September, if ever.

Which meant that, in addition to a new Defense Professor — the fortieth Defense Professor he'd hired since refusing to appoint Tom Riddle to the position in 1961 — Albus needed to find a new Divination Professor, and unfortunately interviewing potential staff members was not a duty he could delegate to Minerva or Severus. (Though he wasn't entirely sure he wanted to delegate anything to Severus at the moment, given his apparent sympathy for Black and her agenda...whatever that agenda might be.) Which meant even less time for him to deal with the myriad problems which had sprung up at the end of June.

"Ah, just one other," Minerva replied, rather hesitantly, consulting a bit of parchment. "A...Kyrah Shirazi came to my office just before you returned, asking about the Divination position. I wasn't certain whether you intended to... Well, in any case, she said she would prefer to wait rather than return later, so I had an elf escort her to your office."

That...was... Well, that was very odd, was what that was. Hadn't he just been thinking about that very problem? The timing was... Could it be possible that he actually had an applicant who knew what she was doing in the subject she was applying to teach? A novel idea, but... He couldn't imagine how else she had so perfectly timed her arrival here, he had only just decided that he would have to find someone to fill the position, and— "Very good, Minerva. I shall proceed there directly. Thank you."


When Albus strode into his office, an apology for keeping the applicant waiting already on his lips, he was greeted by Fawkes's warbling, images and feelings washing over him, giving an impression of difficulty and tenuousness — a turning point, perhaps, though without more context he could hardly guess what event the phoenix might be referring to. He looked to the bird's perch, only to find it empty, as a voice spoke from behind him.

"Good afternoon, Percival."

A stately, middle-aged witch stood before the fire, watching him with a wry smirk on her face and his phoenix on her shoulder. Her simple white robes, the hem and cuffs heavily embroidered with blue geometric designs, and the elaborate chignon into which her chestnut hair had been arranged lent her an air of distant sophistication, though this was greatly undermined by the laughter in her voice.

"No greetings for an old friend, Percy?" she said, her smirk blossoming into an honest, open grin.

Greetings? He could hardly manage to speak her name. "Perenelle? But I– I thought..."

"You thought I was dead." She sighed. "You weren't wrong. I had no intention of returning to Perenelle Flamel, but I received the most intriguing letter a few weeks ago, and, well... I could hardly refuse the opportunity to be involved in a Triwizard Tournament, could I?"

"But— You're not dead? But, the Stone... I thought..." But it was Perenelle — she was the only person who called him Percival, the only one who knew that (aside from Nicolas, of course), and Fawkes obviously trusted her, but...

She frowned at him, her brow furrowing in disapproval, lips pursed ever so slightly (ever so familiarly). "Yes, well, that's what you get for meddling. Not that you truly affected the plan in any way, it did work out in the end, but if you'd simply let the Shadow steal the bloody bauble from the goblins, you could have avoided all that nasty guilt, you know."

"What? But, Nicolas — is Nicolas still—?"

"Nicolas? Nicolas never was." She clicked her tongue impatiently. "Sit down dear boy, before you fall down, you're white as a sheet. Go to him, lovely," she added, whispering the last to Fawkes in his own language. He fluttered obligingly over to Albus, crooning reassurances in his ear as he sank into an armchair.

"I'm... I'm afraid I don't understand, Perenelle — how is this possible? How are you...? What do you mean, Nicolas never was?" His voice cracked on the last two words, tears slipping freely down his cheeks. Nicolas had— He had been more than a mentor to Albus, he had been the one who had...helped him find his way, after Gellert. Who had brought him back to earth, to see the everyday struggles of life and people, rather than the greater struggle of good and evil his old friend had represented. He was, in many ways, the father (or perhaps grandfather) Albus had never had — open and supportive in a way his own parents hadn't been, though he had never allowed Albus to deceive himself about his own motives and desires; warm, but stern; disdainful of any self-delusion, yet patiently forgiving of mistakes...

Nicolas was the man Albus tried to emulate, as the Leader of the Light.

He couldn't never have been.

The witch clicked her tongue again. "You want to hear it from him?" she asked, her face shifting abruptly to portray her husband's features.

Albus reared back in his chair, shock and surprise very nearly overwhelming him. Were it not for Fawkes on his shoulder, he might, he thought, have found himself doing something regrettable, already so on edge as he was — his wand had appeared in his hand without any conscious movement on his part, leveled itself at...

"Going to curse me, my boy? You always were so quick to overreact..."

That was definitely Nicolas — a Nicolas sitting there with all too smug an expression on his face, wearing his wife's robes, but his old mentor nevertheless. "I— You're a metamorph? But— Was it just Nicolas, then, who—"

"Quick to overreact, and slow to listen. Hear me now, boy. There was no Nicolas Flamel — or Perenelle, really, though she's closer to the person I was born. The Philosopher's Stone was a ruse as surely as Flamel, a necessity, in my youth, if I was to remain a single person, rather than constantly running, leaving my life and loved ones behind to hide my immortality. That gets old after a century or two," he — she — informed him dryly, before giving him a rather nostalgic grin. "The Fourteenth Century was a very different time, a time when it was more acceptable to be a selfish alchemist who had discovered the secret to eternal life and refused to share it than a child simply born immortal — in my first life, I was thought to be a changeling, or perhaps a demon. Those early years were...not pleasant."

"But, but I lived with you — for years! And I — Nicolas and Perenelle, they were — you were? — separate people!"

"They were separate characters," Nic— Perenelle said, her features shifting back. "You don't think you live to be my age without perfecting the art of illusion, do you? And of course, it would have been entirely improper for you to go touching another man's wife — there was no cause at all for you to realise that Perenelle was never tangible when she and Nicolas were in the same place at the same time." She gave him one of those so-casual, disaffected little shrugs she always had. "Don't feel bad, boy, you weren't the only one I fooled. In fact, I had no intention of revealing myself at all. If I hadn't gotten that letter, the Flamels would have died back in April, the characters killed off with no one the wiser, allowing me to move on, do something different for the first time in centuries."

"You— What letter? Why are you here?"

Why are you here, telling me everything I ever thought I knew about you was a lie? Why did you let me believe you dead? Why are you telling me now that you aren't?

She gave him a coy smile. "Well, you see, Percy, I heard you might be in need of a new Divination Professor for this coming term and, since I had already decided to come for the Tournament, I thought I might volunteer my services. I do, if you recall, have some small skill in the art, and it has been far too long since I've had the joy of guiding young minds."

"Ah...of course? That is...I do need a Divination Professor, but surely you—"

"Don't you go telling me what I want or don't want, young man, I'm quite sure I've a better insight into that than you."

"Yes, Ma'am," Albus said, accepting the chastisement with a slight grimace. Perenelle always had had a way of making him feel like an errant child. A rather novel feeling, now, over half a century after they'd first met, when everyone around him had begun to seem like a child in comparison. "But... You're here for the Tournament?"

"Yes, well, I always did enjoy watching the students show off for each other." Of course, she would remember the original Triwizards, Albus realised. The depth of time the Flamels' lives represented had always been a rather difficult thing for him to grasp. "I missed the first one, and the one in Sixteen Twelve, but I've managed to attend every other. I could hardly miss the revival — it's been, what? two centuries? Time does fly, doesn't it?

"I wouldn't have come as Perenelle if I hadn't been invited to judge the thing, of course. I'm sure you can imagine my surprise, receiving a letter addressed to 'The Metamorph Sometimes Known as Perenelle Flamel'. I was under the impression that my secret was well-kept, you see, hardly the sort of thing to be bandied about the Wizengamot."

"What?"

"Oh, don't worry, dear boy, I know you weren't the one who outed me — you never were that good at occlumency, I have no doubt that your shock is entirely genuine. But someone told the young Lady Black who and what I am, and I would rather like to know who."

Of course.

Of course it had been Black. Who else would it have been? All the things going wrong in his life, up to and including this– this world-shaking revelation, that one of the people he had trusted and respected above all others, had lied to him, over the course of their entire association, came back to that infernal child, in the end.

"So, I am here to investigate. As well as to help judge your tournament and teach Divination. The old methods of Divination, of course — anyone can teach Divination charms. It will do your students good, I think, to contemplate the deeper magics a bit. Everything has become so refined these past few centuries, hardly anyone truly appreciates their magic at all. So, young man, where am I staying?"

"Here, of course," Albus said, almost without thinking. But... "But, Perenelle—"

"Call me Kyrah," she interrupted, her face shifting again, this time forming a sharp nose and pointed chin; wide-set, almond-shaped eyes coloured an impossible gold, much lighter than the brown of her skin; and hair gone silver as though with age, despite the unlined youthfulness of her face. Her ears, he noticed, as she tucked an errant strand behind one, were ever-so-slightly pointed. "I thought it would be fun to be a peri for a while, it's been so long since I played a truly exotic character."

As far as Albus knew, there hadn't been a peri sighting in centuries — none of the more civilized fae races had been heard from for longer than he'd been alive. Peri had mostly lived around Persia, Parthia, Bactria, and extending a bit into Armenia, if he remembered correctly. Was she planning on teaching primarily Near Eastern divination techniques? Because that might be... No, there would be plenty of time to discuss that later, he decided. "Er...Kyrah, then. I'm afraid I don't understand — the judges were determined months ago, and—"

"And as I said, a representative of the Wizengamot contacted me, inviting me to join the judges' panel. I believe I'm meant to discuss the specifics with the Head of International Magical Cooperation? But I happened to be looking into the potentialities of attending, and your need for a Divination professor came up, so I thought I'd drop by and speak to you first. I trust I did get the timing right?"

"Well, yes, I had just decided to begin searching, but— The letter, inviting you to judge, do you still have it? May I see it?"

She blinked at him for a brief moment, as though she couldn't imagine why he should want to see it, but after that moment, pulled it from her sleeve, a tightly wrapped scroll. It was tied closed with a grey ribbon, and there were still bits of wax clinging to cloth and parchment where it had originally been sealed. Black, glittering with flecks of silver. He stripped it open to reveal a rather short letter, written in extremely archaic French. Not entirely indecipherable, but sufficiently foreign that his eyes took in the signature at the bottom — Lyra Bellatrix Aradia Ankaa, Lady Regent, NMA House Black, on behalf of the Lords and Ladies of the Council of Celtic Peoples — before the meaning of any of the text.

"Would you like me to tell you what it says?" Perenelle asked, after watching him puzzle over it for a moment.

Albus sighed. "If you would. I'm afraid my Old French is a bit rusty."

She laughed, a giggle somehow both low and tinkling, flicking her fingers in such a way as to say give it back, then. "It's addressed, as I said, to the Metamorph Sometimes Known as Perenelle Flamel — the direct translation is Fae-Touched, which is, in fact, how we were described back then. I have to say, I'm a bit impressed, that's hardly common knowledge. Not to mention, it suggests that this isn't the work of a translation charm. She obviously put some research into the thing. In any case, there is a fairly standard greeting; a short explanation to the effect that the Tournament is being revived; a bit of flattery, explaining why she chose to invite me to judge — my expertise in traditional witchcraft, apparently. Potions and alchemy, healing, illusion, scrying and mind magic, weatherworking, et cetera. Let's see...

"'The Tournament will be judged by a panel of seven, including the Heads of the three participating schools, and four others chosen for their varied expertise and impartiality. There will be nine events, scheduled for the following dates' — and then there's a list, of course. 'Judges are also invited to attend the Opening and Closing Ceremonies, as well as the Yule Ball, which will be held on the evening of the twenty-fifth of December.' And then a reiteration of the bit about fostering diplomacy and international relations, good will, and whatnot, and a bit discussing logistics, or rather, noting that the logistics will be taken care of by International Cooperation, and requesting a response so that they might contact an alternate judge, if I wished to decline to participate.

"Which I most certainly have no intention of doing, though I have yet to officially accept. Have you any idea who the other judges might be?"

Why would he? Apparently he didn't know much about anything that was going on lately! Though honestly, if there truly had been a change such as that, he would have expected someone to inform him — Ludo, perhaps, or Bartemius, since they were the judges whose positions had supposedly been eliminated, or any number of other contacts in the Ministry, it was hardly as though his involvement in the Triwizard project was unknown.

"Aside from Igor, Olympe, and myself, I had been, until your arrival, under the impression that there would be only two other judges — Bartemius Crouch and Ludo Bagman, Ministry representatives. I do think I would have been informed had there been any major changes to the judging panel, so... I'm sorry to say, Pere– Kyrah, but I'm afraid you may have been the target of some sort of practical joke — one in very poor taste, but that would be in character for Miss Black. She— I have no idea what to do with that girl, truth be told. I have never met a more infuriating child."

Perenelle hummed under her breath for a moment. "Are you sure the joke isn't on you, Percy? It is my understanding that the Acting Lady Black is a Hogwarts student — it is entirely possible she simply wished to win the Cup fairly, rather than with the help of an unbalanced panel of judges."

What was that supposed to mean? Yes, Ludo would likely favor the Hogwarts champion, but Albus was quite certain that he and Bartemius were entirely capable of judging fairly and impartially!

"I suppose it's possible the joke is on me, somehow, I can't claim to understand the game she's playing whatsoever, but— Are you implying that her motive might be a desire for fair competition? Forgive me, but I hardly think— If you'd met her, you would realise fair play is hardly a major concern for her — rather the opposite, in fact. And in any case, only students who will be of age by the first of November will be allowed to volunteer. Seventeen," he added, in response to the way her head cocked to the side in confusion. "We have taken precautions, of course, but with the historical dangers of the Tournament, it was agreed that students must be legal adults to participate." Which the Black girl must have realised, if she'd somehow gotten sufficient access to their plans to attempt to change the bloody judges' panel.

Perenelle scoffed slightly, rolled those inhuman, golden eyes at him. "Well, I can hardly say I agree with that. The Goblet chooses the best Champion to represent the school. If that Champion happens to be a fifteen- or sixteen-year-old chosen over your 'legal adults', it's a fair bet they'd be better able to survive the contest than the older student, isn't it? Next you're going to tell me that Champions are going to be forbidden to cheat and sabotage each other!"

That... What?! "Of course cheating is forbidden, that's what makes it cheating."

Perenelle sighed. "No, no, not— Of course, you wouldn't understand, you see... The Tournament is about far more than the tasks and the students' overt performance in the arena. Cheating is a time-honored tradition, anyone who attended any of the old Tournaments would tell you that." So, anyone more than two centuries old. "The penalties are, of course, severe, if one is caught, but it's part of the game. And it's more a team effort than you might expect. If you're doing it properly, the children of all three schools will be attempting to sabotage the others' Champions and protect their own. All without letting on to the judges and organisers what they're up to. Of course, everyone knows, but we're meant to turn a blind eye so long as the children aren't very obvious about it. However, the field itself must afford each Champion an even starting point. Three British judges is simply not sporting. And I daresay Miss Black would think it rather unsatisfying to win a Tournament rigged in her favor. Granted, I haven't met the girl, but it would hardly be the first time a Black gave up an advantage just to make the outcome of a game less certain."

"Miss Black is only fourteen, Perenelle, she won't be participating! Even if she did manage to enter herself, I hardly think even such an arrogant, maddening little chit as her would expect to be chosen above students with three years' advantage over her in their studies."

"Kyrah," she corrected him. "And given the recent obsession with this childhood concept, I would be shocked to find that more than a handful of your seventeen-year-olds have more experience practicing magic than a fourteen-year-old Black. There is a reason they've won, what, eighteen Tournaments, since the fifteen-hundreds? But that's hardly the point, here. I'm quite certain the invitation is legitimate, and even if it's not...do you really think the other organisers will turn me away, if I volunteer to judge? I don't, and I dare say this revival of yours could benefit from the council of someone more familiar with the particulars of the tradition."

Which...was a point, Albus supposed. One to which he had nothing to say in response, as it was so unexpected a point for Perenelle to make, but a point nevertheless.

She grinned. "I've only ever been a spectator, you know. Only Perenelle and Nicolas would have had the social standing and reputation to be considered as potential judges, and it wouldn't have been in character for either of them to volunteer, but as I've been invited and breaking character is hardly a consideration any longer in any case, I see no reason whatsoever not to participate."

"Well, you are legally dead," Albus said, unable to keep a rather annoyed edge out of his tone. "If nothing else, I expect everyone will want you to stick around to answer a few questions."

"Oh, pish. I'm not really dead. Perenelle and Nicolas, yes, but the goblins still recognise me as myself. How did you think the girl got the letter to me in the first place?"

That... He hadn't even considered it, really. Not in the face of... "How could she possibly have known that you are a metamorph? Even I didn't know that!"

"Well, I did mention I was here to investigate that very question, did I not? In any case, I doubt anyone will be terribly surprised to discover I'm not as dead as they were led to believe. Exaggerated rumors do seem to be going around, don't they. Well, I suppose it's not common knowledge, yet, that the latest Bellatrix Black is still alive, but I hardly expect her to keep a low profile for very long. Still."

"How do you know, about Lestrange?" Albus asked immediately, ignoring the implied jab at his mishandling of the Harry Potter situation. Had she heard something, some rumor of where the cursed woman might be?

"What? That she's not dead? I asked, silly boy. Death may not look kindly on those of us who refuse to die, but that doesn't mean I'm entirely incapable of the most elementary necromancy!"

Albus winced. He was aware that Perenelle and Nicolas both — or rather, he supposed, the metamorph sitting before him — had dabbled rather extensively over the course of their lives — life — in magics far darker than he could truly bring himself to condone. Many of them were simply disciplines that had been outlawed in the centuries since they'd been born, but some, like Necromancy, were truly magically dark. He had left Alchemy entirely when he'd realised the sort of experiments he would have to carry out to truly understand the deepest aspects of the discipline. That Nicolas — wise, grandfatherly Nicolas — had obviously delved into bioalchemy alongside the traditional art was one of the things that had been most difficult for Albus to reconcile about his character, but he'd eventually come to understand, in the wake of Gellert's war, that it was possible for one to still, fundamentally, be a good person, even if one had done terrible things. There might very well have been no war without Albus, but he certainly wasn't dark.

Perenelle — Kyrah — smirked, as though she knew exactly what he was thinking. "Don't be squeamish, boy, there's nothing wrong with asking the Powers a question now and again. It's all Magic, when it comes down to it."

That was another thing they'd never agreed on: both Nicolas and Perenlle had held to the old superstitious idea that Magic was a conscious entity of some sort — a god, in essence. Albus himself believed that the Powers were simply a manifestation of magic based on the expectation of the mage invoking them, not any sort of autonomous consciousness. Not that it mattered, really, there was no real proof either way.

Before he could think of a response to the accusation of squeamishness, Perenelle changed the subject, musing, "Maybe she was the one who told the young Lady Black that I'm a metamorph. Bellatrix, I mean."

Albus somehow managed to choke on air at the implication that (as he asked, disbelieving, when his coughing fit abated), "Bellatrix Lestrange knew?!"

"Well, she never said anything, but Tom Riddle always was a slippery little shite, I wouldn't be surprised if he found a way around that vow of secrecy. She was his Lady, wasn't she? It could have come up." Albus simply stared — he couldn't possibly have just heard her correctly. But it seemed he had, as she added, "Come now, Percy, you didn't think you were my only apprentice, did you?"

"Well, no, of course not! But— Tom Riddle? And you told him," but not me, he avoided adding, though only just.

"Oh, well, I wouldn't have if he'd just wanted to study the Art, but he'd got it into his head that he was going to learn my secret and stay young and pretty as well as immortal — and when I kept putting off discussing the Stone at all, he eventually resorted to violence. And, well, I've never been a fighter, so yes, I swore him to secrecy and made him vow to leave peacefully and never bother me again after I told him, in exchange for the secret. He was livid when he realised he'd spent three months flattering an old man for nothing at all. Now, granted, I don't know that he found a way to tell his Bellatrix, she was a bit preoccupied on the one occasion I met her, it didn't come up. But he might very well have done."

"Wait — then why did he want to steal the Stone, when I had it here?"

"Well, I suppose it's possible that in his madness, he's forgotten the truth of the matter. But it's also possible he realised that it wasn't completely useless — it was a catalyst that could be used to create a panacea which reinforces one's fundamental identity, which had all sorts of interesting effects, most of which were completely useless. Some, however, might potentially have been very useful if, for example, one had used multiple horcruxes to secure one's soul on the mortal plane without becoming trapped in the horcrux object and, finding oneself a wraith in need of a body, wished to avoid corrupting a vessel while possessing it. It just wasn't the Elixir of Life."

Albus tried to suppress the flare of emotion that arose on hearing that. Nicolas had never told him anything about the Stone, either, and Albus had been his apprentice for years. But it wasn't as though he'd told Tom voluntarily, there was really no call for jealousy. "I...see. And — dare I ask — Bellatrix...?"

"Came looking for Perenelle. Shadow-walked straight into the salon and half-threatened, half-begged my assistance in restoring Riddle's sanity — I understand one of your young Phoenixes twisted a ritual back on him?" Lily. It had to have been Lily. "Unfortunately for everyone, I couldn't help her, tynghedau are tricky like that. The one who casts it must uncast it, unless the one who's cursed manages to find the solution himself, and I understand the girl responsible was unwilling to undo it. And of course, due to the circumstances of the casting, Bellatrix didn't know what the solution might be. And then Riddle killed the girl, so as I understand it, he's trapped now as a parody of himself, the ridiculous madman your propaganda made him out to be. Forever." That...actually explained rather a lot. Especially the speed with which the war had gone to pot in the last two years of it... "Honestly, he did rather set me against him when he decided that torturing me for information on the Stone was a far more efficient option than sweet-talking it out of me, but I wouldn't have wished that fate on him. Perhaps Bellatrix will put him out of his misery, now that she's left your demon prison."

Albus sighed. "Who can say what that madwoman will do now? As far as I know, there have been no reports of her washing up in Britain or France. The I.C.W. would certainly have contacted me, even if they would refuse to extradite her. Though I wouldn't put it past the Black girl to somehow be in contact with her. Or rather, for whoever is behind her to be in contact with both of them."

"Whoever is behind her?" Perenelle repeated. "What makes you think someone is behind her? I'll admit that the letter is somewhat impressive, I doubt she actually speaks François, but it's nothing that would require outside assistance to produce, and I sincerely doubt that anyone would need to put her up to it."

"Not this, not necessarily. But... How much time do you have?" he found himself asking, desperate to talk to someone about this. And Nicolas, even wearing an entirely different face and speaking more frankly than Albus had ever heard, was still so very easy to talk to. At the very least he — she — would be able to tell him whether he'd already completely lost his mind.

The metamorph's face fell into a concerned-looking Perenelle. "Oh, dear — that bad, is it? Do we need tea?"

He called for an elf, because yes, he rather thought they did need tea.


And we finally meet the last of our surprise judges. And it's someone who's actually on Dumbledore's side! Or, you know, at least someone who can counterbalance the effects of Lyra's existence and help him keep his head on straight. She just so happens to be a Triwizard Tournament super-fan because, well, it amuses the hell out of me.

Perenelle/Nicolas being a metamorph is part of Lysandra's headcanon. The original plan to get rid of the Stone and kill off the characters involved hiring a vampire thief to steal it from Gringotts'. When Dumbledore got wind of the rumors that it was in danger, he offered to protect it himself. Perenelle agreed because, well, the Gringotts goblins wouldn't appreciate the 'unorthodox withdrawal' of her property being publicised as a breach of their security, and she prefers not to offend entire clans of goblins when possible. She didn't anticipate Tom trying to steal it and it incidentally being destroyed. If he hadn't, she might have still had it stolen from Dumbledore, or just waited until the danger was judged to have passed and tried again while it was in transport or something. —Leigha

Perenelle/Nicolas being a metamorph is from my headcanon, though that's not how the Stone ended up at Hogwarts in mine. Dumbledore just heard a rumor Tom was after it, and badgered the Flamel(s) about it until they threw a bauble at him just to get him to stop bothering them. It was just something they conjured to get rid of him, it wasn't anything. Because dammit, Albus, I'm trying to finish this paper, leave me alone. —Lysandra

The Council of Celtic Peoples is the official, internationally recognised name of the Wizengamot that no one ever uses. —Leigha