Epilogue

Wow, guys. Look at the time, only a week out and I have a new chapter out.

I had a passing in my family this week and as a result, avoided my feelings with a bit of writing.

No, I am not abandoning the story, but I was very much done with first year.

From here on out we will be done with first year, after establishing so much I can finally play in this sandbox I made. Thus, an epilogue. We will be learning what happened to Harry later, during the upcoming summer vacation arc, we will have a lot of time to spend in Harry's mind.

It's short and very crisp, but I do not see myself improving on this chapter any time soon.

Please review. I do love to get those reviews; they make me feel good. As always, I need a beta, I think this chapter will show that more than most.

Also, congrats to myself. I wanted the year done in less than 100K words and did just that. Who cares if I only missed the mark by a few thousand?

Rights are to JK Rowling and Warner brothers. Please write a review, feedback would go a long way to improve my work. I don't care if you want to tell me I am the worst writer ever (if you do please tell me why and what I can improve) just tell me what you think!

Another year had passed. Like the year before, the work only began from here. Paper after paper, parchment after parchment, all fell to her gaze and signature. Her rejection or approval. The stoic frown which plastered her face came from more than just the meaningless task and mundane work she currently fell into.

No, instead it came from the kerfuffle that was the end of the year.

The final months of the year always corresponded with a fast-paced life. Projects, papers, and tests hounded after her students and clogged the study rooms of the school. Not to mention many students trying to find relief from stress in, other ways.

Honestly, she enjoyed finding the ones who chose to go the route of herbology and potions rather than the students who made time to inspect the cleaning supplies for the school in pears.

There was a limit to people partaking in these activities, and that was thirteen years after graduation.

Not four years till it.

But this year was different, for the biggest problem was not the third years, nor the substance policy of the school being broken.

It was an attack.

Someone breached the school and attacked that which she was supposed to protect. A monster had hidden as a lion among sheep and played them all a fool. A wolf who wore the cover of a sheep had tried to kill a small and sickly lamb.

And it was all the fault of Albus Dumbledore.

Her one-time teacher, mentor, and finally friend had laid the groundwork for the mess of madness that had gone down in the last month of school. It was upon his shoulders and his shoulders alone that the worst-case scenario had almost occurred. He was the sole person responsible for the mess.

Yet could she blame him?

Yes.

Albus Dumbledore was more than a man, he was a figure, an immortal being of good. He was the wall against the monster of Nurmengard, and unshakable fortress defending the west from the expansion of tyranny. A stalwart castle against the monstrous head of the Knights of Walpurgis. He always shone with pristine excellence, his every action moved the world to more good, he only did things that would be best for the world.

Albus Dumbledore never made mistakes. He was perfect.

A disgusting illusion that she and the rest of her countrymen shared.

A disgusting illusion that cracked and fell when he ran up, clutching that child in his hands.

Harry Potter was always a small child, as opposed to his father who stood as tall as any in his class. He shared neither James's wit nor Lily's care. He was utterly pragmatic whenever she saw him, but her discussions with him, telling him of his parents, were one of her greatest joys of the year.

In the arms of Albus, he looked like the infant that had been left on the door of that muggle home so many years ago.

Albus for his part looked utterly defeated.

He was an immortal, he never aged nor grew, yet in that moment he looked as ancient as his age implied. Bags draped below his eyes, which shattered with horror, desperate to hold on to something. What, he did not know. His limbs shook as if he carried a mighty load despite the child in his arms weighing less than a few tomes. The shoulders which always stood proud and firm instead drooped and cascaded to his chest, but worse was his eternal smile. The everlasting hope of wizards everywhere had dried like rain in a desert.

Before her was not the immortal Albus Dumbledore, it was a broken human.

"Albus" she wondered.

"Quickly Minerva, no time to explain. We need to get to the hospital wing."

"Albus, what happened to him?"

"Minerva, I will explain after we get him to Pomphrey. There is no time to waste."

So, she had gone with him. Taken the child from his arms. He was so small, too small to be a student in the school. Now, she could see his face; what a horrifying thing it was. She had seen people take the cruciatus curse before, but to perform it on a child? Who could be evil enough to do this?

His face was so broken, the streaks of tears eroded away the skin around his eyes. His arms were cut and bruised, and despite his sleep, he shook in her arms.

"Somethin' has been killing the unicorns" Hagrid had said at the last meeting. Something had been killing unicorns. Only a few faces seemed to care when he had said that she not being one of them. What use was worrying over what happened in that forsaken forest do, some beast was killing another beast. What bother was it to her school?

Only Severus, Quirinus, and Albus had shown any reaction to the news that the half-giant had brought. Though maybe this was because of the anger most of the staff held for the man. He was good-natured, but keeping a dragon on campus, not to mention with his history, the fact that they still employed him was hours of paperwork on her part. He never learned the danger of his pets, the danger they posed the school.

Only Severus, Quirinus, and Albus saw the true nature of his words. Only those three had begun the manipulation necessary to stop that evil. A dark creature was begging at the walls of Hogwarts, hoping to topple them, and it appears that on this night it had.

Was the target the small boy in her arms? The Headmaster?

She had too many questions and the only one capable of answering was panting and barely keeping up with her.

He was always strong; he could run with a quidditch team if he desired.

Albus could not match her pace.

She reached the doors to the hospital wing well before him, her magic answering her call and swinging open the overlarge doors. With a shout for the Matron, she laid the tiny boy on the nearest bed.

She shambled over, robes hastily were thrown on, and lacking her normal hat. "What has happened to him?" Her wand was in hand as she spoke a complex Latin phrase, one which illuded the older witch.

"I do not know. Albus is behind me and knows more, but I think I saw signs of the Cruciatus."

"No," The horror writ on her face matched the one McGonagall felt. "Upon a child?"

"Yes," a wheezing voice joined from the door. Albus stood, leaning upon the frame with eyes of torment. "I also believe it possessed him."

"What could have done this?" She questioned as Pomphrey hounded different vials from her cabinet and chanted broken words that should not be uttered in this world to counter the dark magic the child had suffered.

"As I feared, the beast from the forest did it."

"The one killing unicorns?"

"Yes."

"How did you do nothing to stop this?" Her voice carried into the empty halls, with malice she didn't know unleased upon her mentor.

"I did not take it seriously enough."

"How did it enter the castle?"

"It had help, the one thing that I did not plan for."

"You not planning for something?"

"Yes." The statement came out as a croak, levels below her own voice. She knew the look he gave; she had seen it upon many pupils' faces before.

"Do you know which student let in the beast?"

"It was not a student."

"But you just sai" she was cut off before the word could complete.

"It was a professor." He broke more. After the first crack, she noticed how his entire form was due to collapse.

"When he fails, he fails brittlely." That is what Aberforth had told her in one of her visits to the head. "And when he fails, people get very hurt." She had dismissed the man out of believing it to be jealousy. Here was a man who could only run a pub. The rumor was he could not use magic. He even swept his store after patrons left. Of course, he was a jealous man, envious of his brother's prowess. Albus was a perfect man. A paragon of virtue. He had never failed. Not once.

"Who? Was it Severus? Did he escape?"

"It was Quirrell."

"Quirrell?"

"Yes, and he is dead."

"You killed him?"

"No," he gazed at the bead that Pomphrey tended to with his cracked sapphires. "He did."

Some time after, Albus left. Minutes. Hours. She lost count of them. His chest rose and fell, a soft rhythm proving he still lived. At some point, she had moved to his side, held his hand, gazed on his face.

It was James.

The features were softened, but she looked at James as he lay still. This James despite his frame was older. Her James had marks from his smile always on his face, however, the boy before her was always flat. James had warm skin kissed by the sky, this one had wrinkles already on his forehead, normally hidden away by his hair. And that scar, the red wound that marred his forehead, gazing at her in contempt on a pasty white canvas.

James was joyous, bringing smiles to every person in the room, always at the center.

She forgot that Harry was a student more than once while teaching him.

James had a childhood of ease and breezed through school. He would have achieved the top score if not for a certain woman who would go on to be his wife.

Harry, by contrast, was a failure at school. He had yet to transfigure anything in her class. If not for being at the school, she would have assumed him to be a squib. Until Halloween. Harry had seen his classmate die in a gorish bath, then used an unforgivable curse. He most likely used it again tonight, though this time not on a monster, but a human. He was eleven and looked a child younger. How could he have killed someone? How is it the only spell that he could cast be the most difficult to master, and also the most evil?

"Why was I not retrieved?" A silky voice drew her from her musing. "I am his head of house." His tone was brutally even. No inflection reached his voice. She turned to berate him, but the look in his eyes stayed her words.

His cool olive eyes were full of emotion. The normally blank look Severus strode the halls in changed to a panic. Fear emitted from those eyes, which normally told nothing.

All she could do is sleep. The exhaustion of the day finally met her as she left the boy in his head's care. As she left, she only had two more things on her mind.

Was Harry's toad always there? And were his eyes always red?

They canceled classes for the day. She had risen when the sun was already disappearing. Content to go to dinner with her exhausted appearance. Life went on.

Every student in the school sat in The Great Hall for dinner that night. Well, all but one. A lone Slytherin did not sit on his normal spot at the table, that being the back. The normally rowdy students were instead quiet. A low hum emitted from them, but it was in anticipation of words needing to be said.

Albus had reforged himself. He had taken the hammer to parts shattered and appeared the wizened wizard she had always known.

How foolish she was. He had manipulated her and the rest of the country into believing this lie. He stood proudly at the head of the hall, all the leader she remembered him being every day before last.

It was a show.

He was the world's greatest actor, so good he believed himself.

"Students of Hogwarts. I speak today with a heavy heart when I say Professor Quirrell is no longer with us."

His audiences gasped and reacted just how he wanted. The script he prepared moved flawlessly.

"A monster was hiding in our Forbidden Forest, a reason why we tell all to avoid it, and it entered the castle."

The children all wore the same face, the face of fear. A few even screamed.

"But we are lucky, our brave professor found it and purged it from the castle forever, but not without losing his own life." They all held wonder in their eyes. The brave sacrifice of their teacher to save them high on their minds.

All a lie.

Not only a lie, but it was also easy. He stood proud and waved his arms, holding grief for a man who harmed his student, saying the person was good. A joke, he was evil. He tried to kill a student.

One voice reached her from her spot to the speaker's left. In the entire hall, only one student voiced something she wished was said. How is it in a hall of over two hundred students how did only one ask the question she so hoped to hear?

"Where is Harry?"

The brunette which had spent time with Harry over the winter holiday spoke up, searching the table for him. Her companion stopped her from shouting it more. Smart. The fewer people who know he is involved, the better. Let the child rest and not have the attention of the school on him. He deserves at least that much.

"The monster managed to attack one student, however, but lucky for us Harry Potter is recovering well in the hospital wing. Also, all of Quirrell's classes will have their final examinations canceled."

The hall cheered. She doubted it was for the boy.

How had he tricked her so?

How did he lie so effectively?

How did he fool her?

Days later, the students left. They all got on the express and went home to their families. All but Harry. He still sat in the hospital wing, awaiting his awakening.

Hufflepuff had won the cup that year, both in quidditch and in the house cup. That boy Cedric Diggory despite being a third year was a wonder on his broom, already getting national attention for his ability to get after the snitch. Like every year, the Hufflepuff house had the least demerits to their name, allowing them to win. It was unfair how well that house kept itself together.

She had already begun the process of finding a new defense teacher, with dozens of applications sitting in her office ready to be picked over.

She should check on the boy again.

As she walked the now familiar path, she felt again for the boy. He did not even have a current address. He was still in his coma; what if he never woke?

Arriving at the door saw them open already. Inside, three men had gathered. Two older and one who liked as young as thirty. Albus, Aberforth, and another stood around his bed.

He was awake.

He animatedly talked with the three men, all of them spouting grins on their faces.

Did the Dumbledore brothers not hate each other?

He laughed and smiled and looked at Albus with sparkling eyes and wonder.

Did he not understand that that man is the reason he had gone through the pain? She found the records; she knew what his guardians did to him. When she found no home to send a missive two, she found the reason. His abuse. That was all on Albus. He did that to you Harry; how can you look at him with such a smile. Did he lie to you as he did to the school?

No.

The smile on Albus's face was not one he wore while acting. It was genuine and happy.

It was a look she had never seen.

She left them. She still had work to do.

Also, that toad's red eyes unnerved her.