Badreader: that is a very good question I hope a hairless man can tell me how my words made them feel
Tydbox: thank you
Disclaimer: I don't know how much of an effect this will have if I get sued, so let's hope it doesn't get that far shall we?
A challenge and a decision
Dumbledore was the uncontested master of magic and the most envied and respected man in the magical community. Unfortunately for him, none of his grandiose talents would help in this current conundrum – despite his long life, and career as a teacher, he never really interacted with distressed children.
Well, he mused, that wasn't entirely accurate, many students were distressed in his presence, perhaps failing a transfiguration spell for the umpteenth time or fearing the consequences of misbehaviour. The problem was that he was never any good at helping them. In fact, that was the main factor that encouraged him to retire as a teaching teacher, to become a… managing teacher – a head teacher. As teacher who managed teachers, most of whom were emotionally sturdy enough to not burst into tears with him around (and hence shifting the responsibility of consoling them to him), he never had to worry about behaving less than sympathetic towards their, in his opinion, trivial issues, or even traumatising them with his bleak world view, flavoured with his uniquely sarcastic way of talking. However, his years as a teacher did allow him to develop a strategy for situations like this, mainly consisting of talking to the victim in a vague and unhelpful way, leaving them confused, but also able to draw their own, hopefully helpful conclusion from his words.
His eccentric personality helped him seem wise instead of insane.
Unfortunately, he doubted this would work with Harry, if he were even able to employ this tactic, nearing tears himself.
After cycling through his options, albeit limited as they were, he swiftly came to the conclusion that Harry, and himself, needed space and time to contemplate and come to terms with the death of a loved one. He preferred to sulk in solitude when he was younger, and it seems that Harry was very much following in his footsteps in more ways than one. Even as a toddler, he seemed, not lethargic, but not as active as one might expect, seemingly preferring to think rather than do. Of course, this meant that when he put his thoughts into action, it was more well planned than one might expect, out witting Minerva and terrorising the elves.
He and Minerva were not equipped to handle children.
The thought of that woman killed his budding good mood.
As he stepped away from the desolate boy, a quivering hand grasped his arm, no words were exchanged, but pleading eyes full of unshed tear froze him in motion.
Dumbledore understood what was unsaid. He hesitantly stepped towards the young boy and reached out with his magic, comforting him in a way his words never could. There was no hugging, no cuddling, no physical contact at all, but Harry seemed to melt into the couch all the same. In trying times, sometime, shared despair is the best remedy for sadness you could hope for.
They stay in that position for a few minutes, revelling in their mutual understanding; suddenly, Harry perked up.
"I want you to train me, I never want to feel so helpless again."
Dumbledore only nodded, he had failed Severus once, he would not do it again.
They had proceeded to start training an hour after Dumbledore's assent. However, it was half-hearted at best from both parties, with an unfocused mindset and agreed that it would be best to continue tomorrow, although 'start' may have been more apt of a word considering the complete lack of progress made.
The next day, Harry found himself waking up in what seemed to be a large metal box with no windows, doors, or anything vaguely resembling an exit or entrance. Rubbing the rheum from his dried-up eyelids, he licked his lips, tasting salt. It seems that despite his efforts, a few tears leaked out from his eyes as he slept. As he stood up from his foetal position, he surveyed his surroundings.
Trapped.
As panic began to blanket his sleep-clogged mind, he heard the popping sound of Apparation.
"Ah, Harry my child, I see that you woke up."
As Harry opened his mouth slowly after gathering his thoughts, Dumbledore interrupted him, "You must be disorientated, do you wish to know where you are?"
He nodded carefully. It seems he was not kidnapped overnight, which was a relief, however watching Dumbledore's outwardly calm demeanour filled him with an alternate kind of dread. Dumbledore was an intelligent man, possibly one of the most intelligent people alive, and his ability to sit and contemplate for hours or days uninterrupted made him a truly dangerous adversary. One thing that he is infamous for is not taking into consideration the human aspect of his convoluted yet brilliant plans. Dumbledore always said he was a cynic, but he always overestimated the capabilities of his fellow humans, sometimes to their detriment, or doom.
Dumbledore was at his most dangerous and brilliant with a calm complexion, but a calculating gleam in his eye.
The fact that he was like this now sent involuntary shudders down Harry's back.
"You wanted training yesterday Harry, today, you will prove to me that you deserve it; we are in a… cave, I guess you could call it, exactly one thousand two hundred metres below where we live, with no way of accessing it from above ground. This is to be your training grounds."
Harry blinked at him.
"With no access to the surface means no access to oxygen, or food or water. Oxygen is easily solved, with an oxygen generator, the same ones used in submarines, with a ward vanishing all of the air that is touches switching on every few minutes to maintain a constant air pressure. However, if I were to…"
He clicked his fingers, and the oxygen generator disappeared.
"…get rid of it, well, the air would run out of oxygen leaving the people inside to slowly suffocate."
Harry stared at him with an open mouth.
"You wanted training did you not, let's say that this," he paused, ponderingly, "this is a prerequisite."
And with that, he Disapparated out.
This was quite a conundrum. Harry got the implication immediately, he was to learn how to Apparate, or… well he was almost certain that Dumbledore wouldn't just leave him to die, but either way, there was no way he would be failing this test. However it did take Harry a minute to register the significance of the place he was in. Completely inaccessible from outside, only if you knew the its exact location could you come here, it made him wonder how Dumbledore managed to create this in the first place. It was a perfect sanctuary, perfect safehouse, perfect training ground, and he would bet anything in the world that there is more to this place than he was led to believe.
Imagine expending all this effort for a simple box.
Showing this place to Harry was a sign of trust, trusting him not to disclose its existence to anyone, trust that he would be able to make use of it in the future. Trust that he would be able to succeed.
He was going to prove to Dumbledore that his trust was not misplaced.
It was not easy.
He spent an hour trying and failing to Apparate out of the box. He could now feel how much thinner the air is – not too much, but just enough to be noticeable, it wasn't too large of a box after all. Twist your torso and spin, that is all he needs to do. Twist and spin, twist and spin. Harry envisioned Dumbledore's exit. A simple twist, and then spin, no flourishes, no waving, just a simple twist and spin. It didn't look difficult.
Why is it so hard?
As the hours progressed, the air laden with carbon dioxide, Harry's desperation grew. He was going to fail Dumbledore. Rational thoughts fled him; he was going to die. Picturing his house once again, twisting and turning, he failed again and again.
As his desperation increased, so did his frustration, but there were no deep breaths to be taken to alleviate his strain – each breath he took was already as deep as possible to fight back the oxygen deprivation. There was a new burning sensation in his veins now, his blood was becoming acidic from the excess carbon dioxide in the air.
He had a moment of clarity, the first in hours.
If he were a muggle, he would already be dead, he was certain of that. The oxygen levels in the air was not survivable, in fact he never could have even progressed to the situation where his blood could become noticeably acidic. Death would come before. Magic was truly a miracle, keeping his body alive in such hostile conditions.
Magic was about to fail him.
But all he had was magic. When his very body started to break down, when the air itself is fighting against him, when he doesn't even have the energy to lift an eyebrow, his magic still fought to keep him alive and kicking. His magic and his mind. Lesser wizards would have given up long ago, their magic responding to their whims, killing them painlessly. All Harry had was his mind and his magic, he could rely on nothing else.
Not moving from his position, gathering every scrap, every iota of determination and magic in his body, picturing his destination, his home which had been his beacon in this personally hell for what seemed like eternity, he disappeared with a soundless pop, and collapsed on the ground, in his home.
Unseen, Dumbledore Apparated as well, from his bubble in the box, breathing a fatalistic sigh of relief, and strangely, disappointment that Harry had succeeded.
It had been a few days since Harry had learnt Apparation. 'Learnt' may be too soft of a term, considering it was, in his perspective, a 'do or die' situation – if he were actually in danger of die (perhaps until he became unconscious), Dumbledore would rescue him. Dumbledore was aware that he tended to overestimate people's capabilities, indeed learning Apparation is nigh impossible for someone Harry's age, except for perhaps himself when he was younger, but he often felt like he was underestimating Harry, a new experience for him. Therefore, he went with his instincts rather than common sense and gave Harry such a ridiculous challenge.
Whilst he would be disappointed, he was secretly hoping that Harry had failed, so he would have an excuse not to go through with his training, and to justify not training him earlier. Alas, Harry had exceeded his expectation, for the first time in decades, a strange feeling for him, something new. The weight of failing his less talented students was another reason he quit teaching; there is nothing more exciting and rewarding than helping bright young minds achieve great things, yet nothing more disappointing than having them fail him again and again.
Well, things were finally looking up for him in the 'student' aspect. There may even be a chance that he had found the person to push the new generation forwards, to surpass the previous one. To surpass him.
The creaking of a door knocked him out of his musings.
"Ah, Harry, just the person I was looking for." He beamed at Harry, the happiest he has been since Minerva's death. It has only been a few days, so it was fresh in his mind. Hopefully, Harry's recent ordeal has helped him cope. Either way he was not going to remind him.
As Harry stared at him blankly, waiting for him to continue, Dumbledore went back to his musings. His position, the star of his generation, the benchmark to surpass was a tedious role with a treacherous journey. He couldn't force it on his progeny, the closest thing he had to a child.
"Well, Kababush?"
He grinned at the endearing term. Harry picked it up in their brief excursion to Russia as a nickname for him although he never found out what the root of the word was.
"You have put me in quite an awkward position Harry," Harry stared at him uncomprehendingly, "you weren't the first student I gave that test to, it was an aptitude test, which you have probably already gathered, one that I give to every promising student after they turn fifteen, although I never use that location, usually the Sahara desert or the Artic."
"Out of hundreds, you were the first to succeed, and the youngest to try. If you had failed, as was expected and customary, I would have given you the test again in nine years. This was more for my own curiosity."
"I knew you had potential, perhaps more than your father." He smiled mournfully whilst Harry paid attention, rapt by tales of his parents. They were not rare, but not common enough to be a regular occurrence, few enough that he always treasured stories about them.
"James and Lily were two exceptional students, enough that I had hope that one of them may pass. I am sure you had heard of how talented they were from Mi- Septima or Severus, your mother especially. Your father however," he frowned momentarily, "he was strange. Of course he was talented, as much or even more so than your mother, but I always thought he was hiding something, that he had more skill than he let on. No one else came to the same conclusion, I almost missed it, but his aptitude test was so strange. He actually successfully managed to Apparate, but not back to Hogwarts, or home, just a few metres to the left, almost immediately after I 'left'. It seemed like he viewed Apparation as some cheap trick, and without warning a few hours later, he collapsed. Maybe it was from exhaustion, but I believe he knew the point of the test, but just didn't want to break his façade. At the time, I believed that he was content being an exceptional wizard, and didn't want to be generation defining, but now, after spending six years with you, interacting with people again, it seems even more peculiar..."
"Never mind that now Harry, as I said, I knew you had potential, more than even I had imagined, and because of that potential, you have a choice to make. I am confident I can get you to a level where you can survive Voldemort when he resurfaces, however," he grimaced slightly, "I must ask you one question before we begin."
"Do you want to be a fighter, or a wizard? Do you wish to learn magic or combat? There is no correct answer, I will teach you either way, but whilst learning combat may get you to survive Voldemort, learning magic will allow you to achieve more, at a steeper cost and far greater risk: if you wish to learn how to fight, I would bet half my life savings that I can get you to survive Voldemort, however if you wish to learn magic, you can be a better wizard than Voldemort, maybe even surpass me, although there is no guarantee that you will survive your inevitable confrontations with him."
"Do know that your answer will determine my attitude towards your training from now on. It is a hard decision and only yours to make. I will say however, that I often find it better to collect my thoughts in writing, perhaps a short story or a poem can help you clear your mind."
A poem huh? Harry could do that.
The scorpion
A starving man wandered through a desert
in lines straight and curved, with hunger and thirst,
with the fortune of Tyche, chanced upon a scorpion
and a rabbit, a question made his mind turn,
he knew: "One to consume and one to leave there
but on this forked road, a terrible choice messes my hair –
instant gratification to prey on the prey, and continue on my feet,
the succulent meat in my mouth, between filling the gaps in my teeth
and yet the scorpion scars my eyes, although there is no meat to stave
off my incessant hunger, and yet the perils of the venom creates a rave
to turn my stomach. And yet the benefits immemorial does make my brain squirm.
The scent of a predator
would ward off danger,
more than if the smell of a
rabbit flittered through the
air surrounding me."
And so he made his choice.
With the air of hunger and danger,
he left the rotting carcass
and the darkness of the night claimed its
victim.
Author's Note: I am challenging myself and will try to write a short poem at the end of every chapter, as either a teaser for the next or to sum it all up. You can consider it a badly written tl:dr if you so wish. Feedback is always appreciated as usual, positive or negative I don't mind.