Peripheral characters were created by me, but all recognizable names and ideas belong to J.K. Rowling. A few historical figures also appear; they obviously belong to themselves.
Chapter Three: The Offer of the Queen
"Here in London?" Albus felt his heart leap into his throat with fear. Grindelwald in London? But why? "How do you know that? Who are you?"
"I is a house-elf, sir," whimpered the frightened figure.
"Blast it, I can see that much for myself!" snapped Albus. He was immediately filled with remorse. The small creature in front of him was clearly terrified; her eyes bulged madly, and every part of her shook so hard that her batwing-shaped ears fluttered as if they were about to take flight. "I'm sorry--forgive me for speaking so harshly. I mean to say, what is your name? Who sent you here? And how did you get in here?" The last question had him greatly concerned; as one of the highest-security areas in magical England, this room had had as many impenetrable spells on it as Hogwarts Castle itself. Those spells had never been breached, not since the haven had been created by Queen Elizabeth herself in 1560.
The elf stood mute and trembling, confused by the barrage of questions. Albus got out of bed and illuminated the candles in the room. He took the elf by the hand, and--ignoring her frightened gasps--swung her into the armchair by the fire, then seated himself on the ottoman at her feet. Conjuring up a small glass of mead, he handed it to the elf, whose eyes bulged out so far they looked ready to jump out of their sockets. He leaned forward in a friendly, tête-à-tête manner.
"Now then. Let's try this again. What is your name?"
"Gillyflower, sir, but everyone calls me Gilly."
"All right, Gilly. Have a sip of that mead, it'll make you feel nice and warm. That's it. Did someone send you here to give me this message?"
The elf coughed and spluttered on the mouthful of mead. "Oh, no sir! Gilly isn't supposed to be here at all! I will be in bad trouble for sneaking off when I gets back. But I is hearing my master say you was here at the Tower, sir, so I--I--" she swallowed. "I come to warn you about Lord Grindelwald being here, sir."
"And your master would be who?"
Her hand trembled so violently that mead spilled out of the glass, but she looked at him reproachfully. "Albus Dumbledore, you know I isn't going to tell you that."
He sat back, perplexed. This wasn't normal behavior for a house-elf at all. She had come here to warn Albus of some plot involving her master--yet she wasn't going to name her master. And despite her obvious fear, for a house-elf, she seemed extraordinarily poised and self-possessed. It was ludicrous. Could this be some sort of trap?
"That's fine, Gilly. In a moment, I will want to know how you found out Grindelwald was here in London. There is something else I would like to ask you first, though. This room has been made magically impenetrable by every charm and spell known to us. Only wizards or witches on government business are admitted to this room. Yet you managed to get in. How did you do that?"
"I let her in," said a querulous voice to his right.
He turned his head. Standing by the desk was a misty figure of a woman dressed in green velvet. A white linen cap covered most of her dark hair. Of course, Albus had to glance down to notice this, since she carried her head in her arms. It was the ghost of Anne Boleyn.
Normally the most unflappable of men, even Albus was nonplussed; it wasn't every day that one chatted with both a schizophrenic house-elf and the ghost of a former Queen of England. He blinked, then recovered his composure. Rising to his feet and bowing low, he greeted the ghost: "Your Majesty. I am honored. Might I introduce myself? I am Albus Dumbledore."
"Good evening to you, Dumbledore," she replied somewhat snappishly. "You may dispense with the formalities. At the moment, I am here merely in the capacity of another witch concerned with the imminent attack by Grindelwald. You may call me Anne."
"As you wish--Anne," said Albus. He managed to throw her a charming smile , but felt as though someone had Stunned him from behind. Had Anne been lurking invisibly in the Council meeting with them--or was there a leak somewhere already? "But tell me--if I may be so bold as to ask, how did you learn of this threat by Grindelwald? I myself only learned of it this evening in the Council meeting; the intelligence is no more than a few days old."
The queen returned her head to her shoulders so she could give it a haughty toss. Albus was grateful; it was singularly unnerving to speak to a head cradled in the arms of its owner.
"I could have told you about it four years ago," she replied in a steady voice. "However, no one from the wizarding world came here in all that time. And I cannot leave this house." She glared at Albus, as though he were somehow to blame for her lack of visitors, or her confinement to the Queen's House, or both. "But now that someone is finally here, I will tell you the whole story." She moved to the armchair and looked at Gilly, who jumped up immediately and moved to stand on the hearth. Anne seated herself, spreading her skirts carefully, and motioned for Albus to take a seat on the ottoman.
"A few years ago," said Anne, "a German Muggle named Rudolf Hess was briefly imprisoned in this house. As was I, before my execution, you know," she added in a tone of mournful self-importance. Albus inclined his head sympathetically. That seemed to satisfy her, and she went on: "Grindelwald came here to visit him and I overheard their conversations."
Albus's jaw dropped. "Grindelwald was here? In the Tower?" he asked.
"Indeed," she replied. "Though not in this room, of course. From what I gathered, this Adolf Hittite--"
"Hitler," corrected Albus, yanking the ends of his beard to keep his lips from twitching.
"As you say," replied Anne coldly, glaring at him again. "This Hitler has always been intrigued with our world, though he could only find the few bits that have leaked to the Muggle sphere--mythology, astrology, modes of divination, little bits of arithmancy and such. Once Grindelwald learned of this fascination, he decided to reveal himself to Hitler and form an alliance with him. Naturally the Muggle was thrilled beyond measure to not only learn that there was such a thing as real magic, but at the thought of being able to harness it as well."
Albus winced. The neverending madness of humanity, whether Muggle or magical, never ceased to distress him.
"After Hess was captured in Scotland and brought here," Anne went on, becoming less regal in manner as she warmed to her subject, "Grindelwald apparated to his room and had a talk with him. I was here in this room, listening to their conversation through the wall. Hess was telling the government some ridiculous story about bringing a peace offer to Britain, but that was just a cover, of course. His real mission was to discover the whereabouts of Hogwarts."
Albus snorted with disbelief. "What? He couldn't see Hogwarts from a Muggle aeroplane! That's a machine the Muggles have invented to fly in," he added.
"I know what aeroplanes are!" retorted Anne waspishly. "Enough of them have flown over England dropping bombs that I shouldn't doubt the very rocks of Stonehenge know what they are by now!"
"Sorry," smiled Albus. "You're right, of course. So Grindelwald must have told Hess about Hogwarts beforehand--but still, how could he possibly see it from a Muggle plane? It's been too well enchanted; no Muggles could find it even if they knew what they were looking for."
Anne pursed her lips and shook her head. "That I don't know. Grindelwald must have given Hess some apparatus to get past the enchantments, because I heard him ask the Muggle if he had destroyed the filter once he was down. Hess said that he had, even though the men who found him and searched his aeroplane would have thought that it was an ordinary--" she frowned, trying to remember the word, "an ordinary--owl-limiter?" She looked questioningly at Albus.
"Altimeter?" he suggested.
She nodded. "Yes, that was it."
"And did Hess tell Grindelwald he had found Hogwarts?" asked Albus--though part of him didn't want to know the answer.
"Oh yes," confirmed Anne. "I heard him tell Grindelwald exactly how to get there."
Bloody hell! thought Albus. He leaned in closer to Anne, his shoulder muscles beginning to ache with tension. "My dear lady--did you happen to hear why Grindelwald was interested in finding the school?"
Anne shook her head regretfully. "No. He didn't say why he wanted to find it." Her eyes flashed with anger. "But they did talk about their plan to get rid of all the Muggles and magicals they think are destroying their precious purity of blood," she spat.
"And what did you hear of those plans?" asked Albus, his eyebrows raised.
Anne fairly snarled her answer. "They are planning to round up everyone who doesn't meet their criteria for racial purity--Hess was blabbering some nonsense about the Aryan race--and Grindelwald was agreeing, talking about Muggle-borns and half-bloods." Her dark eyes grew even darker. "They thought it would become official policy by the end of that year."
"And it seems that it did," Albus observed quietly. "Hitler has already killed thousands of people--maybe even millions, unthinkable as that seems.' He shuddered, remembering the blood pouring out of the map. "But his power is waning, his armies are losing, and the captives in those places should be free within a few months--the ones who are lucky enough to still be alive then," he added grimly.
"But if Grindelwald is on Hitler's side, why is Germany losing the war now?" Anne asked.
Albus shook his head slowly. "It doesn't make much sense," he agreed. He rose from the ottoman and began to pace the room. "Obviously Grindelwald doesn't care if Hitler loses--or actually wants him to lose." He stopped, frowning. "I think we did legitimately put one over on him with the D-Day invasion," he mused aloud, "but no Muggle army could withstand Grindelwald, if he really wanted to defeat them. He'd have to use magic, yes, but it's not as though there would be any survivors left to report it."
"Of course not," said Anne. "And he must have enchanted Hess's plane as well. How else could it have reached Scotland without being shot down by our defense forces?"
Albus smiled despite the gravity of the situation. She was one smart cookie, this Anne of the thousand days. "Excellent point, Your Majesty."
She smiled proudly, appreciating the flattery that she'd missed for hundreds of years.
"I'm guessing that Grindelwald's intention must be to continue his hideous program, but without Hitler, for some reason," continued Albus. "Why, I don't know. But if it's true that he has already wiped out most of the half-bloods on the Continent--and I'm afraid that it is--he now wants to move on to England. Any witch or wizard here with Muggle blood will be in grave danger." He thought of Mireille again and clenched his teeth together hard.
"But I am curious, Your Majesty," he said quietly, looking at Anne, "as to why you are so concerned with this matter--after all, if I may point out, you yourself are hardly in danger." A small grim smile played about the corners of his lips.
"That's not the point!" Anne snapped. She arose from her chair, paced back and forth for a moment, then suddenly whirled and faced him. He started backward slightly--he had never seen such a look of pure fury on anyone's face, ghost or living.
"Listen to me, Albus Dumbledore. No matter what the history books say, I had my head cut off because I was different. Henry saw it, his ministers saw it, even the common people in the streets saw it. They called me a witch at my own coronation! They hated me! And I paid with my blood--my witch's blood," she snarled. "God knows I did things wrong--I sent men to their graves through my selfishness--but I did produce one good thing, and that was my daughter Elizabeth. My half-blood daughter Elizabeth," she spat. "And she, too, had to suffer until finally--finally--she came to the throne where she belonged. And do you know what she said in her first address to Parliament? Every Muggle schoolchild learns it. She said: I will not open windows into men's souls. What she meant was: I won't look for a reason to kill people, simply because they are different.
"And now these lunatics--Hitler and Grindelwald--are murdering people on a scale that makes Bloody Mary look like the Virgin Mary--because those people are different! And I won't stand for it! I won't!" she cried furiously. She burst into tears and sank back into the chair. Albus, secretly feeling a new twinge of sympathy for Henry VIII, nodded at her in understanding. She covered her face with her hands for a moment, weeping. Then she looked at him with her dark eyes ablaze again, and spoke in a low trembling voice.
"Sometimes I look out these windows and watch the children passing. The magical ones see me, and wave at me till their Muggle parents come pull them away. Hitler has killed enough of those children with his bombs. I can't bear the thought of Grindelwald getting the rest of them. Killing them the way he would have killed my daughter--my half-blood daughter," she hissed again, "who, even with a great murdering Muggle for a father, was still a superb witch."
"A superb witch as well as a very great queen," Albus agreed. "I assume you trained her?"
"As much as I could." Anne gave a melancholy sigh. "She was only three when I died, you know. But when she was locked up here by that mad half-sister of hers, I visited her and taught her as much as I could of what I learned at Beauxbatons." Her mouth turned down at the corners and she looked forlorn. Then she looked up at him again, with a somber expression. "Those were very dark times, Dumbledore. I was--" her mouth twisted and she looked down at the floor--"I was responsible for a great deal of the misery that followed Henry's divorce from Katherine," she said bitterly. Then she faced him again, her eyes brimming with silvery tears, but her face resolute. "I want to absolve myself by doing whatever I can now to stop Grindelwald. I only wish I had been able to tell someone about Grindelwald before now."
He rose and bowed low before her. "Your Majesty," he said to her, "I'm glad we've got you on our side." Their eyes met, and they smiled at one another.
At that moment, Gilly, who had been standing motionless and quiet by the fire throughout this exchange, gave a small shriek as a dark shape streaked past her and landed next to Albus, who bent to untie the message from the owl's leg. "Probably from Aquitaine," he said aloud to no one in particular, "giving me directions to--" He stopped and his face went white as he saw the message.
Albus,
You are in possession of something which I need. It is something you will not wish me to have; the fact remains that I would very much like to have it. Thus in the ancient tradition, I challenge you to a little contest for it. If you would be so kind as to meet me in the Aldwych station of the London Underground at four o'clock this afternoon, I would be much obliged. Bring along a second.
Your humble servant,
Gustavus Grindelwald
Albus frowned as he read and re-read the note, utterly bewildered. What did Grindelwald want? And why would he want to meet at a Muggle tube station? It made no sense. Here he had been planning to seek Grindelwald all over the continent to defeat him, and now Grindelwald was here, challenging him to a duel. It was disorienting, to say the least. He felt like a tightrope walker whose balance pole has suddenly been snatched away, leaving him fighting for equilibrium in mid-air.
He felt the eyes of Anne and Gilly on him. "It's from Grindelwald," he told them.
"What does he want?" said Anne.
"Well, he is here in London, as Gilly warned me. He also wants something, and wants it enough to challenge me to a duel over it." He read them the note, then looked at the elf. "What more can you tell me about this, Gilly? I don't suppose you know what it is that he wants?"
"Yes, sir," she said, her already-enormous eyes bulging even further. "What he is wanting is the philosopher's stone that you have in a vault at Gringotts, sir."
Albus reeled. The philosopher's stone in the hands of that madman? The consequences would be unthinkable. The stone, with its ability to produce the elixir of life, as well as transmute any base metal into pure gold, would give Grindelwald ultimate power to pursue his evil program. "Impossible, of course. We might just as well hand over his victims right now. He'll have to kill me in that duel before I'll surrender it to him. But why in a tube station?" he asked, pondering out loud. "It's preposterous; the stations are always full of Muggles even in peacetime. Since the bombing began, the stations are packed with people sleeping there to avoid the bombs."
Gilly spoke up. "I've s-seen a m-m-map that my master keeps in his study," she said, blushing. It was clearly difficult for her to admit this to outsiders. "I is not knowing how the Muggle trains work, sir," she stammered, "but I could see on the map that this station--Aldwych--has some sort of tunnel through to Gringotts."
"Ah," said Albus slowly. "That would explain it, then. Grindelwald trying to get into the goblin-run Gringotts Bank through Diagon Alley would be like Hitler walking into Harrods to buy a new tie." The corners of his mouth twitched at the thought.
Anne interrupted. "What tube? What are trains? I have no idea what you two are talking about!" She was Her Majesty the Queen again.
Albus bowed in apology. "I beg your pardon, your Majesty. The Muggles have established an excellent system of city transportation." He paused, thinking of how best to explain it. "Most of it, like Gringotts, is an underground network of tube-shaped tunnels, hence the system is referred to as the Underground, or the Tube. The Muggles get in large carriages which travel quickly on metal rails and stop at various destinations. It's very cheap and convenient for them."
Anne threw him a look of disbelief. "What a confounded way to travel! Give me Floo powder any day."
Albus laughed. "I agree that Floo powder is superior, but the Muggles do the best they can. Actually I quite admire their ingenuity. It's amazing what they've accomplished with no magic. Electricity, for instance--now they can illuminate a room as easily as we can. They also use it to run the trains in the Underground that I was telling you about."
"Yes, they've put that in here as well," said Anne. "When I go through the walls, I see all the clumsy wires and boxes they can't." She made a face.
"It may be clumsy, but it's quite interesting," replied Albus. "I decided a few years back to study it, and got some books on the subject. I wanted to understand the power they were tapping into. I found that it's similar to the power we draw on when we do magic. We use wands to channel and focus the energy that exists around us; they do something similar, only they use wires instead of wands." He bowed to her again, then turned to Gilly. As much as he would enjoy explaining all things Muggle to the ghost of Anne Boleyn, now wasn't the time.
"Gilly," he asked, "is there anything else you need to tell me about?"
"I wish I could, sir," said the elf in her high-pitched voice. "But that is all I is knowing. I is sorry I cannot be of more help."
"On the contrary, Gilly, you've been a great help," said Albus. "At least I know what Grindelwald is after, and why he has asked me to meet him in a tube station. That gives me an enormous advantage. And I know how hard this was for you. But tell me--why did you come here to warn me? Most house-elves wouldn't have." He was still very curious about her odd behavior.
She blinked up at him. "Albus Dumbledore, sir, I may belong to my master, but I knows right from wrong." Her large eyes blinked up at him. "And...and I has a little son. When Grindelwald came to my master's house, my littl'un and I were cleaning the study while they was talking. We overheard him and the master --hard not to overhear, they talk like we wasn't right there in the room with ears to hear--they was talking about what they was planning to do. And my son, he looks at me and says, 'Mama, what are we going to do? We has to help those people!'" She swallowed. "I can't teach my boy right from wrong if I don't do something about evil under my very nose, can I?"
Albus nodded thoughtfully. Gilly was clearly a breed apart from the average house-elf. "I agree, Gilly. And thank you. You've done a great deal to help. If I can do anything for you in the future, Gilly--or for your son--please feel free to call on me." He gave her a warm smile, then faced Anne again. "Your Majesty, might I ask your permission to retire? It is almost dawn, and I will need what sleep I can get."
"Of course, Dumbledore," she answered. Her dark eyes met and held his. "Good luck to you. You know where to find me if there's anything else I can do. Come, Gillyflower, let us leave Dumbledore to his rest." She motioned to the elf, who stepped forward. Anne took Gilly's hand, then they vanished.
Albus moved to the bed. He was exhausted, yet he know he would not sleep. He curled up on the featherbed again. He closed his eyes, frowning, trying to concentrate, to remember everything he could about Grindelwald--any details that might help him win the duel. Instead, his mind turned, again and again, to Mireille.
Mireille Dumbledore was not pretty, but her upturned nose and too-wide mouth were forgotten whenever she threw her head back and laughed. One couldn't help but start laughing along with her, and love her in the process. For three seasons out of the year, any fine day would find her tending the profusion of plants that sprawled all over the front yard of their cottage in Hogsmeade. There wasn't much for her to do in the garden now that it was winter, so today she would be working in her dispensary, bottling and labelling her magical medicines, which were much in demand in the shops of Hogsmeade and Diagon Alley.
She would be rising about now, Albus thought--she liked to get up early. He pictured her moving about their little cottage, yawning and standing in the kitchen in her bare feet, waiting for her tea to steep and absently fingering the chesspiece she wore as a pendant. He smiled, remembering when he had given her the little silver queen.
They had met at Hogwarts in their third year, when they had Herbology together. Mireille, although Muggle-born, was already a star pupil in the subject; she had been gardening ever since she was old enough to hold a trowel. But the magical uses of plants were something new to her, and her unrestrained comments often had the class--both Gryffindors and Hufflepuffs--shrieking with laughter ("Plantain seeds make a potion that help you run faster? Huh--Mum always gave them to us when we were constipated--reckon we did run pretty fast once they started working"). She was equally adept at potions, could play a mean game of Quidditch, and even did well in the mind-numbingly boring History of Magic class.
But she couldn't play chess to save her life.
Albus had always been good at chess; even as a boy, he could see the patterns inherent in the pieces' movements, and map out defense and offense tactics with ease. After they began seeing one another, they played every evening in the Great Hall after dinner, using a Muggle set she owned--she said the Wizard pieces distracted her too much when they shouted directions at her. He won every time, no matter how obsessively she studied the strategies in every book she could find. But as frustrated and angry as she was at the end of every game, she'd look up at him, square her shoulders and grin, "I'll get you tomorrow night." She never did, though--except once, in their seventh year.
They had been playing every night for over three years, and although she had improved, she still couldn't defeat him. There were only a few pieces left on the board near the end of that night's game. Mireille had trapped his king in the back row, and was close to checkmating him, except that she couldn't quite break through his defense. She studied the board for a moment, then made one of the typical foolhardy moves that she was prone to in endgame; she reached out, moved her queen to the back row where his king stood, cupped her chin in both hands again, saying "Check" in a dull voice.
Albus sighed in frustration; why did she always make these desperate attacks that only lost her pieces? He looked at her, then nodded at the bishop that stood on a diagonal with her queen. "Do you want to take that move back?" he asked her; he knew she hated losing her queen.
She closed her eyes, shook her head, then covered her face with her hands. "Go on. Take it," she said in a muffled voice.
Albus raised one eyebrow and the corner of his mouth in an if-you-say-so expression, then swept her queen off the board with the bishop.
Her hands came off her face and he saw that she was grinning, her eyes gleaming in triumph. She moved her rook, like the final piece of a jigsaw puzzle, into a space that had been guarded by the bishop--threatening the king, which couldn't be moved to escape. "Checkmate!" she shouted gleefully.
He looked at the board in astonishment, then grinned broadly. He pushed over the king with his finger, then told her, "Congratulations."
"HAH!" she yelled joyfully. She leapt from her seat and began to dance about the room. "I beat you! I BEAT YOU!" she screamed in delight. She began turning cartwheels along the Great Hall, laughing wildly. Her legs became tangled in her robes and she smacked hard into a table that hadn't been cleared yet; plates flew through the air and crashed to the floor, splattering them both with food. Lying on the floor, she wiped mashed potatoes out of her eyes, peered at Albus from upside down, and yelled again, "I FINALLY BEAT YOU!" Shaking with laughter, he went to help her up, but as he bent and reached for her hand, he slipped in gravy. His leg went out from under him and he fell onto his back. Now he was lying next to her on the floor, and both of them were laughing so hard that tears squeezed from the corners of their eyes and ran into their ears.
"You're a terrible sport," he finally gasped when he could catch a breath and turn his head to face her.
She looked back at him, grinning. "I know," she gasped, "but at least I don't have a green pea hanging out of my nose." She turned her head away and screamed with laughter again.
"That does it!" He reached out, grabbed a handful of her food-spattered robes and pulled her on top of him. He put a hand on either side of her head, pushed his fingers through her custard-covered hair, and pulled her head down close to his, his eyes suddenly serious. He hadn't realized his next words were going to come out of his mouth, but they did anyway: "Mireille--will you marry me?"
Her eyes widened, then she smiled again. "Of course I will. Who else would I marry, you swotty little show-off?" He smiled too then, and their mouths closed together in a kiss that lasted until they noticed that a teacher had walked into the Great Hall and was gaping at the Gryffindor Prefect and his Hufflepuff girlfriend lying on the floor, covered with food.
The next day Albus went to London, and in a Muggle antique shop, found the tarnished little queen among a jumble of spoons, card cases and other sterling silver miscellany. He bought it (she had taught him how to use Muggle money), opened a small hole in the top with his wand, and strung it on a silver chain. When Mireille opened the gift-wrapped box, she had thrown her head back and laughed. She was still giggling as he fastened the clasp around her neck; he smiled into her eyes and whispered, "I love your laugh; I want to hear that sound every day for the rest of my life."
Now Mireille--and their child--were in mortal danger unless he defeated Grindelwald. Albus's jaw set in a determined way. He would win, he told himself, or die trying.