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. The concept of being "dim," which appears in this chapter, belongs to Stephen King.
Chapter Four: The Appointment of the Second
Grindelwald was laughing, an evil sound that made the hair on the back of Albus's neck stand up. They were in a dimly lit cave; the sound of his opponent's laughter bounced off the walls and stalactites. Grindelwald, silhouetted against an eerie blue glow, pointed his wand at Albus's head and shouted "Avada Kedavra!" Albus brought up his wand to deflect the lethal curse, but saw that his wand had turned into a handful of long black snakes, hissing and spitting....
He sat up in bed, his heart racing and his stomach unpleasantly relocated somewhere in his chest. He exhaled hard, then closed his eyes and began to breathe deeply through his nose. Blocking out everything but the sensation of cool air rushing in, then warm air flowing out, he felt his heartbeat slow and his body relax again.
When he felt relatively calm (considering he was to fight a battle today that would determine the fate of thousands of people including his wife, a little bit of gut-wrenching terror wasn't unreasonable), he crossed the room and found a steaming hot breakfast set out for him on the desk; bacon, eggs, buttery brown toast, and a large pot of very good tea. As he ate, he turned over in his mind his next steps. Thinking of the actual duel made him feel as though his stomach was filled with a lot of very pointy ice shards; thinking logically about what he should do next made the fear go away--a little.
He forced himself to finish all the food and keep it down. When the plate was clear, he put on his robe and tucked his wand inside, then approached the painting of the girl in the blue dress.
"Your breakfast was good?" she inquired with the anxious manner of someone who likes to play host but doesn't get to do it very often.
"Delicious, thank you" he told her with a smile that didn't quite reach his eyes. "I'd like to go out near the Byward Tower, please."
"My pleasure," she said. "Hop up." She extended a hand to him; he took out and felt himself pulled into the painting--a sensation that was like being pulled forward into a strong vortex of wind. Then he was there in the room with her; she crossed to the window that overlooked the Tower, and scanned the figures walking around, waiting for a break in the crowd. "All right," she said after a moment, "NOW!"
He climbed to the ledge and jumped toward the Byward Tower; it was a strange feeling, and he was glad he didn't have to travel this way often. As he jumped, he felt the push that was the converse of the pull he had felt before, pushing him out of the painting and onto the Tower grounds. He landed upright with a soft thump on the grass, and looked about cautiously to make sure no one had observed him. No one in sight. Good. He stood for a moment with his eyes closed, performing a spell he had learned on his travels in a faraway world--he made himself dim. London's streets were too crowded to use the Invisibility Cloak, but by becoming dim, no one would take notice of him. He strode across out to Tower Hill and walked over to the Mark Lane Underground station.
Albus enjoyed taking the Underground. He thought it a system of remarkable ingenuity. He liked the hustle-bustle busy feel of it. Inside the station, he stopped before the map at the station. Aldwych was closed, and had been since the war began. Never been a busy station to begin with, it was now reserved for use as an air-raid shelter.
In fact, Albus mused, it was strange that originally, the station had been designed with twin tunnels between Aldwych and Holborn, but was so little used that the second platform was finally closed ten years later, in 1917. There was some argument among the Muggles as to why it was designed this way in the first place, and Albus suspected that the goblins who controlled Gringotts might have had a hand in that. They were good with befuddling spells aimed at accomplishing their ends. If there was a tunnel from Aldwych through to Gringotts, he was sure that it would be somewhere in the abandoned running tunnel whose existence the Muggles couldn't quite explain.
He purchased a ticket and boarded the train. Across from him sat several young soldiers; Albus recalled with a pang Mireille's good-natured brother Ted, dead along with Phillip Pickett, on the beaches of Normandy. He got off at Charing Cross, then walked over to Diagon Alley. Although the wizarding world had not adopted ration cards, the effects of wartime were visible in the signs tacked up in the shop windows:
Snakeskins, 3 sickles a bag--limit two!
Used cauldrons only--no new available due to the war.
Cotton work robes only! No French silk in stock.
In front of Magical Menagerie, he could hear a faint din; when he opened the door, the noise magnified. In front of the cages on one wall, a large figure was bent double, chirruping softly to the creatures within.
"Hello, Hagrid," said Albus.
The improbably large figure of a young man straightened and turned. "Professor Dumbledore!" His black eyes lit up with happy surprise at the sight of his favorite former teacher. "What brings you here?" Seizing his former Transfiguration teacher's hand between his own two enormous paws, he wrung it up and down so enthusiastically that Albus felt his wrist bones cracking. "It sure is good to see yeh! Did Mrs. Dumbledore come with yeh?" He looked about for Mireille.
"No, she's back home in Hogsmeade," replied Albus, extricating his hand from Hagrid's bear-like grasp. "It's good to see you too, Rubeus. As to what brings me here, we need to have a talk about that. Where is Madame Fauve?"
"She's in th' back. We just got a new shipment of salamanders in and they all got out of the box and went runnin' up the chimney," grinned Hagrid.
Albus grinned back. "Stay here. I won't be a moment."
He crossed the noisy shop and went through a door marked Employees Only. He found Madame Fauve on her knees on the hearth, her head and shoulders vanished up the chimney. A muffled voice came from inside. "Gotcha, you little--oh hell!" followed by a string of expletives. Albus cleared his throat. The figure bent and twisted, then its upper half appeared, clutching a salamander tail in one hand.
"Albus Dumbledore!" cried Selena Fauve happily. She was so covered in soot that it was hard to tell where her robes ended and she began. She rose and hold out a blackened hand, withdrew it hastily and dropped the tail in the ashes. She then offered her hand again, but before Albus could take it, she yanked it away again. "Oh, look at me! I look like a chimney-sweep!" she laughed. "Never mind the handshake. How are you? What are you doing here?"
"I'm well, thanks," smiled Albus. "Listen, Selena--" his face grew serious--"I need to borrow Hagrid for the rest of the day. It's an urgent matter, war-related, and I can't explain it right now. Is it all right?"
Selena Fauve raised her eyebrows, pursed her lips, and sighed slightly. "If you say so, Albus, of course. I know you wouldn't ask if it weren't important. Just tell him to close up the shop behind him; I've got to catch these bloody salamanders, and there's no one else to stay out front."
Albus laughed. "In return for the loan of Hagrid, let me give you a hand." He stepped onto the hearth and held his wand up the chimney. "Dormitans!" Half a second later, eighty sleeping salamanders thumped softly onto the ashes. Selena threw him an admiring, exasperated glance. "Now why didn't I think of that?" she muttered.
"Thanks again, Selena," said Albus with a chuckle, then went out front to fetch Hagrid.
The Leaky Cauldron was fortunately empty save for Tom, the middle-aged bartender who never seemed to take a holiday. Albus and Hagrid sat in a dark corner; after serving them their ale, Tom had retreated discreetly back to the bar and was busy polishing the glasses.
"How's Mrs. Dumbledore?" asked Hagrid. He was very attached to Mireille. During the somber wand-snapping ceremony after he was expelled from Hogwarts, Hagrid had betrayed his emotions only by a slight trembling of his lower lip; afterwards, at the Dumbledores' cottage, he had stumbled into Mireille's arms and cried like a baby. She couldn't quite reach his back, so she had patted him soothingly on the ribs, murmuring, "There, there, dear--it's all right," as he sobbed. After Dumbledore convinced the headmaster to keep Hagrid on as assistant gamekeeper, the giant young man was a frequent visitor to the Dumbledores' cottage in Hogsmeade. Sometimes Mireille mixed up medicines for injured creatures Hagrid found in the Forbidden Forest; more often she applied comfrey salves to the cuts and gashes Hagrid acquired while trying to befriend creatures he was supposed to avoid. Now that Hagrid was in London, apprenticing to Madame Fauve for a year--that had been Albus's idea as well--he missed Mireille terribly.
"She's very well, Hagrid," said Albus. "The baby should be born in early summer. You'll be back to Hogwarts by then, and I warn you, she's counting on you as a babysitter."
Hagrid's face broke into a huge grin. "My pleasure, Professor Dumbledore," he said. "Can't wait to see that littl'un. I'll strap him to m' back take him to see the creatures, bet he'll love that...."
Albus snorted at the thought of Mireille setting Hagrid straight on that matter. He drained his tankard and set it on the table, hard.
"Listen, Rubeus. I need to tell you what's happening."
Hagrid's face sobered instantly. "I'm all ears, Professor."
Albus outlined everything that had happened in the last two days, noting that as he spoke, Hagrid's face drained of color and his dark eyes grew wide. Still, he said nothing until Albus told him that he needed a second for the duel. "That's where you come in, Rubeus. Will you do it?"
"Me?! Professor--I don't know what to say! Of course I will--I'll do anythin' you need me to do! Er--what do I need to do?"
"For the duel, not that much," shrugged Albus. "Normally a second is responsible for making sure that the principal he is serving can continue if wounded. But I have a feeling that Grindelwald isn't planning to play by the rules. If he wounds me, he's not going to hesitate to strike while I'm down."
"Then what--" began Hagrid.
"Rubeus." Albus spoke slowly and deliberately. "Listen to me. If Grindelwald kills me, get away as fast as you can. Don't linger a moment. Don't even think about revenge. If I die--no, don't cry, Rubeus, listen--if I die in this duel, you must get to Hogwarts as quickly as you can and tell the headmaster what's happened, so he can send the students home. Then you must get to Hogsmeade and get Mireille out of there. Take her to some place that will be safe for her until--until she doesn't need to be there anymore. Any half-blood will be in very grave danger if Grindelwald wins this battle. I can't save all of them, but at least the students will have a fighting chance. And I know that Mireille will be safe with you." He handed Rubeus a handkerchief and looked at the clock over the bar. Two hours left. He felt the sharp stab of fear in his midsection again and swallowed hard.
"O' course, Professor," choked Hagrid. "I'll keep her safe if--but you'll win, I know you will," he cried.
"Shhhhh," cautioned Albus, looking towards Tom at the bar. "Thank you for agreeing to this, Rubeus. I knew I could count on you." He smiled at the wild young man across from him, with the shaggy beard and black eyes.
"But can I ask yeh somethin', Professor? Why me?" asked Hagrid earnestly. "It's a great honor to be your second, and to--to be trusted with the other thing. But wouldn't yeh rather have someone older and--" his voice broke again--"someone who finished school and is a proper wizard and all?"
"No, I wouldn't," said Albus in a calm voice. "I'm asking you, Rubeus, for a few reasons." Albus reached across the table and took Hagrid's hand into his own--awkwardly, since Hagrid's hand was twice as large as his own. "First of all, you have no family that you need to put before the safety of my wife. I wouldn't ask you if your dad were still alive, for instance. Your first duty would be to him if he were still here. But since he is dead, and your mother is--well, your mother is not around either--I am hoping that Mireille and I can consider you part of our family."
"Ohhh!" sobbed Hagrid, overcome.
"Second, I know how fond you are of Mireille--she's been like a mother to you, and I have every confidence that you will do whatever it takes to protect her. And if you need to hide somewhere in the wilderness, no one could take better care of her there than you could." He smiled again at wet-eyed teenager. "Lastly, I'm asking you rather than anyone else because you are the bravest and most honest person I know, Rubeus."
At this, Hagrid broke down completely, and Albus had to come around to his side of the booth and pat him on the back until he stopped crying.